"Introduction to Christianity": Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow | Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger | Preface to "Introduction To Christianity" | Ignatius Insight
"Introduction to Christianity": Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger |
Preface to the New Edition (2004) of
Introduction To Christianity
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2008/ratzinger_prefintrochr_may08.asp
Since this work
was first published, more than thirty years have passed, in which world history
has moved along at a brisk pace. In retrospect, two years seem to be
particularly important milestones in the final decades of the millennium that
has just come to an end: 1968 and 1989. The year 1968 marked the rebellion of a
new generation, which not only considered post-war reconstruction in Europe as
inadequate, full of injustice, full of selfishness and greed, but also viewed
the entire course of history since the triumph of Christianity as a mistake and
a failure. These young people wanted to improve things at last, to bring about
freedom, equality, and justice, and they were convinced that they had found the
way to this better world in the mainstream of Marxist thought. The year 1989
brought the surprising collapse of the socialist regimes in Europe, which left
behind a sorry legacy of ruined land and ruined souls. Anyone who expected that
the hour had come again for the Christian message was disappointed. Although
the number of believing Christians throughout the world is not small,
Christianity failed at that historical moment to make itself heard as an epoch
making alternative. Basically, the Marxist doctrine of salvation (in several
differently orchestrated variations, of course) had taken a stand as the sole
ethically motivated guide to the future that was at the same time consistent
with a scientific worldview. Therefore, even after the shock of 1989, it did
not simply abdicate. We need only to recall how little was said about the
horrors of the Communist gulag, how isolated Solzhenitsyn's voice remained: no
one speaks about any of that. A sort of shame forbids it; even Pol Pot's
murderous regime is mentioned only occasionally in passing. But there were
still disappointment and a deep-seated perplexity. People no longer trust grand
moral promises, and after all, that is what Marxism had understood itself to
be. It was about justice for all, about peace, about doing away with unfair
master-servant relationships, and so on. Marxism believed that it had to dispense
with ethical principles for the time being and that it was allowed to use
terror as a beneficial means to these noble ends. Once the resulting human
devastation became visible, even for a moment, the former ideologues preferred
to retreat to a pragmatic position or else declared quite openly their contempt
for ethics. We can observe a tragic example of this in Colombia, where a
campaign was started, under the Marxist banner at first, to liberate the small
farmers who had been downtrodden by the wealthy financiers. Today, instead, a
rebel republic has developed, beyond governmental control, which quite openly
depends on drug trafficking and no longer seeks any moral justification for
this, especially since it thereby satisfies a demand in wealthy nations and at
the same time gives bread to people who would otherwise not be able to expect
much of anything from the world economy. In such a perplexing situation,
shouldn't Christianity try very seriously to rediscover its voice, so as to
"introduce" the new millennium to its message, and to make it comprehensible as
a general guide for the future?
Anyway, where
was the voice of the Christian faith at that time? In 1967, when the book was
being written, the fermentation of the early post-conciliar period was in full
swing. This is precisely what the Second Vatican Council had intended: to endow
Christianity once more with the power to shape history. The nineteenth century
had seen the formulation of the opinion that religion belonged to the
subjective, private realm and should have its place there. But precisely
because it was to be categorized as something subjective, it could not be a
determining factor in the overall course of history and in the epochal
decisions that must be made as part of it. Now, following the council, it was
supposed to become evident again that the faith of Christians embraces all of
life, that it stands in the midst of history and in time and has relevance
beyond the realm of subjective notions. Christianity—at least from the
viewpoint of the Catholic Church—was trying to emerge again from the
ghetto to which it had been relegated since the nineteenth century and to
become involved once more in the world at large. We do not need to discuss here
the intra-ecclesiastical disputes and frictions that arose over the
interpretation and assimilation of the council. The main thing affecting the
status of Christianity in that period was the idea of a new relationship
between the Church and the world. Although Romano Guardini in the 1930s had coined
the expression, Unterscheidung des Christlichen [distinguishing what is
Christian]—something that was extremely necessary then—such
distinctions now no longer seemed to be important; on the contrary, the spirit
of the age called for crossing boundaries, reaching out to the world, and
becoming involved in it. It was already demonstrated upon the Parisian
barricades in 1968 how quickly these ideas could emerge from the academic
discussions of churchmen and find a very practical application: a revolutionary
Eucharist was celebrated there, thus putting into practice a new fusion of the
Church and the world under the banner of the revolution that was supposed to
bring, at last, the dawn of a better age. The leading role played by Catholic
and Protestant student groups in the revolutionary upheavals at universities,
both in Europe and beyond, confirmed this trend.
This new
translation of ideas into practice, this new fusion of the Christian impulse
with secular and political action, was like a lightning-bolt; the real fires
that it set, however, were in Latin America. The theology of liberation seemed
for more than a decade to point the way by which the faith might again shape
the world, because it was making common cause with the findings and worldly wisdom
of the hour. No one could dispute the fact that there was in Latin America, to
a horrifying extent, oppression, unjust rule, the concentration of property and
power in the hands of a few, and the exploitation of the poor, and there was no
disputing either that something had to be done. And since it was a question of
countries with a Catholic majority, there could be no doubt that the Church
bore the responsibility here and that the faith had to prove itself as a force
for justice. But how? Now Marx appeared to be the great guidebook. He was said
to be playing now the role that had fallen to Aristotle in the thirteenth
century; the latter's pre-Christian (that is, "pagan") philosophy had to be
baptized, in order to bring faith and reason into the proper relation to one
another. But anyone who accepts Marx (in whatever neo-Marxist variation he may
choose) as the representative of worldly reason, not only accepts a philosophy,
a vision of the origin and meaning of existence, but also and especially adopts
a practical program. For this "philosophy" is essentially a "praxis," which
does not presuppose a "truth" but rather creates one. Anyone who makes Marx the
philosopher of theology adopts the primacy of politics and economics, which now
become the real powers that can bring about salvation (and, if misused, can
wreak havoc). The redemption of mankind, to this way of thinking, occurs
through politics and economics, in which the form of the future is determined.
This primacy of praxis and politics meant, above all, that God could not be
categorized as something "practical." The "reality" in which one had to get
involved now was solely the material reality of given historical circumstances,
which were to be viewed critically and reformed, redirected to the right goals
by using the appropriate means, among which violence was indispensable. From
this perspective, speaking about God belongs neither to the realm of the
practical nor to that of reality. If it was to be indulged in at all, it would
have to be postponed until the more important work had been done. What remained
was the figure of Jesus, who of course no longer appeared now as the Christ,
but rather as the embodiment of all the suffering and oppressed and as their
spokesman, who calls us to rise up, to change society. What was new in all this
was that the program of changing the world, which in Marx was intended to be
not only atheistic but also anti-religious, was now filled with religious
passion and was based on religious principles: a new reading of the Bible
(especially of the Old Testament) and a liturgy that was celebrated as a
symbolic fulfillment of the revolution and as a preparation for it.
It must be
admitted: by means of this remarkable synthesis, Christianity had stepped once
more onto the world stage and had become an "epoch-making" message. It is no
surprise that the socialist states took a stand in favor of this movement. More
noteworthy is the fact that, even in the "capitalist" countries, liberation
theology was the darling of public opinion; to contradict it was viewed
positively as a sin against humanity and mankind, even though no one,
naturally, wanted to see the practical measures applied in their own situation,
because they of course had already arrived at a just social order. Now it cannot
be denied that in the various liberation theologies there really were some
worthwhile insights as well. All of these plans for an epoch-making synthesis
of Christianity and the world had to step aside, however, the moment that that
faith in politics as a salvific force collapsed. Man is, indeed, as Aristotle
says, a "political being," but he cannot be reduced to politics and economics.
I see the real and most profound problem with the liberation theologies in
their effective omission of the idea of God, which of course also changed the
figure of Christ fundamentally (as we have indicated). Not as though God had
been denied—not on your life! It's just that he was not needed in regard
to the "reality" that mankind had to deal with. God had nothing to do.
One is struck by
this point and suddenly wonders: Was that the case only in liberation theology?
Or was this theory able to arrive at such an assessment of the question about
God—that the question was not a practical one for the long-overdue
business of changing the world—only because the Christian world thought
much the same thing, or rather, lived in much the same way, without reflecting
on it or noticing it? Hasn't Christian consciousness acquiesced to a great
extent—without being aware of it—in the attitude that faith in God
is something subjective, which belongs in the private realm and not in the
common activities of public life where, in order to be able to get along, we
all have to behave now etsi Deus non daretur (as if there were no God)? Wasn't it
necessary to find a way that would be valid, in case it turned out that God
doesn't exist? And, indeed it happened automatically that, when the faith
stepped out of the inner sanctum of ecclesiastical matters into the general
public, it had nothing for God to do and left him where he was: in the private
realm, in the intimate sphere that doesn't concern anyone else. It didn't take
any particular negligence, and certainly not a deliberate denial, to leave God
as a God with nothing to do, especially since his Name had been misused so
often. But the faith would really have come out of the ghetto only if it had
brought its most distinctive feature with it into the public arena: the God who
judges and suffers, the God who sets limits and standards for us; the God from
whom we come and to whom we are going. But as it was, it really remained in the
ghetto, having by now absolutely nothing to do.
Yet God is
"practical" and not just some theoretical conclusion of a consoling worldview
that one may adhere to or simply disregard. We see that today in every place
where the deliberate denial of him has become a matter of principle and where
his absence is no longer mitigated at all. For at first, when God is left out
of the picture, everything apparently goes on as before. Mature decisions and
the basic structures of life remain in place, even though they have lost their
foundations. But, as Nietzsche describes it, once the news really reaches
people that "God is dead," and they take it to heart, then everything changes.
This is demonstrated today, on the one hand, in the way that science treats
human life: man is becoming a technological object while vanishing to an
ever-greater degree as a human subject, and he has only himself to blame. When
human embryos are artificially "cultivated" so as to have "research material"
and to obtain a supply of organs, which then are supposed to benefit other
human beings, there is scarcely an outcry, because so few are horrified any
more. Progress demands all this, and they really are noble goals: improving the
quality of life—at least for those who can afford to have recourse to
such services. But if man, in his origin and at his very roots, is only an
object to himself, if he is "produced" and comes off the production line with
selected features and accessories, what on earth is man then supposed to think
of man? How should he act toward him? What will be man's attitude toward man,
when he can no longer find anything of the divine mystery in the other, but
only his own know-how? What is happening in the "high-tech" areas of science is
reflected wherever the culture, broadly speaking, has managed to tear God out
of men's hearts. Today there are places where trafficking in human beings goes
on quite openly: a cynical consumption of humanity while society looks on
helplessly. For example, organized crime constantly brings women out of Albania
on various pretexts and delivers them to the mainland across the sea as
prostitutes, and because there are enough cynics there waiting for such "wares,"
organized crime becomes more powerful, and those who try to put a stop to it
discover that the Hydra of evil keeps growing new heads, no matter how many
they may cut off. And do we not see everywhere around us, in seemingly orderly
neighborhoods, an increase in violence, which is taken more and more for
granted and is becoming more and more reckless? I do not want to extend this
horror-scenario any further. But we ought to wonder whether God might not in
fact be the genuine reality, the basic prerequisite for any "realism," so that,
without him, nothing is safe.
Let us return to
the course of historical developments since 1967. The year 1989, as I was
saying, brought with it no new answers, but rather deepened the general
perplexity and nourished skepticism about great ideals. But something did
happen. Religion became modern again. Its disappearance is no longer
anticipated; on the contrary, various new forms of it are growing luxuriantly.
In the leaden loneliness of a God-forsaken world, in its interior boredom, the
search for mysticism, for any sort of contact with the divine, has sprung up
anew. Everywhere there is talk about visions and messages from the other world,
and wherever there is a report of an apparition, thousands travel there, in
order to discover, perhaps, a crack in the world, through which heaven might
look down on them and send them consolation. Some complain that this new search
for religion, to a great extent, is passing the traditional Christian churches
by. An institution is inconvenient, and dogma is bothersome. What is sought is
an experience, an encounter with the Absolutely-Other. I cannot say that I am
in unqualified agreement with this complaint. At the World Youth Days, such as
the one recently in Paris, faith becomes experience and provides the joy of
fellowship. Something of an ecstasy, in the good sense, is communicated. The
dismal and destructive ecstasy of drugs, of hammering rhythms, noise, and
drunkenness is confronted with a bright ecstasy of light, of joyful encounter in
God's sunshine. Let it not be said that this is only a momentary thing. Often
it is so, no doubt. But it can also be a moment that brings about a lasting
change and begins a journey. Similar things happen in the many lay movements
that have sprung up in the last few decades. Here, too, faith becomes a form of
lived experience, the joy of setting out on a journey and of participating in
the mystery of the leaven that permeates the whole mass from within and renews
it. Eventually, provided that the root is sound, even apparition sites can be
incentives to go again in search of God in a sober way. Anyone who expected
that Christianity would now become a mass movement was, of course,
disappointed. But mass movements are not the ones that bear the promise of the
future within them. The future is made wherever people find their way to one
another in life-shaping convictions. And a good future grows wherever these
convictions come from the truth and lead to it.
The rediscovery
of religion, however, has another side to it. We have already seen that this
trend looks for religion as an experience, that the "mystical" aspect of
religion is an important part of it: religion that offers me contact with the
Absolutely- Other. In our historical situation, this means that the mystical
religions of Asia (parts of Hinduism and of Buddhism), with their renunciation
of dogma and their minimal degree of institutionalization, appear to be more
suitable for enlightened humanity than dogmatically determined and
institutionally structured Christianity. In general, however, the result is
that individual religions are relativized; for all the differences and, yes,
the contradictions among these various sorts of belief, the only thing that
matters, ultimately, is the inside of all these different forms, the contact
with the ineffable, with the hidden mystery. And to a great extent people agree
that this mystery is not completely manifested in any one form of revelation,
that it is always glimpsed in random and fragmentary ways and yet is always
sought as one and the same thing. That we cannot know God himself, that
everything which can be stated and described can only be a symbol: this is
nothing short of a fundamental certainty for modern man, which he also
understands somehow as his humility in the presence of the infinite. Associated
with this relativizing is the notion of a great peace among religions, which
recognize each other as different ways of reflecting the One Eternal Being and
which should leave up to the individual the path he will grope along to find
the One who nevertheless unites them all. Through such a relativizing process,
the Christian faith is radically changed, especially at two fundamental places
in its essential message:
1. The figure of
Christ is interpreted in a completely new way, not only in reference to dogma,
but also and precisely with regard to the Gospels. The belief that Christ is
the only Son of God, that God really dwells among us as man in him, and that
the man Jesus is eternally in God, is God himself, and therefore is not a
figure in which God appears, but rather the sole and irreplaceable
God—this belief is thereby excluded. Instead of being the man who is God,
Christ becomes the one who has experienced God in a special way. He is an enlightened one and therein
is no longer fundamentally different from other enlightened individuals, for
instance, Buddha. But in such an interpretation the figure of Jesus loses its
inner logic. It is torn out of the historical setting in which it is anchored
and forced into a scheme of things which is alien to it. Buddha—and in
this he is comparable to Socrates—directs the attention of his disciples
away from himself: his own person doesn't matter, but only the path that he has
pointed out. Someone who finds the way can forget Buddha. But with Jesus, what
matters is precisely his Person, Christ himself. When he says, "I am he," we
hear the tones of the "I AM" on Mount Horeb. The way consists precisely in
following him, for "I am the way, the truth and the life" (Jn 14:6). He himself
is the way, and there is no way that is independent of him, on which he would
no longer matter. Since the real message that he brings is not a doctrine but
his very person, we must of course add that this "I" of Jesus refers absolutely
to the "Thou" of the Father and is not self-sufficient, but rather is indeed
truly a "way." "My teaching is not mine" (Jn 7:16). "I seek not my own will,
but the will of him who sent me" (Jn 5:30). The "I" is important, because it
draws us completely into the dynamic of mission, because it leads to the
surpassing of self and to union with him unto whom we have been created. If the
figure of Jesus is taken out of this inevitably scandalous dimension, if it is
separated from his Godhead, then it becomes self-contradictory. All that is
left are shreds that leave us perplexed or else become excuses for
selfaffirmation.
2. The concept
of God is fundamentally changed. The question as to whether God should be
thought of as a person or impersonally now seems to be of secondary importance;
no longer can an essential difference be noted between theistic and nontheistic
forms of religion. This view is spreading with astonishing rapidity. Even
believing and theologically trained Catholics, who want to share in the
responsibilities of the Church's life, will ask the question (as though the
answer were self-evident): "Can it really be that important, whether someone
understands God as a person or impersonally?" After all, we should be
broad-minded—so goes the opinion—since the mystery of God is in any
case beyond all concepts and images. But such concessions strike at the heart
of the biblical faith. The shema, the "Hear, O Israel" from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, was and still is
the real core of the believer's identity, not only for Israel, but also for
Christianity. The believing Jew dies reciting this profession; the Jewish
martyrs breathed their last declaring it and gave their lives for it: "Hear, O
Israel. He is our God. He is one." The fact that this God now shows us his face
in Jesus Christ (Jn 14:9)—a face that Moses was not allowed to see (Ex
33:20)—does not alter this profession in the least and changes nothing
essential in this identity. Of course, the Bible does not use the term "person"
to say that God is personal, but the divine personality is apparent
nevertheless, inasmuch as there is a Name of God. A name implies the ability to
be called on, to speak, to hear, to answer. This is essential for the biblical
God, and if this is taken away, the faith of the Bible has been abandoned. It
cannot be disputed that there have been and there are false, superficial ways
of understanding God as personal. Precisely when we apply the concept of person
to God, the difference between our idea of person and the reality of
God—as the Fourth Lateran Council says about all speech concerning
God—is always infinitely greater than what they have in common. False
applications of the concept of person are sure to be present, whenever God is
monopolized for one's own human interests and thus his Name is sullied. It is
not by chance that the Second Commandment, which is supposed to protect the
Name of God, follows directly after the First, which teaches us to adore him.
In this respect we can always learn something new from the way in which the
"mystical" religions, with their purely negative theology, speak about God, and
in this respect there are avenues for dialogue. But with the disappearance of
what is meant by "the Name of God," that is, God's personal nature, his Name is
no longer protected and honored, but abandoned outright instead.
But what is
actually meant, then, by God's Name, by his being personal? Precisely this: not
only that we can experience him, beyond all [earthly] experience, but also that
he can express and communicate himself. When God is understood in a completely
impersonal way, for instance in Buddhism, as sheer negation with respect to
everything that appears real to us, then there is no positive relationship
between "God" and the world. Then the world has to be overcome as a source of
suffering, but it no longer can be shaped. Religion then points out ways to
overcome the world, to free people from the burden of its seeming, but it
offers no standards by which we can live in the world, no forms of societal
responsibility within it. The situation is somewhat different in Hinduism. The
essential thing there is the experience of identity: At bottom I am one with
the hidden ground of reality itself—the famous tat tvam asi of the
Upanishads. Salvation consists in liberation from individuality, from
being-a-person, in overcoming the differentiation from all other beings that is
rooted in being-aperson: the deception of the self concerning itself must be
put aside. The problem with this view of being has come very much to the fore
in Neo-Hinduism. Where there is no uniqueness of persons, the inviolable
dignity of each individual person has no foundation, either. In order to bring
about the reforms that are now underway (the abolition of caste laws and of
immolating widows, etc.) it was specifically necessary to break with this
fundamental understanding and to introduce into the overall system of Indian
thought the concept of person, as it has developed in the Christian faith out
of the encounter with the personal God. The search for the correct "praxis,"
for right action, in this case has begun to correct the "theory": We can see to
some extent how "practical" the Christian belief in God is, and how unfair it
is to brush these disputed but important distinctions aside as being ultimately
irrelevant.
With these
considerations we have reached the point from which an "Introduction to
Christianity" must set out today. Before I attempt to extend a bit farther the
line of argument that I have suggested, another reference to the present status
of faith in God and in Christ is called for. There is a fear of Christian
"imperialism," a nostalgia for the beautiful multiplicity of religions and
their supposedly primordial cheerfulness and freedom. Colonialism is said to be
essentially bound up with historical Christianity, which was unwilling to
accept the other in his otherness and tried to bring everything under its own
protection. Thus, according to this view, the religions and cultures of South
America were trodden down and stamped out and violence was done to the soul of
the native peoples, who could not find themselves in the new order and were
forcibly deprived of the old. Now there are milder and harsher variants of this
opinion. The milder version says that we should finally grant to these lost cultures
the right of domicile within the Christian faith and allow them to devise for
themselves an aboriginal form of Christianity. The more radical view regards
Christianity in its entirety as a sort of alienation, from which the native
peoples must be liberated. The demand for an aboriginal Christianity, properly
understood, should be taken as an extremely important task. All great cultures
are open to one another and to the truth. They all have something to contribute
to the Bride's "many coloured robes" mentioned in Psalm 45:14, which patristic
writers applied to the Church. To be sure, many opportunities have been missed
and new ones present themselves. Let us not forget, however, that those native
peoples, to a notable extent, have already found their own expression of the
Christian faith in popular devotions. That the suffering God and the kindly
Mother in particular have become for them the central images of the faith,
which have given them access to the God of the Bible, has some thing to say to
us, too, today. But of course, much still remains to be done.
Let us return to
the question about God and about Christ as the centerpiece of an introduction
to the Christian faith. One thing has already become evident: the mystical
dimension of the concept of God, which the Asian religions bring with them as a
challenge to us, must clearly be decisive for our thinking, too, and for our
faith. God has become quite concrete in Christ, but in this way his mystery has
also become still greater. God is always infinitely greater than all our
concepts and all our images and names. The fact that we now acknowledge him to
be triune does not mean that we have meanwhile learned everything about him. On
the contrary: he is only showing us how little we know about him and how little
we can comprehend him or even begin to take his measure. Today, after the
horrors of the [twentieth-century] totalitarian regimes (I remind the reader of
the memorial at Auschwitz), the problem of theodicy urgently and mightily [mit
brennender Gewalt] demands
the attention of us all; this is just one more indication of how little we are
capable of defining God, much less fathoming him. After all, God's answer to
Job explains nothing, but rather sets boundaries to our mania for judging
everything and being able to say the final word on a subject, and reminds us of
our limitations. It admonishes us to trust the mystery of God in its
incomprehensibility.
Having said
this, we must still emphasize the brightness of God, too, along with the
darkness. Ever since the Prologue to the Gospel of John, the concept of logos has been at the very center of our
Christian faith in God. Logos signifies reason, meaning, or even "word"—a meaning,
therefore, which is Word, which is relationship, which is creative. The God who
is logos guarantees
the intelligibility of the world, the intelligibility of our existence, the
aptitude of reason to know God [die GottgemŠssheit der Vernunft] and the reasonableness of God [die
VernunftgemŠssheit Gottes],
even though his understanding infinitely surpasses ours and to us may so often
appear to be darkness. The world comes from reason and this reason is a Person,
is Love—this is what our biblical faith tells us about God. Reason can
speak about God, it must speak about God, or else it cuts itself short.
Included in this is the concept of creation. The world is not just maya, appearance, which we must ultimately
leave behind. It is not merely the endless wheel of sufferings, from which we
must try to escape. It is something positive. It is good, despite all the evil
in it and despite all the sorrow, and it is good to live in it. God, who is the
creator and declares himself in his creation, also gives direction and measure
to human action. We are living today in a crisis of moral values [Ethos], which by now is no longer merely an
academic question about the ultimate foundations of ethical theories, but
rather an entirely practical matter. The news is getting around that moral
values cannot be grounded in something else, and the consequences of this view
are working themselves out. The published works on the theme of moral values
are stacked high and almost toppling over, which on the one hand indicates the
urgency of the question, but on the other hand also suggests the prevailing
perplexity. Kolakowski, in his line of thinking, has very emphatically pointed
out that deleting faith in God, however one may try to spin or turn it,
ultimately deprives moral values of their grounding. If the world and man do
not come from a creative intelligence, which stores within itself their measure
and plots the path of human existence, then all that is left are traffic rules
for human behavior, which can be discarded or maintained according to their
usefulness. All that remains is the calculus of consequences—what is
called teleological ethics or proportionalism. But who can really make a
judgment beyond the consequences of the present moment? Won't a new ruling
class, then, take hold of the keys to human existence and become the managers
of mankind? When dealing with a calculus of consequences, the inviolability of
human dignity no longer exists, because nothing is good or bad in itself any
more. The problem of moral values is back on the table today, and it is an item
of great urgency. Faith in the Logos, the Word who is in the beginning,
understands moral values as responsibility, as a response to the Word, and thus gives them their
intelligibility as well as their essential orientation. Connected with this
also is the task of searching for a common understanding of responsibility,
together with all honest, rational inquiry and with the great religious
traditions. In this endeavor there is not only the intrinsic proximity of the
three great monotheistic religions, but also significant lines of convergence
with the other strand of Asian religiosity we encounter in Confucianism and Taoism.
If it is true
that the term logos—the
Word in the beginning, creative reason, and love—is decisive for the
Christian image of God, and if the concept of logos simultaneously forms the core of
Christology, of faith in Christ, then the indivisibility of faith in God and
faith in his incarnate Son Jesus Christ is only confirmed once more. We will
not understand Jesus any better or come any closer to him, if we bracket off
faith in his divinity. The fear that belief in his divinity might alienate him
from us is widespread today. It is not only for the sake of the other religions
that some would like to de-emphasize this faith as much as possible. It is
first and foremost a question of our own Western fears. All of this seems
incompatible with our modern worldview. It must just be a question of
mythological interpretations, which were then transformed by the Greek
mentality into metaphysics. But when we separate Christ and God, behind this
effort there is also a doubt as to whether God is at all capable of being so
close to us, whether he is allowed to bow down so low. The fact that we don't
want this appears to be humility. But Romano Guardini correctly pointed out
that the higher form of humility consists in allowing God to do precisely what
appears to us to be unfitting, and to bow down to what he does, not to what we
contrive about him and for him. A notion of God's remoteness from the world is
behind our apparently humble realism, and therefore a loss of God's presence is
also connected with it. If God is not in Christ, then he retreats into an
immeasurable distance, and if God is no longer a God-with-us, then he is
plainly an absent God and thus no God at all: a god who cannot work is not God.
As for the fear that Jesus moves us too far away if we believe in his Divine
Sonship, precisely the opposite is true: were he only a man, then he has
retreated irrevocably into the past, and only a distant recollection can
perceive him more or less clearly. But if God has truly assumed manhood and
thus is at the same time true man and true God in Jesus, then he participates,
as man, in the presence of God, which embraces all ages. Then, and only then,
is he not just something that happened yesterday, but is present among us, our
contemporary in our today. That is why I am firmly convinced that a renewal of
Christology must have the courage to see Christ in all of his greatness, as he
is presented by the four Gospels together in the many tensions of their unity.
If I had this Introduction
to Christianity to write
over again today, all of the experiences of the last thirty years would have to
go into the text, which would then also have to include the context of
interreligious discussions to a much greater degree than seemed fitting at the
time. But I believe that I was not mistaken as to the fundamental approach, in
that I put the question of God and the question about Christ in the very
center, which then leads to a "narrative Christology" and demonstrates that the
place for faith is in the Church. This basic orientation, I think, was correct.
That is why I venture to place this book once more in the hands of the reader
today.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Rome, April 2000
Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was for over two decades
the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope
John Paul II. He is a renowned theologian and author of numerous books.
A mini-bio and full listing of his books published by Ignatius Press are
available on his IgnatiusInsight.com
Author Page.
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