Franciscan Penance Library

THE MODERN MENTALITY: GOD HAS NOTHING TO DO

In 1967, the German theologian, Joseph Ratzinger wrote a book call Introduction to Christianity. In that book, he described Christianity using the articles of the creed as the structure. In 2000, after he had become Cardinal Ratzinger and was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he wrote a revised preface to the book. In this preface, he surveyed the changes in western society concerning religious faith which were certainly already starting to take place in 1967 but were much more apparent in 2000.

Concerning Europe, Cardinal Ratzinger sees two important dates in the final decades of the 20th Century: 1968 and 1989. He says: “The year 1968 marked the rebellion of a new generation, which not only considered postwar reconstruction in Europe as inadequate, 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.”

Cardinal Ratzinger then goes on to discuss the Christian response to this eclipse of Christianity. This response was varied, but it included the whole world including the United States. He then goes on: “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 had to be made as part of it.” Cardinal Ratzinger then discusses Christianity’s response to this situation: “Christianity----at least from the view point 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………The main thing affecting the status of Christianity in that period was idea of a new relationship between the Church and the world………the spirit of the age called for crossing boundaries, reaching out to the world and becoming involved in it.”

An example of this attempt at “crossing boundaries” was liberation theology. As Cardinal Ratzinger described it: “the faith had to prove itself as a force for justice. But how? Now Marx appeared as the great guidebook…….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 also 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 becomes the real power 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…….What remained was the figure of Jesus, who of course appeared now, no longer 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 antireligious, 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.”

After this, Cardinal Ratzinger outlines some of the problems with these attempts of Christianity to become relevant: “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 in your life! He simply was not needed in regard to the ‘reality’ that mankind had to deal with. God had nothing to do.” Cardinal Ratzinger then goes on to wonder whether this shifting of God to the sidelines has not gotten well beyond liberation theology: “Has not 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)………..But the faith would really have come out of the ghetto only if it had brought its most distinctive features 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.”

He then goes on to give the result of marginalizing God: “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 everything changes.” Here in the United States we can see the result of this loss of God with the acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, cloning, homosexuality, and gay marriage. The numerous scandals that arise among politicians and businessmen show that this change in attitude toward God cannot be limited to the area of sex. Cardinal Ratzinger then points out the fundamental problem with the omission of God from public life: “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 measures 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 consequence----what is called teleological ethics or proportionalism.”

The question arises concerning how this attempt to make Christianity relevant squares with traditional Christianity. It appears as if traditional Christianity has been discarded and replaced with something else. Cardinal Ratzinger describes this transformation: ”this means that the mystical religions of Asia (parts of Hinduism and 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…….That we cannot know God himself, that everything that can be stated and described can only be a symbol: this is nothing short of a fundamental certainty of modern man, which he also understands somehow as his humility in the presence of the infinite.” 

Then Cardinal Ratzinger describes two places where the Christian faith is radically changed: “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………2. The concept of God is fundamentally changed. The question of 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……Of course, the fact that God is personal is not mentioned in the Bible using that term, but it 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.”

Near the end of the preface, Cardinal Ratzinger summarizes the problems associated with the new understanding of Christianity: “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: If he was only a man, then he has retreated irrevocably into the past, and then 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.”

In 1967 Joseph Ratzinger wrote Introduction to Christianity to present the Christian faith in all its power.  Perhaps, this is needed even more today than it was in 1967.

Jim Nugent (Jim is a Life Pledged Member of the Confraternity of Penitents, a Regional Minister and Formator.)