teologia del popolo di dio · 2021. 5. 11. · teologia del popolo di dio teologia del popolo di...

© Joseph Vincent Borres, Antipolo City/Philippines, 2021 1

Final Paper in the Context of the Distance Learning Course „Theology of the People of God“ Course 2018–2020

TEOLOGIA DEL POPOLO DI DIO

From Benedict XVi's “introduction to christianity” to theology oF the PeoPle oF god: a synthesis oF the course

by Joseph Vincent borres

Outline

1. Introduction

Background of the Study / Thesis Statement / Purpose of the Study /

Scope and Limitations

2. Christianity as an Epoch-Making Alternative

Failure of a Political Christianity / Concept of God and Figure of Jesus Christ /

Need for Distinction

3. Christianity is Not a Religion

The Origin of Belief / The Distinction between Religion and Faith /

A Historical God / Refinements by Reason / An Urgent Task

4. A Theological Restoration

The Theodicy Question / Jesus' Jewishness as a Theological Necessity /

Dialogue between Jews and Christians / Mary, Mother of the Church

5. Conclusion

The People of God Made Up of Jews and Christians / The Legacy of

“Introduction to Christianity” and “Theology of the People of God”

Bibliography

CATTEDRA PER LA TEOLOGIA DEL POPOLO DI DIO

2 © Joseph Vincent Borres, Antipolo City/Philippines, 2021

TEOLOGIA DEL POPOLO DI DIOTEOLOGIA DEL POPOLO DI DIO

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Chapter 1 Introduction

Background of the Study

In the author’s study of Theology of the People of God, one theologian stands out whose insights have been a fundamental source for many parts and segments of the study. That theologian is Pope Benedict XVI. His works are an essential read for students of the Chair of the Theology of the People of God, for other students of Theology, and for all Christians. It can be read, interpreted, and used in varying degrees.

One has to recognize the importance of Benedict XVI’s writings for our faith. It is, therefore, a commendable initiative that a course on the Theology of the People of God is offered to build on his legacy. On this note, we also have to recognize how the course mentioned takes off from Benedict’s theological insights.

This thesis takes this recognition into a formal study by examining one of his earli-est writings, “Introduction to Christianity.” This particular book is chosen because it contains the theologian’s early fundamental insights. By the end of the study, the reader will realize how a book that is often skipped or taken for granted had con-tained the seeds for what has become today the Theology of the People of God.

Thesis Statement

This thesis aims to answer the following statement:

What are the starting points found in Benedict XVI’s ‘Introduction to Christianity’ and how did the course Theology of the People of God

develop these seeds of theological insights?

In brief, Benedict XVI’s “Introduction to Christianity” (1) raised groundbreaking questions for the study of Theology and the practice of Christian faith, (2) provid-ed original synthetic theological insights which deserve much importance, and (3) through these, started theological conversations which made succeeding theolo-gians even more hungry for meaning and further articulations of the main subject of Theology – the Great Mystery that is God.

Purpose of the Study

This thesis as implied and stated above will see how Benedict XVI’s “Introduction to Christianity” gave rise to the Theology of the People of God. In particular, this

CATTEDRA PER LA TEOLOGIA DEL POPOLO DI DIO TEOLOGIA DEL POPOLO DI DIO

3© Joseph Vincent Borres, Antipolo City/Philippines, 2021


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thesis begins by an apt reading of the said book. One may think of this as a little “book review.”

At the same time, the author aims to provide a brief synthesis of the lessons learned from all the lessons in the course Theology of the People of God. Both the book and the course have incited so much thinking, reflecting, and praying. Therefore, this study will be infused by this author’s own academic, spiritual, and theological reflection.

The final output that the reading sees is where these three – the book, the course, and the author’s reflections – come together. May this serve, at least for some prospective students, as a little primer for the study of the Theology of the People of God.

Scope and Limitations

This thesis, due to limitations of space, will not comprehensively cover the entirety of Benedict XVI’s theology. Instead, we are focusing on the specific writing men-tioned. It will also not be an exhaustive book review, but rather a thematic review. We will use points from the book that corresponds to the study of the Theology of the People of God. These points are mainly found in the “Preface,” “Introduction,” and “Part One” of the book. Due to the limitation of space and time, this thesis will only cover these parts of the book, plus the essential points from the course Theology of the People of God.

The lessons in the course of the Theology of the People of God are already a little “summa of Theology.” Therefore, this thesis is not meant to contain all the insights in the course but rather to expose the most significant insights and learnings tak-en from it. It aims to be synthetic rather than comprehensive. It will focus on the highlights rather than on the details. The insights from the course included here are those which can be thought of as unique developments that arose from putting Theology in the perspective of the people of God.




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Chapter 2 Christianity as an Epoch-Making Alternative

“Although the number of believing Christians throughout the world is not small, Christianity failed at that historical moment to make itself heard

as an epoch-making alternative.” 1

Pope Benedict XVI wrote the most recent preface to his work decades after it was first published. Here, he reflects on what had happened in the years that passed. He articulated what was then and until now a resounding vocational question: has Christianity been an epoch-making reality in our present generation? This can be the subject of a long debate. What we see for sure is that Christianity’s influence in the global stage has waned compared to the 1960s, when his book was first published. From the writing of this preface in 2000 until this present year (2021), many more things happened that seemed to challenge the Church’s role in the communal lives of Christians and of the people of the world. In the past years, the Church has been bombarded by sexual abuse scandals and by financial anomalies. Many dioceses in the United States alone have gone bankrupt because of lawsuits pertaining to members of the clergy involved in sexual abuse cases. We are a time when the Church’s credibility is also being challenged. Yet this call to be an epoch-making alternative still stands. “In such a perplexing situation, should not Christianity try very seriously to rediscover its voice, so as to “introduce” the new millennium to its message and make it comprehensible as a general guide for the future?” 2

The years 2020 and 2021 are also the most challenging years not just for the Church but also for the world. These are the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public gatherings have been limited. These include the celebration of the Eucharist and other Church gatherings. The Church is therefore called to rethink its way and go back to its roots – the households. Churches may have closed, but there was an opportunity for households to become churches again. The Pope has granted an extraordinary exemption for Sunday obligation while the pandemic poses a threat to our health and lives. In the Philippines, at least, people became more hungry for the Eucharist. People relied to God even more. Our money cannot save us. Our jobs cannot save us. Only God can save us in the time of the pandemic, as the faithful believes.

1 Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 112 Ibid, page 12




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But has the Church been what it is called to be during this pandemic? Perhaps at the time of writing this thesis, it is too early to come close to an answer. We shall see how the Church, like before, will come out of the ghetto after the pandemic, and “become involved once more in the world at large.” 3 After the pandemic and as we all journey to recovery, the Church can play an important role. It can, once more, make an epoch. We must not forget, however, that in order to move for-ward, we must first look at the lessons from the past.

Failure of a Political Christianity

In the context of the Church being a force of change in society, Pope Benedict XVI wrote about Liberation Theology as an example. It was then a very promising movement and ideological school. Until today, it is still being taught in Theology schools. It still inspires pastoral action, only after a lot of refinements. It responded to the call for the Church to be once more very much involved in society, especial-ly in Latin America. It was promising because it seemed to really hit the mark – a Church shaping history, society, and community. However, there were some as-pects that needed attention. It was hugely following the Philosophy of Marx. What was problematic was the fact that “this ‘philosophy’ is essentially a “praxis,” which does not presuppose a ‘truth’ but rather creates one.” 4 Politics and Economics were at the forefront of the movement, and the biblical faith was placed only at the service of these. Even liturgy became a ritual of the revolution or a preparation for it 5. Jesus’ context was still there, but it was blurred and amalgamated with the present political and economic struggles. This can be helpful to some extent. How-ever, it went to a point that it redefined who Jesus Christ is in a way that created confusion, at the very least.

He appeared, “no longer as the Christ, but rather as the embodiment of all the suffering and the oppressed and as their spokesman, who calls us to rise up, to change society.” 6 The God that Israel knew in the beginning was not that relevant in early Liberation Theologies. Jesus was relevant as much as he embodies peo-ple’s suffering and “rising up.” There came, of course, many variations of Libera-tion Theology and it is hard to lump them together. It must be noted that we are merely outlining how Pope Benedict XVI saw it in his time, in the time of writing his 2000 preface to the book in focus. We do this because he has articulated a very important lesson: When we deviate from the roots of Christianity, we are

3 Ibid, page 134 Ibid, page 145 Ibid, page 156 Ibid




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not being true to who we are as a Church. The roots of Christianity, as the Pope would emphasize later in the book, is its communal experience of God in history, as recorded in the Bible. What early Liberation Theologies did was to leave God out in the realm of the personal, focus on the human struggles of the time, and to take the figure of Christ as model for a revolutionary salvation. Christ, however, is not a political messiah.

To be truly an epoch-making reality, the Church will have to be true to who it is. It is a people called to gather all the nations unto God. Its mission is God’s mission. Christ’s mission is not primarily changing the world order per se, but ordering the world in accordance to the Father’s will. Christ is not the only person of the Trinity relevant to our human struggles, but ultimately the Trinitarian God of Israel. “The Faith would really have come out of the ghetto only if it had brought its most dis-tinctive feature with it into the public arena: the God who judges and suffers, the God who sets limits and standards for us; the God from whom we come and to whom we are going. But as it was, it really remained in the ghetto having by now absolutely nothing to do.” 7

Concept of God and Figure of Jesus Christ

One good thing that came up with Liberation Theology is the renewed interest in religion and how it can affect the lives of people. If not for its Marxist clutch, Liberation Theology would have been a potent ressourcement, as what Vatican II aimed for. Once again, we are speaking for the year 2000, when Pope Benedict XVI wrote his latest preface to the book. Many things have changed about Libera-tion Theology and Theology in general.

There was also renewed interest in religion in the years leading to the second millennium because of many miracles arising here and there. There was also the renewed interest in non-Christian religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. An im-portant question that arose then is how can Christianity become an epoch-making alternative if it is seen as one among many other religions? Twenty years later (2021), there are more shades to religious relativism. Not only is Christianity thought of as a religion among other major religions, but a religion among many forms and strands of belief. Among others are New Age belief, scientology, neo-Buddhism, manifesto belief, the “Oprah religion,” etc. Once more, the question begs for an answer as it did when Pope Benedict first articulated it. Given this context of mul-tiplicity of religions and the relativization process that came thereafter, how can Christianity be an epoch-making alternative?

7 Ibid, page 17




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“Through such a relativizing process, the Christian faith is radically changed, es-pecially at two fundamental places in its essential message.” 8 These two funda-mental places he referred to are the (1) concept of God, and (2) the figure of Jesus Christ.

He argued that the concept of God has radically changed. The necessity to see God as personal has virtually gone. This is primarily because of the influence of other religions dominant at that time like Buddhism and Hinduism, which do not view God as personal. These are, at present context, the more “tamed” ways by which God was not seen as personal. At present, there are religions and ideolo-gies common to young people that do not espouse a personal God at all. A good example is Astrology, which believes that the position of the stars determines our fate. There is no personal relationship between the stars and us. We are just affected by their movements and positions. There are also various strands of the New Age belief wherein the higher power is not a personal God but a force, an idea, or a value. In this sense, the Pope was not only accurate in describing the situation in the early 2000s, but also prophetic. All the more today, the concept of God has radically changed. There are more appealing alternatives which place God as impersonal. “When God is understood in a completely impersonal way, for instance in Buddhism, as sheer negation with respect to everything that ap-pears real to us, then there is no positive relationship between “God” and the world.” 9

Concept of God is inseparable with the history of a people – Israel; and Israel experienced God as personal. “The shema, ‘Hear, O Israel’ from Deuteronomy 6:4-9 was and still is the real core of the believer’s identity, not only for Israel, but also for Christianity. To see God as personal is to revisit how he made himself personally known to mankind. This is through his revelation to Israel, the people of God.” 10 Hence, Benedict XVI outlined an important call for theologians. There is a need to unearth the importance of the people of God to the whole of The-ology. Only then can we recover the confused concept of God believed by the world. Situating Christ in the history of the people of God will bring us closer to who he really is. He is more than the embodiment of our struggles. He is more than a political messiah. He is the full realization of God’s self-revelation to Israel.

8 Ibid, page 209 Ibid, page 2310 Ibid, page 22




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Need for Distinction

Following Pope Benedict XVI’s well-articulated call to restore the concept of God and the figure of Jesus Christ as personal and biblical, there is a need to distinguish between Christianity and other religions. To state it in another way, there is a need to anchor the figure of Christ in his real history and anchor the concept of God in His real context. These point to one: a re-membering of Christianity’s history with the God of Israel. Only by doing this, by going back to its roots, can Christianity dis-tinguish itself and shape history as it is. This is, in fact, a point that is always present in the rest of the Pope’s writings. Distinction as it is necessary, therefore, is not only between Christianity and other religions, but as an internal distinction. Christianity must rediscover itself and see within it what is not the same with religions. It has to see what it brings to the table that is not found in other religions. In other words, what does Christianity have that does not belong to the essence of religion? This distinction becomes a pillar of the course Theology of the People of God. What is distinctly Christian, is the fact that Christianity is not a religion, it is a biblical faith.




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Chapter 3 Christianity is Not a Religion

“We generally assume rather unthinkingly that ‘religion’ and ‘belief’ are always the same thing and that every religion can therefore just as well be described as a ‘belief.” […] We could go on like this through the whole history of religions, but enough has been said to make clear that it is by no means self-evident that the central expression of Christianity should be the word credo, that the Christian

should describe this attitude to reality as being that of ‘belief.’” 11

The Origin of Belief

Belief is characterized by Pope Benedict XVI as “a fundamental mode of behavior,” an “attitude,” and a “conversion or looking back.” 12 For him, at the center of Chris-tianity is belief. Belief is an attitude towards what is presented to us, towards what is revealed. We see here that an important distinction is already forming as early as the writing of the “Introduction to Christianity.” While we see Christianity as a religion with its set of rituals and practices, at the core of it is a different “mode of behavior” towards a reality that is revealed. This reality is not a construct of Chris-tianity, but something that it received through time. Belief is a decision to accept this revelation and be drawn by its mystery. It is an effort of will. 13

More so, Christian belief is belief in a specific reality in history. “[…] it is much more concerned with God in history, with God as man. By thus seeming to bridge the gulf between eternal and temporal, between visible and invisible, by making us meet God as a man, the eternal as the temporal, as one of us, it understands itself as revelation. Its claim to be revelation is indeed based on the fact that it has, so to speak, introduced the eternal into our world.” 14

The origin of Christian belief, therefore, is God himself. In order to spread this belief, we need to carry the torch of a historical relationship between God and a people. In order to shape history forward, we need to carry what is given to us as a free gift – Divine Revelation. This revelation is tied to the life of a people whose remnant we have now as the Church. In order to understand this further, we need to look at the details of the distinction between religion and belief. For simplicity’s sake, and since they are interchangeable, we use belief and faith as one and the

11 Ibid, page 4912 Ibid, page 50-5113 Ibid, page 5214 Ibid, page 54




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same thing. From this point forward, we refer to our Christian belief as “Christian faith.”

The Distinction between Religion and Faith

In brief, religion can be described as an expression of our fundamental human longing to make sense of and connect to the universe and beyond. There is, how-ever, a categorical difference between religion and biblical faith. Religion attempts to fulfill this human longing through human efforts. Biblical faith, on the other hand, is God’s revelation of himself through history. Truth in religion is an elusive reality. One must, through human efforts, find his/her way to something that resembles this truth. Truth in biblical faith, on the other hand, is offered as a coherent whole. Biblical faith awaits one’s effort in the context of community to ascend and believe to Truth that has revealed itself to this community.

Religion is constituted of the following elements: a shared narrative, a ritual for common celebration or worship, religious material components, a motivation to believe or make sacrifice, and gods to be worshiped. 15 Because of the plurality of religions, this list is descriptive rather than definitive. There is, however, an anomaly in this characterization. What about the commonly called “religion” of the people of God as found in history and the Bible, or more aptly called biblical faith? Can this be considered a religion? While there are similarities, there are also key dif-ferences. There are elements of religion which cannot belong to biblical faith and vice versa. At the same time, they have intersections or similarities. Some conclu-sions can be derived from this relationality. First, religion and biblical faith are not mutually exclusive realities. They share a lot of common elements. One cannot characterize biblical faith in full without talking about the elements of intersection with religion. Second, biblical faith is not a subset of religion. Therefore, the direct answer to the question, “is biblical faith a religion?” is no. Why, then do we have to speak of religion when we talk about biblical faith?

In a long process of formation of an identity through history, the people of God have taken up elements of religion. Let us look at some parts of this process. Reli-gion or should we say religions have been existing since men have that longing for the transcendent. Many religions were invented to serve this purpose. People were worshiping gods in many forms, names, and reasons. There is one thing common among all of them. All religions come from humanity’s vantage point. Take for

15 This is an annotation of the list found in Ludwig Weimer, Why Christianity is not a Religion Part 1: The Beginning of Distinction in the Particular History of Israel, trans. L.M. Maloney, (Rome: Chair for the Theology of the People of God at the Pontifical Lateran University, 2018), 17.




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example the list presented by Cardinal Franz König about eight different theo-ries about the origins of religions: nature mythology, astral mythology, manism, animism, fetishism, totemism, dynamism, theory of pre-animistic belief in a high god. 16 “All have to do with securing happiness in life;” 17 the starting point of which, Weimer continues, is humanity’s neediness. Humanity used human tools to fulfill this human neediness – creation of myths, conception of different gods, use of reason to find meaning, etc. One thing was missing. Through these, hu-manity still was not able to see truth as an accumulated whole, only fragments and glimpses.

A Historical God

Amidst this cacophony of voices and different emphases, there came an avant-gar-de – the people of God. Divine revelation happened in history. This time, it was not humanity trying to reach happiness, meaning, transcendence, or simply God. It was God who revealed himself to a people. This is a fundamental difference between religion and biblical faith. Biblical faith is not humanity’s effort alone. It was first and foremost, an act of God himself. When this God revealed himself in specific points in history, worship was not anymore new to man. It has been his longing ever since. This longing has already been expressed in religion long before the biblical faith from Abraham gathered and solidified. Religion, however, has been found insufficient. Abraham had to flee from his land and seek the true face of God.

This God who revealed himself offered a covenant to Israel. “I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6:7) This relationship with a personal God ensues a commitment. “You shall not have other gods besides me.” (Exodus 20:3) The people of God abandoned their other gods because the biblical faith necessitates monotheism versus the polytheism and its many variations pres-ent in religion. Through the course of history, God continually revealed himself to his chosen people. When Immanuel Kant presented his critique 18, he missed that point as well as the distinction between religion and biblical faith. Biblical faith is a step out of the realm of myths and speculations. It is based on the people of God’s experience of God in history. On the other hand, biblical faith retained some ele-ments similar to religion but finally found a new order and coherence.

16 Franz König (ed.). Der Glaube der Menschen. Christus und die Religionen der Erde (Wien: Herder, 1985) as quoted from Weimer, Why Christianity is not a Religion Part 1, 14-15

17 Lesson 1, page 1518 Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason, Unified Ed., trans Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis and Cam-

bridge: Hackett, 1996), II/VII, 613




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Refinements by Reason

The modern intellectual trends (relativism, secularization, and to a certain extent including inter-religious dialogue and ecumenism) created a blur between religion and biblical faith. The modern critique of knowledge is only able, so it thinks, to discredit the biblical faith because it treated the biblical faith as one among many religions. Human religions and the biblical faith were treated as one nebulous blob, lacking particularity. Therefore, a distinction has to be recovered. This recovery of distinction is a recovery of the historicity of the people of God. Historicity is identity. Through this remembering, the biblical experience of God can be seen not as one among the many but as “one and the many” – as the one fulfillment and elucidation of religions and the many limited human attempts to arrive at the same fulfilment. Sadly, the biblical experience of God has in many ways been seen as only the latter and not the former.

Let us take for example the particular critique presented by Immanuel Kant. For Kant, theoretical knowledge, including Theology is merely speculative. This is, however, an incomplete understanding of the Judeo-Christian faith. “However, Kant did not consider that Jewish-Christian experiences of faith rest on experienc-es of a history of the people of God with God, refined by reason and the critique of religion, and therefore are different from a metaphysical religion of feeling.” 19 This is a key aspect of the distinction. Unlike the many religions, the faith of the people of God is not limited to mere expressions of fundamental human longings through man-made rituals, practices, and beliefs. It is first and foremost the act of God revealing himself in history, in specific locations, time, and to a specific peo-ple he called his own. The faith of the people of God is born out of this history of God’s revelation. Kant, therefore, is mistaken. The faith of the people of God is not speculative but rather evidence-based.

Richard Dawkins emphasizes the fundamentalist distortions of religions which lead to violence and terrorism. Further, since each religion regards its own as the only truth, there is always a clash. This, however, is definitely a myopic picture of religions and more so of the biblical faith. “But we ought to think and speak more carefully: what we are talking about here are pathological forms of religions that pervert it into violence.” 20 This is once more another expression of the same call: the people of God need to set itself apart from the many religions in order to rescue itself from misplaced criticisms. Unfortunately, we sometimes find inside the Church certain resignations from this distinction. In the name of tolerance and

19 Lesson 1, page 2020 Lesson 4, page 8




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coexistence, the fundamental uniqueness of the people of God is diluted. In the face of comparison of religions, there are those who leave behind the faith’s par-ticularity and focus on what is common. This is not at all bad but it has limitations. It is this lack of assertion of distinctiveness that creates the blur between religions and biblical faith. This then lead people like Dawkins to evaluate the biblical faith together with the rest of the religions. This, as we know, lead to misplaced con-clusions.

In particular, when we speak of comparison of religions, the common themes are “knowledge of God, mysticism, love, subjective well-being, psychic health, tol-erance, and peace.” 21 Like all generalizations, these are insufficient. To present a Catholic perspective of religious comparison, we must come from our individuali-ty. We need to speak of fundamental realities particular to the biblical faith name-ly, “people of God, salvation history, eschatological present, new family, grace as accepting aid, obedience as discipleship, as unity and unanimity.” 22 Doing so will result in a nuanced presentation of the faith which can stand the modern critique of knowledge. This is so because in the final analysis, the faith is based on real life experiences, verifiable facts in history, testimonies, rational explanations, natural laws, and multiple attestation. These are the very foundations of knowledge. Much of these can be found recorded in Sacred Scriptures, in the Sacred Tradition of the Church, and in the lived experience of the people of God today.

An Urgent Task

The biblical faith can truly be an elucidation of religions if it continues to do what has been done by the prophets and the people of Israel. “Hence the urgent task before us is to re-root Christian theology in the Old Testament, which is the model for an inculturation that screens and purifies religion.” 23 Further, on our part, we are called once again to be true witnesses of our identity as a people of God. There has to be a retrieval of distinction. There has to be a reliving of our efforts and God’s efforts to distinguish us from the worshipers of other gods. Israel in the beginning went through a similar process – it had to distinguish itself or be nothing. The latter is not an option for the Church today because we have a mission to live for as a people. We have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.24

21 Lesson 4, page 1122 Ibid23 Lesson 4, page 4424 Matthew 5:13-16




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Chapter 4 A Theological Restoration

When Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle became archbishop of Manila in 2012, one of his first acts was to close the doors of Manila Cathedral for a much needed ren-ovation. Cracks and structural issues were found so the renovation was hugely a conservation work. The building had to be restored according to the original plan of the architect. They removed excess structures attached through the years, strengthened foundations, and refined excesses. The result was an ever more beautiful, simple, yet elegant Church fit for worship. The renewed beauty of the Church comes from a return to what it is made to be – a strong foundation and graceful form that elicits awe towards the Divine.

This is why the work of restoration is important. Through time, many things have been added, many have been forgotten, and there is a need for a return to the original plan. This is what happened from Benedict XVI’s “Introduction to Christi-anity” to the Theology of the People of God. The series of finetuning of Theology from the perspective of the people of God did not add new and foreign things to Theology. What it did was to seek to restore Theology to what it is meant to be – a systematic reflection on the experiences of the people of God with God. Theology is meant to be “of the people of God.”

In what follows, we shall outline particular areas or topics in Theology where the Theology of the People of God had a refreshing and restoring effect. These can be thought of the effects of answer Pope Benedict XVI’s call in “Introduction to Christianity” to reroot Christianity to its biblical roots.

The Theodicy Question

In his address at Auschwitz on 28 May 2006 Pope Benedict XVI said: “In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence – a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? […] our cry to God must also be a cry that pierces our very heart, a cry that awakens within us God’s hidden presence – so that his power, the power he has planted in our hearts, will not be buried or choked within us by the mire of selfishness, pusillanimity, indifference or opportunism.”25

Did God permit Auschwitz? Perhaps this question has to be nuanced first. God’s action in this case is not the same as a human authority giving a written or verbal

25 Address of the Holy Father, Visit to the Auschwitz Camp, 28 May 2006




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“go signal” for Auschwitz to happen. That was Hitler, his supporters, and those who tolerated and ignored what was happening. As Ellie Wiesel said, “it is wrong to see Auschwitz exclusively as a theological problem. God did not cause Auschwitz; it was perpetrated by human beings against other human beings. It is first and above all a human problem, a matter of human responsibility. But it is dishonest to leave God out of it. The tragedy is that we cannot conceive of Auschwitz in combination with God, but we can’t do it without God either.”26 How do we then make sense of Auschwitz alongside belief in God? Viktor Frankl echoes, “To all appearances, reli-gion is not dying, and insofar as this is true, God is not dead either, not even “after Auschwitz,” to quote the title of a book [see footnote 24]. For either belief in God is unconditional or it is not belief at all. […] The truth is that among those who ac-tually went through the experience of Auschwitz, the number whose religious life was deepened—in spite, not to say because, of this experience—by far exceeds the number of those who gave up their belief.” 27 As Frankl said, faith is already a given for the faithful. It is unconditional and is not extinguished by the confusions that arise from an experience of evil. It remains because it is unconditional. Faith is founded on a relationship, and not on a proposition. Asking God about Auschwitz is not a moment to abandon God but an opportunity to understand God better. It is like the cry of the father in Mark’s account, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

God acts in the world through this people. When God established the covenant, his presence in the world is tied to the history of this people. It is to them that he revealed himself. God himself is the revealer. In the grumblings of this people, we have seen that despite Israel’s repeated fall, God is faithful. Despite Israel’s many sins, God is faithful. Despite Israel’s idolatry and attempts to go back to their old re-ligiosity, God is faithful. Through the presence of this people today, we have reason to hope that despite Auschwitz and all the evil in the world, God is faithful to his people. In the history of the people of God we have known this fact: God made a promise, and he always keeps it, no matter what. He does so in his own will, not according to our terms.

To completely turn away from God because of our experiences of evil is to forget his promises. It echoes the grumblings of the people of God during the exodus from Egypt. The people complained to God through Moses and expressed that they would rather be slaves to the Egyptians than suffer in the dessert. They com-

26 Olaf Schwencke (ed.). Erinnerung als Gegenwart. Elie Wiesel in Loccum (=Memory as present. Elie Wie-sel in Loccum). Loccumer Protokolle 25 (1986) (Rehburg-Loccum: Ev. Akademie, 1987), 117–19.

27 Viktor E. Frankl. The Unconscious God: Psychotherapy and Theology (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 15–16.




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plained because they only saw a piecemeal of God’s mysterious plans, as Benedict XVI puts it. They even failed to see the obvious. God sent manna. God gave them water. God was there because his people was there. “The beginning does not read: How can God permit all the evil in the world? Why doesn’t he do something? Is he incapable? Is he unwilling? Is he really not good and almighty? Can it be that he does not even exist? The beginning, in fact, reads: the God whom Israel has expe-rienced in its own particular history has been shown to be God through the divine deeds done for Israel;” 28 “…did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm…?” (Deut 4:34)

The light that the People of God carries is the truth that amidst all the destruction, evil has not won in Auschwitz. That is so because we – the people of God – are here, because we will take that extra step. It is our task to put God’s will into effect. He cannot vindicate himself. God is vindicated “through all his children” (Luke 7:35). He has already made the possibility to extinguish evil by creating us. To end, we return to the Pope’s call, “… our cry to God must also be a cry that pierces our very heart, a cry that awakens within us God’s hidden presence – so that his power, the power he has planted in our hearts, will not be buried or choked within us by the mire of selfishness, pusillanimity, indifference or opportunism.” 29

Jesus’ Jewishness as a Theological Necessity

In the first volume of his Jesus books Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI calls Jesus “the Torah in person.” “The issue that is really at the heart of the debate is thus finally laid bare. Jesus understands himself as the Torah as the word of God in person. The tremendous prologue of John’s Gospel – ‘in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’, Jn 1:1 – says nothing different from what the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount […] says.” 30

Benedict’s statement, if properly nuanced, strikes the very core of Jewish-Christian relations. He points out that that which is most central to Judaism – the Torah – and that which is most central to Christianity – Jesus himself – are one and the same. Further, the Pope in his books depicts Jesus as the new Moses. Moses served as mediator between God and his people. There was also a promise of a “proph-et like me.” Moses was already very close to God as he was depicted in the Old Testament. Jesus was not only close to God, he is God’s Son. He is the new Moses

28 Lesson 7, page 3829 Address of the Holy Father, 28 May 200630 Joseph Ratzinger. Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, 110-11




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and at the same time greater than Moses. “What was true of Moses only in frag-mentary form has now been fully realized in the person of Jesus […]” 31 This is not to be interpreted as a reversion towards a simplistic view of the promise-fulfillment view of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Through many instruments and persons, God is already revealing himself since the Old Testament (see Hebrews 1:1). In Jesus, we find the “full realization” of this. The Old Testament, therefore, is not only functional towards the fullness found in the New Testament. We cannot speak of the fullness found in the New Testament in the person of Jesus without the history of God’s self-revelation in the Old Tes-tament. Benedict XVI affirms this throughout his books, “that Jesus’ Jewishness was not a historical accident but a theological necessity.” 32 Jesus had to be Jew, in other words. When Jesus was born into the world, there were already im-ages of God as experienced by his people. God was experienced as “shepherd,” “king,” “potter,” “redeemer,” and many more since the Old Testament and all these predicates of God are simplified in the figure of Jesus Christ. 33 We look at Christ and we see all these qualities of God in action. In other words, what Jesus fully realized is the progression of God’s revelation. He interpreted God’s revelation in words and deeds. He did so coming from a particular context and history.

Dialogue between Jews and Christians

There is only one people of God. This people is the people of the covenant to whom God bound himself out of love, “I will be your God and you will be my peo-ple” (Exodus 6:7). This one people of God is now universalized as the “gathering of nations.” We recall God’s promise to Abraham, “I will make you the father of many nations” (Genesis 17:4). Christianity and Judaism are not separate paths with two separate identities. Neither are they two historical realities. We will understand this better if we look at the history and the relationship of both to God as one people of God.

Jews and Christians do not come from different roots. They are joined in history, bound with the same covenant, called by the same God, and mis-sioned for the same purpose. While it is true that they have grown as seem-ing different “religions,” this should not define their relationship. This is where the scarlet thread of the course comes back in significance. Christianity is not just a

31 Ratzinger. Jesus of Nazareth: From Baptism, 5-632 Thomas Söding. “Die Freiheit des Anfangs. Die Kindheitsgeschichten im neuen Jesus-Buch von Papst

Benedikt XVI” (= The freedom of the beginning. The infancy stories in Pope Benedict's new Jesus book), IkaZ 42 (2013): 73–92, at 83

33 Lesson 5, page 42




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religion. Judaism is not just a religion. It is in the revealed aspects of Judaism and Christianity that we find the keys to their right relationship according to the will of God, that is, to be one people for the salvation of the many. It is in God’s revela-tion to this one people where we find the call towards a common search for truth among Jews and Christians, the search for the “hidden-obvious.” 34

Think of a fire at the heart of the star and its rays as a metaphor for the Jew-ish-Christian cooperation35. Judaism protects the fire kindled by God since the be-ginning while Christianity draws from that fire and goes out as rays. Together, as one star of redemption, this people of God make known God’s saving will. Another image is that of the bride. We see Judaism and Christianity not as two brides. “ God cannot have two brides, but only one. 36” There is one bride of God and that is his one people which incorporates Jews and Christians. The metaphor of the two brides like that found in Jeremiah 3:6-13 and Ezekiel 23 can be applied to post Bib-lical Israel and the Church. The second bride has the greater guilt because despite its knowledge of the experience of the first, it did not use that as learnings to be better in the face of God. 37 These two images are important because they give us a picture of the covenant. In of themselves, Jews and Christians can be regarded as the two brides who kept on falling away from God despite God’s unconditional love. On the other hand, God sees them – together – as one bride to whom he has always been and will always be faithful.

“In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe” (Hebrews 1:1-2). The open-ing of the Letter to the Hebrews right away speaks of continuity. It gives a general outline of the progression of God’s self-revelation beginning from the fathers of the faith (Abraham, Moses, Jacob) and the prophets up to the climax, the person of Jesus Christ. It presents the scarlet thread of the old the new: God’s revelation is a progression. There is only one continuous revelation of God culminating in Jesus Christ. It did not stop when, as the later prophets emphasized, there was a break. Rather, God manifested his great enduring love for Israel by renewing the covenant and recreating Israel to be what it was intended to be: a blessing to the nations. This theme ofsurpassing appears again in the 11th chapter of the letter to the Hebrews.

34 Lesson 13, page 4035 Cf. Franz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Madison: University of Wisconsin

Press, 2005)36 Katholische Integrierte Gemeinde (ed.). “‘Teologa’ del popolo di Dio. Gertraud Wallbrecher, *18.05.1928

† 29.07.2016,” theologica 3 (Baierbrunn: Gesellschaft für theologische Bildung Baierbrunn, 2016), 37.37 Lesson 13, page 41




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“Yet all these, though approved because of their faith, did not receive what had been promised. God had foreseen something better for us, so that without us they should not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39-40). The whole letter is thought by many as anti-Jewish but we cannot deny the reality that what it was putting for-ward, is actually fulfilled. It puts forward a key theme in the understanding of the Jewish-Christian people of God: God’s revelation did not end in the history of the Jews or in the old covenant. The old covenant itself points to an “expansion” of the people of God and towards a re-creation of what is already there. “…without us they should not be made perfect” (v.40).

Mary, Mother of the Church

In 2018, through a decree by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Dis-cipline of the Sacraments, Pope Francis proclaimed the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church as an obligatory memorial to be celebrated on the Monday after Pentecost. The decree builds on an enduring high regard for the Blessed Mother as Mother of the Church. The title was first recognized officially by Pope Paul VI in 1964 during his speech at the closing of the Second Vatican Council.

The younger Church have always seen it this way. Through history, though, this ap-parent parallelism and similarity between Mary and the Church has been blurred. The call, therefore, is to re-cognize: to make present in today’s conversation what was previously known. Mary’s mission is our mission, and that is to bring Christ to the world. Mary’s identity is also our identity. She is born and raised as a Jew. Ju-daism was her spiritual heritage. It is also the spiritual heritage of the Church. She traces her origin to Israel and is therefore a remnant of the holy people of God, a people called to be saints. The Church of today is the community of saints, a call that was inherited through generations beginning from the covenant established by God with Israel.

All of these points about Mary, the Mother of the Church, also apply to the Church by virtue of this theological filiality. This is not only a semantic relationship, but something that is borne out of a proper understanding of the truths of faith. It is a key to overcome a Marian piety that is focused on status and privilege attached to the Blessed Mother, and locate Mariology in its proper place in the economy of salvation. In other words, it is a key to see Mariology in the “history of God with humanity.” 38 This characterization of Mary as Mother of the Church makes her an essential link between the Church today and its Jewish roots. Ultimately, it links the Church to its origin – Israel. To understand this better, we look into the four Marian





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dogmas and how they fit together into a proper understanding of the Faith. “Hugo Rahner, in particular, showed in a magnificent way from the sources that Mariology in its entirety was first thought of and performed by the Fathers as ecclesiology: the Church is virgin and mother, she was conceived without sin and bears the burden of history, she suffers and yet is taken up into heaven.” 39

Marian dogmas are statements about the Church. They are also about Judaism. A proper Mariology is one that brings together these two. In this way, Mary truly be-comes a figure next to Christ. She makes possible the continuation and fulfillment of God’s plan through Jesus Christ by representing Israel as part of its remnant and the Church as its mother. That link was sealed by her “yes.” Mary is a gathering fig-ure. In this Jewish woman, we find a locus of the economy of salvation that spans two millennia and employed so many people. Only such a figure – a person who re-presents God’s work since the beginning – can give birth to Christ. This is the call of the Church. She is to overhaul God’s work since the beginning and make it alive and relevant today. In this way, Christ lives today. By her faithfulness to this call and her emulation of Mary, the Kingdom of God breaks in.

39 Joseph Ratzinger. “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution of the Church, Vatican II, ‘Lumen Gentium’” L’Osservatore Romano: 19 September 2001, page 5




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Chapter 5 Conclusion

The People of God Made Up of Jews and Christians

“Today we hear about a people that only a few of us will have encountered, and yet a people whom any of us could have met […] and that is the people of God. Nor does this expression merely allude to the many individuals who seek and per-haps even find God throughout the world. No, it is a people in the true sense of the word, this people of God, with its own law and justice, a people whose mem-bers are connected through secret, mysterious relationships and who work quietly for one another and with one another […] a people that assembles and unites day after day, night after night […] a people extending over the entire world, whose members can be found here and there and everywhere […]. This is the people of God; this is the church of Christ.” 40

What sets Christianity apart and has the potential to make once more an ep-och-making alternative is the content of its biblical faith. This content is found in its history with God. This history is shaped with the Jews and together they form the holy remnant of the People of God. The Christian faith fundamentally builds on the experience of Israel with God, as recorded in the Scriptures. This new people of God composed of Jews and Christians has a call to assert their God-given deposit of truth against a-historical beliefs that alienates the concept of God as personal and reinterpret Christ away from his history. Karl Barth said it best, “The Word did not simply become any ‘flesh’ […] It became a Jewish flesh.” 41 Jesus, therefore, can only be truly understood and encountered when he is seen from this faith-tradi-tion-history.

To be really a change-effecting force in the world, Christianity needs to become what it is called to be – the people of God. It can only do this with the presence of its brothers, the Jews because in the eyes of God, there is only one people he called to be a light to the nations. The crux of the matter really is the relationship of Christians and Jews as well as the theological and historical primacy of Israel. 42 Both Jews and Christians take on from Israel as their root, as one people of God.

40 Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:27, 26. Barcelona, Eighth Sunday after Trinity, July 29, 1928.” In: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Works 10: Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928–1931, trans. Douglas W. Stott, ed. Clifford J. Green (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 505–11 (= 485–88), at 507 = 488–89]).

41 Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics IV/1, Sections 57–59: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, trans. G. W. Bromi-ley (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 159.





The Legacy of “Introduction to Christianity” and “Theology of the People of God”

Like most great writers, Benedict XVI’s legacy is found not on his book “Introduc-tion to Christianity,” but on what it had inspired to happen after it was published. The book contained so much seed for thought and theological conversation that left many theologians unsettled and hungry for answers. The questions it raised are yet to be fully answered today but they have already shaped the way we do theology and the way we think and reflect upon our biblical faith.

The most notable insight carried by the book which is also present in the rest of Benedict XVI’s writings is his push for a Theology that is anchored to the Bible. All Theology is meant to be Biblical Theology. To speak of Biblical Theology, one necessarily has to understand that God’s revelation in history is closely linked to a people he called to be the light to the nations. Joseph Ratzinger, of course, also has inherited these seeds of thoughts from his predecessors like Romano Guardini. His greatest contribution really is a synthetic presentation of how Theology needs to grow. It needed to grow backwards in the sense that it has to be restored to its original design.

What the Theology of the People of God did was take what “Introduction to Chris-tianity” started and put it on the table for people to partake and enrich. It was not afraid to use these insights vis-à-vis learning from other theologians like Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The result is really a restoration of Theology. Theology has always been “of the people of God.” It is the systemic and collective reflection of the people of God about their experiences of God in history. The challenge to-day is to continue moving forward as one people of God composed of Jews and Christians. This way, the people of God may truly be once more an epoch-making alternative.




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