Benedict XVI Says Human Sciences Need God

 

In Order to Understand Depths of a Person

ROME, NOV. 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Without reference to God, the human sciences cannot understand the person, says Benedict XVI.

And it is through openness to the transcendent that the human being will find meaning, the Pope said today when visiting the Gregorian University.

"Today, account must be taken of the challenge of the secular culture, which in many parts of the world tends to increasingly deny not only every sign of the presence of God in the life of the society and the person, but with several means, which disorient and cloud the human being's upright conscience, attempts to corrode his capacity to listen to God," said the Holy Father said to the university entrusted to the Jesuits.

For this reason, the Pontiff continued, "the relationship with other religions cannot be disregarded, which is only constructive if it avoids all ambiguity that weakens the essential content of the Christian faith in Christ, the only savior of all men, and in the Church, necessary sacrament of salvation for the whole of humanity."

Benedict XVI highlighted that as the human sciences "are concerned with the human being, they cannot do without the reference to God."

"Man, both in his interiority as well as his exteriority, cannot be fully understood if he is not seen as open to transcendence," the Pope said. "Deprived of his reference to God, the human being cannot respond to the fundamental questions that agitate and will always agitate his heart in regard to the end and, therefore, to the meaning of his existence.

"In consequence, it is not even possible to incorporate in society those ethical values which alone can allow a coexistence worthy of the human being. The human being's destiny, without its reference to God, cannot but be the desolation of anguish that leads to despair."

The Holy Father continued: "Only if reference is made to God-Love, who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, can the human being find the meaning of his life and live in hope, despite the experience of the evils that wound his personal existence and the society in which he lives.

"Hope helps man not to lock himself in a paralyzing and sterile nihilism, but to be open to generous commitment in the society in which he lives to be able to improve it."