Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

DIALOGICAL PERSONALISM REVISITED 227
logical: that man is addressed by the word means that man’s existence
has a religious basis such that, “the existence of
man... has the existence of God as its presupposition. In other
words, it means that man was created by God.” 50
Ebner’s understanding of the centrality of word is theological,
but at the same time anthropological in the sense that it defines
man, but the precise line between the divine, creative Word
and the human word is unclear. Likewise, the line between Godhuman
relation and strictly human relations is unclear: it is
clear in Ebner that the God-human relation is somehow different
than strictly human relations, but it is not clear how, other
than to say that the human to human relation concretizes the
God-human relation.
Despite his aphoristic style and the difficulties of his
thought, Ebner undertook a most challenging task: in trying to
overcome the limits in idealistic thought and move beyond the
possibilities of the “sciences,” he circles around and around his
points, trying to express something spiritually elusive, beyond
the immediate sense of his words. The reader, having entered into
Ebner’s mode of expression and style, is rewarded by the originality
and richness of his thought.
Even with his ambiguities, Ebner makes a substantial
achievement in his presentation of I-Thou relation, an advance
that is somewhat taken for granted, having now been assimilated
by other thinkers. 51 It is Ebner who places the origin of all relation
squarely in God, identifying God as the “eternal Thou,”
who reveals Himself as such to man. This revelation awakens
man from his “dream of the spirit”; in recognizing the eternal
Thou, man discovers the I in himself, and so can recognize the
other as his thou.
More than this, Ebner moves beyond other dialogical
philosophers, with his very original presentation of the word as
the centerpiece of this revelation and discovery within I-Thou
50 GREEN, 23; WR, Schriften 1:96.
51 Directly in such authors as Romano Guardini, Bernard Häring, and
Hans Urs von Balthasar; indirectly in many authors right up to the present
such as René Latourelle, Edward Schillebeeckx, Karl Rahner, Walter Kasper,
Joseph Ratzinger and John Paul II.