Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

214 JOSEPH CHAPEL
Man’s own existence presupposes the existence of God: the
fact that man for himself can neither choose to be born nor
refuse ever to die (nor can he choose his height, race, eyes and
hair, etc.) makes his limitedness or creatureliness available to
his own experience. Though man may struggle for more control
over his existence, he experiences himself as created, and must
seek to know his creator, the one whose existence, unlike his
own, is not relative, but absolute.
For Ebner, the path of discovery begins in the word which,
in its being spoken, presupposes the Thou to whom it is spoken,
and since the Thou in its ultimate basis is God, then the existence
of man in his spirituality (as opposed to his I-aloneness)
has the existence of God as its presupposition. Man, created by
God, discovers his own identity in relationship with the Eternal
Thou, in Jesus who is the Word. Only this I-Thou relationship
with God equips man to encounter the other, not in the realm of
ideas, but as a true thou in authentic relationship. Ultimately, for
Ebner, the solution of this question of idea and reality is found
in Jesus who is the Word and who by His word shows man the
way from the I toward God:
The idea is not a spiritual reality but only the dream of one...
There are only two spiritual realities: God and the I. The life of the
spirit in man moves between these two. Through his teaching Jesus
has prepared the end… of every idealism; through his life he
has given a start to what could be called the realism of the spirit.
He has showed man the way from the I toward God. He is, according
to His precise word, the way, the truth and the life. 17
Ebner’s dialogical philosophy is a response to the problems
of Cartesian and German Idealism, and to the whole modern
philosophical tradition which is stuck in what he calls Icheinsamkeit,
or “I-aloneness”: the philosophy of the ego locked in upon
itself. Thus, classical philosophy, which in its reflection discovered
only the “idea,” did not properly grasp the significance
and meaning of the I, which came to be known only later
17 EBNER, Aus dem Tagebuch 1916/17, in Schriften 1:63-64.