THE TRIPARTITE FRAMEWORK OF GOTTLIEB SÖHNGEN'S THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

THE TRIPARTITE FRAMEWORK OF GOTTLIEB

SÖHNGEN'S THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

In examining the thought of the influential 20th century theologian Gottlieb Söhngen, this

essay delves into his profound insights on the intricate relationship between the disciplines of

theology and philosophy. Söhngen, who had a formative impact on the intellectual

development of Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), structured his understanding of

this relationship according to what he termed an "inner plan" - a tripartite conceptual

framework that systematically defined the complementary yet distinct roles of philosophical

and theological reasoning.

At the heart of Söhngen's approach lies his notion of the "triplex usus philosophiae" - the

three uses or functions of philosophy. Though he himself never explicitly unpacked this

threefold categorization, it emerges as a powerful heuristic for comprehending how he

envisioned the interplay of rational inquiry and divine revelation. The first aspect, the "usus

philosophicus," encapsulates the endeavor of "philosophizing for philosophy's sake" - the

dispassionate, reasoned pursuit of truth and knowledge initially divorced from any

theological agenda or the premises of revealed religion. Even pure philosophical reflection

undertaken with no outward connection to theology, Söhngen contended, could ultimately

bear fruit for deepening theological understanding, such that "no matter how long a path via

philosophy is taken, it is never a detour to theology."

Nevertheless, Söhngen was keenly aware that unchecked philosophical reason could

transgress its boundaries and veer into ideological excess, contravening the truths disclosed

through God's self-revelation. An "ideologically over-interpreted and overwhelmed"

philosophy, unmoored from revelation, risked drifting into an arid rationalism hostile to the

divine mysteries. Accordingly, his seminal work "Being and Object" undertook a painstaking

delineation of reason's legitimate capacities and limitations in probing the relationship

between thinking and being. Drawing adroitly from currents like neo-Kantianism,

phenomenology, and neo-Scholasticism - particularly the ontological insights of Nicolai

Hartmann - Söhngen anchored epistemology in the metaphysical principle that the knowing

subject innately participates in and is open to the world of extant being. This avoided the

pitfalls of an idealistic subjectivism ungrounded in reality, while simultaneously affirming

reason's intrinsic ordained to apprehend the rational structure infused into created existence

by the divine Logos.

The second component, the "usus theologicus," constituted philosophy's vital service to

theology proper - to the sublime task of reasoned discourse concerning the incomprehensible

God disclosed through Scripture and ecclesial tradition. Here Söhngen acknowledged the

validity of natural theology's project, its aspiration to discern analogical traces of the divine

source in the created order (the "analogia entis"). Yet he stressed that unaided human reason,

operating through the "analogia naturalis," risked overreaching in its claims and

"overthinking" the ineffable mystery of God. To avoid philosophical hubris, Söhngen

positioned the "analogia fidei," the analogy grounded in faith's acceptance of revelation, as

the linchpin. The light of faith functioned as the healing balm enabling reason to responsibly

engage revealed verities without lapsing into ideological deformation.

This did not, however, signal philosophy's subordination to theology as a theoretical

"handmaiden." Theology was "not the legislator" dictating philosophy's bounds. Rather,

Söhngen underscored how the personal existential commitment of faith - the fundamental

self-surrender to the reality of God embodied in the Christ-event - provided the ontological

and epistemological framework within which all authentic philosophizing and theological

science could fruitfully proceed. In its linguistic form, Söhngen held, theology must remain

tethered to the metaphorical wellsprings of the Gospel kerygma from which its conceptual

"translation" emerged and which delimited its scope.

The third dimension, the "usus cosmicus," transcended the purely scholarly domains to relate

reason and faith to the primal human quest for existential wisdom and salvation within the

fabric of the everyday world and the construction of meaning-giving worldviews. Engaging

the perduring tension between general "humanitas" and "humanitas christiana" - the universal

and religiously-inflected understandings of human nature and destiny - Söhngen positioned

philosophy and theology as complementary guides in navigating the deepest dimensions of

love, hope, and the search for fulfillment amidst the vagaries of mundane existence.

Particularly acute was Söhngen's wrestle with the archetypal Christian existential crisis

exposed in the Pauline theology of the Cross - the nagging dissonance between fallen

humanity's deluded grasping after worldly wisdom, ideologies, and self-aggrandizement and

the disruptive, humbling wisdom of the Cross as God's self-emptying love for a sinful

cosmos. Simultaneously a judgment on worldly pretensions and a impetus to enact

compassionate solidarity with a sufferings world, the Cross stands as an abiding crucible

purifying the church - the concrete community of disciples through whom its transformative

praxis unfolds across history. Thus, Söhngen contended, the definitive and inextricable

historicity of the Gospel precludes domesticating it into a mere abstract theory; rather, it

continually reactivates the crisis of radical metanoia that births wisdom. Dwelling within the

ecclesial ambit of the Cross's sign safeguards reason's humility and openness to the rupture of

revelation that disrupts any propensity for an absolutist ideological systematizing.

For Söhngen, this permanent provocation of the Cross and the irrevocable call to metanoia

encapsulated in the Paschal mystery encapsulated the essence of the "usus cosmicus" - the

application of reason and faith to the communal task of building a redeemed human culture

and order of wisdom, freedom, and love amidst the ambiguities of temporal existence.

Avoiding both fideistic and rationalistic extremes, the philosopher remains fully human and

immersed in history while retaining radical openness to the truth unveiled by God's self-

communication. Unintegrated into this existential horizon of Christ's conquest of sin and

death, language ineluctably descends into empty abstraction severed from concrete lived

reality.

Ultimately, the essay evinces how for Söhngen, theology and philosophy were never

autonomous endeavors operating in isolated silos, but intrinsically interwoven threads whose

sustaining mutual exchange was vital for staving off their devolution into arid ideological

caricatures. An autarkic philosophy that a priori forecloses the possibility of divine revelation

succumbs to a hubristic rationalism that absolutizes human reason as the archonic source of

meaning. Conversely, a faith unmoored from reasoned inquiry and natural knowledge lapses

into an equally ideological pseudo-gnosticism alien to material and historical existence.

The antidote, Söhngen posited, lay in heeding the unified witness of revelation and creation

to the rational structure of reality infused by the Logos - the framework that grounds reason's

capacity to ascend to truth and faith's self-unveiling to reason. For reason inheres within

being itself as the immanent rationale for existence bequeathed by its transcendent divine

originator. And since human beings are indelibly part of the ontological totality of the world

to which reason's power of cognition is primordially attuned, the subject's very constitution

signals its inbuilt capacity for revelatory faith through rational interrogation of the whole of

created reality. Just as being is ontologically open to rational intelligibility, the spiritual

depths of the human person remain open to being's rational structure unveiled through

revelation. Thus reason is liberated from its self-imposed blinkering and faith is shored

against deteriorating into existential abstraction through their mutual nurturance.

It is this fundamental tenet - the consonance of reason and revelation grounded in their shared

rootedness within the rationally intelligible order of being emanating from the Logos - that

Söhngen posits as the transcendent foundation for the cohesive interaction of philosophy and

theology. Its affirmation rescues them from their ideological distortions precisely by

sustaining their ongoing dialogue and self-correction across the distinct yet interlocking

registers of the usus philosophicus, usus theologicus, and usus cosmicus. In this balanced

synergy, reason retains its native integrity while remaining perpetually disposed to be

elevated by the gratuitous light of revelation, and faith remains rationally compelling while

perpetually abiding in the folly of the Cross that disrupts all idolatrous systematization.

In probing the profound influence of Plato's philosophy on the theological vision of Joseph

Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), this essay charts the contours of an intricate intellectual

encounter spanning decades. Though Ratzinger self-avowedly embraced a form of

"Platonism" and discerned in the Athenian philosopher a privileged interlocutor, the precise

nature and extent of this affinity has remained a subject of scholarly controversy.

Critics have accused Ratzinger's Platonic leanings of engendering an arid intellectualism

sundering his theology from lived historical reality and the pressing concerns of the modern

world. They allege a quasi-Gnostic idealism, a spiritualizing reductionism devaluing

materiality and corporeal existence, and an antiquarian fixation on disembodied,

transhistorical truth incommensurate with the contextual dynamics shaping moral reasoning

and praxis. Plato's influence, such voices contend, has inevitably bred in Ratzinger an elitist

disdain for democracy, a tragic deficit of "humanity" inhering in his putative failure to

recognize morality's inescapably intersubjective grounding.

Conversely, other theologians have heralded Ratzinger's "option for the Greek" philosophical

patrimony, and particularly his fruitful engagement with Plato's thought, as a singular

achievement – one revivifying the organic synergy of biblical revelation and the deliverances

of unaided reason. Ratzinger's theological synthesis, they aver, discloses anew the

ineradicable nexus between humanity's universal metaphysical and existential interrogations

and the specific event of God's self-communication in salvation history. His discerning

appropriation of Plato rekindles the sapiential and contemplative dimensions of the Christian

fact that were eclipsed amid modernity's capitulation to a truncated rationality devolved into

arid pragmatism and skeptical relativism.

To adjudicate these contrasting assessments, the essay first retraces the chronological

unfolding of Ratzinger's personal textual and conceptual engagement with Plato's œuvre. His

earliest forays, in academic research on Augustine and Bonaventure, centered primarily on

assessing Platonism's legacy – registered at times as an ambiguous imprint on the Church

Fathers' theological vision. While crediting it as a catalyst for Augustine's abandonment of

Manichaeism and recovery of reality's inherent goodness, Ratzinger highlighted its residual

mentality of dualistic denigration of embodied existence and physicality. In the Seraphic

Doctor, conversely, Ratzinger saw a vigorous championing of a distinctly Christian sapiential

perspective transcending Aristotelian rationalism through Platonic and neo-Platonic

influences.

It was not until his epoch-making Introduction to Christianity in the 1960s, however, that

Ratzinger articulated an original constructive synthesis drawing substantively on Platonic

motifs. In bold strokes, he invoked the harmony of biblical faith with Platonic enlightened

reason's criticism of myth and repudiation of polytheistic irrationality. The Christian gospel's

unique kerygmatic idiom constituted, in Ratzinger's eyes, a seminal "transformation of the

god of the philosophers" – the supernal Truth and Good intimated by Plato's thought, but

enfleshed in the incarnate Logos, Jesus Christ. No longer an abstraction accessible only to

austere rational contemplation, the divine reality henceforward was irreducibly interwoven

with concrete historicity. The question of truth was now inextricably tethered to a human

person, necessitating obedient hermeneutical submission to, and dialogue with, the Lord's

perpetual self-manifestation.

However, when accused by fellow theologians of truncating Christianity's historical

dynamism into a neo-Platonic idealism, Ratzinger vigorously resisted. In his view, the

decisive factor was not Platonism's philosophical architecture per se, but rather its aperture to

the reality of a truth that "simply is" and which, when gratefully received, has the potential to

radically metamorphosize the human person. This existential transformation effected by

reason's self-transcending openness to revelatory truth – not conceptual abstraction divorced

from the matrix of history and praxis – constituted for Ratzinger the genuine locus of

"Platonism."

This seminal stance continued to reverberate throughout Ratzinger's later writings, which

frequently highlighted Plato's indispensable philosophical foundations for securing the

spiritual bases of Western culture against ideological lurches into relativism, nihilism, and

diverse biopolitical technocratic distortions of humanism's pristine nobility. The great

Athenian thinker emerges as the "discoverer of spirit" for the West and a permanent witness

summoning the modern world to authentically human self-discovery via the inextricable

nexus between truth, conscience, and rightly-ordered moral and political praxis.

Ratzinger's extensive engagement with Plato in his 1977 Eschatology is particularly

noteworthy. Initially projecting an "anti-Platonic" enterprise to divest Christian eschatology

of dualistic contaminants, Ratzinger's intensive research revealed the very antinomy he had

presumed incidental. At a profound level, Platonism's metaphysical doctrine of the soul and

the Christian doctrine of human immortality grounded in the soul's relation to transcendent

Being and truth proved not merely compatible but revelatory of an "inner parallel." In the

philosopher's dramatic depiction of Socrates's death, Ratzinger discerned an archetypal

disclosure of the truth that the immortal core of human personhood lies not in punctual

individuality, but in reason's constitutive orientation toward the Good, the Beautiful, and the

integrated integrity of reality qua rationally intelligible kosmos.

In Plato's vision, the soul attains deathless perdurance not by illusory aspiration to discard its

bodily reality, but by partaking evermore fully in the objective truth, eternal and immutable,

of which the material realm is an ephemeral instantiation. This, Ratzinger appreciated,

forestalled both disincarnate idealism and materialism's reductive closure of transcendence.

Yet to redeem this insight fully, Aquinas's seminal delineation of the soul as forma corporis –

constitutive invariant principle of bodily existence – was indispensable. Illuminated by the

biblical doctrine of creation and christological anthropology, the soul's immortality could be

reconfigured as intrinsic orientation to vivifying communion with the incarnate Logos, garner

of resurrection and glorification.

Beyond these systematic theological considerations, however, Plato's legacy loomed largest

for Ratzinger in the perennial anthropological and ethical question of truth – its sources,

attainment, and inextricable bearing on the dignity of human beings as subjects of moral

accountability. In modernity's sclerotic voluntarism and exaltation of subjective autonomy,

Ratzinger espied a direct recrudescence of the sophistry that plagued Socratic Athens'

tragically decadent democracy. Sophists of antiquity and postmodern apostles of

individualism and ethical relativism concordantly exalted mere rhetorical artifice over

substantive truth and diminished the human person's intrinsic disposition to intellectual

humility and quest for the objective good inscribed in the orders of creation and redemption.

Echoing these stakes of the eternal conflict between sophistry and philosophy, Ratzinger

descried in Plato's doctrine of anamnesis – the soul's innate, if partially obscured, recollection

of primordial truth – a providential "vessel for Christian Logos." The Church's baptismal

koinonia constituted a novel inflection and embodiment of anamnetic recollection whereby

regenerated human persons, inserted into Christ's mystical body, accessed through grace and

obedience the integral truth of their existence and redeemed finality. Recovered to themselves

through a sacramental re-orientation and reinscription into the Logos's concreated wisdom,

human beings retrieved the primal memory of their divine similitude effected at the origin.

This anamnesis, now elevated from semi-Gnostic mythology to ecclesial event, safeguarded

and realized the truth-bearing potencies of conscience harbored in every soul.

For Ratzinger, then, Plato was no extrinsic or antiquarian philosophical source, but a living,

perennial intellectual partner perpetually summoning the contemporary Church and world to

redeem – through surrendered appropriation of biblical revelation – reason's native openness

to the structuring truth of the Logos and the transcendent dignity of the human qua

conscience-bearing existential seeker. The Platonist legacy of Athens traced an archetypal

trajectory which Christian faith definitively recapitulated in inverting the soul's ascent into

Christ's descent.

In the year 2007, Pope Benedict XVI embarked on a pilgrimage to Pavia, a city in northern

Italy, to pay homage to the mortal remains of Saint Augustine of Hippo. This profound

gesture was a testament to the profound impact that Augustine, a philosopher and theologian

of the early Christian church, had on the life and work of the former pontiff. Benedict XVI's

reverence for Augustine stemmed not only from a personal devotion but also from a deep

intellectual kinship, for Augustine's writings had played a pivotal role in shaping his own

theological understanding.

Augustine's seminal work, the "Confessions," stands as a timeless masterpiece, a poignant

exploration of the human soul's restless quest for truth and its ultimate yearning for union

with the divine. In this autobiographical narrative, Augustine lays bare the innermost recesses

of his heart, chronicling his journey from the depths of spiritual turmoil and moral confusion

to the radiant light of Christian faith. Benedict XVI, in his admiration for this work, described

it as a "unique model in Western (and not only Western) literature," marveling at Augustine's

unparalleled ability to delve into the profound mysteries of the human spirit and its longing

for God.

The intellectual bond between Benedict XVI and Augustine was forged in the former's

doctoral dissertation, a work that laid the foundation for his lifelong engagement with the

great thinker's ecclesiology. Titled "Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der

Kirche" (People and House of God in Augustine's Teaching on the Church), this

groundbreaking study unveiled the intricate tapestry of Augustine's understanding of the

Church, its sacramental nature, and its intimate relationship with the Eucharist.

Through a meticulous analysis of Augustine's writings, Benedict XVI's dissertation

uncovered the African theologian's conception of the Church as a living, dynamic reality, a

"dialectical replacement and continuation of Jesus Christ's visibility" in the world. At the

heart of this vision lay the concept of the "Body of Christ," a term that transcended mere

metaphor to embody the tangible, sacramental presence of Christ among his people.

Augustine's understanding of the Church was inextricably intertwined with the Eucharist, the

source and summit of Christian life, where the faithful partake of the one bread and become

one body in Christ.

Benedict XVI's intellectual engagement with Augustine's ecclesiology extended far beyond

his dissertation. In a 1961 essay, he explored Augustine's synthesis of the active and

contemplative dimensions of the Christian life, as exemplified by the biblical figures of

Martha and Mary. Augustine's vision, as Benedict XVI elucidated, was a profound inversion

of Platonic mysticism, a turning toward an ecclesial piety that embraced both labor and the

anticipation of celestial bliss. This synthesis resonated deeply with Benedict XVI, who

recognized in Augustine's teachings a call to a "mysticism of service," a commitment to love

and care for one's brethren in the Body of Christ.

Augustine's understanding of the Church was inextricably linked to his conception of the

"City of God," a notion that encompassed the empirical, eschatological, sacramental, and

personal dimensions of the Christian community. In a 1954 response to the philosopher

Wilhelm Kamlah's interpretation of this concept, Benedict XVI defended Augustine's vision

against reductionist tendencies, asserting that the "City of God" transcended the confines of a

mere parish or empirical reality. Rather, it embodied the Church as a "pneumatic polis of

God," a spiritual and sacramental reality that felt alien in the present world, longing for the

world to come.

At the core of Augustine's theology lay his profound understanding of the Holy Spirit, a

subject that captivated Benedict XVI's scholarly attention. In a 1974 essay, he explored

Augustine's personalist view of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, which he described as

"mutuality itself." For Augustine, the Holy Spirit represented the divine communio, the

dynamic love and gift that flowed between the Father and the Son. This insight into the

Spirit's nature as charity and gift profoundly shaped Augustine's ecclesiology, for the Church

itself was a manifestation of this divine communio, a community of love and unity forged by

the Spirit.

Benedict XVI's intellectual engagement with Augustine extended far beyond ecclesiology,

encompassing the latter's epistemology, his understanding of confessio, and his conception of

the Christian life. In a 1970 essay, Benedict XVI delved into Augustine's approach to the

knowledge of God, which hinged on metanoia, or conversion, and the purification of the

heart through faith and charity. This existential dimension of Augustine's epistemology

resonated profoundly with Benedict XVI, who recognized in it a path to authentic encounter

with the living God, transcending mere intellectual abstraction.

Augustine's understanding of confessio, explored by Benedict XVI in a 1957 article, unveiled

the rich tapestry of meanings woven into this term. For Augustine, confessio denoted not

merely the admission of sin but also the praise of God, a dual expression of human humility

and divine exaltation. This concept, rooted in the Christian tradition of martyrdom,

represented a profound "revalorization of values," where the act of witness became a glorious

testimony to the truth of the Gospel.

Throughout his intellectual journey, Benedict XVI remained captivated by Augustine's

restless pursuit of truth, his tireless quest for the eternal rest found only in the love and peace

of Jesus Christ. In the words of Augustine himself, which Benedict XVI quoted with

reverence, "Such is the yearning echoing throughout the writings of Augustine: the yearning

for eternal peace. He, the one journeying restlessly throughout his life, though restless only

for the sake of the final rest, which remained for him in this life constantly his secret

restlessness."

Benedict XVI's deep admiration for Augustine extended beyond the realm of scholarship; it

was a profound spiritual kinship, a shared longing for the eternal truth that animated both

their lives. In Augustine, Benedict XVI found a kindred spirit, a fellow pilgrim on the path of

faith, whose restless heart had found its ultimate repose in the embrace of the divine.

As Benedict XVI himself remarked, "Augustine stands for all ages," a testament to the

enduring relevance and profundity of the great thinker's legacy. Through his writings and his

lived example, Augustine continues to beckon generations of seekers, inviting them to

embark on a journey of self-discovery, metanoia, and a deeper encounter with the living God.

In this comprehensive summary, we have endeavored to capture the essence of Benedict

XVI's intellectual and spiritual affinity with Augustine of Hippo, tracing the intricate tapestry

of their shared insights, inspirations, and yearnings. From Augustine's conception of the

Church as the Body of Christ to his understanding of the Holy Spirit as divine communio,

from his epistemology rooted in conversion to his profound articulation of confessio, we have

followed the threads that wove these two great minds together across the expanse of

centuries.

Through the lens of Benedict XVI's scholarly engagement and personal devotion, we have

witnessed the enduring relevance of Augustine's restless quest for truth, a quest that resonates

profoundly with the human condition in every age. In Augustine's life and writings, we

encounter a timeless invitation to embrace the path of metanoia, to surrender our hearts to the

purifying fire of divine love, and to find our ultimate rest in the eternal peace of Christ.