Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

DIALOGICAL PERSONALISM REVISITED 229
the recovery of his dialogical personalism can contribute to the
dialogue between philosophy and theology – including moral
theology – called for in Fides et ratio.
The Holy Father urges a recovery of philosophy’s relationship
with theology so that the proper place of faith in understanding
our very existence can likewise be recovered. In order
to achieve a true global ethics, a philosophy in which is found,
“even a glimmer of the truth of Christ, the one definitive answer
to humanity’s problems, will provide a potent underpinning for
the true and planetary ethics which the world now needs.” 53
This relationship of philosophy and theology – reason’s contribution
to faith – is a delicate one. The Holy Father is careful
to note that faith and revelation do not negate or reduce the
rightful autonomy and discoveries of reason, but at the same
time, reason is not absolute in itself and must constantly question
and be open to questioning. 54 In this way, philosophy and
theology are necessarily linked in a mutual relationship by
which each illuminates the other.
Jesus came into the world as, “the eternal Word who enlightens
all people, so that he might dwell among them and tell
them the innermost realities about God. Jesus Christ, the Word
made flesh, sent as ‘a human being to human beings,’ ‘speaks the
words of God,’ and completes the work of salvation which his
Father gave him to do.” 55 This is a knowledge that is not contrary
to reason even as it is beyond the knowledge of reason alone.
The Holy Father situates this encounter in dialogue between
God and man within the Vatican II understanding of God’s revelation
found in Dei Verbum, 56 an understanding with many
points of reference in Ebner’s thought.
As Joseph Ratzinger pointed out some years after the Council,
Dei Verbum 2 reflects a very different understanding of God’s
revelation, considerably influenced in this century by the dialogical
personalism of Ferdinand Ebner, Martin Buber and oth-
53 FR, 104.
54 FR, 79.
55 FR, 11, citing Tertio Millenio Adveniente (10 November 1994), 4; Jn
1:1-18; 3:34; 5:36; 17:4.
56 FR, 7-12: “Chapter 1: The Revelation of God’s Wisdom.”