Introduction To Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger & Pope Benedict XVI

Author:Joseph Ratzinger & Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger, Joseph & XVI, Pope Benedict]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Religion, Christianity, Catholicism
ISBN: 9781586170295
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2010-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

C. JESUS CHRIST—TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN

1. THE FORMULATION OF THE QUESTION

Let us return once again to the christological question in the narrower sense, so that what we have said does not rest as mere assertion or even seem like an attempt to take refuge in a modern interpretation. We had established that the Christian Yes to Jesus affirms that he is the Christ, that is, the one in whom person and work are identical; from this point we then came up against the unity of faith and love. Inasmuch as Christian faith leads us away from all mere ideas, from any independent body of teaching, to the “I” of Jesus, it leads toward an “I” that is complete openness, all “Word”, all “Son”. We had also already considered the fact that the concepts “word” and “son” are intended to convey the dynamic character of this existence, its pure actualitas. Word never stands on its own; it comes from someone, is there to be heard, and is therefore meant for others. It can only subsist in this totality of “from” and “for”. We had discovered the same meaning in the concept “son”, which signifies a similar tension between “from” and “for”. We could accordingly summarize the whole in the formula, “Christian faith is not centered on ideas but on a person, an ‘I’, and on one that is defined as ‘word’ and ‘son’, that is, as ‘total openness’.” But this now leads to a double consequence, in which the drama of faith in Christ (in the sense of a faith in Jesus as Christ, that is, as Messiah) and its necessary historical development into the scandal of faith in the Son (as faith in the true divinity of Jesus) come to light. For if this is the case, if this “I” is believed in as pure openness, as total being derived from the Father; if with its whole existence it is “son“—actualitas of pure service; if—in other words—this existence not only has but is love—must it not then be identical with God, who alone is love? Is Jesus, the Son of God, not then himself God? Is it not true that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1)? But the opposite question also arises, so that we must say: If this man is all he does, if he stands behind all he says, if he is all for others and yet in such self-abandonment still completely with himself; if he is the one who in losing himself has found himself (cf. Mk 8:35), is he not the most human of men, the fulfillment of the whole concept of humanity? Is it then permissible to resolve Christology (= study of Christ) into theology (= study of God)? Must we not much rather claim Jesus enthusiastically as man and treat Christology as humanism and anthropology? Or should the real man, precisely because he is wholly and properly such, be God, and God be the real man? Ought

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