rain and the rhinoceros

I’ve been reading John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio today and came across this gem that I just had to post.

In believing, we entrust ourselves to the knowledge acquired by other people. This suggests an important tension. On the one hand, the knowledge acquired through belief can seem an imperfect form of knowledge, to be perfected gradually through personal accumulation of evidence; on the other hand, belief is often humanly richer than mere evidence, because it involves an interpersonal relationship and brings into play not only a person’s capacity to know but also the deeper capacity to entrust oneself to others, to enter into a relationship with them which is intimate and enduring.

It should be stressed that the truths sought in this interpersonal relationship are not primarily empirical or philosophical. Rather, what is sought is the truth of the person—what the person is and what the person reveals from deep within. Human perfection, then, consists not simply in acquiring an abstract knowledge of the truth, but in a dynamic relationship of faithful self- giving with others. It is in this faithful self-giving that a person finds a fullness of certainty and security. At the same time, however, knowledge through belief, grounded as it is on trust between persons, is linked to truth: in the act of believing, men and women entrust themselves to the truth which the other declares to them. Any number of examples could be found to demonstrate this; but I think immediately of the martyrs, who are the most authentic witnesses to the truth about existence. The martyrs know that they have found the truth about life in the encounter with Jesus Christ, and nothing and no-one could ever take this certainty from them. Neither suffering nor violent death could ever lead them to abandon the truth which they have discovered in the encounter with Christ. This is why to this day the witness of the martyrs continues to arouse such interest, to draw agreement, to win such a hearing and to invite emulation. This is why their word inspires such confidence: from the moment they speak to us of what we perceive deep down as the truth we have sought for so long, the martyrs provide evidence of a love that has no need of lengthy arguments in order to convince. The martyrs stir in us a profound trust because they give voice to what we already feel and they declare what we would like to have the strength to express.

Soon after the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, John Paul II published his encyclical Centesimus Annus in which he poses the following question:”Can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of communism, should capitalism be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society?” JPII explains that the “answer is complex.” 

If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy,” ”market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative. 

The rest of the encyclical affirms the priority of the person over profit and the spiritual and physical pitfalls of consumerism. JPII also expresses the Church’s solidarity in the liberation of the poor in this encyclical. I think there is much to be praised in the document and it certainly has to be read in its historical context. However, I can’t help but feel troubled by JPII’s affirmation of capitalism, even though it is a guarded one. In my opinion, JPII doesn’t really provide a theological basis for his account of capitalism other than an appeal to history.  The Catholic social tradition has always affirmed the right to private property, but I have always found the theological basis for such a position tenuous at best. Of course, the Catholic social tradition emphasizes that this is not an “absolute right” and that the use of material goods is always subordinated to the fact that they are common goods that must be shared.I want to hear your thoughts on the matter. Is capitalism the model economic system? If so, on what theological basis?   

Solidarity is a Christian virtue.  Solidarity seeks to go beyond itself; it includes forgiveness and reconciliation. One’s neighbor is then not only a human being with rights and a fundamental equality with everyone else, but is the living image of God the Father, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and placed under the permanent action of the Holy Spirit. One’s neighbor, including one’s enemy, must be loved with the same love with which the Lord loves him or her.  For our neighbor’s sake one must be ready for sacrifice, even the ultimate one, namely to lay down one’s life for the brethren (cf. 1 Jn 3:16).  At that point, awareness of the common fatherhood of God, of the brotherhood of all in Christ and of the presence and life-giving action of the Holy Spirit will bring to our vision of the world a new criterion for interpreting it. This supreme model of unity one God in three Persons, is what Christians mean by the word “communion.”  

John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis (On Social Concern), 1987.