Ever since the beginning of his academic activity, Ratzinger has been interested in the problem of God.1 In the 1959 lesson “The God of Faith and the God of philosophers,” he considers that in order to face this task we need to re-elaborate theologically the relation between belief and knowledge, between religion and philosophy, between general reason and religious experience.2 The living God of revelation and the God of philosophy must recuperate the recipro- cal relation which is typically catholic and which has been obscured and deformed by the theological currents alluded to by Ratzinger in his text.3 A recurrent theme of his is that God cannot be reduced merely to a theoretical problem for fear of frustrating the possibility of knowing and loving Him.

Ratzinger has always crisscrossed the dogmatic and fundamen- tal dimensions in theology. Before as well as after the Council, he compares dogma with the aspirations or objections of his contempo- raries. This quality manifests when he tackles the subject of God. In his writings, the question of God is confronted both from the angles of faith and reason, and is accompanied by reflections on their reci- procal relationship. This is why if we want to grasp the originality of Ratzinger’s intellectus fidei on God, we must begin with these aspects. We shall now go into some of its dogmatic contents.

in the framework of the profession of faith: i believe in god

Ratzinger speaks of God starting from the profession of faith. This is how he affirms before his interlocutors, be they believers or non-believers, one of his most rooted convictions: faith is not a private attitude merely pious or sentimental which superimposes itself almost superfluously over a rational autonomous knowledge of reality. When the Creed is professed, the believers’ view of God is a rational view which knows reality through divine revelation, acquiring thus all its depth. That knowledge of the believer is gran- ted in an elementary and unique act, in which it is possible to make legitimate distinctions between natural and supernatural aspects.

In order that we may understand this knowledge well, Ratzinger places before our eyes the figure of the Jew who professes his ad- herence to Yahweh: “reciting the Creed is the act through which [the Israelite] fills his part in reality.”4 Professing one’s faith does not con- sist in declaring the “ideology” of the group one belongs to, but in opening reason to the whole of reality, and recognizing it as being intelligible, good, and trustworthy. The real knowledge of God is given in the profession of faith and with it, that of reality itself: that knowledge is inaccessible to him who pretends to confront it from a neutral stance. We shall see later that only he who is open to the facts of reality questions himself, and only he who questions finds an- swers. On the contrary, the pretended neutral stance is incapable of curiosity about any sphere of reality, and least when it is a question of enquiring into the very foundations of that which is real.

A theological implication of this first characteristic is the relation between faith, Baptism, and the knowledge of God. As the profession of faith is essentially linked to Baptism, the Bavarian theologian tea- ches that the full knowledge of God comes from Christ’s sovereign gesture in the sacrament that binds man for ever and turns him into a new creature, transforming him ontologically in his being and in his spiritual dynamisms of knowledge and love. Thus, the baptized is the new subject of knowledge and therefore, of the new culture.

An existencial-anthropological statement: the answers emergent from the questions

The same Ratzinger who adopts this “professing” posture adopts the questions men ask themselves, their difficulties and their objec- tions, as the starting point for a Christian reflection on God. This is why, for example, you may notice a difference in the way he tackles the subject of God from the 1959 lesson to the Introduction to Christia- nity of 1968. The cultural, social, and theological transformations of that decade can be felt in this last text which begins by looking into the various questions in which the men of those years of turmoil focus the “problem” of God. In 1968, before presenting the doctrine on God, Ratzinger looks at the restlessness he perceives in society and asks himself why God has become such a problem for men of that generation.5

This attentive attitude does not limit itself to expressing a certain sensibility – as one who treats his interlocutor with delicacy – but lies on a profound anthropologic conviction: “In his questioning, man is always involved in the possible answers from God,”6 so that a lo- ving understanding of God is only possible for those who engage in profound inquiries and exigent requirements. These can derive both from a condition of plenitude as well as from more urgent needs. It is true that God is not a “stopper” for human needs and there is an ex- ceptional beauty in the recognition of God merged with the plenitu- de of life, but with a thorough realism Ratzinger does not ignore the suffering cry which can also unfold a relation with Mystery. A socie- ty which censures the suffering of existence and denies the fact that it can be a means to transcendence benumbs men and deprives them of their dignity, leaving them at the mercy of alternative powers.

A few years later Ratzinger will reach a very lucid conclusion, infrequent in the pastoral life of the Church. He will consider that the crisis in the Christian announcement –in the last century– is not due to lack of energy or clarity in recurrent doctrine but, sur- prisingly, it is due to the fact that “the Christian answers put aside men’s questions; they were and still are correct, but as they were not developed from those questions as a starting point, and from within them, they remained ineffective. Consequently, questioning together with men who are also searching, is an unrenounceable part of the announcement itself, because only then the word Wort can be turned into an answer, Antwort.”7

So, the regard for the human search which Ratzinger shares with other theologians of his generation has never led him to disguise the revelation’s proposal. He always reminds us that Christian faith cannot be reduced to questions which are born out of pure human experience, but that it encloses something which is always greater; so much so that, in fact, only Jesus Christ –inasmuch as being the answer which preceeds all questions– succeeds in making man rai- se his questions once again, discloses them when they would tend to be closed, and formulates them adequately.

A reflection on history as a starting point and to shed light on history

The Ratzinger “Theo-logy” starts with the history of salvation: it reflects on the dialogue which takes place between God and man. Once again he reminds us that God has acted and acts in history’s present, according to a realism which seems outrageous to other religious and philosophical positions. The Christian God is the God of the Alliance, that is to say, it is the Creator who intervenes in the history of the people and in each person. It is therefore from within reality that we get to know the God who has wished, in this man- ner, to manifest Himself and communicate with men.

For our theologian, an important methodological implication ensues from here: he chooses a historical course which allows him to reach the speculative interrogations about the reality of God and his properties. One way to achieve this is to compare the questions and needs which constitute the human condition with the answers which have been given by religions and, in particular, with that unparalleled answer which had been given the Israelite people so as to reach, from that point, the unheard of historical event of the incarnation-death-resurrection of Jesus Christ as the definitive in- terpretation of God. The conversation with atheism and the ancient and modern idolatries also tends to unfold from the point of view of human history.

The god of philosophers and the god of faith

From the very beginning of his “theo-logical” reflection, as we have seen, Ratzinger has asked himself about the relation between the God of faith and the God of philosophers. It is not a question of circumstantial interest but of establishing properly that relation which is decisive for catholic theology and its ecumenical opening. That is why before a pure positive theological statement, reduced to the study of historical sources, theology always requires an adequa- te philosophical reflection in critical dialogue with old and modern streams of thought. Our theologian incorporates constitutively the moment of speculation to the intellectus fidei.

Already in 1959 he shows how in this problem, labelled as “God of faith and God of philosophers,” are intertwined various different levels of discussion. In effect, the well known quotation from Pascal could suggest that there are only two terms for comparing this pro- blem: on the one hand, the God who recognizes Christian faith (the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God of the living and of the dead), and on the other, the philosophical God as the object of pure rational reflection.

If that text – and many others which came later – is properly read, however, one understands that Ratzinger bears in mind other aspects as well. Before going into the strictly “supernatural” sphere of revelation, the Bavarian theologian has already been engaged in examining the relation between a purely philosophical and a reli- gious approach to the God that every man can know through his own strength. That is why he has often asked himself about the rela- tionship between religion and philosophy, for instance with regards to their respective ways of searching for the truth. His well known quotation from Tertullian on Christ being the truth and not the ha- bit, has as a background the different aims pursued by pagan reli- gions and philosophy and thence their different value as delegates of the nascent Christian faith.8

Now, in this philosophy a new precision is needed because the concept one may have of human reason and how one makes use of it bears essential differences in the way of thinking about God. One of the battles Ratzinger has been continuously fighting is that against the rationalist reduction of knowledge, exhorting us to always use reason in an open and existential way. It is under this perspective that his appraisal of the difference between esprit de géométrie (Des- cartes) and esprit de finesse (Pascal)9 is understood.

An adequate comprehension of reason bears a determining weight in Ratzinger’s argumentation. It is only when reason is pro- perly used that it can be shown that God is real, more real than any other thing we think is real, and which is not merely “theoretical.” Our author warns against the danger of reducing the knowledge of God to concepts which pretend to exhaust the meaning of the divine. The value of definitions and concepts will be greater as they serve better this reality of God and do not hide Him by means of abstractions which substitute the reality they intend to point out. This defence of the reality of God does not respond to any school of controversy, but to a much simpler and decisive purpose: only a real God can stir up the interest of a normal man, that’s to say, of a man whose reason is made to know and love reality. Hence only a real God and not merely a “theoretical” one can awaken in man a vital, existential attraction, turning into a decisive factor of his “practical” attitude, into an inner source of his moral behavior.10

God exists and can be known: what are the proofs of his existence?

When speaking of the proofs of the existence of God, Ratzinger is coherent in his concept of reason. The characteristics of human reason specify the nature of those proofs.

The starting point of the rational reflection on God is the expe- rience of one’s own existence and the confrontation with the world and its mysteries.11 God is not an isolated “object” about which one can think of separately to the reality of oneself and the world around; on the contrary, in order to reach Him one has to enter dee- ply into reality. Ratzinger says that what actually happens is that man discovers himself to be previously “placed” in reality, just as he can tell from his original experiences in the basic relations I-you- us. Reality “is before” the subject inasmuch as it is not produced by him neither when he began to live nor in each following moment; similarly, man discovers himself “being with” others, which makes him also an individual subject. These previous data (Vorgabe) are original in everyone’s experience: we find ourselves placed in a re- ality we have not produced, and we discover ourselves inevitably related to others. No one can presume that his concrete existence has not consisted nor consists of these factors.

However, facts do not impose their meaning automatically, but are presented so as to be interpreted by each one from the whole complexity of the circumstances of our life. For some, these data will mean the existence of a limit, and perhaps even a dangerous threat to his own self-realization; for this reason they will have to be submitted to through the sovereign knowledge and power of the subject who prefers to make himself absolute in his loneliness. For others, instead, it will mean the given possibility to be able to be oneself, to unfurl the foundations of confidence which makes one`s own freedom possible in the company of others/of Another. For the former, the facts show an unacceptable imposition – who from? – from which one must rid oneself: for the latter, it means a gift, which calls for gratefulness.

Ratzinger points out that this primary position on reality and its interpretation according to one of the two mentioned directions, constitutes basically the beginning of the problem of God, and it is previous to the “proofs.” As both interpretations are possible – and we all adopt one or the other – but are not equally reasonable, it is essential to excercise, from within concrete existence, the rational and systematic appraisal which will allow us to recognize which of the interpretations brings better credit to all the factors of reality. The different speculative routs which we call “proofs of God’s exis- tence” acquire there probative strength when they are grafted onto this first rational decision of the man about his own situation in the world, and are developed in a systematic and critical manner. Both reason and freedom are implied in that decision, so that the proofs of the existence of God can never be scientific ones in which the sub- ject remains outside the experiment, outside reasoning. Man cannot place himself as a pure observer of the problem of God; he is always within the experiment.12

Once this explanation has been made, which he considers cru- cial, the Bavarian theologian has made use of almost all kinds of common proofs in the Treatment of God: the anthropological, the cosmological, and historical-religious ones.

In the anthropological sphere we have frequently seen the ap- peareance of his argument dealing with the sense and happiness of human life, as well as the moral argument on the relation between God and conscience. He affirms the worth of the contents of what is traditionally called “natural law,” even though he recognizes that some of the formulae with which it has been presented are inade- quate in our present setting.

As it has already been said, one of Ratzinger’s most characteristic convictions is that faith in God bears the possibility of un- derstanding reality. Given his openness to scientific arguments, he builds with them the way to cosmological proofs, showing how God’s existence insures the metaphysical intelligibility of the diffe- rent laws and movements of the created world. This being a delicate ground, our theologian carefully shuns the risk of conceiving God as a ground-work of the physical cosmological laws which could reduce Him to a mere function within a cosmovision (in the style of certain “creational” currents), or as a first entity of the same ontolo- gic condition as other entities, even though it be the first one.

His appeal to the history of humanity has not been less frequent when pointing to the existence of God: the examination of the triad polytheism-monotheism-atheism as it has appeared in different cul- tures and religions is a common reflection of his. One may suggest that the history of religions offers him a privileged space on which to centre the anthropological questions on God. On the one hand, this shows his ability to display his speculative arguments within a historic context, and on the other, it confirms his inclination to compare the religious- philosophical arguments of humanity with those of the faith of Israel and that of the Church.

We must add yet another consideration regarding man’s rational access to God. Ratzinger’s trust in man’s reason and in the world’s intelligibility goes hand in hand with the clear conception of the “incomprehensibility” of the divine mystery which always exceeds the measure of our finite understanding. This is why God cannot be instrumentalized or manipulated as a legitimizing element of any instance of power, though unfortunately in history we have painful proofs of this idolatrizing temptation.

Ratzinger connects with the theology of Augustin and Thomas who were able to combine God’s knowability and incomprehensibili- ty without opposing them. In this tradition, the clue to the knowled- ge of God resides in the consideration of the knowing subject, as imago Dei. The notion of imago Dei presupposes, in the first place, that man is endowed with the natural capacity which is nothing less than to know God – because he is the image of God – and moreo- ver presupposes that this capacity cannot embrace God precisely because man is a creature, he is an image which participates in the only divine model. In the second place, Ratzinger maintains that the nucleus of imago Dei is freedom: in order to establish the correspon- dence between God and man he privileges freedom, both divine and human. This being so, the reason why God cannot be grasped com- prehensibly is not only because of his infinite character (as if it were something indefinitely great), but because of his being spiritual and free. God cannot be grasped as an object and unraveled in the uttermost of his being. His revelation is necessarily due to his own free decision. It is only in his free nature that his full identity is accessible in the reciprocal trust of he who gives himself and he who receives, that is to say, in interpersonal love. Any other means of neutral or ob- jective knowledge, even if it seems powerful, is indeed powerless in discovering God’s mystery and ends up taking God’s name in vain.13

A theology on the name of god: he reveals his name and calls us by our name

The theology of God’s Name brings us to what is probably the core of Ratziger’s reasoning. We approach it from the compelling distinctions in his theology between “concept,” “number,” and “name”. If he has denounced the insufficiency of “concept” when it is reduced rationally, he also rejects the “number” when it becomes a simple anonymous measure. He thus wants to avoid an undue theorization or generalization which might diminish the value of the particular. The “name,” instead, expresses that which is proper to each one, his exclusive identity; it identifies him as a singular sub- ject whom must not be submitted to general laws or criteria which reduce him to a mere part of the whole, depersonalizing him.

Well, what characterizes the revelation of God in history is that He wants to manifest His Name freely. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance the Bavarian theologian concedes to this theology of the name of God and its consequences in man’s life. Perhaps it is because of this that the figure of Emil Brunner has appeared in key moments of Ratzinger’s reflections. He has allowed himself to be in- fluenced by the importance which the protestant Swiss theologian concedes to the fact that God reveals His Name, but does not accept the clues with which the latter reads the Scriptures.14

How does the Bible speak of God? An unheard of event occu- rred in history, narrated in the book of Exodus. It is the irruption of Jewish monotheism which will fully become Christian monotheism. All the philosophical-religious history of humanity finds itself sum- moned before the scene in which God reveals his Name to Moses: “’ehyeh ašer ’ehyeh” (Ex 3, 14). Ratzinger concentrates in this scene and comments on its exegetical and philosophical-theological im- plications, so as to display the originality of biblical monotheism. He even affirms that all later reflection is the rethinking of this formula. In that scene, God preserves in part His mysterious cha- racter by giving an answer which at first seems to hide His Name. This marks the essential difference with gods and idols; the di- vine incomprehensibility is respected. Yet He also freely wanted to reveal His identity by making us know his proper Name. In Ratzinger’s opinion, the characteristic of monotheism as opposed to polytheism is not only in defense of the oneness of the absolute before the multiplication of gods. In his judgment, polytheisms so- mehow also recognize that there is a final absolute towards which plurality must be led back, but it is unaccessible to mortals and per- haps to the gods themselves. On the contrary, monotheism appears to be the assertion that the Absolute is not only One but that it can be appealed to by man: it is an infinite You with which the finite you can dialogue. The God of Exodus is not the God of some place but rather the God of the fathers, the God of somebody. And now having manifested His Name he can be called on by the faithful; they can turn to Him personally; they can have a relationship with Him. Through God’s gratuitous initiative, through which He en- counters the faithful, it is also possible that they come to encounter Him. When men discover that God knows them, they can, in turn, know Him and love Him – or else they can choose to hide from Him because they suspect that that knowledge is a threat to their absolute autonomy.15

Ratzinger finds the fullness of the theology of the Name of God in the New Testament, particularly in St. John. According to the fourth gospel Jesus’ mission is to make known to men the name of the Father (John 17:6 and 17:26). Actually Jesus himself is God’s name because his own name (Yeshua) contains God’s name and his mission towards humanity (Yahveh saves). He is the living and ex- tant “Logos” who tells us personally who God is and introduces us to the tri-personal mystery of his intimate life. Ratzinger reminds us that for the New Testament the full imago Dei is Jesus Christ (Col 1:15; 2Cor 4:4) and that therefore it is He who establishes the true “proportion” of correspondence with God. His life – his deeds and words, above all his miracles and the Easter mysteries (passion, death on the Cross, resurrection) – is the great “language” with which God shows us his paternal countenance, filial, loving, in a word: merciful.16 This is the only way through which we discover that the ultimate Foundation of all things is personally Father, and that his creative redeeming action in the Son and the Spirit reveals the ultimate goodness and infallibility of the salvation plan for crea- tion and sin.

In Jesus, this God calls us by our name, entrusts us our vocation through which He incorporates us in his mission, and in this way He definitively personalizes us as sons in the Son. That is why, Ra- tzinger states with a certain provocative force, the problem of the full knowledge of God is resolved by the problem of the following of Jesus.

«His explanation of dogmatic data is always accompanied by an existential preoccupation: how does the reality of the personal life of God affect the concrete life of men? Let us not forget that the illustrated rationalism, which excludes the true revelation of God in history, consequently denies the fact that trinitarian doctrine could be of the slightest practical interest. With his correction towards wholeness, Ratzinger has always revindicated the implications of the trinitarian doctrine for man’s knowledge and morality.» The Holy Trinity by El Greco. Museo del Prado.

God shows us the mystery of his intimacy: divine persons as relations

The revelation of God the Father through his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost opens for us the intimacy of divine life. In other words, “God is as He manifests Himself” in history. What is that unfathomable mystery of intra-divine life? And what interest does it awake in a normal Christian who is not used to enter into such depths? Ratzinger had the courage to talk of these things to uni- versity students. And he has always continued to teach and preach about God to the Christian people. His explanation of dogmatic data is always accompanied by an existential preoccupation: how does the reality of the personal life of God affect the concrete life of men? Let us not forget that the illustrated rationalism, which excludes the true revelation of God in history, consequently denies the fact that trinitarian doctrine could be of the slightest practical interest. With his correction towards wholeness, Ratzinger has always revindica- ted the implications of the trinitarian doctrine for man’s knowledge and morality. As he has not exactly written a Treatise De Deo Trino, it follows that he hasn’t explained equally all the dimensions of this mystery, but that he has privileged those closest to his existential- anthropological interests.

The core of his trinitarian reflection is the definition of the divi- ne “person” as “relation.” To reach this statement he undoubtedly relies on the Scriptures, especially in St. John (Jn 5:19-30; 10:30; 15:5; 17:11,12). Furthermore, a noteworthy influence may come from Au- gustine, who grants a decisive value to the relation of his De Trinitate as opposed to the Arian thesis. And also one must keep in mind – leaping across centuries – the consistency with that category of modern physics, which explains the structure of matter in terms of actuality. From this or other possible influences Ratzinger links the categories of relation and person connecting its intra-divine mea- ning to anthropology, through Christology.

In the Bavarian theologian we perceive a marked interest in over- coming a “substantialist” and “individualist” concept of the human person. In his judgment the notion of person is impoverished when it is reduced to an individual substance enclosed within itself – as has been occurring in western philosophy and in theology itself. In this context must be placed, for instance, his reservations before a certain comprehension of personal self as substance, or before the classic boetian definition of person, or before the risk of a monoist reduction of the augustinian psychological analogy, or, in contrast, Richard de San Victor’s revindication of the concept of person. All of these elements reveal his search for a dialogical, personalist, and existential key to the person – in God, in Christ and in man.

«The same Ratzinger who adopts this “professing” posture adopts the questions men ask themselves, their difficulties and their objections, as the starting point for a Christian reflection on God. In 1968, before presenting the doctrine on God, Ratzinger looks at the restlessness he perceives in society and asks himself why God has become such a problem for men of that generation.»

In the Trinitarian comprehension of God, Ratzinger says, an anthropomorphic concept of person as we know it in human ex- perience is overcome and it is shown that in God the person is the pure relation, not something added to the person, but that the per- son itself consists in that reference. That way of being, relational, is primordial, of the same rank as the substance. It is a new way of being, which goes beyond the traditional classification of the cate- gories of being (substance and accidents) and which is made known to us exclusively through the Trinitarian relation.17 This revindica- tion of the original character of the relation in God is not traduced, in Ratzinger’s theology, into a dissolution of the divine substance in the relations, or, vice versa, into an ultimate absorbtion of the relational in a kind of divine monism. He insists that both unity and multiplicity are original in God. On the other hand, in order to man- tain the unity of the two aspects which constitute the divine person, that of his incommunicability and that of his relational openness, he finds valuable help in his theology of the divine names. Each one of the proper names, while they cannot be transferred, denote a refe- rence to the other and thus opens originally to the comprehension of the person as relation.

Ratzinger maintains that only this faith in one tri-personal God bestows all its content and dignity on the human person. Though the classical world (the Roman, above all) already knows the term and grants the person several legal privileges, there is no doubt that the philosophical-theological debates raised by the new Christian faith have enriched this category in an unimaginable way, relating it to the divine persons. The starting point of this reflection is, once again, the Gospel, in this case Matthew 10:39: “he that shall lose his life for me shall find it.” It is from this that the Christian can discover under a new light, how his self is: “the most mine, that which ulti- mately belongs to us, our own self is at once the least own because we have not received it from ourselves and for ourselves. The self is at the same time what I have and that which I least own.”18 When theology affirms that in God there exists only actual relations, it sheds light on the essential human relationship and its meaning. Man is made for a loving relationaship, for the recognition of a you and a we without which I cannot attain plenitude. If the previous fact we had found in the common experience of all men was “to be-with,” in the light of the trinitarian mystery it is possible to interpret it in the profoundness of its positive meaning – and not in the negative one, as certain modern anthropologies have asserted. Likewise, the fact that each spiritual subject discovers itself “already installed” in reality, will not be inter- preted as an unadmissible impostion but as the most solid and reaso- nable sign of a loving predilection which preceeds us.

Relying on these considerations on the concept of a divine person, Ratzinger establishes a similar comparison between the proper name of the person (Father or Son) and the human experience of paternity or filiation. The intratrinitarian relations between the Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost teach us, since always, the meaning of filial dependence in the loving bond with a Source which is pure paternity. The trinitarian revelation also practices here the critical function of purifying human concepts. Man’s basic experiences, such as frater- nity – or paternity or filiality – can be obscured to such a degree in the course of history that they may be affected by a final ambiguity. We wouldn’t get very far if we had to explain universal fraternity with Cain and Abel or Romulus and Remus as examples. This is why God himself has taken the initiative to reveal the true anthropolo- gical content through Jesus Christ’s filial experience, which teaches us how they are fully accomplished in God: filiation, paternity, and, therefore, fraternity. Once more the trinitarian dogma, in its apparent paradox and apparent uselessness for normal life turns out to be ex- tremely practical, that which enlightens and helps the most.19

To turn to god as our father: prayer

The importance of what we have been saying about divine na- mes and the relationship with divine persons converges existentially in the experience of prayer as the summons from God to man and as the loving answer of the believer. This is one of the dimensions of God’s mystery most loved by our theologian.

The relationship between God’s You and the I of each man has an unmistakable concrete modality, which is prayer. The premise of Christian prayer is precisely that of a non-mechanistic vision of God and the world, but a spiritual and free one. The kind of relationship we call prayer can only be established between two personal freedoms.

Among the different forms of prayer, Ratzinger especially va- lues that of petition, which has often been discussed by secularized thought. He insists that the true condition of man before God is that of the beggar. He refers us to the eucharistic liturgy in which the pe- nitential act invites us to begin the sacramental act with a pleading invocation: “Jesus, have mercy on me!” He asks himself how often we do it with the humble and expectant conscience of the blind beggar who followed Jesus saying those same words along the streets of Jericho (Mk 10:47).20

Only a true prayer of petition and adoration can rescue the Christian man – and especially the theologian – from the danger of empty and sterile erudition. He needs to open his heart from its very depths and receive the initiative of the Resurrected Spirit which urges us to enter into the divine intimacy. The means which teaches that attitu- de is that of Jesus’ prayer, particularly the “Our Father” in which Christ’s unsurpassed mediation concretizes itself to reveal to us God’s face. Christian faith, Ratzinger says, is the explanation of Je- sus’ prayer, of the Only Son of the Father, in which is revealed the full meaning of Christian prayer.

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1 I will now suggest some notes in order to enter into Joseph Ratzinger’s reflections on Jesus Christ’s God. The Bavarian theologian has not written a monograph or a manual formally dedicated to God’s mystery, but has dedicated numerous articles, especially up to the beginning of the 80’s. We shall not study his personal publications after he was elected Pope, nor his pontifical teaching on God’s doctrine.
2 ThesearetheRatzinger’sworksfwehavestudied,with their correspondent abbreviations: Der Gott des Glau- bens und Der Gott der Philosophen (München 1960) (Gott des Glaubens). “Atheismus” in: M. Schimaus-A Lapple (Hrsg.). Warheit und Zeugnis (Düsseldorf 1964) 94-100 (Atheismus). “einleitung zum Kommentar zur Offenvarunskonstitution desII. Vatikanums und Kom- mentar zu Kap. 1,2 und 6 der Knstitution” in: LThK, Erg.Bd.II (1967) 498-528 and 571-581 (Dei Verbum). Einfürhung in das Christentum (München 1968) 73- 150 (Einführung). Die Frage nach Gott (Freiburg 1972 (Die Frage). Dogma und Verkündigung (München/ Freiburg 1973) 87-141 and 201-219 (Dogma und Verkündigung). “Ich glaube an Gott den allmachtigen Vater”: Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift 4 (1975) 10-18 (Gott den allmächtigen). “Theologie und Ethos” in: K. Ulmer (Hrsg.), Die Verantwortung del Wissens- chaft (Bonn 1975) 46-61 (Theologie). Der Gott Jesu Christi. Betrachtungen über den Dreienigen Gott (München 1976) 11.85 (Gott Jesu Christi). “Das Vater unser sagen dürfen” in R. Walter (Hrsg.) Sich auf Gott verlassen. Erfahtungen mit Gebeten (Freiburg 1980). 64-69 (Vater Unser). Theologische Prinzipienlehre. Gott und die Welt. Glauben und Leben in unserer Zeit (Stuttgart-München 2000) 83-96 (Gott und die Welt). Skandalüser Realismus? Gott handelt in der Geschichte (Bad Tölz 2005) Skandalüser).
3 GottderGlaubens,10-11.
4 Gott den allmächtigen, 11. Einfürung, 46-47. Gott Jesu Christi, 61.
5 Einfürung,17ff.
6 Einfürung,137.
7 Dogma und Verkündigung, 87.
8 Eifürung,106.
9 GottdesGlaubens,10.
10 Atheismus. 99. Dogma und Verkündigung, 102.
11 Einführung, 74, 76.
12 Einführung, 136.
13 Gott Jesu Christi, 33 ff.
14 See, for example, Gott des Glaubens, 13-18 and Einfürung, 84 ff.
15 Gott den allmächtigen, 12 which is based on Gal 4, 9 “You have known God, or rather are known by God.”
16 DeiVerbum,512.
17 Einführung,140.
18 Einführung,150.
19 Gott Jesu Cristi, 43 ff.
20 Dogma und Verkündigung, 123-124.

Javier Prades

04 November 2018

There is a widespread opinion to the effect that in the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis humanae, [1] the Catholic Church belatedly accepted principles that had by that time come to be seen as self-evident in most of the civilized world. Some suspected that the Church was embracing a fundamental principle of the Enlightenment after having opposed it for three centuries. Writing in January 1965, John Courtney Murray maintained that the principle of religious freedom was “accepted by the common consciousness of men and nations. Hence the Church is in the unfortunate position of coming late, with the great guns of her authority, to a war that has already been won.” [2]

Such interpretations might be justified if the Catholic Church had simply repeated what had already been recognized, for example, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. But the reader should not underestimate the essentially Christian and Catholic character of the council’s teaching. For a better appreciation of these aspects one cannot do better than to follow the statements of John Paul II over the past thirty-five years. As a young bishop and, after 13 January 1964, archbishop, Karol Wojtyla took a keen interest in the conciliar declaration. Subsequently, as cardinal and pope, he has continued to celebrate the achievements of Vatican II, applying them to changing situations and interpreting them in the light of his own philosophical and theological perspectives.

In his Sources of Renewal, a book written in 1972 for a synod of his archdiocese of Kraków, Cardinal Wojtyla devoted considerable attention to religious freedom. He has returned to the same theme in a number of his encyclicals, such as Redemptor hominis, Centesimus annus, and Veritatis splendor, as well as in many of his speeches and in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. The following quotation from his World Peace Day Message for 1988 is indicative of the importance he attaches to the topic:

Religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights, and for this reason an irreplaceable factor in the good of individuals and of the whole of society, as well as of the personal fulfillment of each individual. It follows that the freedom of individuals and communities to profess and practice their religion is an essential element for peaceful human coexistence. […] The civil and social right to religious freedom, inasmuch as it touches the most intimate sphere of the spirit, is a point of reference for the other fundamental rights and in some way becomes a measure of them.3

At Vatican II Bishop Wojtyla made no fewer than five interventions on religious freedom, two oral and three in writing.4 Thanks to criticisms such as his, the schema was significantly revised. In the initial stages it was little more than an effort to defend the Catholic Church from the charge of being intolerant. But in the end the document did far more. It set forth the basic principles of a positive theology of religious freedom quite different from the liberalism of the Enlightenment.

In his last two interventions, Archbishop Wojtyla expressed his satisfaction with the changes that had been made up to that time. John Paul II’s understanding of religious freedom may be summarized under ten major headings, all of them touched on by the council’s declaration.

A theological doctrine

Although the early drafts of the declaration seemed to treat religious freedom from a perspective similar to that of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the civil constitutions of many states, Archbishop Wojtyla, among others, insisted that it would be unworthy of the council simply to issue a repetitive statement of this type. The world, he said, was not looking to the council for a lesson in political philosophy. Presupposing these basic constitutional principles, the council should present the doctrine of the Church with its basis in divine revelation (IV, 11; V, 293). 

The very principle of religious freedom, Wojtyla contended, was grounded in revelation, which affirms the dignity of the human person as a responsible subject made to the image and likeness of God and destined to enjoy eternal life in union with Christ the Redeemer (V, 11). According to a properly theological anthropology human persons, as moral subjects, achieve their full humanity by acting on their own initiative and with their own responsibility (Sources of Renewal, 23). This is eminently true in the realm of religion, since God cannot be rightly worshiped except by a free decision in the spirit and in truth (John 4:23; III, 767). Adherence to the Christian religion requires faith, a free acceptance of God’s word and of his self-revelation in that word (Sources of Renewal, 23).

The early drafts of Dignitatis humanae, following a post-Enlightenment Scholastic methodology, began by expounding the doctrine as knowable by natural reason and then presented the additional insights obtainable from Christian revelation. Archbishop Wojtyla consistently urged the council to proceed in the opposite direction. Its teaching on religious freedom, he argued, was in fact based on revelation, which is required for human beings to be delivered from captivity to sin and error. If the principle of religious freedom could be perceived to some extent by the light of reason alone, so much the better (V, 293). But the Christian moral order, according to Bishop Wojtyla, “contains in itself the moral order of nature and all the rights of the human person, and yet elevates, animates, and sanctifies them” (III, 767). 

As late as the fall of 1965, the schema of the declaration was still divided into a first chapter with the title “The Doctrine of Religious Freedom Taken from Reason,” followed by a second chapter entitled “The Doctrine of Religious Freedom in the Light of Revelation.” Karol Wojtyla objected that the two chapters taught the same doctrine of freedom from the vantage points respectively of reason and revelation. Revelation, however, gives a deeper understanding of the basis for religious freedom in the dignity of the human person (IV, 11; V, 293). To Wojtyla’s satisfaction the words “Taken from Reason” were in the end stricken from the title of chapter 1. 

In presenting the teaching of the council to his archdiocese of Kraków, Cardinal Wojtyla seemed to be satisfied with the strategy whereby the declaration had expounded the right of religious freedom “primarily on rational principles before proceeding in the second part of the document to expand on it from a theological standpoint, analyzing religious freedom in the light of Revelation.”5

Again, in his first encyclical, Redemptor hominis, John Paul II pointed out that in Dignitatis humanae religious freedom was vindicated not only from a theological perspective but also “from the point of view of natural law, that is to say from a ‘purely human’ position, on the basis of the premises given by man’s own experience, his reason, and his sense of human dignity” (RH 17).
While he expects Catholics to draw their doctrine primarily from revelation, the Pope is conscious of the practical advantages of presenting the doctrine as far as possible in terms that are meaningful to believers and nonbelievers alike.

«Thanks to the input of bishops such as Wojtya, Dignitatis humanae proposed a positive doctrine of religious freedom based upon revelation as well as upon reason.» (Mons. Karol Wojtyla. Photography of Second Vatican Council’s archive).

Positive and negative concepts

Some bishops and theologians, approaching religious freedom as a political problem, wanted the declaration to proffer a purely negative and juridical definition, namely, immunity from external coercion in the practice of religion. Wojtyla was among those who objected to this definition as partial and inadequate. As he put it, this definition corresponds to the notion of religious tolerance rather than freedom (III, 766). The merely negative definition could easily be exploited to promote unacceptable forms of liberalism or indifferentism (IV, 12).

It was imperative, therefore, to work with a positive conception of religious freedom, rooted in a theological understanding of the dignity of the person in relationship with God. In this perspective, freedom is not an end in itself but a means whereby men and women work out their destiny in a manner befitting their dignity as persons. Religious freedom makes it possible for them to commit themselves consciously and deliberately to the transcendent (III, 766; cf. Sources of Renewal, 23).

The positive conception of freedom makes it clear that human persons may not be considered as instruments of society, since society is instituted for their benefit. Religion may then be seen as the highest realization of human nature, consisting in the free, personal, and conscientious adherence of the human mind to God. Since religion by its nature transcends everything worldly, it should be evident that no human authority may interpose itself, coercing people in the intimately personal sphere in which they relate to God (I, 532; Sources of Renewal, 22). In the words of Dignitatis humanae, civil government “would clearly transgress the limits set to its power were it to presume
to command or forbid acts that are religious” (DH 3).

Freedom and Truth

Freedom is given to human beings so that they may personally attain and embrace what is truly good. According to the declaration all men are “at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to that truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth” (DH 2).

These statements are in full agreement with the teaching of John Paul II. In his first speech at Vatican II he faulted the current draft of the declaration because it neglected to emphasize the dependence of freedom upon truth. “For freedom on the one hand is for the sake of truth and on the other hand it cannot be perfected except by means of truth” (I, 531). In this connection he quoted the words of Jesus, “The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). This same theme continues to echo through the present pope’s encyclicals. In Redemptor hominis he asserts that the words of Jesus just quoted:

Contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition for authentic freedom, and a warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom, every superficial and unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world (RH 12).

In Veritatis splendor John Paul II traces many of the recent deviations in moral theology to the denial of the dependence of freedom on truth. Authentic freedom, he says, “is never freedom ‘from’ the truth but always freedom ‘in’ the truth” (VS 64). Later in the same encyclical he asserts: “The essential bond between Truth, the Good, and Freedom has been largely lost sight of by present-day culture” (VS84). In Centesimus annus he pursues the same theme
in its political ramifications:

It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism. (CA 46)

Wojtyla’s analysis of the self-destructiveness of freedom without accountability coincides to a great extent with the reflections of thoughtful writers such as Michael Polanyi and Václav Havel.6

Freedom and Responsibility

Avoiding the excesses of liberalism, Dignitatis humanae stated that “in the use of all freedoms, the moral principle of personal and social responsibility is to be observed” (DH 7). It also asserted: “Religious freedom, therefore, ought to have this further purpose and aim, namely that men may come to act with greater responsibility in fulfilling their duties in community life” (DH 8). These passages responded to the desires of bishops such as Wojtyla that the declaration should emphasize that human beings are responsible to God and to others for the use they make of their freedom. It is not enough, he reminded the Fathers, to say “I am free in this matter” unless one also says, “I am responsible.” This, he said, is the doctrine of the Church of the confessors and martyrs. Responsibility is the necessary complement of freedom (IV, 12).

Commenting on Dignitatis humanae for his archdiocese, Cardinal Wojtyla repeated that liberty and responsibility are mutually interdependent. Unless we are free, we cannot be responsible; and conversely, we cannot evade responsibility for what we do freely (Sources of Renewal, 292).

Rights of conscience

The first draft of Dignitatis humanae seemed to base the right of religious freedom on the personal right to follow one’s conscience. In later drafts this argument was significantly muted. Wojtyla would have agreed, I think, with the following statement of John Courtney Murray, one of the principal drafters of the declaration:

It is worth noting that the declaration does not base the right to the free exercise of religion on “freedom of conscience.” Nowhere does this phrase occur. And the declaration nowhere lends its support to the theory for which the phrase frequently stands, namely, that I have the right to do what my conscience tells me to do, simply because my conscience tells me to do it. This is a perilous theory. Its particular peril is subjectivism the notion that, in the end, it is my conscience, and not objective truth, which determines what is right or wrong, true or false.7

According to Dignitatis humanae “the highest norm for human life is the divine law-eternal, objective, and universal-whereby God orders, directs, and governs the entire universe and all the ways of the human community, by a plan conceived in wisdom and love” (DH 3). The imperatives of the divine law become known to us through the mediation of conscience. For this reason we are bound to follow the judgments of conscience, even when it is erroneous.
Wojtyla, commenting on this teaching, contends that we have the right and duty to follow a certain and true conscience, but that we have no such right to follow an erroneous conscience, although we may have a subjective obligation to obey it. Strictly speaking, he said, conscience is not the means whereby we know the divine law, but only a means of applying the law to concrete acts (III, 766-67).

In Veritatis splendor John Paul II has a great deal more to say about conscience. He points out that the conception of conscience has been deformed by modern thinkers who have lost the sense of the transcendent. They often depict conscience as a supreme and infallible tribunal that dispenses us from considering law and truth, putting in their place purely subjective and individualist criteria such as sincerity and authenticity (VS 32). The voice of
conscience summons us to obey the law of God but does not by itself tell us what that law is. “Because it attests to a higher intelligence and will to which we are subject, conscience arouses a concern or anxiety to find out what course of action is here and now required to do good and avoid evil. Far from overriding authority, conscience on the contrary impels us to seek guidance from competent authority”.8

Limits of religious freedom

An early draft of the declaration stated that no human authority was entitled to exercise coercion to prevent people from following an erroneous conscience. Archbishop Wojtyla commented that this statement should be amended to say that no human power has the right to exert pressure on human persons holding error unless they are doing harm to themselves or to others. Quite evidently parents and other legitimate superiors may exercise a certain pressure on erring persons, proportionate to the gravity of the danger, to prevent harm from being done (III, 768).

At another point the same draft stated that persons may be restrained in the exercise of religious freedom as required to safeguard the common good. This statement, Wojtyla objected, was open to misunderstanding unless false notions of the common good were excluded. In our utilitarian culture, the common good is often equated with the interests of a particular party (III, 768). A subsequent draft stated that religious freedom could be limited “according to juridical norms that were required by the needs of public order” (V, 292). Archbishop Wojtyla objected that this statement was likewise unsatisfactory because it could be understood as permitting human legislators to impose limits on a divinely given prerogative. Only divine law, he argued, could limit a divinely given right. He therefore proposed to substitute wording to the effect that abuses of religious liberty could not be forcibly restrained unless they were orally evil (V, 293; cf. IV, 12-13). Perhaps as a result of Wojtyla’s intervention, the language of the text in numbers 2 and 3 was modified by the insertion of the word “just” before the words “public order.”9

Social ramifications

Religious freedom has social ramifications. As stated in Dignitatis humanae, “the social nature of man itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion; that he should participate with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community” (DH 3). Wojtyla in his interventions at Vatican II had insisted, with the Polish situation in mind, that this right involves the freedom of individuals and communities to transmit their sincere convictions by bearing witness to their faith. It also implies the right of parents to have their children educated in accordance with their religious convictions. These rights are not adequately protected by the principle of tolerance alone (I, 532; III, 766). 

In his first encyclical John Paul II protested against the denial of religious freedom to individuals and communities under totalitarian regimes of the day (RH 17). In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in 1979 he quoted the passage from Dignitatis humanae 3 cited above. The religious needs of individual persons, he stated, are not protected unless freedom is accorded to institutions that serve religion.10 

«Since the council, John Paul II has made religious freedom a central theme in his program for ecumenism and for situating the Church in the world of our day.». (Mons. Karol Wojtyla. Photography of Second Vatican Council’s archive)

In an address of 1995 John Paul II called attention to another threat to religious freedom, which he called “more subtle than overt persecution.” In many democratic societies, he pointed out, the citizens are put under social pressure to keep their religious convictions private and not to let them influence their public behavior. “Does not this mean,” he asked, “that society not only excludes the contribution of religion to its institutional life, but also promotes a culture which re-defines man as less than what he is?”11 This question seems to be particularly pertinent in the United States, where it is taken as almost axiomatic that religion ought not to make itself felt in the public order.

Ecumenical Implications

The Declaration on Religious Freedom originated in the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, where it was drawn up with the intention of removing a serious obstacle to relations with other Christian groups. The state in some traditionally Catholic nations had used its authority to inhibit non-Catholic organizations from publicly professing their faith and worshiping according to their conscience. When the document became separated from the Decree on Ecumenism, its initial preoccupation with the intolerance of established churches was expanded into a concern to vindicate religious freedom as a human right against whoever might oppose it, including atheistic regimes.

Mons. Karol Wojtyla. Photography of Second Vatican Council’s archive.

Archbishop Wojtyla objected to the schema presented in the third session of the Council on the ground that it did not sufficiently distinguish between the issues of Church and state and those of ecumenical action. In the civil sphere, he said, the issue of toleration is central. But in the ecumenical sphere it is not enough to say that different religious groups should tolerate one another.
This program might simply harden the existing differences. The goal of ecumenical action is to overcome schisms and unite Christians in the truth. It should be clearly understood that the purpose of ecumenical dialogue is to make progress toward the full acceptance of truth by all participants. Nothing but the truth will liberate Christianity from its manifold separations (I, 531). Archbishop Wojtyla’s interventions on this subject at Vatican II foreshadow one of the major themes of his pontificate. He is committed to ecumenism as a high priority, but ecumenism does not consist, for him, in ecclesiastical diplomacy. Christ, he holds, wills all his disciples not simply to be one, but to be one in the truth. In an address to the Roman Curia on 28 June 1980, he declared, “The union of Christians cannot be sought in a ‘compromise’ between the various theological positions, but only in a common meeting in the most ample and mature fullness of Christian truth.”12 In his major encyclical on ecumenism, Ut unum sint (1995), he wrote: “The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all to the content of revealed truth in its entirety. In matters of faith, compromise is in contradiction with God who is truth” (UUS 18). John Paul II therefore denies that ecumenical or interreligious dialogue is an alternative to proclamation. Authentic dialogue, he asserts, includes proclamation as an inner dimension of itself. This refusal to compromise stands in perfect agreement with the teaching of Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, which warned against a false conciliatory approach and insisted that the Catholic Church had alone preserved the full deposit of revealed truth and all the means of grace instituted by Christ (UR 4 and 11). Similarly, Dignitatis humanae teaches that God has made known the way of salvation by which we are to serve him and be saved in Christ. “We believe that this one true religion subsists in the catholic and apostolic Church” (DH 1). The declaration explicitly left intact “the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty and men and societies toward the one true religion and toward the one Church of Christ” (ibid.). Religious freedom, therefore, does not foster indifferentism or relativism. The nature of the duties of society toward the true religion will be considered below, under the rubric of Church and state.

Religious violence

In paragraphs that John Paul II would frequently quote in his later writings, Dignitatis humanae taught that no coercion should be used to bring people to profess the true religion. In its second chapter it pointed out that the act of faith, being by its very nature free, cannot be coerced (DH 9). It called attention to the meekness and humility of Christ himself, who refused to impose the gospel by force (DH11). John Paul II agrees that “God absolutely does not want to force us to respond to His word” and that “man cannot be forced to accept the truth.”13 

Turning to the historical record, the declaration insisted that the Church has always taught that the act of faith must proceed from a free and conscientious decision, but it acknowledged that as the Church “has made its pilgrim way through the vicissitudes of human history, there have at times appeared ways of acting that were less in accord with the spirit of the gospel and even opposed to it” (DH 12).

The theme of penance for sins of violence committed in the name of religion was a major component of John Paul II’s program for the celebration of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000. In his apostolic letter Tertio millennio adveniente of 1994 he recalled:

Another painful chapter of history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given, especially in recent centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth. […] From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn for the future, leading all Christians to adhere faithfully to the sublime principle stated by the council: “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over the mind with both gentleness and power.” (TMA 35, quoting DH 1)

At the penitential service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the first Sunday of Lent, 12 March 2000, the Pope asked God’s pardon for sins of seven categories, among which figured sins of violence committed in the service of truth. Then on 23 March, speaking at the memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem, he expressed the deep sadness of the Catholic Church at the persecutions directed by Christians against Jews at any time and any place.14

«When the Church demands religious freedom she is not asking for a gift, a privilege or a permission dependent on contingent situations, political strategies or the will of the authorities. Rather she demands the effective recognition of an inalienable human right. […] It is not a matter of a right belonging to the Church as an institution; it is also a matter of a right belonging to every person and every people.» (John Paul II addresses to a multitude gathered at Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana).

Church and State

In Dignitatis humanae Vatican II taught that the civil government should foster conditions favorable to religious life and safeguard the religious freedom of all its citizens. It rejected any union of Church and State that would authorize the State to force a particular religion upon the population or to prevent persons of different persuasions from publicly practicing or professing their religion. Some voices at Vatican II urged the council to rule out the idea of an established religion, but Cardinal Heenan of Westminster pointed out that the style of religious establishment that obtains in England today is entirely compatible with religious freedom. Thus the council contented itself with saying that “if special legal recognition is given to one religious body, the right of all citizens and religious bodies to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice” (DH 6).

As noted above, the declaration also claimed to be leaving intact the traditional Catholic teaching concerning the duties of society toward the one true Church (DH 1). The Church’s preeminent concern, it later declared, was that she “should enjoy that full measure of freedom which her care for the salvation of men requires” (DH 13). Paul VI, in a message to political rulers issued at the end of the council, put the question, “What does the Church ask of you today?” And he answered: “She tells you in one of the major documents of this council. She asks of you only liberty, the liberty to believe and to preach her faith, the freedom to love God and serve Him, the freedom to live and to bring to men her message of life. Do not fear her. […] Allow Christ to exercise his purifying action on society.”15 These words prefigure the inaugural homily of John Paul II, in which he called on the nations of the world to “open wide
the doors for Christ.”16 

Following Dignitatis humanae and Paul VI, Cardinal Wojtyla in his Sources of Renewal refrained from calling upon the state to give any special privileges to Catholicism as the true religion. He asked only that it assure to the Church “true freedom to preach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society, to carry out its task without hindrance, and to pass moral judgments even in matters relating to politics.”17

In a 1988 visit to the Parliament of Europe at Strasbourg, John Paul II invoked the distinction made by Christ between the things that belong to Caesar and those that do not. “Integralism,” which tends to exclude from the civil community those who do not profess the true faith, oversteps this boundary. Medieval Latin Christianity, in the Pope’s estimation, failed to distinguish sufficiently between the spheres of civil and religious life. Even more deplorable was the early modern principle, Cuius regio eius religio (“The religion of the people is that of the ruler”), which led to forced conversions, cruel expulsions, and bloody martyrdoms.18 In our day the chief offenders against religious freedom have been Marxist atheistic regimes, but the exclusive establishment of certain non-Christian religions in various Asian and African nations has also caused difficulties. In the name of human rights the Pope protests against religious oppression wherever it exists. In the early years of his pontificate he mounted a very effective moral appeal against the Marxist governments in Central and Eastern Europe. In his 1998 visit to Cuba he returned to the theme of religious freedom in the following terms:

When the Church demands religious freedom she is not asking for a gift, a privilege or a permission dependent on contingent situations, political strategies or the will of the authorities. Rather she demands the effective recognition of an inalienable human right. […] It is not a matter of a right belonging to the Church as an institution; it is also a matter of a right belonging to every person and every people.19

Card. Avery Dulles S.J. (1918- 2008)Conclusion

Starting from the objection that Vatican II, in its Declaration on Religious Freedom, merely reaffirmed a principle already acknowledged in the law of most civilized nations, I have sought to show that while the declaration did accept the juridical concept of freedom as immunity from coercion it did not stop at that point. Thanks to the input of bishops such as Wojtyla, Dignitatis humanae proposed a positive doctrine of religious freedom based upon revelation as well as upon reason.20 According to this doctrine the right to freedom is grounded in the dignity of the human person as made to the image of God and as called to share in divine life through Jesus Christ. Freedom is oriented to truth and is a means of achieving personal union with God. This theological perspective, unlike utilitarianism and pragmatism, provides a solid rationale for understanding religious freedom as an inviolable right. Like all genuine freedom, religious freedom is inseparable from the true and the good. Inevitably, too, it entails moral responsibility. Since the council, John Paul II has made religious freedom a central theme in his program for ecumenism and for situating the Church in the world of our day. In some respects, such as in his rejection of integralism, his call for repentance for the religious violence of times past, and his denunciation of the contemporary tendency to confine religion to the private sector, he has gone beyond the council. Just as the conciliar declaration built on the prior work of recent popes, so it continues to bring forth, in interpreters such as John Paul II, things new and old.21 .

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Notes

1. This declaration, approved on 7 December 1965, will henceforth be abbreviated DH.

2. John Courtney Murray, This Matter of Religious Freedom, America 112 (1965): 43. Again in his commentary on DH Murray wrote that the principle of religious freedom has long been recognized in constitutional law, so that “in all honesty it must be admitted that the Church is late in acknowledging the validity of the principle.” See Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America Press, 1966), p. 673.

3. John Paul II, Religious Freedom: Condition of Peace, World Peace Day Message, 7 December 1987, Origins 17, no. 28 (24 December 1987): pp. 493-94.

4. The numbers I through V in parentheses in my text refer to the following: (I) speech of 25 September 1964 in AS III/2, 530-32; (II) written intervention in AS III/2, 838-39; (III) written intervention in AS III/3, 766-67; (IV) speech of 22 September 1965, in name of the Polish bishops in AS IV/2, 11-13; (V) written intervention in AS IV/2, 292-93. The abbreviation AS refers to the Acta synodalia of Vatican II (Vatican City, 1970-78).

5. John Paul II, Sources of Renewal San Francisco. Harper & Row, 1980, p. 409.

6. Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998); Václav Havel, Living in Truth (London: Faber & Faber, 1987).

7. John Courtney Murray S.J., Commentary on Dignitatis humanae in Abbott, ed., Documents of Vatican II, 679 n. 5.

8. For further discussion of these points see Avery Dulles, “The Truth about Freedom: A Theme from John Paul II,” in J. A. DiNoia, O.P., and Romanus Cessario, O.P., Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999), pp. 129-42, at pp. 135-37.

9. Brian W. Harrison, in Religious Liber ty and Contraception (Melbourne: John XXIII Fellowship Coop Ltd., 1988), 99, traces a similar revision in DH 7 (the textual change from “public order” to “objective moral order”) to the influence of Wojtyla’s intervention.

10. John Paul II, “The U.N. Address,” Address to the U.N. General Assembly, 2 October 1979, in Origins 9, no. 17 (11 October 1979): p. 265.

11. John Paul II, Message of 7 December 1995, to an International Conference on Secularism and Religious Freedom sponsored by the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom and held at the Pontifical Athenaeum “Regina Apostolorum.” The text, signed by the Pope himself, is in L’Osservatore Romano (20/27 December 1995), 4 and 7.

12. John Paul II, “The Pope Reviews His Pontificate,” Address to the Roman cardinals and members of the Curia, 28 June 1980, §17, in Origins 10, N. 11 (28 August 1980): p. 171.

13. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1994), pp. 189-90.

14. John Paul II, “The Depth of the Holocaust’s Horrors,” Origins 29 (6 April 2000): p. 679.

15. Vatican II, “Closing Message to Rulers,” in Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America Press, 1966), 730.

16. John Paul II, “The Inaugural Homily,” Origins 8, no. 20 (2 November 1978): p. 307.

17. Wojtya, Sources of Renewal, 417, quoting Vatican II, Gaudium et spes 76.

18. John Paul II, “The United Europe of Tomorrow,” Strasbourg, 11 October 1988, in Origins 18, no. 20 (27 October 1988): p. 332.

19. John Paul II, “Remarks to the Nation’s Bishops,” in Cuba, 25 January 1998, Origins 27, no. 33 (5 February 1998): p. 563.

20. I do not attempt in these pages to measure the influence of Bishop Wojtya as an individual. He was in contact with other bishops, not only Polish but also Italian and French. In many respects his input overlapped with that of Carlo Colombo, Giovanni Urbani, and Alfred Ancel, who spoke for numerous Italian and French bishops. The combined effect of their insistence on the grounding of freedom ontologically in truth is discussed by Walter Kasper in his Wahrheit und Freiheit: Die “Erklärung über die Religionsfreiheit” des II. Vatikanischen Konzils (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag, 1988), pp. 26-28.

21. This article is based on a lecture given at Oxford University under the sponsorship of the Becket Fund on 26 October 2000.

Cardinal Avery Dulles

23 October 2018