The Relational Personalism of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

Bogumił Gacka

doi:10.21697/ct.2023.93.4.05

Published: 2023-11-15

Vol. 93 No. 4 (2023)

The Relational Personalism of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

Bogumił Gacka

Collectanea Theologica

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.21697/ct.2023.93.4.05

Abstract

Joseph Ratzinger’s relational personalism consists in surpassing the singular in the concept of person. The existence of a person points to another person, somebody else, for a person is someone in relation to another person. Joseph Ratzinger sees two important periods in the formation of the concept of person in theology. The first period is the transition from substance to subsistence. The second one is the transition from subsistence to relation, so that the person is not only selfhood but relational selfhood. For Ratzinger, Theodor Steinbüchel’s (1888–1949) book The Breakthrough in Thinking (Der Umbruch des Denkens, Regensburg 1936) was important in introducing him to personalist thinking. Benedict XVI opposes an individualistic understanding of salvation by emphasising the category of relationship (Spe salvi, no. 27). Relational personalism in social theology is the golden bridge between individualism and collectivism. According to Joseph Ratzinger, the creation of man in the image and likeness of God means that the human person as a subsistence in relationship is constituted in relation to God and fellow human beings.

Keywords:

person, relation, relational personalism, Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI

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Gacka, B. (2023). The Relational Personalism of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Collectanea Theologica, 93(4), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.21697/ct.2023.93.4.05

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