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Pope · Contemporary
Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger)
1927–2022 · Augustinian-Bonaventurian ressourcement; hermeneutic of continuity
Catholic
Latin
Pope 2005–2013; Prefect of the CDF 1981–2005; peritus at Vatican II.
Joseph Ratzinger, theologian of Augustine and Bonaventure, peritus at Vatican II, co-founder of Communio, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II, and pope. His “Introduction to Christianity,” “Spirit of the Liturgy,” “Jesus of Nazareth” and the Regensburg Address defend the rationality of faith against both rationalism and voluntarism, liturgy as received rather than made, Scripture read in the Church, and a “hermeneutic of reform in continuity” for the Council. Summorum Pontificum (2007) freed the older Roman rite.
Why he matters: The leading Catholic theologian of his generation and the pope who gave the reception of Vatican II its interpretive key; his writing on liturgy, eschatology and faith and reason is the standard for orthodox Catholic theology today.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.
Settled teaching
Its center
Open question
Beyond teaching, not condemned
Condemned error
I
God and Being · What is, and whence it is.
Can reason know that God exists?
Natural theology
Fideism or agnosticism
Natural theology
How is God related to the world?
Creation from nothing
Pantheism or emanation
Creation from nothing
Is the world governed by purpose?
Providence and final causes
Chance and mechanism
Providence and final causes
Do natures and essences really exist?
Realism
Nominalism
Realism
God's essence and His energies
Absolute simplicity
Essence–energies distinction
Absolute simplicity
How should we speak of God?
Between
Apophatic (negative) way
Cataphatic (analogical) way
Is 'being' said of God and of creatures in the same sense?
Analogy of being
Analogy of being
Univocity of being
How does creation speak of God?
A book of signs and vestiges
Natures studied in their own right
A book of signs and vestiges
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Between
Rationalism
Fideism
Where does knowledge begin?
Illumination and innate ideas
Senses and abstraction
Illumination and innate ideas
Is truth objective?
Objective truth
Relativism and pragmatism
Objective truth
Who interprets revelation?
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Private judgment
Living Tradition and Magisterium
How should Scripture be read?
Between
Critical reductionism
Fundamentalist literalism
What is theology for?
A wisdom ordered to loving
A science ordered to knowing
A wisdom ordered to loving
Does doctrine develop?
A living development
Always the same, in the same words
A living development
Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?
A gift to be baptized
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A gift to be baptized
III
The Human Person · Soul, body, freedom and the Fall.
Is there a spiritual soul?
Immortal spiritual soul
Mind is brain
Immortal spiritual soul
Is the body really you?
Body–soul unity
Dualism
Body–soul unity
Are you free?
Free will
Determinism
Free will
How fallen is human nature?
Between
Totally depraved
Basically good
Does nature desire God?
Natural desire for the vision of God
Pure nature
Natural desire for the vision of God
The body and its desires
Between
Contempt for the flesh
Desire as its own law
Person and community
Between
Individualism
Collectivism
Marriage, sex and the body's meaning
Given by nature and grace
Given by nature and grace
Defined by consent and identity
What makes you this one and no other?
A positive thisness (haecceity)
This matter, this body
A positive thisness (haecceity)
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Is morality objective and knowable?
Natural law
Relativism
Natural law
Why is the good good?
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Divine command (voluntarism)
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Are some acts always wrong?
Intrinsically evil acts
Consequentialism
Intrinsically evil acts
Rules or character?
Morality of virtue and beatitude
Morality of obligation
Morality of virtue and beatitude
What is conscience?
Conscience bound to truth
Autonomous conscience
Conscience bound to truth
What is happiness?
Beatitude in God
Earthly flourishing
Beatitude in God
What is heaven's happiness, at its heart?
The will's love and enjoyment of God
The intellect's vision of God
The will's love and enjoyment of God
V
Grace and Salvation · How God saves, and whom.
How are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
Who can be saved?
Strict exclusivism
Strict exclusivism
Indifferentism
What is salvation for?
Deification
Pardon and escape
Deification
Hell and hope
All will be saved
The many are lost
All will be saved
Would the Word have become flesh had Adam not sinned?
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
Christ came to redeem sinners
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The eternal Word made flesh
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VI
Church and Society · Authority, the state, wealth and the nation.
Church and state
Social kingship of Christ
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
The economic order
Between
Socialism
Laissez-faire capitalism
Where does authority come from?
Authority from God
Social contract
Authority from God
Reform or tradition?
Guided by tradition
Remake by reason
Guided by tradition
The nation and the Church
Nation does not matter
Nation or race first
Nation does not matter
May the state restrain false religion?
Civil liberty for every religion
The confessional state: error has no rights
Civil liberty for every religion
Which form of government best suits a Christian people?
Democracy and participation
Monarchy and hierarchy
Democracy and participation
May a Christian take up the sword?
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Yes: war can be just and sometimes a duty
VII
Worship, Prayer and the Two Lungs · Liturgy, icons, the Spirit, and the See of Peter.
Liturgical development
Receive and develop organically
Reconstruct and innovate
Receive and develop organically
Icons and images
Veneration of images
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
The way of prayer
Between
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Discursive meditation
The procession of the Holy Spirit
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
From the Father through the Son
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
The office of Peter
Universal and immediate primacy
Conciliarism
Universal and immediate primacy
What do the sacraments do?
Efficacious ex opere operato
Signs only
Efficacious ex opere operato
The Second Vatican Council
Between
Reject the Council
A new beginning
When the Pope speaks
Every word binds
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
A clerical Church
A clerical Church
Reformable by the people
Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?
Between
One form everywhere
The Gospel in each people's own forms
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Contemplation: the one thing needful
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful
Where does the Roman liturgy stand at its fullest: the old rite, the reformed, or both?
Between
The old rite alone
The reformed rite alone