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HUMANITY OF MANGRAVE CRISIS1. Our theme for today is the "Humanity of Man". We’ll let the Prologue of the Gospel of John, chapter one, verses 1 – 14 be our guide:
2. In his recent speech at the University of Regensburg in Germany [cf. Benedict XVI “Faith, Reason and the University”, 12 Sept 2006], Pope Benedict XVI discussed the grave crisis threatening to sever man from his own humanity. He said that mankind’s response to this crisis depends on its recovery from a profound loss. What has been lost? Both West and East have substantially abandoned the indispensable synthesis of faith and reason. SYNTHESIS3. Hence, there is widespread through societies the notion that human intellectual endeavor is honest only from the perspective of human utility. Speculative and philosophical inquiry, it is argued, should be subservient to the deductive method and rigid rules of evidence—the therapeutic of which, it must be recognized, tends to minimize the possibility of offenses against modern man’s perception of his perceptive faculties. That which cannot be approached or stated in terms of absolute accuracy is relegated to the fringes of individual conscience. Faith, the search for God and sanctification, is deduced as a psychotropic against fear—an emotional balm or an “eye for an eye”. [cf. Mt 5:38] Theology is out. God is out. 4. The Catholic religion rejects the notion that universal essences do not exist in reality and that the human mind is incapable of framing a single concept or truth universally binding on human beings in all times and places. To the contrary, the synthesis of faith and reason is the foundation of the essential human quality or character that elevates man above all other creatures. In other words, it satisfies and commends itself to man’s consciousness as an ethic of humaneness. FLOOD TIDE5. The synthesis of faith and reason may flatly be denied, but it endures as a viable and indissoluble reality, commending itself to man’s ethical consciousness and known by him to be fitting in the moral order of the universe. If religion and ethics and the pursuit of humaneness are deduced to be unworthy of the public square, for heaven’s sake, what do we deduce from the incontestable evidence that we have just emerged from a century luxuriant in human blood? A flood tide of human misery inconceivable to our forebears or the Twentieth Century’s ghoulish, techno-logical architects of war and genocide? 6. We will explore some of the issues that cause grave concern to the Catholic Church and His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. What does the Word of God have to say about man’s humanity, specifically about man’s faith and reason? Can men and women in this generation recover the spiritual and ethical prerequisites necessary for confronting the strange and violent anxieties of the age? WESTERN WORLD7. Regarding the Western world, Pope Benedict identified forms of godlessness (forms of agnosticism and atheism) as the biggest problem. People in Europe (including Russia), and to a lesser extent in the United States, reject the relevance of God in contemporary culture. Man receives nothing from God because nothing is there. Before the incoherent abyss, human life and personhood are accidents (or as it is claimed, a triumph) of situation. 8. Thoughts of eternity are merely reflections on human inadequacy, macro-speculation appropriate to the micro-domain of the individual mind. The human person—alone and unaided—is free to weave the myths that comfort him. To profoundly religious persons living in the Eastern world, however, the moral and spiritual decay of the Western world and its rejection of God are deeply troubling and abhorrent. TECHNO-LOGIC9. Does Western techno-logic have anything to say to these people? Very little, asserted the Holy Father at Regensburg:
10. The human creature has been compromised by sin. Flawed humanity cannot save itself or even avoid sinning. Man who hates sin, continues to sin. Intuitively despising his fallen history, he nonetheless discounts God as a way of whitewashing its profound implications. WITHOUT VOCABULARY11. What happens when a nation’s moral and ethical environment becomes a toxic dump? Human character is not forged; it disintegrates. Personal sacrifice is ridiculed; comfort and pleasure becomes idols. Heroic achievement is impossible; everybody is in therapy. Pope John Paul II of blessed memory, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995), noted the warning signals for a nation that has turned away from God’s truth and mercy:
12. Where does this situation lead? Without a universal vocabulary of truth, and the values which derive from truth, bargaining and negotiating dissolve into unending arguments between special interest groups. Left to itself, fallen mankind has proven its capacity to sustain revenge and violence. Its history of mercy and forbearance, however, is but a record of random accidents. IMMEDIATE QUESTION13. In this century, already scarred by man's inhumanity to man, the cold sterile atheism of the West and the fiery religious extremism of the East collide. To both East and West, Christianity offers mankind the three-fold gift of Jesus Christ: 1.) the restoration of its intimate and absolutely necessary relationship with God, 2.) the path to reconciliation with God and neighbor, and 3.) the generative love that makes human beings more human and, through Christ, more divine. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life (says the Lord); no one comes to the Father, but by me.” [Jn 14:6] 14. At Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI referred to the great unheaval in the Eastern world where the Muslim religion predominates. And he highlighted the public and popular emphasis on violence and threats in the name of religion. An immediate question arises: Should not people who love their god seek the ways of mercy and forgiveness? Not surprisingly, Benedict XVI pointed to theology as a proper starting point to search for an answer. (In the word theology, you hear a form of the Greek Logos, meaning “word” and “reason”.) CONSISTENT MANNER15. Now, keeping in mind that theology is the study of God, Pope Benedict made the point that people live and behave in a manner consistent with their understanding of God. 16. If a person’s understanding of God is dependent on harsh and warlike imagery and teachings, then one’s behavior probably is going to mirror that. If a person perceives God to be far away and unapproachable, cold and impersonal, this would encourage him to act in the same way. And what if one believed that if God told the truth one day and lied the next, or created man in the morning only to destroy him in the evening, it poses no contradiction? GATHERING STORM17. If it’s perfectly okay for God to say one thing and then its opposite, do one thing and then act the opposite way, to be something and then something else, are we really talking about the nature of God? Or is it really the nature of man we’re talking about? The ultimate question is this? Who is in who’s image and likeness: Are human beings truly made in the image and likeness of God? Or do vicious and punitive human beings perceive God as an image and likeness of themselves? 18. Thus, the emergence in the East of fundamentalists prosecuting violence and war in the name of religion is perceived as a form of terror by tolerant persons living in the developed world, a gathering storm of irrationality and superstition looming over the spiritually parched West. ATHEISM AND MILITANCY19. Pope Benedict touched on a great irony that overshadows East and West. You recall what irony is—a turn or twist of circumstances that trumps human expectations. Something gets the better of us. We are outdone, astonished, overpowered. We arrive at a place that confounds our assumptions. Isn’t it ironic, then, that people who seem to be opposite one another actually srive for the same place? That people who believe in a militant, impersonal and unapproachable God on the one hand, and people who don’t believe in God on the other are both lacking in mercy and forgiveness, tolerant of emerging tyranny, and evidencing a profound disregard for human life. 20. Does it surprise you that atheism and militant religious extremism can end up at the same place—prideful human beings who are unable and unwilling to submit to mercy and forgiveness? Secularism and religious radicalism meet in the public square. Immorality and violence collide in the heart of darkness. These and worse ills are what Pope Benedict calls “…the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it”. ["Faith, Reason and the University"] FACE OF TRUTH21. The Holy Father, at Regensburg in Germany, made a bold and provocative statement. Speaking in the name of Christ and the Catholic Church, he said Christian faith offers something vital to both the secular Western world and the militant Eastern world. Christianity offers to East and West an example of faith supported by reason. Recall the Greek word Logos which means “word”. Logos also means “reason”. Let’s go to the Prologue of John’s gospel, chapter one, verses 1- 5:
22. “In the beginning was the Logos” writes John. But Logos also means “Truth” and “reason” by which Truth is understood: In the beginning was the (Truth), and the (Truth) was with God, and the (Truth) was God. Christians know that the Word, the Truth, is a person. Truth has a human face. In his encyclical Faith and Reason, Pope John Paul II wrote:
MOTION AND REST23. St. Thomas Aquinas said, Think of reason as you would—motion. Think of understanding as you would rest. Reason is to understanding as motion is to rest. As human activity is essential for a good rest, so, in the same way, reason is needed for understanding. A human being is called by God to reason properly and to act reasonably. This is why the pursuit of wisdom is hard work and why Christians treasure the wisdom of God. 24. How can anyone claim to be a person of faith only to turn and condemn the use of human reason? It is precisely by putting on the “mind of Christ” [1Cor 2:16] that human reason itself bears the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ—the divine Word, Reason and Truth. The “mind of Christ” is not the slogan of a regime of conformity, nor is it a shield under which a pitiable person hides his irredeemable human intellect before God. To reject the vibrant and dynamic use of reason in the pursuit of truth would be like going to sleep and never waking up. PERSONAL FREEDOM25. Man uses reason most nobly in his pursuit of God. I use my human reason to grow in the knowledge of God and the moral life. I use my human reason to engage God in a dynamic, personal relationship. I use reason to understand the true meaning of love and mercy. I use reason to become a more human human being. Again, from Faith and Reason, I quote Pope John Paul II who said:
26. Personal freedom is the gift of a loving God who wants his faithful followers to serve him and each other—first and foremost by witnessing a life of mercy and forgiveness: "If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." [Mt 6:15] "TRUE REVOLUTION"27. Now, through the use of reason, we may understand our Holy Father’s reference to the words of the learned Christian emperor of the fourteenth century (Manuel II Paleologus): “God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature.” [cf. "Faith, Reason and the University"] To act reasonably is to respect all human life, from the innocent and helpless unborn to the elderly deserving of the grace of natural death. The late Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk at Gethsemane in Kentucky, expressed it most eloquently for this generation:
28. Motivated by this compelling truth, we may confidently state: In the West, the practice of destroying the weak and innocent members of societyin the name of cold-blooded convenience—may the lives of over 40 million unborn aborted babies never be forgotten—must end! Rampant immorality and unethical conduct—to an extent unparalleled in history—must end. And with a view to the East, the practice of attacking and killing people in name of tribal loyalties and religion must end. Harsh and repressive laws that destroy personal freedom and punish the use of right reason must end. RENOUNCE REVENGE29. Both East and West must renounce any temptation to revenge; human beings don’t have the power to give meaning to something that is inherently irrational and barbaric. Moreover, it is a grave offense to divine and human dignity to accept war as if it were merely a lesser degree of peace or any other kind of killing program in the name of pity. 30. Pope Benedict, in his university speech, was mindful of Ephesians 3 when he remarked that the love of God and neighbor transcends human knowledge. God’s love overturned all human reason by the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos, a man like us in all things but sin—this precisely so that Christ himself should win back human reason and unite it to its proper end. The eternal Logos, that is to say the Word and the Truth, is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ:
INTIMACY WITH GOD31. Christianity has much to say to East and West: 1.) All human journeys ultimately are a search for the truth, 2.) Truth and goodness cannot be separated, and 3.) God comes to meet his people. The search for truth leads to a person in whom impeccable goodness is mercy. That person is Christ. The Lord Jesus brings intimacy with God. He offers the fulfillment of our humanity— holiness, justice and loving relationships, and the demands of mercy. Christ unites and perfects the sacramental bond of faith and reason. Thus, we confidently witness that Christ establishes the divine conditions for true human freedom here on earth and the authentic peace that it generates. 32. Jesus Christ says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” [Rev 3:20] How personal! How intimate! Is it too hard for you to open your heart to him? Jesus is not far away; he is very near. He is not confined to heaven, that you should say, Who will go to the right hand of the Father and bring him down that we may learn from him? VERY NEAR33. Neither is the love of Christ beyond man’s reason, that you should say, Who will abandon his humanity that he may approach the God who made him? But the knowledge of Jesus—Son of God and Son of Mary—is very near to you; his love is the substance of your faith and your reason, so that having the knowledge of God, you:
34. The late Dag Hammarskjöld (d. 1961), a citizen of Sweden and Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time of his death, once said:
COMPLEMENTARITY35. Pope Benedict would agree with Mr. Hammarskjöld’s basic idea, which the Secretary-General expressed over 50 years ago. Yes, God is God, and God’s existence doesn’t depend on whether mankind or any individual man believes in him. And, yes, by rejecting God, the human person loses the truth and meaning of his own humanity. God is light itself. The lamp is our human personhood. A person without God is a lamp without light. “If, then, the light in you is darkness, (says the Lord), how great is the darkness!” [Mt 6:23] But our Holy Father would critique the very last part of Mr. Hammarskjöld’s statement. 36. Pope Benedict would say, God is not beyond all reason; faith in God is not beyond all reason. Why? Human reason is the profound and necessary complement to faith. This complementarity makes possible man's participation in the divine self-communication of God. Faith assisted by reason enables man to consecrate the fullness of his humanity to God, that God's image and likeness may be made complete in him. WORST TERROR37. To take reason away from faith would be like severing sexuality from human personhood. Such a thing is inconceivable. Can you imagine the endless miscommunication and misunderstanding that would result? That, more or less, is exactly what has happened in the secular West and radical East. In the name of religion, and in the name of no-religion, people have abandoned reason. This is counterproductive to human living, the good of various cultures, and the need for peaceful international relations. 38. Without God, the meaning of human life is lost. And man’s capacity to sustain his essential moral goodness and extend it throughout society, absent a shared vocabulary of virtue and goodness, is fatally diminished. Though charity is not impossible even for sinful human beings, it remains more an illusion than reality. Absent the vigorous and dynamic use of right reason, the worst form of terror could emerge: the dark despair of a world of people broken by disorder and the unshakable impression that human life has no intrinsic meaning. Without God, the community of man suffocates in bleakness, unable to sustain its hope as it confronts the spectre of wretched strangers huddled together in a futile attempt to slow decay and final collapse. "HANDMAID OF THEOLOGY"39. Needed urgently in the radical East and and secular West is the personal freedom that respects the full use of human reason; indeed, human reason and faith in God together are absolutely necessary. Neither can be fulfilled without the other. Nevertheless, human reason serves faith: Reason is the "handmaid of theology". Both faith and reason serve man who accepts the call to serve God and neighbor. 40. The time for making excuses—I have to stop thinking in order to make room for faith--grows short. [cf. Faith, Reason and the University] Now we (and “we” must refer to all men and women of good will) must say, My human reason impels me to search for and understand more perfectly the God of love. My human reason hungers to be fulfilled with the knowledge of love for my God and my neighbor. All my true desires, my authentic hopes and dreams lead me to “search for a person”. The person, of course, is Jesus Christ in whom love, mercy and truth are personal and intimately real. GIFT OF WISDOM41. All human beings share in the goodness of God. We are made in the image and likeness of God who is goodness itself. Nevertheless, without God, human beings can’t hope to sustain mercy and forgiveness as a way of life. Only with God is this possible. We see goodness and truth in the face of Jesus Christ. If once we were in doubt about goodness and truth, all doubt is erased in the person of Jesus Christ. The Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, shows us the way. He reveals the truth to us. He teaches us to live a holy way of life. 42. More than any other single virtue, the Holy Spirit’s gift of wisdom confers on the attentive disciple the surpassing peace which only Christ can give. So if you want to understand, you’re going to have to think—the deeper the subject, the deeper your use of reason. You can be trained without the use of your reason, but you can never understand without use of reason. ACTING REASONABLY43. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that reason is the first principle of all human acts. Human beings need reason, taught St. Thomas, to correctly handle the practical things of the material world. More important, he wrote, reason is needed to understand the things we cannot see: ideas, concepts, and truth. Our Lord commanded his Church to be peaceable and to use right reason in all things. From its beginnings in Jerusalem, the Church has taken this command seriously:
44. When the Lord Jesus commissioned seventy disciples and sent them out two by two, he made a few strong points. He told them to speak clearly and well. He wanted them to reason properly (speculative) and act reasonably (practical). Threats and coercion are not acceptable. The Gospel of Luke illustrates the point:
PRIMACY OF LOVE45. Therefore it is the “mind of Christ” [cf. 1Cor 2:16] that the leaders of families and nations encourage the virtuous exercise of faith assisted by right reason. 46. Human love of God is intended to surpass the human knowledge of God. Great care should be taken, however, not to manipulate or distort the primacy of love over knowledge. [cf. Eph 3:19] Nonetheless, authentic love cannot evade knowledge and the right use of reason by making an “end run” around them. "SURPASSING WORTH"47. To the contrary, one’s love of God gives birth to his knowledge of God. Love rises above that which it has known intimately. How can love be perfected apart from the knowledge of God? What is faith but the desire to drink from the chalice of God’s truth? And union with God? Is it not the fulfillment of man’s hope in the verity of God’s command to forgive not “seven times, but seventy times seven”? [Mt 18:22] 48. Pray that the whole world may come to know the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ. Respect and defend the right to life and the dignity of all human beings—always and everywhere—from the unborn to the grace of natural death! Respect the right of all persons—in all times and places—to freely choose for God in the way that God himself has called them! In the words of Pope John Paul II, we pray that all men and women of good will may come to: “…full awareness of (man’s) dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpassing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence”. [Redemptor Hominis, no. 30 (1979)]
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