A Dialectic of Self-Giving

Extract

The end of all becoming is being, but not, ultimately, of that which becomes considered by itself: of that which becomes considered as participation in another mode of being which is the mode of being of something which already and really is.

Change means that that which changes is not to be considered by itself.

The end (result) of the body’s constant mutations is the successive participation in the potentiality of matter. But this is not the end (finality) of the body’s mutations. The end (finality) of becoming can be nothing imperfect.

I think this means that the end of all becoming is the participation of all creatures in the risen humanity of Christ.

Being is essentially communicable. You don’t have to explain why being communicates itself, as if it were something being as such were not expected to do. Perfection, what we would call by transliteration the formality of being as such and of actuality, is communicable per se, imperfection communicable per accidens. Imperfection to be communicated implies a pre-established communication in potential being. Communication of imperfection is the abandonment on the part of those who communicate in it of specific and diverse actuality for the sake of that communication in what is potential and common. The communication of perfection is the communication of the diverse as diverse in a unity intrinsically proportioned to its participants. We can understand nothing here without the metaphysical principle of analogy.