The Phenomenon of Unbelief

THE PHENOMENON OF UNBELIEF

There is no sense in being overly dramatic, but can we not say that there is a gigantic struggle going on all over our world between the forces of humanism and the forces of barbarism? (Definitions of humanism and barbarism could be helpful but they are not needed at this time. Most readers of the column will understand the meanings conveyed by these words.) The question is this – Which will prevail, humanism or barbarism? If humanism triumphs over barbarism, then the second question becomes – What kind of humanism will prevail – secular humanism or Christian humanism? Are people going to say with Jean-Paul Sartre, with regard to us humans: “Man is only man when man is unbelieving man.”? Or are people going to say with theologian Karl Barth – “Man is only man when the God-man is his brother.”? After all, our Catholic faith is the experience of divinity through humanity. As John the Evangelist tells us – The eternal word became flesh and dwelt among us to share his divine life with all of us. The question between the two humanisms mentioned above is this – Which humanism is true humanism? Listen to the way Pope John Paul II begins his encyclical letter Faith and Reason: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth, in a word, to know Himself, so that by knowing and loving God, men and women also will come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” If we reflect for a moment on what this quotation from Pope John Paul tells us, should we not ask – How can there be a true humanism without God? This teaching was expressed in an excellent way at the Second Vatican Council in paragraph 22 of the Constitution of the Church in the Modern World. We read – “The fact is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word is light shed on the mystery of man. Adam, the first man, prefigured the man to come, Christ the Lord. Christ, who is the new Adam, by revealing the mystery of the Father and his love also fully reveals man to man himself and makes his exalted vocation known to him. In other words, if it were possible to ask God the question – What does it mean to be truly and integrally human?, God the Father would point to Jesus and say – “Here is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

At the present time, secular humanism triumphs all over Europe. Next Sunday we celebrate the feast day of Christ the King. That feast day was instituted in 1925 in order to counteract individual and social apostasy from God brought about by the secular spirit which relegates Christ’s Gospel to the private sphere. The secular spirit means for all practical purposes that God is dead. It is the “disincarnation of the spiritual!” In 1965 The Second Vatican Council spoke about the massive unbelief of our age when it reminded us that the “root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin, man is already invited to converse with God. Still many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God or have explicitly rejected it.”

I remember reading a while back a review of a book – “The Education of An American Catholic”. This volume details the account of how one American Catholic lost his faith first given him in holy baptism. The author wrote – “It is the loss of any belief in the supernatural which is the central problem for the Post-Vatican II Church”. His own rejection of the supernatural came from the study of philosophy in the modern period – especially the skepticism of the language-philosophies. It was the author’s perception that the average Catholic of today gives not a thought to the supernatural. To this end he quotes a theologian – “How many Catholic Christians still have deep in their hearts the Christian fear of death and the last judgment? How many are capable of feeling desperately worried when some Catholic relative or dear friend dies without benefit of the sacraments?”