Franciscan Penance Library

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BELIEVE?

Joseph Ratzinger’s book, Introduction to Christianity, is structured around the Apostles’ Creed, which one could say is itself an “introduction to Christianity”. The creed opens with the words “I believe”. What do these words really mean? First Professor Ratzinger makes it clear that belief in God or even the supernatural is not the center of all religions: “The Old Testament as a whole classified itself, not as ‘belief’, but as ‘law’. It is primarily a way of life, in which, to be sure, the act of belief acquires by degrees more and more importance. Again, by religio Roman religious feeling understood in practice mainly the observance of certain ritual forms and customs. It was not crucial that there should be an act of faith in the supernatural; even the complete absence of such faith did not imply any disloyalty to this religion. As it was essentially a system of rites, the crucial factor was the careful observance of these.” Many years ago I asked a Conservative Rabbi if a person could be Jewish and also an atheist. His answer was yes. Since that is the way it is in other religions, it is not self-evident that the creed should begin with “I believe.”

Professor Ratzinger then goes on to explain that believing was never something that easy: “And when today as believers in our age we hear it said, a little enviously perhaps, that in the Middle Ages everyone without exception in our lands was a believer, it is a good thing to cast a glance behind the scenes, as we can today, thanks to historical research. This will tell us that even in those days there was a great mass of nominal believers and a relatively small number of people who had really entered into the inner movement of belief. It will show us that for many belief was only a ready-made mode of life, by which for them the exciting adventure really signified by the word credo was at least as much concealed as disclosed.” We can see an example of what Professor Ratzinger is speaking about in the life of St. Francis. He certainly “entered into the inner movement of belief” as Professor Ratzinger put it. The same could be said for his followers to a greater or lesser extent. But many in Assisi, including some members of his family, did not do this. For them, belief was “only a ready-made mode of life.”

While we are very different from the people of the 13th century, in some ways we are the same. Professor Ratzinger then goes on to say: “Man is a seeing creature, whose living area seems to be marked off by the range of what he can see and grasp. But in this area of things that can be seen and grasped, that area that determines the living space of man, God does not occur and will never occur, however much the area may be extended. I believe it is important that in principle the Old Testament contains this assertion: God is not just he who at present lies in fact outside the field of vision but could be seen if it were possible to go farther: no, he is the being who stands essentially outside it, however far our field of vision may be extended.” While creation does point to God, it does not show us God or make God visible to us. St. Francis and many others could see where creation was pointing, but many in his time and ours do not. They prefer to remain with what they could actually “see”. The “this worldly” secularism of many people stems from this attitude.

When one says “I believe”, it means one has a very different attitude. As Professor Ratzinger puts it: “It signifies the deliberate view that what cannot be seen, what can in no wise move into the field of vision, is not unreal; that, on the contrary, what cannot be seen in fact represents true reality, the element that supports and makes possible all the rest of reality. And it signifies the view that this element that makes reality as a whole possible is also what grants man a truly human existence, what makes him possible as a human being existing in a human way. In other words, belief signifies the decision that at the very core of human existence there is a point that cannot be nourished and supported on the visible and tangible, that encounters and comes into contact with what cannot be seen and finds that it is a necessity for its own existence.

Such an attitude is certainly to be attained only by what the language of the Bible calls ‘turning back’, ‘con-version’. Man’s natural inclination draws him to the visible, to what he can take in his hand and hold as his own. He has to turn around inwardly in order to see how badly he is neglecting his own interests by letting himself be drawn along in this way by his natural inclination. He must turn around to recognize how blind he is if he trusts only what he sees with his eyes. Without this change of direction, without this resistance to the natural inclination, there can be no belief. Indeed belief is the conversion in which man discovers that he is following an illusion if he devotes himself only to the tangible. This is at the same time the fundamental reason why belief is not demonstrable: it is an about-turn; only he who turns about is receptive to it; and because our inclination does not cease to point us in another direction, it remains a turn that is new every day; only in a lifelong conversion can we become aware of what it means to say ‘I believe’.” Here Professor Ratzinger is showing us we all need to live a life of prayer and penance. If we neglect this we will be drawn into total immersion in the visible world.

Professor Ratzinger finishes this section with the following: “Belief was never simply the attitude automatically corresponding to the whole slant of human life; it has always been a decision calling on the depths of existence, a decision that in every age demanded a turnabout by man that can only be achieved by an effort of will.” We can see that real belief in God, belief that results in action, is difficult since an “effort of the will” is needed. But it is well worth the effort.

 --Jim Nugent (Jim is a life pledged member of the CFP, Regional Minister, formator)