Some Reflections on Subjectivity, Christology and the Church - 1. The Cultural and Theological Context

1In seeking to sum up the situation of Catholic theology as we come to the end of this century – and indeed to the end of the millennium – more than one observer has remarked that the twentieth century can be divided into two periods: an initial period of intense and fruitful development, almost unparalleled in the history of the Church, which culminated in the Second Vatican Council, and a subsequent period of dissipation in which the earlier accomplishments have not continued. Perhaps there is a certain inevitability in such a process. Recently, in assessing the current state of theology, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn chose to use a phrase which had been coined by another Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal König, who, when asked about theology today, responded that what we have is “molta teologia – poco Dio”: a lot of theology but little about God.[1] In a certain sense, this phrase – with the contradiction it expresses – captures the present situation fairly well. There is more “theologizing” than ever, but it seems that increasingly little of it dares to speak about God. The roots of the current situation are, however, as much philosophical as they are theological. We find ourselves at the end of the century in a cultural situation characterized by what might be called a “one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity.”[2] Certainly, the importance of subjectivity cannot be disregarded or minimized. In fact, one of the great accomplishments of theology in the decades leading up to the Second Vatican Council was its concern to show that Catholic doctrine was not simply an elaborate impersonal “system” of truths, but rather a call to the fulfilment of the authentic dignity of the human person, because Christ, the second Adam, is the long-awaited manifestation of what it means to be truly human, the definitive revelation to man of his own human nature: “it is only in the mystery of the Word that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.”[3] Theology, however, is not practised in a vacuum, and the cultural climate has become one in which a legitimate interest in human subjectivity has deteriorated to the point where the subject alone becomes the fundamental point of reference for all else, and the paradoxical situation arises in which the various human sciences demonstrate the limitations and contingency of every subjective viewpoint, while at the same time it is the unspoken assumption that ail subjective perspectives are equally valid, a view which, as the Encyclical Letter Fides et ratio observes, “is one of today’s most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth.”[4] Thus, a philosophical climate has established itself which, in its exaggerated subjectivism, is highly sceptical with regard to questions of truth and meaning, believing instead that there is nothing more than various and competing interpretations. It is a subjectivism which is not limited to a cultural elite, but is found diffused throughout society and takes the characteristic form of a pervasive relativism. It is significant too that, within philosophy, a unilateral focus on human subjectivity has led to a decline of interest in metaphysics and a corresponding increase in the investigation of the phenomenon of language, linguistics and hermeneutics. In such fields, it is not unusual to hear the argument that language is essentially self-referential, that there is no point in speaking about a reality beyond language, or in speaking about truth.[5] At the same time, political critiques of language seek to show how “meanings” are created and maintained in order to preserve power and perpetuate social forms. The Encyclical Letter Fides et ratio speaks of a “crisis of meaning”[6] which sums up the situation quite well, insofar as the question for modern man has become not “are the claims of the Christian religion true?” (do they correspond to what is real?), but rather “is there any reality beyond our interpretations?” It is remarkable also how much contemporary interest there is within theology on questions of language and hermeneutics; it is in this sense that Cardinal König’s remark is true. Undoubtedly, part of the reason for the contemporary dominance of relativism is that it would seem that this perspective has had impressive results when applied to the area of political or civil life. Relativism presents itself on the political plane in the form of pluralism, as the basis for a democratic system of government, which is founded precisely on the fact that, in matters of social policy, there can certainly be a diversity of legitimate options and thus no single vision can claim to be absolute. In a democracy, the different perspectives recognize the others as partial tendencies for achieving what is best and seek to form a consensus through dialogue and compromise. Political freedom requires a system in which relative positions communicate among themselves and remain always open to new developments. A liberal society would thus be a relativistic society, and only as such can it remain an open society, characterized by tolerance and freedom. In the area of politics, this manner of thinking is correct up to a certain point. It is true that no political option can define itself as the only correct one. What is relative cannot be made absolute – to believe the contrary is precisely the error of totalitarian political ideologies. However, experience also shows that, when the constituents of a political democracy lack an adequate appreciation for the objective good of the human person, the mere presence of a democratic system is not sufficient to prevent serious evils. Injustices do not become just simply because they have become the consensus of the majority (for example, the killing of the innocent, institutionalized racism, or wars of aggression) Thus, even in the political realm, relativism must impose limits on itself, and those limits are to be found in the irrevocable requirements of a truth about man which transcends the subjectivity of the human person. Today, in the absence of a common commitment to fundamental human goods, democratic societies seem to be becoming increasingly polarized, and legitimate consensus harder to obtain. What this shows is that a one-sided emphasis on subjectivity tends toward increasing fragmentation and isolation within human society. When relativism is explicitly adopted in the areas of faith and morals, the consequences are grave. In the area of moral theology, the phenomenon is well-known and does not require much comment. It is manifested most characteristically in the view which would attribute to the individual conscience the ability to make infallible decisions about good and evil, the notion that a “moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience.”[7] As the Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor correctly points out, “such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualistic ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others.”[8] If, in philosophy and the human sciences, the investigation into human subjectivity paradoxically illustrates the limitations of the human subject (indeed, the manner in which he may even be determined culturally), while also presuming that there is no viewpoint beyond the subjective, an analogous dynamic presents itself in moral theology in the simultaneous exaltation of human freedom and radical questioning about whether men are indeed truly free. Even in popular approaches to theology, one finds similar patterns of thought among some Catholic theologians. Perhaps the most common approach is that which begins by maintaining that the reality named by the word “God” is completely beyond our understanding; that is, an uncritical and exaggerated apophaticism is posited. Next, the function of theology becomes understood as that of interpreting or reinterpreting the “foundational texts” of a particular community, texts which are viewed as the expression of that community’s notion or experience of God. The final step is taken when this task of reinterpretation is then exercised at the service of some program; one thinks of certain forms of liberation theology or, more recently, of the hermeneutic employed by some feminist theologians. Notwithstanding the evident intelligence of some of the practitioners of these models of interpretative theology, what often emerges from such work is a tedious predictability. The results are almost always totally foreseeable; it is as if the solution were pre-ordained – as in a sense it is. One finds in such attempts a repetition of what George Tyrrell humorously criticized in the work of Adolf Harnack: “the Christ that Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.”[9] One also sees elements of the same phenomenon in what has been called the theology of religious pluralism, which in some parts of the world seems to be assuming the place which a decade ago was occupied by liberation theology. Its configurations are quite different, but what is interesting are its essential lines, above all with regard to the question of truth. The theology of religious pluralism is, on one side, the product of the Western world and its post-Enlightenment philosophical conceptions; on the other, it makes use of the philosophical and religious intuitions of Asia, and it is precisely the connection between these two worlds that determines its particular influence at the present historical moment. The theology of Christian pluralism is shaped by its Kantian philosophical presuppositions; it is assumed that God, or Ultimate reality, is transcendent and inaccessible, and thus can be experienced only through images and ideas that are culturally conditioned. Thus, what is perceived by the human subject is not reality as it is, but only its representation through our particular system of perception. These epistemological presuppositions are then applied to Christology, and it is asserted that the identification of a single historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, with the reality of God himself is a form of mythological thinking, true only in the sense that it may be helpful for believers to think in this way. The person of Jesus is expressly relativized so as to become one of a variety of religious masters. History presents us with many such models, ideal figures, who refer us back to what is ultimately real, to the Absolute, the divine mystery which is totally beyond human thought and history. From this christological position follows a necessary reduction in the understanding of the Church, of doctrine and of sacraments. They are not formally abandoned because, on the contrary, they serve an important symbolic role in directing our attention to the divine, to that which transcends history. But to attribute to these means an absolute character, even as derived from and based upon the absolute event of Jesus Christ, would be to place what is particular on an absolute plane and to distort the infinity of God, who is always beyond what religions can perceive. Similarly, in such a perspective, to maintain that universally valid truth is found in the historical person of Jesus Christ and in the faith of the Church, comes to be seen as a fundamentalism opposed to the spirit of modernity and as a threat to the principal goods of tolerance and freedom. Furthermore, it is maintained that only through the acceptance of such a relativism can there be authentic dialogue and tolerance. Entering into dialogue would signify exactly what it signifies in the model of political pluralism: the recognition that all perspectives are equally true. Thus, the process of dialogue tends to become a substitute for the search for truth itself. But this is something far different from what was understood in the patristic and scholastic tradition, as well as in the Second Vatican Council. In reality, dialogue comes into being when there is not only speaking but also listening, a listening which becomes the basis of an encounter that leads to reciprocal comprehension. But as Saint Augustine recognized in his own experience of dialogue, human beings are capable of true mutual understanding only when they are conscious of communicating in the truth: the greater their commitment to the fundamental reality of truth, the greater will be their capacity to discover real common ground. Thus, a theological perspective which prefers to set aside the question of truth as something not essential to the discussion or as even counter-productive, is not really able to enter into authentic dialogue. “To believe it is possible to know a universally valid truth is in no way to encourage intolerance; on the contrary, it is the essential condition for sincere and authentic dialogue between persons.”[10]