(Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave this address during the meeting
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the presidents
of the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops Conferences of Latin
America, held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in May 1996.)
The Central Problem for Faith Today by Cardinal Ratzinger
In the '80s, the theology of liberation in its radical
forms seemed to be the most urgent challenge for the faith of
the Church. It was a challenge that required both a response and
a clarification because it proposed a new, plausible and at the
same time practical response to the fundamental question of Christianity:
namely, the problem of redemption.
The very word liberation wanted to
explain in a different and more understandable way that which
in the traditional language of the Church was called redemption.
In fact, in the background there is always the same observation:
We experience a world that does not correspond to a good God.
Poverty, oppression, all kinds of unjust domination, the suffering
of the just and the innocent constitute the signs of the times
and of all times. And we all suffer: No one can readily say to
this world and to his or her owll life, "Stay as you are,
you are so beautiful."
From this the theology of liberation deduced that
the situation, which must not continue, could only be overcome
through a radical change in the structures of this world which
are structures of sin and evil. If sin exerts its power over the
structures and impoverishment is programmed beforehand by them,
then its overthrow cannot come about through individual conversions,
but through the struggle against the structures of injustice.
It was said, however, that this struggle ought to be political
because the structures are consolidated and preserved through
politics. Redemption thus became a political process for which
the Marxist philosophy provided the essential guidelines. It was
transformed into a task which people themselves could and even
had to take into their own hands, and at the same time it became
a totally practical hope: Faith, in theory, became praxis, concrete
redeeming action, in the process of liberation.
The fall of the European governmental systems based
on Marxism turned out to be a kind of twilight of the gods for
that theology of redeeming political praxis. Precisely in those
places where the Marxist liberating ideology had been applied
consistently, a radical lack of freedom had been produced, the
horror of which now appeared out in the open before the eyes of
world public opinion. The fact is that when politics want to bring
redemption, they promise too much. When they presume to do God's
work, they do not become divine but diabolical.
For this reason, the political events of 1989 have
also changed the theological scenario. Until then, marxism had
been the last attempt to provide a universally valid formula for
the right configuration of historical action. Marxism believed
it knew the structure of world history, and from there it tried
to show how history could be led definitively along the right
path. The fact that the presumption was based on what was apparently
a strictly scientific method that totally substituted faith with
science and made science the praxis gave it a strong appeal. All
the unfulfilled promises of religions seemed attainable through
a scientifically based political praxis.
The nonfulfillment of this hope brought a great disillusionment
with it which is still far from being assimilated. Therefore,
it seems probable to me that new forms of the Marxist conception
of the world will appear in the future. For the moment, we cannot
be but perplexed: The failure of the only scientifically based
system for solving human problems could only justify nihilism
or, in any case, total relativism.
Relativism: The Prevailing Philosophy
Relativism has thus become the central problem for
the faith at the present time. No doubt it is not presented only
with its aspects of resignation before the immensity of the truth.
It is also presented as a position defined positively by the concepts
of tolerance and knowledge through dialogue and freedom, concepts
which would be limited if the existence of one valid truth for
all were affirmed.
In turn, relativism appears to be the philosophical
foundation of democracy. Democracy in fact is supposedly built
on the basis thar no one can presume to know the true way, and
it is enriched by the fact that all roads are mutually recognized
as fragments of the effort toward that which is better. Therefore,
all roads seek something common in dialogue, and they also compete
regarding knowledge that cannot be compatible in one common form.
A system of freedom ought to be essentially a system of positions
that are connected with one another because they are relative
as well as being dependent on historical situations open to new
developments. Therefore, a liberal society would be a relativist
society: Only with that condition could it continue to be free
and open to the future.
In the area of politics, this concept is considerably
right. There is no one correct political opinion. What is relative
- the building up of liberally ordained coexistence between people
- cannot be something absolute. Thinking in this way was precisely
the error of Marxism and the political theologies.
However, with total relativism, everything in the
political area cannot be achieved either. There are injustices
that will never turn into just things (such as, for example, killing
an innocent person, denying an individual or groups the right
to their dignity or to life corresponding to that dignity) while,
on the other hand, there are just things that can never be unjust.
Therefore, although a certain right to relativism in the social
and political area should not be denied, the problem is raised
at the moment of setting its limits. There has also been the desire
to apply this method in a totally conscious way in the area of
religion and ethics. I will now try to briefly outline the developments
that define the theological dialogue today on this point.
The so-called pluralist theology of religion has
been developing progressively since the '50s. Nonetheless, only
now has it come to the center of the Christian conscience. [ l
] In some ways this conquest occupies today - with regard to the
force of its problematic aspect and its presence in the different
areas of culture - the place occupied by the theology of liberation
in the preceding decade. moreover, it joins in many ways with
it and tries to give it a new, updated form. Its means and methods
are very varied; therefore, it is not possible to synthesize it
into one short formula or present its essential characteristics
briefly. On the one hand, relativism is a typical offshoot of
the western world and its forms of philosophical thought, while
on the other it is connected with the philosophical and religious
intuitions of Asia especially, and surprisingly, with those of
the Indian subcontinent. Contact between these two worlds gives
it a particular impulse at the present historical moment.
Relativism in Theology:
The Attenuation of Christology
The situation can be clearly seen in one of its founders
and eminent representatives, the American Presbyterian John Hick.
His philosophical departure point is found in the Kantian distinction
between phenomenon and noumenon: We can never grasp ultimate truth
in itself, but only its appearance in our way of perceiving through
different "lenses." What we grasp is not really and
properly reality in itself, but a reflection on our scale.
At first Hick tried to formulate this concept in
a Christ-centered context. After a year's stay in India, he transformed
it - after what he himself calls a Copernican turn of thought
- into a new form of theocentrism. The identification of only
one historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, with what is "real,"
the living God, is now relegated as a relapse into myth. iesus
is consciously relativized as one religious leader among others.
The Absolute cannot come into history, but only models and ideal
forms that remind us about what can never be grasped as such in
history. Therefore, concepts such as the church, dogma
and sacraments must lose their unconditional character.
To make an absolute of such limited forms of mediation or, even
more, to consider them real encounters with the universally valid
truth of God who reveals himself would be the same as elevating
oneself to the category of the Absolute, thereby losing the infiniteness
of the totally other God.
From this point of view, which is not only present
in the works of Hick but also in other authors, affirming that
there is a binding and valid truth in history in the figure of
Jesus Christ and in the faith of the Church is described as fundamentalism.
Such fundamentalism, which constitutes the real attack on the
spirit of modernity, is presented in different ways as the fundamental
threat emerging against the supreme good of modernity: i.e., tolerance
and freedom.
On the other hand, the notion of dialogue
- which has maintained a position of significant importance in
the Platonic and Christian tradition - changes meaning and becomes
both the quintessence of the relativist creed and the antithesis
of conversion and the mission. In the relativist meaning, to
dialogue means to put one's own position, i.e., one's
faith, on the same level as the convictions of others without
recognizing in principle more truth in it than that which is attributed
to the opinion of the others. Only if I suppose in principle that
the other can be as right, or more right than I, can an authentic
dialogue take place.
According to this concept, dialogue must be an exchange
between positions which have fundamentally the same rank and therefore
are mutually relative. Only in this way will the maximum cooperation
and integration between the different religions be achieved. [
2 ] The relativist dissolution of Christology, and even more of
ecclesiology, thus becomes a central conunandment of religion.
To return to Hick's thinking, faith in the divinity of one concrete
person, as he tell us, leads to fanaticism and particularism,
to the dissociation between faith and love, and it is preciselv
this which must be overcome.3
Recourse to Asian Religions
In Hick's thinking, whom we are considering here
as an eminent representative of religious relativism, there is
a strange closeness between Europe's post-metaphysical philosophy
and Asia's negative theology. For the latter, the divine can never
enter unveiled into the world of appearances in which we live;
it always manifests itself in relative reflections and remains
beyond all worlds and notions in an absolute transcendency.[4]
The two philosophies are fundamentally different
both for their departure point and for the orientation they imprint
on human existence. Nonetheless, they seem to mutually confirm
one another in their metaphysical and religious relativism. The
areligious and pragmatic relativism of Europe and America can
get a kind of religious consecration from India which seems to
give its renunciation of dogma the dignity of a greater respect
before the mystery of God and of man.
In turn, the support of European and American thought
to the philosophical and theological vision of India reinforces
the relativism of all the religious forms proper to the Indian
heritage. In this way it also seems necessary to the Christian
theology in India to set aside the image of Christ from its exclusive
position-which is considered typically Western-in order to place
it on the same level as the Indian saving myths. The historical
Jesus-it is now thought-is no more the absolute Logos than any
other saving figure of history. 5
Under the sign of the encounter of cultures, relativism
appears to be the real philosophy of humanity. As we pointed out
earlier, this fact, both in the East and in the West, visibly
gives it a strength before which it seems that there is no room
for any resistance.
Anyone who resists, not only opposes democracy and
tolerance - i.e., the basic imperatives of the human community
- but also persists obstinately in giving priority to one's Western
culture and thus rejects the encounter of cultures, which is well
known to be the imperative of the present moment. Those who want
to stay with the faith of the Bible and the Church see themselves
pushed from the start to a no man's land on the cultural level
and must as a first measure rediscover the "madness of God"
(I Cor. 1:18) in order to recognize the true wisdom in it.
Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis
In order to help us in this effort to penetrate the
hidden wisdom contained in the madness of the faith, it will be
good for us to try to know the relativist theory of Hickls religion
better and discover where it leads man. In the end, for Hick,
religion means that man goes from "self-centeredness,"
as the existence of the old Adam, to "reality-centeredness,"
as existence of the new man, thus extending from oneself to the
otherness of one's neighbor. [6] It sounds beautiful, but when
it is considered in depth it appears as empty and vacuous as the
call to authenticity by Bultmann, who in turn had taken that concept
from Heidegger. For this, religion is not necessary.
Aware of these limits, the former Catholic priest
Paul Knitter tried to overcome the void of a theory of religion
reduced to the categorical imperative by means of a new synthesis
between Asia and Europe that should be more concrete and internally
enriched.[7] His proposal tends to give religion a new concrete
expression by joining the theology of pluralist religion with
the theologies of liberation. Interreligious dialogue must be
simplified radically and become practically effective by basing
it on only one principle: llthe primacy of orthopraxis with regard
to orthodoxy." [8]
Putting praxis above knowledge in this way is also
a clearly marxist inheritance. However, whereas Marxism makes
only what comes logically from renouncing metaphysics concrete
- when knowledge is impossible, only action is left - Knitter
affirms: The absolute cannot be known, but it can be made. The
question is, Why? Where do I find a just action if I cannot know
what is just in an absolute way? The failure of the communist
regimes is due precisely to the fact that they tried to change
the world without knowing what is good and what is not good for
the world, without knowing in what direction the world must be
changed in order to make it better. Mere praxis is not light.
This is the moment for a critical examination of
the notion of orthopraxis. The previous history of religion had
shown that the religions of India did not have an orthodoxy in
general, but rather an orthopraxis. From there the notion probably
entered into modern theology. However, in the description of the
religions of India this had a very precise meaning: It meant that
those religions did not have a general, compulsory catechism,
and belonging to them was not defined by the acceptance of a particular
creed. On the other hand, those religions have a system of ritual
acts which they consider necessary for salvation and which distinguish
a "believer" from a "nonbeliever."
In those religions, a believer is not recognized
by certain knowledge but by the scrupulous observance of a ritual
which embraces the whole of life. The meaning of orthopraxis,
i.e. right acting, is determined with great precision: It is a
code of rituals. On the other hand, the word orthodoxy
originally had almost the same meaning in the early church and
in the Eastern churches. In the suffix doxia, doxa
was not understood in the sense of "opinion" (real opinion).
From the Greek viewpoint, opinions are always relative; doxa
was understood rather in its meaning of "glory, glorification."
To be orthodox thus meant to know and practice the
right way in which God wants to be glorified. It refers to the
cult and, based on the cult, to life. In this sense here there
would be a solid point for a fruitful dialogue between East and
West.
But let us return to the meaning of the term orthopraxis
in modern theology. No one thinks any longer about following a
ritual. The word has taken on a new meaning which has nothing
to do with the authentic Indian concept. To tell the truth, something
does remain from it: If the requirement of orthopraxis has a meaning
and does not wish to be the lid over its not being obligatory,
then a conunon praxis must also be given that is recognizable
by all, which surpasses the general wordiness of "centering
on self" and "reference to another." If the ritual
meaning which was given to it in Asia is excluded, then praxis
can only be understood as ethics or politics.
In the first case, orthopraxis would imply an ethos
that is clearly defined with regard to its content. This is no
doubt excluded in the relativist, ethical discussion since there
is no longer anything good or evil in itself.
However, if orthopraxis is understood in a social
and political sense, it again raises the question regarding the
nature of correct political action. The theologies of liberation,
animated by the conviction that Marxism clearly points out to
us what good political praxis is, could use the notion of orthopraxis
in its proper sense. In this case it was not a question of being
obligatory, but a form set down for everyone of correct practice,
or orthopra is, that brought the community together
and distinguished it from those who rejected the correct way of
acting. To this extent, the Marxist theologies of liberation were,
in their own way, logical and consistent.
As we can see, however, this kind of orthopraxis
rests on a certain orthodoxy - in the modern sense: a framework
of obligatory theories regarding the path to freedom. Knitter
is close to this principle when he affirms that the criterion
for differentiating orthopraxis from pseudopraxis is freedom.
9 Nonetheless, he still has to explain to us in a convincing and
practical way what freedom is and the purpose of real human liberation:
surely not Marxist orthopraxis, as we have seen. Nonetheless,
something is clear: The relativist theories all flow into a state
of not being obligatory and thus become superfluous, or else they
presume to have an absolute standard which is not found in the
praxis, by elevating it to an absolutism that has really no place.
Actually, it is a fact that in Asia concepts of the theology of
liberation are also proposed today as forms of Christianity which
are presumably more suitable to the Asian spirit, and they place
the nucleus of religious action in the political sphere. When
mystery no longer counts, politics must be converted into religion.
And there is no doubt that this is deeply opposed to the original
ASian religious vision.
New Age
The relativism of Hick, Knitter and related theories
are ultimately based on a rationalism which declares that reason-in
the Kantian meaning-is incapable of metaphysical cognition.[10]
The new foundation of religion comes about by following a pragmatic
path with more ethical or political overtones. However, there
is also a consciously anti-rationalist response to the experience
of the slogan "Everything is relative," which comes
together under the pluriform denomination of
New Age. [11]
For the supporters of the New Age, the solution to
the problem of relativity must not be sought in a new encounter
of the self with another or others, but by overcoming the subject
in an ecstatic return to the cosmic dance. Like the old gnosis,
this way pretends to be totally attuned to all the results of
science and to be based on all kinds of scientific knowledge (biology,
psychology, sociology, physics). But on the basis of this presupposition
it offers at the same time a considerably anti-rationalist model
of religion, a modern "mystic": The Absolute is not
to be believed, but to be experienced. God is not a person to
be distinguished from the world, but a spiritual energy present
in the universe. Religion means the harmony of myself with the
cosmic whole. the overcoming of all separations.
K.H. Menke characterizes very well this change in
history that is taking place, as he states: "The subject
that wanted to submit everything to himself now wants to be placed
into "the whole." [12] Objective reason closes off the
path for us to the mystery of reality; the self isolates us from
the richness of cosmic reality, destroys the harmony of the whole
and is the real cause of our unredemption. Redemption is found
in unbridling the self, immersion in the exuberance of that which
is living and in return to the Whole. Ecstasy is sought, the inebriety
of the infinite which can be experienced in inebriating music,
rhythm, dance, frenetic lights and dark shadows, and in the human
mass.
This is not only renouncing modernity but man himself.
The gods return. They have become more believable than God. The
primitive rites must be renewed in which the self is initiated
into the mystery of the Whole and is liberated from itself.
There are many explanations for the re-editing of
pre-Christian religions and cultures which is being attempted
frequently today. If there is no common truth in force precisely
because it is true, then Christianity is only something imported
from outsider a spiritual imperialism which must be thrown off
with no less force than political imperialism. If no contact with
the living God of all men takes place in the sacraments, then
they are empty rituals which tell us nothing nor give us anything.
At most, they let us perceive what is numinous, which prevails
in all religions.
Even in that case it seems more sensible to look
for what is originally one's own instead of letting something
alien and antiquated be imposed upon oneself. Above all, if the
"sober inebriety" of the Christian mystery cannot elevate
us to God, then the true inebriety of real ecstasies must be sought
whose passion sweeps us away and transforms us-at least for a
moment- into gods and lets us perceive for a moment the pleasure
of the infinite and forget the misery of the finite. The more
manifest the uselessness of political absolutism, the stronger
the attraction will be to what is irrational and to the renunciation
of the reality of everyday life. 13
Pragmatism in the Church's Daily Life
Together with these radical solutions and the great
pragmatism of the theologies of liberation, there is also the
gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church in which everything
apparently continues normally, but in reality the faith is being
consumed and falling into meanness. I am thinking of two phenomena
which I consider with concern.
First, there is the intention, with different degrees
of intensity, to extend the principle of the majority to the faith
and customs in order to ultimately "democratize" the
Church in decisive way. What does not seem obvious to the majority
cannot be obligatory. This is what seems to be. But which majority?
Will there be a majority tomorrow like the one today? A faith
which we ourselves can decide about is not a faith in absolute.
And no minority has any reason to let the faith be imposed on
it by a majority.
The faith, together with its praxis, either comes
to us from the Lord through his church and the sacramental ministry,
or it does not exist in absolute. The abandonment of the faith
by many is based on the fact that it seems to them that the faith
should be decided by some requests, which would be like a kind
of party program: Whoever has power decides what must be part
of the faith. Therefore, it is important within the church itself
to arrive at power or, on the contrary - which is more logical
and obvious - to not believe.
The other point on which I wished to draw your attention
refers to the liturgy. The different phases of liturgical reform
have let the opinion be introduced that the liturgy can be changed
arbitrarily. From being something unchangeable, in any case, it
is a question of the words of consecration; all the rest could
be changed.
The following thinking is logical: If a central authority
can do this, why not a local one? And if the local ones can do
this, why not the corninunity itself? Community should be expressed
and come together in the liturgy. Following the rationalist and
puritanical tendency of the '70s and even the '80s, today there
is weariness with the pure, spoken liturgy, and a living liturgy
is sought which does not delay in coming closer to the New Age
tendencies: What is inebriating and ecstatic is sought and not
the logike latreia, the rationabilis oblatio
about which Paul speaks and with him the Roman liturgy (cf. Rom.
12:1).
I admit that I am exaggerating. What I am saying
does not describe the normal situation of our communities. But
the tendencies are there. For this reason, vigilance is required
so that a Gospel will not be surreptitiously introduced to us-a
stone instead of bread - different from the one that the Lord
gave us.
Tasks of Theology
We find ourselves, all told, in a unique situation:
The theology of liberation tried to give Christianity, which was
tired of dogmas, a new praxis whereby redemption would finally
take place. But that praxis has left ruin in its aftermath instead
of freedom. Relativism remains and the attempt to conform to it,
but what it offers us is so empty that the relativist theories
are looking for help from the theology of liberation in order
to be able to put it into practice. The New Age says finally:
It is better for us to leave the failed experiment of Christianity
and return better again to the gods, because we live better in
this way.
Many questions come up. Let us take the most practical
one: Why has classical theology appeared to be so defenseless
in the face of these happenings? Where is its weak point. and
why has it lost credibility?
I would like to mention two evident points in the
writings of Hick and Knitter. Both authors, for their attenuated
faith in Christ, refer to exegesis. They state that exegesis has
proven that Jesus did not consider himself absolutely the Son
of God, the incarnate God, but that he was made to be such afterward,
in a gradual way, by his disciples. 14 Both Hick, in a clearer
way, and Knitter also refer to philosophical evidence. Hick assures
us that Kant proved beyond dispute that what is absolute or the
Absolute can neither be recognized in history nor can it appear
in history as such.[15] Because of the structure of our cognition,
what the Christian faith maintains cannot be, according to Kant.
Therefore, miracles, mysteries or sacraments are superstitions,
as Kant clarifies for us in his work Religion Within the
Limits of Reason Alone. [16]
It seems to me that the questions from exegesis and
the limits and possibilities of our reason, i.e. the philosophical
premises of the faith, indicate in fact the crucial point of the
crisis of contemporary theology whereby the faith - and
more and more the faith of simple persons as well - is heading
toward crisis.
Now I would only like to outline the task before
us. First, with regard to exegesis, let it be said from the outset
that Hick and Knitter cannot be supported by exegesis in general,
as if there were a clear result shared by all. This is impossible
in historical research, which does not have this type of certainty,
and it is even more impossible with regard to a question that
is not purely historical or literary but includes value choices
that go beyond a mere verification of the past and a mere interpretation
of texts. However, it is certain that an overall glance at modern
exegesis can leave an impression that is close to Hick's and Knitter's.
What type of certainty corresponds to this? Let us
suppose - which can be doubted - that most exegetes think in this
way. Nonetheless, the question still remains, To what point is
that majority opinion grounded?
My thesis is the following: The fact that many exegetes think like Hick and Knitter and reconstruct the history of Jesus as they do is because they share their same philosophy. It is not the exegesis that proves the philosophy, but the philosophy that generates the exegesis.[17] If I know a priori (to speak like Kant) that Jesus cannot be God and that miracles, mysteries and sacraments are three forms of superstition, then I cannot discover what cannot be a fact in the sacred books. I can only describe why and how such affirmations were arrived at and how they were gradually formed.
Let us look at this more precisely. The historical-critical
method is an excellent instrument for reading historical sources
and interpreting texts. But it contains its own philosophy, which
in general - for example when I try to study the history of medieval
emperors - is hardly important. And this is because in that case
I want to know the past and nothing more. But even this cannot
be done in a neutral way, and so there are also limits to the
method.
But if it is applied to the Bible, two factors come
clearly to light which would not be noted otherwise. First, the
method wants to find about the past as something past. It wants
to grasp with the greatest precision what happened at a past moment,
closed in its past situation, at the point where it was found
in time. Furthermore, it supposes that history is, in principle,
uniform; therefore, man with all his differences and the world
with all its distinctions are determined by the same laws and
limitations so that I can eliminate whatever is impossible. What
cannot happen today in any way could not happen yesterday nor
will it happen tomorrow.
If we apply this to the Bible, it means the following:
A text, a happening, a person will be strictly fixed in his or
her past. There is the desire to verify what the past author said
at that time and what he could have said or thought. This is what
is "historical" about the "past." Therefore,
historical-critical exegesis does not bring the Bible to today,
to my current life. This is impossible. On the contrary, it separates
it from me and shows it strictly fixed in the past.
This is the point on which Drewermann rightly criticized
historical-critical exegesis to the extent that it presumes to
be self-sufficient. Such exegesis, by definition, expresses reality,
not todayls or mine, but yesterday's, another's reality. Therefore,
it can never show the Christ of today, tomorrow and always, but
only-if it remains faithful to itself - the Christ of yesterday.
To this the second supposition must be added: the
homogeneity of the world and history, i.e., what Bultmann calls
the modern image of the world. Michael Waldstein has shown through
a careful analysis that Bultmann's theory of knowledge was totally
influenced by the neo-Kantianism of Marburg. 18 Thanks to him,
he knew what could and could not exist. In other exegetes, the
philosophical conscience is less pronounced, but the foundation
based on the theory of Kantian cognition is always implicitly
present as an unquestionable, hermeneutic access to criticism.
This being as it is, the authority of the church can no longer
impose from without that a Christology of divine filiation should
be arrived at. But it can and must invite a critical examination
of onels method.
In short, in the revelation of God, he, the living
and true One, bursts into our world and also opens the prison
of our theories, with whose nets we want to protect ourselves
against God's coming into our lives. Thank God, in the midst of
the current crisis of philosophy and theology, a new meaning of
foundation has been set in motion in exegesis itself and, not
in the last term, through knowledge attained from the careful
historical interpretation of texts.19 This helps break the prison
of previous philosophical decisions which paralyze interpretation:
The amplitude of the word is opening up again.
The problem of exegesis is connected, as we have
seen, with the problem of philosophy. The indigence of philosophy,
the indigence to which paralyzed, positivist reason has led itself,
has turned into the indigence of our faith. The faith cannot be
liberated if reason itself does not open up again. If the door
to metaphysical cognition remains closed, if the limits of human
knowledge set by Kant are impassable, faith is destined to atrophy:
It simply lacks air to breathe.
When a strictly autonomous reason, which does not
want to know anything about the faith, tries to get out of the
bog of uncertainty "by pulling itself up by its hair",
to express it in some way, it will be difficult for this effort
to succeed. For human reason is not autonomous in absolute. It
is always found in a historical context. The historical context
disfigures its vision (as we have seen). Therefore, it also needs
historical assistance to help it cross over its historical barriers.[20]
I am of the opinion that neo-Scholastic rationalism
failed which, with reason totally independent from the faith,
tried to reconstruct the preambula fidei with pure
rational certainty. The attempts that presume to do the same will
have the same result. Yes, Karl Barth was right to reject philosophy
as the foundation of the faith independent from the faith. If
it were such, our faith would be based from the beginning to the
end on the changing philosophical theories.
But Barth was wrong when, for this same reason, he
proposed the faith as a pure paradox that can only exist against
reason and totally independent from it. It is not the lesser function
of the faith to care for reason as such. It does not do violence
to it; it is not external to it, rather, it makes it come to itself.
The historical instrument of the faith can liberate reason as
such again so that by introducing it to the path, it can see by
itself once again. We must make efforts toward a new dialogue
of this kind between faith and philosophy because both need one
another reciprocally. Reason will not be saved without the faith.
but the faith without reason will not be human.
Perspective
If we consider the present cultural situation, about
which I have tried to give some indications, frankly it must seem
to be a miracle that there is still Christian faith despite everything,
and not only in the surrogate forms of Hick, Knitter and others,
but the completer serene faith of the New Testament and of the
church of all times.
Why, in brief, does the faith still have a chance?
I would say the following: because it is in harmony with what
man is. Man is something more than what Kant and the various post-Kantian
philosophers wanted to see and concede. Kant himself must have
recognized this in some way with his postulates.
In man there is an inextinguishable yearning for
the infinite. None of the answers attempted are sufficient. Only
the God himself who became finite in order to open our finiteness
and lead us to the breadth of his infiniteness responds to the
question of our being. For this reason, the Christian faith finds
man today too. our task is to serve the faith with a humble spirit
and the whole strength of our heart and understanding.
ENDNOTES
l An overview of the most significant authors of
the pluralist theology of religion is offered by
P. Schmidt-Leukel, "Des Pluralistische Modell
in der Theologie der Religionen. Ein Literaturbericht," in
Theologische Rewe 89 (1993) 353-370. For the discussion cf. M.
von Bruck-J. Werbick, Der einzige Weg zum Heil? Die Herausforderung
des christlichen Absolutheitsanspruchs durch pluralistische Religions
theologian (QD 143, Freiburg 1993); K.-H. Menke, Die Einzighei
iesu Christi im Horizont der Sinnfrage (Freiburg 1995), especially
pp. 75-176. Menke offers an excellent introduction into the thinking
of the two significant representatives of this theology: John
Hick and Paul F. Knitter. The following reflections are mainly
based on this author. The discussion of the problem in the second
part of Menkels book contains many important and relevant elements,
but other questions remain open. An interesting systematic attempt
to cope with the problem of religions from the Christological
point of view is given by B. Stubenrauch, Dialogisches Dogma.
Der christliche Auftrag zur interreligiosen Begegnung (QD
158, Freiburg 1995). The question will also be treated by a document
of the International Theological Commission. which is in preparation.
2 Cf. the very interesting editorial in Civilta Cattolica
1 (Jan. 20, 1996) 107-120: "II cristianesimo e le altre religione."
The editorial examines most of all the thinking of Hick, Knitter
and Raimondo Panikkar.
3 Cf. for example John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion. Human
Responses to Transcendent
(London 1989); Menke, p. 90.
4 Cf. E. Frauwallner, Geschichte der indischen
Philosophie, two vols. (Salzburg 1953 and 1956); S.N. Dasgupta,
History of Indian Philosophy, five vols. (Cambridge 1922-1955);
K.B. Rarnakrishna Rao, Ontology of Advaita With Special Reference
to Maya (Mulki 1964).
5 An author belonging clearly to this trend is F. Wilfred, Beyond Settled Foundations. The Journey of Indian Theology (Madras 1993), "Some Tentative Reflections on the Language of Christian
Unj.queness: An Indian Perspective," in the
Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialoguels Pro Dialogo,
Bulletin 85-86 (1994/1) 4057.
6 John Hick, ,Evil and the God of Love> (Norfolk
1975), pp. 240f; An Interpretation of Religion 236-240,
cf. Menke, pp. 81f.
7 The main work of Paul Knitter: No Other Name!
A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions
(New York 1985) has been translated in many languages. Cf. Menke,
pp. 94-110. A refined critical statement is offered also by A.
Kolping in his recension in Theologische Revue 87 (1991) 234-240
8 Cf. Menke, p. 95. · Cf. ibid. p. 109.
10 Both Knitter and Hick base their refusal of the
Absolute in history on Kant; cf. Menke, pp. 78 and 108.
11 In the middle of this century the concept of New
Age or of the Time of the Waterman has been
introduced by Raul Le Cour (1937) and Alice Bailey, who in messages
received in 1945, spoke about a new order and a new religion of
the world. Between 1960 and 1970 the Esalen Institute was established
in California. Today Marilyn Ferguson is the best-known representatives
of New Age. Michael Fuss ("New Age: Supermarkt alternativer
Spiritualitat " in Communio 20, 1991, 148-157) defines
New Age as the result of a mixture of iewish and Christian elements
with the process of secularization with Gnosticism and with elements
of Oriental religions. The pastoral letter, translated in many
languages, of Cardinal G. Danneels, "Le Christ ou le Verseau"
(1990) offers useful orientations for this problem. Cf. also Menke,
pp. 31-36; J. LeBar (ed.), Cults, Sects and the New Age (Huntington,
Ind.).
12 "Das Subjekt, das sich alles unterwerfen
wollte, will sich nun in "das Ganzel aufbeben."
Menke, p. 33.
13 Two different expressions of New Age can be distinguished more and more clearly: The first is the Gnostic-religious form that searches for the transcendental and transpersonal being and for the true self; the second one is the ecological-monistic expression that worships matter and Mother Earth and is coupled with feminism in the form of the ecofeminism.
14 See questions in Menke, pp. 90 and 97. 15 Cf.
Note 10. 16 B 302.
17 This can be seen very clearly in the confrontation
between A. Schlatter and A. von Harnack in the end of the last
century, presented carefully by W. Neuer, Adolf Schlatter, Ein
Leben fur Theologie und Kirche (Stuttgart 1996) pp. 30lff.
I have tried to show my own view of the problem in the questio
disputata edited by myself: Schriftauslegung im Widerstreit
(Freiburg 1989) pp. 15-44. Cf. also the collection of I. de la
Poiterie, G. Guardini, J. Ratzinger, G. Colombo, E. Bianchi L'esegesi
cristiana oggi (Pienime 1991).
18 Michael Waldstein, "The Foundations of Bultmann's
Work" in Communio (Spring 1987) 115-134
19 Cf. for example the collection edited by C.E.
Braaten and R.W. iensson: Reclaiming the Bible for the Church
(Cambridge, Mass., 1995), especiålly the article of
B.S. Childs, "on Reclaiming the Bible for Christian Theology,"
pp. 1-17.
20 Even though in the thinking of H.J. Verweyen,
Gottes letztes Wort (Dusseldorf 1991), many important and
valid elements can be found, to me its essential philosophical
error consists in the fact of attempting to offer a rational foundation
of the faith independently of the faith, an attempt that, however,
cannot convince in its pure abstract rationality. The thinking
of verweyen is also mentioned by Menke, pp. 111-176. To me the
position of i. Pieper Schriften zum Philosophiebegriff
Hamburg 1995) has better foundation and is more convincing from
the historical and objective point of view.
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