“Man needs God, even without realizing it.”
Pope Benedict XVI’s latest affirmation of truth:
…is Christ’s message and his salvation still something that modern man needs?
Benedict XVI acknowledged that there is a certain culture that reveals “the face of a self-sufficient humanity, anxious to carry out its projects on its own, which chooses to be the sole architect of its destiny and which, consequently, believes that the presence of God does not count and so excludes it from its choices and decisions.”
He said the climate is marked by rationalism, “shut-in on itself, which considers the practical sciences as the only model of knowledge, while the rest is subjective.”
Thus, it is “increasingly more difficult to believe, more difficult to accept the truth that is Christ, more difficult to spend one’s life for the cause of the Gospel,” the Pope suggested.
…
Nevertheless, Benedict XVI affirmed, “modern man often seems to be disoriented and worried about his future, seeking certainties and sure points of reference. As in all ages, man of the third millennium needs God and seeks him perhaps without realizing it. The duty of Christians, especially of priests, is to respond to this profound yearning of the human heart and to offer all, with the means and ways that best respond to the demands of the times, the immutable and always living Word of eternal life that is Christ, hope of the world.”
I’ve often heard it said, by atheists I’ve debated, that Christians don’t understand atheists. In a lot of cases, I think this is true — too many Christians conflate atheism with the idea of an angry or jealous rejection of God. And while I’m sure that’s true in some cases, for many atheists, that really isn’t what moves them to disbelieve.
Equally, however, I don’t think many atheists understand Christians either, even the atheists that claim to have been Christian once. Too many atheists I’ve debated essentially adopt the line of argumentation that the Pope hints at above: “I’m fine/good/a moral person in spite of the absence of God. Why do I need God, or need to assume He exists?”
It’s not an invalid question, but it’s not a good question either, because it communicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the Christian circumstance, as surely as the assumption of anger at God on the part of atheists communicates a Christian misunderstanding of the atheist circumstance. It’s not that we need God to be good people — even the Bible tells us that much. It’s that we aren’t always good people, or, rather, that we often aren’t good people. We all sin…and then quite often.
And it’s in that sinfulness that our need for God rests. The Pope gives the example of the conversion of Paul, noting that “[c]onversion did not eliminate all that was good and true in his life, but enabled him to interpret in a new way the wisdom and truth of the Law and the prophets and thus be able to dialogue with all, following the example of the divine Teacher.” More than just that, though, it was in that conversion that Paul came to understand how even in doing the things he had once thought were good and righteous, he was in fact doing a far greater evil.
That’s the Christian understanding. It’s not that we need God to be good…it’s that absent God, we don’t have the necessary clarity and wisdom to perceive what being good really is, or really means.
I started blogging back in 2004 -- in May, if the Wayback Machine is to be believed. Not that I remember the exact day. To be honest, I didn't take it that seriously then; it was a fun distraction, but nothing more.
That all changed, I think, once the Danish cartoons were published, and the assault on the right to freedom of expression became very visible. With the recent issues in Canada concerning the "human rights" commissions, the gravity of the matter has only increased, and my interest in blogging has increased right along with it.
I used to blog at a domain called Time Immortal, but it seemed to be the right time for a change -- there's been a lot of that in my life of late. Hence this blog: a fresh start, and proof positive that I won't shut up even if I get shut down once in a while.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Darn it! That Pope Benedict sure has the knack of hitting the nail on the head, doesn’t he? As a lifelong non-practicing Catholic, I have spent a good chunk of the last five decades navigating my way through the moral and ethical dilemmas with which life confronts most of us. In hindsight, I’ve navigated my course successfully; I sleep the sleep of the innocent, as they say. I always put that down to my parents’ “good parenting” practices. Later, I came to understand that I had been shaped by a Judeo-Christian cultural context which would not exist without – ka-ching! – Christianity and Judaism. At the age of 57, I’ve come to realize that I’ve lived a more Catholic life than have most practicing Catholics.
But it took His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to make me re-evaluate my “disconnect” with the Church.
His Holiness’ words continue to – dare I say it? – ROCK MY WORLD! His intellect seems curiously capable of bringing EVERYTHING back to God’s Word and the Christian (Catholic?) way. Certainly, no other Christian spokesperson possesses the gravitas or the intellectual acuity of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. And certainly, no other public figure’s words CUT THROUGH to the CORE ISSUE quite as incisively.
Life throws us all some peculiar curves, but I could never have predicted that my addiction to news media and current affairs would eventually lead me back to my faith. God indeed does work in mysterious ways.
Few commentators have remarked upon how BRAVE His Holiness has been in making many of his pronouncements. May God bless and protect His Holiness Pope Benedict in these dangerous times.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I rather especially like your fourth paragraph, above. Actually, you hit the nail on the head, so to speak, in several places. Congratulations, first and foremost, are in order for your return to the Church, and for your many discoveries about both yourself and the world you grew up in.
May your faith continue to grow and be enriched by your participation in the Sacramental Life of the Church!
I admit to being pleasantly surprised by the good Pope. My initial impression of him was that he thought of himself as a kind of caretaker, a short-term placeholder Pope that would continue in the footsteps of John Paul II for a little while, before himself departing the papal seat, if not this mortal coil as well.
Yet in this grandfatherly old man, there is something of steel and iron — he is absolutely, as you note, not afraid to bring everything back to Church teaching and to Christ, the Word Made Flesh. And he is absolutely not afraid to speak the hard truths, whether that be about the dwindling moral sense of the West or the barbarism that so closely follows in the footsteps of Islam.
And the best part is that his resolve, his steel, and his courageous thirst for speaking that which is true is beginning to trickle down through the rest of the Church as well, bit by bit. Even I’ve noticed the slow but steady shift in tone of sermons at Mass over the last few years…and the parish I go to can hardly be called lax or liberal in the first place.