5. Theology, Culture, and Life
19. Theology in the Dialogue between Faith and Culture
The First Vatican Council solemnly affirmed that no real discrepancy between what faith teaches and what right reason discovers is possible. It also taught that faith and reason help each other.1
Throughout her history, the Church has fostered the development of the arts and sciences. However, she has also warned of the dangers of scientific research that oversteps its limits.2 Theology, as supernatural wisdom, can both point out these limits and expose errors presented as scientific discoveries.3
The Second Vatican Council has declared that there is a close and harmonious relation between Christian faith and human culture. Culture, according to the Council, is any reality with a human or humanizing value; it is not everything that mankind creates or produces, or the traditional customs of each people, but only what is useful for developing, perfecting, and humanizing mankind. The Church wants to enter into a dialogue with the entire human family about the problems besieging modern society. “The Council will clarify these problems in the light of the Gospel and will furnish mankind with the saving resources which the Church has received from her founder under the promptings of the Holy Spirit.”4
The following aspects of the relation between faith and culture are worth considering in depth:
· Faith is not merely a cultural product.
· The supernatural end of the Church is evangelization.
· Theological pluralism has limits.
· Faith should be expressed in the language proper to each culture.
· Theology guides the inculturation of the faith.
19a) Faith is Not a Cultural Product
Faith is essentially theological, divine; it comes from God and tries to divinize human life. Since it is not the product of a specific culture, it has the intrinsic capacity to inform any culture. As the Council affirms:
The Church has been sent to all ages and nations and, therefore, is not tied exclusively and indissolubly to any race or nation, to any particular way of life, or to any customary practices, ancient or modern. The Church is faithful to her traditions and is at the same time conscious of her universal mission; she can, then, enter into communion with different forms of culture, thereby enriching both herself and the cultures themselves.5
At the same time, the Gospel message cannot be purely and simply isolated from the culture in which it was first inserted (the Biblical world or, more concretely, the cultural milieu in which Jesus of Nazareth lived), nor, without serious loss, from the cultures in which it has already been expressed down [through] the centuries.6
19b) The Supernatural End of the Church: Evangelization
Revelation brings many benefits to human civilization: the elimination of the errors and evils arising from the permanent seduction of sin, the continuous purification of people’s morals, and the strengthening and perfecting of the spiritual qualities and traditions of each people. However, civilization receives these benefits only when the Church applies herself in earnest to her supernatural end: evangelization.
“In this way the Church carries out her mission,” says Vatican II, “and in that very act she stimulates and advances human and civil culture, as well as contributing by her activity, including liturgical activity, to man’s interior freedom.”7 The Church builds up culture strictly because she pursues a higher (and strictly supernatural) end. We should not forget that the end of the Church is evangelization, not civilization. She civilizes only in order to evangelize. “Whether she aids the world or whether she benefits from it, the Church has but one sole purpose—that the Kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished.”8 “The Church is not motivated by an earthly ambition but is interested in one thing only—to carry on the work of Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”9
19c) Faith Expressed in the Language of Each Culture (Inculturation)
Faith can and should “become culture.” The inculturation of faith involves faithfully translating and incarnating faith and Christian life in the language proper to each culture, assimilating their valid elements, rejecting the harmful ones, and developing from the faith their implicit potentialities.10 In this way, culture and the most spiritual elements in man are offered up to God (cf. 2 Cor 10:5).
“Indeed,” teaches Pope John Paul II, “the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel not only demands that the Good News be preached ever more widely and to ever greater numbers of men and women, but that the very power of the Gospel should permeate thought patterns, standards of judgment, and norms of behavior; in a word, it is necessary that the whole of human culture be steeped in the Gospel.”11 We should also note “the purely instrumental character of cultures, which, under the influence of a very marked historical evolution, are subject to deep changes: ‘The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever’ (Is 40:8).”12
19d) Theology Guides the Inculturation of the Faith
Theology leads, encourages, and guides the assimilation of human culture. As a premise for this inculturation, theology—which achieves a deeper and deeper understanding of revelation—has to answer the “questions arising from the development of thought”13 that are in some way related to human salvation.
Therefore, the Church establishes that students of theology “should learn to seek the solution of human problems in the light of revelation, to apply her eternal truths to the changing conditions of human affairs, and to express them in language which people of the modern world will understand.”14
19e) The Responsibility of the Whole Church
The great social task of inculturation can be achieved only through the living faith of all the faithful. Therefore, it is urgent that lay people prepare for this work by acquiring solid doctrinal and theological formation. Such extensive lay formation was responsible for the building of Western civilization.15
The first contribution of theology to the dialogue between faith and culture is the necessary doctrinal formation of the faithful. The faithful will then be able to integrate their human knowledge in their Christian life, as the Church wishes:
The faithful ought to work in close conjunction with their contemporaries and try to get to know their ways of thinking and feeling, as they find them expressed in current culture. Let the faithful incorporate the findings of new sciences and teachings and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and thought, so that their practice of religion and their moral behavior may keep abreast of their acquaintance with science and of the relentless progress of technology: in this way they will succeed in evaluating and interpreting everything with an authentically Christian sense of values.16
In order to achieve this ideal, the Church would like to see more lay people take up theological studies: “It is to be hoped that more of the laity will receive adequate theological formation and that some among them will dedicate themselves professionally to these studies and contribute to their advancement.”17
19f) Dangers of Inculturation
In the pursuit of the inculturation of the faith, one should keep in mind that not all expressions of human cultures (customs, ways of thinking, new technological possibilities, doctrines) are morally upright and compatible with faith. The Magisterium warns that, in the combination of revelation with scientific discoveries and cultural values, “all syncretism … is to be excluded.”18 That is to say, one must avoid any element that is incompatible with the Gospel.
The Church teaches that “the positive values in the various cultures and philosophies are to be sought out, carefully examined, and taken up. However, systems and methods incompatible with Christian faith must not be accepted.”19
Sometimes, these incompatibilities and deviations are readily apparent to the majority of the faithful. In other cases, their discernment requires deeper doctrinal formation and a more detailed study. Hence the warning of the Council:
With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is the task of the whole people of God, particularly of its pastors and theologians, to listen to and distinguish the many voices of our times and to interpret them in the light of the divine Word, in order that the revealed truth may be more deeply penetrated, better understood, and more suitably presented.20
In order to achieve this, “theological research, while it deepens knowledge of revealed truth, should not lose contact with its own times, so that experts in various fields may be led to a deeper knowledge of the faith.”21
20. Theological Pluralism and Progress
20a) Theological Progress
Progress in theology does not mean substituting new dogmas for the ones transmitted by the Church. On the contrary, intellectual progress in theology is possible because its principles—the truths of faith—always retain their value. Theological progress is, thus, a homogeneous progress, which is part of the organic progress of the Church in the understanding of the faith.22
In positive sciences, new discoveries may well cause a new theory or formulation of natural laws to displace older ones. In theology, however, it is not possible to discover new ways of salvation; the definitive revelation for salvation has been given in Christ.23
Primarily, theological progress takes place in two directions:
· Toward a better understanding of the deposit of revelation.
· Toward a right interpretation—from the standpoint of faith—of the events of human history and of the new problems that arise in human life. This interpretation is essential if we want to give Christian answers to new problems as they develop.
In this progress, theologians must be careful to distinguish what belongs to the faith of the Church (truths of faith) from common theological sentences and the mere opinions of some theologians. Put simply, matters of dogma must be clearly distinguished from debatable matters left to the free discussion of theologians. In doing this, theology must avoid two erroneous extremes:
(1) Modernism or progressivism, a revolutionary position that breaks the continuity of the united and homogeneous Tradition of the Church.
(2) Ultraconservatism, a position that wants to impose on the faith its own personal conservative convictions, not wanting to accept the action of the Holy Spirit, who governs the Church and perfects the understanding of revelation through his gifts. This is the position of the “Old Catholics” and of many non-Catholic Christians who accept only the definitions of the councils of ancient times.
20b) Legitimate Pluralism in Theology
The Magisterium has always defended and supported legitimate theological pluralism in all matters related to the deposit of faith that admits diverse, and even opposing, interpretations.24
There are several reasons for this pluralism:
· The human intellect has limitations in the way it grasps and explains questions, especially those touching on the infinite perfection of God.
· Many approaches, scientific instruments, and philosophical instruments are available to researchers (Aristotelianism, Platonism, etc.).
· The starting points of theology, though all belonging to revelation, may be different, admitting different perceptions and insights. This is true in the field of Christian spirituality also.
· Theologians live in different cultural environments and different Christian traditions, which can affect their modes of investigation. Thus, in ancient times, there were differences between the Alexandrian and Antiochene theological schools and, in general, between the Eastern and Western schools.25
20c) Limits of Theological Pluralism
Theological pluralism does not refer to dogma (dogmatic pluralism) or to doctrines definitively settled by the Church. The truth revealed by God and taught by the Church as such is as immutable as God himself.
In referring to the object of faith, “any meaning of the sacred dogmas that has once been declared by Holy Mother Church must always be retained.”26 Questions that are properly de fide are no longer subject to free interpretation; any opinion different from the sense defined by the Church would no longer be a valid theological opinion, but a heresy. “There must never be any deviation from that meaning on the specious ground of a more profound understanding.”27
“The due freedom of theologians must always be limited by the word of God as it is faithfully preserved and expounded in the Church and taught and explained by the living Magisterium.”28 Theologians should strive to go deeper into revelation and understand it better, confident that intellectual rigor and the guidance of the Holy Spirit will go hand in hand. They will never be led to the extreme of having to doubt or contradict what the Church had already conclusively defined with divine certitude.
A traditional formula sums up the golden rule of theological research: Unity in what is necessary, freedom in what is debatable, charity in everything (In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas).
21. Consistency Between Culture, Theology, and Life
Theology binds faith and culture, but it also binds faith and moral life. Thus, theological formation reinforces the unity of life. On the one hand, theology supplies the principles and criteria needed to “bring our life into line with our conscience, a well-formed conscience.”29 On the other hand, theology corrects the possible disagreements between the ideas we may form about God, man, and the world, and what faith teaches us about them.
21a) Consistency Between Faith and Life
When faith is no longer alive, it does not govern life with its norms of conduct. It is then that life takes the upper hand, imposing itself on faith, trying to alter or destroy it.
In a person, theoretical and practical convictions go together, but the latter are the ones that govern moral behavior. In behavior, the individual follows the judgments of his conscience. Alternately, when a person is not willing to comply with them, he tends to corrupt his conscience. Consistency between thought and action is a tendency of the human person. Likewise, a person tends toward consistency between beliefs and the practical criteria that actually govern his actions. The person—the ultimate subject of our actions—is the principle that unifies all aspects of human activity, relating them, and causing them to affect one another. Faith underlies this unity of life; through faith, the believer starts to partake of the divine life, which is infinitely simple and undivided. This unity explains how a life of piety and doctrinal formation are necessarily related.
Theology allows man to:
· realize with scientific clarity the danger that a disorderly moral life poses to faith;
· perceive how attractive it is to behave like children of light, like children of God;
· expose the fake glitter of the idols that man forges in every age.
The study of theology is thus a very important means to acquire a properly formed conscience.
21b) Consistency Between Faith and Culture
The unity of the life of redeemed man demands harmony between the teachings of faith and the convictions of reason, between religious culture and human culture. There are three main pitfalls to avoid while maintaining this harmony: rationalism, agnosticism, and fideism.
(1) Rationalism
Strict rationalism consists in judging everything solely and exclusively according to philosophical or scientific reason. Reason is considered the only valid rule to discern the truth, even in religious matters. There is no room for faith; any faith is deemed superstition. Still, some rationalists admit a natural, rational religion, based on philosophical theology (deism). We can easily apply the words of Scripture to this error: “There is a cleverness which is abominable, but there is a fool who merely lacks wisdom.… There is cleverness which is scrupulous but unjust” (Sir 19:23, 25).
(2) Agnosticism
Agnostics hold that God and religious matters are beyond the capacity of the human intellect, and so faith is irrational. There is no room for religious truth or for true religion, and this leads to religious indifferentism. Agnosticism claims that culture must be built solely on rational foundations; faith should not have any part in it. Religious matters are relegated to the intimacy of one’s conscience, and Christian life is reduced to sentimental, pietistic practices.
(3) Fideism
Religious fideism consists in accepting religious beliefs without grasping their intellectual content, without seeing the reasons that make them believable, without seeing their connection with other realities, and without acknowledging the right to intellectual life to which faith is entitled. Fideism is compatible with philosophical agnosticism.
The Church has condemned these three errors through their most vicious manifestations: atheism and modernism.30
Theology avoids the creation of two independent worlds in the believer’s life: what he believes and what he knows, commitment to God and ordinary life, religious practice and human experience. This lack of unity can cause only serious conflicts, detrimental to the life of faith. Consistency between faith and culture both presupposes and reinforces consistency between faith and life. A person who strives to live according to Christian faith is in a position to set Christ at the top of human culture.31 The believer comes to think, feel, wish, and want according to this unity of life.
Cultural formation where theology is absent is like the rocky ground of the Gospel parable. The growth and development of the divine life sown in the soul are impeded, and will eventually wither (cf. Mt 13:20–21). Theology is the science of faith; it unifies the mind, heart, and behavior of the Christian, thus fostering the fullness of Christian life: the life of faith (cf. Gal 3:11).
Footnotes:
1. Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogm. Const. Dei Filius, 4; cf. CCC, 154–161.
2. Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogm. Const. Dei Filius, 4.
3. Cf. St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 974.
4. GS, 3.
5. Ibid., 58.
6. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Catechesi Tradendae, Oct. 16, 1979 (in More Post-Conciliar Documents, p. 800).
7. GS, 58.
8. Ibid., 45.
9. Ibid., 3.
10. Cf. CCC, 172–175; 854. One of Boethius’s mottos, which guided medieval culture, was: “Unite faith and reason as much as possible.”
11. John Paul II, Ap. Const. Sapientia Christiana, May 25, 1979: L’Osservatore Romano, June 4, 1979; cf. Paul VI, Ap. Ex. Evangelii Nuntiandi, 19–20.
12. John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Apr. 26, 1979: L’Osservatore Romano, May 7, 1979.
13. Gravissimum Educationis, 11.
14. OT, 16.
15. Cf. GS, 44.
16. Ibid., 62.
17. Ibid.
18. John Paul II, Ap. Const. Sapientia Christiana, May 25, 1979: L’Osservatore Romano, June 4, 1979.
19. Ibid.
20. GS, 44.
21. Ibid., 62.
22. Cf. DS 3020; DV, 8.
23. Cf. DV, 2, 4.
24. Cf. Paul V, Decretum, Nov. 5, 1607: DS 1997; Clement XII, Bull Apostolicae Providentiae, Oct. 2, 1733; Pius XI, Enc. Studiorum Ducem, June 20, 1923: DS 3666.
25. Cf. UR, 17.
26. DS 3020.
27. Ibid.
28. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Decl. Mysterium Ecclesiae, June 24, 1973 (in More Post-Conciliar Documents).
29. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 148.
30. Cf. DS 3021–25; St. Pius X, Enc. Pascendi: DS 3475ff.
31. Cf. St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 636.
The First Vatican Council solemnly affirmed that no real discrepancy between what faith teaches and what right reason discovers is possible. It also taught that faith and reason help each other.1
Throughout her history, the Church has fostered the development of the arts and sciences. However, she has also warned of the dangers of scientific research that oversteps its limits.2 Theology, as supernatural wisdom, can both point out these limits and expose errors presented as scientific discoveries.3
The Second Vatican Council has declared that there is a close and harmonious relation between Christian faith and human culture. Culture, according to the Council, is any reality with a human or humanizing value; it is not everything that mankind creates or produces, or the traditional customs of each people, but only what is useful for developing, perfecting, and humanizing mankind. The Church wants to enter into a dialogue with the entire human family about the problems besieging modern society. “The Council will clarify these problems in the light of the Gospel and will furnish mankind with the saving resources which the Church has received from her founder under the promptings of the Holy Spirit.”4
The following aspects of the relation between faith and culture are worth considering in depth:
· Faith is not merely a cultural product.
· The supernatural end of the Church is evangelization.
· Theological pluralism has limits.
· Faith should be expressed in the language proper to each culture.
· Theology guides the inculturation of the faith.
19a) Faith is Not a Cultural Product
Faith is essentially theological, divine; it comes from God and tries to divinize human life. Since it is not the product of a specific culture, it has the intrinsic capacity to inform any culture. As the Council affirms:
The Church has been sent to all ages and nations and, therefore, is not tied exclusively and indissolubly to any race or nation, to any particular way of life, or to any customary practices, ancient or modern. The Church is faithful to her traditions and is at the same time conscious of her universal mission; she can, then, enter into communion with different forms of culture, thereby enriching both herself and the cultures themselves.5
At the same time, the Gospel message cannot be purely and simply isolated from the culture in which it was first inserted (the Biblical world or, more concretely, the cultural milieu in which Jesus of Nazareth lived), nor, without serious loss, from the cultures in which it has already been expressed down [through] the centuries.6
19b) The Supernatural End of the Church: Evangelization
Revelation brings many benefits to human civilization: the elimination of the errors and evils arising from the permanent seduction of sin, the continuous purification of people’s morals, and the strengthening and perfecting of the spiritual qualities and traditions of each people. However, civilization receives these benefits only when the Church applies herself in earnest to her supernatural end: evangelization.
“In this way the Church carries out her mission,” says Vatican II, “and in that very act she stimulates and advances human and civil culture, as well as contributing by her activity, including liturgical activity, to man’s interior freedom.”7 The Church builds up culture strictly because she pursues a higher (and strictly supernatural) end. We should not forget that the end of the Church is evangelization, not civilization. She civilizes only in order to evangelize. “Whether she aids the world or whether she benefits from it, the Church has but one sole purpose—that the Kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished.”8 “The Church is not motivated by an earthly ambition but is interested in one thing only—to carry on the work of Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”9
19c) Faith Expressed in the Language of Each Culture (Inculturation)
Faith can and should “become culture.” The inculturation of faith involves faithfully translating and incarnating faith and Christian life in the language proper to each culture, assimilating their valid elements, rejecting the harmful ones, and developing from the faith their implicit potentialities.10 In this way, culture and the most spiritual elements in man are offered up to God (cf. 2 Cor 10:5).
“Indeed,” teaches Pope John Paul II, “the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel not only demands that the Good News be preached ever more widely and to ever greater numbers of men and women, but that the very power of the Gospel should permeate thought patterns, standards of judgment, and norms of behavior; in a word, it is necessary that the whole of human culture be steeped in the Gospel.”11 We should also note “the purely instrumental character of cultures, which, under the influence of a very marked historical evolution, are subject to deep changes: ‘The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever’ (Is 40:8).”12
19d) Theology Guides the Inculturation of the Faith
Theology leads, encourages, and guides the assimilation of human culture. As a premise for this inculturation, theology—which achieves a deeper and deeper understanding of revelation—has to answer the “questions arising from the development of thought”13 that are in some way related to human salvation.
Therefore, the Church establishes that students of theology “should learn to seek the solution of human problems in the light of revelation, to apply her eternal truths to the changing conditions of human affairs, and to express them in language which people of the modern world will understand.”14
19e) The Responsibility of the Whole Church
The great social task of inculturation can be achieved only through the living faith of all the faithful. Therefore, it is urgent that lay people prepare for this work by acquiring solid doctrinal and theological formation. Such extensive lay formation was responsible for the building of Western civilization.15
The first contribution of theology to the dialogue between faith and culture is the necessary doctrinal formation of the faithful. The faithful will then be able to integrate their human knowledge in their Christian life, as the Church wishes:
The faithful ought to work in close conjunction with their contemporaries and try to get to know their ways of thinking and feeling, as they find them expressed in current culture. Let the faithful incorporate the findings of new sciences and teachings and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and thought, so that their practice of religion and their moral behavior may keep abreast of their acquaintance with science and of the relentless progress of technology: in this way they will succeed in evaluating and interpreting everything with an authentically Christian sense of values.16
In order to achieve this ideal, the Church would like to see more lay people take up theological studies: “It is to be hoped that more of the laity will receive adequate theological formation and that some among them will dedicate themselves professionally to these studies and contribute to their advancement.”17
19f) Dangers of Inculturation
In the pursuit of the inculturation of the faith, one should keep in mind that not all expressions of human cultures (customs, ways of thinking, new technological possibilities, doctrines) are morally upright and compatible with faith. The Magisterium warns that, in the combination of revelation with scientific discoveries and cultural values, “all syncretism … is to be excluded.”18 That is to say, one must avoid any element that is incompatible with the Gospel.
The Church teaches that “the positive values in the various cultures and philosophies are to be sought out, carefully examined, and taken up. However, systems and methods incompatible with Christian faith must not be accepted.”19
Sometimes, these incompatibilities and deviations are readily apparent to the majority of the faithful. In other cases, their discernment requires deeper doctrinal formation and a more detailed study. Hence the warning of the Council:
With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is the task of the whole people of God, particularly of its pastors and theologians, to listen to and distinguish the many voices of our times and to interpret them in the light of the divine Word, in order that the revealed truth may be more deeply penetrated, better understood, and more suitably presented.20
In order to achieve this, “theological research, while it deepens knowledge of revealed truth, should not lose contact with its own times, so that experts in various fields may be led to a deeper knowledge of the faith.”21
20. Theological Pluralism and Progress
20a) Theological Progress
Progress in theology does not mean substituting new dogmas for the ones transmitted by the Church. On the contrary, intellectual progress in theology is possible because its principles—the truths of faith—always retain their value. Theological progress is, thus, a homogeneous progress, which is part of the organic progress of the Church in the understanding of the faith.22
In positive sciences, new discoveries may well cause a new theory or formulation of natural laws to displace older ones. In theology, however, it is not possible to discover new ways of salvation; the definitive revelation for salvation has been given in Christ.23
Primarily, theological progress takes place in two directions:
· Toward a better understanding of the deposit of revelation.
· Toward a right interpretation—from the standpoint of faith—of the events of human history and of the new problems that arise in human life. This interpretation is essential if we want to give Christian answers to new problems as they develop.
In this progress, theologians must be careful to distinguish what belongs to the faith of the Church (truths of faith) from common theological sentences and the mere opinions of some theologians. Put simply, matters of dogma must be clearly distinguished from debatable matters left to the free discussion of theologians. In doing this, theology must avoid two erroneous extremes:
(1) Modernism or progressivism, a revolutionary position that breaks the continuity of the united and homogeneous Tradition of the Church.
(2) Ultraconservatism, a position that wants to impose on the faith its own personal conservative convictions, not wanting to accept the action of the Holy Spirit, who governs the Church and perfects the understanding of revelation through his gifts. This is the position of the “Old Catholics” and of many non-Catholic Christians who accept only the definitions of the councils of ancient times.
20b) Legitimate Pluralism in Theology
The Magisterium has always defended and supported legitimate theological pluralism in all matters related to the deposit of faith that admits diverse, and even opposing, interpretations.24
There are several reasons for this pluralism:
· The human intellect has limitations in the way it grasps and explains questions, especially those touching on the infinite perfection of God.
· Many approaches, scientific instruments, and philosophical instruments are available to researchers (Aristotelianism, Platonism, etc.).
· The starting points of theology, though all belonging to revelation, may be different, admitting different perceptions and insights. This is true in the field of Christian spirituality also.
· Theologians live in different cultural environments and different Christian traditions, which can affect their modes of investigation. Thus, in ancient times, there were differences between the Alexandrian and Antiochene theological schools and, in general, between the Eastern and Western schools.25
20c) Limits of Theological Pluralism
Theological pluralism does not refer to dogma (dogmatic pluralism) or to doctrines definitively settled by the Church. The truth revealed by God and taught by the Church as such is as immutable as God himself.
In referring to the object of faith, “any meaning of the sacred dogmas that has once been declared by Holy Mother Church must always be retained.”26 Questions that are properly de fide are no longer subject to free interpretation; any opinion different from the sense defined by the Church would no longer be a valid theological opinion, but a heresy. “There must never be any deviation from that meaning on the specious ground of a more profound understanding.”27
“The due freedom of theologians must always be limited by the word of God as it is faithfully preserved and expounded in the Church and taught and explained by the living Magisterium.”28 Theologians should strive to go deeper into revelation and understand it better, confident that intellectual rigor and the guidance of the Holy Spirit will go hand in hand. They will never be led to the extreme of having to doubt or contradict what the Church had already conclusively defined with divine certitude.
A traditional formula sums up the golden rule of theological research: Unity in what is necessary, freedom in what is debatable, charity in everything (In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas).
21. Consistency Between Culture, Theology, and Life
Theology binds faith and culture, but it also binds faith and moral life. Thus, theological formation reinforces the unity of life. On the one hand, theology supplies the principles and criteria needed to “bring our life into line with our conscience, a well-formed conscience.”29 On the other hand, theology corrects the possible disagreements between the ideas we may form about God, man, and the world, and what faith teaches us about them.
21a) Consistency Between Faith and Life
When faith is no longer alive, it does not govern life with its norms of conduct. It is then that life takes the upper hand, imposing itself on faith, trying to alter or destroy it.
In a person, theoretical and practical convictions go together, but the latter are the ones that govern moral behavior. In behavior, the individual follows the judgments of his conscience. Alternately, when a person is not willing to comply with them, he tends to corrupt his conscience. Consistency between thought and action is a tendency of the human person. Likewise, a person tends toward consistency between beliefs and the practical criteria that actually govern his actions. The person—the ultimate subject of our actions—is the principle that unifies all aspects of human activity, relating them, and causing them to affect one another. Faith underlies this unity of life; through faith, the believer starts to partake of the divine life, which is infinitely simple and undivided. This unity explains how a life of piety and doctrinal formation are necessarily related.
Theology allows man to:
· realize with scientific clarity the danger that a disorderly moral life poses to faith;
· perceive how attractive it is to behave like children of light, like children of God;
· expose the fake glitter of the idols that man forges in every age.
The study of theology is thus a very important means to acquire a properly formed conscience.
21b) Consistency Between Faith and Culture
The unity of the life of redeemed man demands harmony between the teachings of faith and the convictions of reason, between religious culture and human culture. There are three main pitfalls to avoid while maintaining this harmony: rationalism, agnosticism, and fideism.
(1) Rationalism
Strict rationalism consists in judging everything solely and exclusively according to philosophical or scientific reason. Reason is considered the only valid rule to discern the truth, even in religious matters. There is no room for faith; any faith is deemed superstition. Still, some rationalists admit a natural, rational religion, based on philosophical theology (deism). We can easily apply the words of Scripture to this error: “There is a cleverness which is abominable, but there is a fool who merely lacks wisdom.… There is cleverness which is scrupulous but unjust” (Sir 19:23, 25).
(2) Agnosticism
Agnostics hold that God and religious matters are beyond the capacity of the human intellect, and so faith is irrational. There is no room for religious truth or for true religion, and this leads to religious indifferentism. Agnosticism claims that culture must be built solely on rational foundations; faith should not have any part in it. Religious matters are relegated to the intimacy of one’s conscience, and Christian life is reduced to sentimental, pietistic practices.
(3) Fideism
Religious fideism consists in accepting religious beliefs without grasping their intellectual content, without seeing the reasons that make them believable, without seeing their connection with other realities, and without acknowledging the right to intellectual life to which faith is entitled. Fideism is compatible with philosophical agnosticism.
The Church has condemned these three errors through their most vicious manifestations: atheism and modernism.30
Theology avoids the creation of two independent worlds in the believer’s life: what he believes and what he knows, commitment to God and ordinary life, religious practice and human experience. This lack of unity can cause only serious conflicts, detrimental to the life of faith. Consistency between faith and culture both presupposes and reinforces consistency between faith and life. A person who strives to live according to Christian faith is in a position to set Christ at the top of human culture.31 The believer comes to think, feel, wish, and want according to this unity of life.
Cultural formation where theology is absent is like the rocky ground of the Gospel parable. The growth and development of the divine life sown in the soul are impeded, and will eventually wither (cf. Mt 13:20–21). Theology is the science of faith; it unifies the mind, heart, and behavior of the Christian, thus fostering the fullness of Christian life: the life of faith (cf. Gal 3:11).
Footnotes:
1. Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogm. Const. Dei Filius, 4; cf. CCC, 154–161.
2. Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogm. Const. Dei Filius, 4.
3. Cf. St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 974.
4. GS, 3.
5. Ibid., 58.
6. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Catechesi Tradendae, Oct. 16, 1979 (in More Post-Conciliar Documents, p. 800).
7. GS, 58.
8. Ibid., 45.
9. Ibid., 3.
10. Cf. CCC, 172–175; 854. One of Boethius’s mottos, which guided medieval culture, was: “Unite faith and reason as much as possible.”
11. John Paul II, Ap. Const. Sapientia Christiana, May 25, 1979: L’Osservatore Romano, June 4, 1979; cf. Paul VI, Ap. Ex. Evangelii Nuntiandi, 19–20.
12. John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Apr. 26, 1979: L’Osservatore Romano, May 7, 1979.
13. Gravissimum Educationis, 11.
14. OT, 16.
15. Cf. GS, 44.
16. Ibid., 62.
17. Ibid.
18. John Paul II, Ap. Const. Sapientia Christiana, May 25, 1979: L’Osservatore Romano, June 4, 1979.
19. Ibid.
20. GS, 44.
21. Ibid., 62.
22. Cf. DS 3020; DV, 8.
23. Cf. DV, 2, 4.
24. Cf. Paul V, Decretum, Nov. 5, 1607: DS 1997; Clement XII, Bull Apostolicae Providentiae, Oct. 2, 1733; Pius XI, Enc. Studiorum Ducem, June 20, 1923: DS 3666.
25. Cf. UR, 17.
26. DS 3020.
27. Ibid.
28. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Decl. Mysterium Ecclesiae, June 24, 1973 (in More Post-Conciliar Documents).
29. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 148.
30. Cf. DS 3021–25; St. Pius X, Enc. Pascendi: DS 3475ff.
31. Cf. St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 636.