Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed

Abstract

Not only had Buber identified a key focal difference between Augustine and Aquinas which resonated with the pastoral concerns of the young Ratzinger, but Buber was also hostile to a conception of religion as ritualism and dogmatism, and this was another of Ratzinger’s pastoral preoccupations. Instead of writing about Juda-ism from the perspective of dogma and ritual, Buber tried to present the essential qualities of Judaism in terms of a philosophical anthro-pology with an emphasis on how the human person can bridge the gulf between the sacred and profane. Indeed, von Balthasar sug-gested that Buber was driven by a quest to understand what Catholics would call sacramentality the way that God relates to his people in signs and actions and that this led him to accept and defend the body of thought that is common to the romantic movement and modern psychology that stresses the significance of the myth-making faculty of the creative imagination.