Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

order on things, man exercises a type of „lower providence“ and becomes a „partner of
God.“ 87
According to the Christian understanding, man possesses a dominum naturale over all of material
creation, and does so -according to a very apt formulation of Domingo de Soto from the
year 1556 -not only over the gifts of the earth (fructus terrae), but also over the microcosm of
the elementa and over the macrocosm of the universe (orbes caelestes). 88 Not seldom it is said
that the notion of God in Christianity has inhibited scientific and technical progress. Connections
in the history of ideas point in another direction. Is it not very striking that certain scientific
and technological beginnings in Antiquity, such as those in pre-Socratic natural philosophy
or in the architecture of Babylon, Egypt, and Rome, did not lead to a breakthrough and to
the scientific and technological mastery of the world? The reasons for this probably lie in four
conceptions of pre-Christian thought. First, sublime, antimaterial speculations suspected the
material world as being evil and ungodly. Second, the cosmos was seen as 'finished', so that
man could only seek to consider it in passive contemplation; creative intervention counted as
destruction, not as perfection of the cosmos. Third, the view that populated the cosmos with
demons and jealous gods who prevented any penetration into its mysteries must also have had
inhibitory consequences. Prometheus was bound to the rocks by Zeus because of his hubristic
deed, and Icarus plummeted in his attempt to conquer the air through the envy of the gods.
Fourth, there is the additional fact that in Antiquity physical work was to a large extent held in
contempt as slave labor.
Christianity overcame these views. The world is not the haunt of demons, but the work of the
Divine Father who has given men a working space in the world. Henri de Lubac rightly says:
„Our God is a jealous God; but his jealousy distinguishes itself greatly from the jealousy of
the gods of mythology. God begrudges his creatures neither fire nor any later invention. ..Man
acts rightly when he wills to escape from every cosmic and social form of servitude. ..There
can also be, if we may dare the paradox, a Christian Prometheus.“ 89 By working on things, we
encounter God who has called things into being through creation and pre- serves them in being
through the creatio continua. „At the beginning of man's work“ writes John Paul II, „is the
mystery of creation.“ 90
Cardinal Robert Bellarmin, who in the discussion about Galileo adopted a benevolent attitude
towards the scholar, correctly indicated the methodological delimitation of natural science
from theology when he wrote: „If it is truly proved that...the sun does not revolve around the
earth, but the earth around the sun, one must proceed very cautiously in interpreting the scriptural
texts that
appear to contradict it and rather be willing to say that we do not understand
them than to say that what has been proved is false.“ 91
4. Work and Profession as Service.
According to the Christian interpretation, work is being with one another and for one another
in a serving way. It is service of neighbor, family, and nation and would therefore be noble
even if it hardly contained any element of creative production. Johannes Tauler (t 1361) tells
about a farmer whom he calls the „highest friend of God“: „He has been a ploughman all his
days, for more than forty years, and still is such. He once asked our Lord whether he wished
him to betake himself to go sit in the Church. He answered: No, he should not; he should earn
his bread by his sweat to the honor of his dear, noble blood.“ Tauler adds: „One can spin, another
can make shoes...lf I were not a priest and were in a community, I should consider it a
87
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles m:21, 64, 113.
88
Domingo de Soto, De Justitia et Jure (Venice, 1608), Lib IV, qu 2, art 1.
89
H de Lubac, Der Mensch in marxistischer und christlicher Schau (Offenburg, 1949), 59.
90
Laborem exercens, n 12.
91
Cited in Sint unum (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1930), 72.
74