Prof. Franz Josef Stegmann Bethlehem Social ... - Ordo Socialis

Stegmann
"Pay the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor, and pay God what belongs to God" (Mt
22, 21).
You may not read too much into this famous answer; it does not aim at our question directly.
But Jesus made a clear distinction between both fields.
The Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, published in 1965, describes the
independence of the profane spheres of life as follows: there is an "autonomy of earthly
affairs" in the sense "that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and
values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men". That
autonomy "is not merely required by modern man, but harmonises also with the will of the
Creator. For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed
with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order", which one "must respect".
Focusing on this independence, the Council points the finger of criticism at the Church
herself:
"Consequently, we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, sometimes found too among
Christians, which do not sufficiently attend the rightful independence of science."
In different ways, both texts say that "earthly affairs", human activities in these fields as well
as state and economy, political and economic action, enjoy a real "autonomy". This "rightful
independence" of the profane areas of life and the affirmation of the "worldly world" are new
accents.
It is true, the "autonomy of earthly affairs" is not to be understood in an absolute sense. Being,
value and goodness befit "temporal affairs" insofar as they are created things, founded in the
creative will of God and dependent on him. Nevertheless, it is indeed a "rightful
independence", a real "autonomy". 10
1.3 From a "divinised" to a "hominised" world
The historical background of this new understanding of the world has been described by
Johann Baptist Metz — one of the "fathers" of so-called Liberation Theology — as "the situation
of change from a divinised to a hominised world". 11 For thousands of years, human
beings believed themselves to be at the mercy of nature, but at the same time they felt themselves
to be secure in it. Nature was therefore seen to be holy. It not only bore divine traits,
but it seemed to be divine, to be like a god, even to be a god; it was "a divinised world". In
modern times, however, things have changed fundamentally: to an increasing degree, the
world and nature are shaped and formed by human beings to such an extent that we can say
we live in "a hominised world".
A reference from cultural history may indicate the huge change in the relationship between
humans and world that has taken place in recent times. In the 26th canto (91-142) of the
"Inferno" of the "Divina Comedia", the famous Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
describes the last adventure of Ulysses or Odysseus which the ancient Greek poet Homer did
not tell in his poem "Odyssey" and did not know about. After his return to the Island of
Ithaka, the adventurer started again and sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar. Sailing into the
wide ocean, he crossed the border which mortals are not allowed to cross". At the end of their
"wild flight" - as Dante called the journey - a huge wave engulfed the ship and the whole
Crew. Odysseus and his people did not cross the Limits set to humans without being
10 Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution (1965), Art. 36, 2,4,5.
11 Johann Baptist Metz, Die Zukunft des Glaubens in einer hominisierten Welt, in: Johann Paptist Metz (Ed.),
Weltverständnis im Glauben, Mainz 1965, 45‐62,46.
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