The Christian Image of Man

If you’re living and breathing in 2024, you doubtlessly already know that our culture is awash in confusion about what it means to be human. In a way like never before, clichés like “my body, my choice,” “love is love,” “gender is not binary,” or “live your truth” have become exhaustingly pervasive in our social interactions. The fact that such contradictions have been so rapidly and blindly embraced underscores the growing urgency for the Church to present a compelling rival vision of what it means to be human.

In my capacity as professor and co-director of the Center for Integral Ecology at Benedictine College, I recently had the privilege of sharing a meal with our guest Fr. José Granados, a dynamic speaker who has been working diligently to articulate precisely this kind of alternative. Granados is an iconic figure for me as a biblical theologian because he co-edited a most important (but not widely enough known) book containing essential texts from Joseph Ratzinger on how to interpret Scripture from a robustly Catholic perspective. But, the reason I mention him now is that he recently collaborated with Fr. Livio Melina to edit a pivotal new volume entitled La verità dell’amore: Tracce per un cammino. The collection contains many noteworthy essays, and this installment of my “God’s Two Books” column takes its bearing from one in particular: a previously unpublished essay by Pope Benedict XVI entitled “The Christian Image of Man (L’immagine cristiana dell’uomo).”¹

This invaluable handwritten text of twelve pages was composed by Benedict XVI in early 2020, shortly before his death, and represents his contribution to the Veritas Amoris Project. Founded in 2019 by Livio Melina and José Granados in the aftermath of their dismissal (connected with the restructuring of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome), the Veritas Amoris Project is an association of scholars committed to the affirmation of “the truth of love as a key to understanding the mystery of God, the human person and the world, convinced that this perspective provides an integral and fruitful pastoral approach.” As Benedict’s former secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein writes in a notable preface to the volume, this framework reflects the heart of Benedict’s theology, for “the relationship between truth and love is central to the entirety of Benedict’s teaching.”

In addition to Gänswein’s preface, the volume also includes a valuable general introduction composed by Melina and Granados, along with introductory remarks on Benedict’s text offered by Melina. As the latter recounts, Benedict considered the sweeping changes at the John Paul II Institute “unjust and unacceptable.” Having sought in vain to get those responsible to reconsider, Benedict threw his support behind the Veritas Amoris Project. Seeing its development as essential for carrying forward his and John Paul II’s teachings on the unity of truth and love, the emeritus pope wished not only to advise the Project but also to contribute to it theologically.

Toward this end, the pontiff described his essay on the Christian image of man as a “conceptual outline” for the Project’s research and teaching agenda. As he explained, this program is informed by three primary reference points: St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, Benedict’s own theology of love, and Pope Francis’s pastoral approach.

The relational nature of man

At the foundation of his quest to illuminate the unity of truth and love, Benedict’s vision begins with an understanding of man as inherently relational.

One of the significant truths we’ve forgotten in our society is that no one lives and dies alone. From our parents who conceived us to our friends who brighten our days to the animals and plants whose deaths sustain us, interdependence is an ineluctable feature of human existence. For his part, Benedict writes that it also specifically pertains to the essence of what it means to be God’s image. “Being an image,” he says, is “being in relation.”

Contending that relatio can be regarded as “a fundamental definition of man,” the pontiff notes that the fundamental, observable reality of our interconnectedness with others aligns remarkably with “the fundamental idea of God who, as Trinity, is an interplay of relations and not an isolated substance.” As we witness in this text, Benedict envisioned reality as an intricate web of interconnected relationships spanning every level. In fact, on another occasion, the renowned theologian went so far as to maintain that this structure that relation “stands beside substance as an equally primordial form of being.”

Moreover, he understood that this claim is not something derived solely from theology, but also revealed in God’s “other book”—the book of nature. On this score, he notes that the theological insight that relation lies at the heart of reality “corresponds no less strikingly with the findings of modern physics, according to which no substance exists in isolation and that everything exists in relationship.”²

An unrealistic moral standard?

For me, a particularly delightful feature of this brief text by our late pontiff was witnessing his renewed engagement with a 1391 A.D. debate between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a learned Persian concerning the truth claims of Christianity and Islam. As many readers will recall, Benedict famously (and, in some circles, infamously) referenced this dispute in his landmark 2006 Regensburg Address.

In that setting, the pontiff cited this dialogue to open up a conversation on the issue of religious violence. Toward that end, he challenged Muslims to clarify their position on the relationship between religion and violence, leading with the Christian emperor’s bold assertion that the law inaugurated by Muhammad centuries had in actuality “pillaged” and “plagiarized” its teachings from its Jewish and Christian forebears: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached” (§2.c, §27.c).³

This time around, Benedict foregrounds a different topic within this same exchange, the 7^th in a series of 26 such conversations between the emperor and the anonymous Muslim mudarris (teacher). Having debated a variety of matters where they stood in firm opposition with one another, both interlocutors ultimately concurred that the crux of their divergence centers on which religion offers the correct image of man. Rehearsing a trope that one often encounters in an Islamic context, the Persian claims that Christianity’s image of man is unrealistic—“heavy, excessive, and impracticable”—imposing unattainable moral demands that are bound to result in failure (§5.c). After all, the thinking goes, what man is “made of iron or diamond” so as to be capable of loving his enemies, turning the other cheek when wronged, or honoring a lifelong commitment made in the idealism of youth? (§5.e). In particular, the mudarris considers the Christian discipline of vowed virginity a “totally unbearable” and “violent” burden that suffers from the “obvious” problem of being “outside the realm of reason” insofar as it asks an incarnate creature to “imitate the nature of bodiless beings” (§5.f).

According to this line of thinking, we might as well openly permit divorce and certain forms of violence while seeking ways to regulate them, given that we will never be able to completely prevent people from partaking in such behaviors. In this regard, the Muslim contends, “The law of Muhamad is the middle way,” as it proclaims “moderate” precepts that are “much more bearable and humane…For it fills in by its own precepts what was lacking in the old law, but trims the excesses of the law of Christ” (§5.b). In this way, he argues that Islamic morality aligns more closely with the wisdom of ancient philosophers like Aristotle, being “better than all laws” because it “avoids both extremes, honoring the mean in everything” (§5.c–d).

In response to this viewpoint, the emperor contends that Islam’s seeming realism demands too little of man, effectively preventing him from rising to his full greatness. Contrary to Islam, the Christian believes that with God all things are indeed possible because “the hand of God invisibly assists them in carrying them out” (§9.b). Manuel thus explains that we can indeed live the Beatitudes and attain spiritual perfection thanks to the grace of Christ, who “does not recommend impossible things” (19.f).

Taking into account the gap between the Christian vision of human perfection and the various views present in other religious and secular contexts, Benedict draws the following lesson from this conversation: “[T]he question concerning the correct image of man emerges as the fundamental practical question in the clash between Christianity and the antichrist.” From here, the pontiff sharpens his focus and puts forward a thesis that he revisited often throughout his career: “In my view, the central point of this confrontation will be the question of freedom.”⁴

A contemporary contradiction regarding freedom

As in the Regensburg Address, Benedict here uses the Christianity-Islam debate as a segue to introduce his primary theme. The key issue he really wants to address doesn’t concern how human freedom is understood in Islam, but rather the prevailing view of man in present-day Western society, in which “freedom means total indeterminacy, lacking content and directives.” This is the notion that we should be free to do whatever we want and whenever we want—without suffering any undesired consequences. However, as Benedict notes, this novel concept of freedom has led to a “curious situation” for the enlightened and liberated individual of today. He identifies this contradictory state of affairs as follows:

[O]n the one hand, the natural sciences claim to have discovered the complete determinacy of man, which is, of course, accepted by all those who believe in science. At the same time, however—and in complete contradiction with this—a radical thesis of human freedom continues to be asserted and practiced.

Benedict has exposed a profound aporia at the heart of the scientism and libertinism that dominate our present cultural context. On the one hand, scientific naturalism posits that human behavior is entirely dictated by our physiology, rendering free will an illusion. On the other hand, the same people who assume this stance are sometimes of the persuasion that our human identity is wholly dependent on our own will—as claimed by those who believe that our God-given biological constitution is irrelevant to our sexual identity. Yet Pope Benedict rightly insists that something has to give. Our behavior can’t be both wholly determined in advance by our empirical constitution and utterly undetermined prior to our own decisions.⁵

Of course, the pope was well aware that man’s abuse of his freedom is nothing new. Nevertheless, he observes that the concept of freedom has recently been pushed “to a radicalism that was previously unimaginable,” resulting in a scenario in which “radical worldliness is proving to be the dominant vision” of contemporary society. Echoing insights he had previously expressed on a number of occasions, in the twilight of his life the pontiff offered one final analysis of the shift that has occurred:

Indeed, it is now denied that, as a free being, man is in any way bound to a nature that defines the scope of his freedom. Man now no longer has a nature but makes himself. Human nature no longer exists. It is man alone who decides what he is, male or female. Man now produces man himself and thus determines the destiny of a being that no longer comes from the hands of a Creator God but from the laboratory of human invention.

As Benedict and his saintly predecessor frequently stressed, the eclipse of the sense of God tends to result in the loss of the sense of man (see, for example, John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §21). The emeritus pontiff here frames this point in this way: “The abolition of the Creator as the abolition of man thus becomes the true threat to faith.” And, to reinforce just how central the dying pontiff considered this matter, he described the effort to confront it concisely and unequivocally: “This is the great task now facing theology.”

While he has entrusted this mission to those who will follow in his footsteps, Benedict seized the opportunity afforded by this letter to offer a few concrete indications of what a positive response to our crisis ought to look like. With this objective, he begins by acknowledging that nature and freedom “at first seem to be in irreconcilable opposition.” According to Benedict, what allows us to overcome this apparent incompatibility is the knowledge that human nature “carries the Logos within itself” and can even be regarded as “designed.”⁶ In other words, “[H]uman freedom is a created freedom. This means that within himself, man carries a purpose that aligns with his nature, that is, with his being an image of God.”

Yes, we are free, says Benedict. But, because we are creatures endowed with specific natures, it is not an absolute freedom. As a human person, my nature is going to be fulfilled through free actions that correspond to my nature as a rational animal. Exercising my freedom to live in a way that mirrors the behavior of a dog, horse, spider, or even chimpanzee is simply not going to cut it.

Aristotle knew this centuries before the revelation of Christ. According to this great philosopher, humans are born with “natural inclinations” that we can’t help but have. By nature, we cannot help but desire food, safety, sex, knowledge, and loving relationships. How we go about pursuing these goods is another matter, but we are not free to choose whether we or not we want them. Likewise, whether one likes it or not, a person is born either male or female. While one may (even quite dramatically) alter accidental features of his or her life, nothing a person does will change that fundamental reality. Many more examples could be given, but I’ll leave it at that for now. As Benedict puts it, “I believe it is in this context, then, that the question of sexuality and its authentically human development must also be addressed. The entire range of issues related to human sexuality lies here.”⁷

Our predicament requires an answer both theoretical and practical

Benedict wraps up his missive by emphasizing a theme that he regularly revisited when confronting challenges to the Church’s vision of man amidst a culture that is largely indifferent or hostile to the gospel. Specifically, the Bavarian wunderkind understood that Christianity’s truth claims regarding the nature of love will fail to persuade unless those who proclaim them embody that love in their lives. One of the most often recurring phrases in Benedict’s ministry is that the true apologia for the faith rests in the beauty and the saints that the Church has generated across the ages. Here, the pontiff states quite plainly that our theology will be able to compellingly rise to this occasion only “if the example of Christian life proves stronger than the force of the denials that surround us and promise a false freedom.”⁸

In this connection, it is important to note that, in speaking of saints, Benedict has in mind something quite different from “the pietistic and kitsch stereotypes of the ‘plaster saints’” who appear removed from the realities of ordinary life.⁹ He therefore made a firm call for the Church to avoid adopting a “ghetto” or “fortress” mentality—a “narrow, fearful existence closed off from the world.”¹⁰ At the same time, he highlighted the danger of falling prey to a “simple, uncritical acceptance of today’s world.” ¹¹ For the Christian in the present moment, the challenge lies in discovering how to live in the world and work for the good of the world, yet without being conformed to the world—in short, “to stand openly amid the drama of his own time to lead the world back to Christ.”¹²

Finally, I’d like to mention one last thing lest we interpret Benedict’s focus on the lived experience of faith in an anti-intellectualist way. Despite being an intellectual giant, for this simple soul the solution to our present-day challenge concerning the image of man can ultimately be found only in the person of Jesus Christ, not in intricate explanations embedded within a system of thought. Nevertheless, he stressed that this recognition should not deter us from striving to develop precisely these types of answers.

And, with that, it is only appropriate to let Benedict have the last word: “The awareness that it is impossible to resolve such a problem solely on a theoretical level certainly does not exempt us from striving to propose a solution, even at the level of thought.” ¹³

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