Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Principles of Catholic Theology

Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology

Translated by

Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D.

Ignatius Press • San Francisco

Title of the German original: Theologische Prinzipienlehre

© 1982 by Sankt Ulrich Verlag/Wewel, Augsburg

Cover by Victoria Hoke Lane

© 1987 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-0-89870-215-6

Library of Congress Control Number 86-83133

Contents

Preface

part one

formal principles of christianity—catholic view

1. On the Relationship of Structure and Content in Christian Faith

Section 1: The We-Structure of Faith as Key to its Content

A. What Constitutes Christian Faith Today?

B. Baptism, Faith and Membership in the Church—the Unity of Structure and Content

C. The Church as the Sacrament of Salvation

Section 2: Structure, Content, Attitudes

A. Faith as Conversion—Metanoia

B. Faith as Knowledge and as Praxis—the Fundamental Option of the Christian Credo

C. Faith as Trust and Joy—Evangelium

2. Formal Principles of Catholicism

Section 1: Scripture and Tradition

A. Anthropological Foundation of the Concept of Tradition

B. Baptism and the Formulation of the Content of Faith—Liturgy and the Development of Tradition

C. The Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople: History, Structure, Content

D. Short Formulas of Faith? On the Relationship between Formula and Interpretation

E. Importance of the Fathers for the Structure of Faith

Section 2: Faith and History

A. Salvation and History

B. Salvation History, Metaphysics and Eschatology

part two

formal principles of christianity in ecumenical dispute

1. General Orientation with Regard to the Ecumenical Dispute about the Formal Principles of Faith

A. The Ecumenical Situation—Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism

B. Rome and the Churches of the East after the Removal of the Ban of Excommunication of 1054

C. Elucidations of the Question of a “Recognition” of the Confessio Augustana by the Catholic Church

D. Ecumenism at a Standstill? Explanatory Comments on Mysterium Ecclesiae

2. The Key Question in the Catholic-Protestant Dispute: Tradition and Successio Apostolica

A. Holy Orders (Ordo) as the Sacramental Expression of the Principle of Tradition

B. Sacrifice, Sacrament and Priesthood in the Development of the Church

C. The Priest as Mediator and Minister of Christ in the Light of the Message of the New Testament

3. Catholicity as the Formal Structure of Christianity

A. The Community’s Right to the Eucharist? The “Community” and the Catholicity of the Church

B. Local Ecumenism

part three

the formal principles of christianity and the method of theology

1. Questions about the Structure of Theology

A. What Is Theology?

B. The Church and Scientific Theology

2. The Anthropological Element in Theology

A. Faith and Education

B. Faith and Experience

C. The Gift of Wisdom

epilogue

on the status of church and theology today

A. Review of the Postconciliar Era—Failures, Tasks, Hopes

B. Church and World: An Inquiry into the Reception ...