Religion In The 19th Century

Theology Final
Essay 1:

During the late 18th Century, views on religion were beginning to change. While in previous generations, those who were educated were believers; society had advanced and developed a stronger focus in the arts and sciences, which caused roles to reverse. Those who were educated became nonbelievers, which resulted in a wave of new philosophy being written by the likes of Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, arguing strictly against religion. To respond to these critics, theologians, beginning with Schleiermacher, adopted a form of the apologetics of immanetism.
In the mid 19th Century militant atheism was on the rise. Ludwig Feuerbach crafted The Essence of Christianity, which was a commentary that deemed religion
to be primitive and theology to be worthless. While religion was built into every human being and was an intrinsic part of human experience at one point in human history, progress in society caused it to become valueless. Instead of living in fear as victims of circumstance, humanity now controls the world. As for theology, it never had a purpose because it is impossible to rationalize the irrational component of religion. Not only was religion now meaningless, but also was also dangerous under the belief that it was holding back further progress.
Karl Marx agreed with Feuerbach, believing his analysis of religion to be accurate. However, Feuerbach’s commentary lacked a solution, so Marx took it a step further and called for a revolution. Writing the Communist Manifesto and proclaiming, “workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains,” his goal was to liberate individuals that religion had oppressed. As he had explained it, religion was the opium of the masses, preventing them from confronting their awful position by dulling the pain.
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s views were also aligned with Feuerbach and Marx. Religion in his eyes was weakness to society. The irrationalism of religion causes humanity to cling to it in hope, when in reality we should be honest with ourselves. This will allow humanity to become stronger moving forward, because we would no longer have to submit ourselves to its oppressive needs. Finally, Freud believes religion to be an illusion. In his book, The Future of an Illusion, he acknowledges that religion is one of the most important inventions of civilization. Not only does it work to maintain peace in society (debatable), it also provides a defense against the superior force of nature. Freud is another firm believer that religion should be replaced, because again it oppresses society, by limiting the growth of reason.
As Schleiermacher addressed his cultural despisers in his speeches on religion, he paved the way for theologians to combat the philosophical arguments of the realist movement. While these philosophers saw religion as an irrational moral code, Schleiermacher would respond by asserting that religion isn’t something one can make sense of and can’t help an individual gain morality. He stated, “Religion is not the servant of morals or anything else that is an object of human action.” Hence, the morals that have been created out of religion have come from man, not from religion. To be clear, religion also isn’t a way of thinking or acting. Instead it is this feeling of absolute dependence, that is intrinsic to being human. Father Himes compared this to the majority of humanity being born with the ability to see in color. We can’t change how we view the colors we see, or how we view the world around us. It is instead just a part of our nature and who we are. Rahner also states in response to religion limiting progress, “religion only wishes to observe and perceive this progress as one of the great actions of the universe.” Clearly he recognizes that progress is intrinsic to human life, just like religion is, which means that progress and this continuing desire to move forward is therefore apart of religion. Henceforth, the philosophers against atheism lack the understanding of what religion truly is.

Essay 2: Militant Atheism had dominated the 19th Century causing a change in society’s perspective on religion. By combining the works of realist philosophers and the divisive world-events in the 20th Century, religion was viewed by most as being at war with real humanity. Organized religion’s response to its critics caused further issues because they made the proclamation, that religion was separated from human progress. What they didn’t realize was that this then made religion become irrelevant to humanity because it wasn’t adding or supporting human progress. What Catholicism needed was a shift in thought. Similar to Schleiermacher’s belief that religion is helpful because it is promoting progress, contributing to these fields and absolutely fundamental to what it means to be human, Catholicism needed a similar type of idea to come forward, which would be able to combat militant atheism. In the late 1940s, Henri De Lubac recognized this issue and began the la nouvelle théologie movement, which sought to modernize the church by reforming Neo-Scholasticism’s dominance over Catholicism. Before De Lubac, St.
Thomas Aquinas had established the catholic belief that nature was built on grace. This was problematic because to approach the super natural, one would need to use reason. However, if one reasons and determines there is no God, then there is no way or point to approaching this supernatural state. Individuals then have no reason to want to escape the regular state of nature. This problem is what had ultimately led to the rise of atheism. To defend Catholicism and bring it into modernity, De Lubac crafted an idea that viewed grace as a medium between the natural and supernatural. By recognizing that salvation is then what gets us from the natural level to the super natural level, grace was solidified in the relationship between the two. What De Lubac’s idea really did was make the need for religion and church relevant again. His proposed framework didn’t leave the possibility that grace could be overlooked by nature, but instead made growth in grace vital. In order to grow in grace, priests are necessary to move an individual between the two levels. This causes individuals to leave the basic level of nature and grow in grace through mass, sacraments, penance and
prayer. The Vatican responded to De Lubac’s idea by not allowing his work to be published and was committed to maintaining Aquinas’s belief.
However, De Lubac and other theologians desire to reform the Catholic Church didn’t go unnoticed. On January 25th, 1959, Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council into place, which would be the first general council for more than 100 years. When the council officially started in 1962, John XXIII addressed the public by stating, “What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith.” One of the first steps was confronting the rapid change of technological and intellectual advancement that promoted progress. Not only did the church need to be open more to progress, but also quickly realized that they needed to learn from the people of the world. Apart from the liturgical changes and strengthened relations between other sects of Christianity, one of the most impactful changes was that Divine revelation was to be discovered in the scripture and translated through the tradition of the church. This would work to proclaim the word of God through guide by the Holy Spirit and is also an essential part of discovering God’s will, as it is eternal to our own self-understanding. By making these distinctions and by making the church more accessible to society, they were successful in not only combatting militant atheism, but also taking forth those
lessons learned from Vatican II.

Essay 3: As one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th Century, Karl Rahner crafted the work The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology. Through his writings, he develops the idea that for the relationship between humans and God, the one Mystery is the self-communication of the Ground of being and its acceptance in our love for another.
In order to understand this statement, it is important to first understand what the term ‘self-communication’ means. According to St. John’s Seminary’s Mark F. Fischer’s commentary on Rahner’s definition of self-communication, the self-communication of God is transcendent and that we know God when God communicates by giving us his divine self. The gift takes place in the human being, the person who is the "event" of God's call. When God gives people a share in the divine self, God not only frees them to respond. God also offers forgiveness. God forgives in the ever-renewed offer of a relationship with God. To put this into simpler terms; although God exists separate from our material world, in giving his total self to us he is always in communication with humanity.
Humanity already has a relationship with God due to our mere existence. As Rahner stated, “God does not create something different from himself, but imparts himself to the created nature.” This means that he is present in the world around us. To further explain this, a good metaphor is that when watching a movie, you aren’t just watching the screen, but also the movie. So in Rahner’s state of being, God is the reason we exist and can see at all. He is the screen and human life is projected onto it. And just like you have to look at a screen to watch a movie, you need to look to God to live a fulfilling life.
Finally, we need to uncover the unity of love of God and love of neighbor and distinguish the difference between the two. Humanity wants to love God, but this becomes problematic. Because God is transcendental, he isn’t a thing in this world we are theoretically capable of loving. However, God created the world around us, which means in order to love God, we have to love what he has created. Because Rahner believed that Nature and Super-nature existed in two separate perspectives, everything can be a sacrament and can be omnipotent. Therefore, one must not only love who they are, but also has to love their neighbor. What is interesting about this idea is when you give love to your neighbor, you are also giving love to God. This is because you are going outside of yourself to experience someone who mirrors back to you God and his transcendence. Even when we are only experiencing ourselves, we are experiencing God.
To summarize, the mystery is the self-communication of God, which is constant due to God’s giving of his total self to humanity. His being is therefore also constant, and He is something we can’t ever love for His own sake. Instead we are able to love God through the world he has given to us, which means anything can be a sacrament, we have to love ourselves, and we have to love our neighbor. Lastly, the more we try to love God as a whole, the more we realize this task to be impossible. While we are able to love what God has given us because everything on earth is finite, God is infinite, which is what separates him from humanity.