Franciscan Penance Library

The Primacy of Acceptance


In Part II of Introduction to Christianity, Professor Joseph Ratzinger has been examining what it means to be a Christian, in other words, the “spirit of Christianity”.  Professor Ratzinger has given several principles of Christianity.  The last one is the principle of acceptance.  Professor Ratzinger explains this by contrasting Christian hope with Marxist hope. In Marxism, “redemption” is brought about by class struggle until the utopia of a classless society is achieved. Thus redemption is brought about by what we do.  Professor Ratzinger then contrasts this with Christianity. 


Accordingly, from the point of view of the Christian faith, man comes in the most profound sense to himself, not through what he does, but through what he accepts. He must wait for the gift of love, and love can only be received as a gift. It can-not be "made" on one's own, without anyone else; one must wait for it, let it be given to one. And one cannot become wholly man in any other way than by being loved, by letting oneself be loved. That love represents simultaneously both man's highest possibility and his deepest need and that this most necessary thing is at the same time the freest and the most unenforceable means precisely that for his "salvation" man is meant to rely on receiving. If he declines to let himself be presented with the gift, then he destroys himself. Activity that makes itself into an absolute, that aims at achieving humanity by its own efforts alone, is in contradiction with man's being. Louis Evely has expressed this perception splendidly:
 

The whole history of mankind was led astray, suffered a break, because of Adam's false idea of God. He wanted to be like God. I hope that you never thought that Adam's sin lay in this.... Had God not invited him to nourish this desire? Adam only deluded himself about the model. He thought God was an independent, autonomous being sufficient to himself; and in order to become like him he rebelled and showed disobedience.
 

But when God revealed himself, when God willed to show who he was, he appeared as love, tenderness, as outpouring of himself, infinite pleasure in another. Inclination, dependence. God showed himself obedient, obedient unto death.
 

In the belief that he was becoming like God, Adam turned completely away from him. He withdrew into loneliness, and yet God was fellowship.


This whole thing indubitably signifies a relativization or works, of doing; St. Paul's struggle against "justification by works" is to be understood from this angle. But one must add that this classification of human activity as only of penultimate importance gives it at the same time an inner liberation: man's activity can now be carried on in the tranquility, detachment, and freedom appropriate to the penultimate. The primacy of acceptance is not intended to condemn man to passivity; it does not mean that man can now sit idle, as Marxism claims. On the contrary, it alone makes it possible to do the things of this world in a spirit of responsibility, yet at the same time in an uncramped, cheerful, free way, and to put them at the service of redemptive love.
 

As Christians, we are not enslaved to a self-centered autonomy which will only destroy us.  Also, we are not enslaved to some sort of political program which will supposedly bring us “salvation”.  Our “program” is to do what the Lord wants from us at this moment. Of course, this could mean fulfilling the duties of our vocation, but it could also mean the demands of love right now. Many of us can see the results of secular programs and policies which are meant to achieve something good but trample under individuals and even groups of people.
 

Yet another point emerges from this train of reasoning. The primacy of acceptance includes Christian positivity and shows its intrinsic necessity. We established that man does not create his specific quality out of his own resources; it has to come to him as something not made by himself; not as his own product, but instead as a free exchange that gives itself to him. But if this is so, then it also means that our relation to God ultimately cannot rest on our own planning, on a speculative knowledge, but demands the positivity of what confronts us, what comes to us as something positive, something to be received.  Christians accept an event in history which occurred two thousand years ago as God’s gift of Himself to us which is of ultimate importance to us and around which we center our lives. Of course, this is a scandal to a world which cannot accept.

The principle of the Christian’s acceptance of God’s Gift of Himself in Jesus Christ, is the last of Professor Ratzinger’s six principles of what it means to be a Christian, or the “spirit of Christianity”.  These are: 1. Christians do not exist as isolated individuals but have to function as part of the whole Church.  However, Christ (the head) and the Church (the body) exist for the individual. 2.  Just as Christ came for us and died on the cross for us and not for himself, the Christian ultimately must also live for and serve others.  3.  God comes to us in the “disguise” of a Man and also a very human Church which we can very easily fail to recognize.  4.  God demands of us a response beyond measure which seems impossible, and yet He also gives us gifts beyond measure and especially the gift of Himself in Jesus Christ.  5. The finality of salvation for mankind comes from Jesus Christ and there is nothing beyond Him for us to strive towards.  6.  Christianity consists of the acceptance of salvation from Jesus Christ.  We have done nothing to achieve this.


But one other question is still left: If one keeps one's eyes on the six principles, as we have done, will one have the same experience as the physicists who looked for the primary stuff of being and thought at first they had found it in the so-called elements? But the more they investigated, the more elements were discovered; today over a hundred are known. So they could not be the ultimate thing that it was thought had been discovered in the atoms. They, too, turned out to be composed of elementary particles, of which again so many are already known that one cannot stop at them but must launch out afresh in the hope of still meeting the primary matter. In the six principles we have identified the elementary particles, so to speak, of Christianity, but must there not exist behind these one single, simple center? Such a center does exist, and I think we can say, after all that we have said and without any danger of using a mere sentimental phrase, that the six principles finally coalesce into the one principle of love. Let us be blunt, even at the risk of being misunderstood: the true Christian is not the denominational party member but he who through being a Christian has become truly human; not he who slavishly observes a system of norms, thinking as he does so only of himself, but he who has become freed to simple human goodness. Of course, the principle of love, if it is to be genuine, includes faith. Only thus does it remain what it is. For without faith, which we have come to understand as a term expressing man's ultimate need to receive and the inadequacy of all personal achievement, love becomes an arbitrary deed. It cancels itself out and becomes self-righteousness: faith and love condition and demand each other reciprocally. Similarly, in the principle of love there is also present the principle of hope, which looks beyond the moment and its isolation and seeks the whole. Thus our reflections finally lead of their own accord to the  words in which Paul named the main supporting pillars of Christianity: "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (I Cor 13: 13).
 

We can say that the “spirit of Christianity” rests on love. It is true that our secular agnostic society also emphasizes love, but without faith and the hope which comes from faith.  When we detach love from faith in the God who tells us what love really is and how we are to love, we end up detached from reality and in the morass of conflicting human claims and ideas.  We need to adhere to the six principles of Christianity which Professor Ratzinger has given us, but above all, we need to adhere to the love which is behind them all.


--Jim Nugent, CFP