The Pope on conscience, reason ...
he tried to address an error that he perceived in how we think about conscience.
The existing model , he argued, was to view conscience as "the bulwark of freedom in contrast to the encroachments of authority on existence." One's government/church/boy scout group may order you to behave one way, but if your conscience tells you to do differently, it is considered more noble to follow your conscience...
Cardinal Ratzinger told the bishops about a faculty discussion from when he was a university professor in Germany. The dispute was over "the justifying power of the erroneous conscience."
One professor created a reductio ad absurdum using Nazi true believers. If we should follow our conscience above all else, he said, then we "should seek them in heaven, since they carried out all their atrocities with fanatic conviction and complete certainty of conscience." The example seemed straightforward enough for most of the profs, but the absurdity was lost on one or two observers. In fact, one colleague piped up "with utmost assurance that, of course, this was indeed the case. Hitler went to heaven."
"Since that conversation," Cardinal Ratzinger explained, "I knew with complete certainty that . . . a concept of conscience that leads to such results must be false. Firm, subjective conviction and the lack of doubts and scruples that follow from it do not justify man."
He went looking for a different conception of conscience -- one that didn't pit "morality of conscience" against "morality of authority." Finally, he decided that conscience has to work like language, from both within and without. One has the innate ability to speak, but it has to be learned by observation, imitation and interaction with others.
So it is with conscience: If one thinks of it as only an interior, almost occult, guide to life, he is likely to go badly wrong. (Cititi articolul, e interesant ...)
Recent si-a facut aparitia mult discutata carte a papei : "JESUS OF NAZARETH: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration", by Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI ... care, precum se stie, a stirnit rumori si controverse mai ales in lumea catolicilor.
Etalez mai jos 2 recenzii din titlul carora deja (de text nici nu mai vorbesc) transpira mai mult sau mai putin subtil, disconfortul fatza de opiniile si rationamentele papei, legate de subiectul Jesus of Nazareth:
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Adaug aici (fiindca am intuitiva banuiala ca Papa Benedict a tinut cont de acest document) un text despre The Gospel of Judas, care incepe asa:
"... This new account, the Gospel of Judas, says that Jesus not only anticipated that he would die and went into it with his eyes open, so to speak, aware that this somehow had to happen because there was a deep mystery in it, asked Judas to perform this act as a friend, and that Judas was the only one who could and would do it, and the others completely misunderstood it and took it as betrayal.
Matthew's gospel says Judas was so remorseful he went out and hung himself.
But this gospel says the others stoned him to death, out of rage. So it's a very different kind of account ..."
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