Introduction to Christianity

Introduction to Christianity is a book of Joseph Ratzinger (. The later Pope Benedict XVI), the result of a study-generale - lecture from his time as a professor at the University of Tuebingen in the summer semester 1967. In summary, from the formulas of the Apostles' Creed , the Sum of Christian theology highlighted. The work goes into the inner center of faith in Jesus Christ , describes its essential content, structure, development and meaning from theological, philosophical and historical point of view.

The book lays the foundations for a new theological biblical exegesis based on the document Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) co-authored by Joseph Ratzinger and two very different modes of hermeneutics , the interpretation of faith and the historical-critical interpretation , connects with each other. This Bible exegesis is fully developed in his book on Jesus, published as Pope in 2007 and 2011, some thoughts of which are rooted in Introduction to Christianity .

Preface

In his foreword, Ratzinger takes a look at the theological movement of the last few decades. He compares the belief of some theologians that the new always has to be the better, with the children's and household tales of Hans im Glück . Like poor Hans, who at the end of the fairy tale holds a grindstone in his hands instead of the original lump of gold , the poor Christian also allowed himself to be led from one interpretation to the other in order to get an alleged liberation from all superfluous rites and cults in the end .

content

The book is divided into four main parts:

introduction
God
Jesus Christ
The Spirit and the Church

The intention of the book is "to re-understand the belief in God without having to laboriously interpret or convert it, which often leads to talk that only with great difficulty conceals a complete spiritual emptiness ."

To this end, the author characterizes the Christian faith from various aspects:

“Christian faith is accordingly, the form of understanding the whole of reality, which cannot be reduced to knowledge, incommensurable to knowledge, the giving of meaning, without which the whole of the human being remains placeless, which precedes the arithmetic and actions of the human being and without which he ultimately nor could he calculate and act, because he can only do so in the place of a meaning that sustains him. "

"The Christian faith is more than an option for a spiritual foundation of the world, its central formula is not" I believe something ", but" I believe in you ". He is an encounter with the person Jesus and in such an encounter experiences the meaning of the world as a person. [...] Christian faith lives from the fact that there is not only an objective meaning, but that this meaning knows and loves me [...] So faith, trust and love are ultimately one, and all the content around which faith is concerned circles, are only concretizations of the turning point, the "I believe in you" - the discovery of God in the face of the man Jesus of Nazareth. "

“Christian faith is not just looking back at what has happened, anchoring it in an origin that lies behind us in time [...] It is above all a look ahead, the reach of hope. [...] It is true hope precisely because it stands in the coordinate system of all three sizes: the past, that is, the breakthrough that has already occurred - the present of the eternal, which leaves the divided time as a unity - of the coming, in which God and the world will touch one another and so truly will be God in the world, world in God as the omega of history. "

In the book - as in many other writings by Ratzinger - the philosopher Martin Heidegger often has his say.

reception

The Protestant theologian Helmut Gollwitzer wrote in his preface to the paperback edition of the Introduction to Christianity : “Ratzinger's book is a document of the stormy ecumenical laying down of old barriers. ... The reader, wherever he may be, is made understandable how Christian faith presents itself under the spiritual conditions of our time, what faith is in the biblical sense. "

expenditure

Introduction to Christianity . Lectures on the Apostles' Creed. 1st edition. Kösel-Verlag , Munich 1968, ISBN 3-8289-4932-0 .
Introduction to Christianity . Confession - Baptism - Succession. In: Joseph Ratzinger Collected Writings . tape 4 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2014, ISBN 978-3-451-34141-0 .

literature

Walter Kasper : The essence of the Christian . In: ThRv 65 (1969) 182-188.
Daniel Pacho: Faith as the receipt of free truth: J. Ratzinger . In: Ders .: The meeting of faith and freedom. A modern search for traces (Fulda Studies, Vol. 15). Freiburg i. Br. 2012. pp. 41-59.

Web links

Faith in Today's World - The first chapter of the book (pdf; 199 kB)
Whole book online at Scribd's website.

swell

↑ “The dilemma of the two ways - to transpose Christology to history on the one hand or to reduce it, to escape history completely and leave it behind as superfluous for faith on the other hand - this dilemma can be precisely summarized in the alternative of which the modern one Theology Is Driven: Jesus or Christ? [...] Nevertheless, the back and forth of the modern spirit between Jesus and Christ, the main stages of which I have just tried to trace in our century, was not simply in vain. I think that it can actually actually become a signpost, namely that there is no one (Jesus) without the other (Christ), that one will rather necessarily refer back and forth from one to the other, because in truth Jesus only as the Christ and the Christ does not exist other than in Jesus. ” Second main part - Jesus Christ, first chapter, II.1. The Dilemma of Modern Theology: Jesus or Christ? (Pp. 156–157)
↑ Joseph Ratzinger - Benedikt XVI .: Jesus von Nazareth , Verlag Herder , see Wikipedia article on Volume I (2007) and Volume II (2011)
↑ Preface (p. 10).
↑ Introduction - "I Believe - Amen," Chapter One
↑ cf. Andreas Puff-Trojan: Church as a whole. Books by Joseph Ratzinger , ORF, Context, April 29, 2005, online ( Memento from May 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Introduction to Christianity . dtv, Munich 1971, ISBN 3-423-04094-7 , p. 1.

[1] “The dilemma of the two ways - to transpose Christology to history on the one hand or to reduce it, to escape history completely and leave it behind as superfluous for faith on the other hand - this dilemma can be precisely summarized in the alternative of which the modern one Theology Is Driven: Jesus or Christ? [...] Nevertheless, the back and forth of the modern spirit between Jesus and Christ, the main stages of which I have just tried to trace in our century, was not simply in vain. I think that it can actually actually become a signpost, namely that there is no one (Jesus) without the other (Christ), that one will rather necessarily refer back and forth from one to the other, because in truth Jesus only as the Christ and the Christ does not exist other than in Jesus. ” Second main part - Jesus Christ, first chapter, II.1. The Dilemma of Modern Theology: Jesus or Christ? (Pp. 156–157)

[2] Joseph Ratzinger - Benedikt XVI .: Jesus von Nazareth , Verlag Herder , see Wikipedia article on Volume I (2007) and Volume II (2011)

[3] Preface (p. 10).

[4] Introduction - "I Believe - Amen," Chapter One

[5] . Andreas Puff-Trojan: Church as a whole. Books by Joseph Ratzinger , ORF, Context, April 29, 2005, online ( Memento from May 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive )

[6] Introduction to Christianity . dtv, Munich 1971, ISBN 3-423-04094-7 , p. 1.