Religio vera. Reality of Christianity - Christian Dimension of Reality According to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

Jerzy Szymik

University of Silesia in Katowice , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1065-5647

Abstract

The biblical history of salvation results in tightening the bond between God and man more and more closely, though there is a sudden change in the quality between the Old and New Testaments that makes the bond so far expressed through the Covenant to fulfil itself in the theandric communion in the Person of Jesus Christ. Christianity arises as a communion and, as such, it fulfils itself in the Church, through the Holy Spirit: it consists in making a gift of oneself and relying on the gift. J. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI shows how Christianity not only enters the structures of reality, but – in fact − constitutes its most appropriate − since salutary − structure and a hermeneutic key to understand man. What seems paradoxical, or even nonsensical in Christianity, as a matter of fact, breaks the absurdity of atheistically ideologised structure of the world and thinking.

Keywords:

Christology, Incarnation, Covenant, communion, faith, gift, Christianity, world, religion