Phenomenology and Mystery: Erich Przywara’s “Reductio in Mysterium” - Revd Carl Scerri

Erich Przywara is best known for his work on the notion of the analogia entis. In his magnum opus bearing the same name as the Scholastic notion, he offers a renewed reading of the analogy of being: it is not a conceptual framework which encapsulates God and the creature within a common understanding of Being but a dynamic path going from the creaturely realm towards the Divine mystery. Indeed, Przywara identifies the analogy of being with the reductio in mysterium, i.e., a going back (re-ductio) into mystery.
My paper will focus on the reductio in mysterium - an axiom that was coined by Przywara himself and picked up by Edith Stein in her works on phenomenology and mystery. Przywara’s choice of words carries interesting implications: the term reductio is a clear reference to phenomenology. In fact, Przywara himself admits, in his preface to Analogia Entis, that his work is influenced by the philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger. In my paper, I will argue that Przywara is subscribing to the phenomenological method and, in a similar way to Ideas and Being and Time, attempts to go back, to employ a re-ductio, towards the more original ground of philosophy. However, in Przywara’s case, this more original ground is constituted neither by the Transcendental Ego nor by Being, but by the mystery that structures creaturely existence. In other words, Przywara proposes a different kind of phenomenology. His is a phenomenology of mystery, for the reductio uncovers the irreducible mysterious constitution of the human being. In this light, the analogy of being takes on a new meaning: it is not simply a proportion between the being of the creature and that of the Creator, but rather a participation of the creaturely mystery in the greater Divine mystery.
Revd Carl Scerri completed his undergraduate studies in philosophy and theology in Malta and furthered his studies, at graduate level, in Paris, at the Institut Catholique de Paris and the Sorbonne. After completing an MSt in Modern Theology, he is currently a DPhil candidate in Theology at Campion Hall, University of Oxford.

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