A small snip from Ratz's Introduction to Christianity:
For Christianity, the explanation of reality as a whole is not an all embracing conciousness or one single materiality; on the contrary, at the summit stands a freedom that thinks and, by thinking, creates freedoms, thus making freedom the structural form of all being.I think that's terrific but I also read the two pages that lead up to it. Perhaps it looks like so much air to you, dear reader. It evades the pits of material determinism (a form of being that can't know itself can't be free; freedom that is the product of accident also cannot be free) and ideal determinism (a form of being utterly determined by another cannot be free). It posits that reality is self aware and, being self aware, is capable not only of exersizing freedom, but of granting it to its creations such that they are "made in God's image." An important caveat is that freedom cannot here be understood to mean "anything at all," but rather fulfilling one's nature in a way that is unique but still subject to the laws of creation. Just curious - is anyone else enjoying these posts from Ratzinger's book? Am I wasting my time typing them up?
Comments