Crisis of Faith: Joseph Ratzinger’s Perspective
Editor’s note: The presence of a “crisis of faith” in the Western culture (particularly in Europe) was more than once denounced by Joseph Ratzinger, then pope Benedict XVI, in several of his writings and public interventions. Even if Christianity did not start in Europe, and cannot be considered a “...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | Chinese |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Ed. Studio Domenicano
[2017]
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| In: |
Sacra doctrina
Year: 2017, Volume: 62, Issue: 1, Pages: 74-95 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Benedikt, XVI., Pope 1927-2022
/ Europe
/ China
/ Crisis of faith
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| IxTheo Classification: | CH Christianity and Society KBA Western Europe KBM Asia KCB Papacy KDB Roman Catholic Church |
| Summary: | Editor’s note: The presence of a “crisis of faith” in the Western culture (particularly in Europe) was more than once denounced by Joseph Ratzinger, then pope Benedict XVI, in several of his writings and public interventions. Even if Christianity did not start in Europe, and cannot be considered a “European” religion, it was precisely in this continent that Christianity received its most historically influential form. Nevertheless, beginning with the Renaissance and then going on with the Enlightenment, this same Europe has developed a form of rationality which excludes God from public consciousness, whether He is totally denied or whether His existence is judged to be indemonstrable, uncertain, and so relegated to the domain of subjective choices. Such a “functional” rationality has transformed moral conscience, and has made “morality” disappear as a category in its own right. In the Western world, based on calculation, nothing is good or evil in itself; everything depends on the consequences which are foreseeable for a given action. However, if we ask whether the modern Western usage of reason is universally valid; whether it is self-sufficient; whether it can relegate ist historical roots to the domain of the mere past, and so to the domain of the merely subjectively valid ‒ we have to answer with a definite “no.” Modern Western culture does not express human reason in the fullness of its being “logos”, as a participation of the Logos who is the Son of God: thus, it cannot be considered fully “reasonable,” it is sick and can be healed only by re-establishing contact with its Christian origins. The author provides an extensive survey of Ratzinger’s positions about the Western “crisis of faith,” finally giving an implicit warning to the Chinese civilization: which seems to be seduced by the rationalist approach to reality, but should realise how far it has taken the former “Christian world” from the true origins of wisdom and life. |
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| ISSN: | 0036-2190 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sacra doctrina
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