Definitions of the Councils and the Faith of the Church Today

In his General Audience on Wednesday, 13 April 1988, the Holy Father addressed the impact of new modes of thought on the Christological doctrines of the Ecumenical Councils. 

1. In the last catecheses, summarizing the Christological doctrine of the Ecumenical Councils and of the Fathers, we have been able to account for the effort made by the human mind to penetrate the mystery of the Man-God, and read in Him the truths of the human nature and divine nature, of their duality and of their union in the person of the Word, of the properties and faculties of human nature and of their perfect harmonization and subordination to the hegemony of the divine Self. The translation of this deep reading was carried out in the Councils with concepts and terms taken from current language, which was the natural expression of the common way of knowing and reasoning, prior to the conceptualization of any philosophical or theological school. The search, reflection and the attempt to perfect the form of expression were not lacking in the Fathers and will not be lacking later, in the following centuries of the Church, throughout which the concepts and terms used in Christology —especially that of "person "— received deeper treatments and further details of incalculable value for the progress of human thought. But its meaning in the application to revealed truth, which had to be expressed, was not linked or conditioned by particular authors or schools: it was what could be grasped in the ordinary language of scholars and non-scholars of any time, as can be seen. collect from the analysis of the definitions formulated in such terms. along which the concepts and terms used in Christology —especially that of "person"— received deeper treatments and further precisions of incalculable value for the progress of human thought. But its meaning in the application to revealed truth, which had to be expressed, was not linked or conditioned by particular authors or schools: it was what could be grasped in the ordinary language of scholars and non-scholars of any time, as can be seen. collect from the analysis of the definitions formulated in such terms. along which the concepts and terms used in Christology —especially that of "person"— received deeper treatments and further precisions of incalculable value for the progress of human thought. But its meaning in the application to revealed truth, which had to be expressed, was not linked or conditioned by particular authors or schools: it was what could be grasped in the ordinary language of scholars and non-scholars of any time, as can be seen. collect from the analysis of the definitions formulated in such terms.

2. It is understandable that in more recent times, wanting to translate the revealed data into a language that responds to new philosophical or scientific conceptions, some have found some difficulty in using and accepting that old terminology, especially the one that refers to to the distinction between nature and person, which is central to both traditional Christology and Trinity theology. In particular, whoever wants to seek inspiration in the positions of the various modern schools, which insist on a philosophy of language and a hermeneutics dependent on the presuppositions of relativism, subjectivism, existentialism, structuralism, etc., will be led to underestimate or even reject the old concepts and terms considering them imbued with scholasticism, formalism, staticism, ahistoricity, etc., and, therefore, inadequate to express and communicate today the mystery of the living Christ.

3. But what happened next? In the first place, that some have become prisoners of a new form of scholasticism, induced by notions and terminologies linked to the new currents of philosophical and scientific thought, without worrying about an authentic confrontation with the form of expression of common sense and, we can that is to say, of the universal intelligence, which continues to be indispensable, even today, to communicate with one another in thought and in life. Secondly, as was foreseeable, there has been a shift from the open crisis on the question of language to the relativization of the Nicene and Chalcedodian dogma, considered as a simple attempt at historical reading, dated, surpassed and that can no longer be proposed to the modern intelligence.

4. In effect, this new language has come to speak of the existence of a " human person " in Jesus Christ, based on the phenomenological conception of personality, given by a set of expressive moments of consciousness and freedom, without consideration enough of the ontological subject that is at its origin. Either the divine personality has been reduced to the self-awareness that Jesus has of the "divine" that is in Him, without this being due to understand the Incarnation as the assumption of human nature by a transcendent and pre-existing divine Self. These conceptions, which are also reflected on the Marian dogma and, in a particular way, on the divine motherhood of Mary, so linked in the Councils to the Christological dogma, almost always include the denial of the distinction between nature and person , terms that, according to As we have said, the Councils had taken from common language and elaborated theologically as an interpretive key to the mystery of Christ.

5. These facts, which, obviously, we can only briefly refer to here, make us understand how delicate the problem of the new language is both for theology and for catechesis, especially when, starting from the rejection —laden with prejudices— of old categories (for example, those presented as "Hellenic"), one ends up suffering such a dependence on the new categories - or on the new words - that, in their name, even the substance of the revealed truth can be manipulated. .

This does not mean that one cannot or should not continue investigating the mystery of the Incarnate Word, or "seeking more appropriate ways of communicating Christian doctrine", according to the norms and spirit of the Second Vatican Council , which, with John XXIII , emphasizes very well that "one thing is the very deposit of faith —that is, its truths—, and another thing is the way of formulating them, preserving the same sense and meaning" ( Gaudium et spes , 62; cf. John XXIII, Opening Address of the Council , Oct. 11, 1962: AAS 54, 1962, p. 792).

The mentality of modern man, formed according to the criteria and methods of scientific knowledge, must be understood keeping in mind his tendency to research in the different fields of knowledge, but without forgetting his aspiration, still profound, to a "beyond" that surpasses qualitatively all the frontiers of the experimental and calculable, as well as its frequent manifestations of the need for a much more satisfying and stimulating wisdom than that offered by science. In this way, the contemporary mentality is by no means impenetrable to reasoning about the "supreme reasons" of life and its foundation in God. From here also arises the possibility of a serious and loyal discourse on the Christ of the Gospels and of history, formulated even knowing the mystery and, therefore, almost stammering, but without renouncing the clarity of the concepts elaborated with the help of of the Spirit by the Councils and the Fathers and transmitted to us by the Church.

6. To this revealed and transmitted "deposit" Christological catechesis must remain faithful, which, by studying and presenting the figure, the word, the work of the Christ of the Gospels, will be able to highlight magnificently, precisely in this content of truth and of life, the affirmation of the eternal pre-existence of the Word, the mystery of his kenosis (cf. Phil 2, 7), his predestination and exaltation, which is the true end of the entire economy of salvation and which includes with Christ and in Christ , Man-God, to all humanity and, in a way, to all creation.

This catechesis must present the integral truth of Christ as the Son and Word of God in the greatness of the Trinity (another fundamental Christian dogma), which is incarnated for our salvation and thus achieves the maximum conceivable and possible union between the creature and the Creator, in the human being and in the whole universe. Said catechesis cannot, furthermore, neglect the truth of Christ who has his own ontological reality of humanity belonging to the divine Person, but who also has an intimate awareness of his divinity, of the unity between his humanity and his divinity and of the mission saving life that, as a man, was entrusted to him.

Thus, the truth will appear by which in Jesus of Nazareth, in his experience and inner knowledge, there is the highest realization of the "personality" also in its value of sensus sui , of self-consciousness, as the foundation and vital center of all internal and external activity, but carried out in the infinitely superior sphere of the divine person of the Son.

The truth of the Christ will also appear, who belongs to history as a character and a particular fact ("factum ex muliere, natum sub lege": Gal 4, 4), but who concretizes in Himself the universal value of humanity thought and created. in the "eternal counsel" of God; the truth of Christ as the total fulfillment of the eternal project that translates into the "covenant" and the "kingdom" —of God and of man— that we know from prophecy and biblical history: the truth of the Christ, eternal Logos, light and reason for all things (cf. Jn1, 4. 9 ss.), who incarnates himself and makes himself present in the midst of men and things, in the heart of history, to be —according to the plan of God the Father— the ontological head of the universe, the Redeemer and Savior of all men, the Restorer who recapitulates all things in heaven and on earth (cf. Eph 1, 10).

7. Far from the temptations of any form of materialistic or panlogical monism, a new reflection on this mystery of God that humanity assumes to integrate it, save it and glorify it in the conclusive communion of its glory, loses none of its fascination and allows savor its profound truth and beauty, if, developed and explained in the context of the Christology of the Councils and of the Church, it is also taken to new theological, philosophical and artistic expressions (cf. Gaudium et spes , 62), by which the human spirit can acquire more and better what springs from the infinite abyss of divine revelation.

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