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Pope Benedict XVI, The Papal Science

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

Page 12

God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf.

 

You heard right : the pope used the word love! Now one fears that a defamation of love is being born. This doesn't happen. A God who is near to us, is a God who gives us the laws of our Metaphysics; the word love appears in the speech as an outsider, and immediately becomes an accident and is set aside.

 

Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos [that is, Giver of Ideology]. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - "λογικὴ λατρεία", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

This inner rapprochement [here is 'rapprochement' again] between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry [despite Saxon Appetite] was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today [when religions do not concern us anymore]. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in [Greece and then in western] Europe, [whence it started to lead us to a 'Christianity' where religions do not concern us anymore]. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe [Christian or not, which means that you don't even need to believe in God in order to study theology: it suffices to believe in the history of Europe].

The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity [where hellenic is a rationalistic inquiry] – a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.

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Cf.  Manuel II Palaeologus Resources * The Papal Chrislamism * What have we done to Christianity..
Orthodoxy and Science : A changing relationship? * Papacy * Constantinople

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