Blogging Daughter Zion: Ratzinger’s definition of “world-view.”

A bit that I liked very much, and that can inform a great deal of contemporary discussion.  The Episcopalians, apparently in the midst of a split along the lines described in the first part of this quote, should take it to heart! 

(Except where noted, the emphasis, the bracketed comments, and the paragraph splits are added by me.)

The confidence with which Jesus’ birth from the virgin is denied today [he means, I think, by theologians in particular, not the average Joe] cannot be explained on the basis of the historical problems [e.g., the age of the biblical texts, the existence of similar stories in non-Christian traditions].  The underlying, actual cause which spurs the historical questioning lies elsewhere:  in the difference between our modern world-view and the biblical affirmation and in the presupposition that this biblical affirmation can find no place in a world scientifically explained.

At this point the then the question must be raised:  what is a "world-view"? 

To what extent is it a determinant of our knowledge?

Closer scrutiny and reflection…of components of our own and previous world-views allows us to say this:  a world-view is always a synthesis of knowledge and values, which together propose to us a total vision of the real, a vision whose evidence and power of persuasion rest upon the fusion of knowledge and value. 

This is, however, the very basis of the problem:  the plausible values embedded in the practice of a specific time attain through their conjunction with what is known a certitude that they do not enjoy of themseves and which, under certain circumstances, can become a barrier to more exact knowledge.  The plausible [that is, I think, the set of commonly-held cultural values] can direct investigation toward truth, but it can also be truth’s opponent.

I think it would be instructive here to consider– to the limits of my own historical understanding — a past error caused by a past world-view, namely, the general rejection of the findings of Copernicus and Galileo.   To the theologians of the time, the metaphorical "centrality" of man in creation (a value shared with today’s Christians), together with observations of heavenly bodies (a collection of  true knowledge), together with a plausible-for-the-time idea that creation reliably reflected metaphorical realities (a value that is very different from one held by most of today’s Christians)  implied a physical centrality (an untruth).   

The world-view which would force us psychologically to declare the virginal birth an impossibility clearly does not result from knowledge, but from an evaluation.  Today, just as much as yesterday, a virgin birth is improbable, but in no way purely impossible.  There is no proof for its impossibility, and no serious natural scientist would ever assert that there was. 

What ‘compels’ us here to declare the…improbability an impossibility, not only for the world but also for God, is not knowledge but a structure of evaluations with two principal components: 

• one consists in our tacit cartesianism—in that philosophy of emancipation hostile to creation which would repress both body and birth from human reality by declaring them merely biological;
• the other consists in a concept of God and the world that considers it inappropriate that God should be involved with bios and matter.

The following sentence, I suspect, is much wittier in German:

…[T]he cause of the denial is due to the world-view, yet its consequences touch our understanding of God (our God-view).

Contrary to the usual presentation the real dispute occurs not between historical naiveté and historical criticism, but between two preconceptions of God’s relationship to the world.

MODERNIST:  "You only believe in the incarnation because you don’t understand history.  If you knew how the biblical texts were really produced, you’d understand what they really mean and what they really imply."

CDL.  RATZINGER:  "Excuse me, let me restate this to be certain that I understand.  I affirm the real truth of the incarnation and the virginal birth.  And this is because, according to you, I do not know very much about the current scholarship in the field of biblical exegesis."

(long pause, deadly penetrating stare)

MODERNIST:  "Aaaah!  The eyes!  Like gimlets!  They burn!"

CDL.  RATZINGER:  "Very well then. Moving on." 

For the preconception that what is most improbable in the world is also impossible for God conceals the tacit presupposition that it is impossible both for God to reach into earthly history and for earthly history to reach him.  His field of influence will be limited to the realm of the spirit.  And with this we have landed back in pagan philosophy such as Aristotle elaborated with a singular logic:  prayer and every relation to God is, in his view, "cultivation of the self". 

If in the final analysis this is reality, nothing but the "cultivation of the self" can remain.

This is of course an argument that I have seen repeated many, many times, but doesn’t Cardinal Ratzinger have an elegant way of putting it?