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Reconstructing Truth in Modern Society: John Paul Ii and the Fallibility of Nietzsche

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Reconstructing Truth in Modern Society: John Paul Ii and the Fallibility of Nietzsche RECONSTRUCTING TRUTH IN MODERN SOCIETY: JOHN PAUL II AND THE FALLIBILITY OF NIETZSCHE by BRIAN WELTER submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY in the subject SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA PROMOTER: PROF E VAN NIEKERK NOVEMBER 2007 Student Number: 3485 894 6 I declare that RECONSTRUCTING TRUTH IN MODERN SOCIETY: JOHN PAUL II AND THE FALLIBILITY OF NIETZSCHE is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. NOVEMBER 5, 2007 …………………….. BRIAN WELTER Signed ii SUMMARY This thesis examines the intellectual environment in which Pope John Paul II's thought operates, especially as it pertains to his writings on the truth. The pontiff's thinking faces open hostility toward Christianity, as exemplified by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. The pope's theology pays attention and builds links to modern thought through its positive engagement with phenomenology and personalism, as well as through its opposition to materialism. Despite these connections, this theology fails to fit well with (post)modern thinking, as it takes a wider view of things in two ways: (1) By offering a spiritual sense of things, it goes beyond thought and takes into account supernatural sources of knowledge, sources which are both a one-time event (the Resurrection of Jesus Christ) and part of the ongoing journey of the Christian community; (2) By boldly referring to traditional, outmoded language, as with the words obedience and humility, with the same level of reverence and fullness of their sense as they were used before the secular-feminist era condemned these virtues. The strange and unique qualities of John Paul II's thinking issues from these two practices. It also arises from his bold ability to engage with modern thought without becoming defensive and without hiding behind the Bible or Catholic piety, though he uses both of these generously. John Paul II offers a clear alternative to the chaos and confusion of post-Enlightenment thought, in both his thought's style and substance. The Holy Father's words cause us to reflect more deeply than those of modern or postmodern thinkers, and call us away from the relativism of Richard Rorty, Foucault, and so many others. The pope's thought succeeds in part because he takes a much wider vista of things, in that he digs more deeply into Western and Christian thought and that he enters this heritage as an inheritor rather than as a skeptical scientist-researcher as in Foucault's case. The pope's thought also succeeds because he assigns spiritual meaning to this journey of Christian and world people. In this sense, his thought is also radically inclusive. KEY TERMS John Paul II; Friedrich Nietzsche; Michel Foucault; philosophy; truth; Catholic Church; theology; postmodernism; deconstruction; personalism iii Abbreviations for Pope John Paul's encyclicals: CA Centesimus annus DM Dives en misericordia DV Dominum et vivificantum EE Ecclesia eucharistia EV Evangelium vitae FR Fides et ratio LE Laborem exercens RH Redemptor hominis RM Redemptor mater Rmiss Redemptoris missio SA Slavorum apostoli SRS Sollicitudo rei socialis UUS Ut Unum sint VS Veritatis splendor iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLEGOMENA 1-18 SECTION I: KNOCKING DOWN AND BUILDING UP Chapter 1: Nietzsche 19-30 Chapter 2: John Paul II's Anthropology I 31-46 Chapter 3: John Paul II's Anthropology II 47-61 SECTION II: LANGUAGE ISSUES BEHIND THEOLOGICAL ISSUES Chapter 4: Foucault, Deconstruction, and Christianity 62-80 Chapter 5: Thought and Epistemology 81-95 Chapter 6: John Paul II: Irenicist and Uniter 96-112 Chapter 7: John Paul II's Pastoral Language 113-121 SECTION III: CREDO UT INTELLEGAM Chapter 8: John Paul II's Epistemology and Religious Language 122-131 Chapter 9: John Paul II's Spiritual Journey of Truth 132-144 Chapter 10: John Paul II the Theologian 145-159 Chapter 11: The Truth Victorious 160-172 Endnotes 173-199 Bibliography 200-204 v PROLEGOMENA In Veritatis splendor (57) (1993), John Paul II warns that modern Western thought has confused the conscience, and that in particular we have lost the biblical sense of things. The pontiff roots the conscience in natural and divine law, both of which he acknowledges have fallen out of favor with secular society. Post-Christian, Western culture, not the Church and the revelation that it proclaims, informs modern notions of right and wrong. Conscience now operates in terms of immature ideas of freedom and autonomy, based on placing humans at the center of things. John Paul points to the loss of a sense of the metaphysical and transcendent as a primary reason for this wound. Modern philosophy has turned almost uniquely to the sensory world, and to human interpretation of this sensory world, and refers to no higher revelation or truth. (Veritatis splendor, 32) John Paul’s encyclicals, particularly Fides et ratio (1998), Veritatis splendor and Centisimus annis (1991), and his personal publications, offer an alternative to the visions of thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, whose writings have played such an important role in Western secularization. The pontiff accepts much of modern philosophy, especially its concerns for the individual. But he challenges post-Enlightenment thought by putting metaphysics and the transcendent--and a resulting reference point for the truth--back on the public agenda. He engages modern thought not through argumentation first and foremost but through an irenic call to faith that supposes metaphysical realities. Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, and many, such as Richard Rorty and Foucault, have advanced their own agendas by helping their civilization navigate through the resulting confusion. The pontiff has a keen way of evaluating this landscape and the West’s current direction. He repeatedly brings together, in an overwhelmingly non-polemical way, something Rorty, Foucault, et al had untied: A truth that contains moral ideals of the good that can motivate and transform people. At the beginning of his encyclical on bioethics, Evangelium vitae (1995), the pontiff writes that “Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God.” (2) Identifying personal, human dimensions in this connection between truth and morality, and a personal God who relates intimately with humans and offers us full existence, underscores the pope’s message. He takes issue with feminists, Foucault, Nietzsche, and all others who see the world according to power and not according to truth and related virtues such as love, obedience, and humility. The attacks of these people have almost completely silenced Christianity’s voice; the Church often seems unable to speak to society. In this vacuum, false and harmful beliefs and spiritual practices have developed, as French Jesuit theologian Jean Daniélou (1905-74) notes: “It is the intrusion of mystical attitudes into political questions that leads to fanaticism and to ideological wars, which are conflicts between false gods.”1 From a Catholic perspective, modern humans have a diminished awareness of their own limitations, and are suffering from that condition, as Gabriel Marcel's words, cited by Daniélou, attest: “[T]he danger of the cult of technological progress lies in its tendency to restrict and confine mankind 1 within the adoring contemplation of his own creative power...Technique, in itself a thing indifferent, neither good nor evil, becomes a 'technique of sins'.”2 This lack of awareness has led modern humans towards a series of terrible moral errors, particularly in the twentieth century. Daniélou points one such error in discussing Butterfield's Christianity and History: [T]here is a great deal of truth in the Marxist view of the importance of social conditions as a factor of human life. But he [Butterfield] detects an illusion, common to all systems which presuppose a direct relationship between technical and moral progress, namely, the erroneous belief that living conditions modify the nature of man...No technical advance or social progress has any effect on human nature. 'No man has yet invented a form of political machinery which the ingenuity of the devil would not find a way of exploiting for evil ends.'3 The lack of an awareness of the transcendent, including of the spiritual nature of sin, has narrowed the modern conscience from Catholicism's all-encompassing view. I. The Loss of the Transcendental P.1 Comte and Positivism 1) Metaphysics and God In the post-Enlightenment nineteenth century, philosophy tends to place humans at the center of life and knowledge, the root of being and the highest goal of existence. Nineteenth-century thinkers use this view to attack traditional Christian theology and philosophy. For instance, early sociologist Auguste Comte (1798-1857) rejects metaphysics and God, and considers humans as the highest being. He aims to establish a true, systematic religion based on science and a rational philosophy. As French Jesuit Henri De Lubac (1896-1991) notes, secularizers tend to attack Christianity and build their own thinking by adopting the moral high ground and rejecting Christian spirituality and ethics as backwards and anti-human: “Contemporary atheism wishes to be positive, holistic, and constructive. It wants to unite an immanent nature-mysticism with a clear sense of human becoming.”4 Modernism not only adopts a spiritual and ethical outlook independent
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