The Dubious Foundation of Kasper's Theology -- Friederich Schelling and The Bishops' Synod

Cardinal Kasper and the foundation of his theoloical
thinking.

(Rome) Don Antonio Livi, the former dean of the Faculty of Arts of the Pontifical Lateran University is concerned with the "dubious basis of Kasper's proposal" ( Disputationes Theologicae ) on the divorced and remarried for the Synod of Bishops on the family in October. Pope Francis opened a games room for German Cardinal Walter Kasper to attack the  teaching and practice of the Church  by attempting to replace it with a new theology. It is a basis enough to illuminate the fundamentals of Cardinal Kasper's theology. 

The first part of Don Antonio Livi's analysis was published on the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, to which  Pope Francis belongs, in Disputationes Theologicae entitled "The Eucharist Kasper."

In addition to the danger of profaning the Sacrament of Penance, "we stand before the final attack of Gnostic-Masonic thinking against the Church of Christ", says Disputationes Theologicae . Don Livi is concerned with the implications of the conflict, by exposing the "Eucharistic theology" behind the Kasper-Propsal.

Kasper's writings are "not very" original, suffering from an "obvious lack of proper theological methodology"

Antonio Livi's "first consideration" was to "primarily ecclesiologically and pastorally" find that Kasper's theological creativity shows  "a lack of proper theological methodology evident in them." His theses "rarely" have original features, as Kasper is "content to repeat what was already represented his teachers, especially Karl Rahner."

"In every single one of the theses  advocated by Kasper" there is a lack, viewed from an epistemological point of view,  of "that epistemic consistency indicated by true theology." Kasper's "theological research are not hypotheses (and also don't raise the claim) of offering a scientific interpretation  of the Church through  the Holy Scriptures, the dogmatic doctrines, liturgy and faith." They were "rather an ambiguous expression of a religious philosophy, an expression with which I refer to those arbitrary interpretations of Christianity's own religious terms by the major systems of historicizing idealism like that  Hegel and Schelling brought forth in the 19th century."  Of these systems of thought,  "that are epistemologically, purely philosophical, primarily in the Lutheran milieu in which they have arisen, can be regarded  theologically, to have affected many Catholic theologians including Walter Kasper in the 20th century whose formation was carried out by those at the Tübingen School, as he complacently writes in one of his early works. They have launched "a renewal of theology and of the entire German Catholicism"  in the encounter with Schelling and Hegel, according to Kasper in his book on the absolute in history. Philosophy and Theology of History in the Later Philosophy of Schelling, Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz, 1965.

Kasper's "Throwback to the ideological positions of theologians condemned by the Holy See in the 19th century"

The so-called "encounter with Schelling and Hegel" was believed by the theologians of the Tübingen School as necessary to "renew" all the "conciliar" theology and with the Church, which is in fact an obscure throwback to the ideological positions that theologians (not coincidentally also German), who were sentenced in the 19th century by the Holy See because of the application  of Hegel's and Schelling's  categories of idealism to theology ".

"The fact that in the 20th century Catholic scholars wanted a struggle against the metaphysical tradition in theology through the systematic adoption of a religious philosophy conflict that was developed in the Lutheran world and always criticized the Catholic, can have no other plausible explanation than in their psychological dependence on the Lutheran theologians, whose hegemony in German culture has always been absolute (Consider that  even Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel emerged and remained within the  Lutheran  religious culture). "Between Hegel and Schelling"  Kasper preferred latter, whom he "called, 'the solitary Great' " ¹ , and "from the Gnostic character of his philosophical and religious studies, showed himself intrigued without feeling even any embarrassment because of their clearly pantheistic result.".

Kasper's picking up "specifically Schelling's themes" recalls the analogous methodical decision of another German Catholic theologian, that of Klaus Hemmerle, in whose school Piero Coda has also been formed. This operates as  a "theological method that is radically inconsistent with that of the true theology".

Kasper's Summary of Schelling "a meaningless accumulation of words"

Kasper  "seems to unreservedly want to replace  the inner-worldly premises of the philosophical analysis of the Christian faith with Schelling". In his words, "with whom he is convinced to renew the Catholic theology based on these assumptions,' you can clearly perceive that it lacks that critical sense, the necessary prerequisite of a scientific research, which is why his summary of the religious philosophy of Schelling is a meaningless accumulation of words: "Schelling summarizes namely the relationship between natural and supernatural is not static-metaphysical-over time, but dynamic and historical. The essence of  Christian revelation is just this that it is history. " ²

"What does it mean that the Christian revelation is essentially 'history'? The history of what, history by whom? Is the history of men (what Kasper calls nature) in relation to the action of God (the supernatural)' to understand)? "In this case, said Livi, it was about the theological concept of "salvation history", the salvific Initiative of God, Creator and Redeemer, who was revealed by God Himself to man, first through the prophets, then definitely by the Incarnation of the Word.  "But that can not be Kasper's understanding, because that would correspond to all the traditional theological doctrine which is rejected according to Kasper  but, since it implies a 'static-metaphysical-timeless' way,  'to conceive the relationship between natural and supernatural,'" says Livi. Kasper had admitted "(unconsciously) the distinction between the world (creation) and God (the Creator)" where God can not be equated with the "history", "unless you would ultimately exclude God from theological discourse, and only talk of  the world and its affairs, even when it comes to the religious life and the Church. But that is what Kasper says, as will be shown. "

In a Worldly Ecclesiology there for the Eucharistic mystery not theological place more

"The frequent changes of theological propositions that have characterized the scientific and journalistic work Kaspers' leave, remember that" so much a viable proposal for the interpretation of the dogma of the "ultimate purpose" of his work is driven by the desire of its salvific implementation not in the lives of believers, but the urge to impose public opinion as a leading figure of the progressive wing of contemporary theology, especially in the context of ecumenism, thus the 'dialogue' with the Protestants, overlooking ritual and doctrine for an 'approach' between them and the Catholic Church."

"In any case," Kasper's  constant appeals for "reforms" in the Church - "whether institutional, liturgical, pastoral reforms - miss any necessary relation to the constitutive 'form' of the Church as a divine institution.'" That is clear "from the devaluation of the specifically theological principles of ecclesiology, the first place to the express recognition of the divine nature of Christ as the Incarnate Word,  that the he founded the Church to continue his salvific mission through instructing the faithful preaching of the supernatural mysteries and of sanctifying grace the sacraments."

"The specific theological principles of ecclesiology had been linked in the years before the Council to another theologian of the 20th century, the Swiss Charles Journet, who confirmed  the Christological dogma (and also the Marian)", in his treatise L'Eglise du Verbe incarné ³ whose doctrine gets to be seen for the most part in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, especially in the eighth chapter, where the Council speaks of Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church. ⁴

The anti-metaphysical struggle of the "conciliar theologian" Kasper

Kasper, who as a "counciliar theologian" presents himself, however, ignoring systematically the specific theological concepts of ecclesiology, but he claimed the Catholic faith of the "forms and formula" to "clean", even though they have just been to the effect solemnly confirmed by the Second Vatican Council, because these forms and formulas' ensure the supernatural (transcendent) character of the divine reality and the worship that pays the Church of Christ, who is God, the eternal Word, 'Who became flesh' in time and truly present in the Eucharist, as it justifies the devotion to Mary, the Mother of God is recognized as since it is true Mother of Christ, who is God. ⁵

The "struggle for the abolition of the theological concepts with a metaphysical 'taste' that is claimed to be purely pastoral needs (the usual requirement, that  the people of today are allegedly adverse to incomprehensible and unacceptable language), is aimed in reality at the elimination of all basic principles from Catholic ecclesiology starting with the Annunciation, by subjecting them to a systematic, rationalistic criticism, beginning with the phrase, 'Word made ​​flesh.'" Kasper had this reduced this notion in his famous work "Jesus the Christ" ⁶ to immanent terms, outlining it by "his anti-metaphysical" Christology. "In reality," it was dealing with a reformulation of Christian dogma in the sense of the religious philosophy of Schelling. In this way of thinking is the self-revelation of God, Christ, no longer as a mediator between God and men ⁷believed and worshiped, but reduced to a historical manifestation of the "economic" Trinity. ⁸

Kasper is unable to emancipate himself from Schelling - denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ

"Kasper is unable to emancipate himself from Schelling's revelation philosophy, which, however, flourished in the same German environment as Romano Guardini ⁹, and so he went off track as a Catholic theologian in an absurd work of deconstruction of the traditional Christological dogma. Even the historical evidence of Christ's divinity, whose intention  was to prove his omnipotence  and so to support the faith of his disciples, are subjected by Kasper to  doubt," and finally  "in order to deny what they really are, namely the empirical evidence of divine intervention." "From the implicit denial of the divinity of Christ occurs because the persistent use of the expression Kasper uses, 'God of Jesus Christ', as well as the title of one of his works is (The God of Jesus Christ), and God by separating the name from the name Christ semantically, implies the denial of the divinity of Jesus. " ¹⁰

"In fact, Kasper belongs entirely to those ideological current, which was headed by Hans Küng and Karl Rahner, and understands theology as anthropology, by recommending the Church, not so much from God, but to speak of the people. ¹¹  In accordance with this precise speculative orientation, Kasper puts aside the discourse on the dual nature of Christ, the eternal Word,   and reduces Christology to a phenomenological discourse on the conscience of Jesus, as a person who speaks of God,'" said Don Antonio Livi, who was from 2002 to his retirement in 2008, Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

Introduction / translation: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Disputationes Theologicae

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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