Conscience and Truth
Preliminary note by Kristo Ivanov, prof.em. Umeå University
(version 230822-1915)
This item is an essay by former cardinal and later
pope Benedict XVI Joseph Ratzinger discussing what
I perceive as being the limits of rationality in terms of the relation between
authority and conscience including personal convictions about scientific and
"intellectual" truth. In this essay Ratzinger approaches psychology
by referring to Albert Görres (cf. German Wikipedia), who attempts
a Christian Catholic approach to the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. A
superficial presentation of Gorres is available in English. His work is discussed in Benjamin Zieman "The Gospel of Psychology", Central European History, 39 (1),
2006, pp. 79-106 (ISSN 0008-9389). Swedish readers
can find his translated paper on the "Limits of
freedom" in Signum, 1980, nr 7.
The shortcomings of Freud's psychoanalysis in relation to Catholicism are at
least as difficult to understand as the shortcomings of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton's work in
relation to Eastern thought as discussed by Anthony E. Clark in Can you trust Thomas Merton?
Because of this I consider it more appropriate to relate the whole
psychological issue to the analytical psychology of Carl Jung, which also takes
care of Eastern thought. The theological question is then better relegated to
James W. Heisig's "Jung and Theology: A
Bibliographical Essay" in Spring, 1973 (ISBN-13:
978-0882140087). It may be completed with what Jung himself or his secretary
and editor Aniela Jaffé have written on the subject
in the controversial sort of “autobiography” Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Collins/Fontana Library,
1967, pp. 12-14 and 360 ff.) plus
knowledge of the relation between the phenomenology of Carl Jung and that of Max Scheler, and the development of
the latter phenomenology into "phenomenological
Thomism" in the PhD dissertation of Karol Wojtyla (later pope John Paul II).
Further stoff about the
issue can be found in Carl Jung on
"Catholicism" - Anthology. Unfortunately,
in my opinion the complexity of Jung's texts makes him often misunderstood by
those who criticize, sometimes aggressively, his understanding of
Christianity, most often by means of their low-quality references to secondary
and tertiary sources. Because of “the limits of counsel” in
Plato’s Seventh Letter, analogously to
"as the devil reads the Bible", he has been object of interpretations
in New Age’s beliefs and
practices, and by serious intellectuals as Peter Kingsley in Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity. In any
case I find that Ratzinger's use of Görres in this
essay is anyway inconsequential for the high value and interest of the
questions he raises, especially if one relates "authority" to power
as I do when referring to J.G. Fichte in several
papers such as Information and
Debate and Information and Theology.
---------------
CONSCIENCE AND
TRUTH
by Joseph
Ratzinger
[Presented at the 10th Workshop for Bishops February 1991 Dallas, Texas.
Provided
courtesy of EWTN. Additional
texts are provided at its "Search", the Catholic Encyclopedia, and Wikipedia]
In the contemporary discussion on what constitutes the essence of morality and
how it can be recognized, the question of conscience has become paramount
especially in the field of Catholic moral theology. This discussion centers on
the concepts of freedom and norm, autonomy and heteronomy, self-determination
and external determination by authority. Conscience appears here as the bulwark
of freedom in contrast to the encroachments of authority on existence. In the
course of this, two notions of the Catholic are set in opposition to each
other. One is a renewed understanding of the Catholic essence which expounds
Christian faith from the basis of freedom and as the very principle of freedom
itself. The other is a superseded, "pre-conciliar" model which
subjects Christian existence to authority, regulating life even into its most
intimate preserves, and thereby attempts to maintain control over people's
lives. Morality of conscience and morality of authority as two opposing models,
appear to be locked in struggle with each other. Accordingly, the freedom of
the Christian would be rescued by appeal to the classical principle of moral
tradition that conscience is the highest norm which man is to follow even in
opposition to authority. Authority in this case, the Magisterium, may well
speak of matters moral, but only in the sense of presenting conscience with
material for its own deliberation. Conscience would retain, however, the final
word. Some authors reduce conscience in this its aspect of final arbiter to the
formula: conscience is infallible.
Nonetheless, at this point, a contradiction can arise. It is of course
undisputed that one must follow a certain conscience or at least not act
against it. But whether the judgment of conscience or what one takes to be
such, is always right, indeed whether it is infallible, is another question.
[Proceed to the
complete text]