2. The Significance and Limits of Today's Rationalistic Culture
We must now investigate these two questions. The first asked whether we have at last achieved
the philosophy that is universally valid and completely scientific, a philosophy in which the
reason common to all men finds expression. We must begin by replying that we have undoubtedly made
important gains that can claim a general validity: the assurance that religion cannot be imposed by
the state but can only be accepted in liberty; the respect of the fundamental rights of man,
which are equal for all; the separation of powers and the control of power. These are fundamental
values, which we acknowledge to be generally valid; but we cannot imagine that they can be
realized in the same manner in every historical context. The sociological presuppositions for
a democracy based on political parties, as in the West, do not exist in every society,
and in the great majority of historical contexts, the total religious neutrality of the state must
be considered an illusion. This brings us to the problems raised by the second question; hut
let us first clear up the question of whether the modern philosophies inspired by the Enlightenment,
taken as a whole, can be considered the last word of that reason which is common to all men. These
philosophies are characterized by their positivist -- and therefore anti-metaphysical -- character,
so that ultimately there is no place for God in them. They are based on a self-limitation
of the positive reason that is adequate in the technological sphere but entails a mutilation
of man if it is generalized. The result is that man no longer accepts any moral authority apart
from his own calculations. As we have seen, even the concept of liberty, which initially seemed
capable of expanding without any limits, leads in the end to the self-destruction of liberty itself.
It is true that the positivist philosophies contain important elements of truth; but these
are based on a self-limitation of reason that is typical of one determined cultural situation,
that of the modern West, and, as such, certainly cannot be considered the last word of reason.
Although they may seem totally rational, they are not in fact the voice of reason. They, too,
have their cultural ties, since they are linked to the situation of the West today. This is why they
are not that philosophy which one day could enjoy validity throughout the whole world.
Above all, however, we must affirm that this Enlightenment philosophy,
with its related culture, is incomplete. It consciously cuts off its own historical roots,
depriving itself of the powerful sources from which it sprang.
It detaches itself from what we might call the basic memory of mankind,
without which reason loses its orientation, for now the guiding principle is that man's capability
determines what he does. If you know how to do something, then you are also permitted to do it;
to know how to do something, but not be able to do it, is a state of affairs that no longer exists,
since it would run counter to liberty -- which is the absolute, supreme value.
But man knows how to do many things, and this knowledge increases all the time.
If this know­-how does not find its criterion in a moral norm, it becomes a power for destruction,
as we can already see in the world around us. Man knows how to clone human beings, and therefore
he does so. Man knows how to use human beings as "storerooms" of organs for other men,
and therefore he does so. He does so, because this seems something demanded by his own liberty.
Man knows how to build atomic bombs, and therefore he makes them, and he is willing
in principle to use them, too. Even terrorism is ultimately based on this modality of man's
"self­-authorization", not on the teachings of the Qur'an. The radical detachment of
the Enlightenment philosophy from its roots ultimately leads it to dispense with man.
The spokesmen of the natural sciences tell us that man basically does not possess any liberty-in
total contradiction of the starting point of the whole question. The more advanced spokesmen
of a philosophy that is clearly separated from the roots of the historical memory of humanity
tell us that man ought not to imagine that he is something different from all other living beings.
And it follows that man ought not to be treated any differently from them.
We asked two questions: whether the rationalistic (positivist) philosophy is strictly rational,
and therefore universally valid, and whether it is complete. Is it enough on its own?
May, or indeed must, it abandon its historical roots to the sphere of the dead past,
that is, to the sphere of that which can claim no more than a subjective
validity? Our answer to all these questions must be an unambiguous No. This philosophy expresses,
not the complete reason of man, but only one part of it. And this mutilation of reason means
that we cannot consider it to be rational at all. Hence, it is incomplete and can recover
its health only through reestablishing contact with its roots. A tree without roots dries up...
In affirming this, we are not denying all the positive and important contributions
of this philosophy. Rather, we are stating that it needs to be completed,
since it is profoundly incomplete. And this brings us back to the two controversial points
in the preamble to the European Constitution. The failure to mention Christian roots is not the
expression of a superior tolerance that respects all cultures in the same way and chooses not to
accord privileges to any one of them. Rather, it expresses the absolutization of a way of thinking
and living that is radically opposed (inter alia) to all the other historical cultures of humanity.
The real antagonism typical of today's world is not that between diverse religious cultures;
rather, it is the antagonism between the radical emancipation of man from God,
from the roots of life, on the one hand, and the great religious cultures, on the other.
If we come to experience a clash of cultures, this will not be due to a conflict between
the great religions, which of course have always been at odds with one another but,
nevertheless, have ultimately always understood how to coexist with one another. The coming clash
will be between this radical emancipation of man and the great historical cultures. Accordingly,
the refusal to refer to God in the Constitution is not the expression of a tolerance that wishes
to protect the non­theistic religions and the dignity of atheists and agnostics;
rather, it is the expression of a consciousness that would like to see God eradicated once and
for all from the public life of humanity and shut up in the subjective sphere of cultural residues
from the past. In this way, relativism, which is the starting point of this whole process, becomes
a dogmatism that believes itself in possession of the definitive knowledge of human reason, with
the right to consider everything else merely as a stage in human history that is basically obsolete
and deserves to be relativized. In reality, this means that we have need of roots if we
are to survive and that we must not lose sight of God if we do not want human dignity to disappear.