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Benedict XVI on Reason & the Logos
I’ve not read a ton of the scholarly theological writings of Pope Benedict XVI, but from what I’ve read, I’m into about 50% of it. This piece wherein he calls Christianity the “religion of the Logos” is pretty interesting:
“From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the Logos, as the religion according to reason…It has always defined men, all men without distinction, as creatures and images of God, proclaiming for them…the same dignity. In this connection, the Enlightenment is of Christian origin and it is no accident that it was born precisely and exclusively in the realm of the Christian faith….It was and is the merit of the Enlightenment to have again proposed these original values of Christianity and of having given back to reason its own voice… Today, this should be precisely [Christianity’s] philosophical strength, in so far as the problem is whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is not other than a ’sub-product,’ on occasion even harmful of its development — or whether the world comes from reason, and is, as a consequence, its criterion and goal…In the so necessary dialogue between secularists and Catholics, we Christians must be very careful to remain faithful to this fundamental line: to live a faith that comes from the Logos, from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational.”
I do have to ask though - is this just wishful thinking on his part? Has Christianity really always stood for “creative reason”? And what about the Church as opposed to Christianity? Certainly, it seems like they’ve spent a great deal of time coming up with creative reasons to suppress thought like this. But that could be just me. I’m sure he has a slightly better grasp of Christian history and philosophy than I do. I mean, he is the Pope after all.
September 4th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Just because he has a title doesn’t mean he knows more than anyone else. I’m not saying he doesn’t, of course, just that being the Pope doesn’t confer instant knowledge on anyone.
I don’t really agree with this, though. I can see as how he’s the Pope, of course he’s going to say that Christianity is the only way to Enlightenment. I wonder what his view of things before Christianity started are - would he claim that there was no enlightenment before that?
September 4th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
I don’t think he’s actually saying that here though. I think he means the Age of Enlightenment, as in the historical movement.
In any event, I was saying that half-jokingly about him knowing better because he’s the pope. But in all actuality though, he really is a brilliant man and a renowned theologian of many many years and a tremendous number of works. He’s definitely got a better grasp of Christian history and philosophy than I. That’s not remotely something to argue. The thing I would look at of course is the biases which he brings to the table - and which you or I bring to the table, for that matter.
September 4th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Well, no, I wasn’t meaning to say that he doesn’t know it better than most of us do.
Biases can be instructional, so long as the people involved are open minded enough to admit to them.
September 4th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Hehe. Well, he is the pope - that’s got to be an admission of bias if I ever heard one!
September 5th, 2005 at 1:02 am
Christianity as religion according to reason? That’s one of the funniest things I’ve heard.
September 5th, 2005 at 1:12 am
Well I don’t think he’s talking about formal logic. Although may logicians have been ardent Christians and have applied their craft at proving the existence of God. If you look at some of the classical ideas of Reason,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason
Then you find that going back to ancient times, the ability to reason was seen as linked to the ability to model the world according to language. Since the Logos is philosophically & religiously seen as the incarnation of the Word, I don’t think he’s entirely off-base with what he’s saying.
You could also maybe make some other less supportable argument where you use the definition of “reason” as “purpose”, in which case Christianity is most definitely a religion defined by purpose.
Of course that’s me giving him the benefit of the doubt and trying to figure out what his meaning is, rather than simply dismissing it.
September 5th, 2005 at 10:30 am
Of course he’s not off-base. The Reason is a faculty of the Intellect, understood by everyone up until about 300 years ago as being divine in every respect.
Only in the oldest branches of Xtianity have these ideas survived, though. American Christians have mostly never heard of the logos or the pleroma. To understand “reason” as it was understood by our anscestors (like the Thomists, who constructed a beautiful Aristotelian description of Being, or Eckhart, who I can’t possibly pimp enough), we have to break with the modern conception of “logic” as nothing more than the mechanical manipulation of signs. We have to attach our intuition to logic and reason, to see what the author is really getting at.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Tirade immanent. Tim, get under a lead barrier.
Yeah, if you live in America, I can see why you’d think this. In America the loudest Christians are the literalist small-minded character judges who hate everything outside their little neighborhoods and church communities. They seriously ruin Christianity for those of us with more than four braincells to rub together. Am I a pot calling the kettle black? Not really. I’m judging them for being judgemental, thats for sure, but I am certainly not damning them. Most of them will eventually wake up from their ecstatic haze (we can hope), leave their big-screen churches. If they don’t, I guess they just get to continue being loud and obnoxious. At least they serve to cerebral Christians as an example of what not to do!
I am quite tired of loudmouths like Jerry Falwell getting to define what “Christian” means. And I am sick of self-satisfied Christian detractors jumping on Falwell’s definition, endorsing it, arguing for its ultimate validity, because they hate Christianity and like the idea of a definition that makes it look stupid. Its gotten to the point where a few of my professors at college have told me I’m not Christian because Im not a literalist asshole. I don’t fit the “widely accepted definition.” Widely accepted by who? By Jerry Falwell, who is an idiot, and people who hate Christianity, who accept Falwell’s def because they want all Christians to be classified as idiots. If you’re going to force that definition on me, no matter what your motivations, congrats, you’re as big a fucking idiot as Falwell.
Christendom is the birthplace of much philosophy, science, technology, humanitarianism, music, art, literature and culture that is worth having around. Of course Christians did some nasty things in history, but so have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists. Christians have contributed as much as anyone else to well-being, with a few Galileo-ish historical flukes that people focus on to slander us (conveniently leaving out flukes of anyone else!).
If there is not a rational component to Christianity, what then of Augustine? Aquinas? Descartes? If not a component of “creative reason”, what then of Dante, Blake, Milton, Tolkien, Lewis, Dick, Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, Merton, Hayes?
I guess they weren’t really Christian. Well, not according to common parlance, thanks to Jerry Falwell.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Those are all great points. I’d like to explore this further cause I think it’s a great issue.