The topics on the "false hopes" are 1) false religions, 2) subjectivist Christianity, 3) misunderstanding of "eternal life" and 4) artificial "redemption". We shall present the Holy Father's answer to each in turn.
1) False religions are saved from meaninglessness and ultimate despair by the personal knowledge of and relationship with the living and true God who fulfills all of their noble traditions and aspirations. "Spe salvi facti sumus--in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom. 8:24)." 1 In this all of us are the same, believer and non-believer (i.e. non-Christian). The Holy Father here shows that all men are in need of hope. No one is born a believer. Coming to faith is the actual beginning of hope: "To come to know God--the true God--means to receive hope...that there is a 'paron' above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person...[The African slave convert Saint Josephine Bakhita] came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her--that he acutally loved her. She too was loved, and by none other thatn the supreme 'Paron', before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her 'at the Father's right hand'. Now she had 'hope'--no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: 'I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me--I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.' Through the knowledge of this hope she was 'redeemed', no longer a slave, but a free child of God." The Holy Father uses this example of how faith in the one true God is also the blessed assurance that changes one's life. That the true God is the one Who is Love and above all worldly power and dominion and above all the cosmic powers too. 3
"The Roman state religion had become fossilized into simply ceremony,...merely a 'political religion'. Philosophical rationalism had confined the gods within the realm of unreality. The divine was seen in various ways in cosmic forces, but a God to whom one could pray did not exist. (cf. Col 2:8)...Gregory of Nazianzen...says that at the very moment when the Magi, guided by the star, adored Christ the new king, astrology came to an end, because the stars were now moving in the orbit determined by Christ. This scene, in fact, overturns the world-view of that time, which in a different way has become fashionable once again today. It is not the elemental spirits of the univers, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and manking, but a personal God governs the strars, that is the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love--a Person. And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free. Inancient times, honest enquiring minds were aware of this. heaven is not empty. Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealied himself as Love". 5 (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1817-1821)
2) Subjectivist Christianity needs to re-evaluate itself and realize that true Christianity is no human invention but "hypostasis" (substance), real. Christian hope is based on the fact that God, who is love, has loved us and does love us, thus life is worthwhile and possible.
In this section of the encyclical (nos. 24-31) entitled "The true shape of Christian hope", the Holy Father addresses the secularized Christians who tend to displace their hope in God and Jesus Christ, His Way and His Life onto smaller temporal hopes. Christians have an obligation to work for progress in the material sphere, but with the keen awareness that mastery of nature does not necessary lead to mastery over man, because of the problem of human freedom. "...In the field of ethical awareness and moral decision-making, there is no similar possibility of accumulation for the simple reason that man's freedom is always new ans he must always make his decisions anew. These decisions can never simply be made for us in advance by others--if that were the case, we would no longer be free. Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning...The moral treasury of humanity is present as an appeal to freedom and a possibility for it (...not readily at hand like tools that we use)...Even the best structures function only when the community is animated by convictions capable of motivating people to assent freely to the social order. Freedom requires conviction; conviction does not exist on its own, but must always be gained anew by the community...24 What this means is that every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs; this task is never simply completed...[G]ood structures help, but of themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply from the outside. 25 Here there is an allusion to religious freedom inherent in each human person.
"It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world." And not just any love, only God's love will do! "When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of 'redemption' which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: 'neither death, nor life, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separated us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Rom 8:38-39). If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then--only then--is man 'redeemed', whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances."26 Thus the Christian task in the world is largely social in transmitting the much needed love of God to others. In this regard Saint Augustine described his daily life, "'The turbulent have to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel's opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed to be loberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved.' 'The Gospel terrifies me'--producing that healthy fear which prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to pass on the hope we hold in common."29 Here the Holy Father shows the indispensible task of the Christian in the world in His responsibility to bring God to it, to others! It is not enough to be good or to do good, the Christian has to bring them God in Jesus, he is the true love of God.[2]
"[Unconditional love]...is what it means to say: Jesus Christ has 'redeemed' us. Through him we have become certain of God, a God who is not a remote 'first cause' of the world, because his only-begotten Son has become man and of him everyone can say: 'I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me' (Gal 2:20). In this sense it is true that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope,without the great hope that sustains the whole of live (cf. Eph 2:12). Man's great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God--God who has loved us and who continues to love us 'to the end,' until all 'is accomplished'" (cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30). 26-27 Prayer is a major source of that God given hope, as explained in following passage from the Holy Father's first encyclical.
"When we consider the immensity of other's needs, we can, on the one hand, be driven towards an ideology that would aim at doing what god's governance of the world apparently cannot: fully resolving every problem. Or we can be tempted to give in to inertia, since it would seem that in any event nothing can be accomplished. At such times, a living relationship with Christ is decisive if we are to keep on the right path, without falling into an arrogant contempt for man...It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work. Clearly, the Christian who prays does not claim to be able to change God's plans or correct what he has foreseen. Rather, he seeks an encounter with the Father of Jesus Christ, asking God to be present with the consolation of the Spirit to him and his work. A personal relationship with God and an abandonment to his will can prevent man from being demeanded and save him from falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism. An authentically religious attitiude prevents man from presuming to judge God, accusing him of allowing poverty anf failing to have compassion for his creatures. When people claim to build a case against God in defence of man, on whom can they depend when human activity proves powerless?" (Deus caritas est, 36-37) Prayer is one of the necessary contexts of true hope. cf. 32-34 Thus our hope is not simply "informative" but "performative"--changing our lives and our world. cf. 4
3. Misunderstanding of "eternal life"
"...[W]e need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loves us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is 'truly' life."31
To have knowledge of and hope in the eternal life promised by God in Christ we need the three "settings" mentioned in the last section of the encyclical, a life of faith. Prayer in communion with the prayer of the Church, Christian action and patient enduring of the suffering which may come, and meditation on the Last Judgement are all essential to Christian hope. Regarding the Last Judgement (the last section of the document, before the concluding prayer to Our Lady) the Holy Father says "I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favor of faith in eternal life." 43 This point needs to be considered in light of this entire document and the particular doubts and anxieties of our age and in light of the constant teaching of the Church. In the encyclical on hope the only allusion to heaven is through the prism of suffering and judgment, in other words, the arduousness of the task, that heaven must be striven for and it is a demanding achievement only possible with God's purifying help: Purgatory (here and hereafter). Suffering is necessary to get to heaven. The deepest suffering of man is relieved only through the merits of Christ's blood, His grace. Therefore, man needs Christ and the assistance of heaven to live. Living for Christ and for heaven gives true meaning to this life and to the suffering of this life.
There is no justice without God, without the Last Judgment. If there were not Judgment (no ultimate Judge) then there would be no rights nor corresponding duties because there would be no permanent guarantee, no truth, and ultimately, no right and wrong. The Judgment is necessary for the defence of reason and freedom which are based in the pursuit of what is good (for man). The very hope that all will be set aright comes from the Ultimate Divine reality. Every idea of goodness is founded in God, in Christ. Thus, "To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope. Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility...God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things--justice and grace--must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right 44...Christ...is the fire which both burns and saves...It is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears throug us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continuted to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love...grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our 'advocate', or parakletos"(cf. 1Jn 2:1). 47
4) Pope Benedict answers the attempts at artificial "redemption" that modern man too needs God in Jesus Christ to enable him to properly use his freedom and to humbly use reason under His wisdom. Structures in every time and place, according to the particular needs, are necessary to assist in educating man, every man in the proper use of his freedom: for goodness and truth, but with the assistance of the wisdom and law of God. "...[T]echnical progress [must be] matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth..." (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16) [in order to be real progress]. 22 Yes indeed, reason is God's great gift to man, and the victory of reason over unreason is also a goal of Christian life. But when does reason truly triumph? When it is detached from God? When it has become blind to God? Is the reason behind action and capacity for action the whole of reason? If progress, in order to be progress, needs moral growth on the part of humanity, then the reason behind action and capacity for action is likewise urgently in need of integration through reason's openness to the saving forces of faith, to the differentiation between good and evil. Only thus does reason become truly human. It becomes human only if it is capable of directing the will along the right path, and it is capable of this only if it looks beyond itself. Otherwise, man's situation, in view of the imbalance between his material capacity and the lack of judgment in his heart, becomes a threat for him and for creation. Thus where freeedom is concerned, we must remeber that juman freedom always requires a convergence of various freedoms. Yet this convergence cannot succeed unless it is determined by a common intrinsic criterion of measurement, which is the foundation and goal of our freedom. Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope. Given the developments of the modern age, the quotation from Saint Paul with which I began (Eph 2:12) proves to be thoroughly realistic and plainly true. There is no doubt, therefore, that a 'Kingdom of God' accomplished without God--a kingdom therefore of man alone--inevitably ends up as the 'perverse end' of all things as described by Kant (19): we have seen it, and we see it over and over again. Yet neither is there any doubt that God truly enters into human affairs only when, rather than being present merely in our thinking, he himself comes towards us and speaks to us. Reason therefore needs faith if it is to be completely itself: reason and faith need one another in order to fulfill their true nature and mission." 23
Notes
[1] It should be interestion to investigate the connection between Ratzinger, Pieper and Munich, especially during the 50's-70's.
[2] Man's constant need for unconditional love never goes away. Man Always needs Jesus. "Love--caritas--will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminated love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable." (Deus caritas est, 29)
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