Contingency designates the non-necessity of one’s own being. The human person experiences itself as contingent: it could also not be. This experience belongs to the fundamental experiences of human existence and points beyond itself to a non-contingent, necessary being as ultimate ground.
The experience of contingency is not a merely theoretical insight but pervades the whole of personal life: in illness, suffering, and the nearness of death, the non-necessity of one’s own being becomes existentially palpable. At the same time, contingency attests to the creatureliness of the person — it is not the ground of its own being but receives its being. The question of absolute being arises out of the experience of contingency.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Seifert, Josef (1987): Back to ‘Things in Themselves’. A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Contingency and necessary being as ultimate ground)
- Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3 (the third way: from the contingent to the necessary)
See also: Person, Personhood, Absolute Being, Suffering, Illness, Metaphysics, Soul