God for a Secular Society: Public Relevance of Theology

God for a Secular Society The Public Relevance of Theology

Jürgen Moltmann

S C M PRESS

Translated by Margaret Kohl from the German Gott im Projekt der modernen Welt. Beiträge zur öffentlichen Relevanz der Theologie, published 1997 by Chr.Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh. © Chr.Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh

1997 Translation © Margaret Kohl

1999

All rights reserved. N o part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, S C M Press

o 334 02751 9

First published in English 1999 by S C M Press, 9-17 St Albans Place London N I ONX S C M Press is a division of SCM-Canterbury Press Ltd. Typeset by Regent Typesetting Ltd, London and printed in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn

Dedicated to Dr Daniel Ciobotea Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina and to the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the Al. I. Cuza University, Iasi, Romania gratitude for the conferral of an honorary doctorate and in ecumenical and European friendship

Contents

Preface

i

I. Theology and Politics

3

1 . Theology in the Project of Modernity

5

(i) The birth of the modern world out of the spirit of the messianic hope (ii) The contradiction between modernity and sub-modernity, or end-times of the modern world (iii) The rebirth of modernity out of the Spirit of life 2. Covenant or Leviathan? Political Theology at the Beginning of Modern Times (i) The present question (ii) The theology of covenant and the right of resistance (iii) Leviathan: the mortal God and his absolute sovereignty (iv) Covenant and Leviathan: a comparison (v) Carl Schmitt's admiration for the Leviathan and his paganization of it (vi) The new political theology and democracy

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24 24 26 31 38 39 42

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3. Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation (i) Origins and beginnings (ii) Developments in political theology in Europe (a) Socialist theology (b) The theology of peace (c) Ecological theology (d) The theology of human rights (e) Feminist theology (iii) Where do we stand? (iv) The new situation: open questions (v) The future of liberation theology (vi) The theology of our liberation (a) The globalization of the Third World (b) On the way to a common theology of life II. Theology in the Changing Values of the M o d e r n World 1 . Christian Faith in the Changing Values of the Modern World (i) The God of the Bible and the experience of history (ii) Does being human mean being part of nature or being a person? (iii) The person between personal liberty and social faithfulness (iv) Our modern lack of time and 'the discovery of slowness' 2. The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth: Ecological Theology (i) The destruction of the earth by the First World and the Third World (ii) The religious crisis of the modern world

Contents

(iii) The liberation of the earth: three Christian perspectives (a) Cosmic spirituality (b) The new earth science: 'the Gaia hypothesis' (c) Human beings and nature in covenant with God (iv) The sabbath of the earth: the divine ecology Human Rights - Rights of Humanity - Rights of the Earth (i) Human rights as we have them (ii) Individual and social human rights (iii) Human rights and the rights of the human race (iv) Economic human rights and ecological obligations (v) The rights of the earth and the dignity of its community of the living (vi) The world religions in the forum of human rights The Knowing of the Other and the Community of the Different (i) The problem of like and unlike (ii) Correspondence in knowing leads to community between the same and those who have been made the same (iii) Knowledge of the other leads to community in diversity (iv) The origin of knowing in wonder

ix IOI IOI

106 no 113

117 117 121 124 127 129 133

135 135

137 143 149

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Freedom in Community between Globalization and Individualism: Market Value and Human Dignity (i) The double danger (ii) Three dimensions of human freedom (iii) Is the market to be the measure of all things?

III. Theology and Religion 1 . The Pit - Where Was God? Jewish and Christian Theology after Auschwitz (i) The horror remains (ii) The question about God in suffering and God's question about guilt (iii) Jewish theology after Auschwitz: is Israel's God 'the Lord of history'? (iv) Christian theology after Auschwitz: is the God of Jesus Christ 'the Almighty'? (v) God's question: 'Cain, where is your brother Abel?'

3 153 155 161 I 5

167

169 170 172 174 181 186

2. Protestantism: 'The Religion of Freedom' (i) 'Justified through faith alone' (ii) 'The religion of freedom': Protestantism (iii) 'The religion of community': the ecumenical era (a) Living ecumenically (b) Thinking ecumenically Summing-up

191 192. 198

203 205 207

3. Liberalism and Fundamentalism in the Modern Era (i) Principles and values of the modern world (ii) Christian modernism (iii) Christian fundamentalism (iv) Beyond modernism and fundamentalism

209 211 214 216 220

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4. Dialogue or Mission? Christianity and the Religions in an Endangered World (i) The present state of interfaith dialogue (ii) Mission is the invitation to life 5. Theology for the Church and the Kingdom of God in the Modern University (i) From a confessionally unified state to the multifaith society (ii) Kingdom of God theology (iii) The theological faculties and the common good

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226 228 238

245 245 251 254

Notes

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Bibliographical Details of Chapters

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Index of Names

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Preface

My previous volume of essays, History and the Triune God (1991), contained 'contributions to trinitarian theology'. My concern there was the Christian identity of theology. Here I am offering 'contributions on the public relevance of theology'. There is no Christian identity without public relevance, and no public relevance without theology's Christian identity, since for Christ's sake theology is kingdom-of-God theology, while on the other hand kingdom-of-God theology gets lost in the clouds of Utopia unless it is based on the person and history of Christ, and unfolded out of the experiences of his Spirit. The title, God for a Secular Society, indicates my belief that there is an implicit theology of modern times - a theology always already existent, but not critically thought through - and that this demands an explicit public theology. Its subject alone necessarily makes Christian theology a theologia publica, public theology. It gets involved in the public affairs of society. It thinks about what is of general concern in the light of hope in Christ for the kingdom of God. It becomes political in the name of the poor and the marginalized in a given society. Remembrance of the crucified Christ makes it critical towards political religions and idolatries. It thinks critically about the religious and moral values of the societies in which it exists, and presents its reflections as a reasoned position. But it refuses to fall into the modern trap of pluralism, where it is supposed to be reduced to its particular sphere and limited to its own religious society. Because today these restrictions to one's own particular reserve in Western multi-religious society can be felt everywhere, and are actually welcomed by certain church leaders and theologians, I hope that these contributions may demonstrate and reinforce the public relevance of theology.

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God for a Secular

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The chapters in this book are based on lectures which I have given during the last six years, for the most part in secular institutions. In order to preserve the line of argument in the individual chapters, I have not eliminated every repetition. The occasions when the lectures were held, and in some cases the places of their first publication, are listed at the end of the book. This collection of essays does not as yet present the outline of a new public theology. They are only preliminary contributions to such an outline. But with them I should also like to repudiate the new lachrymosity of some theologians, who have fallen into the snare of self-pity. I should like to end this preface to these contributions to an understanding of modernity by telling a little ironical story, which I have from Hans Mayer. When the modern world was born, three good fairies came along, bringing their good wishes. The first of them wished the child individual liberty, the second wished it social justice, and the third prosperity. But then, on the evening of the same day, the wicked fairy turned up and pronounced: 'Only two of these three wishes can be fulfilled.' So the modern world of the West chose individual liberty and prosperity. The modern world of the East chose social justice and prosperity. But the philosophers and theologians - and this is my own addition to the story - chose for their ideal world individual liberty and social justice, and consequently never arrived at prosperity. Tübingen

Jürgen Moltmann

I Theology and Politics

I

Theology in the Project of Modernity

It is simple but true. Theology has only one problem: God. We are theologians for God's sake. God is our dignity. God is our suffering. God is our hope. But where is God? An initial answer is to say that God is the subject of his own existence. So God is not in our religion, our culture or our church. God is in his own presence and in his own kingdom. Our churches, cultures and religions are then in their own truth if they are in God's presence. Theology for God's sake is always kingdom-of-God theology. Gustavo Gutierrez maintains that 'every healthy, fruitful liberation theology is embedded in the theology of the kingdom of God', and the same is true for political theology in all its different guises. As the theology of God's kingdom, theology has to be public theology: public, critical and prophetic complaint to God public, critical and prophetic hope in God. Its public character is constitutive for theology, for the kingdom of God's sake. Public theology needs institutional liberty over against the church, and a place in the open house of scholarship and the sciences. Today this liberty has to be defended against both atheists and fundamentalists. If we want to perceive the unmistakably theological, and hence universal, task of the kingdom of God in the modern world today and tomorrow, we have to grasp the implicit theoJogy of this modern world of ours, and understand why and how it was born, so that we can recognize both its vitality and its congenital defects. The modern world is a child of the Jewish and the Christian hope. So in the first part of this chapter I want 1

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to talk about the birth of the modern world out of the spirit of the messianic hope.

It is not just the pluralism of modern times that is the problem of post-modernity. The problem is the polarization between rich and poor which is modernity and sub-modernity. So in the second part of the chapter I should like to discuss the contradiction between modernity and sub-modernity, times of the modern world.

or end-

Finally I shall try to define afresh the tasks of kingdom-ofGod theology in the modern world, and in the third part I shall come to the rebirth of the world from the Spirit of life. (i) The birth of the modern world out of the spirit of the messianic hope

There are at least two significant pre-Enlightenment sources for what English speakers describe as 'modern times' and what German speakers call 'new time' (Neuzeit). The first of these sources is the conquista, the discovery and conquest of America from 1492, onwards. The second is the scientific and technological seizure of power over nature by human beings. i . In 1492 the foundation was laid for the new world order which still exists today. At that time Europe moved from a fairly peripheral existence into the centre of the world. 1492 was the beginning of the European seizure of power over the other peoples and continents, and according to Hegel this was the hour when modern times were born. In America, the Spaniards and Portuguese, then the English, the Dutch and the French, and in Siberia the Russians, 'discovered' a new world, each of them for themselves. To discover something means more than simply finding something that has been hidden. It always means at the same time an appropriation of what is strange and alien. So this discovery is adorned with the name of the discoverer. America was not just identified, as it were; it was appropriated, and moulded according to the will of its 'discoverers'. 'America (is) an invention of European thinking,' says the Mexican historian Edmundo O'Gorman. The conquistadores found what they 2

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were looking for because they invented it. Right down to the present day, the real individual life and real individual civilizations of the Aztecs and Incas have never been perceived for what they are; they have been repressed as something different and alien, and sacrificed to the will and vision of the conqueror. Long before, the indigenous peoples had named the islands, mountains and rivers. But Columbus 'baptized' them, giving them names that were Spanish and Christian. And to give something a name is to take possession of it. The same can be said about the prohibition and suppression of the languages of 'the discovered peoples'. Not least important, the myth of 'unclaimed property', 'no man's land' and 'the wild' legalized the robbery, the colonizations and the settlements. With the conquest of America, European Christianity also came forward with a claim to world-wide domination. It won souls, not for the gospel but for the Christian imperium. The decisive question was not belief or unbelief; it was baptism or death. 2. The seizure of power over nature by means of science and technology is the other foundation stone of the new world order. In the century between Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton, the new sciences stripped nature of her magic and took from her the divine mystery which up to then had been called 'the world soul'. All the taboos evoked by reverence for 'Mother Earth' and the greatness of life were then swept away. The sciences 'bring' (Bacon's word) 'Mother Nature and her daughters' to the human being, who has to be a man, so that he can be nature's 'lord and possessor', to use the sexist language of Francis Bacon and René Descartes. Here too, 'discoveries' are made, are named after the discoverers, and rewarded with Nobel prizes. And here too, this scientific process of 'discovery' doesn't just put an end to our ignorance. It also puts things in our power, and makes us their determining subjects. The novum 4

5

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Organon scientiarum is the ars inveniendi, as Bacon said: the

new scientific instrument is the art of discovery. Scientific reason is instrumentalizing reason, reason whose epistemologica! drive is utilization and domination. This pushed out 7

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the older receptive reason, which was an organ of perception, and the earlier pbronesis, which clothed reason in the wisdom of experience. According to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, modern reason only now sees 'what it itself has brought forth according to its own design', by 'compelling nature to give an answer to its questions' (Preface to the second edition). This coercion of nature is called 'experiment', and in the eighteenth century it was often compared with inquisition under torture. Right down to the present day Bacon's motto 'knowledge is power' holds good. And scientific knowledge is power over nature and over life. From science and technology, Europe acquired that instrumentalizing knowledge which enabled it to use the resources of the colonized world to build up a worldwide civilization, the origins of which are no longer evident, because it looks just the same in Frankfurt, Chicago and Singapore. The triumphal march of science and technology conferred on Christianity the status of being the religion of the triumphant God. Victorious, expanding Western civilization called its world 'the Christian world' and in the nineteenth century termed its age 'the Christian century'. There is still a journal with that name today. What Christian hopes motivated the modern European discoveries of the world? The underlying motivation was the vision of the new world.

Columbus was evidently seeking both God's Garden of Eden and Eldorado, the city of gold. God and gold were the most powerful incentives of the conquista and were its driving power. The city of gold which Columbus and the rest were looking for was not simply intended for their personal enrichment. Columbus also legitimated his search for gold by claiming that it was a way of winning back Jerusalem, appealing to Joachim of Fiore's prophecy: 'From Spain will come the one who will bring back the Ark to Zion.' Why Jerusalem especially? Jerusalem was to be the capital of the thousand years' empire. Columbus also believed more firmly than other people in the earthly paradise. When he saw the rolling hills of 8

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what is now Venezuela, he shrank back, writing in 1498: 'There is the earthly paradise which no one can attain unless it be through God's will.' He understood his mission in both messianic and apocalyptic terms, like the many conquerors and settlers of America after him: the 'new heaven and the new earth', or - as people in the United States liked to say - 'the new world', Novus ordo seculorum, as we can read on the United States seal. 'America' always profoundly excited the Utopian fantasy of Europe. The best known examples are Sir Thomas More's Utopia ( 1 5 1 6 ) , which drew on the travel accounts of Amerigo Vespucci, and Campanula's Civitas Solis (1623), which took the Inca sun state as its model. What Christian hope motivated modern civilization? It was the vision of the new era, the new time. The interpretative framework which mobilized Europe's diverse seizures of power over the world and gave them their orientation was millenarist expectation: the expectation that when Christ comes, the saints will reign with him for a thousand years, and will judge the nations, and that this empire of Christ's will be the last, golden age of humanity before the end of the world. There is no need to mention particularly the degree to which the Pilgrim Fathers and the pious incomers who settled North America and wiped out the Indians as 'Amalekites' were moulded by millenarianism. Through immigration, European and, more recently, Asian peoples have created the United States, put their stamp on its culture, and made it the central country of the world. The Afro-Americans contributed through their enslavement and their liberation. The country of the indigenous Americans, the Euro-Americans, Afro-Americans, Hispano-Americans and Asian-Americans has been settled by a people from many nations: e pluribus unum out of many, one. The United States constitutes the unique modern experiment of a universal representation of humanity; and for that reason it is also uniquely dangerous. Even today, every American president invokes in his inaugural address 'the messianic faith of our fathers'; and 'the millennial role of America' is still easily detectable in the political philosophy of 10

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the United States. It is 'the innocent nation' and hence 'the redeemer nation'. With the beginning of modern times a wave of messianic hope swept through the whole of Europe. We find it in the Jewish messianism of Sabbatai Zvi, in the Puritan apocalypse, in seventeenth-century 'prophetic theology', and in the kingdomof-God theology of early German pietism (Comenius, Spener, Bengel, Oetinger). Christianity has always been familiar with millenarist end-time hopes. But with the beginning of the modern era, the new time signal was sounded: the time of fulfilment is now. This hope can be realized today. Secularization doesn't mean making things worldly. It means the realization of the religious. That is the reason why, following Joachim of Fiore's vision, modern times were termed in Germany Neu-zeit - new time. 'Ancient times' and 'mediaeval times' had now been succeeded by the 'new time', which is the end-time of history and 'the third age' of the Spirit within us, who is immediate to God. World history is being 'consummated' now. Humanity is being perfected now. Unhindered progress in every sector is beginning now. If there is no longer any alternative to this modern civilization of humanity, then it is 'the end of history', and an era subsequent to history and without history begins: the 13

posthistoire.

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The lordship of the saints over the nations is going to be realized now; the lordship of human beings over the earth will be restored now. Science and technology are now giving back to human beings what they lost through original sin - dominium terrae, as Francis Bacon put it: domination over the earth. Hitherto childish human beings are coming of age now for, as Kant said, 'Enlightenment is the departure of human beings from their self-inflicted immaturity to the free and public use of their reason.' The human being is good, and can become morally better and better. The reason for this Enlightenment optimism about the human race is wholly and utterly millenarist: 'In this final age Satan has been bound for a thousand years', so that the Good can spread unhindered. Lessing's 'Thoughts on the Education of the Human Race'

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(Gedanken iiber die Erziehung des Menschengescblechts,

ri 1777)

became the foundation document of the German Enlightenment. It is messianic through and through. Lessing proclaimed nothing less than 'the third age' of the Spirit, which Joachim had promised, and with it the consummation of history. This era begins when all reasonable people pass from a merely 'historical faith in the church' to 'the general faith in reason', a faith in which all human beings recognize the True itself, without the mediation of the church, and do what is good without the church's guidance, simply because it is the good. Religion's 'divine plan of salvation' had turned into the advance of history. For Kant, the French Revolution, with its solemn apotheosis of humanity - 'all human beings created free and equal' - and its democracy, became the 'historical sign' (signum rememorativum et prognosticon) of the development of a better humanity. 'We see,' he declared, 'that the philosophers can have their chiliasm too.' For Kant, this chiliasm meant the 'perfect civil union of the human race' in a 'league of nations' (foedus amphictyonum) which would guarantee 'eternal peace'. This is an idea which in the declarations on human rights and in the policy of the United Nations (UNO) has come to be seen as an inescapable necessity if humanity is to survive. If we look at the messianism of modern times, we can understand why for Kant the religious question was no longer: What links us with the source?, or: What gives me a hold in eternity? The real question was: What can I hope for? It is only a future which we are permitted to hope for that gives any meaning to life in history and to all historical experiences and actions. For modernity, hoped-for future became a new paradigm of transcendence for what transcends history. 15

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(ii) The contradiction between modernity and sub-modernity, or end-times of the modern world

With our credulous faith in progress it is easy for us to throw ourselves from the pre-modern into modernity, and from modernity into 'post-modernity'; but it is realistic to pause

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first, and to be clear about the victims of modernity in submodernity. History's fine messianic top coat has its ugly apocalyptic underside; the victorious advance of the European nations has meant the retreat of the other nations, with all the tremendous loss involved; and the development of the culture of reason has led to the subjugation of the body, the feelings and the senses of modern men and women. The success story of 'the First World' has never gone unaccompanied by the story of the Third World's suffering. We need only compare dates and simultaneous events. When in 1 5 1 7 Luther nailed up his reforming Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, and the Reformation in Germany began, Hernando Cortes was sailing to Tenochtitlan, Mexico. In 1 5 2 1 , when he conquered the city of the Aztecs, Luther stood before the Reichstag in Worms, under the ban of church and empire. When Lessing and Kant were publishing their Enlightenment treatises, hundreds of thousands of black African slaves were being sold out of Africa to America every year. The industrial build-up of the modern world was always at the cost of the earth's destruction, as the ravaged industrial landscapes in Germany, central England, Pennsylvania and Siberia show. So the progress of the modern world has always been acquired only at the expense of other nations, at the expense of nature, and at the expense of coming generations. If the real costs had had to be met, the actual progress made would have been negligible. Only a third of the modern world is what we now call Western civilization - the so-called First World. Two-thirds of it are the modern Third World. Modern times - the 'new time' - have called forth both modernity and sub-modernity. But because some live in the light and others in darkness, the people in the light do not see the people who are forced to vegetate in darkness. The memories of the perpetrators are always short, while the memories of the victims are long. For the repressed people in the countries of the Third World, and for the exploited and silenced earth, the messianism of modern times has never been anything but the apocalypse of their

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annihilation. But because our divided human worlds are inextricably interwoven, and because no human civilization can cut itself free from the ecosystems of the one earth we share, the downfall of the Third World means the downfall of the First World too; and the destruction of the earth will also mean the extinction of the human race. i . The economic end-time. With the beginning of the modern world the Third World also came into existence, for it was in fact only the modern mass enslavement of Africans and the exploitation of America's mineral resources which provided the labour and capital for the development and advancement of the West. From the seventeenth century until well into the nineteenth, Europe's wealth was built up on the basis of a great transcontinental, triangular commerce: slaves from Africa to America; gold and silver from America to Europe, followed by sugar, cotton, coffee, tobacco and rubber; then industrial commodities and weapons to Africa; and so on. This wholesale transatlantic commerce produced the investment capital for the industrialization of Western Europe. Through the slave trade it destroyed the cultures and kingdoms of West Africa, and through monocultures it wrecked the native subsistence economies of Central and South America, making whole peoples the victims of European development. The consequences are familiar enough. Even yesterday the direct exploitation of labour and natural resources had already been replaced by the burden of an enormous debt which has to be repaid with interest. Even today, the interest flowing back to the industrial countries exceeds the capital being invested in the so-called developing countries. Yet nowadays the automation of production is making industry increasingly independent of the low wages and cheap labour in the poorer countries. More and more countries in Africa and Latin America are ceasing to be of any interest at all to the industrial West. The number of people and markets that are no longer needed is steadily increasing. The exploited Third World is being turned into a superfluous backwoods, and its population into 'surplus people'. We see the first sign of this road to exterminism in 'the coming anarchy' in 18

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Africa, the forgotten continent, an anarchy which Robert D. Kaplan described so movingly in his article in the Atlantic Monthly of February 1994. West African states are disintegrating and becoming ungovernable. Power is no longer a monopoly of the state. The ecological destruction of the countryside is driving people into the slums of the big cities. Malaria and AIDS are turning more and more people into lepers. The plagues are coming back. An enormous poverty movement is going to develop which will thrust forward into the rich countries, and these will become fortresses which protect themselves against the intrusive masses by way of new iron curtains: the fortress of Europe, the fortress of Japan, the fortress of the USA, and so on. I do not myself envisage the 'clash of civilizations' which Samuel Huntington prophesied. What I do see coming are crusades of the poor against the rich countries, and the decimation of surplus people through famine and disease. 2. The ecological end-time. The beginning of the modern world is also the beginning of 'the end of nature'. The modern world emerged out of the scientific discovery and technological mastery of nature, and today it is living from that more than ever before. The spread of scientific and technological civilization as we have hitherto known it is leading to the annihilation of more and more plant and animal species. Carbon dioxide and methane are producing the greenhouse effect which in the coming decades is going to change the climate of the earth, with momentous consequences. Chemical fertilizers and diverse pesticides are poisoning the soil. The rain forests are being cut down. Pastures are overgrazed. The deserts are growing. In the last sixty years the human population of the world has quadrupled, and at the beginning of the next century it will number eight to ten billion people. The foodstuffs required and the waste produced will rise accordingly. In 1950 2 9 % of the population lived in towns. In the year 2000 it will be 46.6%. The ecosystem has lost its equilibrium and is well on the way to destroying the earth and itself. We call this slowly spreading crisis 'environmental pollution', 19

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and search for technical solutions. But it is really a crisis of the hole major project of modern civilization. The human destruction of nature is based on a disturbed and distorted relationship between human beings and nature. Unless the fundamental values of this society of ours are given a new orientation; unless we find a new praxis of living in our dealings with nature; unless human beings arrive at a new understanding of themselves and evolve an alternative economic system; unless we arrive at these things it is not difficult to extrapolate from the facts and trends of the present crises the ecological collapse of the earth. What are the ruling concerns and values of modern civilization? It is evidently the will to dominate that impels modern men and women to seize power over nature - the nature of the earth and their own bodily nature. The increase of human power and the securing of that power provide the driving power of progress. This progress is still always measured quantitatively, in economic, financial and military terms, and its cost is shuffled off on to nature. The modern civilization which began in Europe is an expansionist culture in relation to other countries as well as in relation to nature. Earlier 'pre-modern' or non-European societies, which are now called 'undeveloped', cherished the wisdom of self-restraint and the preservation of equilibriums between civilization and nature, but this wisdom has been lost. Today it is also disappearing among the peoples who are striving to arrive at the West's standard of living - in Korea, for example, and China. The expansion and spread of this culture of domination is accelerating, and ecological catastrophes are increasing proportionately in all the countries of the world. That brings us to the decisive questions of the present day. Does industrial society inescapably mean 'the end of nature', or must nature be protected against industrial society? Is the biosphere the indispensable foundation of the human technosphere, or can the technosphere be so expanded that the biosphere as we have hitherto known it becomes dispensable? Should we protect nature from us human beings for its own sake, or must we reshape the earth into an artificial world, like 21

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a space-ship, in which human beings, suitably adapted through genetic manipulations, can go on existing? 3. The God crisis (J. B. Metz's phrase). It is understandable that the clashes and contradictions of the modern world should have led to profound crises of confidence among modern men and women. Confidence in time is lost if we don't know whether there is still any future. Confidence in the earth collapes once the earth is turned into a rubbish dump. Confidence in human beings is destroyed by our modern mass murders. By loss of confidence I don't simply mean religious uncertainties. Religious certainties are on offer in teeming abundance. What I mean is a loss of the assurance of God and the self in a profounder sense. Nietzsche made the point in 1886 with prophetic solemnity: 'The greatest new event (is) that "God is dead".' My father's generation experienced precisely this in the mass slaughter of the First World War, in which the most advanced Christian European nations mowed each other down. My generation experienced it in the unimaginable horrors and unendurable guilt of 'Auschwitz', where millions of Jews and other people were murdered in gas chambers with the methods of an industrial process. Today we are asking ourselves whether our progress is worth the sacrifice among people in the Third World. The founders of the modern age thought of a new, glorious era for the whole human race; but we are surviving on islands of prosperity planted in a sea of mass misery. Those earlier men and women believed that all human beings 'are created free and equal'; but we know that our modern life-style cannot be universalized. The growing anarchy in the Third World matches the growing apathy of the First. Our social frigidity towards the disadvantaged and the humiliated is an expression of our frigidity towards God. The cynicism of modern manipulators is an expression of our contempt for God. We have lost God, and God has left us, so we are bothered neither by the suffering of others which we have caused, nor by the debts which we are leaving behind us for coming generations. We see all this, but it doesn't touch us. We know it, but it leaves us unmoved. We are as if paralysed. Knowledge 22

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is no longer the revelation of our power; it is the revelation of our powerlessness. Because this growing apathy is not confined to Protestants or Catholics, Christians or Moslems, Europeans or non-Europeans, but is becoming more and more universal, it has to be based on an objective alienation from God. God has hidden his face and is far from us. The great dreams of humanity which accompanied the 'discoveries' and the projects of modern times from their inception were necessary dreams, but they were impossible ones. They asked too much of human beings. Mexico was not Eldorado, and the Garden of Eden was not to be found in Venezuela. The United States is not 'the new world' in the messianic sense, and the modern age never became a 'new time' in any messianic sense at all. The scientific discovery and technical mastery of nature did not make human beings the image of God. The humanitarian notions of the Enlightenment neither improved the human race morally, nor did they 'consummate' history. These images of a 'brave new world' after the end of history merely deepened history's wretchedness, and brought the human race closer to its end. We no longer know where the project of the modern world is taking us. That is the 'crisis of orientation' which is so often invoked. And we no longer know whether our thinking and labouring within this modern project ministers to life or to death. That is the 'crisis of meaning' which we hear so much about.

(Hi) The rebirth of modernity out of the Spirit of life

The visions of modern times are impossible visions, but they are none the less necessary ones. There is only one alternative to the humanitarian ideas of human dignity and the universality of human rights, and that alternative is barbarism. There is only one alternative to the ideal of eternal peace, and that is a permanent state of war. There is only one alternative to faith in the One God and hope for his kingdom, and that is polytheism and chaos. What must we keep, of the project of modernity, and

i8

Theology

and

Politics

what must we throw out? What must we re-invent, so that the project does not founder? i . Hope for God without triumphalism and millenarianism.

The God of modern times is 'the coming God'. The God of the Bible, according to the book of the promises and the book of the gospel, is the God 'who is and who was and who is to come' (Rev. 1.4). That is to say, he will appear in his full God-ness only in his kingdom. But where does God already come now? Where are we so certain of his presence that we can live and act with the assurance of God and ourselves? The messianism of modern times said: with God we will enter into lordship over the earth, and with Christ we will judge the nations. This messianic dream became a nightmare for the nations, and made an excessive demand on the people concerned, a demand which ended in cold despair: a 'God complex'. But it is not in our domination that the coming God is present; it is in our suffering, in which he is present through his life-giving Spirit. It is not in our strength that the grace that raises us up is made perfect; it is in our weakness. What, according to the book of Revelation, precedes the thousand years' kingdom of Christ? Resistance against 'the beast from the abyss' and the great refusal to sacrifice to the idols and laws of 'Babylon', and to make common cause with Babylon by enriching ourselves at the cost of the other peoples. The millennium is preceded by martyrdom. Only 'those who endure with Christ will reign with him' (II Tim. z.iz). What the messianism of modern times has skipped over is the presence of the divine future in suffering, in resistance, in persecution and in martyrdom. The outcome was the appalling picture in which 'Babylon' was Christianized, and declared to be itself 'the thousand years' empire'. For what else did Francis Fukuyama mean, when in 1989, after the collapse of 'socialism as it really exists', he glamourized 'the global marketing of all things and liberal democracy', transfiguring these things into 'the end of history'? We must again turn back theologically from the apocalyptic Armageddon to the Christian Golgotha. It was on the historical Golgotha that Christ triumphed, not in the 23

24

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in the Project of

Modernity

19

apocalyptic Armageddon, as Carl Schmitt's friend-foe ideology proclaimed. It is on Golgotha that the coming God is present in history. Where is God? Where can we find God in this history of ours? Before his eternal kingdom dawns, the coming God is present in his Shekinah. When the first Temple was destroyed in 5 87 BC, and Israel was driven into Babylonian captivity, what happened then to God's special 'indwelling' in the Temple? One answer was: the Shekinah of the Lord went into captivity with the people, and suffered Israel's sufferings with her. God is the comrade on the way, and the companion in suffering of his people. The gospel says that the divine Word and its eternal Wisdom became flesh in Jesus and lived among us (John 1 . 1 4 ) . That is the Shekinah theology of the New Testament. If God lives among us, he journeys with us too. If he journeys with us, he also suffers with us. If he suffers with us he gives us the assurance of God and ourselves in the great exile of this world. We are always inclined to perceive God, the Absolute, only in whatever is like ourselves. What is like us endorses us, what is alien makes us unsure. That is why we love what is like ourselves, and are afraid of what is strange. That is the form which social self-righteousness takes. It is typically millenarist: God is like us - we are like God. We rule with God, and God is on our triumphant side. That is the way America was 'discovered'. We go a step beyond this when we try to revere and perceive God as the Wholly Other (Karl Barth) in what is different from ourselves and strange (E. Lévinas). We respect and recognize other people and those who are strange to us when we stop trying to make them like ourselves, but attempt to open ourselves for their particular character, and to transform ourselves, together with them, into a new community of people who are different from one another. Then the form which social justice takes becomes acceptance of others. Of course this presupposes that in our relation to God we know that we are accepted by him as those who are different from him, and that as those alien to him we are justified. We take a step further still when we try to revere and discern 25

26

Theology and Politics

20

God in the victims of our own violence, perceiving him as being himself the victim of human greed for world domination. God - the victim in the victims: that is 'the crucified God' who looks at us with the mute eyes of the street children. When Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero discovered this, he resisted the people of power - and was murdered. 'God is dead - we have killed him', maintained Nietzsche. Unfortunately he failed to see where we kill God. We kill God when we make his image the victim of our violence, for God is in his image. We kill God when we shut out strangers and drive them away, for God is in the stranger. We kill God when we choose death instead of life, and secure our own lives at the price of the death of countless other living things, for God is a living God. Anyone who infringes life, infringes God. Anyone who does not love life, does not love God. God is a God of the whole of life, of every life and of the shared life of us all. 27

28

2. Humanity's project of modernity began with the acknowledgment that 'all human beings are created free and equal' and

that 'liberty, equality and fraternity' (or sisterhood) belong together. In the liberal democracies of the Western world we have grasped what individual liberty means over against the power of the state. But that all human beings are free? That promise of human rights and constitutional government has certainly not been realized as yet. Many civil rights movements and many struggles for freedom will be required before that promise is fulfilled. And yet this human project does not accommodate the opposite - that some human beings have been created free, for example, while others have been created unfree. The society of the free and the unfree certainly still exists, but it no longer finds any justification. What is still totally unrealized, on the other hand, is the truth that 'all human beings have been created equal'. Because socialism made this demand of modern times its own, and in its party dictatorships so hideously betrayed it, no one wants to talk about the equality of all human beings any more - at least not their economic equality. And yet there is no universal

Theology

in the Project of

Modernity

21 liberty for every individual without the fundamental equality of all human beings. Without equality, liberty cannot be universalized. Without a degree of economic equality there is no democracy. But what kind of equality? Equality as a social concept means justice. Without just social and political conditions there is no peace between human beings and nations. Equality as an ethical concept means solidarity, brotherly and sisterly love - Philadelphia, as humanism put it in so Christian a way! Is that pure idealism? I don't think so. I believe it is naked realism if humanity is to survive. Without the creation of comparable living conditions in all the countries of the world, we shall not be able to call a halt to the many refugee movements in the twenty-first century. One small example is united Germany: if hundreds of thousands of Germans are not to emigrate from the east to the west, we have to create equal living conditions in east and west. That is costly, but possible. The same is true for a united Europe: in order to stop the trek from east to west, the east must be made a place where people can live. Things will be no different in the north-south conflict: we shall not be able to withstand the pressure of millions of refugees by setting up new iron curtains. We shall only be able to do so by creating living conditions similar to our own in the countries from which the refugees come. The social task of the future is equality. It is not equality 'in our own image'; it is the equality that springs from recognition of other people and the reparation due to our victims. 3. Not least important, we are facing an ecological reformation of modern society and the religion of modern men and women. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been called the economic age, because economics have been at the centre of every concern. But the twenty-first century will become the ecological age, because the organism of the earth will be the factor that has to be respected everywhere. Global economy will become what Ernst von Weizsäcker called earth economy, and global politics will become earth politics. If humanity is to survive, the human economy will have to be aligned towards preserving life through harmony with the 29

22

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earth's ecology and by righting the wrongs done to the soil, the water and the atmosphere. For this ecological reformation of society we need a new spirituality and a new theological architecture. The dominating and exploitative mentality which has prevailed up to now will give way to a new cosmic spirituality. Ernesto Cardenal's powerful Cantico Cosmico marvellously opens up a new spiritual world. We shall rediscover God's hidden immanence in nature, and revere the divine presence in everything created. 'No created thing is so far from God as not to have him within itself,' said Aquinas. 'God's Spirit fills the world' (Wisdom 1.7) and holds all the living in life, fusing them into a life-enhancing fellowship. We shall leave behind us the Western anthropocentricism which with Pico della Mirandola declared the human being to be 'the centre of the world'. It is not the human being who is the measure of all things. It is God, who has created the whole of life in order to invite everything living to the sabbath feast of creation. Once we overcome modern anthropocentricism, we shall once more set free the suppressed dimensions of human bodiliness and the senses. The human being is more than just a 'subject of understanding and will'. If we can again integrate understanding and will into our bodies and sensory perceptions, we shall then also be able to integrate human culture into the nature of the earth's organism. But not the least important thing will be to reintegrate modern instrumental rationality in the sciences into the wider cohesions of wisdom, of sophia and phronesis, so that we know what we can do and what we should do better to leave alone. The project of Western scientific and technological civilization has become humanity's fate. We cannot go on as we have done up to now without arriving at a universal catastrophe. Yet we cannot simply withdraw from this huge project, and let the world go down to destruction without us. Consequently all that is left to us is the fundamental reformation of the modern world. So let us re-invent it! Do we still have time? We do not know and we dare not

Theology

in the Project of

Modernity

know. If we knew that our sands had already run out, w should do nothing further, because nothing would make sensi any more. If we knew that we still had time enough, we shouh do nothing either, but should leave all the unsolved problems t< the coming generations. But because we do not know whethe: time still remains to us, and if so how much, we have to ac today as if the future of the whole human race depended on us And yet we have at the same time to trust that God will remair true to his creation and will not let it go.

2

Covenant or Leviathan? Political Theology at the Beginning of Modern Times

(i) The present

question

Federalism or centralism? Today that is a decisive question in the political building up of Europe. In the Eastern European countries, socialist centralism in a planned economy accompanied by the ideological surveillance of the people has crumbled away. The federalist republic, with a decentralized form of communication and a multiplicity of regional, local and personal initiatives, proved stronger. Federalism or centralism? That is the problem of Europe's inner unity too. Do we want a democratic Europe, in which people are intensively involved, or do we want a smoothly running state machinery which looks after the people and incapacitates them, robbing them of their responsibility? Federalism or centralism? That is not just a question of practical politics. It also thrusts deep into the basic trust and basic anxieties of men and women. Don't we expect of the state 'security' and protection from our enemies first of all? Didn't chaos break out in the Balkans after the collapse of a unified Yugoslavia, with a cruel struggle of each against all? Doesn't history show that without the taming of a strong hand, dog eats dog in human society? But who can guarantee that this 'strong state' which offers us protection and security will not itself turn into a wolf that devours the people? Who can be sure that the secure state will not become a 'state security' system? History

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

*5

teaches us too that 'security' states have turned into dictatorships which despise and destroy their people, dictatorships to which we have given the names of ravening beasts: the terrible Leviathan, the state Moloch and - in East Germany - the Stasi octopus. So how can we achieve pluralism in freedom without chaos, and unity in peace without dictatorship? In trying to find an answer to these questions of our own day, I should like to offer a contribution taken from the history of political theology at the beginning of the modern era, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Perhaps we can recognize our own problems in the circumstances of that time, and at the beginning of the modern age also perceive the possibility of its end. The word 'covenant' is used for the idea of the federalist state developed by the group of Calvinists known as monarchomachists, as they worked out the law of resistance against the political and religious absolutism that was beginning in France. I am taking the theological and political ideas for this from the Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1574, printed 1579), whose most probable author was Philippe Duplessis Mornay. The word Leviathan stands for the influential book of the same name published by Thomas Hobbes in 1 6 5 1 (Latin 1668), on 'The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil'. This is the Utopia of the 'security' state, which unites in itself spiritual and secular, political and ideological power, and permits neither a division of powers nor a right of resistance. I am writing as a theologian, not as a political scientist, and shall look at both these treatises, the Vindiciae and the Leviathan, from the aspect of their theological dimensions and their implicit theological premises. I shall then compare the two, and in doing so shall also draw on Martin Luther's 'circular disputation' of 1539 on resistance to the apocalyptic 'Werewolf. After that I shall take a leap into the twentieth century, discussing Carl Schmitt's admiration for the Leviathan, and his attempted paganization of its ideas. Finally, I shall put forward a few propositions on the political theology of democracy, and the downfall of the 'Leviathan'.

26

Theology

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Politics

Carl Schmitt's famous thesis in his political theology is as follows: 'That one is sovereign who can declare the state of emergency' (1922). My own thesis is: 'That one is free who claims the right to resist.' Resistance is the legitimate termination of lawless, tyrannical 'states of emergency' from below. (it) The theology of covenant and the right of resistance

Calvinism is considered to be particularly political because it is supposed to be theocratically inclined. But that is incorrect. In his letters to Huguenots, Calvin always justified political resistance only in the framework of the established law, never as natural law. The established law in the France of his time was the law of the estates, which conflicted with the incipient absolutism of the French monarchy and its claim to the religion of the state: un roi - un loi - une foi - one king, one law, one faith. If there are estates within a commonwealth (Calvin calls them ephori), it is their duty to intervene on behalf of the liberty of the people against a tyrannical ruler. On the other hand, Calvin advised people without office to confine themselves to passive resistance, leaving vengeance to God (Inst. IV, 20, 3 1 ) . Natural law and popular sovereignty play no part in Calvin's thinking. But resistance to rulers who molest and oppress faith is a religious requirement for him. For - over against the mediaeval discussion about the right of resistance the Reformation introduced a new case: resistance, on the grounds of faith, to a change of religion ordered by the state. In the Massacre of St Bartholomew of 1 5 7 2 , the French 'Rex christianissimus' had the leading Huguenots - then gathered together in Paris - murdered, among them Admiral de Coligny and the philosopher Petrus Ramus. That was the turning point, and it called into being the polemical writings of the monarchomachists. In these, the point at issue was not the ancient problem of tyrannicide, but an alternative form of government to the absolutism that was beginning. The dispute with this 'modern' political form gradually brought about a transition from mediaeval government by the estates t o the no less 1

2

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

'modern' constitutional state. The transition was effected through an increasing democratization of the right of resistance. Whereas in 1 5 7 3 Francois Hotman could defend the estates' right to resist in the context of an aristocratically tempered monarchy, in 1574 we find Theodore Beza, Calvin's successor in Geneva, defending the same prerogative in the light of the rights of the people: 'AH can resist those who, in violation of the duties of their office, arrogate to themselves a tyrannical rule over their subjects.' In Presbyterian Scotland the Scots Confession was compiled in 1560. One of the 'good works' listed, following the worship of God and neighbourly love, is 'to protect the life of the innocent, to resist tyranny and to support the oppressed'. Resistance to tyrants is thus elevated to the status of a general Christian duty. There is no longer any talk of restricting it to the estates or the representatives of the church. Part of the background to this astonishing generalization of the right of resistance is ancient Scottish law. In his De jure regni apud Scotos (1579), George Buchanan expounded it as follows: because both elective and hereditary monarchy rests on the homage of the people, once the ruler infringes the contract of rule, the people are released from their duty of obedience. The most effective and influential exposition, however, was the famous Vindiciae contra tyrannos, which appeared under the pseudonym Junius Brutus, and which from 1579 onwards was frequently reprinted and widely disseminated (English translations 1648 and 1689). Some people assume that the author was Hubert Languet, a pupil of Melanchthon's, who as the diplomatic representative of the German Protestant estates - was an eye witness of the St Bartholomew massacre. It would seem more likely that the author was his pupil and friend Phil ippe Duplessis Mornay, one of the intellectual leaders of the Huguenots in the years of active resistance that followed the massacre. In this writing, it is no longer the estates' traditional right to resist the crown that is defended; now a new federalist, democratic idea of the state is advanced, even if there is no intention of abolishing the monarchy as such. As far as I know, 3

4

5

28

Theology

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Politics

Duplessis Mornay was the first to use the theological notion of covenant as a justification for the right of resistance. Because of the interest in this aspect, it is usually only the third part of the Vindiciae that is read, while the preceding theological doctrine of the double covenant is overlooked. But it is with this doctrine, which he develops in the quaestio prima, that Mornay proposes to answer the four questions of the day: i . Are subjects bound to obey a ruler whose commands contradict God's law? 2. Is it permissible to resist the ruler if he violates God's law? 3. Is it allowable to resist a ruler who destroys the state? 4. May neighbouring rulers help the subjects of a foreign country for religious or political reasons? The theory of contract which is used in the discussion of the right of resistance in these four cases is based, following the Old Testament, on the theology of the double covenant. God himself makes the first covenant with the people of Israel on Sinai. The law of this covenant is the Decalogue. 'At the beginning the people had no king other than God.' The people make the second covenant with the king 'before God' and transfer their sovereignty to him according to this contract of rule. If a ruler breaks this covenant, sovereignty reverts to the people. The king is then a tyrant whom the people must resist. But if the ruler breaks God's own covenant with the people, he is a blasphemer, whom the people are bound to resist in the interests of God's will. The people appoint rulers, confer on them the kingdom, and confirm the appointment through their voice. 'Thus kings must always remember that they are indeed kings by God's grace but that they rule through the people and for the people.' That sounds like Lincoln's Gettysburg address: 'A government of the people, by the people, for the people . . .' The people make kings, not kings the people. In the contract of rule the ruler gives his promise unconditionally, the people only conditionally - if the contract is not fulfilled they are, without more 6

7

8

ado, freed of every obligation: 'populus jure omni obligatione

solutus.'' 'Popular sovereignty' is thus defined almost word for word in the way that Jean Bodin defined the absolute sovereignty of the ruler: 'Princeps legibus solutus est.'

9

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

29

The Vindiciae makes a distinction politically between de facto tyrants, usurpers and blasphemers. The de facto tyrant rules unlawfully over the kingdom conferred on him. Against him private individuals may not draw the sword, because he has been appointed not by individuals but by the people as a whole; consequently it is the representatives of the whole who have to resist him first of all. Usurpers, on the other hand, who seize the government by force, without any legal title to it, 'may be opposed by everyone without distinction, because here no contract has been made'. Finally, against the 'blasphemers', resistance in spiritual matters is actually enjoined. For Mornay, the Old Testament lives on in the New, the people of Israel in the people of Christ, and hence the politia Moisi also in the kingdom of Christ. So what was required of the Jewish people is required of Christian people too. The picture Mornay draws is as follows. The people and the king answer for one another, so that neither falls away from the true God. If the king turns to strange gods, the people of God must take action against him. In the covenantal contract, God has given his people the authority and the power to adopt measures against rulers who wish to lead the people away from true faith. With powerful rhetoric Mornay enquires: why did God require the assent of the people? Why did he bind them to his law? And he appeals to the prophets, whom God appointed from among his people so that the rulers should be called to account for their sins. The people has authority in sacris - in sacred things because of its covenant with God. Even if the king and a large section of the people fall away, the minority must resist, because every part of the whole has sworn obedience to God. That was the justification for resistance which Duplessis Mornay offered the Protestant Christians who in France were condemned to be a religious minority. The most moving example of that resistance was Marie Durand, who was incarcerated for thirty-eight years in the Tour de la Constance in Aigues-Mortes, and scratched into the stone there her valiant 'Recister'. We shall pick out the following points in this concept of the state, and shall develop them a little further historically.

Theology

3°

and

Politics

1. Here the justification of the right to resist is not theocratically based, nor does it rest on natural law. It is founded on federal theology. Federal theology does not derive from Calvin in Geneva. It originated in Zurich, with Heinrich Bullinger's De Testamento seu Foedere unico et aeterno (1534). The covenant

between human beings is based on, and safeguarded by, God's covenant with those same human beings. 'The true citizens of Christ's kingdom' are confoederati, fellow members of the covenant, declared Caspar Olevian, the Heidelberg federal theologian, in 1560. Another exponent of this tradition of Reformed federal theology was Johann Althusius. He put forward his Politica methodice

digesta (1603) in Herborn, and out of

federal theology developed not only the mutual contract of rule, but also the internal legal covenant binding society, and a social doctrine of all the different social contracts, from the family to society as a whole. 2. The premise of federal theology is that God considers human beings to be worthy of a covenant and capable of covenant. From this trust on God's part follows the trust of human beings in their mutual capability for covenant. Men and women are symbiotic, social beings. Their social life consists of associations. Politics are symbiotic. From this the definition follows that politica est ars consociandi' - politics is the art of association. For this Althusius appeals, not only to the history of Israel, but to the political history of the Hanseatic and city leagues in Europe too, and to the political prototype of all federalists, the Swiss Confederation. 3. Covenant thinking entered the political history of New England and the American Revolution by way of the Puritan emigration from the 'old world' of England into the 'new world' of America - this being interpreted as an exodus from the theocratic dictatorship of 'Egypt' into the covenanted community of 'the free and the equal' in the new Israel. The covenant sermon which John Winthrop preached before the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1 6 3 0 for the first settlers counts as the beginning of American political self-awareness: 'America: A Covenanted Nation'. The church covenant of free congregations and the l

10

11

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

3i

social covenant of the settlers' co-operatives strengthened one another mutually. Federalist patterns moulded the legislation of the individual states as well as their confederation, and put their stamp on the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Charles McCoy has recently shown that the famous federalist James Madison was influenced by the federal theologian John Witherspoon, his predecessor at the College of New Jersey in Princeton. The 'cause of the republic' was realized through the federal principle. Whether the word covenant should be used instead of constitution was also a point of discussion. That means that the constitution - in Germany it is significantly called the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) - is the agreement of citizens 'before God' which every government has to observe and which puts every citizen under an obligation to resist any exercise of power that is illegal, illegitimate, and that transgresses human rights. Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, and the ultimate crisis and test of democracy. 12

(Hi) Leviathan: sovereignty

the mortal God and his absolute

Thomas Hobbes wrote and published his Leviathan towards the very end of the Civil War. By way of Calvinism and Puritanism, the English bourgeoisie and gentry were won for the democratic idea. On the other side, the Stuarts tried to reign in as absolute a manner as Louis XIV in France. There was no way out of the conflicts between parliament and the crown. The Leviathan appeared in 1 6 5 1 , two years after the execution of Charles I, and it is therefore also an answer to the monarchomachists' theory of the state and its political consequences. But Hobbes's way of thinking is different, and devoid of concern about the position of the different estates and their traditions. In this sense it belongs as entirely to the Enlightenment as does the thinking of his contemporary, René Descartes. The state he constructs is a human artifact, more geometrico, 'after the fashion of geometry'. It is the a-historical utopia of a state machinery which is under the guidance of a sovereign will, and allows no 13

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room for the random contingencies of legal history. In his dispute with Sir Edward Coke ( 1 5 5 2 - 1 6 3 2 ) , Hobbes rejected Common Law, and made the Common Law judges responsible for undermining royal sovereignty, and hence for the Civil War. But does this mean that Hobbes's philosophy can be called 'the direct response to the civil wars of religion on both sides of the Channel', as Jacob Taubes maintains? 1 would see it rather as an Enlightenment Utopia of the state, which shows only a slight interest in tradition and religion. Hobbes begins by assuming that the natural condition of human beings is a 'miserable' one, a war of 'every man against every man'. He sees, in the first place, 'as a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death' (Chap. XI, p.64). For that reason, 'Men have no pleasure, but on the contrary a great deal of grief, in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all' (Chap. XIII, p.81). In addition to the striving for power, however, human beings also have a drive towards 'their own preservation' and the wish to escape 'that miserable condition of war' where 'every man is enemy to every man'. People therefore make a fundamental 'covenant' in which they transfer their freedom to govern themselves to a sovereign, whether this be a person or an assembly. This is the way a state or civil society comes into being. 'This done, the multitude so united in one person, is called a COMMONWEALTH, in Latin CIVITAS. This is the generation [i.e., birth] of the great LEVIATHAN, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the commonwealth; which, to define it, 14

15

is one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of

Covenant

or Leviathan?

them all, as he shall think expedient,

^

for their peace and

common defence' (Chap. XVII, p. n z ) . Because this state sovereignty issues from the fundamental covenant between human beings, Hobbes calls it a 'commonwealth by institution'. Nevertheless, the political unity of the many is not vested in this fundamental covenant; it lies in the one who represents it: 'In persona una vera omnium unio.' So out of many individuals

is formed the great macranthropos, the Leviathan. The sovereign possesses all power, both worldly and spiritual. He is the head of the whole, and the subjects who have surrendered their liberty to him for the sake of their security are his body. A separation of powers would threaten the unity; the right of resistance would put an end to security. Hobbes too thinks in the categories of covenant and contract. He grew up in a Presbyterian house. However, for him there is no divine covenant with the people which sets limits to the contract of rule, but only the contract of rule made by human beings against hostile nature, as a means of ending the war of 'every man against every man'. The sovereignty of the representative is as absolute as people can make it: auctoritas non Veritas facit legem, authority, not

truth, makes law (Chap. XXVI). The sovereign's will itself is the law, but he himself is above the law. He wields both worldly and spiritual power, so he is lord over right and truth, and thus over miracle and creed as well. He determines the political religion of the country; only the citizen's inward faith is uninfringed, inasmuch as thought is free. But politically the sovereign himself becomes the mythical hero of peace, the Leviathan, and must in the Arian way be worshipped as 'mortal god' on earth under the protection of 'the immortal God' in heaven. Carl Schmitt and Jacob Taubes rightly pointed to the profound symbolism of the title page of the Leviathan. It shows a huge, giant figure, made up of many tiny human beings, in his right hand a sword and in his left the bishop's crozier. Both his hands are stretched out protectively over a peaceful city. Beneath the sword we see a castle, a crown, a cannon, lances,

Theology

34

and

Politics

and finally a battlefield. Beneath the bishop's crozier is a church, a mitre, the symbol of an anathema, finally a council chamber. The motto is taken from Job 41.24 [33]: 'Upon earth there is not his like.' What did Hobbes intend to say with this picture of the 'great Leviathan'? Superficially, the canon lawyer Hans Barion will doubtless be right when he points to the mediaeval theocratic 'two swords' theory. According to the 'Dictatus Papae', secular law too is conferred by the pope; and in the same way, according to Hobbes, the political sovereign has both powers in a single hand, for the 'giant and mighty man' who provides for protection and peace wears a crown. We are reminded of portraits of Henry VIII with a sword in each hand. Jacob Taubes rightly concludes from this that the real goal of Hobbes's political theory was a theocracy. This is confirmed by the Leviathan's sub-title: 'The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil.' But Hobbes is not concerned to 'draw a line between spiritual and worldly power', as Taubes thinks. On the contrary, his concern is the undivided unity of the two. The Leviathan is to be the prince of peace on earth. That is why Hobbes reiterates forty times that in his kingdom the acknowledgment is: 'Jesus is the Christ'. As far as I can see, this is only 16

17

comprehensible

if Hobbes's political Utopia is understood

chiliastically: in Christ's Thousand Years' Empire on earth (Revelation 20) spiritual and political power, state and church coincide. It is only this 'Christian commonwealth' which becomes the 'mortal god on earth' or - in Hegel's phrase - 'the appearing Godhead'. But why does Hobbes call this political kingdom of peace 'Leviathan'? 18

This brings us to the theological discussion of Hobbes's political theology. 1. Can 'the war of every man against every man' be called the natural condition of human beings? Theologically, this is the status corruptionis, not the status naturalis. Anyone who main-

tains that the human being is wicked by nature blasphemes the Creator. By 'the war of every man against every man' Hobbes really means the apocalyptic end of the world, the anarchy of

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

35

the End-time, the descent of the world into the chaos that was before creation. That is why he sees in the Leviathan's kingdom of peace the power to hold back this end of the world, the apocalyptic KOCTEXCOV. But the picture which Hobbes paints of nature is horrifying. For him, nature appears to be purely hostile to human beings, because it has brought them to that 'miserable condition' (p. 82.). The natural state of things is merciless war; only civil society provides peace, which is the state of grace. As I see it, these ideas are based on an impaired relationship to nature. Consequently the human artefact, the Leviathan state, is an unnatural formation, destructive of nature. Carl Schmitt claimed that the human being is 'a dangerous being', driven in his reactions only by the mechanism of the will to power and the need for security. But this can be said - if at all - only of the men and women of modern European times, alienated from nature as they are; and it is a picture that is both atheistic and inhumane. z. The idea that political objectives should be formed by surrendering the individual's right to self-determination to a sovereign, who rules as he or she sees fit, is equally fictitious and counter-productive. Hobbes himself asks: 'Where, and when, has such power by subjects been acknowledged?' (Chap. X X , p. 136), and he provides no answer. Nor did he write his doctrine of the state for the citizens of the state; he wrote for the sovereign, in order to make clear to him his arbitrary power, and to show how he could subjugate men and women, and keep them subject through the terrible spectre of the struggle of 'every man against every man', and through their fear of death. The fundamental covenant which is Hobbes's point of departure is nothing other than a contract of subjugation for the purposes of survival. But it is difficult to believe that if human beings are wolves by nature they can bring about a kingdom of peace by surrendering their liberty, and subjecting themselves to a human sovereign. Does Leviathan tame the wolfish nature of human beings, or does he himself become a superwolf? Why should the unquenchable will to power on the political level defer to the need for security? Why should it not rather swell to 19

36

Theology

and

Politics

overpowering might? Is a tyranny really preferable to anarchy if, when all is said and done, tyranny is itself no more than a particularly unpleasant form of anarchy? 3. Perhaps Hobbes saw these ambiguities himself, and chose the image of the Leviathan for that reason. Let us look again at this mythical image. Is the Leviathan as prince of peace a 'Christ' figure and, as the divine human being, a reflection of the incarnate God? Or is he the Antichrist, 'the Beast from the abyss', 'the Prince of this world'? In old age Hobbes certainly contrasted with his good Leviathan the wicked Behemoth, i.e. the English parliament. But he cannot have been completely deceived about the biblical mythology. It is true that he cites only Job 41.24 [33], but he undoubtedly also knew Isa. 27.1, where Leviathan is called 'the fleeing serpent and the twisting serpent', and is put beside the dragon as the beast of chaos who is anti-God, whom 'in that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish'. The apocalyptic writings of his time must also have made him familiar with the further development of the bibical Leviathan into dragon, devil, Satan, the god or prince of this wicked perverted world. Rev. 13.4 also says of the apocalyptic dragon from the sea - the Roman empire under Domitian - 'Who is like this beast, and who can fight against it?' Jacob Taubes illustrated his collection of essays, Carl Schmitt und die Folgen, with the picture of the Leviathan, mischievously entitling it 'the prince of this world'. In the Gospel of John, Satan is called 'the prince (or ruler) of this world', and his power has been broken for the first time by Christ, over whom he has no rights and no power (John 1 2 . 3 1 ; 14.30; 1 6 . 1 1 ) . Paul calls him 'the god of this world' (II Cor. 4.4). It was probably the titles 'prince of this world' and 'god of this world' that gave Hobbes the phrase 'the mortal god'. In the apocalyptic picture-world of seventeenth-century England, the Leviathan is not a figure of peace. He is a power of chaos, who spreads chaos, and is the very antithesis of the acknowledgment 'Jesus is the Christ'. If we wished to unmask the Leviathan, we might point out that dictatorships which are imposed in order to check anarchy,

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

37

themselves become anarchical. Dictatorship is anarchy from above. Organized crime is certainly the end of individual crime, but it is not the end of crime as such. Organized striving for power is certainly the end of the struggle of 'every man against every man', but it is not the end of the striving for power. Hobbes's Leviathan can also be read as a vision of organized peacelessness. A Protestant theologian is bound to read Hobbes with this suspicion, for ever since Luther the unity of worldly and spiritual power in the hand of a single sovereign, whether it be pope or emperor, has counted as a sign of the Antichrist. 4. In the perilous year 1 5 3 9 , Martin Luther sent out a circular disputation about the right of resistance to the Emperor. If, by waging war against the Protestant princes, the Emperor, on the Pope's behalf, should stamp out the Protestant faith, then for Luther he is not just a usurper or a ruler who is misusing his office; he is the Great Apocalyptic Tyrant. This is the monstrum of Daniel 1 1 . 3 6 , who rebels against God, and the Antichrist of II Thess. 2.3. This is the tyrannis universalis. His principle is 'the power of the ruler is law'. He recognizes no natural law and no contract, but only the law which he himself has laid down. He himself has no legal status; he is the avouos, the 'lawless one', of II Thess. 2.8. Luther says of this end-time tyrant: 'Hoc monstrum lupus est' - this monster is a wolf - and the beast symbol he chooses to describe him is not a Leviathan or an octopus but the werewolf - a human soul with a wolf's body. How can he be recognized? By the fact that he sets himself up over both kingdoms, the worldly and the spiritual, and plays havoc with all God's ordinances. Everyone must fight against this apocalyptic monster, rulers and ruled, rich and poor. 'This monster must in all circumstances be actively resisted by all and everyone . . . Even if in this mighty struggle judges or peasants be slain by the followers of that monster, they have by no means been wronged', says Luther in Thesis 2 5 . 'Against a lord who aids the world tyrant, the people have the right and the duty to rebel. It is a rebellion in the cause of eternal salvation, not a revolution for political purposes . . . Until the peril is past, only natural law rules . . . "Deficiente magistratu plebs est 20

21

Theology

38

and

Politics

magestratus"'; that is the way the Lutheran lawyer Johannes Heckel explains this passage, in good federal-theological fashion: where the magistracy is deficient, the people are the magistracy. Luther does not describe this monster as a 'mortal god'; he calls him the deus infernalis. But the essential thing here is not the apocalyptic imagery and the call to resistance. The real point at issue is the separation or the unity of spiritual and worldly power. 22

(iv) Covenant and Leviathan:

a

comparison

Let us now compare the main theses of the two political theologies that were put forward at the beginning of the modern era, not in order to harmonize them, but so as to clarify their profiles through a confrontation of the two. The premise of the idea of the state as a Leviathan is a negative anthropology. This is required in order to legitimate a positive theology of power, authority and sovereignty. Human beings are wicked by nature, inwardly disordered and destructive, so they need a strong state to protect them from other human beings and themselves. To justify this negative anthropology, appeal is generally made to Augustine's doctrine of original sin. The covenant idea of the state, on the other hand, presupposes a positive anthropology, so as to legitimate a critical theology of power, and democratic institutions for the control of power. 'All men are created equal [and are] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights', as the American Declaration of Independence declares. This critical doctrine of the state generally draws on the doctrine of political demonism, according to which power (uncontrolled power) is evil per se (Jakob Burckhardt's view). To justify the power of the state on the basis of a negative anthropology is really anarchical, for it maintains that there is no state either in paradise or in the kingdom of God; consequently the state is a phenomenon of sin. To justify of the power of the state as deriving from a

Covenant

or Leviathan?

^

9

covenant of free citizens sees the 'commonwealth' as a design created by human beings and an anticipation of 'heavenly citizenship' in the kingdom of God. The state as it is at present is certainly distorted by political demonism and human sin, but in itself it belongs to the nature of human beings, not to their estrangement. (v) Carl Schmitt's admiration for the Leviathan and his paganization of it

In 1922 Carl Schmitt introduced the term 'political theology' for the doctrine of political sovereignty, which meant a fateful . narrowing down of the ancient concept. Schmitt never made any secret of his admiration for the 'philosopher of Malmesbury' and concerned himself with the Leviathan throughout his life. In our present context we shall look at just two of the ideas he puts forward in his book Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes.

Sinn und Fehlschlag eines politischen

Symbols (1938), because they touch the nerve-centre of the Christian faith and hence of Christian theology too. The first of these ideas is the differentiation between spiritual and political power; the second is the liberty of private belief. In the first case, for Schmitt the distinction between religion and politics is 'Judaeo-Christian'. In the second, he claims that when Hobbes reserved the right to religious freedom in the private sphere, he paved the way for 'Jewish' undermining of the state and for the 'castration' of 'the vital Leviathan'. My concern here is not Schmitt's antisemitism, but the threat to the total state which he rightly perceived among Jews and Christians. Appealing to Leo Strauss, his Jewish discussion partner at the beginning of the 1930s, Schmitt maintained that in the question about the unity of the two powers Hobbes's position was 'contrary to typical Jewish-Christian doctrine, and that practically speaking he argued from a Gentile Christian viewpoint' (20). Strauss believed that Hobbes saw the Jews 'as the real authors of the rebellious distinction between religion and politics, which is destructive of the state'. Schmitt corrects this 23

40

Theology

and

Politics

to 'the Jewish-Christians'. For originally the differentiation of the two powers was alien to the Gentiles, since 'for them religion was part of polities'. Leo Strauss maintained that the restoration of the original and natural pagan unity of politics and religion was the real meaning of Hobbes's political theory. 'That is correct,' says Schmitt, and adds that the question is 'whether or not [the myth of the Leviathan] had proved its worth as a political-mythical image in the struggle against Jewish-Christian destruction of the natural unity, and whether it was equal to the severity and malevolence of such a struggle' (23). The context of what he says shows that by JudaeoChristians Schmitt means Jewish Christians in the civitas christiana (not the early congregation in Jerusalem), and in addition the influence of Jewish ideas in the Christian sphere. The distinction between ecclesiastical and political power won in the investiture struggle, the Lutheran distinction between the two kingdoms, and not least, therefore, the freedom of the church in the thus-differentiated constitutional state: for Schmitt, these things count as Jewish corruptions of the original, natural and thus vital unity of the all-ruling state. Why this state should be 'original' and 'natural' and 'vital' is admittedly something he never tells us. In my view, however, this demonstrates the very converse: that the freedom of the church from the state, and the selfassertion of the church in the face of political religion or state ideology, are the best securities against the totalitarian state, because they do not allow the state, which is a human creation, to turn into a monstrous Leviathan. But it is not merely the 'Jewish' legacy in the Christian faith which resists this transformation into religious politics or a political religion - even if the state be a 'Christian' one. The bar to any such transformation is remembrance of the Christ crucified in the name of the Roman Leviathan. Christianity did not come into being as a political religion. It was born out of the free discipleship of the crucified Jesus. Christianity did not come into being as a 'national' religion. It sprang up as a voluntary community. Ultimately, it is always the cross of Christ which

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

4i stands between the church and the political unity of religion and politics, and tears that unity apart. Erik Peterson rightly said of Schmitt's Leviathan: anyone who forswears the 'JewishChristian severance of political unity' ceases 'to be a Christian' and 'has decided for paganism'. To Schmitt's regret, Hobbes left a loophole in his unity of religion and politics, which was otherwise so self-contained and irresistible; and this later proved the Leviathan's undoing: it is the distinction between outward creed and inward belief, between loyalty to the state in public religion and freedom of thought and of faith in private life. In this distinction, or 'individualist proviso', Carl Schmitt sees the first approach to the free rights of the individual in the liberal constitutional systems that were to come. He maintains that from Spinoza to Moses Mendelssohn, and from Mendelssohn to Julius Friedrich Stahl, Jews have used this loophole in order to 'erode the life' of the Leviathan from within (87), for the inward life now determines the external one, and individual freedom of thought becomes the formative principle: 'One small, repositioning movement of thought, issuing from Jewish existence - and with the simplest logical consistence, the decisive turn in the destiny of the Leviathan was effected in the course of a few years' (89). The logical consequence of the Leviathan was really 'full, undivided state absolutism', over the inward sector as well: cuius regio - eius religio, a tenet which Schmitt viewed as 'the consummation of the Reformation'. But Hobbes, knowingly or unknowingly, incorporated this Achilles heel into his Leviathan. Out of the faith forced to retreat to the individual heart the counteracting force slowly develops; for 'the moment the distinction between internal and external is acknowledged, the primacy of what is inward over what is outward, and hence of the private sector over the public one, is essentially speaking already a settled thing' (94). The power of the Leviathan will then be merely external, and thus hollow and empty, and a sub-human affair. Thus for 'the mortal god' the differentiation between the inward and the outward life becomes a sickness unto death. To demand of the state 24

25

4

Theology

2

and

Politics

freedom of religion and conscience is to undermine and erode its sovereignty. In Moses Mendelssohn Schmitt detects just such a 'paralysis of the foreign (nation) for the purpose of emancipating his own Jewish people' (93). J . F. Stahl, he claimed, even 'ideologically confused and mentally paralysed' the very centre of the state, the monarchy, the nobility and the Protestant church (108). Carl Schmitt saw this correctly, but, as I see it, judged wrongly: the self-assertion of Christian and Jewish existence in the modern body politic has secularized it, neutralized it, and made of it a liberal constitutional state. Its re-mythologization by way of the Leviathan did not succeed. Hobbes wisely incorporated mortality into his political god, not because he himself failed to think consistently enough, but because of his 'Judaeo-Christian' beliefs. It was Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Stahl and the other emancipated Jews mentioned by Schmitt who, in Schmitt's own view, then saved the culture of liberal democracy from the Leviathan. The socialist Leviathan too was apparently never able to dominate the inward sphere and private life, and because of that it foundered and died. But it is conceivable that through state control of the media even the private, inner life of the soul will be so much dominated by lies and fairy tales that there will no longer be either freedom of thought or freedom of belief. This was Noam Chomsky's analysis of the situation in the United States after the Gulf War. The result will be the destruction of democracy. How can the 'individualist proviso' stand up to the economic marketing of everything? Perhaps here a new Leviathan is approaching us compared with which the Stasi octopus was a primitive monster. 26

(vi) The new political theology and

democracy

A new political theology came into being in Germany after the war under the shock of Auschwitz, which only slowly made itself felt. Those of us who came to theology after the war became painfully aware of having to live in the shadow of the Holocaust perpetrated against the Jews. For us 'after 27

Covenant

or Leviathan?

^

Auschwitz' became the concrete location of theology. The long shadows of this historical guilt became our locus theologicus. We associated with the name Auschwitz not just a moral and political crisis of our own people, but a crisis of Christian faith too. Why was there so little resistance against the National Socialist Leviathan in the Christian churches? For personal courage was not lacking. But in the Protestant and Catholic traditions we discovered certain patterns of behaviour which apparently led to the failure of the churches at that time. i. The opinion among the middle classes that 'religion is a private affair', and has nothing to do with politics, did not by any means rob the Leviathan of its life, erode it, and bring it to collapse, as Carl Schmitt believed. On the contrary, this 'inward immigration' allowed the external crimes to be perpetrated, and provided no point of departure for resistance. It was what he saw as the privatizing tendency of present-day theology which made Johann Baptist Metz demand and himself develop a politically critical and publicly responsible theology: 'The deprivatizing of theology is the primary self-critical task of political theology.' It is not the person who holds his or her own private views who is enlightened. It is the person who is free enough to make public use of his or her reason. This saying of Kant's can be applied to the Christian faith too: freedom of belief does not mean being allowed to cultivate one's own personal faith; it means making public use of that faith, and practising it. z. In the years of the German Leviathan, the separation between spiritual and worldly power, religion and politics, did in fact lead to resistance in the churches when they were supposed to fall into line. But it was resistance in the interests of the liberty of the churches themselves, not for the sake of the freedom of men and women. Through that separation, religion and conscience were restricted to the church, and life's other sectors were delivered over to unscrupulous power politics pursued without conscience. The new political theology presupposes the public testimony of faith, and freedom for the political discipleship of Christ, not just discipleship in private 28

44

Theology

and

Politics

life and in the church. It has no desire to 'politicize' the church, as its critics claim; its aim is to Christianize the political existence of the churches and of Christians, and to do so by applying the yardstick of the discipleship shown us in the Sermon on the Mount: the culture of non-violence. Politics is the widest context of every Christian theology. This must be critical towards political religion and religious politics, and affirmative towards the specific, practical commitment of Christians to 'justice, peace and the integrity of creation'. The distinctions between the inner and the outward life, private and political existence, or spiritual and wordly power, are not sufficient to restrain the Leviathan. The way - and this too Carl Schmitt saw rightly but judged falsely - must lead from within to without, and from faith to political praxis. What distinguishes the new political theology from the old? It is its determining subject. For Carl Schmitt, political theology was limited to the doctrine of sovereignty. He saw as the determining subjects of political sovereignty only governments, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements. But the goal of his political theology was to fit religion into the confines of politics. The determining subject of the new political theology, however, is Christian existence in its difference from general civil existence, and the church in its difference from society and state. So the aim of the new political theology is to strip the magic from political and civil religion, and to subject to criticism the state ideologies which are supposed to create unity at the cost of liberty. In this way it places itself in the history of the impact of Christianity on politics, which means the desacralization of the state, the relativization of forms of political order, and the democratization of political decisions. Christianity has required political power to justify itself. It does not permit 'the innocence of power', which Nietzsche anachronistically invoked. In closing, let us come back to the question raised at the beginning: how can we arrive at pluralism in freedom without chaos, and at unity in peace without dictatorship? Thomas Hobbes built the unity of the Leviathan on the notion of

Covenant

or

Leviathan?

45

representation: 'Unity lies in the representer not the represented.' Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson followed him. Duplessis Mornay and Johann Althusius saw the unity of society in the covenant. The crown sits on the constitution, said John Milton, not on the head of a man. Representative institutions ease the load of the people represented. My political representatives decide for me, and by so doing free me from the burden of my own responsibility. Representation of this kind is normal procedure in every form of social life. But this indispensable representation always involves the danger of estrangement. Political estrangements result whenever the representatives get too much for the people they are supposed to represent, and the people capitulate before their own government. The consequences of this estrangement can be seen in spreading political apathy, in people's bored disinterest in politics, and in the separation of a 'political class' from the life of people as a whole. Because their representatives grow beyond their control, people revert to a passivity which in its turn permits the misuse of power. And that is not just a political estrangement. It is the beginning of every political idolatry. The early democrats and federalists saw the connection between estrangement from representatives and political idolatry quite clearly. John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, said that democracy has no monuments. It strikes no medals. Its coins do not bear the likeness of any person. Its true essence is iconoclasm. A merely representative democracy does not meet this claim. It is necessary, but it has to be supplemented by forms of direct democracy. Covenantal forms of social life, and the federalization of political life - a social contract, a generation contract and a contract with nature - can lead to a pluralism without chaos and to peace without dictatorship. 29

3 Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation

I am looking at this subject not as a neutral observer but as someone personally involved. What I am writing here is a contribution to a dialogue which has existed from the beginning of these theologies, and which today has to begin afresh, in view of the changed conditions in Europe. Now that 'the Second World' - the Communist bloc - has ceased to exist, the Third World and the First have to adapt to each other in a new way. My own context is Europe, and in Europe Germany, so I am talking about liberation theology from the viewpoint of European political theology. Many Latin American liberation theologians share Gustavo Gutierrez's view that there is a 'breach' between the 'progressive' theology of the modern world, and liberation theology in the world of oppression engendered by that modern world. European political theology, it is said, is an academic theology, whereas Latin American liberation theology is a theology of the people. I shall try to examine this judgment, as someone whom it touches. I shall recount the history of political theology, in order to show that it is anything but a 'progressive' liberal theology of the established middle classes; it is a theology which is politically and socially critical, turned towards the victims of the First World, and can therefore be the natural confederate of the liberation theology of the Third World.

Political

Theology

(i) Origins and

and the Theology

of Liberation

47

beginnings

Liberation theology and political theology came into being round about the same time, between 1964 and 1968, but in very different circumstances - liberation theology among the poverty-stricken people of Latin America, political theology in the Cold War of divided Europe. The first was born out of the North-South conflict that divides humanity; the second evolved from the East-West conflict in the northern hemisphere. At that time, Latin America was a continent that was just breaking free of its century-long colonial and economic dependence on Europe and North America. The successful socialist revolution in Cuba under Fidel Castro in 1959 was the bright and far-reaching signal for the rise of a 'popular movement' in many Latin American countries, with Christian participation. The theological interpretations of this awakening dynamic were at first tentative attempts to determine the future. The upwardly mobile and educated classes of the population took over the development programmes of the nations of the industrial West, and their theologians talked about a 'theology of development'. But the more it became clear that the development of the one was at the expense of the exploitation of the other, the more this model faded away, and was replaced by the theology of revolution. This was proclaimed in 1966 by Richard Shaull at the Church and Society Conference in Geneva, while in Colombia Camillo Torres lived it out, witnessing to it through the sacrifice of his own life. For Torres, the revolution which brings justice to the oppressed people was a necessary part of Christian neighbourly love. But the goal of political revolution was socialism, as an alternative to the capitalism under which the people had suffered and were suffering. During the Allende era in Chile, the Christians for Socialism movement had its beginnings, holding its famous conference in 1972. in Santiago de Chile. From 1972 onwards, with the publication of Gustavo Gutierrez's epoch-making book, the theology of liberation took hold. It is a formula which is unambiguous in its negative 1

2

48

Theology

and

Politics

reference, but open in its positive one: liberation presupposes real, economic, political and cultural oppression, and is aligned towards a life in freedom and justice. It talks about a historical process, not a static condition. The process of liberation is sustained by 'the movement of the people'. Theology is reflection on this movement in the light of the gospel. Liberation theology is contextually localized and conditioned, deliberately so. Its locus theologicus - its Sitz im Leben - is the suffering of

the poor. Participation in the movement of the people goes ahead of the theology: first orthopraxis, then orthodoxy! The church participates in the movement of the people by virtue of its 'preferential option for the poor'. Liberation theology uses sociological analyses in order to expose the causes of poverty (e.g., the dependence theory, which developed out of Lenin's imperialism concept). This theology no longer draws a dividing line between world history and salvation history; it testifies to the whole of salvation for the whole of this world. Liberation theologians formulated the better texts of the Latin American Bishops' Conferences in Medellin (1968) and Puebla (1979), and thus placed the church itself in the process of the transformation of Latin America. In the 1960s Europe too had become a continent full of unrest. After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1 9 6 1 , the Cold War took on a new gravity. The Iron Curtain dividing East from West became impenetrable. West and East Germany were now the arena for the greatest concentrations of military power in the world: four foreign and two German armies confronted one another, with more than 12,000 nuclear warheads on both sides. Anti-communism in the one camp and anti-capitalism in the other dominated the political ideologies and made any inward opposition impossible. People lived in confrontation with each other, in two different blocks. The first signs of hope came from West European social democracy - Willy Brandt's 'Risk more democracy!' - and from Czechoslovakia's reform Communism - Alexander Dubcek's 'Socialism with a human face'. Out of these two movements grew the first attempts to overcome the deadly schism in

Political

Theology

and the Theology

of Liberation

49

Europe, to demilitarize the continent, and to build a 'shared house of Europe'. The political theology of Johann Baptist Metz, Helmut Gollwitzer, Dorothee Solle, Jan Lochman and myself had its genesis in this historical situation. It was a theology that was ideologically and socially critical. But why was it called 'political' theology? The new political theology came into being in Germany after the war, under the shock of Auschwitz. Those of us who came to theology in those early postwar years were painfully aware of inescapably having to live in the shadows cast by the Holocaust perpetrated against the Jews. For us, 'after Auschwitz' became theology's specific, practical context. The long shadows of this historical guilt became our locus theologicus. We associated with the name 'Auschwitz' not just the moral and political crisis of our people, but a theological crisis of the Christian faith as well. Why - with only a few exceptions - did Christians and church leaders remain silent? For personal courage was not lacking. But in our Protestant and Catholic traditions we found patterns of behaviour which led up to that failure. First, there was the opinion, general among the middle classes, that religion is a private affair, and has nothing to do with politics. This privatization of religion secularized politics. Christians who detested Hitler and deplored the fate of the Jews retreated into an 'inner emigration', thus preserving their personal innocence. Second, there was the separation between religion and politics that resulted from the (misinterpreted) Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Through this separation, religion and conscience were restricted to the church, and society was surrendered to unscrupulous power politics. 'No country can be governed by the Sermon on the Mount,' said Bismarck - and promised the Germans 'blood and iron' instead. The new political theology presupposes the public testimony of faith and political discipleship of Christ. It has no desire to 'politicize' the churches, as it has often been accused of doing. What it does want to do is to 'Christianize' the political existence of churches and Christians in accord with the yardstick of Christian discipleship given us in the Sermon on the Mount. 3

4

5°

Theology

and

Politics

Politics is the context of Christian theology - critical as it must be towards political ideologies and the civil religions of power, affirmative towards the practical commitment of Christians to justice, peace and the integrity of creation. This political theology acquired its first profile in the Christian-Marxist dialogue organized during those years by the Catholic 'Paulus Gesellschaft': 1965 in Salzburg, 1966 in Herrenchiemsee, and 1967 in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia. These conversations were unforgettable encounters between reform Marxists and reform theologians, between revolutionally inclined Christians and religiously enquiring Marxists. We came from Eastern and Western Europe, and moved 'from anathema to dialogue' and 'from dialogue to co-operation', as Roger Garaudy put it. Political theology became the first postMarxist theology - a theology, that is, which had addressed and absorbed the criticism of religion and idolatry put forward by Feuerbach and Marx, and which, challenged by Marxist social criticism, gave contemporary, actualizing force to Jesus's passion for the poor. An immense help in mediating to each side the best elements in Marxism and Christian theology was Ernst Bloch's Principle of Hope (1959). This was the state of things in which we found ourselves in the year 1968. For the liberation theologians it was a year of victory, since in that year they succeeded in exerting a decisive influence on the Medellin documents. For the political theologians it was a year of defeat, for in the autumn of 1968 Brezhnev sent the troops of the Warsaw Pact into Czechoslovakia, ending 'socialism with a human face' with brutal violence. In the outcome the Protestant theologian Joseph Hromadka died, as did the Marxist philosopher Viteslav Gardavski, a close friend of my own, after interrogations and torture. The names of the theologians who had been involved in the conversations were put on the 'state security' lists, my name among them. We were banned from the socialist countries as 'CIA agents, anarchists and convergence theorists'. Books, writings, quotations and the mention of certain names fell a victim to censorship. I am told that I said at that time: 'Now the 5

6

7

Political

Theology

and the Theology

of Liberation

51

lights are going out in Europe, and we shall not see them again for another twenty years.' It was just twenty-one years before the darkness lifted. (H) Developments

in political theology in Europe

'Political theology' is not the description of a unified theological movement, any more than is the name liberation theology. Both are 'umbrella' terms, which gather together very different things, though with a shared alignment. So what I am about to describe as the different facets of political theology is simply my own view of things. (a) Socialist theology

It was in 1968 that the student revolts in Paris and Berlin, Berkeley, Tokyo and Mexico City also reached a climax. These revolts were a young people's rebellion, a cultural revolution, a radically democratic and a socialist movement, and much more than that. In April 1968 the student leader Rudi Dutschke was gunned down in Berlin. And it was out of this student movement in Berlin that Helmut Gollwitzer's socialist theology emerged. Gollwitzer was one of Barth's friends, and he had been politically engaged ever since the time of the Confessing Church, during the Third Reich. Ten years imprisonment in Russia made him familiar with Marxism and the Soviet system. But it was the students who first convinced him of the reality of the capitalist 'crime against humanity', and the revolution of life that was required. In a multiplicity of writings after 1968 he presented capitalism as a 'revolution' which was going to end in the downfall of humanity, unless there was a conversion, a turn to life. In this conversion from destructive greed to the love for life he saw the dawn of the kingdom of God in this perverted world. At that time his 'Theses on Revolution as a Theological Problem' were passed from hand to hand. Gollwitzer saw capitalism as a contradiction to the kingdom of God that was 8

52-

Theology

and

Politics

hostile to life, while in socialism - following Barth - he discerned a true parable corresponding to, and anticipating, the coming kingdom. His 'Demands for Conversion' (Forderungen der Umkehr, 1976) are, in the words of its sub-title, 'Contributions to the Theology of Society'. His Kapitalistische Revolution (1974) brought the gospel and social revolution together, and tried to find an authentic location for the church in the class struggle. His main work during this period, Krummes Holz aufrechter Gang. Zur Frage nach dent Sinn des Lebens (1970),

set the individual aspects of this revolutionary process in the wider, life-embracing context of theology. Gollwitzer's socialist theology was close to 'the theology of revolution' affirmed by Camillo Torres, and it was to Torres that he also appealed. In those years Gollwitzer was not just the pioneering thinker of socialistically committed students; he was also a pastor to many people in the student movement. (b) The theology of peace

The same year, 1968, also saw the beginning of the world-wide movement against the war in Vietnam. It was closely linked with the student revolts: 'Make love not war!' There were mass demonstrations in all the major Western and Asian cities, and in their wake, in 1 9 7 3 , the US abandoned the war. Once the Vietnam war was over, the interest of the superpowers focussed once more on Europe, and rearmament was stepped up on both sides, particularly in the two parts of occupied Germany. This also led to growing resistance by the German peace movement. In the 1950s it had protested vigorously against the rearming of West Germany, and against the introduction of nuclear weapons: 'Fight atomic death!' At the end of the 1970s, the Americans stationed Pershing 2. and Cruise missiles in West Germany, and developed plans for a war in Europe against the Soviet Union. In East Germany the Russians set up their SS-20 missiles. The year 1983 saw the climax of the peace movement, as hundreds of thousands of people right across West Germany formed human chains in

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 53 non-violent protest, and the G e r m a n government acted against the will of the majority of the people at the behest of the United States. discussions

about

'security', and in the churches and a m o n g ordinary

At

that

time

there

were

government

people

discussions about peace. Opinion in the Christian churches w a s divided.

Some

people

believed that

nuclear w e a p o n s

were

necessary to keep the peace. Others were prepared to 'live w i t h out armaments'. In 1982

the Alliance of Reformed Churches

declared the system of nuclear deterrent to be incompatible with Christian faith, and proclaimed the

status confessionis.

9

the Protestant churches in E a s t G e r m a n y

solemnly

In

1983

rejected

'the spirit, the logic and the practice of the system of nuclear deterrent'. In the G e r m a n D e m o c r a t i c Republic a peace movement developed w h i c h later, in 1989, peaceful

revolution. Its theologians

powerful led to the

included H e i n o

Falcke,

Dean of Erfurt, and J o a c h i m Gastecki, later secretary of P a x Christi. O n l y the Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Union of Protestant Churches

in G e r m a n y

(the E K D )

maintained

that Christians could be either 'for' or 'against', and that the churches were there for people of both persuasions. In W e s t G e r m a n y , 1983

became the year of the Sermon on

the M o u n t , to w h i c h the Christian peace movement appealed in its non-violent protests on behalf of peace. Politicians and political parties launched into attempts at biblical exegesis. T h e Sermon on the M o u n t m a d e the front page of major n e w s papers. A t this time political theology took on practical form in the theology of peace, and provided theological legitimation for the protest movements and civil disobedience campaigns. People as different in their w a y of thinking as Helmut Gollwitzer and Dorothee Solle, Ernst K a s e m a n n and N o r b e r t Greinacher joined together in the peace m o v e m e n t .

10

In a situation of 'structural

violence' such as exists in Latin A m e r i c a , the question

of

violence receives a different answer. But in E u r o p e only nonviolent campaigns enjoyed credibility. In the revolution in East G e r m a n y it w a s strict non-violence w h i c h alone led ultimately to the fall of the brutal socialist s y s t e m .

11

Theology and Politics

54

(c) Ecological theology T h e beginnings of environmental awareness and the genesis of the 'green' movement c a n n o t be precisely dated. After Rachel C a r s o n ' s book

The Silent Spring

(published in

1962)

had led to

investigating committees in the U S A , the C l u b of R o m e ' s study

The Limits of Growth (1972.)

made people all over the w o r l d

a w a r e of the problem. E n v i r o n m e n t a l catastrophes w e r e multiplying. Stranded oil tankers were poisoning the coasts. In Basel, the chemical industry destroyed all life in the Rhine. A c i d rain is killing the trees in the Black Forest. C F C emissions from industry and transport, a n d methane from the rice fields, are destroying

the ozone

C h e r n o b y l disaster of

l a y e r in the atmosphere. 1986

Finally,

the

has m a d e large parts of W h i t e

Russia uninhabitable for thousands of years, and up to n o w has cost

150,000

lives. E v e r y w h e r e spontaneous groups sprang up

to protect nature from destruction by human beings, the best k n o w n being Greenpeace a n d the 'green' parties in E u r o p e . In 1975

churches t h r o u g h o u t the w o r l d were brought face to

face with the problem t h r o u g h a lecture given by the Australian biologist J o h n Birch at the General Assembly of the W o r l d Council

of

Churches

in

Nairobi.

Most

German

regional

churches appointed pastors with special responsibility for the environment,

as

a way

of

encouraging

a

lifestyle

in

the

congregations that w o u l d be more caring and solicitous t o w a r d s nature. M o d e r n scientific and technological civilization began about 400 years ago w i t h the subjugation of nature, justifying this with a biblical defence: that h u m a n beings were m a d e to 'have dominion' over the earth - to be 'the lords of creation'. A n d for that reason Christianity in the W e s t must share the guilt for the w a y our modern w o r l d has developed. O n l y a reformation of religious and m o r a l values in the Western w o r l d can save nature, and ensure the survival of humanity. T h e first ecologial theology w a s developed by the process theologian J o h n C o b b in the U S A , and in G e r m a n y by the O l d Testament scholar G e r h a r d Liedke (see his b o o k

Fisches. Ökologische Theologie, 1979).

A

Im Bauch des series of

church

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 55 manifestos on 'reconciliation w i t h nature' and a n e w creation spirituality followed. I added m y o w n voice w i t h an ecological doctrine of creation,

God in Creation (1985;

E T the same year).

Like socialist theology and the theology of peace, ecological theology aims to stir u p Christians to participate in these initiatives, and in them to realize their o w n visions. O n the other hand, like the other movements, ecological theology also brings the problems of society into the church, so that the church is present in the conflicts a n d sufferings of human beings a n d nature.

12

(d) The theology of human rights A less conspicuous but important dimension o f political theology in E u r o p e can be seen in theological reflections on h u m a n rights. In 1 9 7 7 , after seven years' study, the W o r l d Alliance of Reformed Churches passed a 'Theological Declaration on H u m a n R i g h t s ' . A year later, the Lutheran W o r l d Federation published a similar study. T h e papal commission

Justitia et Pax

had already issued a declaration on ' T h e C h u r c h and H u m a n Rights' in 1 9 7 4 .

13

All these declarations base the inalienable and

indestructible dignity of h u m a n beings o n their creation in the image of G o d ; and b y so doing they conjoin belief in G o d with respect for the beings he has created. All the declarations search for a balance between the individual h u m a n rights laid d o w n in the Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights of 1948, and social and economic h u m a n rights, such as were resolved upon in the H u m a n Rights pacts of 1966. A s a practical consequence, all three declarations insist on the link between politics and human and civil rights - politics meaning both domestic a n d foreign affairs. T h i s insistence had considerable consequences in the 1970s. H u m a n and civil rights groups were formed both in the military dictatorships of Latin A m e r i c a and in the party dictatorships of Eastern E u r o p e . It is these groups a b o v e all to w h o m w e are indebted for w h a t w e have experienced: the o v e r t h r o w , without bloodshed, of those contemptuously cynical dictatorships. In

Theology and Politics

56

E u r o p e these groups and movements put into practice

the

resolutions of the Conferences on Security and C o - o p e r a t i o n in E u r o p e , w h i c h began with Helsinki in 1975.

A n d in this w a y

h u m a n and civil rights became the foundation in constitutional l a w for the 'shared house of E u r o p e ' . T o d a y ecumenical groups of theologians and lawyers

are

w o r k i n g with the U N on an extension of h u m a n rights, w h i c h is to take the form of a declaration on the rights of future generations and the rights of nature, for an ' E a r t h w h i c h w a s resolved upon by the U N in Brazil in

Charter'

1992.

(e) Feminist theology N o feminist theology emerged as an offshoot from political theology, but modern feminist theology nevertheless sees itself, too, as a political t h e o l o g y .

14

T h e general feminist movement for the liberation of w o m e n from

patriarchal

women's

oppression,

and

for

full

recognition

human rights, emerged first in the United

of

States,

although it really goes back to the impulses of the French R e v o lution. In 1974

the W o r l d Council of Churches organized a c o n -

ference in Berlin on surmounting sexism in culture and church. In 1978

the first ecumenical conference on feminist theology

w a s held in Brussels, and in 19 81 the W C C Consultation on the C o m m u n i t y of W o m e n and M e n in the C h u r c h t o o k place in Sheffield. Since then, m a n y church synods have addressed this subject, w i t h greater or lesser success. Feminist theology is political inasmuch as it presents theological vision and reflection for a comprehensive cultural revolution w h i c h will initially be sustained by w o m e n . It brings to light, critically and publicly, the everyday

brutality

and

humiliation w h i c h takes place secretly in families and between men and w o m e n (the n e w w o m e n ' s refuges, or shelters, speak for themselves). It is also a movement for the h u m a n and civil rights of w o m e n in society and the churches. Finally, it also on the one hand motivates Christian w o m e n to participate in the general feminist movement, and on the other prepares the

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 57 ground for these questions in the churches, w h i c h are even more patriarchally dominated than society - not to mention the rejection of w o m e n ' s ordination in the R o m a n Catholic and the O r t h o d o x churches.

(Hi) Where do we stand? Let us take stock. i . Political theology is not a purely academic theology. It is a theology w h i c h is related to the expectations and experiences of action groups and protest movements a m o n g ordinary people in the countries of E u r o p e . In this sense it is related to Latin American

liberation

theology,

although

in quite

different

circumstances. z . Political theology is not the same as 'progressive' theology, whether

this

be liberal

Protestant

theology

or

modernist

Catholic theology. T h e differences and conflicts between the conservative Protestant W o l f h a r t Pannenberg and myself, or between the political theologian J o h a n n Baptist M e t z and the progressive post-modernist H a n s Kiing, are obvious.

These

others have never taken part in our initiatives and conflicts. O n the contrary, they have often fought against us. Liberal theology w a s , and still is, the theology of the established middle classes. Political theology has its Protestant roots in Karl Barth's antibourgeois theology, and in the experiences of the Confessing C h u r c h in its resistance to N a t i o n a l Socialism. In the early peace movement of the 1950s, w e a l w a y s looked in vain for Bultmann and his liberal followers. A s I see it, political theology is the true dialectical theology: a theology of contradiction and hope, of

negation of the negative, and the Utopia of the positive. 3. Political theology in the countries of the industrial W e s t has a l w a y s critically challenged the self-justifications

of the

people in p o w e r . O n the strength of Christian remembrance of Christ's suffering and death under the p o w e r of the R o m a n imperium and its agent Pontius Pilate, w e have a l w a y s tried to w i t h d r a w legitimation from tyranny in the name of its victims. W e have grappled critically with political religion; w i t h civil

Theology and Politics

5»

religion; and w i t h the ideologies of patriotism, 'the Christian W e s t ' and anti-communism. W e have tried to 'demythologize' political and economic forces. 4.

A s I have s h o w n , political theology has a l w a y s tried to act

as spokesman

for the victims of violence, and to

become

the public voice of the voiceless: in socialist theology for the w o r k e r s ; in the theology of peace for the (potential) victims of a nuclear w a r in E u r o p e , as well as for the (actual and present) victims of rearmament and arms exports in the T h i r d W o r l d ; in the theology of human rights for people robbed of their dignity and their rights under the East European

dictatorships; in

feminist theology for w o m e n w h o are imposed upon and maltreated; and in ecological theology for the exploited creation. If it is true to say that liberation theology has a single theme - the liberation of the p o o r - then political theology must be said to have a w h o l e number; but the point is a l w a y s liberation of the victims and criticism of the perpetrators. 5. Political theology lives in the shared action g r o u p s , and brings into contemporary life the revolutionary traditions of the Bible and Christian history. T h a t means Jesus's message about the k i n g d o m of G o d , which comes to the p o o r of this w o r l d and the children - not at the spearheads of h u m a n 'progress' but a m o n g the victims of human violence. It w a s the Christian socialism of Leonhard R a g a z and H e r m a n n Kutter, Christoph Blumhardt and E d u a r d Heimann which first grasped this. It also means the nearness of Jesus to the sick and the marginalized of his society, a nearness w h i c h today too d r a w s people to Jesus and brings Christians to the victims of this society. A n d it means, finally, the Sermon on the M o u n t , as the basic l a w or constitution of G o d ' s kingdom in this w o r l d . F o r m a n y of us this has become the guideline leading to peace in a w o r l d of violence. If w e sum it all up: the intention of o u r political theology is undoubtedly to m a k e people w h o are the humiliated objects of the p o w e r and violence of others the free determining subjects of their o w n lives. In N o v e m b e r 1989

w e s a w in E a s t G e r m a n y

a people which had been dominated and humiliated for forty

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation years rebelling and bringing d o w n not just the government but the w h o l e system, w i t h their self-confident cry ' W e are the people'; for 'it is w i t h the people that all p o w e r originates'. W e should like to see the experience of this same freedom a m o n g the people w h o are suffering from the brutality of 'the free market e c o n o m y ' as well. 6. It is valuable for our theology to be related to its o w n context, so that it remains specific and practical. A n d this being so, some of us are in the nature of things Europeans in our thinking, and others Latin A m e r i c a n s . But it is w r o n g to use this fact to provincialize theology, saying that liberation theology is fine for Latin A m e r i c a , political theology is fine for Europe, black theology is fine for black people, feminist theology is fine

contextually condi tioned, that is true. But every theology is theology, and therefore universal, and must be taken seriously everywhere. M o r e o v e r ,

for w o m e n , and so forth. Every theology is

every context is linked with every other context, whether it be by the one-sided tie of rule, or by the reciprocal bond of community. In the case of every theology, w e have to say: think globally - act locally! In this sense liberation theology is just as global as political theology must be in its claim. But h o w are the t w o related?

(iv) The new situation: open questions Ever since 1492,

the modern w o r l d of N o r t h Atlantic society

has been living at the expense of nature, and at the cost of the peoples of Latin A m e r i c a . W h a t is suffered there is in actual fact the downside of the history w h o s e upper side w e

ourselves

experience. This can be said of the exploitation of natural resources just as truly as it can be said of the exploitation of cheap labour, and the burden of debt imposed on the Latin A m e r i c a n nations. A p p r o a c h e s to a 'liberation of the oppressors' can be found in the political theology I have put f o r w a r d (see m y article in

Evangelische Theologie 1978, 527ff.).

part of the internal criticism of the contradictions of

It

'the

modern w o r l d ' - contradictions under w h i c h the T h i r d W o r l d

Theology and Politics

6o

has to suffer most. N o w that the so-called Second W o r l d of Eastern E u r o p e has ceased to exist in its previous form, this internal criticism in the First W o r l d must make c o m m o n cause with the protest of suffering people in the T h i r d , so that at long last justice can

be brought

into the w o r l d - w i d e

economic

system. But where are the alternatives and the Utopias? i . T h e C o l d W a r is a thing of the past. Centralistic socialism has disappeared from Eastern E u r o p e . N o one in E u r o p e w a n t s to talk about M a r x i s m any more. M i k h a i l G o r b a c h e v ' s offer to build ' a shared house of E u r o p e ' holds out tremendous n e w chances, both for g o o d and evil. T h e E u r o p e a n union will g r o w , and western and eastern European countries will join together in a democratic confederation. T h e problems lie in the steep decline of prosperity from w e s t to east: h o w can equal living conditions be created in rich west G e r m a n y and p o o r east G e r m a n y ? A truly united G e r m a n y and the E u r o p e a n Union will have to be realized and m a k e their w a y against the stream of men and w o m e n w h o are pushing from east to west. W i t h o u t social justice there will be no peace in E u r o p e . T h e free c o m m o n market undoubtedly encourages personal initiative, but it also brings social inequalities in its w a k e . It is here that the future tasks facing the churches and political theology lie: the duty of maintaining, and maintaining publicly, criticism of capitalism, not in the name of any ideology, but in the name of the victims of the market-economy system; and the task of creating justice for

human

beings

and

nature

through

appropriate

social

and environmental policies. A t the moment this is certainly not at

all

opportune;

but

ever

since

Rerum Novarum (1891)

Catholic social doctrine has provided much critical potential for it. A n d the social movements in Protestantism are no less strong. In our churches and congregations w e have no b a s e - c o m m u nity movement w o r t h speaking of, but for the last 1 5 0 years the German

churches

have

been

strongly

diaconal

churches

-

strong, that is, in their service for others. In G e r m a n y , the greater part of social service on behalf of children, the disabled, the sick and the old is in the hands of the churches. T h i s

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 61 diaconal Christian ministry to the victims of the free market economy in our society w o u l d be misused if it w e r e not bound up with prophetic criticism both of the people responsible and of the system that produces these victims. N o w that the socalled C o m m u n i s t threat has ceased, I can see at this point inevitable internal conflicts

between

church

and state, and

between Christianity and society as a w h o l e . 2. N o less severe is the ecological conflict w i t h nature in w h i c h industrial society finds itself. A t this point environmental awareness, both private and public, has g r o w n

enormously

during the past ten years, and has resulted in a cry for changes in production

and

consumption.

Here

ecological

theology

speaks for G o d ' s misused and despoiled creation, w h i c h w e are sacrificing because w e are living at its expense. T h i s theology protests against the perpetrators and the system that produces these victims. Ecological theology too is Christian

diaconal

service, in this case on behalf of suffering nature; and at the same time it is prophetic criticism of the brutality w h i c h causes the suffering. 3.

Political theology in E u r o p e w a s ecumenical from

the

beginning, and developed in the f r a m e w o r k of international relationships w i t h Latin A m e r i c a , K o r e a and Africa. But w i t h the n e w E u r o p e , a n e w Eurocentricism has also

developed

a m o n g E u r o p e a n s ; and this the Christian churches have to resist by virtue of their w o r l d - w i d e catholicity. Christians in E u r o p e must become the advocates of those w h o are outside. A t the moment nationalism is on the increase in E u r o p e . W e

need

ecumenical solidarity w h i c h will be stronger than national and E u r o p e a n loyalties. T h a t is not just a moral duty. It is also the only reasonable commitment. W i t h o u t social justice between the First W o r l d and the T h i r d , there can be no peace. W i t h o u t peace w i t h the T h i r d W o r l d the w o r l d of N o r t h Atlantic society will destroy itself. T h e ecological consequences of the T h i r d W o r l d ' s impoverishment are already boomeranging back on to the w o r l d of Western industrial society. A h u m a n w o r l d cleft apart by violence and injustice will destroy the one earth on w h i c h w e all live.

Theology and Politics

6z

Political theology is the w o r l d . Liberation theology

internal criticism of the is the external criticism

modern of

the

modern w o r l d . Both speak in the name of the victims. D o w e not have to develop an alliance between critical theology in the First W o r l d and liberation theology in the Third?

(v) The future of liberation theology U p to n o w it has been only the Latinos w h o have spoken in the n e w Latin A m e r i c a n t h e o l o g y .

15

W h e n will the black descen-

dants of the slaves in Brazil, and w h e n will the Indigenos, raise their voices? A n d if the Indians find a voice, will they then still express themselves in forms of a Christian theology, or will they cut themselves off from their brutal Christianization and revert to their o w n ancient cultures and religions?

16

T h e black people

in Brazil and in the C a r i b b e a n too could well find their ancient African M a c u m b a cults more attractive than Christianity, even if that is represented by liberation theology. If in the future Latin A m e r i c a also ceases to be a purely 'Christian continent', will Latin A m e r i c a n liberation theology not then have to expand into interfaith dialogue? A n interfaith dialogue within the perspective of liberation theology w o u l d be something n e w for these discussions, w h i c h up to n o w have served the peaceful co-existence of the religious communities ' N o w o r l d peace without peace between the religions', declares H a n s Kiing - rather than the c o m m o n struggle against oppression, for the liberation of the people. T h e need for this e x p a n sion already

became clear w h e n

an attempt w a s

made

to

transplant Latin A m e r i c a n liberation theology to A s i a , and the people involved came to realize that the mass of A s i a ' s poor are non-Christians, to w h o m a Christian theology has little to say. But if liberation theology is expanded in this respect, its o w n foundations must be expanded t o o . Hitherto this theology has been almost exclusively socio-economically orientated t o w a r d s the antagonisms between poverty and wealth, oppression and liberation, and has expended too little attention on the cultural and religious dimensions in its o w n ' h o m e countries' and a m o n g

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 63 their peoples. W h e n I cautiously intimated this in m y ' O p e n Letter' to J o s é M i g u e z - B o n i n o in 1976,

the suggestion

was

indignantly repudiated. But t o d a y more and more people in Central and South A m e r i c a are turning to n e w religious m o v e ments, such as the Afro-Brazilian cults, while the Christian Pentecostal movement is d r a w i n g the mass of the p o o r ; and this fact is surely connected with this defect in early liberation theology. T h e p o o r don't w a n t just to be told w h a t they d o n ' t have; they also w a n t to be valued for w h a t they are. F o r a long time, ecological anxiety about the destruction of the rain forests in Latin A m e r i c a w a s thought to be a typically First W o r l d concern. F o r the p o o r landless farmers of Brazil, it is economic anxiety in the d a y - t o - d a y struggle for

survival

which is in the forefront of their minds. It is only in recent years that the perception

has

begun to m a k e

its w a y

in

Latin

A m e r i c a n liberation theology too that e c o n o m y and ecology belong indivisibly together, and that it is suicidal to despoil and consume the foundations on w h i c h one's o w n life is based. It w a s after the middle of the

1970s

that an ecological-political

theology developed in E u r o p e (especially in over-industrialized G e r m a n y ) , following the N o r t h A m e r i c a n model (represented by J o h n C o b b , H a r v e y C o x and others); and n o w an ecological theology of liberation has also begun to g r o w ( D E I in C o s t a Rica, L e o n a r d o Boff, Reinerio A r c e Valentin in C u b a ) . This has forged

links w i t h the first beginnings of an

ecological

policy in Brazil. L e o n a r d o Boff's vison of a n e w planetary bioethic is theologically interesting; it fits very well into the n e w 'theology of l i f e ' ,

17

and introduces n e w viewpoints into our

ecological discourse as well. F r o m the viewpoint of liberation theology, concern is not merely with w h a t the conciliar process calls 'the integrity of creation'. T h e aim is also to liberate nature from human oppression, and to reintegrate h u m a n culture into the living organism of the earth. T h i s is the vision of Ernesto C a r d e n a l ' s beautiful and powerful ' C a n t i c o C o s m i c o ' . In

North

developed

America,

parallel

to

the the

women's civil

rights

liberation movement.

1 8

movement Feminist

theology began as a holistic theology, but soon took over its

6

Theology and Politics

4

methods from liberation theology. In the United States and E u r o p e , feminist theologians see themselves as liberation theologians (feminist/liberationist), and in the last ten years Latin A m e r i c a has developed a remarkable feminist liberation theology of its o w n . Mujerista theology corresponds to the black w o m a n i s t theology of Dolores Williams and others, as distinct from white middle-class theology. T h e category ' p o o r ' is egalitarian, but it can nevertheless be clearly differentiated: w o m e n as economically exploited, publicly and legally disenfranchized, and as culturally humiliated through ' m a c h i s m o ' . T h e y are the victims of sexist violence as well as economic and political brutality. In addition to criticism of patriarchal images of G o d (which c a n

be found

in the U S A

and E u r o p e t o o ) ,

Latin

A m e r i c a n w o m e n have taken over leading roles in the Christian base communities,

and

by

so doing

have called the

male

priestly caste in question. W i t h Elsa T a m e z , the Protestant Seminario Biblico Latinoamericano in San José, C o s t a R i c a , n o w has its first w o m a n rector. But the most difficult and delicate point a b o u t the w h o l e of liberation theology is not to be found in external conditions, but internally, in the church itself. W i t h o u t a liberated church there can be no liberated society; without a reform of the churches there can be no social revolution. Ever since the famous Latin A m e r i c a n Bishops' Conferences in Medellin (1968) and Puebla ( 979)-> 1

rnany

people have

hoped that the episcopate

and

theology together w o u l d implement the church's 'option for the p o o r ' , that the church in Latin A m e r i c a , as 'the church of the p o o r ' and 'the church of the people', w o u l d begin to initiate a universal reformation of the Catholic C h u r c h , and that the theology of liberation w o u l d correspondingly play a leading part in the global class struggle (George Casalis). These hopes have foundered on R o m e and the policies of the V a t i c a n . O f course

one can

quote the pope's w o r d s ,

'the theology

of

liberation is not merely opportune; it is useful and n e c e s s a r y ' . But w e d o better to look at w h a t the pope actually

19

does.

Since Puebla, the bishops appointed have reduced supporters of liberation theology

in the Latin

American

episcopate to

a

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 65 minority. Cardinal A r n s and C a r d i n a l Lorscheider were c o n siderably restricted in w h a t they were able to d o . T h e see of the martyr bishop O s c a r A r n u l f o R o m e r o is n o w occupied by an O p u s Dei man. It is deeply depressing to have to mention that J o h n Paul II sent a golden gift w i t h personal greetings to General A u g u s t o Pinochet, the murderer of so m a n y Christians in Chile, on the occasion of his golden w e d d i n g . O f course one can mention the t w o letters from the Congregation for the Doctrine

of the Faith

in w h i c h

Cardinal

Ratzinger

finally

arrived at a balanced judgment of liberation theology; but w e do better to look at w h a t he does, and to listen to the long story of L e o n a r d o Boff's sufferings. Forced to relinquish his priesthood and to leave the Franciscan order, he w r o t e bitterly in farewell: ' T h e doctrinaire p o w e r is cruel and merciless'

Forum, 1 7

July

(Publik

1992, 1 5 ^ ) .

W e r e Medellin and Puebla the church's dreams, in w h i c h the liberation theologians put too m u c h faith? H a v e those theologians fought insufficiently for liberty in the church -

Hans

Kiing's reproach? Certainly, the church of the base communities exists, and in m a n y countries one has the impression

that

there are t w o parallel Catholic Churches: here the base c o m m u nities - there the hierarchy. A t all events, it is clear that it is impossible to build u p a new, just and free society w i t h an old, feudalistically authoritarian church. ' W e are the people': that is true in politics and the church or it isn't true at all. A s long as the feudalistically authoritarian, hierarchical structure of the colonial church of Latin A m e r i c a continues to exist, it will a l w a y s serve as the model for a class society that matches it. T o experience the church as 'the people of G o d ' (which is w h a t the Second V a t i c a n Council declared it to be), and as the living community of Christ -

men and w o m e n w h o long for this,

and cling to hopes for a 'people's church' in the tradition of Medellin and Puebla - will in m a n y cases join the congregations of the Protestant Pentecostal m o v e m e n t , w h i c h church leaders are still contemptuously terming 'sects'. H e r e , it seems to me, comes the hardest but most important challenge to the theology of liberation: the liberation of the

Theology and Politics

66

church from 'holy rule' so that it m a y become the community of the people.

(vi) The theology of our liberation (a) The globalization of the Third World T h e facts are obvious enough: the present globalization of the economy, the transfer of production to w h a t are k n o w n as the l o w - w a g e countries, and the opening of the markets do not just bring our industries into the Third W o r l d . T h e y also bring the Third W o r l d to us. W e ourselves are becoming the Third W o r l d . A n d indeed the term w a s originally meant not just geographically but socially too, and meant the p o o r depressed classes in society. This is the w a y w e are experiencing the Third W o r l d a m o n g ourselves today. T h e U N O report on human development {1996)

points out the dangers that ensue when the m a n y

are impoverished

through

the enrichment of the few.

The

wealth of 358 multi-millionaires exceeds the total income of the p o o r countries, in w h i c h almost 4 5 %

of the w o r l d ' s population

lives! C o m m e n t i n g on this, J . G . Speth, General Secretary of the UNO

Development

Programme,

declared

that

if

present

trends continue, the economic drop between industrialized and developing countries will take on dimensions which are no longer merely unjust but are actually i n h u m a n e .

20

But this injustice and inhumanity is also g r o w i n g in the industrial countries themselves. This year, over 100 million people in N o r t h A m e r i c a , E u r o p e , J a p a n and Australia are living below the official poverty line. A l m o s t 30 million of them are h o m e less. In G e r m a n y too the figures are alarming: 7.5 million p o o r ,

900,000

homeless. There are no signs of effective social policies

designed to counter this development - rather political capitulation before 'the force of circumstances' in the e c o n o m y , w h e r e businesses can increase their profits if they are globalized, and then avoid having to p a y taxes in their home country. A m o n g us, the impoverished are at least still surviving on the borders of the minimum for subsistence. But in the underdeveloped

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 6j countries the U N O report tells us that 25,000 children are dying every day of hunger and of diseases w h i c h have long since been curable.

21

T h e globalization of the economy

is evidently leading in

our societies to a shortfall of solidarity, as the never-ending lamentations about the excessive costs of the social services s h o w . Health insurances are trying to get rid of the old and the chronically ill. In E n g l a n d , dialysis is no longer available for people over sixty unless they pay for it themselves. If people are judged only according to their market value, and are no longer respected in their h u m a n dignity, then a child with a high life expectancy m a y be w o r t h eight million pounds while an old-age pensioner is not w o r t h anything at all, because he or she can no longer produce anything. Consequently the fear that the disabled, the old and the 'useless' are running into serious danger in our society can no longer be dismissed out of hand. T h e countries of the so-called First W o r l d are also falling into a condition of apartheid: with the poverty of families and the lack of future for y o u n g people, crime is on the increase.

Con-

sequently the rich and the better off live in 'gated communities', in secure areas, and the other districts sink into slums, w h i c h is w h a t w e see happening in South Africa at the moment. T h e decline of a strong middle class means the end of political d e m o cracy, for the democratic idea of equality is incompatible with an economic system in which m o r e and more inequalities are fabricated. T h e more w e in the countries of the industrialized W e s t are clear about this development, and the more w e discover the oppressed, impoverished and abandoned w o r l d in our

own

b a c k y a r d , the m o r e relevant w e shall find the Latin A m e r i c a n theology of liberation. It is better to heed its basic insights n o w , rather than to w a i t for the tragic end of capitalism, which has not foundered on its socialist alternative but is surely c o n demned to failure because it is increasingly at variance with h u m a n dignity, the life of this earth, and its o w n future.

Theology and Politics

68

(b) On the way to a common theology of life If it is true that the globalization of production and markets is bringing the unjust and inhumane conditions of the

Third

W o r l d into w h a t is still geographically (if not socially) 'the First W o r l d ' , then the relevance of the T h i r d W o r l d ' s liberation theology also becomes universal. T h e Latin A m e r i c a n theology of liberation is the first alternative theology to the

capitalism

w h i c h today goes under the name of 'the global marketing of everything'.

It

is

contextual

theology,

not

just

for

Latin

A m e r i c a , but universally so, in the w a k e of the developments I have described. It speaks for the impoverished and marginalized in L o s Angeles and B a n g k o k , England and R o m a n i a ,

East

G e r m a n y and South Africa, to mention only a few places and countries. So it will be taken up by others, and translated into their conditions. In this process it will cease to be a specially Latin A m e r i c a n theology and will become a theology w h o s e social criticism has a universal scope. ' T h e T h i r d W o r l d ' is a class designation, not a geographical one. A s the theology of liberation becomes universal, it will cross its R o m a n Catholic frontiers and become catholic in a wider ecumenical sense. It will reach out beyond the borders of the Christian community, in order to strengthen every impulse a m o n g the people w h i c h w o r k s for the liberation of humanity from injustice and oppression. Latin A m e r i c a m a y perhaps still count as a 'Christian c o n tinent'. This cannot be said of A s i a and Africa. But the mission of liberation theology is as universal as the wretchedness of humanity. In E u r o p e , it seems to me important for the theology of the liberation of the p o o r to be embedded from the start in the w i d e r context of the kingdom of G o d ; for that gives a name to the positive goal w h i c h is to be reached through the liberation from oppression and poverty. But this positive goal is still tied up with the negative circumstances that have to be surmounted, for Jesus brought the kingdom of G o d to the p o o r , not to the rich. In history, h o w e v e r , ever since Constantine, kingdom-ofG o d theology has been linked w i t h the Christian imperium or

Political Theology and the Theology of Liberation 69 Christian civilization. S o w e can only adopt it if it is indivisibly linked w i t h the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the M o u n t , and with the call to the discipleship of Jesus. Otherwise kingdom-ofG o d theology has nothing to do w i t h Christ. But w h a t do w e mean by the kingdom of G o d ? Here J o n Sobrino says aptly: ' T h e k i n g d o m of G o d is life, life in abundance and the fulfilment of life.' So in the context of liberation theology w e can fill k i n g d o m - o f - G o d theology w i t h 'life'. Structural and personal acts of violence against life characterize our w o r l d to a horrifying degree: violence against people, violence against nature, violence against the future of life. L o v e for life and reverence for life must be n e w l y a w a k e n e d , so that they may confront the g r o w i n g cynicism that is widespread in the countries of the W e s t . T h e protection of the life of the w e a k , the protection of the life of our fellow creatures, and the protection of the future of the life w e share: these things must be reinforced, in order to counter the brutal structures of death.

Liberation

from violence, brutality and poverty remains the

theme of every practical theology and every theological praxis. But w e have another theme as well as liberty, a theme w h i c h has almost been forgotten and edged out since the collapse of the socialist w o r l d . T h i s theme is

equality.

W i t h o u t equality there is

no free w o r l d . It is in the spirit of early Christianity that w e call the truth that all h u m a n beings are created

free

and

equal

'self-

evident'. Equality doesn't mean collectivism. It means equal conditions for living, and equal chances for living for everyone.

justice. solidarity. A s a

A s a social concept, equality means

A s a humanitarian

concept, equality means

Christian

equality means

love.

concept,

Either w e shall create a w o r l d of social jus-

tice, h u m a n solidarity and Christian love, or this w o r l d will perish through the oppression of people by people, through a-social egotism, and through the destruction of the future in the interests of short-term, present-day profits. T h e alternatives are either social justice or increasing crime and continually more expensive security; either international justice or revolts by the hungry in the poor countries; either long-term

investments

today for the future of our c o m m o n life, or short-term profits

7°

Theology and Politics

t o d a y and the calculated bankruptcy of humanity in the near future. In E u r o p e , the Latin A m e r i c a n theology of liberation can a w a k e n a n e w social k i n g d o m - o f - G o d

theology w h i c h

will

reach back to the left w i n g of Catholic social doctrine, and to the 'religious-social' movement of L e o n h a r d R a g a z ,

Eduard

H e i m a n n , Paul Tillich and the y o u n g K a r l Barth. It will pick up the thinking of W a l t e r Rauschenbusch in the United States

{A Theology for the Social Gospel, 1918)

and the concerns of

the earlier English g r o u p round F. D . M a u r i c e , pursued later in his o w n w a y by W i l l i a m T e m p l e . T h i s n e w social kingdom-ofG o d theology w o u l d gather together the different approaches of political theology, ecological theology, feminist theology, and the n e w social-critical theology. N o t least, Pope J o h n Paul II could fall in w i t h it also; for it w o u l d fulfil his dream of a 'culture of life'.

II Theology in the Changing Values of the Modern World

I

Christian Faith in the Changing Values of the Modern World

In this section I am not about to uphold the 'values' of the Western w o r l d in the dreaded 'clash of civilizations', defending 1

them against the representatives of the Islamic theocracies (such as Iran) and the Confucian 'educative dictatorships' (such as Singapore). N o r do I propose to p r o p up Western self-esteem, and weigh up w h a t the W e s t is ' w o r t h ' . T h e modern

and

Western w o r l d s must cope w i t h the present crises of their values by themselves. E v e r y

defence

against attacks

from

outside

merely stands in the w a y of the 'revaluation of values' w h i c h is required in the W e s t t o d a y if humanity and the earth are to survive. But as a Christian theologian I have to ask: w h a t

does

the Western w o r l d and the modern era o w e to the biblical traditions, w h i c h have come d o w n to them through the medium of Christianity especially, and in w h a t w a y d o Christianity and the biblical traditions act on them as a burden? In the phrase 'biblical

traditions'

I am

including J u d a i s m ,

to w h i c h

the

modern Western w o r l d o w e s more than it is a w a r e of. A b o v e all I mean the particular impress put on the Western w o r l d by the ' O l d Testament' - by A b r a h a m ' s E x o d u s , by Israel's G o d , by the T e n C o m m a n d m e n t s of M o s e s , and by the visions of the prophets. T h e

Western

world

has let itself

be

profoundly

inspired by the biblical traditions, w h i c h have penetrated right d o w n to the fundamental ideas and values of modern times. In the biblical story of G o d , it found again its o w n history of

74

The Changing Values of the Modern World

freedom,

and

it has continued

to identify

itself with

that

history, even in its n o w secular forms. But since w e have discovered 'the dialectic of enlightenment',

2

and suffer from the

i n w a r d contrarieties and contradictions of modernity, it m a y well be that a postmodern w o r l d will take leave of the driving force of the biblical traditions at the same time as it departs from modernity, because it identifies the one with the other. W e therefore have to ask ourselves whether in the light of our traditions and hopes w e can co-operate in overcoming

the

inward conflicts and contradictions of the modern world w h i c h w e , or our predecessors, have evidently p r o v o k e d , and if so, h o w ? Society's values and their re-evaluation are primary tasks for public theology. A n d by virtue of its origin and its goal, Christian theology is public theology, for it is theology of the kingdom of G o d . Its historical traditions tell 'the history of the 3

future', and its prophetic traditions shape the visions of that future. So w h a t do these traditions have to say to us in our present crises of values?

(i) The God of the Bible and the experience of history T h e values w e

acknowledge

and our experience of

reality

correspond; so w e shall begin w i t h the biblical experience of history, and then ask about the values of the human person and 4

the h u m a n community. The God

about w h o m

the biblical traditions talk is not

a l w a y s already revealed in the l a w s and cycles of nature. H e reveals himself through men and w o m e n and in contingent events of h u m a n history. Consequently G o d is named after the people he called, and the events through w h i c h he revealed himself to men and w o m e n . This is unique in the history of religion. T h e r e is 'the G o d of A b r a h a m , Isaac and J a c o b ' and 'the Father of Jesus Christ'. There is 'the L o r d ' w h o liberated his people Israel from the historical p o w e r , E g y p t , and there is 'the Father' w h o liberated Christ from the p o w e r of history, death. T h e G o d of historical callings and liberating experiences is rightly called 'the G o d of history', in distinction from the gods of nature.

Christian Faith in the Modern World

75

J u d a i s m , Christianity and Islam, w h i c h are at one in their appeal to the G o d of A b r a h a m and to A b r a h a m ' s experience of G o d , understand themselves, each in its o w n w a y , as 'historical religions'. F o r them, historical remembrance is just as constitutive as expectation of the future. A b r a h a m ' s experience of G o d is the experience of liberty and of exile: ' G o out from your country and y o u r kindred and y o u r father's house to the land that I will s h o w y o u . . . and in y o u all the families of the earth shall be blessed' (Gen.

12.1-3).

5

A b r a h a m ' s experience of time

as he 'goes o u t ' is the experience of a past w h i c h he leaves behind him, never to return, and a future w h i c h he has to seek in the hope that he will one d a y find it. What

experience

of

time

has

the

meditating

compared w i t h A b r a h a m ? T h e B u d d h a , lost within

Buddha, himself,

experiences timelessness in the eternal moment. F o r him, past and future have vanished. E v e r y comparison with the great Asian

cosmic

religions

shows

the unique character of

the

A b r a h a m i c religions: the future is something n e w ; it is not the return of the past. T h e w o r l d is not held in the great equilibrium of the c o s m o s and its harmony. A s G o d ' s creation, it is aligned towards

the

future

of

his

eternal

kingdom

and

hence

is

temporal. T h e 'time pointer' dominates all systems of matter and life w h i c h are caught up in the movement of evolution. In the process of tradition and innovation, time is not reversible; it is irreversible. It is experienced in the unbridgeable difference between past and future. T h e past is the reality w h i c h can never be brought back, the future is the potentiality w h i c h can never be caught up with, and the present is the interface at w h i c h the possibilities of the future are realized or neglected - the point, that is, w h e r e future and past are mediated to one another. T h e A b r a h a m i c religions discovered and sanctified not space but time. Elsewhere the divine w a s w o r s h i p p e d in the ever-returning orders of the cosmos. But here it meets us in the contingent events of history - events, that is, w h i c h are undeducible and unhoped for - and in 'the n e w thing' w h i c h the future brings. A n d with this human beings lost their home in the natural environment.

j6

The Changing Values of the Modern World

T h e v i e w of reality w h i c h I have described here -

if only

briefly - as the time of history has a special affinity with the modern v i e w of reality, for the modern w o r l d emerged out of the detachment of human civilization from its dependencies on and its concurrences with nature. T h e agrarian w o r l d gave w a y to the w o r l d

of

industry,

the village to the

megalopolis.

Industrialization and urbanization engender a human

6

world

w h i c h is constructed according to h u m a n wishes and criteria, and it is through these alone that human values are given effect. In the modern megacities -

Mexico

City, Calcutta,

Lagos,

Shanghai and the rest - in w h i c h , in a few years, more than half the human race will have to exist, the sun is darkened through smog, and nature has been replaced by transportation systems. These cities need neither plants nor animals, but live from their o w n creations. T h e real w o r l d w h i c h can be perceived by the senses is simulated and replaced by the 'virtual w o r l d ' of c o m puters and information h i g h w a y s . T h e course of every individual life is n o longer determined by the cycles of the earth and the rhythms of the body, but only by the pace of the modern w o r l d . T h e sensory perception of reality is reduced to the senses that convey remote impressions -

hearing and seeing.

W h a t were originally the more immediate senses -

feeling,

tasting and smelling - wither and atrophy. W e shall look at this more closely in the light of time as it is experienced by inhabitants of the modern w o r l d . T h e detachment of the w o r l d of h u m a n civilization

from

nature generated the ecological crisis w h i c h can condemn the w h o l e project of the modern w o r l d to failure. T h e devastations inflicted on nature are g r o w i n g in proportion to the urbanization of human beings and the centralization of industry, as well as the g r o w i n g demand for energy and the increasing industrial emissions in the mega-cities. The

ecological

crises

of the natural

environment

in

the

external w o r l d in w h i c h human beings live are matched by the psychosomatic crises of modern men and w o m e n in their inner w o r l d , and in their mental and emotional life. Alienation from 7

nature without

is matched

by

the

alienation

from

nature

Christian Faith in the Modern World

77

within, by g r o w i n g spiritual and emotional paralysis, and by estrangement from the senses. ' T h e desert is g r o w i n g - w o e to the

one

in

whom

the

deserts

hide,'

prophesied

Friedrich

Nietzsche; and w e all hide within us the deserts of alienation which w e o u t w a r d l y deplore. If it is the interpretation of reality as history w h i c h

has

edged out nature within us and round about us, then the task of modern cultural therapy is to develop values w h i c h will reconcile h u m a n beings w i t h nature outside themselves and with nature within, in their o w n bodiliness and sentient life, and to w o r k for a n e w h a r m o n y between h u m a n civilization

Leitmotif of the modern age. Leitmotif of pre-modern civilizations. If

and nature. 'Progress' is the Equilibrium w a s the

humanity w a n t s to survive, w e need to find a balance between the values of 'progress' and the values of 'equilibrium', so that w e can arrive at a sustainable development and an ecological culture.

8

F o r this, d o w e have to leave behind us the

Abrahamic

religions, w h i c h have brought us, together with 'the G o d of history', the estrangements from natural life as well? H a v e the

freedom from estrangement from

values that are bound up w i t h h u m a n transmuted into demons of

nature been nature, and

nature's devastation? Is it only if our souls take w i n g to India that w e overdriven denizens of the W e s t c a n be healed? I believe that w e can 'drink from our o w n wells' t o o . O n l y w e must discover them once more. A n d by our o w n wells I mean the mystical traditions in Christianity and the sabbath traditions of Judaism. T h e G o d of the Bible is by no means simply the unresting ' G o d of history'. H e is also in the same measure the G o d of the sabbath rest, w h i c h interrupts time and history. A c c o r d i n g to the creation story, G o d 'rested' on the seventh day, and by coming

to rest consummated

and

blessed his creation.

9

In

creating, G o d goes out of himself; resting, G o d returns to himself again, and takes leave of his w o r k s like an artist w h o only completes his w o r k w h e n he c a n d r a w back from it and let it g o . T h e active, labouring human being is meant to correspond to

78

The Changing Values of the Modern World

the active creative G o d - but only on six days. O n the seventh day he is intended to be in accord with the resting G o d , w h o rejoices over his w o r k and himself. T h i s sabbath rest is meant for men and w o m e n , rulers and ruled, human

beings

and

animals alike. In the sabbath year even the land and the vineyards are to remain unplanted, so that ' G o d ' s earth m a y celebrate its sabbath', and can restore itself as it lies fallow. T h e sabbath l a w s set a clear limit to the history of human w o r k s , for the sake of nature's well-being, and for the healing of body and soul. In Christian mysticism w e again find the biblical w i s d o m of the sabbath in time, but n o w it is turned inwards. O u t of the alienations and wildernesses of their w o r l d , men and w o m e n find themselves through meditation and self-examination. W h e n they arrive at themselves, they also come to rest in G o d ; and the converse is also true: once they find rest in the eternal G o d they also find themselves in the darknesses and abysses of their souls. Just as the sabbath falls on the seventh day, so in mysticism there are a l w a y s seven steps that lead to healing in 'the interior castle', as Teresa of A v i l a called it, or on 'the seven-storey mountain'

(Thomas

World of Action

of his b o o k s .

Merton's

phrase).

Contemplation in a

is the title w h i c h T h o m a s M e r t o n gave to one

10

W e find contemplative rest not just by turning inwards and analysing our souls. W e find it too if w e deal wisely with our time, w h i c h w e must interrupt on the sabbath if time is not to devour us entirely. G o d does not merely inhabit the depths of our being. H e dwells in time t o o .

(ii) Does being human mean being part of nature or being a person? In all the A s i a n and African religions men and w o m e n see themselves as part of nature. It w a s the biblical traditions that led to the understanding of the individual h u m a n being as person. People see themselves as part of nature if they believe that the earth is their ' m o t h e r ' and the m o o n their 'grandmother', and

Christian Faith in the Modern World

79

that their life in the great family of all the living oscillates in the cycles and rhythms of sun, m o o n and earth. People see themselves as part of nature if they believe in reincarnation, since every individual living thing emerges out of life's great w a r p and weft, and turns back to that, so as to return once more in other forms of life. Finally, individuals understand themselves as part of nature if they see themselves as only one link in a long succession of generations. T h e members of the family w h o went before

them

are

the

ancestors

who

must

be revered;

the

members of the family w h o c o m e after them are the children for w h o m they w o r k . T h e tiny individual consciousness

knows

itself to be embedded in and sustained by the great collective consciousness. T h e death of the individual has no great importance, for the sequence of the generations remains, as the generation registers in the O l d Testament and in K o r e a , for example, s h o w . T h e U N ' s Earth Charter of 28 October

1982

therefore calls human beings 'part of nature'. O v e r against this, h o w e v e r , every declaration of h u m a n rights begins w i t h a foundational article on the ' h u m a n dignity' which is inviolable. But w h a t constitutes this unique h u m a n dignity? It is the dignity of every individual h u m a n person, each for himself or herself, and its premise is the individuality of each and every human being. T h i s individual human dignity is the source of all individual h u m a n rights, such as those laid d o w n in the Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights of 1948

- a declaration

signed by all the nations belonging to the U N . T h e right to be a person, the equal rights of men and w o m e n , as well as freedom of belief, conscience, opinion and assembly all follow from individual h u m a n dignity. H o w is this individual human dignity protected? By treating no one as an object, but by respecting everyone a l w a y s and everywhere as a determining subject. So to reduce h u m a n beings to their market value as slaves, pure w o r k force, or an object of commerce (as in prostitution) is forbidden. It is with this principle - the principle that all h u m a n beings are created free and equal - that the modern democratization of politics

begins. It is w i t h

this principle that all

liberation

movements and liberation theologies w o r k . N o one must be

8o

The Changing Values of the Modern World

disadvantaged because of some disability. T h e principle of all humane medicine is that 'the patient is a person'. W e d o not need to g o into the consequences a n y further, because w e all k n o w w h a t they are. But w h a t is a person? A person is not an individual. A s the derivation of the w o r d tells us, an individual is like an atom, something ultimately indivisible. But something ultimately indivisible has no relationships and cannot communicate either. So Goethe w a s right with his dictum that

ineffabile'

itself

'individuum est

- the individual transcends expression. If an indi-

vidual has no relationships, it has n o characteristics and n o name either. It is u n k n o w a b l e and does not k n o w itself. In G e r m a n and Spanish it used to be a term of abuse to call a particular human being an 'individuum', because that meant an anonymity. A

person, on the other hand, is the individual

h u m a n being in the field of resonances constituted by his or her relationships: I - you - w e , I - myself, I - it. In the n e t w o r k of relationships the person becomes the active subject of taking and giving, hearing and doing, experiencing

and

touching,

perceiving and responding. In

the

theological

sense,

the

'person'

comes

into

being

through G o d ' s s u m m o n s , w h i c h calls human beings out of their relationships 'in their fatherland (Gen. I Z . I ) .

1 1

and a m o n g their

kindred'

A b r a h a m and Sarah, w h o follow G o d ' s call and

' g o o u t ' , are the prototypes of biblical persons. In the same w a y G o d calls M o s e s too by n a m e , and M o s e s comes f o r w a r d and says: ' H e r e a m I' ( E x . 3.4). It is on the model of M o s e s that the prophets are called, and according to Isa. 43.1

the model is valid

for everyone: ' F e a r not, for I have redeemed y o u ; I have called y o u by y o u r name, y o u are mine.' T h e G o d w h o is not part of nature but stands over against it independently as its C r e a t o r makes h u m a n beings, as his image, correspond to him in standing over against both the visible creation and themselves (Psalm 8). People become responsible persons before G o d on earth. T h a t makes their life unique and unrepeatable. T h a t raises them a b o v e other created beings, w i t h relative freedom for the special task given them in the name of that transcendent G o d . A n d it

Christian Faith in the Modern World

81

also burdens them with special responsibility for other living things. A c c o r d i n g

to the biblical traditions, the dignity

of

human beings is constituted b y the fact that they are created in the image of G o d . In his famous oration

(i486),

De dignitate hotninis

Pico della M i r a n d o l a introduced this idea into the

Renaissance culture of the Western w o r l d , and by doing so prepared the w a y both for the recognition of human rights and for Western anthropocentricism.

12

T h e consequences, both positive

and negative, were momentous. Let me try to put together a list of the merits and demerits.

1.

The children of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.

If h u m a n

beings are persons called out of the w o r l d by the transcendent G o d , then they lead an A b r a h a m i c existence. T h e y leave their familiar environment - family, h o m e and country - and become strangers in w h a t is for them an alien w o r l d . T h e y do not feel at home anywhere. E v e r y w h e r e they are responsible for themselves until their hope in G o d ' s promise is fulfilled. T h a t is a freedom w h i c h is a b o v e the w o r l d , but it is the freedom of the desert. T h e mark of A b r a h a m ' s children is openness to the w o r l d , and homelessness. N o present gives them rest and entices them to linger. A s long as the divine promise is not fulfilled, their hearts remain restless. F o r g o o d or ill, they become

novarum cupidissima,

bestia rerum

animals voracious for n e w things, con-

tent with no environment but breaking through all limitations. Their desires are measureless, as Freud complained, because those

desires

are w a k e n e d

by

the

infinite

God.

Abraham

becomes 'the father in faith' of J e w s , Christians and M u s l i m s , and Sarah and H a g a r are his constant companions; they are not stay-at-homes, like Penelope, w h o

lets Odysseus g o off

on

his adventures alone. But this being so, w h a t results in the corresponding civilizations is not just domination over nature; it is alienation from nature too. A n y o n e w h o follows the G o d of promise like A b r a h a m and Sarah cannot have nature as 'mother'. But then w h a t is nature for the children of A b r a h a m and Sarah? N a t u r e then becomes in the positive sense the 'sister' and c o m p a n i o n on the w a y of hoping and seeking h u m a n b e i n g s :

13

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The Changing Values of the Modern World

that is the w a y Paul describes it in R o m a n s 8. It is not only h u m a n beings w h o live from hope, and long for the redemption of the b o d y from the bondage of death. All other

earthly

creatures and the earth itself sigh under the p o w e r of transience, and long for the glory of eternal life w h i c h 'the children of G o d ' in their freedom already experience. It is G o d ' s Spirit itself w h i c h in believers and in all transitory creatures sighs for the n e w w o r l d of eternal life, and reveals the sufferings of this present time as being the birth pangs of that eternal home of all things. T h i s means that the restless heart of the children of A b r a h a m finds its correspondence in the restless w o r l d -

sperans,

natura

in hoping nature. Together w i t h A b r a h a m ' s children,

all transitory creatures are on the w a y to that future in w h i c h the restless G o d will c o m e to rest and find a home in the house of consummated creation. There A b r a h a m ' s children also find the home of their identity. A l l creatures are companions on the w a y trodden by the children of A b r a h a m and Sarah, and the children of A b r a h a m and Sarah are in profound h a r m o n y w i t h all other created being. T h e y do not v i e w the w o r l d as divided into cosmos and chaos, but see it bound into a unified m o v e ment that d r a w s t o w a r d s their redemption, a movement in which

cosmos

and

chaos

are

merely

two

complementary

characteristics.

2. Augustine's solitary soul.

T h e inhabitants of the Western

w o r l d are blessed and burdened by Augustine's 'soul', for no one has moulded Western psychology

more

fundamentally

than this Latin Father of the church, or justified Western individualism more p r o f o u n d l y .

14

Augustine desired to k n o w ' G o d

and the soul'. ' N o t h i n g else? N o , nothing else.' W h y the soul particularly? Because the h u m a n being's soul carries within it the image of G o d as if in a mirror. S o those w h o w a n t to k n o w G o d must forget the w o r l d , close the door on all their senses, and w i t h d r a w into themselves through meditation. T h e n they will simultaneously c o m e to k n o w both themselves and G o d . ' W i t h d r a w into thyself: in the inner man dwells truth.' F o r Aristotle, the soul w a s an organ, part of the human being like other organs t o o . H e could describe the p o w e r s of the soul

Christian Faith in the Modern World

83

objectively. H o w e v e r , for Augustine the soul became the h u m a n being's inner self, mysterious and unfathomable, like G o d . T h r o u g h the reflexive inwardness by w a y of w h i c h he sought G o d in himself and himself in G o d , Augustine became the discoverer of the human being's subjectivity. Descartes, w i t h his philosophy of subjectivity, merely followed h i m .

15

H e took over

Augustine's argument: I can doubt all sense impressions, but not that it is I w h o doubts; I can be deceived in all things, but not that it is I w h o is deceived. T h e i n w a r d certainty of the self is stronger than the o u t w a r d certainty of any object, for it is immediate, whereas certainty of the object is only mediated through the senses. In simple terms this means that w e are all closest to ourselves, for w e k n o w ourselves best. Consequently neighbourly love has self-love as its precondition, and only selflove leads to the love of G o d . If the soul is the subjectivity of the self, then it dominates the b o d y and the senses, and is not ruled by them. In this respect too the soul corresponds to G o d : as G o d is the ruler of the w o r l d , so the soul, w h i c h corresponds to G o d , rules the body. It is in self-mastery and self-control that the human being's nature as the image of G o d finds expression: this w a s the teaching of puritanism and pietism. But Augustine w a s w r o n g w h e n he s a w the image of G o d only in the soul of the individual person: ' G o d created m a n in his o w n image, male and female he created them' (Gen. 1 . 2 7 ) . S o G o d ' s image is to be found in the mutual relationship of m a n and w i f e , and this is a l w a y s mediated through the senses and the b o d y .

16

W e find no suggestion in the Bible that the self-

regarding individual soul enjoys pre-eminence. It is not w h e n w e w i t h d r a w into the self that w e find G o d ; it is w h e n w e g o out of ourselves. It is not in the I that G o d is hidden; it is in the T h o u . T h e w h o l e human person is m a d e in the image of G o d , in the unity of soul and b o d y , of i n w a r d and o u t w a r d , of spirit and the five senses. T h e w h o l e h u m a n community of w o m e n and men, parents and children, is intended to correspond to G o d , and to become his reflected radiance on earth. T h e differentiated unity of person and nature tallies w i t h G o d ' s thought in creation: the person

represents

nature,

a n d nature

sustains

the person.

84

The Changing Values of the Modern World

T o d a y , weighed d o w n by 'Augustine's soul', w e are seeking the return of the b o d y and the rediscovery of the senses and the w o r l d w e can perceive through the senses - and men are listening to feminist theology. T h e separation of the person from nature is life-threatening and leads to moral irresponsibility. Radical humanism of the kind advocated by Peter Singer defines the h u m a n person as the subject of understanding and w i l l .

17

People w h o are not yet in

control of their understanding and will - or are n o longer in control of them - or are never in control of them - are not considered to be h u m a n persons; they are viewed merely as h u m a n material. T o this category belong embryos and foetuses, the severely

handicapped,

and

people

suffering

from

geriatric

diseases. In actual fact, indeed, it is only the healthy

male

between thirty and fifty w h o is a person in the full sense. Before that he is in training for personhood, and afterwards his personhood has been pensioned off. T h e logical consequence is that only the person in the full sense of the w o r d has any claim to human rights. H u m a n material, on the other hand, c a n be treated like objects of nature. T h i s radical humanism therefore leads to perfect inhumanity, for it w i t h d r a w s human dignity from w h a t is allegedly 'worthless life', life that is unfit to live. Theologically, the human being's likeness to G o d is not based on the

qualities

of h u m a n beings. It is grounded in their rela-

tionship to G o d . T h a t relationship is a double one. It means G o d ' s relation to h u m a n beings, and the relation of human beings to G o d . H u m a n beings' objective likeness to G o d subsists in G o d ' s relation to them. T h i s is indestructible and can never be lost. O n l y G o d can end it. T h e dignity of each and every person is based on this objective likeness to G o d . G o d has a relationship

to

every

embryo,

every

severely

handicapped

person, and every person suffering from one of the diseases of old age, and he is honoured and glorified in them w h e n their dignity is respected. W i t h o u t the fear of G o d , G o d ' s image will not be respected in every h u m a n being, and the reverence for life will be lost, pushed out by utilitarian criteria. But in the fear of G o d there is no life that is worthless and unfit to live.

Christian Faith in the Modern World

85

(Hi) The person between personal liberty and social faithfulness In traditional societies, the w h o l e life of the individual w a s predetermined

and

regulated

from

the

cradle

to

the

grave.

M e m b e r s h i p of families, castes, social classes and peoples determined the course of life. T h e r e w a s little scope for personal decisions and developments. T h e person's o w n name counted for very little. A m o n g some peoples, daughters were simply given numbers, because on their (arranged) marriage, they took their husband's surname. T h e family n a m e , in contrast - the surname as w e call it - meant everything. T o belong to 'a g o o d family'

secured

one's

social

position.

One

simply

had

to

come from 'a g o o d house', as the phrase w e n t in G e r m a n y . In traditional societies stability w a s everything, and individuality counted for very little. In modern societies, the values of personal liberty are p a r a mount, placed higher than the values of sociality, of belonging to a certain g r o u p . Life is no longer moulded by tradition. W e live in free-choice societies, because w e believe that a society can only be creative in the individual persons that constitute it. Consequently with us nothing must be accepted as predetermined and decreed. E v e r y o n e must be able to decide everthing for himself or herself: free choice of school, free choice of job or profession, free choice of a partner, free choice of where to live, free political choice, free choice of religion, and so on. W e are even w o r k i n g on the possibility of being able to decide our genetic m a k e - u p for ourselves. N o t h i n g must be 'just fate', not even a person's gender. W e must be able to determine everything ourselves. In semi-traditional E u r o p e a n societies, one is still addressed by one's surname, one's 'family' name. In very modern societies and a m o n g y o u n g people, first names are the only ones that count. T h e modern mega-cities individualize and isolate people. It is only in villages or small t o w n s that people can live in 'family clans'. M o d e r n apartments and modern cars are designed for four people at most: father, mother and t w o children. A free

86

The Changing Values of the Modern World

choice of jobs and the moving of homes tears the old extended families apart. Since our children live in Berlin, H a m b u r g and N e w Y o r k , w e seldom see our grandchildren. In the major G e r m a n cities of Berlin, H a m b u r g , Frankfurt and M u n i c h , more than 50%

of all households are 'single' households. Earlier,

people were members of a family; n o w they are increasingly becoming single persons. T h i s doesn't necessarily mean isolation, although isolation also exists to an alarming degree, for instance a m o n g the elderly. B u t freely chosen friendship increasingly

taking

the place

of

the predetermined

is

family.

House-sharing is becoming the n e w w a y of life, and n e w patchw o r k families are developing in w h i c h no one k n o w s or cares any more w h o father or mother is, or w h o is related to w h o m . A l l that matters is w h o is living with w h o m , or w h o is living in w h o s e house. T h e person one relates to replaces family ties: a relationship, yes - a b o n d , n o ; or a b o n d , yes - but w i t h o u t commitment. Public life is brought into every living r o o m by w a y of television. It is true that there each individual sits in front of the screen alone, but they all participate in everything that happens in t o w n , nation and w o r l d - or at least they think they d o , although in actual fact they participate only in the 'virtual' w o r l d of pre-selected information and entertainment. O f course they can switch the television on and off - but that is not media control. It is true that w e can participate in everything if w e w a t c h the n e w s ; but w e cannot help to determine

things,

because w e receive without being able to transmit anything. T h i s distinguishes the public life brought to us by television from any kind of discussion. Individualization is a l w a y s the w a y in w h i c h people can be dominated: 'divide and rule.' Finally, there are signs that a n e w culture of death is g r o w i n g up. In traditional

societies

people

were

in religious

terms

'gathered to their fathers', and were buried in the earth in the family grave. In the ancestor cult, at the K o r e a n C h o s u k festival, on A l l Souls D a y a m o n g Catholics or - in the Lutheran C h u r c h - on 'the S u n d a y of the D e a d ' , people visit the graves of their ancestors and dress them with flowers. In modern societies

Christian Faith in the Modern World

87

it is becoming more and more difficult for people to look after their family graves personally, because they no longer live near the burial place. T h e religious interest in family tradition is vanishing. S o in the secular lives of modern men and w o m e n there are more and more a n o n y m o u s

burials: the b o d y

is

cremated and the ashes are scattered in a field, or at sea, and ' n o one k n o w e t h the place thereof . . .' T h e isolated persons w h o determine themselves by themselves disappear into nothingness. T h i s is really quite logical, because the surname - the family name - had already ceased to mean anything even in life. S o w h y should it bind the children to the graves of the dead? T h e liberty of persons cannot be maintained through p r o gressive individualism of this k i n d .

18

N o r can it be relinquished

again in favour of membership of the traditional society. In m y view, it can be preserved only through reliability and faithfulness. T h e free h u m a n being is the being w h o c a n promise, said Nietzsche - and w h o must keep that promise. T h r o u g h the

promises

unambiguous

I give, I m a k e

myself

in

all

my

ambiguity

for others and for myself. In promising,

we

commit ourselves and become dependable. W e acquire a firm configuration or Gestalt, and m a k e ourselves people w h o can be addressed. In faithfulness to our promise w e acquire identity in time, because in being reminded of our promise w e reminded of ourselves. It is only in promising and

are

fulfilling

the promise that the free person w h o is not predetermined by tradition acquires continuity in time, and w i t h it his or her identity. T h o s e w h o forget their promises forget themselves; and those w h o remain true to their promises remain true to themselves. If w e keep our promises, w e c o m e to be trusted; if w e break our promises, people mistrust us. W e lose our identity and no longer k n o w ourselves. T h e identity of a person's w h o l e life history is indicated by his or her name. T h r o u g h m y name I identify myself with the person I w a s in the past, and anticipate myself as the person I will be in the future. W i t h m y name I can be addressed. W i t h my name I sign m y contracts and stand by my promises. T h e shared social life of free persons is a densely w o v e n fabric of promises and promise-keeping, agreements and

88

The Changing Values of the Modern World

dependabilities, and it cannot exist without trust. T h e paradigm of a free society is not predetermined membership. T h e p a r a digm is the covenant. A free society rests on social consensus.

(iv) Our modern lack of time and 'the discovery of slowness' M o d e r n men and w o m e n are ' a l w a y s o n the g o ' , so wherever they are, they are a l w a y s pressed for t i m e .

19

Is it the Christian

understanding of time as irreversible, and as an unstoppable 'ever-rolling stream', flowing out of the future into the past, that has plunged us into this shortage of time? H o w can w e be rescued from it? N e v e r before did h u m a n beings have as much

free time as they have today, and never did they have time. T i m e has become 'precious' t o o , because 'time is

so little money'.

T h e w o r l d offers us endless possibilities, but our life-span is brief. Consequently m a n y people fall into a panic in case they should miss o u t on something, and they try to step u p their pace of living. T h e Utopia of overcoming space and time b y w a y of high-speed trains, faxes and E-mail, Internet and videos, is a modern Utopia. Everywhere w e w a n t to 'keep u p ' w i t h things - the phrase is significant in itself. W e w a n t t o be omnipresent in space and simultaneous in time. T h a t is our n e w G o d complex. T h e difference between our life-span and the possibilities offered by the w o r l d tempts us into 'a race against time'. W e w a n t to save time, so as to get more out of life, and miss out o n life in the very attempt. O n l y the person w h o lives faster gets most out of his brief life, w e think. W h a t w e so proudly call ' o u r modern w o r l d ' gets its name because w e are compelled to modernize faster and faster. W e m o v e more and more rapidly from place to place, and collect so m a n y 'experiences' in the adventure park or the adventure holiday that sociologists like G e r h a r d Schulze (see n. 19) talk about this 'experience' society of ours. W e have more and m o r e 'contacts' and ' k n o w ' a great m a n y people. Fast food has become the symbol of o u r fast life. T h e modern revved-up human is fed b y M c D o n a l d ' s , p o o r

Christian Faith in the Modern World

89

devil. H e has plenty of experiences,, but actually experiences none of them because he w a n t s to have seen everything and to hold on to it on slides or videos; but he doesn't take it in or assimilate any of it. H e has contacts in plenty but no relationships, because he ' c a n ' t stay', but is a l w a y s in a hurry. H e gulps down

his fast food, standing up if possible, because he is

incapable of enjoying anything any more; for to enjoy something takes time, and time is w h a t one doesn't have. M o d e r n men and w o m e n have no time, because they are a l w a y s out to ' s a v e ' time. Because w e c a n ' t prolong our lives to

any

appreciable degree, w e have to hurry in order to 'get as much as possible out of life'. M o d e r n men and w o m e n 'take their o w n lives' in the double sense of the phrase: by snatching at life, they kill it. T h e brevity of time is not diminished one single second by accelerated life. O n the contrary, it is by being afraid of not getting one's share and missing out on something that one falls short, and misses out on everything. W e tourists have been everywhere but have got nowhere. T h e r e is a l w a y s only enough time for a flying visit. T h e more w e travel, and the more rapidly w e chase after time, the more meagre the spoils. E v e r y w h e r e

w e are just in transit.

The

person w h o lives more and more rapidly so as to miss nothing lives more and more superficially, and misses the depths of experience life offers.

In that person's w o r l d , everything is

possible, but very little is

real.

T h e clock is the modern w o r l d ' s key machine, for it regulates everything. A n Indian sage said to a friend of mine last year: ' Y o u have the clock - w e have time.' T h e mechanical time of our omnipresent clocks dominates our l i v e s .

20

F o r the clock, it

is a matter of indifference whether the time it ticks off w a s empty or filled, whether w e were sickened by boredom whether

'time flew'.

Sixty

minutes, and

the hour

or

is past.

M e c h a n i c a l time takes no account of time as w e experience it, and makes all times equal. But experienced time is the quality of our life - measured time is simply its quantity. Happiness is timeless, w e say. S o whenever w e experience life most intensively, it is important to put our w a t c h a w a y , or at least to

90

The Changing Values of the Modern World

stop looking at it. Life only becomes living w h e n w e break the dictatorship of the time that is measured by the clock. It is probably our suppressed fear of death w h i c h makes us so greedy for life. O u r individualized awareness tells us: ' D e a t h is the finish. Y o u can't hold on to anything, and y o u can't take it with y o u . ' T h e unconscious fear of death s h o w s itself in the stepped-up haste for living. In traditional societies, individuals felt themselves to be members of a larger w h o l e : the family, life simply as such, or the cosmos. W h e n the individual dies, the w i d e r context in w h i c h he or she participated lives on. But modern individualized consciousness k n o w s only itself, relates everything to itself, and therefore believes that death is the end of everything. Perhaps w e c a n no longer g o back to the old sense of belonging to a greater w h o l e w h i c h endures w h e n w e d i s a p p e a r .

21

But

w e can surrender our finite and limited life to the eternal divine life and receive our life from that. T h i s is w h a t happens w h e n w e experience c o m m u n i o n with G o d in faith. T o experience the presence of the eternal G o d brings our temporal life as if into an ocean w h i c h surrounds us and buoys us up w h e n w e s w i m in it. In this w a y the divine presence surrounds us from every side, as Psalm 139

says, like a w i d e space for living w h i c h even finite

death cannot restrict. In this divine presence w e can affirm our limited life and accept its limits. W e will then become serene and relaxed, and will begin to live slowly and with delight. It is only the person w h o lives slowly w h o gets more out of life. It is only the person w h o eats and drinks slowly w h o eats and

drinks

with

N a d o l n y ' s book

enjoyment.

Slow

food

-

The Discovery of Slowness

slow

life!

(ET

1981)

Sten rightly

became a bestseller, and a comfort for harrassed modern minds and hearts. O n l y the very rich can squander time. T h o s e w h o are assured of eternal life have time in plenty. T h e n w e linger in the moment, and lay ourselves open to the intensive experience of life. In the moment w h i c h is fully and wholly lived w e experience eternity. Isn't the living intensity of a single lived moment more than all the hastening through the times of life in their extensiveness?

Christian Faith in the Modern World

91

It is only the suppressed fear of death that makes us so hurried.

The

experienced

nearness

of

death,

by

contrast,

teaches us to live every moment with full intensity as an eternal moment. O u r senses are sharpened in an undreamed-of w a y . W e see colours, hear sounds, taste and feel as never before. T h e experience

of

death

which

we

permit

ourselves

makes

us

wise for life and wise in our dealings with time. T h e hope of resurrection to w h i c h w e hold fast opens up a w i d e horizon beyond death, so that w e can leave ourselves time to live. Finally, the modern w o r l d emerged out of the Western w o r l d , even if this is no longer realized, for example in A s i a . T h e Western w o r l d emerged out of Christianity, and especially out of Protestantism. H u m a n rights and personal liberties, freedom of religion, freedom of belief and of conscience, democratic forms of government and liberal v i e w s of life: all these things g r e w up together w i t h Protestantism. T h e crisis in the values of the modern and Western w o r l d are also crises in Protestantism. S o w e are called to a special degree to w o r k together for the revaluation of values w h i c h is required so that the w o r l d m a y live and not perish.

22

2

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth: Ecological Theology

(i) The destruction of the earth by the First World and the Third World T h e destruction of the environment w h i c h w e are

causing

through o u r present global economic system will undoubtedly seriously jeopardize the survival of humanity in the twenty-first century. M o d e r n industrial society has t h r o w n out of balance 1

the equilibrium of the earth's organism, and is on the w a y to universal ecological death, unless w e can change the w a y things are developing.

Scientists have s h o w n

that c a r b o n

dioxide

and methane emissions are destroying the ozone layer in the atmosphere, while the use of chemical fertilizers and a multitude of pesticides is making the soil infertile. T h e y have proved that the global climate is already changing n o w , at the present day, so that w e are experiencing an increasing number of 'natural' catastrophes, such as droughts and floods - catastrophes w h i c h are actually not natural at all, but m a n - m a d e . T h e ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is melting, and in the coming century, the scientists tell us, coastal cities such as H a m b u r g , and coastal regions such as Bangladesh and m a n y South Sea islands, are going to be flooded. All in all life on this earth itself is under threat. T h e h u m a n race can become extinct, like the dinosaurs millions of years a g o . W h a t makes this thought so disquieting is the fact that w e c a n no longer retrieve the poisons w h i c h are rising into the earth's ozone layer and those that are seeping into the ground. Consequently w e d o n ' t k n o w whether the die has

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth not already been cast, as far as the fate of humanity is c o n cerned. T h e ecological crisis of our century has already become an ecological catastrophe, at least for the w e a k e r living things, w h i c h are the first to perish in this struggle. Y e a r by year, hundreds of plant and animal species are becoming extinct, and w e cannot call them back to life. 'First of all the forests die and then the children.' This ecological crisis is in the first place a crisis brought about by Western scientific and technological civilization. T h a t is true. If everyone w e r e to drive as m a n y cars as the Americans and the G e r m a n s , and w e r e to pollute the atmosphere through as m a n y toxic emissions, humanity w o u l d already have suffocated. T h e Western standard of living cannot be universalized. It can only be sustained at the expense of others: at the expense of people in the T h i r d W o r l d , at the expense of coming generations, and at the expense of the earth. O n l y a universal 'equalization of b u r d e n s ' * c a n lead to a c o m m o n standard of living and a sustainable development. A t the same time, it is mistaken to think that environmental problems

are problems

West alone.

2

for

the industrial countries

of

the

O n the contrary, the ecological catastrophes are

intensfying still more the already existing economic and social problems of countries in the T h i r d W o r l d . T h e Western industrialized countries can try by means of technology and statutory provisions to preserve a clean environment in their o w n territories; the poorer countries are unable to do so. T h e Western industrial countries can try to foist environmentally

harmful

industrial plants on the countries of the Third W o r l d , and to sell these countries dangerous toxic waste; and the poor countries of the T h i r d W o r l d have no defence. But even apart from that, 3

Indira G a n d h i w a s right w h e n she said that 'poverty is the w o r s t pollution'. I w o u l d add that the worst environmental pollution An 'equalization of burdens' of this kind (a so-called Lastenausgleich) was attempted in West Germany at the end of the Second World War for the benefit of refugees and displaced persons from the eastern parts of Germany which had now passed to the USSR, Poland and Czechoslovakia. 1

94

The Changing Values of the Modern World

is not the poverty as such; it is the corruption that causes poverty. It is a vicious circle leading to death: impoverishment leads everywhere to over-population, because children are the only security life has to offer. Over-population leads to the consumption not only of all the foodstuffs, but of the very foundations from w h i c h people live. T h a t is w h y it is in the p o o r countries that the deserts are g r o w i n g most rapidly. In addition, the global market is compelling the p o o r countries to give up their o w n subsistence e c o n o m y and to plant monocultures for the w o r l d market; to cut d o w n the rain forests and overgraze the pastureland. T h e y have to sell not just the apples but the apple trees as well - and that means that they c a n survive only at the cost of their children. In this w a y these countries are being inexorably forced t o w a r d s self-destruction. In countries with massive social injustice, ruthlessness is part of 'the culture of violence'. Violence

against w e a k e r

people

justifies

violence

against w e a k e r creatures. Social lawlessness reproduces itself in lawless dealings with nature. T h e first ecological l a w is that for every intervention in nature there must be a compensation. If y o u cut d o w n a tree y o u must plant a n e w one. If y o u sell a piece of land y o u must buy another piece, for y o u must pass y o u r land on to y o u r children just as y o u received it from y o u r parents. If y o u r city builds a p o w e r station, it must plant a forest w h i c h produces just as much o x y g e n as the p o w e r plant uses up. W h e r e the destruction of nature is concerned, both w o r l d s , the First and the T h i r d , are imprisoned in a vicious circle. T h e interdependencies of the depredations can easily be seen. T h e Western w o r l d destroys nature in the T h i r d W o r l d and forces the

Third

World

countries

to

destroy

their

own

natural

environment. Conversely, the destruction of nature in the T h i r d W o r l d - the cutting d o w n of the rain forests, for instance, and the pollution of the seas - strikes back at the First W o r l d by w a y of climatic changes. T h e T h i r d W o r l d dies first, and then the First W o r l d : first the p o o r die and then the rich; first of all the children and then the adults. Isn't it cheaper in the long run, as well as more h u m a n e , to c o m b a t the poverty in the T h i r d W o r l d

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth n o w , and to dispense w i t h our o w n g r o w t h , rather than to c o m b a t natural catastrophes all over the w o r l d in the next few decades? Is it not more sensible to restrict driving n o w rather than to run round in gas masks in the future? W i t h o u t social justice between the First and the T h i r d W o r l d s , there will be n o peace; and w i t h o u t peace in the w o r l d of h u m a n beings there will be n o liberation of nature. In the long run this one, single earth of ours cannot sustain a divided humanity. A n d this one, living earth will no longer endure a hostile humanity. It will free itself from men and w o m e n , either through counter-evolution, or through the slow suicide of the h u m a n race. In the light of these sombre vistas of the future w e have to set n e w priorities, politically and economically. U p to

now

'national security', safeguarded through armaments, has been in the forefront. In the future

environmental

security, safeguarded

through the c o m m o n protection of the c o m m o n foundations of life, will take first place. Instead of more and more w e a p o n s turned against each other, w e need joint efforts turned against the threatening destruction of the living space w e share on this earth. W e need a sustainable development in the T h i r d W o r l d , and a policy of environmental security in the First. W e need w h a t Ernst v o n Weizsäcker calls a joint 'earth policy', and a global market that is ecologically orientated, an 'earth m a r k e t ' .

4

I believe that the ecological crisis of the earth is a crisis of modern scientific and technological civilization itself. T h e great project of the modern w o r l d is threatened w i t h failure. S o this is not just a 'moral crisis' either, as Pope J o h n Paul II maintained; it is a profounder crisis still - a religious crisis of the things in w h i c h people in the Western w o r l d put their trust. In the next section of this chapter, I shall try to s h o w h o w this is so. I shall then g o on to s h o w three perspectives, d r a w n from the religious traditions of the W e s t e r n w o r l d , w h i c h can lead us from the destruction of the earth to h a r m o n y and consensus with it.

96

The Changing Values of the Modern World

(ii) The religious crisis of the modern world The

living

relationship

of

a human

society

to its

natural

environment is determined by the h u m a n techniques by means of w h i c h h u m a n beings acquire their foodstuffs from nature and give it back their waste. This 'metabolism' with nature is really as natural as breathing in the air and breathing it out again. But ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution it has been increasingly determined and governed solely by human beings, and not also by nature. In our t h r o w a w a y society, w e think that w h a t w e t h r o w a w a y 'has gone'. But a something never becomes a nothing, so nothing w e t h r o w a w a y has ever ' g o n e ' . T h a t is the error of nihilism. It is still somewhere or other in nature. W h e r e ? Everything returns in the cycles of the earth. H u m a n technologies are the modalities in w h i c h the sciences are invested. T e c h n o l o g y is applied science, and all scientific k n o w l e d g e will, some time or other, be technologically applied and utilized, since - as Francis Bacon declared - ' k n o w l e d g e is power'.

Natural

science is knowledge

about the p o w e r

of

disposing over things and dominating them. Philosophy and theology, in contrast, have to do with orientation, and are disciplines w h i c h address the meaning of reality. Technologies and sciences are a l w a y s developed under the pressure of particular h u m a n interests. W e never have them 5

value-free. Interests precede them, direct them, and put them to w o r k . These h u m a n interests, for their part, are guided by the fundamental values and convictions of a given society.

And

these fundamental values and convictions are quite simply w h a t everyone in a particular society takes for granted, because w i t h in the system of that society they are self-evident and plausible. N o w if a crisis arises in a life-system of this kind, w h i c h links a h u m a n society with the nature surrounding it, because nature is dying, the logical result will be a crisis of the w h o l e system, its attitude to life, its life-style, and not least its fundamental values and convictions. T h e dying of the forests outside us is matched by the spread of neuroses in the mind and spirit within. T h e pollution of the waters finds its parallel in the nihilistic

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth

9 7

feeling about life w h i c h prevails a m o n g m a n y people in the mega-cities. So the crisis w h i c h w e experience is not just an ' e c o logical' crisis; nor can it be solved merely by technology.

A

conversion of convictions and fundamental values is just as necessary as a conversion in attitudes to life and in life-style. What

interests and concerns, and w h a t values, rule

our

scientific and technological civilization? T o put it simply: it is the

boundless

will towards domination

which

has

driven

modern men and w o m e n to seize p o w e r over nature, and is driving them still. In the competitive struggle for existence, scientific discoveries and technological inventions are used by the political will to acquire, secure and extend p o w e r . A m o n g us, g r o w t h and progress is still gauged by increase of p o w e r , economic, financial and military. W h e n economic g r o w t h stops, w e talk of zero g r o w t h ; for g r o w t h simply has to be. If w e c o m p a r e our civilization w i t h pre-modern cultures, the difference leaps to the eye. It is the difference between and

equilibrium.

growth

T h o s e pre-modern civilizations were anything

but 'primitive' or 'underdeveloped'. O n the contrary, they were highly complicated systems of equilibrium w h i c h ordered the relation of people to nature and to the g o d s . It is only modern Western civilizations w h i c h for the first time are one-sided, being p r o g r a m m e d solely t o w a r d s development, g r o w t h , e x p a n sion and conquest. T h e acquisition of p o w e r and the securing of p o w e r , to w h i c h m a y be added the A m e r i c a n 'pursuit of happiness': these are the fundamental values w h i c h really count and regulate everything in our society. W h y did this c o m e about? T h e deepest reason can p r o b a b l y be found in the religion of modern men and w o m e n . T h e Judaeo-Christian religion is often m a d e responsible for the human seizure of p o w e r over nature, and for the unbridled thrust of the human will for p o w e r .

6

Even

if ordinary modern men and w o m e n do not see themselves as particuarly religious, they have at least done everything they could to obey the divine c o m m a n d m e n t of their o w n destiny: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.' O n e might say that they have done more than enough to meet the target! But this c o m m a n d m e n t and this image of the h u m a n

98

The Changing Values of the Modern World

being are m o r e than

3,000

years old, whereas the modern

culture of conquest and expansion g r e w up in E u r o p e with the conquest of A m e r i c a , no more than 400 years a g o . S o w e have to look elsewhere for the reasons. A n d in m y v i e w they can be found in the picture of G o d w h i c h modern men and w o m e n have adopted. E v e r since the Renaissance, the understanding of G o d in W e s t e r n E u r o p e has been increasingly one-sided: G o d is 'the Almighty'.

Omnipotence

has been considered the pre-eminent

attribute of his divinity. G o d is the L o r d , the w o r l d is his property, and G o d can do w i t h it w h a t he likes. H e is the absolute determining subject, and the w o r l d is the passive object of his sovereignty. In the Western tradition, G o d m o v e d more and more into the transcendent sphere, while the w o r l d w a s understood in a purely immanent and this-worldly sense. G o d w a s thought of without a w o r l d , and so the w o r l d could be understood w i t h o u t a G o d . It lost the divine mystery of its creation, the ' w o r l d soul', the

anima mundi,

and could be

stripped of its magic by science, to a d o p t M a x W e b e r ' s apt description of this p r o c e s s . T h e strict monotheism of modern 7

W e s t e r n Christianity is an essential reason for the secularization of the w o r l d and nature, as A r n o l d Gehlen already acutely pointed o u t in

1956.

A t the end of a long history of culture and intellect, the v i e w o f the w o r l d as an

'entente secrete'

has been destroyed - the

metaphysics of the concurring and conflicting p o w e r s of life. It has been destroyed by monotheism on the one hand, and o n the other b y the scientific and technological mechanism for w h i c h m o n o t h e i s m , for its part, first cleared the w a y , de-demonizing and de-divinizing nature.

by

8

G o d and the machine have survived the archaic w o r l d and n o w confront one another, just by themselves. A terrifying picture, because n o t only has nature disappeared from this final c o n frontation b e t w e e n G o d and the machine; the human being has vanished t o o .

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth A s G o d ' s image on earth, h u m a n beings were bound to see themselves, in complete correspondence with him, as rulers

-

that is, as the determining subjects of k n o w l e d g e and will, standing over against their w o r l d , w h i c h w a s their passive object, and subduing it. F o r it is only through lordship over this earth that the human being can correspond to G o d , w h o is the L o r d of the w o r l d . G o d is the L o r d and o w n e r of the w h o l e w o r l d , and h u m a n beings must therefore strive to become the lords and owners of the earth, in order to prove themselves G o d ' s image. H u m a n beings c o m e to resemble their G o d , not through goodness and truth, not through patience and love, but through p o w e r and sovereignty. It w a s in this sense that at the beginning of modern times Francis B a c o n lauded the sciences of his time: ' K n o w l e d g e is p o w e r ' ; and it w a s through their p o w e r over nature that h u m a n beings were to be restored in their character as the image of G o d . In his

Method,

Treatise on Scientific

René Descartes declared that science and technology

m a k e h u m a n beings 'maîtres et possesseurs de la n a t u r e ' .

9

If w e c o m p a r e with this the famous indictment m a d e by the Indian chief Seattle in 1 8 5 5 ,

the point w e have reached is

immediately evident: E v e r y part of this earth is sacred to my people, every glittering pine-needle, every sandy beach, all the mists in the dark forests . . . T h e rocky hills, the gentle m e a d o w s , the bodily w a r m t h of ponies - and of people - they all belong to the same f a m i l y .

10

T o d a y this brings us face to face with the decisive question: is

property,

so that w e can do w h a t w e like with it? O r

are w e human beings

of the w i d e r family of nature,

nature our

one part

w h i c h w e have to respect? D o the rain forests belong to us human beings, so that w e can cut and burn them d o w n - or are the rain forests the home for a multiplicity of animals, plants and trees, so that they belong to the earth, to w h i c h w e also belong? Is this earth 'our

environment' and 'our

planetary

h o m e ' - or are w e human beings merely guests: guests w h o have

ioo

The Changing Values of the Modern World

arrived very late on this earth, w h i c h up to n o w has put up with us so patiently and graciously? If nature is nothing more than our property -

unclaimed

property, w h i c h belongs, it is said, to w h o e v e r takes possession of it -

then w e shall counter the ecological crisis of nature

solely by technological methods. W e shall try through

new

products of genetic engineering to make plants resistant to climate and animals of increased utility. B y means of genetic engineering w e shall breed a n e w human race w h i c h does not need a natural environment at all - merely a technological one. W e could in fact be in a position to create a w o r l d capable of sustaining our numbers and our practices; but it w o u l d be an artificial w o r l d - a global l a b o r a t o r y .

11

Alternatively w e could

change our practices and our numbers, restore nature, and let her live again. But h o w c a n w e change the w a y w e g o about things? Isn't the destruction of nature the result of our disrupted relationship to nature and to ourselves and to G o d ? A t the G l o b a l F o r u m Conference in M o s c o w 1990,

in J a n u a r y

w e heard the moving message of the N o r t h A m e r i c a n

Indians.

These

'indigenous

children

of

the

earth'

talked

about their thousand-year-old great goddess: ' T h e earth is our mother, the m o o n is our grandmother, and w e all participate in the sacred cycles of l i f e . '

12

T h e Indian ambassador V . T . Singh

and the M o n g o l i a n high priest, the African rain-maker and the Californian N e w A g e adherent, all implored us to return to 'the w o m b ' of the earth, from w h i c h all life comes. It all sounded splendid. But c a n the religious symbols of pre-modern times, w h e n human beings were still hunters and gatherers, help the urbanized masses of the post-modern w o r l d to solve the ecological problems of industrial society - the people in N e w Y o r k , M e x i c o C i t y or S a o Paulo, where the sun often cannot be seen for smog? Isn't that just poetry? All the politicians and scientists present assumed that human beings have caused the ecological problems of industrial society, so h u m a n beings have to solve them. T h e message of the earth's indigenous peoples and the modern 'depth ecologists' aims to free human beings from the burden of this responsibility, so as to make them once more

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth happy

and

infantile

'children

of

the

earth'.

But

can

101 we

again give up the liberty w e have acquired, once it becomes dangerous? W i l l nature take over responsibility from us again, if it becomes too heavy for us? I do not believe it. But w e c a n translate pre-industrial ideas of harmony with the earth into post-industrial conceptions of an ecological culture.

(Hi) The liberation of the earth: three Christian perspectives (a) Cosmic

spirituality

T h e first conversion begins w i t h the picture of G o d , for the w a y w e think about G o d is the w a y w e think about ourselves and nature too. 'Tell me w h a t y o u believe in, and I will tell you w h o y o u are.' Belief in G o d , the A l m i g h t y L o r d in heaven, led to the secularization of the w o r l d , and robbed nature of its divine mystery. W h a t w e need theologically is to rediscover the triune God.

I

know

that

sounds

dogmatic,

orthodox

and

old-

fashioned, but it could still be true for all that. E v e n w h e n w e simply hear the name of 'the Father, the Son and the H o l y Spirit', w e

sense

that

the

divine

mystery

is a

marvellous

community. T h e triune G o d isn't a solitary, unloved ruler in heaven w h o subjugates everything as earthly despots d o . H e is a G o d in community, rich in relationships. ' G o d is l o v e . '

13

Father, Son and H o l y Spirit live w i t h one another, for one another, and in one another in the most supreme and most perfect community of love w e can conceive: 'I a m in the Father and the Father is in m e , ' says the Johannine Jesus. If that is true, then w e correspond to G o d not through domination and subjugation

but

through

community

and

relationships

which

further life. It is not the solitary h u m a n subject w h o is G o d ' s image on earth; it is the true h u m a n c o m m u n i t y .

14

It is not

separate, individual parts of creation that reflect G o d ' s w i s d o m and his triune livingness; it is the c o m m u n i t y of creation as a whole. In the high-priestly prayer in J o h n 1 7 . z i , the Johannine Jesus prays 'that they m a y all be one, even as thou, Father, art in m e

102

The Changing Values of the Modern World

and I in thee, that they also m a y be in us'. A s w e k n o w , this is the foundational saying for the ecumenical movement. A n d it can become the foundational saying for theological ecology too. M u t u a l indwelling is the innermost mystery of the triune G o d . M u t u a l indwelling is also the secret of the divine love: ' H e w h o abides in love abides in G o d and G o d abides in him' (I J o h n 4.16). A n d mutual indwelling is also the secret of the c o m munity of creation w h i c h corresponds to G o d . T h e term for this in the patristic church w a s

perichoresis

or

circuminsessio.

15

A c c o r d i n g to Christian understanding, creation is a trinitarian process: G o d the Father creates through the Son in the p o w e r of the H o l y Spirit. Seen from the other side, this means that all things are created by G o d , formed 'through G o d ' , and exist in G o d . 'See in the creation of these beings the Father as the preceding cause, the Son as the creative cause, and the Spirit as the perfecting cause, so that the ministering spirits have their beginning in the will of the Father, are brought into being through the efficacy of the S o n , and are perfected through the assistance of the Spirit.' T h a t w a s already Basil's e x p l a n a t i o n . time the church's Western

tradition

16

F o r a long

stressed only

the

first

aspect, so as to distinguish G o d , the almighty C r e a t o r , from his creation, and to stress his transcendence. By so doing it stripped nature of her divine mystery and surrendered her to de-sacralization through secularization. T h e important thing today is therefore to rediscover

Creator's immanence

the

in his creation, so as to include the w h o l e

of creation in our reverence for the Creator. T h r o u g h w h o m , or through w h a t , did G o d create the w o r l d ? A c c o r d i n g to Prov.

8.22-31,

he created the w o r l d through his daughter, W i s d o m :

T h e L o r d already had me at the beginning of his w a y s , before he created anything I w a s there. F r o m eternity I w a s set u p , from the beginning, before the earth . . . T h e n I w a s beside him as his master w o r k m a n and w a s daily his delight, playing before him a l w a y s , playing upon his earth, and delighting in the children of men.

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth T h i s divine daughter W i s d o m Philo as

Logos,

{hokmah)

103

w a s translated by

the W o r d . W h e n e v e r 'the L o g o s ' , 'the W o r d ' , is

used in the N e w Testament, as it is in the prologue to the Gospel of J o h n , w e should think of W i s d o m .

1 7

A c c o r d i n g to W i s d o m

literature, this creative W i s d o m can also be called G o d ' s W o r d or G o d ' s Spirit. But it is the presence of G o d in all things w h i c h is invariably meant,

a presence immanent in the world.

If all

things are created by G o d , then their protean variety is preceded by

an immanent unity.

It is through W i s d o m that G o d forms the

community of created beings, w h o exist with one another and for one another. Christian theology has recognized in Christ not just personal salvation but also the cosmic W i s d o m through w h i c h all things are, as the Epistle to the Colossians s h o w s . Christ is the divine mystery of the w o r l d . T h e person w h o reverences Christ also reverences all created things in him, and him in everything created. W h e r e w a s Jesus after the devilish temptations in the desert? ' H e w a s a m o n g the beasts, and the angels ministered to

him' ( M a r k 1 . 1 3 ) . In the apocryphal Gospel of T h o m a s , L o g i o n 77, Jesus says: I am the light that is over all, I a m the universe: the universe has gone out of me, and the universe has returned to me again. C l e a v e the w o o d and I am there. Lift up the stone and there thou shalt find m e .

18

T h i s means that w h a t w e do to the earth, w e do to Christ. Where God's to G e n . 1 . 2 ,

Word

is, there G o d ' s

Spirit

is too. A c c o r d i n g

creation through the W o r d is preceded by the

vibrating energy of G o d ' s Spirit. G o d creates everything though his naming, differentiating and judging w o r d s . T h a t is w h y all things are individually different, 'each according to its kind'. But G o d a l w a y s speaks in the breath of his Spirit, w h i c h gives life. W h e r e the community of creation is concerned,

Word

and Spirit complement one another. T h e W o r d specifies and differentiates. T h e Spirit joins and forms the harmony.

The

104

The Changing Values of the Modern World

w o r d s are different, just as they are w h e n human beings speak; but they are communicated in the same breath. So in a transferred sense w e can say that G o d speaks through the individual things he has created, and - in the w o r d s of an English h y m n ' G o d breathes through all c r e a t i o n ' . which

I have

here called

19

T h e totality of creation

'the community

of

creation'

is

sustained by the breath of G o d ' s Spirit: in the w o r d s of Ps.

104.30: ' T h o u sendest forth thy breath and renewest the face of the g r o u n d . ' T h r o u g h W o r d and Spirit the Creator communicates himself to his creation, and enters into it, as the B o o k of W i s d o m says

(12.1): L o r d , thou art the lover of life, thy immortal Spirit is in all things. T h a t is the w a y C a l v i n s a w it too: ' F o r it is the Spirit w h o , everywhere diffused, sustains all things, causes them to g r o w , and quickens them in heaven and on earth . . . In transfusing into all things his energy, and breathing into them essence, life, and movement, he is indeed plainly divine'

(Institutions,

I,

1 3 - 1 4 ) . So creation must not just be called, in detached objectivity, a ' w o r k of his hands'. It is the indirect, mediating

presence of God

as well. All things are created so that as 'the

shared h o m e ' of all creation they m a y be 'the house of G o d ' in w h i c h G o d can live beside those he has created, and w h e r e those he has created can eternally live beside him. This is expressed biblically through the image of G o d ' s cosmic temple: ' T h e M o s t H i g h does not dwell in houses made with hands; as the prophet says, " H e a v e n is m y throne, and earth m y footstool. W h a t house will y o u build for me, says the L o r d , or w h a t is the place of m y r e s t ? ' " (Acts 7.48L, following Isa. 66.if.).

That place is the cosmos! T h i s viewpoint -

the Spirit of G o d in all things and the

preparing of all things to become G o d ' s dwelling - leads to a cosmic adoration of G o d and an adoration of G o d in all things. W h a t believers d o in the churches is representative, and related

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth

105

to, and on behalf of, the w h o l e cosmos. S o l o m o n ' s temple w a s built according to the dimensions of the cosmos as the cosmos w a s then understood to be, so that it might be a microcosm to represent and correspond to the m a c r o c o s m . God's

Word

and

Spirit in

20

Christ's church

T h e presence of is the

advance

radiance and beginning of the presence of G o d ' s W o r d and Spirit in the n e w creation of all things. T h e church is orientated t o w a r d s the c o s m o s , by reason of its foundation and its essential n a t u r e .

21

It w a s

a dangerous

modern

contraction

that

restricted the church to the h u m a n w o r l d alone. But if the church is orientated t o w a r d s the cosmos, then the ecological crisis of earthly creation is the church's o w n crisis too, for through the destruction of the earth, w h i c h is 'bone of its bones and flesh of its flesh', it too will be destroyed. W h e n the w e a k e r creatures die, the w h o l e c o m m u n i t y of creation suffers. If the church sees itself as representing creation, then it will feel this suffering of creation's w e a k e r creatures as conscious pain, and it will have to cry out this pain in public protest.

It is not

22

just ' o u r h u m a n environment' that is suffering; it is the creation w h i c h is destined to be

'God's environment'.

E v e r y intervention

in nature w h i c h can never be m a d e g o o d again is a sacrilege. Its outcome is the self-excommunication of the perpetrators. T h e nihilistic destruction of nature is practised atheism. Astonishingly

enough,

it w a s

Christian

mysticism

which

taught us to be alive to the language of G o d in nature. Let us listen to a modern mystic, the N i c a r a g u a n poet and revolutionary Ernesto Cardenal. In his book The

bird

chorus

in

the

early

Love

he writes:

morning

sings

to

God.

V o l c a n o e s , clouds and trees shout about G o d . All creation cries out with a loud voice that G o d is, is beautiful and loves. M u s i c sings in our ears and beautiful countryside tells our eyes . . . G o d ' s signature is on the w h o l e of nature. All creatures are love letters from G o d to us. T h e w h o l e of nature is bursting with love, set in it by G o d , w h o is love, to kindle the fire of love in us. . . . N a t u r e is like G o d ' s s h a d o w , reflecting his beauty and

106

The Changing Values of the Modern World

splendour. T h e quiet blue lake has the splendour of G o d . . . T h e image of the Trinity is in every atom, the figure of G o d the three in one. . . A n d m y b o d y w a s also made for the love of G o d . E v e r y cell in m y body is a hymn to m y creator and a declaration of love.

23

In case anyone thinks that this is a typically Catholic eulogy in celebration of 'natural theology', w e m a y listen to the Reformer J o h n Calvin too, for C a l v i n s a w the presence of G o d in nature in just the same w a y . In his

Institutions

he writes:

' T h e final goal of the blessed life . . . rests in the k n o w l e d g e of G o d . Lest anyone, then, be excluded from access to happiness, he not only s o w e d in men's minds that seed of religion of w h i c h w e have spoken, but revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the w h o l e w o r k m a n s h i p of the universe. A s a consequence, men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him. Indeed, his essence is incomprehensible; hence his divineness far escapes all h u m a n perception. But upon his individual w o r k s he has engraved

unmistakable

marks of his glory, so clear and so prominent that even unlettered and stupid folk cannot plead the excuse of ignorance . . . W h e r e v e r y o u cast y o u r eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein y o u cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory.' ' B u t , ' laments C a l v i n , 'it is in vain that so m a n y burning lamps shine for us in the w o r k m a n s h i p of the universe to s h o w forth the glory of its A u t h o r . Although they bathe us w h o l l y in their radiance . . . w e have not the eyes to see . . , '

2 4

(b) The new earth science: 'the Gaia hypothesis' F o r us 'the earth' means t w o things. O n the one hand it means the ground

on which

w e stand; on the other, it is the planet

earth, with its biosphere and atmosphere,

in which

w e live.

Photographs of the earth taken from satellites or the m o o n s h o w our planet with its very thin atmospheric covering within

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth

107

w h i c h all life goes on. In this second meaning of the w o r d , w e live in the earth, not on it. H o w are w e to understand in its totality this earth 'in' w h i c h w e live? M o d e r n astro-scientists have s h o w n the repicrocal influence of the lived and the unlived sectors of the planet. This suggested the idea that the earth's biosphere, together with the atmosphere, the oceans and the expanses of land, form a single c o m p l e x system. Since this has the capacity to preserve our planet as a place suited to life, it can also be seen as a unique 'organism'.

25

T h r o u g h the constant absorption of solar energy,

life is developed and sustained. T h a t is the generally accepted theory of the English scientist, J a m e s E. L o v e l o c k , w h i c h he put f o r w a r d in his book

( 979)x

Gaia - a New Look at Life on Earth

L o v e l o c k actually proposed calling this earth system 'a

universal bio-cybernetic system w i t h a trend t o w a r d s h o m e o stasis'. But his neighbour, the novelist W i l l i a m Golding, offered him the old Greek name for the earth goddess, G a i a . A n d so this theory became k n o w n as 'the G a i a h y p o t h e s i s ' . does

not

imply

a

remystification

of

the

26

T h i s thesis

earth.

It

means

understanding the total system of our planet as a system of interactions and feed-backs, w h i c h strives to create the best possible environmental conditions for life on earth. W e call the preservation of relatively constant conditions by w a y active controls, homeostasis. L o v e l o c k

of

has s h o w n that our

earth system has this tendency, and also makes use of living things in the process, especially the micro-organisms in the seas. A s L o v e l o c k himself says, the G a i a hypothesis offers an alternative to the modern viewpoint w h i c h sees nature only as the embodiment of a primitive p o w e r which has to be subjugated and dominated. It also offers an alternative to the depressing notion that our planet earth is a mindless spaceship w h i c h circles the sun without meaning or purpose, and will do so until the day w h e n it burns out or g r o w s cold. But in fact the G a i a hypothesis

also

offers

an

alternative,

which

can

also

be

scientifically tested, to the anthropocentrism w h i c h is fundamental to modern civilization. F o r this hypothesis compels us to

108

The Changing Values of the Modern World

think biocentrically or, better, to orientate our thinking t o w a r d s the e a r t h .

27

T h e earth system 'in' w h i c h the h u m a n race has spread and developed its civilizations w o r k s like a super-organism. W i t h its o w n kind of subjectivity, it fashions life-forms out of macromolecules, micro-organisms and cells, and is in a position to keep these forms alive. T h e G a i a language of all living things is

the genetic code,

a universal language w h i c h is used by all cells.

T h e r e is also an inbuilt ingenious and elaborate security system w h i c h resists genetic combinations hostile to life. A n d since this organism 'earth' has finally produced intelligent living things such as human beings, then inherent in the organism itself must be a higher intelligence, and a m e m o r y w h i c h bears the imprint of millions of years -

as Cicero already argued. It

can therefore be said that the earth itself is 'alive'. A c c o r d i n g to G e n . 1.2.4? G o d created it to 'bring forth' living things. This is said of nothing else in creation. A c c o r d i n g to a rabbinic tradition, G o d creates h u m a n beings

(Gen. 1.26).

together with the

earth

28

T h e i n w a r d link between h u m a n beings and the earth's whole biosphere is the genetic code. T h r o u g h this code the cells and organisms communicate. T h e h u m a n genetic code is only one variant of the codes of all living things, from the microorganisms

to

the

whales,

from

the

first

protozoa

to

the

dinosaurs. By w a y of the genetic code, all living things are related and in communication. W h a t w e call consciousness, understanding and will is only a small part of the organism w h i c h is steered by our genetic code. Is it possible to be conscious of the genetic code? O u r total constitution shows it, as w e see in people suffering

from D o w n ' s syndrome, and

a m o n g others t o o . But does it say anything to our consciousness?

About

that w e

know

very

little. S o m e

people

have

supposed that the genetic code speaks to us through bodily Gestalts and b o d y rhythms - through ' b o d y w i s d o m ' - in the w a y that dreams also speak to us. Peoples w h i c h have cultivated a particular closeness to nature have a l w a y s had a dream culture of their o w n . T h r o u g h scientific knowledge of the genetic code,

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth

109

it ought actually to be possible today to establish conscious concurrences between the

genetic

and the

cultural code.

T h e importance of the G a i a hypothesis can hardly be overestimated: 1.

It makes it possible to recognize the global functions of

local and regional ecosystems, and prevents them from being isolated. 2. It reverses classical scientific methods. K n o w l e d g e is n o longer split up into more and m o r e detailed specialist

fields.

Instead, scientific disciplines co-operate, and are integrated into 'earth sciences' for the investigation of wider connections and cohesions in the system of the earth. 3. Integrated k n o w l e d g e is no less scientific than isolated knowledge. But it no longer serves the interests of domination, according to the method 'divide and rule'. Instead it is guided by the concern for shared life and survival, by w a y of co-operation and symbiosis. 4. T h e

G a i a hypothesis

forces

us to put an end to the

anthropocentric self-understanding and behaviour of men and w o m e n , and constrains them to fit democratically into the life of the earth as a w h o l e . 5. Politically, the threatening nuclear catastrophe has c o m pelled us to to re-think national foreign policies, and to see them as part of a shared 'global domestic policy', as C . G r a f v o n K r o c k o w and C . F. von Weizsäcker put it. T h e threatening ecological

catastrophe

forces

us to understand this

shared

global domestic policy as 'earth polities', to use E . von W e i z s ä c k e r s phrase. W i t h o u t democracy, biocracy is not viable. It is only w h e n , as the species ' h u m a n being', w e understand ourselves in our relation to the earth as 'creatures of the earth', and no longer as conflicting peoples, nations or races, that w e can enter into relationship with other species of the living, and see ourselves as one form of life a m o n g , and together w i t h , other forms of life on earth. T h i s has nothing to do w i t h the return of the earth goddess; nor does the G a i a hypothesis ascribe any divine p o w e r to the earth, as some conservative Christians fear. But it has every-

no

The Changing Values of the Modern World

thing to do with the survival of the human race. This survival will only be possible in symbiosis, co-ordination

and

con-

currence with the total organism of the earth.

(c) Human beings and nature in covenant with God W e believe that G o d loves his creation and wants to bring its life to its full development and

flowering.

In G o d ' s eyes nothing

created is a matter of indifference. Every creature has its o w n dignity and its o w n rights, for they are all included in his covenant. T h a t

is w h a t

is said in the story a b o u t

Noah:

with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature' (Gen. 9. 'Behold,' says G o d , 'I establish m y covenant

9 - 1 0 ) . It is this covenant ' w i t h us' which provides the basis for fundamental

human rights.

19

O u t of this covenant 'with us and our descendants after us' follow

the rights of future generations.

O u t of this covenant 'with us and our descendants after us and with every living creature' follow Before G o d the C r e a t o r , w e and

the rights of nature?

0

our descendants and all

living things are partners in his covenant, and e n j o y

equal

rights. N a t u r e is not our property. But w e are not just part of nature either. All living things are partners in G o d ' s c o v e n a n t , each in its o w n w a y . A l l living things must be respected by human beings as partners and confederates in G o d ' s c o v e n a n t : the earth brings forth; human beings are G o d ' s image on earth. A n y o n e w h o injures the earth injures G o d . A n y o n e w h o hurts the dignity of animals hurts G o d . T o d a y , n o w that the Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights of 1948

has become generally accepted, it is time to d r a w up a

Universal Declaration of the Rights of N a t u r e w h i c h will be generally accepted t o o . In so far as nature -

air, w a t e r and

land, plants and animals - is at the mercy of acts o f violence committed by human beings, it must be protected b y

human

l a w . A first attempt to free nature from human d e s p o t i s m and caprice w a s the W o r l d Charter for N a t u r e , p r o c l a i m e d by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 28 O c t o b e r

1982.

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth

111

It is true that this charter does not yet g o so far as to concede to nature rights of its o w n , and to recognize it as the subject of its o w n rights. But there are approaches in w h a t is said w h i c h indicate that it is reaching out for w a y s to get beyond the anthropocentric and egotistical viewpoint of the modern w o r l d , according to w h i c h nature is only there for h u m a n beings as 'unclaimed property'. ' M a n k i n d is a part of nature,' says the preamble, and, ' E v e r y form of life is unique, warranting respect regardless of its w o r t h to m a n . '

3 1

But this moral appeal, right though it is in itself, must also be given a legal basis, so that nature is not dependent on the g o o d will of human beings, but is recognized as an

independent

subject, with its o w n rights. It w a s not the goodwill of the masters that finally brought about the abolition of slavery; it w a s the fight of the slaves for their freedom and h u m a n rights, together with the efforts of the abolitionists and the gradual public recognition that slavery is inadmissible. It is only through the recognition of its rights that nature will be liberated from its oppression, and recognized as a partner for h u m a n beings, and a confederate in G o d ' s covenant. But h o w ? T h e protection of nature from

destruction

by

h u m a n beings is thought by some politicians to be part of the minimum guarantee of individual human rights. J u s t as every human being has a right to freedom from bodily harm - w h i c h means freedom from torture - so every h u m a n being should have a right to an intact, unscathed environment: clean air, pure water and unspoiled earth. But according to this viewpoint, nature is aligned solely t o w a r d s h u m a n beings. It is required only as ' h u m a n environment', but is not recognized for its o w n sake.

God's God's sake, and

Y e t if this earth, together w i t h all living things, is

creation,

then its dignity must be respected for

its continued existence must be protected for its own

sake.

Because nature is being destroyed by the economic forces of the free market, it must be put under the special protection of the state. B y virtue of its constitution, the state has to respect h u m a n rights as the rights of all its citizens; and in the same w a y

11 z

The Changing Values of the Modern World

it must also, by virtue of its constitution, protect

stricken nature.

the rights of

I w o u l d therefore propose that the following sentences should be included in our constitution: ' T h e natural w o r l d is under the special protection of the government. T h r o u g h the w a y in w h i c h it acts, the state s h o w s respect for the natural environment and protects it from exploitation and destruction by human beings

for its own sake?

Every democratic government has

t w o responsibilities: i . to protect the people; 2. to protect the land. T h e G e r m a n A n i m a l Protection A c t of

1986

is the

first

G e r m a n l a w w h i c h no longer v i e w s animals merely as human property, but sees them as 'fellow creatures' of h u m a n beings, and protects them in their dignity as such. ' T h e purpose of this l a w is to protect the life and wellbeing of the animal out of human responsibility for it as a fellow creature. N o one m a y inflict pain, suffering or harm on an animal without reasonable grounds.'

32

T o call animals 'fellow creatures' is to recognize the C r e a t o r , the creature and the community of creation. T h e theological w o r d 'creation' is more appropriate than the philosophical term 'nature', because

it s h o w s

respect

for

God's

rights to

his

creation, and therefore restricts the rights of human beings: G o d has the right of ownership - h u m a n beings only have the right of use.

The rights of nature.

Here is a proposal by a group of theo-

logians and lawyers belonging to the universities of Berne and Tubingen,

laid

Churches in 1989,

before

the

World

and the U N Conference in R i o in 1.

Alliance

of

Reformed

the Ecumenical A s s e m b l y in Seoul in

1990,

1992:

N a t u r e - animate or inanimate - has a right to existence, that is, to preservation and development.

2. N a t u r e has a right to the protection of its eco-systems, species, and populations in their interconnectedness. 3. A n i m a t e

nature

has

a right to

the preservation

development of its genetic inheritance.

and

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth 4.

11

Organisms have a right to a life fit for their species, including procreation within their appropriate ecosystems.

5. Disturbances of nature require a justification. T h e y are only permissible -

w h e n the presuppositions of the disturbance are deter-

mined in a democratically legitimate process and w i t h respect for the rights of nature -

w h e n the interests of the disturbance outweigh

the

interests of a complete protection of the rights of nature, and -

w h e n the disturbance is not inordinate. Damaged

nature

is

to

be

restored

whenever

and

wherever possible. 6. R a r e eco-systems, and a b o v e all those w i t h an abundance of species, are to be placed under absolute protection. T h e driving of species to extinction is forbidden. W e appeal to the United N a t i o n s to e x p a n d its Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights and to formulate explicitly the rights mentioned a b o v e . Simultaneously, w e appeal to the individual nations to incorporate these rights into their constitutions and legislation.

33

T h i s proposal w a s put before the major United Conference in R i o de J a n e i r o in 1992,

Nations

and w a s incorporated in

the ' E a r t h C h a r t e r ' .

(iv) The sabbath of the earth: the divine ecology F o r a long time men and w o m e n v i e w e d nature and their o w n bodies only under the dominating interest of

work.

T h i s meant

that they perceived only the utilitarian side of nature, and only the instrumental side of their bodies. But there is an ancient J e w i s h w i s d o m w h i c h teaches us to understand nature and ourselves once more as G o d ' s creation. W e find this w i s d o m in the celebration of the sabbath, the day of rest, on w h i c h human beings and animals find peace and leave nature in p e a c e .

34

ii4

The Changing Values of the Modern World

A c c o r d i n g to the first of the creation stories, the Creator 'finished' the creation of the w o r l d by celebrating the w o r l d ' s sabbath: ' A n d G o d rested from all his w o r k . ' A n d through his resting presence G o d blessed his creation. G o d w a s no longer active, but he w a s w h o l l y present as G o d himself. T h e seventh day is rightly called the feast of creation. It is the c r o w n of creation. Everything that exists w a s created for this feast. So as not to celebrate the feast alone, G o d created heaven and earth, the dancing stars and the surging seas, the m e a d o w s and the w o o d s , the animals, the plants, and last of all human beings. T h e y are all invited to this sabbath feast. A l l of them are G o d ' s fellow celebrants, each in its o w n w a y . T h a t is w h y G o d had 'pleasure' in all his w o r k s , as the psalms say. T h a t is w h y the heavens declare the glory of the Eternal O n e . Everything that is, is created for G o d to rejoice over, for everything that is, comes from G o d ' s love. T h i s divine sabbath is 'the c r o w n of creation' - not the human being. O n the contrary, human beings, together with all other created beings, are c r o w n e d by the divine 'Queen S a b b a t h ' .

35

T h r o u g h his sabbath rest, the creative G o d arrives at his goal, and people w h o celebrate the sabbath recognize nature as G o d ' s creation, and let it be G o d ' s beloved creation. T h e sabbath is wise environmental policy and an excellent therapy for our o w n restless souls and tense bodies. But the sabbath has another significance too: the significance of the sabbath year for the land and for the people w h o live from the land. Leviticus 25.4 says: 'In the seventh year the land shall keep its great sabbath to the L o r d . ' A c c o r d i n g to E x o d u s 2 3 . 1 1 , every seventh year Israel is not to plant or till the ground, but is to let it rest, so that 'the poor of y o u r people m a y eat'. A c c o r d i n g to Leviticus 25.iff., every seventh year Israel is not to plant or till the ground, so that 'the land m a y come to rest'. T h e social reason is complemented by the ecological one. For the book of Leviticus (26) this sabbath rest for the land is of paramount importance. All G o d ' s blessings are experienced by the obedient, but the disobedient will be punished. H o w ?

The Destruction and Liberation of the Earth

115

Leviticus z 6 . 3 3 f f . : ' A n d I will scatter y o u a m o n g the nations . . . and y o u r land shall be a desolation, and y o u r cities shall be a waste.' W h y ? ' T h e n the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while y o u are in y o u r enemies' land; then the land shall celebrate and enjoy its sabbaths.' This is a remarkable interpretation of Israel's

Babylonian

exile - w e might even call it an ecological interpretation. G o d w a n t e d to save his land. T h a t is the reason w h y G o d permits his people to be defeated and to be carried off into captivity. G o d ' s land is to remain u n w o r k e d

for seventy years!

By the time the

seventy years are over, it will have recovered, and G o d ' s people can return to the land promised to them. W e might call the sabbath year for the land G o d ' s environmental policy for those he has created, and for his earth. A l l ancient agrarian cultures were familiar with

of fallowing,

the wisdom

as a w a y of preserving the soil's fertility. W h e n I

w a s y o u n g , every fifth year the arable land in N o r t h G e r m a n y w a s left unplanted, so that plants and animals could return, and w e children could play there. It w a s only the great empires w h i c h exploited the fertile regions non-stop, in order to feed their armies and their capital cities, until the soil w a s exhausted and became a desert. T h a t is w h a t happened in Persia, R o m e , B a b y l o n , and perhaps

also to the M a y a s

on the

Yucatan

peninsula. T o d a y the fallowing principle has almost entirely disappeared from agriculture. Its industrialization means the introduction of more and more chemical fertilizers into the soil. Monocultures have replaced the old rotation of crops. A n d the result is that artificial fertilizing has to be intensified, and the soil and the crops are increasingly polluted. T h e end will resemble the end that Israel of old experienced. T h e uninterrupted exploitation of the land will lead to the exile of the country population, and in the end to the disappearance of the h u m a n race from the earth. After the death of the human race, G o d ' s earth will then celebrate the great sabbath w h i c h modern

humanity

has hitherto denied

it. If w e

want

our

u6

The Changing Values of the Modern World

civilization and nature as w e k n o w n it to survive, w e should let ourselves be w a r n e d , and permit the land 'to celebrate its great sabbath'. T h e celebration of the sabbath, and reverence for 'the sabbath of the earth', can become our o w n salvation and the salvation of earth from w h i c h w e live. Simply to restrict ourselves on the sabbath, and to refrain

from

intervening

in

creation - this extolling 'let it be' helps both the land and ourselves.

36

During the first oil crisis in 1 9 7 2 ,

one S u n d a y w a s declared to

be a 'car-free' d a y in W e s t G e r m a n y . It w a s one of the loveliest days I can remember. Children played football on the motorw a y s , g r o w n - u p s sat around at the crossroads, dogs jumped about on the streets. It is possible. 50%

of our traffic is super-

fluous. H o w w o u l d it be if w e were to include in the festivals of the church year an 'earth d a y ' , to celebrate the creation tormented by us h u m a n beings? A n 'earth d a y ' of this kind is unofficially celebrated by m a n y congregations and churches in A m e r i c a On 22 April. H o w w o u l d it be if in E u r o p e w e were to declare 27 A p r i l , the d a y of the C h e r n o b y l disaster, such a day? O n 'earth d a y ' w e should b o w before the earth and beg for forgiveness for the injustice w e have inflicted on it, so that w e m a y once more be accepted into community w i t h it. O n 'earth d a y ' w e should renew the covenant w h i c h G o d made w i t h N o a h and the earth. A c c o r d i n g to the Bible, the sabbath l a w s are G o d ' s ecological strategy, designed to preserve the life w h i c h he has created. In its rest and its rhythmical interruption of time, the sabbath is also the strategy w h i c h c a n lead us out of the ecological crisis and, after the one-sided forms of progress made at the expense of nature, can s h o w us the values of sustainable development and h a r m o n y w i t h nature.

3 Human Rights - Rights of Humanity - Rights of the Earth

(i) Human rights as we have them Insight

into

fundamental

human

rights

and

obligations

developed in m a n y civilizations at the same time as recognition of the 'humanity' of h u m a n beings. W h e r e v e r there came to be a concept of 'the h u m a n being', the rights of human beings as such were formulated t o o . These are not exclusively Christian or European ideas, although it w a s at the time of the Western Enlightenment that human rights, explicitly formulated as such, made their w a y into the N o r t h A m e r i c a n and European constitutions, and it is just because they were admitted into these fundamental constitutional codifications that they acquired the world-wide validity they enjoy today. Like other universal ideas too - mathematics, for instance - human rights have cut adrift from their specifically E u r o p e a n origins and development and make a directly convincing appeal to all people w h o accept that they are not just A m e r i c a n s or Russians, black or white, men or w o m e n , Christians or J e w s , but that they are first and foremost human beings. S o there are no copyright claims to human rights. T h e y are neither exclusively Jewish-Christian, nor do they derive solely from Enlightenment humanism. T o d a y the peoples of the earth are entering a shared global history, because they are all mortally endangered, on the one hand by the nuclear threat they pose to one another, and on the other by the ecological crises they share. A n d the more this global

history develops, the more

important h u m a n

rights

n8

The Changing Values of the Modern World

will become, if w e are to build a w o r l d - w i d e h u m a n society capable of w a r d i n g off these perils. H u m a n rights will therefore increasingly become the universally valid f r a m e w o r k , capable of winning general acceptance, by w h i c h humane policies

are

judged and legitimated. T h e recognition and realization

of

h u m a n rights for all h u m a n beings is going to be the factor w h i c h decides whether a global human community, in harmony with the cosmic living conditions of the earth, develops out of this divided and perilous w o r l d , or whether human destroy themselves and this earth. Because of the

beings extreme

danger of the present situation, the authority of human rights must be placed a b o v e all the particularist interests of nations, g r o u p s , religions and cultures. T o d a y , the religious claims to particularist absoluteness and the ruthless implementation of particularist political interests are a threat to the continued existence of humanity itself. T h e existing formulations of h u m a n rights are in themselves inadequate. W e have to w o r k to e x p a n d them if human rights are not themselves to be a factor in the destruction of our w o r l d . A s I see it, h u m a n rights must be expanded in t w o directions: i . in the formulation of the fundamental and

2.

rights of humanity; the rights of

in the incorporation of human rights into

the earth and other living things.

1

T h e declarations of h u m a n rights w h i c h apply today in the United N a t i o n s are, first, the Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights of 1948

a n d , second, the International Covenants on

H u m a n Rights concluded in 1966

(on E c o n o m i c , Social and

Cultural Rights, on Civil and Political Rights, T h e Optional Protocol). T h e y have very little force under international l a w , for the preamble to the 1948 human

Declaration says simply that

rights are intended to be 'a

common

standard

of

achievement for all peoples and all nations'. Nevertheless these declarations have proved to have astonishing force in the civil rights movements in m a n y countries and, in the Conferences on Security and C o - o p e r a t i o n in E u r o p e ( C S C E ) which followed Helsinki in 1 9 7 5 ,

have increasingly come to exert an influence

on international l a w in both Western and Eastern E u r o p e .

2

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth

n

9

Right d o w n to the end of the Second W o r l d W a r , it w a s internationally accepted that the w a y a country treats its o w n people is a matter solely for its o w n sovereign decision. T o d a y this is no longer the case. Even though m a n y countries still complain about 'interference in their internal affairs', the w a y a government treats its o w n nationals is legally considered a matter for other countries and their peoples t o o ; for today every person is also subject to international l a w in so far as this protects h u m a n rights. T h e divisions and categories of h u m a n rights already emerge from their history. In the w a k e of the crimes of the Fascist dictators, and after the Second W o r l d W a r , the N o r t h Atlantic states formulated

individual human rights,

over against the

p o w e r s of state and society. In the struggle against capitalism and class rule, the socialist states emphasized

social h u m a n

rights. A n d

the wretched

and

people of the T h i r d W o r l d are demanding the

economic and impoverished

right to existence,

the right to live and survive. W e can also distinguish the categories in the following w a y . T h e r e are i .

protective rights:

the

2. rights to freedom: freedom of religion, opinion and assembly; 3. social rights: the right to w o r k , to food, home, and so forth; and 4. rights of participaright to life, liberty and security;

tion:

the right to co-determination in politics and economic life.

T h e root of the different h u m a n rights and the bond uniting them is termed

human dignity.

Human

rights exist in the

plural, but h u m a n dignity is simply and solely singular. H u m a n dignity is one and indivisible. There is never a greater or a lesser degree of h u m a n dignity. It exists only entire or not at all. H u m a n dignity is the term that describes the quality of being h u m a n , h o w e v e r the different religions and philosophies m a y specifically interpret that. H u m a n dignity, at all events, means that h u m a n beings m a y never be exposed to treatment w h i c h in principle calls in question their 'quality as subject' (to use K a n t ' s term). Because the dignity of h u m a n beings is one and indivisible, h u m a n rights are also a single w h o l e , and cannot be expanded or restricted at will. But to base human rights on h u m a n dignity also s h o w s the

120

The Changing Values of the Modern World

limits and the dangers of their inherent anthropocentricism.

3

H u m a n rights must be brought into conformity w i t h the rights of nature - the earth from w h i c h , w i t h w h i c h and in w h i c h human

beings

live. H u m a n

dignity

is not

something

that

elevates men and w o m e n a b o v e all other living things. It is merely a special instance of the dignity of all natural life - in Christian terms, the dignity of each of G o d ' s creatures. H u m a n dignity cannot be upheld through h u m a n rights at the expense of nature and other living things, but only in h a r m o n y with them, and for their benefit. Unless h u m a n rights come to be integrated in the fundamental rights of nature, these h u m a n rights will be unable to claim universality. Instead, they themselves will become factors in the destruction of nature, and will thereby ultimately lead to the self-destruction of humanity. In the economic discussions after the end of the w a r , interesting shifts of emphases emerged. F r o m 1948

o n w a r d s (the year

w h e n the General A s s e m b l y of the W o r l d Council of Churches met in A m s t e r d a m ) until about

liberty

i960,

the question of

religious

w a s at the centre of concern, until people realized that

freedom of religion can be attained only in association with other individual h u m a n rights. T h e C S C E conferences, as well as conditions in T u r k e y , s h o w that it is still important, even t o d a y , to promote both. Freedom of religion is being recognized step by step, together w i t h individual h u m a n rights, even in countries with state ideologies and state religions. Since about

i960,

questions about

social and economic

h u m a n rights have come to the forefront of attention. R a c i s m , colonialism, dictatorship and class rule are under attack as severe violations of h u m a n rights. Personal rights to liberty cannot be protected in a w o r l d of gross political injustice and economic inequality. It is only economic and social rights w h i c h put people in a position to implement their liberties for themselves. T h e ecumenical consultation in St Polten, Austria, in 1974

w a s a milestone in the history of discussions in the

Christian churches about human rights, because there representatives of people in the T h i r d W o r l d spoke, and were listened t o , for the first time. T o d a y the

ecological

discussion is at the

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth

121

centre of interest in the industrialized countries. It sets h u m a n rights irrefutably in the context of living conditions on earth, and in the f r a m e w o r k of the life-sustaining c o s m o s . A t the end of the

1970s

w e s a w the declarations on human

rights made by the major churches. In 1976 Basis of H u m a n Reformed Lutheran

Churches, World

' T h e Theological

R i g h t s ' came from the W o r l d Alliance of and

in

Federation,

1977

the

declaration

'Theological

of

the

Perspectives

on

H u m a n R i g h t s ' ; while a w o r k i n g paper prepared by the papal commission

Justitia et Pax

on ' T h e C h u r c h and H u m a n R i g h t s '

has been in existence ever since 1974.

Unfortunately

human

rights have not as yet been m a d e the subject of any

joint

Christian declaration. If I see the matter rightly, only the declaration of the W o r l d Alliance of Reformed Churches has addressed t o d a y ' s problems about the rights of humanity and the rights of nature - though even so w i t h o u t expanding the f r a m e w o r k in w h i c h human rights have to be set if they are really to be universal and lifesustaining. Let us n o w try to arrive at a systematic survey, in the form of a spiral of h u m a n rights in w h i c h the one points to the other, and the w h o l e thrusts t o w a r d s universality. 1.

N o individual h u m a n rights without social h u m a n rights.

2. N o h u m a n rights w i t h o u t the right of humanity to protection from mass annihilation and genetic change, and to survival in the sequence of the generations. 3. N o economic human rights without ecological obligations t o w a r d s the rights of nature. 4.

N o h u m a n rights without the right of the earth.

(ii) Individual and social human rights ' W e hold these truths to be self-evident,' says the A m e r i c a n Declaration of Independence, 'that all men are created equal . . .' If this means all human beings, irrespective of their sex, race, religion, state of health, and so forth, then it also means every individual. Every h u m a n being is a person, and as person

iz2

The Changing Values of the Modern World

is e n d o w e d w i t h inalienable h u m a n rights. W i t h the m a x i m about

the

liberty

and

equality

of

all

human

beings,

the

A m e r i c a n Declaration of Independence and the constitutions of the French problems

of

Revolution

admittedly

also raised the

modern constitutional

states: h o w

essential

to

mediate

between a person's rights to individual liberty, and the protective rights of society, w h i c h have to ensure social security and economic provision -

the conflict, in short, between

liberal

democracy and socialism. In the 'prophetic' religions, J u d a i s m , Christianity and Islam, the liberty and equality of all h u m a n beings is derived from belief

in

creation

-

which

the

American

Declaration

of

Independence also talks about ('. . . e n d o w e d by their C r e a t o r . . . ' ) . T h e fact that all h u m a n beings are m a d e in the image of G o d is" the foundation of h u m a n dignity. H u m a n beings are intended to live in this relation to G o d . T h a t gives their existence its inalienable, transcendent depth dimension. In their relationship to the transcendent G o d , human beings become persons w h o s e dignity must not be infringed. T h e institutions of law,

government

and

economy

must

respect this

personal

dignity, w h i c h is the endowment of all h u m a n beings, if they claim to be 'humane institutions'. T h e y w o u l d destroy themselves if they were to treat human beings as objects, things, commodities, or merely as underlings or members of the w o r k force. T h e y w o u l d lose their legitimation. In the myths about p o w e r and sovereignty w h i c h w e find a m o n g m a n y peoples, it is only the ruler w h o is worshipped as ' G o d ' s image on earth', as 'the Son of H e a v e n ' and ' S o n of God'.

' T h e ruler is the s h a d o w

of G o d , and men are the

s h a d o w of the ruler,' says a Babylonian code for princes. But according to the J e w i s h , Christian and Islamic belief in creation, it is not any ruler w h o has been created to be the image of G o d on earth. It is 'the human being' - w h i c h means each and every h u m a n being. It follows from this that all h u m a n beings are kings or queens, and no one m a y dominate "the others. T h e mediaeval ' S a x o n C o d e ' already commented (Land L a w , B o o k 3, Article 42): ' G o d has created and formed men after his o w n

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth

i

2 3

image, and has redeemed them through his M a r t y r , one like another . . . A s I see the matter, I a m unable to understand that anyone should be [the property] of the other.' In E u r o p e ' s

political

history,

the belief that everyone

is

created in the image of G o d , and respect for the liberty and equality of all h u m a n beings, led to the democratization in principle of all rule by human beings over other h u m a n beings. A n y exercise of rule must legitimate itself before other h u m a n beings. Rulers and ruled must at all times be

recognizably

' h u m a n ' , in the same degree and together. T h a t means that all the citizens of a country must be equal before the l a w , to w h i c h rulers too are subject. T h e democratization of the w a y in w h i c h political objectives are formed; the time limit set to the c o m mission to rule; the control of rule through the separation of p o w e r s and through popular representation; the binding of rule to the charge given under the constitution; a n d , not least, the extensive p o w e r of self-determination given to the people and the self-administration of local communities -

all these have

become the political means through w h i c h the image of G o d in each h u m a n being, and the h u m a n dignity of all, are paid due respect. But

when

liberty

was

developed

in E u r o p e

and

North

A m e r i c a , it w a s one-sided to stress only the rights of individuals over against the structures of political rule, and to neglect their social equality

and economic

security. It w a s the fault

of

Western liberalism to overlook the social dimension of freedom, w h i c h is to be found in the solidarity of people together, one w i t h another. Here the religious history of the W e s t also w e n t astray, from Augustine o n w a r d s . F o r it is not the disembodied individual soul that is the image of G o d ; it is the human being together with other human beings, since the biblical creation story tells us that 'male and female he created them'. A l t h o u g h they spring from different intellectual roots, and although they have still never been gathered together in a single document, individual and social human rights logically belong together and call for one another in their realization. H u m a n sociality has in principle the same dignity as h u m a n

124

The Changing Values of the Modern World

personhood. T h e person does not 'take precedence' over the c o m m u n i t y , nor does the community 'take precedence' over the person. Persons and community are mutually related entities, in the same w a y as the individuation of human beings and their socialization. Consequently individual h u m a n rights cannot in principle take precedence over social h u m a n rights, although this is a l w a y s the assumption in the Western w o r l d . T h e rights of persons can be implemented only in a just society, and a just society can be attained only on the foundation of personal rights. T h e liberty of persons can develop only in a free society, and a free society g r o w s up only out of the liberty of persons. T h e free choice of w o r k cannot be attained without the right to w o r k . A n d the right to w o r k presupposes the free choice of w o r k , if people are to live in freedom.

(Hi) Human rights and the rights of the human race U p to n o w , h u m a n rights have been formulated only in the perspective of persons and society, not yet for the h u m a n race itself, although the term ' h u m a n ' logically implies the collective term 'humanity'. H a s humanity as a whole rights and obligations too? Little thought has been give to this, because the life and continuing existence of humanity has been presupposed as self-evident, divinely willed, and 'natural'. i . But ever since Hiroshima in 1945,

nuclear w e a p o n s and

the production of chemical and biological methods of mass destruction have m a d e one thing increasingly clear: the h u m a n race is mortal, and has a time-limit. T h e continued existence of humanity is under deadly threat through the crime

against

humanity which is possible at any time - the crime of starting a w a r w a g e d w i t h nuclear, biological or chemical w e a p o n s . Y e t humanity is meant to survive, and w a n t s to survive. T h i s fundamental affirmation of h u m a n life is the presupposition underlying every declaration on human rights. It is n o w time to formulate and a c k n o w l e d g e publicly the existence and right to survive of humanity as well, because this is something w h i c h people can negate. T h e r e are even specific situations in w h i c h

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth

I 2 5

the rights of humanity take absolute precedence before the particularist rights of special classes, races and religions, and w h e n all particularist interests, legitimate though they m a y very well be, must be subordinated to humanity's o w n right to exist. E v e n 'the class struggle', said G o r b a c h e v , c a n fruitfully lead to the liberation of the oppressed only within the which

makes possible the survival

of

framework

humanity.

Even

the

absolute claim of certain h u m a n religions must be subordinated to the right of humanity to exist and to survive, because otherwise the claim could lead to the suicide of the h u m a n race. Because the threat to humanity can proceed from the p o w e r of the nation that possesses nuclear, biological and chemical w e a p o n s , the limitations of that p o w e r must be more closely defined, with a v i e w to humanity as a w h o l e . T o threaten potential enemies with instruments of mass annihilation w h i c h can lead to the extinction of the h u m a n race goes beyond the right of any country w h i c h claims to be humane. Individual governments have an obligation, not just t o w a r d s their o w n people but also t o w a r d s humanity as a w h o l e . T h e y have to respect not just the h u m a n rights of their o w n citizens but the h u m a n rights of people in other countries t o o ; for the rights of humanity are indivisible. N a t i o n a l foreign policies based on rivalry with other countries and systems must give w a y to a 'global

domestic

policy' w h i c h is in duty bound to promote the survival of humanity, a policy w h i c h serves the reciprocal advancement of life and the shared security of all. H u m a n solidarity in overcoming mutual threats therefore takes precedence over loyalty to one's o w n nation, race, class or religious g r o u p . Individual states

and

communities

of

states

have

human

obligations

t o w a r d s the rights of the h u m a n race to live and survive. 2. If h u m a n dignity

forbids the violation

of the

quality

of h u m a n beings as determining subjects or their extinction, this is true not only for individual persons but for coming generations t o o , and for the h u m a n race as a w h o l e . M o d e r n genetic engineering and n e w reproductive medicine could m a k e it possible not only to heal hereditary illnesses, but also to breed changed generations through 'eugenics'. Prenatal

diagnostics

126

The Changing Values of the Modern World

make the evolution of n e w generations through inter-uterine selection possible. Manipulations of the germ-line can essentially

change

the

genome

of

the

human

race.

Of

course

therapeutic interventions are permissible if their aim is to heal. But manipulations designed to breed living things lacking in the human quality of 'subjecthood', and manipulations the purpose of w h i c h is to breed so-called supermen, destroy the essential nature of h u m a n beings, and hence the dignity of humanity too. If, together with the protection of human dignity, the state has also taken over the duty of protecting every human life, then it is also in duty bound to safeguard the truly human character of h u m a n life in this and coming generations. Otherwise it w o u l d lose its legitimation. Genetic intervention in the h u m a n species - 'optimizing', ' a d v a n t a g e o u s ' , or whatever it m a y be called belongs to a n e w category of crimes against humanity, just as much as the annihilation of life that is allegedly 'unfit', and of races w h i c h are declared to be 'inferior'. There is a n e w racist application of evolutionary theory and eugenics to the future of the h u m a n race w h i c h destroys its dignity and humanity. N o t only the nuclear threat but also the genetic self-destruction of humanity is a n e w and g r o w i n g danger. 3.

' H u m a n i t y ' does not just mean all human beings in the

cross-section of a particular time. It also means people d o w n the ages - in the sequence of human generations. A t a particular time and in a particular place, different generations a l w a y s live together and look

after each other. Parents care for

their

children, the y o u n g for the old. Because the human race consists of the temporal sequence of the generations, up to n o w there has been a generation contract w h i c h has a l w a y s been taken for granted

because it is natural; and this has guaranteed

the

survival of the human race. L a w s of inheritance ensured a degree of justice between the generations, so that there w a s a certain balance between the chances in life enjoyed by those born earlier and later. T o d a y this unwritten generation contract is threatening to break d o w n , and this can be deadly for the human race. In the industrial nations w e are in the process of exhausting most of

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth

I 2 > 7

the non-renewable sources of energy (oil, coal, gas, and so forth) in our present generations; and in our national budgets w e are leaving generations to come appalling mountains of debt which they will sometime or other have to p a y off. W e are using up the benefits of industrial production in our o w n time, and are foisting their costs on to the times ahead. W e are producing giant rubbish d u m p s w h i c h coming generations will have to 'dispose o f , although w e k n o w that nuclear waste cannot just be 'disposed o f but has to be guarded until the year

3000

or

10000, depending on the half-life of the material. But the human

race c a n

survive

only

if the

generation

contract creates justice between the generations, w h i c h are the form humanity takes in time. Since today this contract can be irreparably broken, it must be formulated and publicly codified. In our situation, particular regard must be paid to the rights of children, and the right of c o m i n g generations to live, because children are the weakest link in the generation chain, while coming generations do not as yet have any voice, and are therefore the first victims of the collective egoism of the present generation.

(iv) Economic human rights and ecological obligations Part of human dignity is the right to lead a life of dignity. T h i s involves certain minimum social and economic preconditions, such as protection from hunger and illness, and the right to w o r k and to personal property. Recently, protection of the natural environment has also c o m e to be numbered a m o n g the minimum

guarantees

of

personal

human

dignity.

We

can

develop economic h u m a n rights analogously to the right to political liberty. Just as in the political sphere it is at variance with people's dignity if they are m a d e the mere object of state authority, in the same w a y it is at variance with their dignity if they are reduced economically to the status of mere members of the w o r k force and to pure purchasing p o w e r . In order to be able to live out their 'quality as subjects' in the economic sphere t o o , h u m a n beings must be able to acquire a just share of w o r k ,

128

The Changing Values of the Modern World

property, food, protection and social security. T h e concentration of the means of production and of foodstuffs in the hands of a few, and the oppression and exploitation of the m a n y , is a severe violation of human dignity. A

world-wide

economic

situation w h i c h allows millions of people to starve is u n w o r t h y of humanity, and in Christian terms it is a violation of G o d ' s honour and glory, w h i c h is present in all human beings, since they are the image of G o d . If all human beings are created with the dignity of being m a d e in the image of G o d , and hence 'free and equal' - not particular races

or classes -

the e c o n o m y

must

be democratized

in

correspondence to the democratization of politics. T h e trade union movements and w o r k e r participation in factories and businesses are steps in this direction. But the democratization of the global e c o n o m y

is proving

to be particularly

difficult,

because there the interests of capital have combined with the interests of the nations in the industrial W e s t . Y e t it can be s h o w n that w i t h o u t more justice through a democratization of the global e c o n o m y , humanity is going to be faced w i t h an economic

and

ecological

catastrophe;

for

the

increasing

exploitation and indebtedness of countries in the T h i r d W o r l d are compelling the people there to cut d o w n their rain forests, and to over-exploit their arable land and pastures to the point where they become dustbowls and deserts. A n d in this w a y they are destroying large parts of the foundations from w h i c h the w h o l e of humanity lives. T h e fundamental economic rights of each and every h u m a n being are intrinsically linked with certain fundamental

eco-

logical obligations. T h e stock of fundamental economic rights cannot be multiplied indefinitely in the w a k e of a rapidly g r o w ing w o r l d population and the increased claims of certain nations because, as everyone k n o w s , on this earth ecological limits are set to economic g r o w t h . T h e human struggle for survival cannot be w a g e d at the cost of nature, because the ecological collapse of nature on this earth w o u l d be the beginning of the end for all h u m a n life. E c o n o m i c rights must therefore be brought into h a r m o n y with the cosmic conditions of nature on the earth in

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth which

humanity

among

people

is living

and

in a society,

spreading.

between

Economic

human

.

I2 9

justice

societies,

and

between the generations of the h u m a n race must therefore be matched

by

ecological

justice between

human

culture

and

nature. But up to n o w economic injustice has been matched only by ecological injustice: the exploitation of the h u m a n w o r k force finds its precise correspondence in the exploitation of natural

resources.

The

exploitative

relationship

of

human

beings to nature will only find an end w h e n the exploitative relationship of h u m a n beings a m o n g themselves stops; and the converse is equally true. Since today the technical means of exploitation

have been stepped up to the point w h e n

the

natural foundations from w h i c h people live are being totally destroyed, this is not just a moral judgment. It is a counsel of w i s d o m t o o . It is stupid to destroy the foundations of our o w n life for the sake of short-term profits, because it is suicidal.

(v) The rights of the earth and the dignity of its communit of the living If w e look at the w o r l d only from the aspects of private or civil l a w , there are apparently only 'persons' and 'things', just as according to the modern w o r l d - v i e w there are only subjects and objects. But are animals really only 'things' in relation to the h u m a n persons w h o c a n possess and make use of them? D o they not have rights of their o w n , and a kind of subjectivity w h i c h h u m a n beings have to respect? E v e r since the beginning of modern Western civilization, w e have got accustomed to looking at nature merely as our o w n environment, related to us ourselves, viewing all other living things in nature only from the angle of their utility for h u m a n beings. O n l y h u m a n

beings are there 'for their o w n

sake'.

Eveything else is supposed to be there for the sake of h u m a n beings. T h i s modern anthropocentricity has robbed nature of its soul and m a d e human beings determining, bodiless subjects. T h e pre-modern v i e w of the w o r l d - the v i e w held in antiquity - s a w the w h o l e w o r l d as 'ensouled'. Aristotle still talked about

130

The Changing Values of the Modern World

the souls of plants, the souls of animals, and the souls of human beings, as well as about the w o r l d soul, w h i c h

differentiates

them all and at the same time holds them all together. Postmodern w o r l d - v i e w s , on the other hand, assume that h u m a n beings are a unity of body and mind or soul, so that out of their bodily needs and their relationships to all other natural living things it is possible to develop the concept of a cosmic c o m m u nity in w h i c h human beings are integrated. Both w a y s of thinking - the ancient and the post-modern alike - point to the fact that the modern fissure between person and

thing, subject

and

object, does justice neither

to

the

natural community of life in which and from w h i c h h u m a n beings live on this earth, nor to the bodily existence of h u m a n beings. Rigorously carried through with modern methods, it destroys the natural community of the living, and human

bodiliness.

Modern

anthropocentricity

is

deadens

ultimately

lethal for human beings themselves. O f course w e can hardly revert to the old cosmocentricity in our v i e w of the w o r l d and life (even if some modern thinkers see that as a w a y out of the impasses of the modern w o r l d ) ; for modern anthropocentricity is the basis of

modern

industrial

society,

whereas

cosmo-

centricity w a s the foundation for the agricultural societies of pre-modern times. But modern anthropocentricity can be fitted into the living conditions of the earth and into the community of all the living in a w a y w h i c h does not turn its back on industrial society, nostalgically

and in pursuit of

an

alternative

culture, but reforms that society until it becomes ecologically compatible w i t h the earth, and

integrated

into the

earth's

community of life. Y e t a community of life shared with all other living things on earth remains no more than an illusion and a dream unless it is realized in the form of a community of all the living w h i c h has

a legal basis.

A c o m m u n i t y under l a w embracing the w h o l e

earth w o u l d have to open the h u m a n c o m m u n i t y under l a w for the rights of other living things and the rights of the earth, or w o u l d have to incorporate these in the earth's universal l a w s of life. T h a t presupposes that earth, plants and animals are

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth

I 3 I

respected as having a value for their o w n sake, before there is any estimate of their utility value for h u m a n beings. J u s t as human dignity is the source of h u m a n rights, so the dignity of creation is the source of the natural rights of other

living

things and the earth. A Universal Declaration of A n i m a l Rights should be part of the constitutions of modern states and international agreements. T h i s w o u l d correspond to the Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights of 1948,

w o u l d be in conformity

with it, and in certain circumstances w o u l d correct it. A draft of just such a declaration has already existed since

1977.

' N o one m a y without justification inflict pain, suffering or harm on an animal, or terrify it . . .' 'Pain, suffering or h a r m m a y be inflicted on an animal only to the extent to w h i c h this is unavoidable for the purpose in h a n d . ' Experiments on animals must be reduced, replaced by other experiments, and as far as possible be avoided altogether. T h e y must at all events be subject to authorization. A n animal is not a human 'person', but it is not a 'thing' or a ' p r o d u c t ' either. It is a living being, with its o w n rights, and it requires the protection of public l a w . T o respect this fact means putting an end to industrial, hormone-controlled 'meat p r o d u c tion' and to g o over to w a y s of keeping livestock w h i c h will meet the requirements of their species. It also follows from this that the use of millions of animals in industrial experiments (animal experimentation) must be reduced as far as possible, and be replaced by other techniques, for example simulators. In the United States, at least seventeen million animals are 'used' or 'expended' in laboratory experiments every year, 85%

of

them rats and mice. M o r e and more people are asking, rightly: ' D o the practical benefits of animal experimentation outweigh the moral costs?'

(Newsweek, 16

January

1989). T h e

moral loss

is undoubtedly to be found in the g r o w i n g indifference t o w a r d s other life, whether it be the life of animals, embryos or other people, an indifference w h i c h has a backlash effect on our o w n lives. Faced as w e are with the impasses of industrial societies, hostile to nature as they are, w e must define afresh the place and the role of h u m a n beings within the total fabric of life on earth;

132

The Changing Values of the Modern World

and as the logical consequence of that w e must also fit h u m a n rights into the comprehensive rights of nature, if w e w a n t to survive. This requirement seems to me self-evident. But it poses a serious question about the religious foundations of modern Western civilization. H a s n ' t the Jewish-Christian tradition, ever since the biblical creation accounts, conceded godlike privileges to men and w o m e n , over against all other living things? A r e n ' t h u m a n beings alone G o d ' s image on earth, destined to rule over the

earth

and

earth's

other

living

beings?

Wasn't

it

this

anthropology w h i c h provided the basis for the development of special h u m a n rights in the W e s t ? T h i s is the w a y w e are in fact bound to see things, because right d o w n the centuries this is w h a t the churches and the theologians maintained. A n d yet it is not the w h o l e truth, for the special destiny of h u m a n beings enjoys its validity only

within

the c o m m u n i t y of all creation, a

community that is to be respected by h u m a n beings, as Psalm 104

quite clearly states. W e can talk about special

dignity if the premise is our recognition of of all other creatures -

human

the creation dignity

not otherwise. A s the image of the

C r e a t o r , h u m a n beings will love all their fellow creatures w i t h the C r e a t o r ' s love. Otherwise, far from being the image of the C r e a t o r and lover of all the living, they will be his caricature. Consequently special h u m a n rights to life and existence are valid only as long as these human beings respect the rights of the earth and of other living things. A c c o r d i n g to the biblical traditions, there is a c o m m u n i t y under l a w shared by the earth and h u m a n beings w h i c h reaches out beyond the h u m a n c o m m u n i t y , with its l a w s , and w h i c h is rooted in the special divine l a w , the right of the C r e a t o r to his creation. W e find this w i d e r community in the l a w s about the sabbath. T h e weekly sabbaths and the regular sabbath years are meant for h u m a n beings and the animals w h i c h they have domesticated and w h i c h live w i t h them. But

the sabbath of the earth

(Leviticus 25 and 26) is emphasized as being of special importance. In the seventh year the earth is to lie fallow, so that it m a y

Human Rights - Rights of the Earth renew itself. T h a t is

the earth's right.

133

People w h o observe 'the

sabbath of the earth' will live in peace, but those w h o disregard it will be visited by drought and famine, because they destroy the earth's fertility. T o d a y the right of the earth and its biosphere to renewal is largely ignored. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides force the earth into a permanent state of fertility w h i c h is contrary to nature. T h e result is erosion w h i c h can never

again

be

made

good,

and

unavoidable

catastrophic

famines. A n y o n e w h o disregards the right of the earth threatens coming generations and the survival of humanity.

(vi) The world religions in the forum of human rights Because our present life and the future survival of the h u m a n race are dependent on the observance of h u m a n rights, the rights of humanity and the rights of nature, the w o r l d religions too must subordinate themselves to the preservation of this w o r l d . In all the different religions there is nothing higher than truth. T o d a y

the religions will really only

become

'world'

religions w h e n they begin to integrate themselves into the living conditions and the developing

world,

community under law of

this

one

and are prepared to surrender their particularist claims

to truth in favour of the universalism of truth. T h e religions must learn to respect individual religious liberty as a h u m a n right, and in this f r a m e w o r k

to act tolerantly t o w a r d s one

another, and to be prepared for dialogue. T h a t also means subordinating their legal codes - the T o r a h and the Sermon on the M o u n t , canon l a w and the Sharia, H i n d u and Confucian ethics, and so forth - to the minimum demands of h u m a n rights, the rights of humanity and the rights of nature. T o cling to the divergencies and contradictions between the religious groups w o u l d m a k e them enemies of the h u m a n r a c e .

4

O n the other hand, the further development of h u m a n rights and the rights of humanity depends on the creative contributions of the different religious ideas about the w o r l d . U p to n o w , formulations of h u m a n rights have been based on the tradition of modern Western humanism. T h i s , for its part,

134

The Changing Values of the Modern World

developed in the context of the Judaeo-Christian religion culture

with

a

strongly

anthropocentric

stamp.

a

Judaism,

Christianity and Islam have therefore been termed 'religions of history', over against the A s i a n and African 'nature religions'. A n d it is true that they are concerned w i t h h u m a n hope and historical progress, whereas the nature religions cultivate the wisdom

of equilibrium and equivalence. These religions

of

history have therefore also been called 'prophetic religions', o r 'book

religions',

spirituality closely

bonded

differences

in

distinction

from

the

directly

sensory

of the Indian and Chinese religions, w h i c h with

nature. H o w e v e r

we

may

in these general terms, as far as the

define

are the

ecological

problem of modern society is concerned, the balance between progress and equilibrium, the harmony between h u m a n history and nature, and the concurrence between person and nature are of vital concern. T o d a y

interfaith dialogue will be directed

t o w a r d s these questions, w h i c h are of such vital concern for the human race, if that dialogue is to be meaningful and useful for the Western and Eastern religions, and for humanity as a w h o l e .

4 The Knowing of the Other and the Community of the Different

(i) The problem of like and unlike K n o w l e d g e and community are mutually related. In order to arrive at community w i t h one another w e have to k n o w one another, and in order to k n o w one another w e have to come closer to one another, make contact with one another, and form relationships. In both personal and political life, community depends quite essentially on whether w e are able to perceive 'the others' and to k n o w and acknowledge them; or whether in 'the others' w e

see only the reflection

of our o w n

selves, and

embrace them in our o w n image, so as to subject them to our o w n ideas. O n the other hand, our perceptions and our ideas of 'the others' are a l w a y s shaped by our social relationships to them, and by the public form our community w i t h them takes. S o w e might say: without knowledge there is no community, and w i t h o u t community no knowledge. If this rather general disposition is correct, it follows that epistemology and sociology are so closely related that the l a w s of the one sector recur in the other, and changes in the one sphere bring in their w a k e changes in the other. I should like to analyse this correlation, and to put it up for discussion. I a m proceeding from a conjecture w h i c h I made earlier and have expressed more than once since.

1

E v e r since Aristotle, the principle of

'Like is only known by like.'

knowledge

has been:

community

has been:

1

E v e r since Aristotle, the principle of

'Like draws to like.'

3

136

The Changing Values of the Modern World

T h e principle of correspondence in epistemology and the principle of homogeneity in sociology correspond precisely. But are they true? D o they contribute to the k n o w i n g of 'the others'? D o they lead to living fellowship with others? A r e w e not ourselves 'the others' for other people? It is already clear at first glance that in themselves these principles effect nothing, or merely the opposite of w h a t they purport to say. If like is only k n o w n by like, w h y should it be k n o w n at all? Surely w h a t is no different is, for the one w h o is n o different, a matter of complete indifference? If I k n o w only 4

w h a t is like me, or w h a t already corresponds to me, then, after all, I k n o w only w h a t I k n o w already. T h e fascination of k n o w ing is missing. T h e interest in k n o w i n g is paralysed. W h e n t w o people say the same thing, says a Russian p r o v e r b , one of them is superfluous. If, in social life, like d r a w s only to like, is the result in a society not total stultification? T h e rich for themselves, and the p o o r for themselves, the whites for themselves and the blacks for themselves, the men for themselves and the w o m e n for themselves, the healthy for themselves and the disabled for themselves - w e all remain with the people w h o are like us, and no one k n o w s 'the others', for as Sartre said: 'Hell - that is the others.' T h i s w o u l d be the total segregation-society of unrelated ghettos, and in every ghetto death through b o r e d o m w o u l d hold sway. If this is so, must w e not try to start from the opposite principles, in order to arrive at k n o w l e d g e of others and c o m munity w i t h others? In epistemology, must w e not start from the principle 'Other is only known by other', and in sociology from the principle 'The acceptance of others creates community in diversity'? I shall call the tenet cited a b o v e the principle of analogy and homogeneity, and this second tenet the principle of difference and diversity of kind, or: analogous and dialectical thinking. H a v i n g looked at the first principle in more detail, I shall g o on to the second. A n d in each case I shall test the principle against k n o w l e d g e of other people, knowledge of nature (as other than

The Knowing of the Other

i

5 7

ourselves), and k n o w l e d g e of the W h o l l y Other G o d , asking w h a t forms of community they lead to. Finally I shall enquire about

the foundation

of k n o w i n g - the k n o w i n g of h u m a n

beings, nature and G o d - in the elemental w o n d e r over existence.

(ii) Correspondence in knowing leads to community between the same and those who have been made the same ' L i k e is only k n o w n by like.' Strictly understood, this principle of likeness in epistemology means that the unlike - that is to say, w h a t is 'other' - cannot be k n o w n at all. A l l cognition is then merely a re-cognition of w h a t is already k n o w n , and knowledge is nothing other than 'the eternal return of the same thing'. Early Greek philosophy therefore at once expanded this principle to cover 'the similar'. 'Similar is k n o w n only by the similar.' W e k n o w by analogy w h e n w e ask a b o u t the

tertium comparationis,

the factor linking the t w o elements w e are comparing. In the spheres of those that are different, the k n o w e r a l w a y s perceives only w h a t is similar - that w h i c h corresponds to him. W h y ? Because he perceives only that w h i c h finds a correspondence in his o w n inner life. T h e m a c r o c o s m without corresponds to the microcosm within. Every perception of things in the w o r l d outside evokes a resonance in the w o r l d within, and that is h o w knowledge comes into being. T o d a y w e should say: the receiver can hear the transmitter only by being tuned into the same wavelength. T h a t is w h y E m p e d o c l e s (from w h o m this epistemological principle derives) said: ' T h u s sweet reached out for sweet, bitter rushed to bitter, sour to sour, the w a r m poured itself into the w a r m . T h u s fire pressed u p w a r d s , striving t o w a r d s w h a t w a s like it.' For ' w i t h the earth (i.e., in us) w e see the earth; with the w a t e r , water; w i t h the air, the divine air; but with fire the destroying fire; with love, love; and strife with sorry strife.'

5

Here the concern that p r o m p t s k n o w i n g (Habermas's ' k n o w ledge-constitutive interest') is the

union

of like in h u m a n beings

with like in the cosmos. L i k e strives to like in order to be united with it. It is the force of E r o s which leads to the k n o w -

138

The Changing Values of the Modern World

ing of like by like, E r o s being the p o w e r w h i c h creates the universe and holds it together. Likeness of essence between the m a c r o c o s m and the microcosm makes it possible for human beings to k n o w the w o r l d , and this k n o w i n g in its turn leads them to community w i t h the w o r l d through the correspondence of within and without. ' A l l that is separated finds itself again,' said Hölderlin. T h i s goal of community is the concern

and

purpose of k n o w i n g . Its foundation is the cosmic fact that, in Eichendorff's phrase, 'Everything is eternally related within.' This

ontological

principle

makes

union

through

knowing

possible. Because in the ancient Greek w o r l d - indeed in the w o r l d of the O l d Testament too -

k n o w i n g a l w a y s confers

community, k n o w i n g is a l w a y s erotic through and through. ' T h e n A d a m k n e w E v e . . .' (Gen. 4.1) - and the outcome w a s their son C a i n . But w h a t constitutes the p o w e r of Eros? It is the

attractive power exerted

by the lovable

(eidos)

on love

(eros),

the desirable on desire, and by excellence on appreciation of its value. T h e p o w e r of E r o s is the p o w e r to k n o w and to be united, and must hence be viewed as the foundation of both this epistemology and this sociology. Let us n o w apply this principle to the k n o w i n g of

people, other things, and the Wholly Other God. 1.

other

If only like and like k n o w one another, then I recognize in

other people only that w h i c h corresponds to me myself in m y o w n nature. I do not perceive w h a t is different in kind and alien in other people. I filter it out. I perceive only the things in w h i c h w e are alike, and only this can become the foundation of c o m munity between us. ' T r u e friendship,' says Aristotle, 'rests on the foundation of likeness.' T h e friendship of those w h o are 6

alike

was

the

quintessence

of

Greek

social

doctrine.

Its

correspondence is the spirit of equalizing, 'even-handed' justice w h i c h requites like by like - g o o d by g o o d , evil by evil. Some heroes, indeed, were called 'friends of the g o d s ' , but it is not really possible to talk about friendship between human beings and Z e u s , the father of the gods. T h e same m a y be said of friendship between men and w o m e n , freemen and slaves. If friendship is based on likeness, it has an exclusive effect. O n l y

by

The Knowing of the Other

139

closed societies issue from people w h o are all the same. In these societies people w h o are alike mutually endorse each other's identity

through

the exclusion

of

others and the

repeated

assurance of not being like the others. Even in w h a t Karl Popper designates as our 'open society',

7

like consorts with like in

exclusive circles. Quite apart from the fact that behaviour of this kind is hurtful for 'the others' w h o are excluded, the result for 'the insiders' is deadly boredom, because they have already heard the stories and jokes with w h i c h closed societies are accustomed to amuse themselves a hundred times over. T h e principle of correspondence does not lead to any increase in k n o w l e d g e ,

but only

to

the continually

reiterated

self-

endorsement of w h a t is already k n o w n . T h e principle of likeness leads to caste and class societies, and destroys interest in the livingness of life, w h i c h consists of polarities and contrasts.

2,.

If w e apply this epistemologica! principle to

nature,

the

effect is ambivalent. In the ancient w o r l d , knowledge meant participation:

I perceive nature outside myself through

the

nature within myself, so that with my o w n nature I m a y participate in nature as a w h o l e , and m a y unite myself with her. R e a s o n w a s then essentially an observing reason

(theorem),

thinking with the eyes w h i c h see w h a t is there. But in modern times the human being came to be understood as a person and determining subject over against nature, w h i c h w a s m a d e the object of h u m a n knowledge. E v e r since Francis B a c o n and René Descartes, to k n o w has meant to dominate. I w a n t to perceive nature outside myself in order to dominate it. I w a n t to dominate it in order to acquire it for myself. I w a n t to acquire it for myself in order to do w h a t I like with m y possession. T h a t is a thinking with the rapacious hand: I grasp that I've mastered it - I've got it - I've seized the meaning - I have it. In the modern civilization to w h i c h w e give the name 'scientific and technological', reason is no longer understood as an organ of perception; it is n o w an instrument of p o w e r . M o u l d e d by 8

science, the reason of the modern w o r l d sees with K a n t ( w h o rationalized N e w t o n ' s w o r l d picture philosophically) 'only that w h i c h it produces after a plan of its o w n . . . (it) must itself s h o w

a

140

The Changing Values of the Modern World

the w a y with principles of judgment based upon fixed l a w s , constraining nature to give answer to questions of reason's o w n determining'. H u m a n reason behaves to nature like a barrister9

at-law (Kant, from his G e r m a n background, says 'like a judge') w h o subjects the witnesses to cross-examination. A c c o r d i n g to Francis B a c o n , experiment is the torture to w h i c h nature is exposed so that she m a y give an answer to the questions h u m a n beings put to her, and yield up her secrets.

10

Y e t if this aggressive reason understands in nature only that w h i c h it itself ' p r o d u c e s ' according to its o w n design, then w h a t is other and alien in nature remains for ever hidden from it. ' T h e thing in itself -

Das Ding an sich -

can never be k n o w n , as K a n t

made clear w h e n he related the modes of appearance to the active subject. But if this is true, then humanity lives in the nature w h i c h has been m a d e manifest by the sciences as if in a hall of mirrors. W h e r e v e r w e look, w e see only the projections, the reflections

and the traces of human

beings.

Productive

reason can recognize only its o w n products. It k n o w s nothing of the inner being of things, and of nature's o w n individual life. If 'like is only k n o w n by like', then this human reason k n o w s only the nature w h i c h it has adapted to itself, m a d e the same as itself, subjugated to itself. But that destroys nature's o w n life, isolates h u m a n beings and makes them lonely. A l l that is left is technopolis and the desert. W e have made the earth the exhausted quarry of our civilization, and our o w n rubbish d u m p . 3. Applied to God,

1 1

the 'likeness' principle leads either to the

divinization of human beings or to the humanization of G o d . In the ancient w o r l d , people s a w in every true knowledge of G o d a deification of the h u m a n being

(theosis).

F o r k n o w l e d g e is

participation, and creates community. But w e can k n o w the divine

above

us only by means of the divine

within

us, for ' G o d

is only k n o w n by G o d ' . It w a s in this sense that Goethe wrote: W e r e the eye not like the sun, h o w could then the sun be seen? W e r e not G o d ' s o w n p o w e r within us, h o w could the divine delight us?

The Knowing of the Other

141

K n o w i n g confers c o m m u n i t y , and only the community of like beings makes this k n o w i n g possible. Here again w e see that according to the v i e w held in antiquity, perception changes the perceiver, so that the perceiver corresponds to w h a t he perceives. But is G o d then k n o w a b l e at all by beings w h o are not themselves divine? Goethe g a v e the theological principle of likeness a particularly distinctive turn. If G o d is only k n o w n by G o d , then the reversal is also true:

Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse -

no one

is against G o d unless it be G o d himself. It is not clear from w h o m Goethe took this tremendous statement, or whether he or F. W . Riemer invented it, passing it off as old. Goethe takes the saying as the motto for the fourth book of his autobiography

Dichtung und Wahrheit 1830.

('Poetry and T r u t h ' ) , w h i c h he w r o t e in

There he talks about 'daemonic personalities' w h o seem

to be beyond g o o d and evil, and concludes: 'Seldom or never do such men simultaneously find their like, and they can be defeated by nothing, unless it be the universe itself, with w h i c h they have begun their struggle; and it is from such observations

Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse.' E d u a r d Spranger followed this u p , and in Riemer's MitteilungentiberGoethe found Goethe's that that strange but tremendous saying m a y well derive: 1 2

o w n interpretation: ' A glorious dictum, of endless application. G o d encounters a l w a y s himself; G o d in m a n encounters himself again in m a n . . .' In the sense of G o e t h e ' s revered Spinoza, this then means: G o d is all and in all. If there is anything counterdivine, this contradiction of G o d too is within G o d himself. F o r outside G o d there is no one w h o could contend w i t h G o d . E v e n the harshest

deus ipse,

contra Deum,

the counter-divine, still conceals the

G o d himself.

T a k e n by itself, h o w e v e r , this statement makes G o d himself the only conceivable atheist. If n o one except G o d himself can be 'against G o d ' , then h u m a n atheism is impossible -

either

that, or the statement divinizes every serious atheist w h o is 'against

God'

into

God

himself.

Tremendous

though

the

declaration is, and fascinating though the possibilities are w h i c h it opens up to the speculative mind, it can also be used for the

142

The Changing Values of the Modern World

pupose of theological self-immunization: G o d is k n o w n only by G o d ; no one can be against G o d except G o d himself. But this then eludes the grasp of theology to such an extent that w e cannot even be against it. It really has nothing more to do with us at all. T h e reason of the modern w o r l d understands the process of cognition in precisely the opposite w a y from antiquity: through the k n o w i n g ,

the k n o w n

is subjected

and adapted

to

the

k n o w e r ; for to k n o w means to dominate. Applied to the divine a b o v e us, the 'likeness' principle therefore means that all k n o w ledge of G o d must be viewed as a projection of the h u m a n fantasy. All imaginations and concepts of the divine are nothing more than human products, and tell us nothing about the divine itself. ' Y o u are like the spirit you understand, not me,' cries the Earth Spirit to D r Faust in Goethe's drama, after Faust has conjured it up. S o human beings create their gods in their o w n image: the male g o d s , the white g o d s , the black g o d s , the female gods. T h e other and the alien, and the W h o l l y Other of the divine (Karl Barth's p h r a s e ,

13

following R u d o l f O t t o ) - all this 14

is so u n k n o w a b l e that it cannot even be thought. T h e 'likeness' principle makes the reason of the modern w o r l d in principle agnostic. A s Feuerbach's modern criticism of religion s h o w s , it even makes it narcissistic. Like the beautiful youth Narcissus, modern human beings, wherever they m a y turn - whether it be to other people, to other 'nature', or to the W h o l l y Other of the divine - a l w a y s see everywhere only their o w n reflection. But w e have meanwhile lost the entranced self-love of the N a r c i s s u s of old, and in m a n y people this self-love has already turned into the self-hate w h i c h befalls people w h e n they have shut themselves in and never get out again. A kind of claustrophobic selfpity has developed, and it is only occasionally that out of it springs w h a t M a x Horkheimer calls 'a longing for the w h o l l y Other'.

15

Let us take as example the great event w h i c h stands at the beginning of modern times, because it has changed the w o r l d : the so-called discovery of A m e r i c a by C o l u m b u s , Cortes, and the Conquistadores, from

1492

onwards. A s Todorov

has

The Knowing of the Other shown,

16

J

43

the E u r o p e a n s never really 'discovered' A m e r i c a at all

in its unique character and difference. T h e Conquistadores s a w nothing, and 'discovered' only w h a t they were looking for

-

gold and silver. T h e Indian kingdoms were never k n o w n . T h e y have never been understood, right d o w n to the present day. They

were

subjugated, destroyed

and exploited, and

were

missionized and colonized according to European blueprints. T h e 'other' people were a c c o m m o d a t e d to the rulers, as their subjects. T h e Christian missionaries t o o , as their diaries s h o w , understood only w h a t they could m a k e the same as themselves through conversion. Spaniards, Portuguese and the Protestant Pilgrim Fathers failed to perceive the difference in kind and unique character of the Indians. Because they could only recognize w h a t w a s like themselves, and because it w a s only that w h i c h they had the will to understand, they w e r e bound to destroy the alien culture, and level d o w n 'the others' to be like themselves. T h e sorry result w a s the uniform colonial culture, the uniform imperial religion, and the uniform,

all-levelling

language.

(Hi) Knowledge of the other leads to community in diversity 'Other is only k n o w n by other.' T h i s epistemological principle too has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy, though in a tradition w h i c h had little influence on our o w n culture. Aristotle quotes Euripides as saying: ' T h e parched earth yearns for rain, and the high heavens, great w i t h rain, desire to fall to e a r t h . ' 'Everything

living

springs

out

of

strife,'

the

17

mysterious

Heraclitus had said. But it w a s A n a x a g o r a s w h o first formulated the epistemological principles w h i c h are the exact opposite of the principles maintained by Empedocles: ' A n a x a g o r a s holds that sense perception comes to pass by

144

The Changing Values of the Modern World

means of opposites, for the like is unaffected by the like . . . W e come to k n o w the cold by the hot . . . the sweet by the sour, the light by the dark . . . All sense perception, he holds, is fraught w i t h pain, for the unlike w h e n brought into contact [with our organs] a l w a y s brings d i s t r e s s . "

8

T h i s last c o m m e n t about the connection between perception and pain is important. If our organs of perception encounter something like, something familiar, or something that already corresponds to ourselves, w e feel endorsed, and that is pleasing to our senses. If our organs of perception encounter something different, strange or new, then the initial effect is p a i n .

19

W e feel

the resistance of the alien. W e feel the contradiction of the other. W e sense the claim of the new. T h e pain s h o w s us that w e must open ourselves, in order to take in the other, the alien and the new. But

how

do

we

perceive

this

other?

Not

through

its

correspondence but through its contradiction. W e might say, in general

terms,

that w e

perceive

things

first

through

their

contrast to the thing they are not. W e perceive the other with w h a t is opposite in us ourselves. It is through dissonance, not consonance, that w e become alive to the n e w . T o take up A n a x a g o r a s ' s imagery: the darker it is in us, the more w e sense the holiness of light. T h e colder w e are, the more intensely w e feel a fire's w a r m t h . W h e n w e are a m o n g people w h o are black, w e notice that w e are white. A m o n g people w h o are white, w e see that w e are black. In a transferred sense, and in the dialectical formulation of the y o u n g Schelling: ' E v e r y being can become manifest only in its opposite - love only in hate, unity only in strife.'

20

T o put it s o m e w h a t less dramatically: it is only

in the foreign land that w e understand w h a t home is. It is only in the face of death that w e sense the uniqueness of life. It is only in strife that w e k n o w h o w to appreciate peace. It is in our encounter with others that w e experience our o w n selves. In the like, w e do not notice w h a t is like in ourselves at all. F o r us, it is a matter of course. It is so close to us that w e cannot perceive it. It is first in the distance, even more in the difference,

The Knowing of the Other

J

45

and then lastly in the contradiction that w e perceive the other, and learn to value it. Here too the concern that guides perception - the ' k n o w ledge-constitutive interest' - is union. But the goal is not a unity in uniformity; it is a unity in diversity. T h o s e w h o are different can complement each other, and long for reciprocal c o m p l e mentation as the earth longs for rain, and the rain for the earth. T h o s e that are different can clash t o o , and out of the contention n e w life can be born. A n t a g o n i s m s do not a l w a y s have to be deadly. T h e y can be life-giving as well, and c a n promote life. In spite of Heraclitus, w h a t the Greeks meant by strife

(agon)

competition and play as 'the father of all t h i n g s ' .

was

In the

21

Chinese concept, these are the polarities Y i n and Y a n g , w h i c h rhythmically and fluidly divide and unite, divide so as to unite, unite so as to divide, and thus advance the process of life.

22

Here

too, the p o w e r in those w h o are united is E r o s , but in a more profound interpretation than the one cited above. It is H e g e l ' s dynamic dialectic of love w h i c h creates unity in division and division in unity, because it itself is the union of division and unity.

23

Let us n o w apply these dialectical principles to the k n o w i n g of other people, other things, and the W h o l l y Other G o d . i . If

the

unlike

know

themselves,

then

interest

in

the

difference of the other must be greater than interest in its likeness. In the others I do not look at w h a t is like myself, but at w h a t is different in them, and try to understand it. I can only understand it by changing myself, and adjusting myself to the other. In m y perception of others I subject myself to the pains and joys of m y o w n alteration, not in order to adapt myself to the other, but in order to enter into it. T h e r e is n o true understanding of the other without this empathy. Together with the other I enter into a process of reciprocal change. These pains of alteration and the joys of n e w insights are inherent in every learning process. In Greek,

mathein

(to learn) and

pathein (to

suffer) g o together, as w e see from many proverbs and sayings. Understanding empathy then engenders a connecting sympathy, once the empathy leads to mutual understanding. It forms the

146

The Changing Values of the Modern World

community in the diversity and the diversity in the community. T h e basic l a w of a society like this is 'recognition of the other' in his or her difference. Societies w h i c h develop according to this principle are not closed societies. N o r are they uniform societies, where people are brought into line. T h e y are 'open societies'. T h e y c a n live not only with different and dissimilar people, but also, as K a r l Popper required, with 'their enemies' t o o ; for they can even make the enmity of their enemies fruitful for the things that are of concern to them. H o w is this possible? M u s t a society's enemies not be told: either a d a p t or emigrate? I do not believe so. W h i l e the foundation of a society consisting of people w h o are like each other is normally

the love of friends,

the foundation of the society m a d e

up of the different is, if the w o r s t comes to the w o r s t ,

of enemies.

the love

T o love o u r enemies means taking responsibility not

just for ourselves and those w h o belong to us, but for our enemies too. W e then no longer ask merely: h o w can w e defend ourselves against our possible enemies? O u r question n o w is: h o w can w e take a w a y their enmity, so that w e can all survive together? In this sense, love of our enemies is the foundation for a shared life in conflicts. 2.

24

If w e apply this dialectical epistemological principle to

nature,

then w e replace analytical thinking, with its objectifi-

cation of nature, by the systematic and

communicative

thinking

w h i c h respects nature in its unique character and lets it be w h a t it is, in its contradistinction to the human being. T h a t means on the one hand perceiving natural beings in their totality and in their o w n biospheres, no longer isolating them and splitting them up for the purposes of acquisition. It means on the other hand recognizing them in their relative subjectivity, and longer debasing them to the status of passive objects.

no The

heuristic interest is no longer domination and control; it is communication. 'Holistic t h i n k i n g '

25

brings people once more

into the w a r p and weft of life shared in the greater organism of this earth, from w h i c h they have isolated themselves ever since the time w h e n - on the strength of science and technology - they set themselves up to be nature's rulers and possessors. T o put an

The Knowing of the Other

J

47

end to this self-isolation does not mean a romantic return to a paradisal 'state of nature' and to ' M o t h e r E a r t h ' . W h a t

it

does mean is a n e w integration of h u m a n culture into nature through a balance and harmonization of their different interests in life. O n the human side, this w o u l d involve a reintegration of the rationality that differentiates and dominates into the reason that receives and participates. But it goes further than that. T h e n e w participatory reason is a l w a y s at the same time an

involved reason.

It observes, and does not dominate things and

other beings in the reality they have become. It understands their reality, avert

together with

the potentialities

that

their potentialities, in order would

be

destructive,

and

to to

encourage the possibilities that are conducive to life. 'Involved' thinking does not just ask h o w things are. It also asks w h a t they can b e c o m e .

26

It perceives the present condition of things, but

their future t o o . It understands everything in its time, and living things in their processes. T h i s , in its turn, presupposes understanding the 'objects' of nature as fixed,

systems open to the future,

whose

future

is partially

systems w h o s e past is

undetermined,

and

whose

present lies in the anticipation of their possibilities. If all beings 27

are open systems, from the atom to other people, as Prigogine and others rightly say, then in nature there are no objects in the true sense. T h e r e are only subjects w i t h v a r y i n g degrees of complexity.

28

Human

knowing

of things in nature is thus

nothing other than communication between open systems with different gradations of complexity. It is therefore a cognitive process

between

subject

and

subject.

But

between

these

different subjects there is community in recognition of the diversity. Domination and control by one side w o u l d merely destroy the protean character of the living and the relationships in which they live. 3. Applied to God,

dialectical thinking leads to the recogni-

tion of diversity in community. ' G o d is only k n o w n by G o d , ' says the 'likeness' principle. Dialectical thinking says that G o d appears as G o d only in the sphere of w h a t is other than G o d ,

148

The Changing Values of the Modern World

that is to say, in the realm of the finite and in the sphere of h u m a n beings w h o

are in contradiction to him;

dialectical

thinking says that for h u m a n beings G o d is the W h o l l y O t h e r .

29

It is only w h e n human beings see themselves simply as human beings, no longer as g o d s , that they are in a position to perceive the w h o l l y other nature of G o d . It is only w h e n w e cease to be unhappy supermen and pathetic mini-gods and permit ourselves to become h u m a n beings through and through again that w e let G o d be G o d , as Luther said. W e can even g o a step further and say: it is only w h e n w e men and w o m e n become w h o l l y godless, in the sense that w e dispense with every self-deification

or

presumptuous pretence of resembling G o d , that w e can perceive the w h o l l y other reality of the true G o d ; and conversely, where w e experience the w h o l l y other G o d , w e can dispense with our anxious and aggressive ' G o d c o m p l e x ' , and become true human beings. ' T o k n o w G o d means to suffer G o d , ' says a wise old Greek saying, d r a w n from experience. T h e experiences of the G o d of A b r a h a m , Isaac and J a c o b , M o s e s and Jesus, endorse the truth of this saying. It is w i t h pain that people first perceive the w h o l l y other reality of G o d . A c c o r d i n g to Christian experience, these are the pains of dying from G o d and the joys of being born again out of G o d . O n l y through the total change of o u r selves do w e perceive the w h o l l y other reality of G o d . T h i s kind of knowledge of G o d has received its concentrated

theological

form in the theology of the cross, w h i c h says that G o d is hidden beneath cross and suffering, so that the true misery of men and w o m e n , w h i c h seems to be so G o d - f o r s a k e n , is the place where G o d encounters us. 'In the moments of G o d ' s

profoundest

revelation there w a s a l w a y s suffering of some kind: the cry of the oppressed in E g y p t , the cry of Jesus on the cross, the birth pangs of the w h o l e creation as it waits for its r e d e m p t i o n . '

30

'In

so far as G o d is revealed in his opposite, he can be k n o w n by the godless and those w h o are abandoned by G o d , and it is this knowledge w h i c h brings them into correspondence with G o d a n d , as I J o h n 3.2, says, enables them even to have the hope of being like G o d . '

3 1

The Knowing of the Other

149

Is this dialectical k n o w i n g out of diversity, out of difference and out of contradiction, identical with that mediaeval principle of analogical k n o w i n g , according to w h i c h between the creature and the Creator, in spite of all similarity, there is a l w a y s a

still greater dissimilarity? 'Quia inter creatorem et creaturam non potest tanta similitudo notari, quin inter eos major sit dissimilitudo notandd ('Because between the Creator and the 1

creature so great a likness cannot be noted without the necessity of noting a greater dissimilarity between t h e m ' ) . This

dissimilarity

in

all

the

similarity

32

distinguishes

the

C r e a t o r from those he has created in an ideal sense. But in our reality w h a t w e are faced with is the sinner's contradiction of G o d , and G o d ' s revelation to the godless through his c o m passion with them. T h e k n o w l e d g e of G o d in the truly godless can only be found in the event of their acceptance by G o d , and that means in the crucified Christ: ' E m m a n u e l - G o d w i t h us with us godless men and w o m e n . '

3 3

It is only on the basis of this

knowledge of G o d in the event of justification that it is possible to talk again about the correspondence of human creatures to their C r e a t o r , and to speak of the analogies of the h u m a n being w h o corresponds to G o d . O n l y G o d ' s contradiction of our contradiction creates correspondences and similarities even in still greater ontological dissimilarity.

(iv) The origin of knowing in wonder In the practical process of k n o w i n g , w e a l w a y s link the elements that correspond and the elements that contradict. If there w e r e no likeness there w o u l d be no c o m m o n ground and therefore n o possibility of k n o w i n g . A n d if there were nothing 'other', then there w o u l d be no need to k n o w . In k n o w i n g in the specific sense, w e need both the endorsement of the correspondence and the pain of the contradiction. K n o w i n g is remembrance and expectation, remembrance of w h a t is familiar and expectation of w h a t is new. It is therefore both re-cognition and a fresh cognition. But where do w e find the root of k n o w i n g ? O f course k n o w -

150

The Changing Values of the Modern World

ledge is guided by as m a n y interests as there are human desires. But

that

is

merely

to

name

the

subjective

factors

which

e m p o w e r the capacity for the k n o w i n g w h i c h is already existent and must be presupposed. T h e root of k n o w i n g itself is not just subjective;

it is objective

at the same time. It lies in

elemental form of encounter between the a w a k e n i n g

the

human

senses and the impressions m a d e on them by the w o r l d . T h e Greek

philosophers

knowing

wonder.

therefore called

the deepest ground

of

In w o n d e r the senses are opened for the

immediate impression of the w o r l d . In w o n d e r the things perceived penetrate the senses fresh and unfiltered. T h e y impose themselves on us. T h e y make an impression on us, and w e are impressed. In w o n d e r , things are perceived for w h a t they are

time.

for the first

T h e w o n d e r i n g child still has n o ideas with w h i c h to grasp

its impressions, and as yet no concepts with w h i c h it can circumscribe them. It is only the second or third time that it remembers, and exercises a repeatable a p p r o a c h to the impressions that c r o w d in upon it. B y the twentieth time, this perception is then already familiar, and w e react in understanding and will, as w e have learnt. It no longer astonishes us. W e are no longer surprised. W e are prepared for it, as w e say. T h a t is w h y w e g r o w n - u p s attribute w o n d e r to the childlike eyes w h i c h perceive and experience the w o r l d for the first time. A n d yet, even at the depths of the perceptions of adult people there is still a little element of w o n d e r . In the reality of life in time, nothing ever repeats itself in the strict sense; every m o m e n t is unique and once for all. Consequently it is only the w o n d e r in us that is capable of grasping the non-recurring moment. People w h o can no longer be astonished, people w h o have got used to everything, people w h o perceive only as a matter of routine and react accordingly: people w h o live like this let reality pass them by. Every chance is singular and unique. T h a t is its nature. T h e same chance never comes twice. T h e r e is never a

'second'

chance, for time is irreversible. ' N o one enters the same river twice,' said Heraclitus. T h e people w h o have kept their original capacity for w o n d e r sense the uniqueness of the moment. T h e y

The Knowing of the Other perceive that uniqueness w i t h the openness with w h i c h they grasped the firstness of things. In w o n d e r w e do not yet grasp grasp that they are

there.

what things

look like, but w e

W e perceive with astonishment that

they are there. W e understand in an elemental w a y the w o n d e r of existence - of

Dasein,

the being-there itself. W e are often

astonished that w e ourselves are

there,

although w e do not

k n o w w h y w e are there or w h a t for. T h o s e w h o are cast into astonishment by this 'there-ness' also experience that they themselves are really there, and are not an illusion. T h a t means that through w o n d e r w e grasp the 'being there' of the w o r l d and our o w n thereness. It is only later that w e grasp the w h a t

and

h o w . But simple 'thereness' w e never understand. It remains astonishing. Is it not important to trace back again and again our k n o w ing, our interest in k n o w i n g , the ideas w h i c h w e form out of experience, and the concepts with w h i c h w e order our ideas to the elemental w o n d e r over existence itself? Otherwise w e could come to perceive only our perceptions, and see nothing more of the phenomena. Otherwise w e could c o m e to see only w h a t w e w a n t to see, and g o almost blindly through life. Otherwise w e could cease to k n o w other people because w e have tethered ourselves fast to our pre-judgments about them, and simply w a n t to have these confirmed. Otherwise w e could c o m e to think that the products of our religious fantasy

are G o d , and

notice

nothing of the living G o d . Reality is a l w a y s more surprising than w e are capable of imagining. ' C o n c e p t s create idols, only w o n d e r understands,' said the wise G r e g o r y of N y s s a .

3 4

People w h o s e unique character w e

respect continue to astonish us, a n d our w o n d e r opens u p the freedom for n e w future possibilities in our community w i t h them. T h e w o n d e r s of nature too still astonish us, if in our busyness w e can pause and sink into the contemplation of a

flower

or a tree or a sunset. But the most astonishing thing of all seems to me to be the ground of the 'being-there' of all things, the ground w h o m w e have to thank for there being anything there at all. T h e O n e w e call G o d eludes our ideas, which nail him

152.

The Changing Values of the Modern World

d o w n , and our concepts, w h i c h try to bring him within our grasp; and yet he is closer to us than w e ourselves -

intimo meo,

as Augustine k n e w .

35

interior

F o r 'in him w e live and m o v e

and have our being'. In 'the darkness of the lived m o m e n t '

36

we

become a w a r e of G o d ' s presence. W o n d e r is the inexhaustible foundation of our community w i t h each other, w i t h nature, with G o d . W o n d e r is the beginning of every n e w experience and the ground of our creative expectation of the n e w day.

5 Freedom in Community between Globalization and Individualism: Market Value and Human Dignity

(i) The double danger Like all other life, h u m a n life is shared life, communicated and communicating life, c o m m u n i o n in communication. T o d a y the necessary communities w h i c h m a k e up h u m a n life

are

threatened from t w o sides: on the one hand by the stepped-up

individualism of modern the global marketing of

men and w o m e n , and on the other by everything, including relationships. S o

w h a t is true freedom: individual freedom of choice, or the principle of the free market e c o n o m y ? T h e global marketing of everything and every service is m u c h more than pure economics. It has become the all-embracing l a w of life. W e have become customers and consumers, w h a t e v e r 1

else w e m a y be. T h e market has become the philosophy of life, the w o r l d religion, and for some people even 'the end of history'. T h e marketing of everything destroys community at 2

all levels, because people are weighed up only according to their market value. T h e y are judged by w h a t they can perform or by w h a t they can afford. T h e traditional

family

community is being weakened by the

o v e r w o r k of some and the long-term unemployment of others. Its capacity

for social integration is diminishing. After

the

reunification of G e r m a n y , m a n y w o m e n in the east had themselves sterilized, so that they w o u l d be in a position to compete

i54

The Changing Values of the Modern World

in the job market. T h e birth rate sank drastically. In the cities, the number of single parents, mostly w o m e n , is about

40%.

M e n are turning into w o r k a h o l i c s , w i t h the three typical male C s : career, competition, collapse. The

civil

3

community is becoming increasingly polarized: a

rich upper class on the one hand, and impoverished masses on the other. T h e rich live in gated communities -

in a gilded

prison; the p o o r vegetate in the slums and ghettos and in prisons of iron. Is there a social contract between rich and poor? T h a t w a s already R o u s s e a u ' s ironical question. Every modern democracy is based on the principles of liberty and equality. T h e A m e r i c a n Declaration

of Independence maintained that

'all

men are created equal, and are e n d o w e d . . . with the right to liberty'. Is liberal democracy possible in the unbridled market e c o n o m y - in pure, deregulated capitalism? T h e disagreeable answer is: p r o b a b l y not, for liberal democracy presupposes a certain degree of economic equality -

w h i c h in sociological

terms means a strong middle class - and this is eliminated by the neo-liberal l a w s of the market. Not

least,

w e a k e n e d the

the

internationalization

national

of

production

has

community, and with it the national

welfare state. Article 1 4 . z of the G e r m a n constitution or Basic L a w (the

Grundgesetz)

states that 'Property involves obligation.

It must be used for the benefit of all.' But h o w can transnational corporations be sued for their neglect of this social obligation w h i c h property involves? T h e i r only goal is the dividends of the shareholders. O n a national level they can no longer be either controlled or obligated. W h a t A m e r i c a n or G e r m a n can compete with Indians or Chinese w h o w o r k for less than a dollar an hour? T h e internationalization of the flow of capital makes it impossible for national governments to exercise any control over it. O n the contrary, they are dependent on it themselves. H a s the nation state become obsolete? W h a t c o m munities in w h i c h people can identify themselves still exist in the global and total marketing of everything? A r e there any alternatives? Unlike Francis F u k u y a m a , I do not believe that the end of history will have been reached once

Freedom in Community there are n o more alternatives -

contradictions marketing

of

only w h e n n o

challenging

thrust f o r w a r d to a n e w solution. But the global

everything

produces

enormous

discrepancies,

personal and social, economic and ecological, w h i c h can mean the end of humanity unless n e w solutions can be found.

(ii) Three Dimensions of Human Freedom Let us turn first to the personal side of the danger, and ask whether progressive individualism can sustain personal h u m a n dignity and personal freedom. (a) T h e

first definition

political history, is

of

freedom,

familiar

freedom as domination.

to us

from

Because all history

up to n o w c a n be v i e w e d as a permanent struggle for p o w e r and the increase of one's o w n p o w e r , the only person w h o is called free in this struggle is the one w h o acquires the p o w e r , and rules. T h e losers and the subjugated are called 'unfree'. O n e linguistic root of the w o r d freedom comes from the slaveo w n i n g society: only the masters are free - not their slaves, w o m e n and children. But people w h o understand freedom as domination can be free only at the expense of other people. Their freedom means oppression for others; their wealth makes other people poor; their p o w e r makes the w e a k e r powerless. T h a t is w h y the liberty of those w h o are 'free' a l w a y s brings in its w a k e those tiresome security problems. People w h o understand freedom as domination really k n o w only themselves as determining subjects, and everything else as their property, their object. Freedom is a function of property. T h e y do not k n o w other people as persons. Even if w e say today that people are free if they c a n do and leave undone whatever they like, w e are still understanding freedom

as rule -

as

the human being's a u t o n o m y over himself or herself. C . B. M a c p h e r s o n has s h o w n

4

h o w the liberation of the bourgeois

w o r l d led from feudalism to 'possessive individualism': n o one m a y be any master's slave or serf, everyone is his o w n master, everyone belongs to himself. T h e very w o r d s 'lordship' and 'mastery' themselves s h o w the degree to w h i c h the under-

156

The Changing Values of the Modern World

standing of freedom as rule and self-rule derives from the male world. T h e middle-class liberalism w h i c h succeeded princely a b s o lutism in Western E u r o p e held on to the model of the feudal autocrat, and democratized it. E v e r y o n e has the same right to liberty. T h i s individual liberty is limited only by the liberty of all the rest. S o anyone w h o lays claim to liberty must respect the same liberty in other people. E v e r y o n e is the boundary of other people's liberty. N o one determines over anyone else; everyone determines over himself. E v e r y o n e is free and on his o w n , and no one takes any interest in the others. N o t i o n a l l y , or in the abstract, this is the society of solitary individuals w h o do not meddle w i t h each other - a society of social frigidity.

5

In this

w a y freedom becomes general. But is it true freedom? N o : for a

person

is not an

individual.

T h e distinction is

simple, but is seldom made. A c c o r d i n g to its Latin meaning, an

individuum

is something ultimately indivisible, like ' a t o m ' in

G r e e k . A person, in comparison, is - as M a r t i n Buber s h o w e d 6

(following Feuerbach, Hegel and H ó l d e r l i n ) - the individual 7

human being in the resonant field of his or her relationships, the relationships of I, T h o u and W e , I-Myself and I-It. In the netw o r k of relationships, the person becomes the h u m a n subject of taking and giving, listening and doing, experiencing and touching, hearing and responding. W e

a p p r o a c h humanism

only

w h e n w e pass from individualism to personalism. T h a t is w h y I w o u l d maintain that the freedom of h u m a n persons cannot be safeguarded by increasing individualism. O n the contrary, the increasing individualism of people in modern society contributes to their fresh enslavement. 'Divide and rule' w a s the proven R o m a n method of domination. If w e w a n t to rule over other people, w e must separate them from each other as far as possible, isolate them, drive them apart and individualize them. W h e n in this division w e arrive at the final and indivisible entity, that is the subjugated person per

se.

The

modern individual is therefore the end-product of the divideand-rule method. W h a t w e have are individuals in an atomized world.

Freedom in Community

I 5 7

H o w can h u m a n persons protect their dignity and freedom in spite of the pressure of individualization? B y becoming capable of community, and prepared for community. T h a t is the truth of the communitarian n e t w o r k .

8

But w e cannot revert to the

predetermined affiliations of traditional societies. W e

should

then have to give up the personal liberties w e have w o n , and let traditions or hierarchies rule over us again, and decide for us. But w e can keep our personal dignity and freedom if w e take a step f o r w a r d . T h e person w h o is free is 'the being w h o can promise', said Nietzsche, w i t h penetrating insight; and I w o u l d add: ' a n d the being w h o must keep his promise.' T h r o u g h the promise I make, I make myself - equivocal though I a m - unequivocal for others and for myself. In promising w e commit ourselves and become reliable and calculable for other people. People w h o forget their 9

promises, forget themselves as well. People w h o remain true to their promises remain true to themselves t o o . If w e keep our promises, w e w i n the trust of others. If w e break them, other people distrust us - and rightly so, for then w e lose or deny our identity, and in the end no longer k n o w ourselves. Y e t 'trust is g o o d , control is better', said Lenin, the C o m munist, w h o mistrusted his o w n people. A n d with this principle he laid the foundation stone for the self-destruction of the socialist w o r l d . C o n t r o l is so costly and so endlessly extravagant because the controllers

always

have

to be controlled

too,

so the state security services eat up the national budgets, and a profound

mistrust

of

each

against

all

spreads

among

the

people: ' Y o u r neighbour could be an informer. Be on y o u r guard!' Promising and keeping promises, giving and receiving trust, are not restraints on personal freedom. T h e y are the concrete form freedom takes. W h e r e do I feel personally free? In a supermarket, where I can buy w h a t I w a n t (as far as m y m o n e y goes), but where n o one k n o w s me, and not even the girl at the checkout looks me in the eye? O r in a community where others affirm me just as I am? T h e first is the reality of modern, individual freedom

to

158

The Changing Values of the Modern World

choose. T h e second is the reality of communicative freedom. T h e first freedom is related to things, the second to persons. (b) T h e other definition, familiar from social history, defines

freedom as free community.

Here freedom is not an attribute o

the determining subject. It is a qualification of the intersubjective relationships in w h i c h and from w h i c h the human subjects live. T h a t is the concept of communicative f r e e d o m .

10

N o t every community is a liberating community. There are communities w h i c h are highly exclusive and repressive, which w e have to break out of if w e w a n t to experience freedom. G e r m a n linguistic history s h o w s that friendliness or kindness

(Freundlichkeit)

is the other root of freedom

(Freiheit).

person w h o is free is friendly, affectionate, open, pleasant and loving, says Kluge's

Th

Etymologisches Wörterbuch. People w h o gastfrei - hospitable - have m a n y guests

are w h a t G e r m a n calls

and 'give freely'. T h e y let other people participate in their lives and are interested in the welfare of others. Intersubjective relationships are called free if they are marked by mutual respect and by friendliness on both sides. If I k n o w that I am respected and loved, then I feel free, because I can come out of m y shell and can behave as I really am. If I open myself for others, I recognize them for w h a t they are, and love them. I open a free space for them socially, so that they c a n blossom. In a community of mutual respect, of liking, friendship and love, the other person is no longer a restriction of m y personal freedom. T h a t person is the social complement of m y

own

limited freedom. T h e result is reciprocal participation in the life of other people. People become free beyond the frontiers of their o w n lives, and the outcome of this mutual participation is shared life, 'the g o o d life'. W e call this ' a free society'. It is the social side of freedom, w h i c h is often so neglected. In the Christian c o m m u n i t y w e call it love, and in sociology solidarity. A free society is therefore not a collection of private, free individuals. It is a community in solidarity, where people intervene on one another's behalf, and especially for the w e a k , the sick, the y o u n g and the old. In this society w e experience a coming together of the individuals w h o

Freedom in Community

I J 9

are otherwise isolated and solitary. T h e community in solidarity is a resistance movement against domination through the 'divide and rule' method. If a h u m a n subject is related to objects, .then freedom takes the form of rule. If h u m a n subjects are related to each other, then freedom takes on the form of community. T h e r e is n o other w a y in w h i c h the dignity of human beings can be respected, for human

dignity

subjects a l w a y s

means

that

human

beings

are

determining

and everywhere, and must never, ever, be

degraded into objects -

into slaves, w o r k force or

'human

material'. T h e freedom to rule and the freedom of a community must be strictly distinguished if freedom is to be preserved. (c) T h e third definition of freedom takes us beyond both these others.

Freedom is the creative passion for the possible.

d o m is not just turned t o w a r d s things as they are, as it is in domination. N o r is it directed only to the community of people as they are, as it is in solidarity. It reaches out to future, for future is the u n k n o w n realm of possibilities, whereas present and past represent the familiar sphere of realities. T h e Greeks understood freedom lation of individuals into the h u m a n

polis

as a harmonious assimi-

polis,

and of the h u m a n

into the divine cosmos. ' T o live according to nature' w a s

accounted to be the true life in freedom. M a r x and Engels too still made use of this idea w h e n they taught that freedom w a s 'insight' into the 'necessity' of w o r l d history, through w h i c h capitalism w a s to be replaced by socialism, and socialism b y communism. W h e n w e align freedom t o w a r d s future and understand it as creative expectation, w e are d r a w i n g on the biblical - the J e w i s h and Christian -

'principle of h o p e ' (Ernst Bloch).

Creative

passion is a l w a y s fascinated by a project for the future, w h i c h is anticipated in creative imagination. W e w a n t to realize n e w possibilities. T h a t is w h y w e expect from the future the n e w day. O u r rational understanding becomes productive fantasy,

no

longer aligned t o w a r d s the present condition of things but looking t o w a r d s w a y s of improving them. Like M a r t i n Luther King, w e have visions and dreams of another life, a life healed, just

Free-

i6o

The Changing Values of the Modern World

and g o o d . W e explore the possibilities of the future in order to realize these dreams, visions and projects. A l l cultural and social innovations belong to this sphere of freedom for the future. Christian possibility-thinking has lent powerful impulses to this understanding of freedom: ' W i t h G o d all things are possible' and 'AH things are possible to him w h o believes.'

11

U p to n o w w e have understood freedom either as rule - the relation of a subject to objects -

or as community, in the

relation of subject to subject. But in relation to d o m is a creative

movement.

projects,

free-

A n y o n e w h o in thought, w o r d and

act transcends the present in the direction of the future is truly free. Future is the free space for creative freedom.

'Denken heisst überschreiten' -

thinking

means

going

beyond: that is the epitaph written on Ernst Bloch's tombstone in Tübingen. It is true that for this w e need hope. But a c o m munity must permit this creative freedom t o o , and must not hinder it. M a n y communities, h o w e v e r , have conservative tendencies; they w a n t to preserve w h a t is actually there, and to curb the possible. T h e y are focussed on stability, not innovation. In the former G e r m a n Democratic Republic, students were trained to w o r k together. A l l the members of a seminar were given the same mark at the end. In m y seminars in a W e s t G e r m a n university, the groups were creative in 'brainstorming', but not w h e n they w r o t e their seminar papers. T h o s e had to be conceived and written by individuals. Will the 'communitarian movement' promote the spirit of hope and innovation? If it hinders that spirit it will soon be superseded. O n e final thought in this connection: freedom as rule by a subject over objects is

a function of property. Freedom as community is a social function.

unhindered, life-furthering

Freedom as a transcending into the possibilities of the future is

a creative function.

T h e first has to d o with having, the second

with being, and the third with becoming. In this last respect, freedom is not a possession, nor is it a quality. It is

a happening.

W e have our creative liberty only in

the process of liberation. W e are never free once and for all, but w e can continually

become

free. A n d only the people w h o make

Freedom in Community use of their freedom remain free. If it is not used, freedom is an empty slogan. In history, freedom is experienced in liberating events, processes and movements. W e are not yet in 'the realm of freedom' itself, but only on liberating paths which lead out of the old conditions of the past into the n e w possibilities of the future. In history, and if w e follow the remembrances of the Bible, w e find freedom in the continual exodus from enslavement and lethargy, and on the long march through the desert; but not yet in the promised land, w h i c h is 'the end of history'. Freedom is like the m a n n a in the wilderness. It cannot be stored up. W e can only trust that t o m o r r o w it will be there again. S o w e have to use our freedom every day. T h e three dimensions of freedom I have named have to be balanced out. T a k e n by itself, freedom as the rule of subject over objects leads to the global market society of having. T a k e n by itself, freedom as c o m m u n i t y leads to a w o r l d of total c o m munity. Freedom as rule can be gathered u p into freedom as community only if freedom as initiative and responsibility for a c o m m o n future is in the foreground. F o r this purpose, the categories of having and being can be integrated without adverse mutual

effects

into the comprehensive

category

any of

becoming and of a sustainable development.

(Hi) Is the market to be the measure of all things? The

globalization

of

markets

and

production

is

seriously

endangering all traditional communities, from the family and civil society right d o w n to the nation as a c o m m u n i t y in solidarity.

12

T h e capacity of these communities for social integra-

tion is becoming weaker. T h e y are also increasingly unable to compensate for the h u m a n costs of the global marketing of everything. I a m not an economist. I a m a Christian theologian, and think of the experiences of pastors and social w o r k e r s w i t h the people w h o d r o p out of the net of our economic system, or w h o never find a w a y into it. I a m an ecumenical theologian, and listen to the voices - and to the speechlessness - of people in the countries of the T h i r d W o r l d , particularly in Africa and

162

The Changing Values of the Modern World

Latin A m e r i c a . M y questions to the global market e c o n o m y spring from this context. i . There were already markets before there w a s any modern society: otherwise t o w n s w o u l d never have g r o w n up out of the little marketing centres. M a r k e t relationships were originally based on barter. People produced for their o w n needs, and took the surplus to market. In the modern w o r l d that has radically changed. T h e market has become an institution which penetrates all sectors of life. W e speak of the money market, the market-maker on the stock e x c h a n g e , the labour market, the food market, the drug market, the marriage market. W e fetch our drinks from the 'cash and c a r r y ' market. W e talk about the religions, morals and philosophies of life that are ' o n offer'. It is no longer h u m a n needs w h i c h regulate production; it is the requirements of the market. In the last twenty years, the O l y m p i c G a m e s have been transformed from an athletic contest into a marketing event. T h e participants are misused as living advertisement hoardings and advertising media, as w e s a w at the C o c a C o l a games in A t l a n t a . T h e first question many people ask is consequently: is the market there for the sake of men and w o m e n , or are men and w o m e n there for the sake of the market? In families, neighbourhoods and free communities h u m a n relationships exist in mutual recognition and acceptance. If the market becomes the dominant p o w e r , then relationships of mutual recognition and acceptance

come

to

an

end.

The

self-respect

experienced

through the recognition gives w a y to the value assigned by the public market. People w h o look for a j o b on the labour market soon discover that their value is merely w h a t they are able to offer as performers or purchasers. People w h o lose their jobs because of the rationalization or globalization of production, sense from their inner feeling of personal value the degree to which they have identified themselves with their value as performers.

Because

we

are

supposed

to

'fulfil

ourselves'

through w o r k and consumption, if w e have n o w o r k and are p o o r w e lose our o w n selves. ' H e didn't give the performance w e expected of him,' w e are told, w h e n footballers or trainers

Freedom in Community are sacked. It is not just the winners - the losers too adopt as their o w n the public scale of values w h i c h rests on competition in the public market, and c o n d e m n themselves as failures. Less money -

less value -

less self-confidence.

Here the market

society, w h i c h rewards only the competent performers and the successful, brings with it severe personal and family problems. It has done a w a y with the old society based on rank, in w h i c h people found their identity through their birth, family nation; it n o w assesses only performance and its s u c c e s s .

13

and Every

pastor and teacher a m o n g us k n o w s that t o belong to the n e w poor is the best-kept family secret. O f course w e k n o w intellectually that a person is more than his or her market value. O f course w e believe that h u m a n dignity is one and the same, whether it be the dignity of the person w h o 'sleeps r o u g h ' or the dignity of the L o r d M a y o r . But the human dignity w h i c h is a conscious creed does not have as regulative an effect on public life as the human being's market value.

It acts

unemployment

on

our

benefit

public and

conscience, social

so

security

that

through

payments

we

'cushion' (as the phrase goes) the lot of the people w h o have dropped out of the labour market. But it no longer acts on society itself, w h i c h is given over to the market. T h e 'social' market economy functions quite well w h e n w e can afford it. But it is w h e n w e cannot afford it that people need it most. M a r k e t value or h u m a n dignity: w h a t society do w e really w a n t ? Is 'the social component' only supposed to alleviate the social damage caused by the market society and to reduce the h u m a n costs? O r can w e plan a future in w h i c h the market benefits the w h o l e human community? O n e step on the w a y w o u l d be to stop making the global market either into an idol w h i c h has to have its victims, or into a demon which has to be feared, and to cut it d o w n to human size. Competitive struggles and comparisons of market value are as adolescent as boys w h o knock each other d o w n or girls w h o preen themselves in front of the mirror. A n o t h e r stage in society's maturity is undoubtedly conceivable, a stage in w h i c h w e w o u l d move from the principle of competition to

164

The Changing Values of the Modern World

co-operation,

and g r o w

as h u m a n beings beyond

anything

w h i c h the market c a n achieve. T h e long-term jobless m a n or w o m a n w h o w a l k s w i t h head held high in unbroken dignity and the manager w h o turns d o w n the next step up the career ladder for his family's sake k n o w that there are m o r e important things in human terms than the market. 2.

T h e global market looks different w h e n w e no longer see

it from within but from outside, and do not enjoy its benefits on the upper side of its history but suffer it on its downside. In the countries of the T h i r d W o r l d , fatalism is spreading, and w i t h it the feeling that this is the end of the r o a d , the w o r l d ' s finale. T h e mega-cities in the T h i r d W o r l d are sinking into anarchy and violence, and are becoming u n g o v e r n a b l e .

14

T h e very genesis of

the Third W o r l d is causally linked with the beginning of the modern w o r l d . T h e T h i r d W o r l d countries first served the exploitation of gold, silver, cotton and coffee, and the enslavement of millions; later they were the source for

shipments

of cheap labour. T h e n the debt trap took the place of direct exploitation. T o d a y countries w h i c h neither possess appreciable resources of r a w materials nor can offer the prospect of w o r t h while markets are ignored. T h e y drop out of the global market. Millions become surplus people. N o one can use them. T h e y easily become the victims of violence, as in R w a n d a , o r of the plagues w h i c h are c o m i n g back again in the guise of epidemics, as in Latin A m e r i c a - not to speak of A I D S in A f r i c a . M a s s movements are taking these people into the islands of prosperity. In the future w e could well see poverty crusades against the rich countries. E v e n harsh l a w s designed to restrict emigration

and

political

asylum

will

not

protect

'fortress

E u r o p e ' o r 'fortress N o r t h A m e r i c a ' or J a p a n . W i t h o u t justice between the First W o r l d and the T h i r d , there will be no lasting peace. But w h a t d o we w a n t ourselves? M o r e property o r better community? T h e alternative to poverty is not property. T h e alternative

to

both

poverty

and

property

is

community.

C o m m u n i t y w i t h the people of the T h i r d W o r l d involves the creation of bearable living conditions in their countries. W h a t has been destroyed in those countries through unjust prices on

Freedom in Community

J6

5

the w o r l d market cannot be made g o o d by w a y of 'development aid'. T h e w o r l d market itself must turn into development aid. But that requires long-term investments in place of short-term profits. T h e present globalization of production m a y unintentionally become a kind of development aid for eastern E u r o p e , India and Africa. Here t o o , w o u l d it not make sense to change the goals of the w o r l d market, and to give precedence to the developing

countries,

because

ultimately

their

development

benefits everyone? 3. Finally, 'the ecological market e c o n o m y ' is g o o d , but the feeble ecological measures are insufficient to repair the injury done to the natural environment, and to avoid n e w damage. T h e felling of the rain forests and the g r o w t h of the deserts s h o w that the ruthless marketing of everything leads to ruin. O n l y bankrupts are out for short-term profits, and for the sake of these profits they are selling the foundations of life w e all share. U p to n o w the global market has been one-sided in its orientation t o w a r d s h u m a n beings, not the earth. If w e think long-term and for coming generations, it is advisable to m o v e from ecological damage-limitation to an economic 'policy for the earth', such as Ernst von Weizsäcker has demanded. U p to n o w , the earth's organism has hardly played any part on the global market. T h e earth has dumbly endured the exploitations of its r a w materials and has been the silent recipient of the outpouring of h u m a n rubbish. But humanity has meanwhile become so numerous a species that its food requirements and its output of rubbish are threatening to destroy the

planetary

environmental system, which is the basis of h u m a n life itself. S o in the c o m i n g century the earth is going to become the factor w h i c h will have to be respected everywhere in our economic and political calculations. This will change our spiritual attitude to the earth t o o . F r o m being an object of our domination, w e shall see it as a source of everything living w h i c h w e have to revere. Here too values and goals will change. W h a t w a s up to n o w a merely subsidiary concern -

ecological consideration -

will

become the main thing; for if this w o r l d ceases to exist there will be n o global market and no w o r l d religions any more.

166

The Changing Values of the Modern World

T h e h u m a n race is a relatively late species in the evolution of the living. Perhaps w e are still at the adolescent stage, intoxicated by our o w n p o w e r , w a n t i n g to test our strength in c o m petitive struggles, and ruthlessly draining to the dregs the earth, w h i c h is our mother. W e can take our bearings from older creatures and from the earth itself, so as to become more mature and, in the end, adult. W e need science and better technology, but w h a t w e need most of all, if w e w a n t to survive, is more w i s d o m in our dealings with knowledge and technology. W e need, not m o r e profits and m o r e expansion, but more w i s d o m in dealing w i t h the dynamics of the global market. I believe that, n o w that the market has been globalized, w e should reduce it to the dimensions w h i c h h u m a n beings and nature can endure, so that it can be integrated into the greater values of the h u m a n community w i t h the earth. W e shall learn this in one w a y or another, of that I a m convinced: either through conviction, or through catastrophes. I a m for learning through conviction.

III Theology and Religion

I

The Pit - Where Was God? Jewish and Christian Theology after Auschwitz

O n 23 A u g u s t , 1 9 4 1 , in Belaya T s e r k o v , a t o w n in the Ukraine not far from Kiev, ninety J e w i s h children were shot, t h r o w n into a pit and buried there. S o m e of them were tiny babies. T h e oldest of them w a s seven or eight years old. Their parents were a m o n g the

3,000

or

5,000

J e w s in the t o w n , men, w o m e n and

children, w h o h a d already been shot. T h e ninety children had been left over - a remnant. A u g u s t Hafner, w h o ordered the children to be shot, w a s at that time an officer in the S S , in T a s k Force I V a . In 1964,

dur-

ing an interrogation, he gave the following account: ' T h e a r m y had already dug the pit. T h e children were brought in a tractor-drawn

truck. I had nothing to d o w i t h the

technical details. T h e Ukrainians stood around trembling. T h e children were taken d o w n from the truck. T h e y w e r e stood up above the pit and shot so that they fell into it. T h e children just stood there, and where they were hit they were hit. T h e y fell into the pit' (Documentation for the film Die

Grube ( T h e

Pit') b y Karl Fruchtmann, R a d i o Bremen,

December 1995).

21

170

Theology and Religion

(i) The horror remains I can only approach this question with fear and trembling. I a m overwhelmed b y the same horror as I w a s the first time, w h e n in 1959

I went through w h a t w a s left of the concentration c a m p

in Maidanek/Lublin, s a w the gas chambers, the mountains of children's shoes and the shorn hair, and for horror and shame wished that the ground w o u l d open and s w a l l o w me up. Karl Fruchtmann's film

Die Grube transports

one again into the

same horror: ninety J e w i s h children, babies, and all of them under eight, were shot, thrown into a pit, and buried. T h e a r m y had dug the pit. T h e S S carried out the murder of the children. A n d this w a s long before the W a n n s e e conference. It happened on 23

August 1941,

only three months after the attack on

Russia. This murder w a s part of the extermination of J u d a i s m and the J e w i s h people which w a s planned and carried through to the end in G e r m a n y by the Third Reich. T h e horror doesn't w e a r off with time. T h e remembrance doesn't fade. E v e r y

attempt after more than

fifty

years

to

historicize the mass murder of the J e w s by us G e r m a n s founders w h e n it is confronted with the abyss of horror and brought face to face with G o d . F o r before G o d there is no statute of limitations, either in the detachment of the past o r through the alleged 'grace of a late birth'.* Before the Eternal O n e everything is simultaneous and present. T h a t is w h y the horror that lays hold of us in the face of that crime is unplumbed, fathomless. W e cannot repress it, for w e cannot grasp it. It is there, and goes with us from one generation to another. N o r is the horror lessened by any comparison. Every attempt to

set

off

Auschwitz

against

the

Gulag

Archepelago,

or

Hiroshima, or Srebreniza, is stillborn w h e n it is brought up against the abyss of horror at ourselves. People belonging to our o w n country, people no different from ourselves, were the pepetrators - perhaps seduced, blinded, drunken perpetrators. But are w e sure today that it couldn't be us? W h a t w a s a reality once is a l w a y s possible again. A n d w e shall not rid our* The phrase applied to himself by the then chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The Pit - Where Was God?

171

selves of the horror by relativizing it either. O u r burden will not be any lighter because w e compare other mass murders and 'ethnic cleansings': on the contrary. W e shall never be able to understand A u s c h w i t z and w h a t happened in Belaya T s e r k o v , nor shall w e be able to forget it. But w e must open our minds to the questions with which they confront u s . N o t h i n g is just as it w a s before: our relation to !

ourselves, our relation to G o d , or our relation to Israel, to the J e w s . But w h a t is it going t o be? I a m a Christian theologian, and I have to address

and

wrestle w i t h the question about G o d after A u s c h w i t z . T h a t is not just a question for believing men and w o m e n a m o n g the Jews

and the G e r m a n s . T h e question

about G o d

was

the

question of the antisémites and the murderers of the J e w s as well. There I agree with Dieter K o c h .

2

Why

did the mass

murder of the J e w s only really get under w a y w h e n the w a r had already been lost? W h y were J e w s from all the Balkan countries still herded together and gassed in A u s c h w i t z at the end of 1944,

w h e n the Russian front w a s already close, and

was

inexorably moving f o r w a r d ? W h y did E i c h m a n n have the right to use r a i l w a y trucks for this purpose, although it weakened the G e r m a n front? W a s n ' t that totally irrational? O f course there were the perverse 'plot' theories of the N a z i s , according to w h i c h the real opponents in the w a r were not the Allies but ' J u d a h ' , the messianic ' T h i r d R e i c h ' having the historic destiny to bring about 'the final solution of the J e w i s h question', even if it itself perished in the process. But behind this apocalyptic messianism of 'the Reich' there w a s at the deepest depths something else as well: the hatred of G o d , and the will to exterminate not only the J e w s but with them the G o d of A b r a h a m , Isaac and J a c o b and his eternal righteousness and justice, so as to establish the atheistic despot. T h e murder of the J e w s w a s an attempt to murder G o d .

172-

Theology and Religion

(ii) The question about God in suffering and God's question about guilt T h e suffering of helpless children from w h i c h there is no w a y out, and w h i c h has n o meaning, makes people cry out for G o d and despair of G o d . 'If there is a G o d , w h y this suffering?', ask some. ' W h e r e w a s Israel's G o d w h e n his children were thrown into the pit? W h e r e w a s the Christian G o d w h e n people belonging to Christendom turned into these cruel monsters w h o faithfully and in faith carried out the c o m m a n d s of the Antichrist? After A u s c h w i t z can w e g o on believing in an almighty, g o o d G o d in heaven? After A u s c h w i t z , c a n even evil still w o r k for good? T h a t is the w a y some people ask about G o d : their questions are theoretical questions. H o w can G o d permit this if he is just? T h e y have the impression that G o d is a cold, blind force of destiny, for w h o m the dying and death of his h u m a n children is a matter of indifference. People think about G o d like this because they are afraid of becoming like that themselves

-

untouched, cold and cynical t o w a r d s suffering. But isn't this socalled theodicy question w r o n g l y framed? W h y did G o d permit this? Given a negative slant, this is an onlooker's question, the question of onlookers w h o ask ' w h y ' after the event, and yet k n o w perfectly well that a n y answer that begins

'because'

w o u l d make a mockery of the sufferers and w o u l d blaspheme G o d . G i v e n a positive turn, this question of theodicy is not the question w h i c h the people involved ask. It is the question of the people w h o m o u r n for them: ' M y G o d , w h y , w h y . . . ? ' W e cannot answer that question in this w o r l d , but w e cannot let it drop either. W e have to exist in the question and with it, as with an open w o u n d in our lives.

3

T h e question asked by the sufferers themselves is not ' W h y does G o d permit this?' It is more immediate than that. Their question is ' M y

G o d , where are y o u ? ' , or, more

generally,

' W h e r e is G o d ? ' T h e first question -

w h y does G o d permit this? -

is the

question h o w G o d can be justified in view of the immeasurable

The Pit - Where Was God?

!73

suffering in the w o r l d . T h e second question - the question of the people involved - is the cry for G o d ' s companionship in the suffering of the w o r l d , a suffering w h i c h he condemns. T h e premise of the first question, the ' w h y ' , is an apathetic G o d w h o is supposed to justify himself in the face of h u m a n suffering. T h e second question, the ' w h e r e ' , seeks a G o d w h o shares o u r suffering and carries our griefs. But then there is still a third question about G o d , w h i c h w e often suppress with the help of the first. It is G o d ' s question about men and w o m e n . It is n o t the question about the victims. It is the question about the perpetrators and those w h o have to live in the long s h a d o w s of A u s c h w i t z . T h i s question is w h a t w e call the question of justification, meaning by that, not that G o d has to justify himself to the w o r l d for its suffering, but that the evil-doers, the murderers and those w h o have to live in their s h a d o w s , have to justify themselves before G o d . C a n the g o d less become just? Is there reconciliation for the perpetrators and those w h o c o m e after them? Is conversion to life possible? After A u s c h w i t z , do w e still have a human future w o r t h living for? In this context w e d o n ' t cry ' W h e r e is G o d ? ' . W e hear the eternal voice w h i c h cries ' A d a m , w h e r e are y o u ? ' and ' C a i n , where is your brother A b e l ? ' and ' W h a t have y o u d o n e ? ' . W e shall n o w listen first to J e w i s h voices 'after A u s c h w i t z ' in order to learn from them. O u t of the m a n y I have picked out four:

Richard

Rubenstein

and

Emil

Fackenheim,

Eliezer

Berkovits and Elie Wiesel. After that w e shall listen to the first approaches to a Christian 'theology after A u s c h w i t z ' . Here I have taken J o h a n n Baptist M e t z and Dorothee Solle, and have ranged myself beside them. B u t after that w e shall g o over to the other side, w h i c h has been so inexcusably neglected, and ask about the life of the people burdened by guilt, and about the future of C a i n and those w h o s e collective biography bears the mark of C a i n . It is the question w h i c h Simon Wiesenthal has p u t to us all in the story he tells in

The Sunflower:

is there any

reconciliation for w h o s e w h o bear the burden of guilt?

i74

Theology and Religion

(in) Jewish theology after Auschwitz: is Israel's God 'the Lord of history'? T h e shock of A u s c h w i t z went so deep that it w a s decades before the few w h o escaped could talk about it; and a long time w a s needed before the first questions were put to theology in the J e w i s h community, and afterwards to Christian theology too. F o r J e w s , building up the state of Israel and the struggle for its existence w a s in the foreground, and for Germans the assimilation of the displaced persons from the Eastern territories, and the reconstruction of the ruined cities. T h e fact that the discussion did not begin earlier is not a reason for reproach on the part of those born later. T h e great 'after A u s c h w i t z ' discussion w a s p r o b a b l y started

After Auschwitz. Radica Theology and Modern Judaism, w h i c h appeared in 1966 by R i c h a r d Rubenstein w i t h his b o o k (revised

1992).

4

I have met him personally several times, but

have never understood w h y with that book he m a d e c o m m o n cause w i t h the G o d - i s - d e a d movement in the Protestant theology of the United States. But I took the questions w h i c h moved him very seriously indeed. O n the one hand his concern is the theological

question

whether the G o d of Israel is also the L o r d of history, so that it w a s G o d w h o tried to exterminate his o w n people in the gas chambers. A n d on the other he grapples w i t h the practical question whether he should give his children a J e w i s h upbringing, so that they m a y live as J e w s in this w o r l d in w h i c h A u s c h w i t z w a s possible, and will be possible again, or whether he should save them from that fate. H e t o o k over the first question from D e a n Griiber in Berlin, for it w a s Griiber w h o expounded G e r m a n y ' s fate to him as being G o d ' s will. W i t h the misery of the p o s t - w a r era, G o d w a s punishing sinful G e r m a n y . ' H a v i n g commenced w i t h his biblical interpretation of recent history, he could not stop until he asserted that it had been G o d ' s will to send A d o l f Hitler to exterminate E u r o p e ' s J e w s '

(2.61).

Griiber w a s not antisemitic:

The Pit - Where Was God?

1

?

on the contrary. H e had been imprisoned for years in a concentration c a m p because 'the Griiber office' protected persecuted J e w s . B u t with Griiber's theology of history Rubenstein's crisis of faith began. Is Israel's G o d the L o r d of history w h o acts 'all in all'? If w e view 'the s o r r o w s of Israel's history' as mere historical accidents, then w e live in a preposterous universe, a universe of the absurd. If it w a s G o d ' s providence, then G o d is a sadist w h o inflicts pain, and he chose Israel only s o that he could let it be exterminated in A u s c h w i t z . Israel's election is then 'the most fearsome curse that G o d ever inflicted' (262). Rubenstein

decided

' t o live

in a meaningless,

purposeless

C o s m o s rather than believe in a G o d w h o inflicts A u s c h w i t z on his people' (262). H e s a w quite correctly that N a z i s m w a s neither an old nor a n e w paganism, but that it w a s ' a kind of Judeo-Christian heresy' (267) - the black mass of the political Satan cult. A s the N a z i ideology with its symbols 'the Third R e i c h ' , the ' T h o u s a n d Y e a r s ' E m p i r e ' , ' t h e Fuhrer' and ' t h e Final Solution' s h o w s , it w a s political messianism. Rubinstein

puts

on record

as his personal

creed

after

A u s c h w i t z : 'I a m a p a g a n ' (267). W i t h this surprising phrase he means that he w a n t s t o leave the G o d of history, to w h o m Israel in exile h a d been delivered u p , and to return home to 'the gods of earth'. These are 'the gods of space and place, not the gods of time'. T h e y are 'the gods o f h o m e and hearth', no longer 'the gods of w a n d e r i n g ' . B y the return h o m e he means the homecoming of the J e w i s h people from the galuth t o 'the land'

-

Eretz Israel. ' A u s c h w i t z w a s indeed the terminal expression of

exile' (268). W h a t Richard Rubinstein says a n d w a n t s t o say is not a l w a y s entirely clear, but he h a s lightning shafts of insight. A s far as I k n o w he does n o t live in Israel, but in the exile of Florida. H e has n o t renounced his J u d a i s m , a n d has n o t h a d his children brought u p as secular pagans. B u t he has asked the t w o correct questions: Is Israel's G o d the L o r d of history? a n d : C a n one bring u p children in J u d a i s m after A u s c h w i t z ? Emil Fackenheim (with w h o m I have often talked about this) has replied to Rubenstein's second question: 'Hitler failed to

Theology and Religion murder all J e w s , for he lost the w a r . H a s he succeeded in destroying the J e w i s h faith for those of us w h o have escaped? . . . A n d w h a t of us . . . w h e n w e consider the possibility of a second A u s c h w i t z three generations hence? Y e t for us to cease to be J e w s (and to cease to bring u p J e w i s h children) w o u l d be to abandon our millenial post as witnesses to the G o d

of

history' ( 7 1 ) . 'In faithfulness to J u d a i s m , w e must refuse to dis5

connect G o d from the holocaust' (76). 'If all present access to the G o d of history is w h o l l y lost, the G o d of history is Himself lost', he writes (79). But then all that remains is the cry of total despair: 'there is no judgment and no judge.' Hitler w o u l d then not only have murdered a third of the J e w i s h people, but the J e w i s h faith too - w o u l d have slain not just Israel but Israel's G o d . A n y o n e w h o after A u s c h w i t z declares that G o d is dead, and renounces his J e w i s h faith, is giving Hitler the posthumous victory over the J e w s and the G o d of Israel which he w a s unable to achieve during his lifetime. A t this point Emil Fackenheim speaks imploringly: ' T h e J e w s are forbidden to hand Hitler a posthumous victory. T h e y are c o m m a n d e d to survive as J e w s , lest the J e w i s h people perish . . . Finally, they are forbidden to despair of the G o d of Israel, lest Judaism perish' (84). which

speaks

T h a t is G o d ' s ' c o m m a n d i n g voice'

to the J e w s

and

the other peoples

through

A u s c h w i t z . In order to make the voice heard, it is our duty to hold those murdered in A u s c h w i t z in remembrance and not to forget them. 'It is precisely because A u s c h w i t z has made the w o r l d a desperate place that a J e w is forbidden to despair of it'

(88).

Citing Psalm

119.92,

Fackenheim appeals to the T o r a h : 'If

y o u r l a w had not been my delight, I should have perished in m y affliction.' T h a t is the reason w h y hope after A u s c h w i t z is for J e w s the c o m m a n d to exist, to survive, to hold out, and to bear witness to G o d . Emil Fackenheim's book in N e w Y o r k in 1970.

God's Presence in History

appeared

A few years ago he left C a n a d a and

'returned h o m e ' to Israel. But in this idea about G o d ' s presence in the voice of the categorical imperative is the G o d of Israel more than the G o d of the T o r a h ? D o e s the c o m m a n d to be a

The Pit - Where Was God?

177

J e w in this w o r l d after A u s c h w i t z already m a k e him 'the G o d of history'? I d o not believe that this is w h a t Fackenheim means. But where, and w h o , then, is the G o d of history? Eliezer Berkovits belongs to an older generation of rabbis. H e sees A u s c h w i t z in the wider context of Israel's history of suffering:

6

' W e have had innumerable A u s c h w i t z e s ' (90),

even if

nothing equals the tragedy of the G e r m a n death c a m p s . 'Is it possible to take cognizance of the E u r o p e a n holocaust in the light of J u d a i s m ' s faith in a personal

G o d ? ' , he asks, and

answers: it w a s not a divine punishment for Israel's sins. It w a s 'injustice absolute'. But because G o d permitted it, 'the ultimate responsibility for this ultimate in evil must be G o d ' s ' (89). 'I a m the L o r d , and there is none else . . . I m a k e peace and create evil; I a m the L o r d that doeth all these things,' says Isa.

45.7.

Only if w e admit this almighty p o w e r is it possible to believe in the G o d of history, the G o d w h o exercises Providence and executes justice. O n l y with this presupposition do the prophets and psalmists wrestle with G o d . O n l y with this premise does the righteous J o b contend with G o d . But then w h a t about the evil and the undeserved suffering in history? There is suffering w h i c h derives from sin, but there is undeserved suffering too - an injustice w h i c h G o d tolerates and permits. F o r this the T a l m u d uses the telling phrase ' T h e hiding of the face'

(bester panim).

Because G o d 'hides his face', the

sufferer cannot find G o d in his misery, and cries with Psalm 44.17-2,6:

'Awake,

why

sleepest

Thou,

O

Lord?

Arouse

Thyself, cast not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? . . . Redeem us for T h y mercy's sake.' G o d can 'hide his face' out of anger over something specific - 'because of sins committed', says Berkovits of general

indifference.

If G o d

punishes

but also out

someone, he

has

obviously not forgotten that person. T h e greater extremity is therefore the impression that G o d has forgotten us, that w h a t happens to us is for him a matter of indifference - though the expression for this is indeed n o longer G o d ' s 'hidden face' but his 'averted face'.

178

Theology and Religion

T h e G o d w h o 'hides' his face is present through his absence that is to say, w e sense his presence through our missing of him; his place, as it w e r e , is unfilled. But behind this there is also the fundamental absence of G o d from h u m a n history. T h a t does not provide an answer to the question ' W h y is there undeserved suffering?'. T h e question it answers is ' W h y are there human beings with the freedom to do evil?'. Berkovits answers: 'If m a n is to be, G o d must be longsuffering w i t h him; he must suffer m a n . T h i s is the inescapable p a r a d o x of divine Providence. W h i l e G o d tolerates the sinner he must a b a n d o n the victim; while he s h o w s forebearance with the w i c k e d , he must turn a deaf ear to the anguished cries of the

(106).

violated'

Berkovits

concludes

from

this:

'He who

demands justice of G o d must give up m a n . H e w h o asks for G o d ' s love and mercy beyond justice must accept

(106).

7

suffering'

A n d yet that is the particular nature of G o d ' s 'omni-

potence' in h u m a n history. H e imposes shackles o n his omnipotence and becomes powerless so that h u m a n history m a y be possible. ' G o d is mighty in the renunciation of his might, in order to bear w i t h m a n '

(109).

Berkovits sums up his contribu-

tion to 'theology after A u s c h w i t z ' in the exulting w o r d of praise: ' W h o is like y o u o u r G o d , mighty in s i l e n c e ! ' ( i i 3 ) .

8

This theological interpretation of the A u s c h w i t z phenomenon d r a w s on the divine self-restriction implicit in the creation of free human beings. But impressive though it is, the interpretation is - t o put it simply - g o o d for the evil-doers but b a d for the victims; and that is not just, and therefore not divine either. Elie Wiesel's famous A u s c h w i t z book

Night appeared

in

1958

in France, with a foreword b y the Catholic philosopher Francois M a u r i a c , and from 9

i960

o n w a r d s it increasingly influenced the

'after A u s c h w i t z ' discussion in A m e r i c a and G e r m a n y .

Here

w e shall look only at the one, so often quoted, scene w h i c h no reader c a n ever forget. T w o men and a child are hanged in the c a m p before the eyes of the assembled prisoners. T h e men cry ' L o n g live liberty!' and die quickly. T h e child is quiet. ' " W h e r e is G o d ? W h e r e is H e ? " someone behind me asked.

The Pit - Where Was God?

I ? 9

A t a sign from the head of the c a m p , the three chairs tipped over. T o t a l silence throughout the c a m p . O n the horizon the sun w a s setting. . . . T h e t w o adults were n o longer alive . . . But the third rope w a s still m o v i n g ; being so light, the child w a s still alive . . . F o r more than half an hour

he stayed there,

struggling

between life and death, dying in slow a g o n y under our eyes Behind m e , I heard the same man asking: " W h e r e is G o d now?" A n d I heard a voice within me a n s w e r him: " W h e r e is H e ? H e r e H e is -

H e is hanging here on this

gallows . . . " T h a t night the soup tasted of corpses'

(Night, 6L). 7

Elie Wiesel describes a horrifying reality, but he describes it in highly symbolic terms. T h e child is described as ' a n angel w i t h sad eyes'. T h e three murdered victims and the setting sun remind us of the death of that other J e w on G o l g o t h a . But the soup that tasted of corpses does not point f o r w a r d to a n y Easter. T h e answer to the question ' W h e r e is G o d ? '

comes

through 'a voice within m e ' , like the voice of G o d in a prophet. W h a t does the voice disclose? G o d is not absent. H e is present. G o d is not hidden. H e is there, visible to everyone in the dying child.

10

Is God himself the victim?

D o e s G o d die there, once and for

all, in the innocent child with the sad eyes? T h a t is the w a y Elie Wiesel has often seen it: 'I shall never forget the moments w h i c h murdered m y G o d and m y soul. 1 shall never forget the flames which consumed m y faith for ever.' O r is G o d the one w h o suffers and dies with and in the children of Israel, and is yet the Eternal O n e ? Elie Wiesel has frequently given this interpretation too. It goes back to the rabbinic idea of the Shekinah: ' G o d will dwell in the midst of the Israelites.' T h a t is parr of the old covenant promise to w h i c h

i8o

Theology and Religion

G o d ' s people o w e s its existence. G o d m o v e d w i t h his people out of bondage in E g y p t . G o d dwelt in the A r k w h i c h they carried with them. G o d had his abode in the H o l y of Holies of the Temple on Z i o n . W h e n the T e m p l e w a s destroyed in 5 8 7 , G o d went into exile with those w h o were deported, and shared Israel's sufferings in exile as the G o d w h o is homeless in this godless w o r l d . W h a t the children of Israel suffer, Israel's G o d suffers too, the G o d w h o dwells a m o n g them and w a n d e r s with them. Shekinah - that is G o d ' s indwelling in his people by virtue of his self-humiliation. T h r o u g h this self-humiliation the Eternal O n e w h o m the heavens cannot contain becomes the companion on the w a y and the fellow-sufferer of his people on this e a r t h . " W h e r e that child hangs o n the gallows G o d hangs on the g a l l o w s t o o . W h e r e that child suffers torment, G o d himself is tormented. W h e r e that child dies, G o d himself suffers the child's death. ' T h o u g h I m a k e m y bed in hell, y o u are there,' says Psalm 139

about the omnipresent G o d ; even in the hell of A u s c h w i t z

G o d w a s there - but not as the L o r d of history: as the victim a m o n g millions of victims. Elie Wiesel took comfort from this rabbinic idea about G o d

the fellow-sufferer

-

God

himself

shares our suffering and 'a trouble shared is a trouble halved'. But he discovered the double burden t o o , since with our human suffering w e have to endure G o d ' s suffering as well. F o r that reason the answer of that 'voice within him' remains ambiguous for Elie Wiesel. ' H e hangs there on the g a l l o w s ' - that means that Jewish child is not alone, not forsaken by G o d ; G o d suffers with him. ' H e hangs there on the g a l l o w s ' - but that also means that that child and w e w h o have to look o n endure the unending suffering of G o d on w h i c h every naive belief in G o d breaks d o w n and shatters. Elie Wiesel's summing u p is this:

'We

cannot understand it with G o d . A n d w e cannot understand without h i m . '

1 2

But the idea of G o d

the fellow-sufferer

is

clearly g o o d for the victims, and clearly bad for those w h o inflicted the suffering.

The Pit - Where Was God?

181

(iv) Christian theology after Auschwitz: is the God of Jesus Christ 'the Almighty'? It w a s only late, very late, that w e of the p o s t w a r generation became a w a r e that 'after A u s c h w i t z ' the situation of theology had changed. A n d right d o w n to the present day there are still only a few, a very few, in the Protestant and the Catholic tradition w h o in G e r m a n y seek for conversion because they perceive the long road that led to A u s c h w i t z . M a n y

people

w o u l d rather g o on as before, after this ' m i s h a p ' , and believe that theology, w i t h G o d , stands beyond this historical tragedy. O n e of the most important admonitory voices in a theology which consciously thinks and speaks 'after A u s c h w i t z ' is m y friend J o h a n n Baptist M e t z .

1 3

' A u s c h w i t z touches us all,' he

says. ' T h e incomprehensible thing is not just the apotheosis of evil and not just the silence of G o d . It is the silence of human beings: the silence of all those w h o looked on, or looked a w a y , and by doing so delivered u p this people in its deadly peril to an unspeakable loneliness' Christians

can

never

(1x3).. go

T h a t is w h y , he goes on, w e

back

again

to

the

time

before

A u s c h w i t z . ' B u t strictly speaking w e can n o longer get beyond A u s c h w i t z by ourselves, but only together w i t h the victims' (144). A future after A u s c h w i t z ' w i t h the victims' means first of all listening to these victims w h e n they begin to speak. I w o u l d add to this by saying that in G e r m a n y w e unfortunately took the second step before the first. W e began with Jewish-Christian dialogue at the assemblies, and

left

Kirchentage,

the H o l o c a u s t

the lay church

conferences, where

the

victims themselves speak, to the Americans. A u s c h w i t z w a s not the physical end of J u d a i s m - but w a s it perhaps the spiritual end of Christendom, an end w h i c h w e have not yet noticed? In the 1960s A d o r n o caused a furore with his dictum that 'after A u s c h w i t z there is no more p o e t r y ' .

14

All the same, there

w a s poetry - the poetry of Paul Celan and N e l l y Sachs. But w e w e r e brought face to face with the question: can w e still talk about G o d after A u s c h w i t z ? T h e answer w h i c h came to M e t z and to me at that time w a s this: in A u s c h w i t z the Shema Israel

182

Theology and Religion

w a s prayed, and the L o r d ' s Prayer t o o . W e can pray

after

A u s c h w i t z because people prayed in A u s c h w i t z (124). But w h a t can w e say about G o d after A u s c h w i t z ? F o r M e t z , A u s c h w i t z shattered every theology of history, because in the face of the murdered victims of A u s c h w i t z

there c a n be n o Christian

'theodicy', n o justification of G o d , a n d n o 'meaning in history' either. T o w a n t to justify G o d in the face of 'the pit' and to seek a meaning in that appalling event w o u l d be blasphemy. S o the question ' A n d w h e r e w a s G o d o n that 23 A u g u s t 1 9 4 1 ? ' is one that w e cannot answer. But can w e simply let the question g o by default without forgetting the dead children? Metz

wants

to

liberate

Christian

theology

from

the

triumphalist victors' history of 'the Christian W e s t ' and to t h r o w it open again for 'the remembrance of suffering' a n d the bleeding w o u n d of the question about G o d . T h e victors of history are untouched, apathetic, because they are almighty. T h e y have n o feeling for the sufferings of their victims because they are incapable of feeling guilt. Like their G o d , they are omnipotent and impassible. A n d if they are after all unable t o be quite that, they suppress their o w n weakness and look for scapegoats f o r their helplessness. M e t z has continually insisted on remembrance of the suffering of the victims of o u r w o r l d , has counselled 'theodicy sensibility', a n d finally expressed the not unfounded

supposition that the deeper reason for the

apathy of people in the Western w o r l d could be that G o d has forsaken

them

and withdrawn

from

them

his life-giving

presence. O u r 'social frigidity' is grounded on the objective remoteness of G o d : G o d hides his face from us and leaves us to our self-chosen roads into the a b y s s . Adolf

15

Hitler believed in a G o d t o o . H e called him 'the

A l m i g h t y ' , w h o w a s going to pin victory on o u r banners. Hitler idolized almighty p o w e r , and with it himself. T h e A l m i g h t y

-

that is 'the L o r d of history' w h o is a l w a y s on the side of the big batallions, and triumphs with the triumphant. ' T h e A l m i g h t y ' that is absolute potency without a n y virtue. ' T h e A l m i g h t y ' can do whatever he w a n t s . B u t w h a t does he really w a n t ? ' T h e A l m i g h t y ' - that is the apathetic deity w h o determines every-

The Pit - Where Was God?

8

X

3

thing and is determined by no one, w h o rules everything and suffers nothing, w h o c a n a l w a y s merely speak and never listen. All absolutist rulers in history have taken the stage on the model of this picture of G o d , from Genghis K h a n to Hitler. It w a s therefore

quite right w h e n

after A u s c h w i t z

the

theological

revision of the generally held picture of G o d began w i t h G o d ' s omnipotence. W h e r e w a s the G o d

' w h o o'er all things

so

w o n d r o u s l y reigneth' in A u s c h w i t z ? T h e rethinking w a s begun by a theologian w h o w a s hanged in a concentration c a m p on 9 April 1945 resistance

to

Hitler:

Dietrich

because of his active

Bonhoeffer.

In

1944,

in

his

G e s t a p o cell, he discovered that 'only the suffering G o d can help'.

16

Christ helps not by virtue of his omnipotence but by

virtue of his suffering. It is true that generally accepted religious feeling points h u m a n beings in their necessity to G o d ' s p o w e r in the w o r l d . But the Bible points them to G o d ' s helplessness and suffering in that w o r l d . T h e h u m a n being is called to suffer with G o d ' s suffering over the godless w o r l d : 'Christians stand beside G o d in his suffering.' It is this w h i c h distinguishes Christians from pagans. H o w did Bonhoeffer c o m e to talk about G o d ' s helplessness and his suffering in the w o r l d , and to put this in place of religious talk about A l m i g h t y G o d ? This other thinking has t w o roots. O n the one hand there w a s the English discussion about the passibility of G o d , w h i c h went entirely unnoticed b y theology in G e r m a n y , but w h i c h put a profound stamp o n A n g l i c a n theology.

17

T h e other root is the rabbinic Shekinah theology,

w h i c h talked about G o d ' s 'self-humiliation' and his participation in Israel's sufferings in exile, and in this w a y comforted the

forsaken

and

persecuted

people.

'In

his

"indwelling"

(Shekinah) in the people he suffers with the people, g o e s with them into imprisonment, feels their pains with the m a r t y r s . '

1972,

in

The Crucified God,

I

interpreted

Elie

18

In

WiesePs

A u s c h w i t z story in the light of this Shekinah theology of the rabbis. Dorothee Solle followed me in this in 1 9 7 3 ,

Suffering:

' S o one can say that G o d ,

in her book

in the form

of

this

184

Theology and Religk

n

Shekinah, hangs on the g a l l o w s a t Auschwitz and w a i t s " f o r the initial movement t o w a r d s redemption to come from the w o r l d . . . " Redemption does not c o m e t o peoplef m outside or from ro

a b o v e . G o d w a n t s to use people in order to w o r k on the c o m pletion of his creation. Precisely for this reason G o d must also suffer w i t h the c r e a t i o n . '

19

G o d is not the powerful

t y r a n t . In the conflict

between

perpetrators and victims, 'the suffering God' is a l w a y s on the side of the victims - indeed he himself is the victim in, w i t h and a m o n g the victims of those w h o wield power. T h i s w o r l d ' s history of suffering is the history of God's suffering t o o , the G o d w h o does not merely

permit

the evil act because he wishes

men and w o m e n to be free, but also

endures

the evil act in the

victims, and receives only the victims into eternal community w i t h him. A G o d w h o cannot feel suffering cannot understand us. A G o d w h o cannot suffer c a n n o t love either. E v e r y loving man or w o m a n w h o through love is capable of suffering is more than a G o d like t h a t .

20

A t this point there are again t w o possible interpretations. If G o d is n o longer the A l m i g h t y , w h o has everything under control, then w e human beings are called to participate in G o d ' s suffering in the w o r l d and to collaborate - to be c o instrumental - in its redemption. Then 'the sanctifying of his N a m e ' and 'the doing of his will' is in our hands, and hence 'the coming of his k i n g d o m ' t o o . I respect thi humanist interpretas

tion of our responsibility for G o d , as D o t h e e Solle maintains r o

it. But I feel that it makes too great a demand on beings as ambiguous as us. G o d himself must help

u s

. If

?

a

s

Bonhoeffer

said, G o d does not help through his omnipotence but through his powerlessness, not through his untroubled bliss in heaven but through his suffering on this earth, then G o d is still the determining subject of redemption, both his o w n redemption from

his

suffering

with

us,

and

the

redemption

of

this

unredeemed w o r l d t o o . W h a t does the redemption look like? It then means that G o d ' s Shekinah unites itself again with G o d . In his

Redemption (1921)

F r a n z Rosenzweig s

a

w

Star of

it as follows: ' G o d

The Pit - Where Was God?

l 8 s

himself cuts himself off from himself, he gives himself a w a y to his people, he suffers their sufferings with them, he goes w i t h them into the misery of the foreign land, he w a n d e r s with their wanderings.'

21

This

divine

self-differentiation

is the

divine

suffering. It only finds an end w h e n the separated Shekinah, together with the forsaken people and the lost creation, returns home to G o d . Believing men and w o m e n are co-instrumental in this homecoming of the Shekinah and its union w i t h the w a i t ing G o d . In 'the sanctification of the N a m e ' and 'the doing of the will' of G o d , the Shekinah returns from the exile of the w o r l d , back to its divine origin. ' T o a c k n o w l e d g e G o d ' s unity the J e w calls it uniting G o d . '

2 2

It is the indwelling of G o d him-

self w h i c h g n a w s at our conscience and does not let us come to terms with injustice, but makes us protest and cry out for the d u m b and the silenced. T h i s is w h a t w e might perhaps call the mystical

interpretation

of

our

responsibility

towards

the

suffering G o d in 'the crucified peoples' of history. If in place of G o d ' s almighty p o w e r in history w e perceive G o d ' s sufferings in the victims of h u m a n violence, this means at the same time hoping for the coming of G o d in his almighty p o w e r , to judgment and to his k i n g d o m . G o d is not yet so present that he is efficacious 'all in all', w h i c h is w h a t Paul expects for G o d ' s coming k i n g d o m (I C o r .

15.28).

But G o d is

already so present that he dwells a m o n g the victims and the sufferers, comforting them through his eternal companionship. In the history of this w o r l d , the lordship of G o d is still in dispute. It is the victims and the martys w h o testify to it, as the B o o k of Revelation describes. But w h e n the glory of G o d itself enters into creation and his Shekinah fills everything and makes everything eternally alive, that lordship will be omnipotent and omnipresent.

The

challenges

to

faith

and

the

theological

difficulties arise because people believe that the omnipotence and omnipresent k i n g d o m in w h i c h G o d 'o'er all things so w o n d r o u s l y reigneth' is already present here and n o w . T h a t is a fallacy w h i c h by-passes the presence of G o d in history; for in history that presence takes the form of the cross.

186

Theology and Religion

(v) God's question: 'Cain, where is your brother Abel?' Finally, w e turn from our human questions about G o d to G o d ' s questions to us. It is good to learn theology from those w h o exist with the remembrance of the victims a m o n g their people. But it is necessary for us then to c o m e back to ourselves, w e w h o exist in the long s h a d o w s of the evil-doers and their appalling

acts w h i c h

were committed

in the name

of

the

German people, and have to seek for life. Solidarity w i t h the victims of A u s c h w i t z is important, but it does not yet help us out of the guilty liability which fetters us G e r m a n s to the evildoers then. Is there such a thing as a conversion to life? Is there community w i t h G o d , with a n e w confidence in living for us? H o w shall w e be free? Let me begin with a story w h i c h Simon Wiesenthal tells in his A u s c h w i t z book

The Sunflower.

W h i l e he w a s a prisoner in a

concentration c a m p , Wiesenthal w a s called to the death-bed of a man belonging to the SS, w h o w a n t e d to confess to him, the J e w , that he had taken part in mass shootings of J e w s in the Ukraine. H e w a n t e d to beg Wiesenthal's forgiveness so that he could die in peace. Simon

Wiesenthal

murderer's

he w a s

confession.

But

could

unable

to

listen to

the

forgive

him

because, he says, no living person can forgive murderers in the name of the dead. H e has neither the right nor the p o w e r . But Wiesenthal w a s so disturbed by this impossibility of forgiveness that he told his story to a number of European philosophers and theologians, and then published his o w n story together with the answers of these o t h e r s .

23

This story and Wiesenthal's o w n self-encounter in it make t w o things clear: 1.

T h e crime has been committed. T h e pit has been dug.

Nothing can m a k e undone w h a t w a s once done. N o t h i n g can 'make g o o d ' the murders, because no one can raise the dead to life again, and that w o u l d be the only thing that could 'make g o o d ' w h a t has happened. 2. T h e victims have been murdered. N o one can g o on living under the burden of guilt imposed by a story like this. It is still

The Pit - Where Was God?

l 8 ?

crushing even for people born later. It destroys self-respect and blocks the will to l i v e .

24

W h a t can one do?

T h e murderers have a l w a y s tried to blot out the remembrance of the m a s s murders w h i c h they cannot make undone. In

1944/45

H i m m l e r had the bodies dug u p out of the mass graves

and burned, so as to destroy all traces of them. In

Latin

A m e r i c a , people w h o have been murdered become 'the disappeared', the purpose being to eliminate every trace that might be a reminder of them, and that could be used to indict the murderers. But people w h o blot out their past destroy themselves. A n d all the religious traditions w e k n o w tell us that to live w i t h the load of a past like this, and neither to suppress it nor to be overwhelmed by it, calls for atonement, expiation. Only if injustice is atoned for do the unjust become free of their burden, so that they can live again. W i t h o u t liberation from the burden of guilt n o one, a n d no nation, can live. Y e t without atonement there is no liberation from the burden. But w h o can make this necessary atonement? Is atonement

humanly

possible? W h o can atone for A u s c h w i t z or for 'the pit'? Isn't this only possible for G o d ? In the cults of m a n y peoples, h u m a n crimes are atoned for through the death penalty, or vicariously through the sacrifice of animals. T h e sacrifices are supposed to pacify the w r a t h of the g o d s , w h i c h has been roused by the human w r o n g - d o i n g . In the T o r a h too w e find the possibility of liberation from the burden of guilt through expiatory sacrifice,

25

by w a y of the so-

called scapegoat. T h e priests laid their hands on the goat, transferring to it the sins of the people. Then they drove it off into the desert, so that it might carry a w a y the people's sins. T h i s scapegoat is not offered t o G o d by the people in order to pacify his wrath.

God himself

gives the scapegoat, in order

to reconcile the people w i t h himself again. G o d does not w a n t to

be reconciled.

H e himself

reconciles

human beings. T h a t dis-

tinguishes Israel's practice f r o m the sacrificial cults of the other peoples, and from h u m a n longings for self-punishment. A c c o r d i n g to the great vision in Isaiah 53, G o d will send a n e w ' S e r v a n t ' . Just as the first Servant of G o d , M o s e s , once led

188

Theology and Religion

the children of Israel out of their enslavement in E g y p t into the promised land of liberty, this n e w Servant of G o d will free the people from the enslavement of their sins, and lead them into the peace of the eternal righteousness. ' U p o n

him w a s

the

chastisement that makes us w h o l e , and by his w o u n d s w e are healed'

(53.5).

T h i s n e w Servant of G o d 'shall make m a n y to be

accounted righteous; for he bears their iniquities' The N e w

Testament

(53.11).

says that Jesus of N a z a r e t h

is this

'suffering Servant' and proclaims the crucified Christ to be the one ' w h o bears the sins of the w o r l d ' . A c c o r d i n g to the biblical traditions, it is a l w a y s G o d himself w h o ' b e a r s ' the burden of human guilt, and thus brings about reconciliation. G o d himself - the atoning G o d . H o w does this happen? G o d assumes our h u m a n guilt, making it his o w n suffering, and 'carries' the burden of it in our stead, so that w e can breathe again. ' T h o u w h o bearest the suffering of the w o r l d ' - that is for the victims. 'Thou who

bearest the sin of the w o r l d ' -

that is for the

perpetrators. G o d ' s suffering is a double suffering. In k n o w l e d g e of the guilt already atoned for in the boundless suffering of G o d , it becomes possible, w i t h o u t denying ourselves and w i t h o u t destroying ourselves, to face up to the appalling happening of the past and to keep alive the remembrance of the victims, and of the perpetrators. T o d a y reconciliation in the presence of the atoning G o d means holding this past in our remembrance. It must not be forgotten. But in the divine reconciliation the past is made inoperative, in the sense that it no longer determines the present, but lets the present be determined by that other future of righteousness a n d justice. Reconciliation means being absolved from the burden of guilt and being reborn to another life, so that there can be something new.

26

A c c o r d i n g to the biblical traditions, w h e n G o d 'forgives'

guilt he is anticipating in the midst of history that n e w creation in w h i c h this blood-soaked earth 'need not be remembered or taken to heart' (Isa

65.17;

R e v . Z I . I ) . O n l y if the forgiving of

sins leads to a remembering, can it one day also lead to a ' n o longer having to remember'. T h a t has nothing to do forgetting or suppressing.

with

The Pit - Where Was Godi In the face of our past, h o w c a n w e shape the future w i t h this hope? According to the ancient penitential ritual of the church, three acts belong to conversion and a turning a w a y from the s h a d o w s of the past into the light of liberty:

1.

The

confessio oris,

private confession - today that means

public confession of the collective past of our people. T r u t h is the first act of freedom. O n l y those w h o deal honestly with their past become free, are already free. ' T h e truth shall m a k e y o u free,' says the Gospel of J o h n .

2. T h e attritio cordis, the contrition of the heart. T o d a y that

means w h a t G e r m a n

calls

Trauerarbeit,

the w o r k

of grief,

which is needed if there is to be complete and utter freedom from the temptations and compulsions w h i c h led to those crimes. T h e change of heart is important, so that the rest does not remain a surface affair. A n d the examination of conscience that belongs here is not just a personal one; it is also a public examination of the ideologies w h i c h dominate our politics, culture and e c o n o m y today.

3. T h e

satisfactio operum -

satisfaction through g o o d w o r k s .

T o d a y that means acts of compensation, in so far as these are still possible, and also liberating initiatives carried out as 'signs of expiation' a m o n g the peoples w h o at that earlier time were the victims of our people. Acceptance of guilt - the w o r k of grief - first steps t o w a r d s justice: these are the possibilities open to us h u m a n beings, if atonement is to be transformed into conversion. A n d yet there is still a sombre remnant. O r rather, there is still an insoluble mystery between G o d and the guilty. A n d this w e ourselves and others too - even the victims and their children - must respect. It is the mark of C a i n : ' T h e L o r d said to C a i n , " W h e r e is A b e l y o u r b r o t h e r ? " H e said, " I d o not k n o w ; am I my brother's k e e p e r ? " A n d the L o r d said . . . " T h e voice of y o u r brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. A n d n o w y o u are cursed from the ground . . . "

C a i n said to the L o r d , " M y

punishment is

190

Theology and Religion

greater than I c a n bear . . . "

A n d the L o r d put a mark on

C a i n , lest any w h o came upon him should kill him' (Gen.

4.9-13, 1 5 ) . T h e m a r k of C a i n is at once an admonitory, reminding sign and a protective one. N o one m a y kill the person w h o bears that mark. N o r m a y that person take his o w n life. T h i s sign is the mark of our collective G e r m a n b i o g r a p h y .

27

2

Protestantism: 'The Religion of Freedom'

'It is not w o r t h while pursuing the fate of G e r m a n Protestantism any longer. F o u r hundred years of a glorious history are d r a w ing to a close. W h a t e v e r still exists in E u r o p e in the w a y of a

Volkskirche -

a church for the w h o l e people - will be C a t h o l i c '

So w r o t e the w e l l - k n o w n journalist J o h a n n e s G r o s s in M a y

1987

in the

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,

after he had read

some studies published by the Evangelical C h u r c h in G e r m a n y . * Is this melancholy prediction true, or is it Catholic wishful thinking? A t all events it challenges Protestants to think about w h a t they really are. T h e person w h o thinks about w h a t he is also asks w h e r e he has c o m e from, and addresses that past. H e asks w h e r e he is going, and tries to explore his future. There is no other w a y of arriving at self-awareness. Why

do I love Protestantism?

Why

a m I glad to be a

Protestant? I believe that the reason is freedom - freedom before G o d in faith, freedom of religion in face of the state, and freed o m of conscience in face of the church. But this freedom has its perils and burdens too. O f course everyone w a n t s to be free, but m a n y people shrink back from the dangers of freedom.

Of

course everyone w a n t s to be free, but m a n y people find the responsibility w h i c h is inextricably bound up w i t h freedom t o o heavy a burden. S o the longing for freedom is itself ambivalent, * The Evangelische Kirche Deutschland is a federation of Lutheran, Reformed and United churches. The word 'evangelical' is therefore employed here as the equivalent of Protestant, and implies no more distinct theological direction than that.

192,

Theology

and

Religion

for often enough it is linked with a flight from freedom. Do people in our society really crave for freedom of conscience and freedom of religion? Aren't a good many people afraid of the perils of freedom? Aren't they so sick of the torment of having to make their own choices that they are glad enough to let other people - or an authority - decide things for them? Do we really want 'freedom now'? Or would we prefer to shift our responsibility on to other shoulders, because it has become too heavy for us? Do we really want to 'come of age', as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, or would we perhaps after all if need be gladly become infantile and immature again, and find shelter under the cloak of 'Mother Church' or our 'Big Brother' the state? Progression and regression are often enough not far removed from one another. So it could well be that the fate of Protestantism in our future society and the fate of freedom in that society are one and the same. Where there is freedom there is Protestantism. If Protestantism relinquishes freedom, Protestantism will disappear. Let us look at the essence of the evangelical faith and Protestant ideas of freedom in the context of their three formative epochs: 1 . The Reformation of the sixteenth century, 2. The Protestantism of the eighteenth century, 3 . The ecumenism of the twentieth century. If we wished to characterize the differences, we might say that in the Reformation of the sixteenth century the point at issue was 'freedom of belief and the fundamentals of freedom in the church; in the Enlightenment period - the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - the argument centred on 'freedom of religion' and its personal dimension; while today, in the twentieth century, it is a question of ecumenical freedom in community, and the social dimension of freedom.

(i) 'Justified through faith alone' It is easy to discover the guiding idea behind the Reformation. As in all great movements, it is a simple one. It is recognition of

Protestantism: 'The Religion of Freedom' the justifying gospel. ' W e become righteous

193

before

grace, for Christ's sake, through faith alone,' as Article ^ * ^

ky

C

A u g s b u r g Confession of 1 5 3 0

says. T h e righteous G o d £

°^

judge according t o merits - g o o d w o r k s and bad; he

g

r

e

&

n

e

r

o

t

unjust men and w o m e n out of pure love, and for Christ's makes

them

just, righteous

and

good. That

was

Luth

>

'reforming perception': G o d is righteous because he righteous.

His

righteousness

is

not

a

righteousness

»•

U S

according to our deserts

it is a

righteousness

(iustitia distributiva); (iustitia iustificans). It is revealed

in C h r i

was

death

put

to

for

our

trespasses

and

raised

f

C

s

g

C r

V

2.41 Nohl, H., 2 7 4 n.23 Noormann, H., 2 6 6 n . 2 1 Nürnberger, R., 2 6 3 n.2

n.io Merton, T . , 7 8 , 2 6 7 n . i o , 2 7 0 n.23 Metz, J . B . , 1 6 , 4 3 , 4 9 , 5 7 , 1 7 3 , i 8 i f . , 2 6 2 n . 2 2 , 2 6 4 nn.24 and 2 7 , 2 6 5 n n . 2 8 , 3 , 4 and 6, 2 7 8 n n . 1 3 , 1 5 and 2 0

Oelmüller, W . , 2 6 4 n.24, 2 6 5 n.3, 2 7 6 n.3 Oestreich, G., 2 6 3 nn. 5, 6 and

9 Oetinger, C , 1 0 Ogden, S., 2 8 0 n.5 O ' G o r m a n , E., 6 Okino, C , 3 0

Index

291

Peukert, H . , 2 6 5 n.3

Romero, O.A., 2 0 , 6 5 , 2 5 3 , 262 n.27 Rosenzweig, F., i 8 4 f . , 2 7 8 n n . 2 1 and 2 2 Rothe, R., 2 1 6 Rousseau, J . J . , 1 5 4 Rubinstein, R., 1 7 3 , i 7 4 f . , 2 7 6

Philo, 1 0 3 Pinochet, A . , 6 5

n.4 Ruether, R.R., 2 7 1 n.27

Olevian, C , 3 0 Otto the Great, 2 3 8 Otto, R., 1 4 2 , 2 7 3 n . 1 4 Pannenberg, W . , 5 7 , 2 6 7 n.4 Peterson, E., 4 1 , 4 5 , 2 6 2 n.24

Picht, G., 2 6 7 n.4 Pico della Mirandola, G., 2 2 , 8 1 , 2 6 7 n . 1 2 , 2 7 2 n.3 Pizzaro, F., 2 3 8 Popper, K., 1 3 9 , 1 4 6 , 2 1 0 , 2 7 3 n-7 Prigogine, I., 1 4 7 , 2 7 4 n.28 Przwara, E., 2 7 4 n . 3 2 Ragaz, L., 5 8 , 7 0 Ramus, P., 2 6 Rahner, K., 2 4 3 , 2 6 5 n.6, 2 7 2 n . i , 2 7 8 n.20 Raiser, K., 2 7 9 n.4 Ratzinger, J . , 6 5 Rauschenbusch, W . , 7 0 Reagan, R., 2 1 9 Rees. T . , 2 7 0 n . 1 9 Reeves, M . , 2 6 1 n . 1 3 Rehberger, C , 2 7 1 n . 2 5 , 2 8 0 n-7 Rehm, J . , 2 7 2 n.4 Reinke, O., 2 7 1 n . 3 2 Richardson, H . W . , 2 6 5 n.3 Richter, H . E . , 2 6 2 n . 2 3 , 2 7 9 n.24 Riemer, F.W., 1 4 1 Riesman, D., 2 7 5 n.5 R o b b , C S . , 2 6 9 n.6

Sabbatai Z v i , 1 0 Sachs, N . , 1 8 1 Sahtouris, E., 2 7 1 n.26 Saladin, P., 2 7 2 n.2 Sartre, J.-P., 1 3 6 Schaeffer, F., 2 6 9 n.6 Schelling, F.W., 1 4 4 , 2 7 4 n.20 Schimanowski, G., 2 7 0 n . 1 7 Schleiermacher, F., 2 5 2 , 2 8 1 n.4 Schiette, H . R . , 2 6 0 n.6 Schmitt, C , 1 9 , 2 5 , 2 6 , 3 3 , 3 5 , 39ff-, 43> 4 4 , 4 5 , 2.63 n.13, 2 6 4 n n . 1 6 and 2 4 , 2 7 3 n . 1 2 Schreiner, S., 2 7 1 n.28 Schulze, G., 8 8 , 2 6 8 n . 1 9 Schumann, H . , 2 6 6 n . 2 0 , 2 7 5 n.i Schwager, R., 2 7 9 n.25 Schweitzer, A . , 2 1 5 , 2 4 2 Seattle, Chief, 99 Selznick, P., 2 6 8 n . 1 8 , 2 7 5 n.8 Shaull, R., 4 7 Simon, H . , 2 8 2 n.7 Singer, P., 8 4 , 2 6 8 n . 1 7 Singh, V . T . , 1 0 0 Sobrino, J . , 6 9 , 1 6 2 n . 2 7 , ^ 6 n n . 1 5 and 1 9 , 2 7 2 n . i , 2 7 4 2

292.

Index

n.30 Solle, D., 4 9 , 5 3 , 1 7 3 , i 8 3 f . , 2 6 5 n.3, 2 7 8 n . 1 9 Spener, P.J., 1 0 Speth, J . G . , 66 Spinoza, B. de, 4 1 , 4 2 , 1 4 1 Spranger, E., 1 4 1 , 2 7 3 n . 1 2 Standard, E.E., 2 6 0 n.5 Stahel, W . , 2 6 9 n . 2 2 Stahl, J . F . , 4 1 , 4 2 Stengers, I., 2 7 4 n.28 Strachen, G., 2 7 0 n.20 Stratton, G., 2 7 4 n . 1 8 Strauss, L., 3 9 h Stuhlmacher, P., 2 7 9 n . 2 5 Tamez, E., 64 Taubes, J . , 3 2 , 3 3 , 3 4 , 3 6 , 2 6 1 n.13, 263 n.13, 264 nn.15, 1 6 , 1 7 and 2 3 T a w n e y , R . H . , 2 6 9 n.7 Tempie, W . , 7 0 Terzani, A . , 2 7 5 n.3 Teichert, W . , 2 8 0 n.7 Teresa of Avila, 7 8 , 2 6 7 n . i o Teutsch, G . M . , 2 7 1 n.3 2 Theodosius, 2 2 9 Theophrastus, 2 7 4 n . 1 8 Tillich, P., 7 0 , 2 4 8 , 2 8 1 n.4 Todorov, T . , 1 4 2 , 2 6 0 n.5, 2 7 4 n . 1 6 , 2 7 9 n.2 Tödt, H . E . , 2 7 2 n.i Torres, C , 4 7 , 5 2 Toulmin, S., 2 6 8 n.20 Tracy, D., 2 3 6 , 2 8 0 n.5 Tuveson, E.L., 2 6 1 n . n , 2 6 4 n.18

Unseld, S., 2 6 5 n.7 Vespucci, A . , 9 Vischer, L., 2 6 6 n . 1 3 , 2 7 nn.30 and 3 1 , 2 7 2 n.2

1

Waits, J . L . , 2 8 1 n.i Weber, O., 2 8 1 n.4 Weber, M . , 9 8 , 2 6 9 n.7 Wedel, E . von, 2 8 0 n.7 Weidner, U., 2 6 6 n . i o Weizsäcker, C.F. von, 1 0 9 Weizsäcker, E. von, 2 1 , 9 5 , 1 0 9 , 1 6 5 , 2 6 2 n.29, 2 6 9 n.4, 2 7 4 n.27 Welker, M . , 2 7 2 n.i Wendorf, R., 2 6 8 n . 1 9 Wesley, J . , 2 0 2 , 2 1 5 Weth, R., 2 6 5 n . i , 2 7 5 n . 1 2 , 2 8 2 n.7 White, L., 2 6 9 n.6 Whitehead, A . N . , 2 7 8 n . 1 7 Wiedenhofer, S., 2 6 5 n.3 Wiesel, E., 1 7 3 , i78ff., 1 8 3 , 2 7 7 n.9, 2 7 8 n . 1 2 Wiesenthal, S., 1 7 3 , 1 8 6 , 2 7 8 n.23 Williams, D., 6 4 , 2 6 6 n . 1 4 Williams, R., 1 9 9 , 2 1 5 Winthrop, J . , 3 0 Witherspoon, J . , 3 1 Wolf, E., 2 6 2 n . i , 2 6 4 n.20 Wolzendorf, K., 2 6 2 n . i Zamora, J.A., 2 7 8 n.14 Zenger, C , 2 7 2 n.2 Zwingli, H . , 2 3 0