Joseph Ratzinger's Theology of the Word: the Dialogical Structure of His Thought
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Joseph Ratzinger's Theology of the Word: The Dialogical Structure of His Thought Author: Christopher Collins Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/2564 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2012 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. BOSTON COLLEGE JOSEPH RATZINGER’S THEOLOGY OF THE WORD: THE DIALOGICAL STRUCTURE OF HIS THOUGHT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AND MINISTRY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF SACRED THEOLOGY DOCTORATE BY REV. CHRISTOPHER COLLINS, SJ CHESTNUT HILL, MA MAY 2012 © copyright by CHRISTOPHER STEPHEN COLLINS 2012 Joseph Ratzinger’s Theology of the Word: The Dialogical Structure of His Thought Based on his role as a peritus at Vatican II in the shaping of the Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, Ratzinger reflected back on the deliberations at the Council soon after its conclusion and indicated that the new development of understanding of Revelation was that Revelation is to be seen “basically as dialogue.” In his Introduction to Christianity, he would indicate that because of the experience of Jesus Christ, the Church comes to see that God is not only logos, but dia‐logos. Throughout his theological and pastoral career, Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, consistently relies upon the framework of “dialogue” as the principle of coherence for how he attempts to articulate the one Christian mystery, whether he is speaking of Revelation, Christology, ecclesiology, eschatology or any other area of Christian theology. I will attempt in this presentation to trace some of the major sources of influence in Ratiznger’s intellectual and theological formation that has resulted in his reliance upon this “dialogical structure of thought” that grounds his theological hermeneutic. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. The Theological Formation of Joseph Ratzinger 6 Brief Biography 7 I. Formed by a Loving Tradition 9 The Word Spoken at Home 11 Seminary Formation 12 A New Biblical Point of Departure 13 A Liturgical Horizon 15 The Influence of the Fathers 19 Philosophical Personalism 23 II. A Post‐Conciliar Theological Alternative 27 III. Conclusion: A Dialogical Vision Formed 33 A More Historical, Spiritual and Pastoral Systematic Theology 35 Logos Manifested as Love 36 CHAPTER 2. “Revelation Basically as Dialogue” 38 I. Foundations in Bonaventure’s Theology of History 40 Controversy: Ratzinger’s Dialogical Structure of Revelation 44 Different Levels of Meaning in Scripture 45 Revelation Unfolding in History: The Many Semina of One Logos 48 Christ as Center, not End, of History 50 Historical Consciousness 52 II. Quaestio Disputata: “Tradition” in Deliberations of Dei Verbum 54 III. Dei Verbum: Revelation “Seen Basically as Dialogue” 64 Setting Aside Neo‐scholasticism for the Language of Shepherds 67 Dei Filius and Revelation as Extrinsic 69 Tradition as Expressive of Revelation 71 Bonaventurian Echoes in Dei Verbum 73 Revelation in Verbum Domini 73 IV. Directions for Exegesis and Theology 76 Dogma and Bible 77 V. Joseph Ratzinger’s Dialogical Theology of Revelation 83 Conclusion: Revelation as Historically Unfolding Dialogue 85 i CHAPTER 3. Jesus the Christ: Eternal Logos‐Made‐Love in History 87 I. The Fullness of God’s Revelation 89 The Historical Jesus Accessed Through a Hermeneutic of Faith 92 Christ and the Scandal of Particularity 94 Christ Determining Theology and Anthropology 99 II. Christ Uniting Faith and History 102 A Spiritual Christology 104 The Unfolding of the Meaning of Logos 108 From Ratio to Verbum and Verbum 112 Logos as Person 113 A Person at tHe Center of CHristoloGy and SoterioloGy 117 III. The Person of Christ as Key to Scripture and Tradition 118 Person as Son 122 Double Revelation of the Incarnation and Cross 124 The Father Known in Prayer 128 The Risen Christ Drawing Humanity to the Father 130 Christological Basis of Ecclesiology 132 Conclusion: Christ Revealed and Truly Known in the Church 136 CHAPTER 4. Church as the Locus of Divine‐ Human Dialogue 138 I. Church as Place of Dialogue Between God and Humanity 139 Logo‐basis of Lumen Gentium 140 II. Christological‐Pneumatological Tension of the Church 142 Dominus Iesus 146 Ecclesia Semper Reformanda Est 149 The Saints as the Normative Majority of the Church 151 Obedience to the Word 153 III. Ratzinger’s “Communio Ecclesiology” 154 Biblical Foundation and Liturgical Expression of Communio 159 Relation of Christ and the Church: Liturgical Confirmation of a Biblical Vision 160 IV. The Priority of Revelation for Church 164 The Listening Church 165 Marian Pattern of Listening to the Word in the Church 168 Ecclesial Knowing of Christ 170 V. Church Realized in Trinitarian Communion 172 “Behold Him Whom They Have Pierced” 174 VI. Mission: Speaking the Word to the World 175 ii The Church’s Offering to the World 178 VII. Word Encountered in Liturgy: Dialogue Made Flesh 180 Conclusion: The Actualization of the Dialogue 186 CHAPTER 5. Word Spoken from Beginning to End: Creation and Eschatology 189 I. Context of Ratzinger’s Contributions 192 The Challenge of Political Theology 193 De‐Mythologized Exegesis 196 II. Word Spoken in the Orders of Creation and History 198 The Link Between Creation and History 201 Death as the Challenge to Logos 203 The Difference Christ Makes 204 III. Word Spoken in Death: Basis of a Renewed Eschatology 207 The Exegetical Problem of an Imminent End 212 “Schema and Reality” 214 Hermeneutic of the Word in History 215 Discovering the Kingdom in Person 216 Eschatology and Historical Consciousness 218 Maranatha vs. Dies Irae 220 Spe Salvi 212 Hope in Entering the “I” of Christ 228 V. Dialogical Fulfillment of Resurrection 230 Resurrection as re‐creation in history 235 VI. Human Freedom and Divine Love in the Final Judgment 236 Hell and Heaven 238 Conclusion: Eternal Dialogue 243 EPILOGUE 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY 248 iii Introduction After two years of pastoral service in my first assignment as a priest on the Pine Ride Indian Reservation in South Dakota, I came back to Boston to begin a doctoral program in systematic theology. In speaking with my director, Khaled Anatolios, before talking about anything regarding my academic program, he asked me about my pastoral experience on the Pine Ridge. I described the familiar narrative of life and struggles on the reservation including the massive unemployment, breakdown of family structures, violence, alcoholism, etc. It seemed that none of the social, political or even religious institutions worked very well to address these needs. It also seemed that in that environment nothing I tried to do programatically as a pastor worked either. No new initiatives of mine bore any fruit. Nobody seemed too interested in new ways of being involved in the Church. However, what did work, I told him, on a regular basis, was the liturgy. No matter how broken down all the other institutions and activities seemed to be, for me, especially in my sensitivity as a new priest, it was palpable how “effective” the liturgy was. Even if ten or twelve people were there for a Sunday mass, or it was a funeral mass wherein only a handful of people might come for communion, somehow, by paying attention in a new way to the prayers being said, knowing a bit of the personal stories of the people in the congregation including much of the sorrow and pain in their histories as well as something of the hopes for something new in their lives‐ all of this made for a profound encounter that I had the privilege of standing in the middle of every day. I listened, in a sense, with new ears to what Christ was speaking to his people gathered around him in the Eucharist and I heard 1 with new ears the response and the plea of these same people. There was speaking and listening… silence. There was dialogue that was very fragile and on the surface, not appearing to achieve much. But I had a profound sense that this encounter‐ this dialogue‐ was the only thing that worked during my time on “the Rez.” As I described this situation, Khaled said, “Well why don’t you write about that?” And so I have. With that pastoral and spiritual experience as a kind of catalyst for the research and writing I have taken up in the last couple of years, I came to settle on the figure of Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, as a guide and an exemplar of a contemporary theologian who does theology, it seems to me, with a profound pastoral and spiritual sensibility. I had never read him before he was elected pope. After that, I would occasionally see one of his homilies or angelus addresses that he would give in ordinary pastoral settings. I was struck by the simultaneous simplicity and profundity of his words. It was captivating how he could so succinctly encapsulate the mystery of the encounter with Christ in such a concrete and simple, narrative manner. Again and again, he would reiterate that Christianity is not a set of ideas to believe or even less, moral principles or laws to follow. Rather, Christianity is about a person and specifically, the question of our own encounter with that person. He stresses repeatedly that God has spoken to humanity, ultimately and most perfectly, in the person of Jesus Christ. The more I read of Ratzinger’s theology as well as his preaching, I gradually came to detect a very basic structure in his work. Whether he was speaking of the liturgical season of Advent, the mystery of Christ’s suffering on the Cross, the life of 2 any given saint or the need for justice and solidarity in a broken political and social structure, one way or another, I would always catch a glimpse of his method that described the transformation that happens by entering into a personal encounter, into dialogue.