Abstract

Arraj's aim in this book is to examine the noetic activities involved in the intuition of being, mystical contemplation, and mysticism of the self within the whole of Jacques Maritain's writings. Arraj shows how these three activities are directed ultimately toward God but achieve this end differently and in different depths. Chapter 1 provides a good examination of Maritain's earlier years and Arraj indicates that Maritain begins by stressing the importance of the intuition of being and its necessity for any metaphysician. Convinced that the human person could truly know what is, Maritain combines Bergson's insights on subjectivity and duration with the Thomistic reliance upon the primacy of existence. In doing so, Maritain insists that the individual metaphysician go beyond what things are and intuit that they exist. This spontaneous acknowledgment of being allows one to see that all things, by the very fact that they are, point to Ipsum esse subsistens. Accordingly, this indirect and analogous knowledge of God is the "final conclusion" of knowing any created thing.