CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AS TRUE PHILOSOPHY IN THE THOUGHT OF JOSEPH RATZINGER

Abstract

In this article, it is researched, in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, the process of theological systematization of Christian revelation and presents the importance of reason as a fundamental element of such process. Based on the arguments presented by Ratzinger in Introduction to Christianity, we present the theological and rational options that contribute to the shaping of the Christian concept of God. In dialogue with several Ratzingerian texts, it is demonstrated that philosophy is an ally of Christianity, constitutes itself as true philosophy and, opposed to the concepts of deism and theism, unfolds in a unique and new form of knowledge of Divinity. The fact is that Christianity starts from a natural theology, that is, reason complements revelation, movement of faith. Christianity, living a dialectic of continuity with Judaism imposes itself as true philosophy because it sees, in the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, the very divine reason incarnated in the world.