Franciscan Penance Library

THE MODERN PROBLEM OF FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST

 Professor Joseph Ratzinger opens part II of his Introduction to Christianity with a discussion of some of the problems modern people have with faith in Jesus Christ.  It seems both presumptuous and foolish to assert that one single figure who is bound to disappear farther and farther into the mists of the past is the authoritative center of all history.  Although faith in the logos, the meaningfulness of being, corresponds perfectly with a tendency in the human reason, this second article of the Creed proclaims the absolutely staggering alliance of logos and sarx [flesh], of meaning and a single historical figure.  The meaning that sustains all being has become flesh; that is, it has entered history and become one individual in it; it is no longer simply what encompasses and sustains history but a point in it.  Accordingly the meaning of all being is first of all no longer to be found in the sweep of the mind that rises above the individual, the limited, into the universal; it is no longer simply given in the world of ideas, which transcends the individual and is reflected in it only in a fragmentary fashion; it is to be found in the midst of time, in the countenance of one man.

 In order to encounter God, we do not need to be a deep mystic or a brilliant thinker like Plato or Socrates.  We need to look at Jesus Christ and follow Him.  He is available to us through the Church which is a visible and concrete entity which exists now.   While the Good News (Gospel) is welcomed by many who are exposed to it, it is not welcomed by all.  Some are quite uncomfortable with a God who is so close to us but also commands us not to just keep a few commandments, but also to “Follow Me”.  As a result, in the last couple of centuries barriers have been erected between Christ and humanity.  

 Professor Ratzinger next starts to describe one of these barriers.  Can we cling at all to the straw of one single historical event?  Can we dare to base our whole existence, indeed the whole of history, on the straw of one happening in the great sea of history?  Such a notion, which even in itself is an adventurous one and seemed equally improbable to both ancient and Asiatic thought, is rendered still more difficult in the intellectual climate of modern times, or at any rate rendered difficult in a different  way, by the fashion in which history  is now dealt with by scholars:  that is to say, by the historico-critical method.  This means that the encounter with history is affected by the same sort of problem that has arisen in the search for being and for the ground of being as result of the methods employed by physics and of the scientific approach to the investigation of nature.  We have seen in our reflections on this subject that physics has renounced the discovery of being itself and confines itself to the “positive”, to what can be proved.  The impressive gain in precision thus made has to be paid for by a renunciation of the truth that in the end can go so far that behind the prison bars of positivism, being, truth itself, disappears, ontology becomes visibly more impossible, and even philosophy has to yield in large measure to phenomenology, to the investigation of mere appearances.

 Here, Professor Ratzinger is referring to what is called “methodological naturalism.”  An example of methodological naturalism is the following:  Since we cannot prove or observe the creation of the universe out of nothing by God, we must assume that the universe came into being by natural means without the intervention of a higher power above humanity.  Scientists have developed all kinds of hypotheses about multiple universes and random fluctuations which exclude the need for God.  Of course, the multiple universes also cannot be observed.  Also, since the intelligent design of life from the nonliving cannot be directly observed, it is assumed that life must have “evolved” from the nonliving by some sort of process which does not need a higher power.  We can see the limitation inherent in “positivism”, the confining of truth to what can be proved by observation. Since “higher powers” cannot be scientifically studied or submit to experiment, it is assumed that humans are the highest being in existence. There are no higher powers.  This is an assumption which also cannot be proved.

Professor Ratzinger then points out that the historico-critical method of interpreting the Old and New Testaments suffers even more from this limitation.  A very similar position threatens to arise in the encounter with history.  The methods of physics are followed as far as they possibly can be, though a limit is set to the process by the fact that history cannot carry verification, which forms the core of the modern scientific approach, to the point of repetition, on which the unique certainty of scientific statements rests.  The historian is denied this satisfaction; past history cannot be reenacted, and verification must be content with the demonstrable soundness of the evidence on which the historian bases his view.   The consequence of this methodical approach is that---as in natural science---only the “phenomenal” or outer surface of what has happened comes into view.  But this “phenomenal” aspect, that is, the surface that can be checked by documentary evidence, is more questionable than the positivism of physics from two points of view.   It is more questionable, first, because it has to rely on the availability of documents, that is, on chance statements, while physics at any rate always has the necessary material realities before it.  It is also more questionable because the expression of the human element in the written evidence is less accurate than the self-expression of nature; its reflection of human depths is inadequate and often positively conceals them; and its interpretation involves man and his personal mode of thinking far more extensively than the interpretation of physical phenomena does.  Accordingly, although one must agree that the imitation of scientific methods in the realm of history undoubtedly heightens the accuracy of its assertions, on the other hand, it cannot be overlooked that here, too, this approach involves a grievous loss of truth that  is even more extensive than it is in physics.  Just as in physics being retires behind appearance, so here to a large extent the only past events that are still accepted as valid are those that are presented as “historical”, that is, tested and passed by historical methods.  It is quite often forgotten that the full truth of history eludes documentary verification just as much as the truth of being escapes the experimental approach.  So it must be said that historical science in the narrowest sense of the term not only reveals but also conceals history.  The automatic result is that it can see the man Jesus all right but can only with difficulty discover the Christ in him, which as a truth of history cannot simply be checked as right or wrong by reference to the documentary evidence.

There is nothing wrong in itself with scholarly historical investigations into Biblical times.  However, when these investigations are combined with a methodological naturalism which excludes the possibility of miracles since they cannot be reproduced or scientifically investigated, then the truth can easily be lost.  Since the miracles of Jesus as well as His other actions and words cannot be scientifically reproduced, these are included or excluded at the will of whoever is giving the historico-critical interpretation.  It is very easy to make Jesus whatever you want Him to be.  He can even be used to support a political agenda.  The miracles and claims of Divinity of Jesus are dismissed as later theological embellishments.  The stupendous claim of Christianity that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) is turned to mush.  This is perhaps one reason why the faith is so often watered down or not even taught.  Teachers are afraid to appear “unscientific” and therefore suppress who Jesus Christ is and give us a more “acceptable” Jesus more to our liking.

Jim Nugent, CFP