Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

226 JOSEPH CHAPEL
general, and to Eucharist and Confession more specifically, for
in Ebner’s sense of the word, external signs and gestures have a
place in interpersonal communication, for the word is perceptible
and real when persons encounter and communicate with
each other. In a wide sense all sacrament can be seen as word,
as a medium for the encounter of man with God. However, Ebner
does not go this far, but leaves this fruitful avenue for later
reflection by others.
Ebner Appraised
It is difficult to sum up the work of this rather original
thinker, as his work does not fit neatly into any single category.
Without question, the serious reader will find difficulties in Ebner’s
fragments, discovering that they are:
… inchoative and polemical in nature, and require that the reader
think through the thoughts only begun in them, and systematize
for argumentation’s sake that which is frequently confessional
rather than conceptual. Further, the fragments evidence
through[out] a fundamental inconsistency, one which Ebner himself
was deeply aware of yet could not avoid: the mode of presentation,
namely philosophical discourse, stands in diametrical opposition
to the content therof, namely the word and the spiritual realities
of the I and the Thou. 49
Methodologically, although Ebner rejects philosophy, he is
in the predicament of making his case using philosophical argument
and speaking in the “objective,” third person as philosophy
demands. Likewise, in Ebner’s thought, the relationships between
reason and faith and between philosophy and theology ultimately
remain somewhat fluid and are not completely resolvable.
Because the centrality of the word is the basis of reason in
man, Ebner fluctuates between the philosophical and the theo-
49 GREEN, Part I, 100 [c]; citing and trans. BERNHARD CASPER, Das Dialogische
Denken: Eine Untersuchung der religionsphilosophischen Bedeutung
Franz Rosenzweigs, Ferdinand Ebners und Martin Bubers (Freiburg: Herder,
1967), 259f.