3. The Permanent Significance of the Christian Faith
Does this amount to a simple rejection of the Enlightenment and modernity? Certainly
not! From the very beginning, Christianity has understood itself to be the religion of the Logos,
to be a religion in keeping with reason. When it identified its forerunners, these were primarily,
not in the other religions, but in that philosophical enlightenment which cleared the
road from the various traditions that cluttered it in order to turn to the search for truth and
to turn toward the good, toward the one God who is above all gods. As a religion of the persecuted,
and as a universal religion that was wider than any one state or people,
it denied the government the right to consider religion as part of the order of the state,
thus stating the principle of the liberty of faith. It has always defined men -- all men
without distinction -- as creatures of God, made in his image, proclaiming the principle that they
are equal in dignity, though of course within the given limits of societal order. In this sense,
the Enlightenment has a Christian origin, and it is not by chance that it was born specifically
and exclusively within the sphere of the Christian faith, in places where Christianity, contrary
to its own nature, had unfortunately become mere tradition and the religion of the state.
Philosophy, as the investigation of the rational element (which includes the rational element in
our faith), had always been a positive element in Christianity, but the voice of reason had become
excessively tame. It was and remains the merit of the Enlightenment to have drawn attention
afresh to these original Christian values and to have given reason back its own voice.
In its Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the Second Vatican Council restated this
profound harmony between Christianity and the Enlightenment, seeking to achieve a
genuine reconciliation between the Church and modernity, which is the great patrimony
of which both parties must take care. This means that both parties must
reflect on their own selves and be ready to accept correction. Christianity must always remember that
it is the religion of the Logos. Christianity is faith in the Creator Spiritus, from whom comes
everything that is real. Precisely this ought to give Christianity its philosophical power today,
since the problem is whether the world comes from an irrational source, so that reason would be
nothing but a "by-product" (perhaps even a harmful by-product) of the development of the world,
or whether the world comes from reason, so that its criterion and its goal is reason.
The Christian faith opts for this second thesis and has good arguments to back it up, even from
a purely philosophical point of view, despite the fact that so many people today consider the
first thesis the only "rational" and modern view. A reason that has its origin in the irrational and
is itself ultimately irrational does not offer a solution to our problems. Only that creative
reason which has manifested itself as love in the crucified God can truly show us what life is.
The dialogue between those outside the Church and us Catholics, us Christians; is a matter of great
urgency, and we must at all costs remain faithful to this basic principle of living a faith that
proceeds from the Logos, from creative reason, and is therefore open to all that is truly rational.
But at this point, speaking as a believer, I should like to make a proposal to those outside
the Church. In the age of the Enlightenment, the attempt was made to understand and define the
essential norms of morality by saying that these would be valid etsi Deus non daretur, even if God
did not exist. In the situation of confessional antagonism and in the crisis that threatened the
image of God, they tried to keep the essential moral values outside the controversies and to
identify an evidential quality in these values that would make them independent
of the many divisions and uncertainties of the various philosophies and religious confessions.
The intention was to guarantee the bases of life in society and, in more general terms,
the bases of humanity. At that time, this seemed possible, since the great fundamental
convictions created by Christianity were largely resistant to attack and seemed undeniable.
But that is no longer the case. The search for this kind of reassuring certainty, something
that could go unchallenged despite all the disagreements, has not succeeded. Not even Kant's
truly stupendous endeavors managed to create the necessary certainty that would be shared by all.
Kant had denied that God could be known within the sphere of pure reason, but at
the same time, he had presented God, freedom, and immortality as postulates of practical reason,
without which he saw no coherent possibility of acting in a moral manner. I wonder if the
situation of today's world might not make us return to the idea that Kant was right?
Let me put this in different terms: the attempt, carried to extremes, to shape human
affairs to the total exclusion of God leads us more and more to the brink of the abyss,
toward the utter annihilation of man. We must therefore reverse the axiom of the Enlightenment
and say: Even the one who does not succeed in finding the path to accepting the existence of God
ought nevertheless to try to live and to direct his life veluti si Deus daretur,
as if God did indeed exist. This is the advice Pascal gave to his non-believing friends,
and it is the advice that I should like to give to our friends today who do not believe.
This does not impose limitations on anyone's freedom; it gives support to all our human
affairs and supplies a criterion of which human life stands sorely in need.
Our greatest need in the present historical moment is people who make God credible in
this world by means of the enlightened faith they live. The negative testimony
of Christians who spoke of God but lived in a manner contrary to him has obscured the image
of God and has opened the doors to disbelief. We need men who keep their eyes fixed on God,
learning from him what true humanity means. We need men whose intellect is enlightened
by the light of God, men whose hearts are opened by God, so that their intellect can
speak to the intellect of others and their hearts can open the hearts of others. It is
only by means of men who have been touched by God that God can return to be with mankind.
We need men like Benedict of Nursia, who, in an age of dissipation and decadence,
immersed himself in the uttermost solitude. Then, after all the purifications he had to undergo,
he succeeded in rising again to the light. He returned and made his foundation at Monte Cassino,
the "city on the hill'' where, in the midst of so many ruins, he assembled the forces from which a
new world was formed. In this way, like Abraham, Benedict became the father of many peoples.
The recommendations to his monks with which he concludes his Rule show us, too, the path that
leads on high, away from the crises and the ruins: Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which
separates from God and leads to hell, so is there is a good zeal which separates from evil
and leads to God and life everlasting. Let monks, therefore, exercise this zeal
with the most fervent love. Let them, that is, give one another precedence. Let them
bear with the greatest patience one another's infirmities, whether of body or of character....
Let them practice fraternal charity with a pure love. Let them fear God.... Let them
prefer nothing whatever to Christ. And may he bring us all alike to life everlasting.