The transformation of Christian faith-hope in the modern age
The Holy Father begins his look at the modern Christian understanding of hope by asking, is Christian hope individualistic? In other words, does a person’s salvation depend only on their personal life, or does it hinge upon our service of others too.
Lamenting the “personalization” of salvation, the Pope asks, “How did we arrive at this interpretation of the “salvation of the soul” as a flight from responsibility for the whole, and how did we come to conceive the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others?”
Moreover, “this programmatic vision has determined the trajectory of modern times and it also shapes the present-day crisis of faith which is essentially a crisis of Christian hope,” says the Pope.
Over the ensuing years, “the ideology of progress developed further, joy at visible advances in human potential remained a continuing confirmation of faith in progress as such,” the encyclical states.
At the same time, two categories become increasingly central to the idea of progress: reason and freedom. The result of this thinking is that “[p]rogress is primarily associated with the growing dominion of reason, and this reason is obviously considered to be a force of good and a force for good. Progress is the overcoming of all forms of dependency—it is progress towards perfect freedom.” In all of this, “the two key concepts of ‘reason’ and ‘freedom’…were tacitly interpreted as being in conflict with the shackles of faith and of the Church,” the pontiff explains.
Political Implications
This new idea of progress resulted in historic changes. “Spe Salvi” briefly addresses “the two essential stages in the political realization of this hope, because they are of great importance for the development of Christian hope, for a proper understanding of it and of the reasons for its persistence.”
The first development is “the French Revolution —an attempt to establish the rule of reason and freedom as a political reality.” During the eighteenth century, society “held fast to its faith in progress as the new form of human hope.”
“Nevertheless,” he recounts, “the increasingly rapid advance of technical development and the industrialization connected with it soon gave rise to an entirely new social situation: there emerged a class of industrial workers and the so-called “industrial proletariat.”
“After the bourgeois revolution of 1789, the time had come for a new, proletarian revolution”… “Karl Marx took up the rallying call, and applied his incisive language and intellect to the task of launching this major new and, as he thought, definitive step in history towards salvation,” the Holy Father articulates.
“His promise, owing to the acuteness of his analysis and his clear indication of the means for radical change, was and still remains an endless source of fascination,” he opined.
However, the Pope points out, “with the victory of the revolution…Marx's fundamental error also became evident.” “He forgot that man always remains man. He forgot man and he forgot man's freedom. He forgot that freedom always remains also freedom for evil. He thought that once the economy had been put right, everything would automatically be put right. His real error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favourable economic environment.”
For Part Two of CNA's in-depth coverage of "Spe Salvi" click here.
To read the entire encyclical go to: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/document.php?n=165