European Culture in a State of Crisis: Joseph Ratzinger’s Diagnosis / Kultura europejska w stanie kryzysu: diagnoza Josepha Ratzingera

Abstract

European culture, according to Joseph Ratzinger, is seriously undermined by a modernist (rationalistic) and postmodernist (irrationalistic) way of thinking which deeply penetrates it. Europe undergoes a state of crisis which can be compared to the last, declining phase of the Roman Empire’s existence. Ratzinger does not lose hope, however, and points out a way out, and that is a return to the roots of the European culture, to the realistic philosophy that pursues the truth about God and the human person. This requires an “extension of the reason” which would recognize that, as reasonably constructed, it must have its rational cause—God.

Keywords

• scientific rationalism
• Enlightenment
• freedom
• progress
• relativism
• personalism