One negative consequence of reading the Bible with what Ratzinger calls the “literal-mindedness … which contradicts the entire inner nature of the Bible”, isolating the parts from the whole, was the “conflict between the natural sciences and theology which has been, up to our own day, a burden for the faith”. Whereas the traditional symbolic reading of Scripture, as taught by the Church since the days of the Fathers, always integrates fides with ratio, an integration which is the goal of the true science of theology, Ratzinger accused literalism of creating a false dichotomy between faith and reason. Indeed, the modern perception that faith was at war with reason was a consequence of this faulty “literalist” reading of Scripture. It was, therefore, necessary to refute the errors of these false methods of biblical exegesis and refuse their right to be considered authentic expressions of orthodox theology. Instead, scriptural theology must seek a re-fusion of faith and reason, thereby dispelling the confusion caused by the artificial schism between the various sciences. The purpose of a series of homilies that Ratzinger gave in 1981, when he was Archbishop of Munich, was to insist that the Catholic understanding of Creation and the Fall of Man, as told in the Book of Genesis, was not only in conformity with the doctrinal teachings of the Catholic faith but was also in conformity with the demands and constraints of reason:
In his citing of the great Greek philosopher to buttress his claim that the cosmos was created and did not come into being in some cosmic accident, through blind chance, Ratzinger is insisting that the Christian belief in Creation is entirely rational. Such a belief is the true consequence of good reason (merito), meriting its acceptance by the rational mind. Furthermore, the role of theology is not in opposition to reason but enlarges it, enabling it to go to places and to see things that the “unenlightened” reason, acting on its own, in the absence of revelation, would be unable to reach or see. Theology and philosophy (the Word of God and the love of wisdom) are, therefore, allies in the quest to see and know truth. The Bible, as “the true ‘enlightenment’”, leads us to the fullness of wisdom, which can never contradict reason.
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