The ‘Logos’ of Faith in the Era of Pope Francis

The Matrix of Creation

When we deal with identity, and particularly with religious identity, the question of ‘boundaries’ and ‘borders’ immediately emerges. Each identity sets ‘boundaries’ and marks ‘borders’ vis-à-vis others. ‘Boundaries’ and ‘borders’ generate identities, and identities need limits and margins. By setting and marking ‘borders,’ ‘order’ is preserved and life may flourish; this is true for human culture and even more so for the religious phenomenon.

In his encyclical letter Laudato Si’ (n. 66), Pope Francis reminds us that the fundamental category of reality in the Book of Genesis (Gen 1–2) is ‘relationship’: with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth itself. The category of ‘relation’ implies a set or pair: ‘identity’ and ‘difference.’ In the priestly narration (Gen 1:1–2, 4a), the identity of what is day and night is established by drawing a frontier between light and darkness. ‘God saw that light was a good thing and separated the light from the darkness and called the day light and darkness night. And it was evening and morning: the first day’ (Gen 1: 4–5). God creates reality by assigning a fundamental boundary to chaos. Reality is nothing but the cosmological setting and marking of boundaries and borders. Creation arises from an original distinction which refers to a more fundamental encounter: a covenant between God and creation. The difference between God and creation makes possible diversity in creation.

The Jahwist account (Gen 2:4b–26) applies this ‘boundary/border setting’ to human identity (Adam). ‘Humanity’ is not an enclosed monad: ‘Adam’ is ‘man and woman.’ This ‘and’ reveals the anthropological identity. Each human being constitutes an ontological need for the other. One cannot be human without the other. ‘It is not good that Adam is alone’ (Gen 2:18). Relationships constitute and realize humanity; the breaking or the denial of any form of relationship releases hegemonic dominance. The denial of differences and the absorption of otherness into absolute indifference is biblically called ‘sin’: an undifferentiated and fluid identity which inclines towards chaos, and therefore to non-being; indeed, nothing can replace the bereshit of relation. ‘In the beginning is the relation’ (Martin Buber). Identity originates from relations and consists in relationship to the other, without whom no identity is possible. From a Christian perspective, even more, the denial of identity-in-difference is a denial of God as Trinity.

In Oneself as Another, Paul Ricoeur observes that there are two contrasting meanings of identity: identity as idem referring to ‘the same’ and identity as ipse as ‘the self.’ In the first instance identity is numerically considered as equality (1 = 1), whereas in the second, identity is related to and constituted by ‘otherness.’ Ricoeur interprets this dimension of identity (ipse) as the dialectics of self and other. ⁴ The proper hermeneutics of Christian self-understanding, the logos of Christian faith, consists in a process of detours of the self, that is, a process of diversions from self-affirming routes and approaches, in which we leave behind the apologetic form of perceiving the other and become ‘incarnate’ with the other, being empathetic with the other, as we move on in our journey of self-understanding. We need to enter into the skin of the other and see the world as the other would see it. ⁵ When that stage of self-perception is achieved, based on a non-dualistic paradigm, then identity and otherness are no more juxtaposed but intrinsically related to each other. Stanislas Breton applies this kind of ontological perception in dealing with two contrasting meanings of ‘uniqueness.’ In the first instance, uniqueness is perceived as excellence, superiority, and exclusion. In the framework of duality (subject and object; identity and otherness), there is a zero-sum game going on: either one over the other (excellence as exclusion) or the other absorbed into the identity (excellence as inclusion). In the second, more contemplative, non-dualistic paradigm, uniqueness is perceived as ‘singularity’ and ‘distinctiveness,’ related to and constituted by ‘otherness’: uniqueness considered as ‘one-not-without-the-other’ as in a ‘non-dual’ form of uniqueness. ⁶ ‘God may be all in all’ (1Cor 15:28).

Christian Identity

Relationality structures Christian identity from within. The canon of Christian Scriptures is based on the recognition of the authority of sacred books from another religion: Judaism. ‘The New Testament writings were never presented as something entirely new. On the contrary, they attest to their rootedness in the long religious experience of the people of Israel, an experience recorded in diverse forms in the sacred books which comprise the Jewish Scriptures. The New Testament recognizes their divine authority.’ ⁷ In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium, Pope Francis has reminded that Christians share with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures. The people of the covenant is ‘one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (Rom 11:16–18)’ (n. 247).

The plurality of the writings of the New Testament, particularly the presence of four different accounts and portraits of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, reveals how the identity of Jesus cannot be comprehended without the connection of different and sometimes contrasting narratives.

Intercultural and interreligious plurality made possible the start of Christianity. ‘Christianity moved out of its Jewish matrix into the Hellenistic, Roman, and Teutonic worlds, or into what is commonly designated the Western world.’ ⁸ Christian religious identity developed in relation to its origin (Judaism) and its ever new cultural settings (Hellenistic, Roman, and Teutonic worlds) in a process of fruitful and dynamic interchange, in the spirit of discernment.

The Apostle Paul best embodies this cultural and religious process: born as a Jew, probably a Pharisee; developed in a cultural environment (Tarsus) in which Judaism had undergone a process of Hellenization; and finally, under Roman influence that identified him as civis romanus and transformed him from Saul to Paul.

The pivotal core of Paul’s religious identity is God’s incarnation. As declared in the Council of Chalcedon, the Christ-event is a ‘hypostatic union,’ constituting the ‘identity’ of Jesus Christ in the difference of divine and human nature—without confusion and without alteration, without separation and without division. Such ‘identity-in-difference’ establishes the basic grammar not only of Christology but of the logos of Christian faith. Even in the form of Christian monotheism—as confessed in the Doctrine of the Trinity—the same logos of faith is expressed in such grammar: God is identity as otherness.

The logos of Christian faith, therefore, corresponds and represents the matrix of God’s identity. By being ‘other’ in Godself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), God can become ‘other’ than Godself (incarnation). In his first letter to the Corinthians (9:19–23), the apostle Paul describes how God’s way becomes his own way of being a Christian, by becoming other than himself.

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

Paul gives up his ‘violent’ approach to religious identity (1Tim 1:13–14) by conforming to the Christ-event. ‘I no longer live, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20). In his own self-understanding, Paul shows forth the ‘nonviolent’ character of God.

In Jesus’ earthly life there emerges a religious self-understanding that is neither rigid nor fluid. In many of his encounters (Mk 5:1–20; Mk 7:24–30; Lk 17: 11–19), Jesus defines his identity by ‘crossing’ beyond and over confessional boundaries (non-Jewish), ‘breaking down walls of separation’ (Eph 2:14) and ‘building up’ bridges by reaching out to whoever is outside the religious establishment (Mk 7:24–30). By defining his own religious identity, Jesus acknowledges the critical role that the Samaritan-difference plays in reversing a self-centred religious identity. For example, in the parable of Luke 10:30–37, Jesus defines himself as ‘other’ and ‘stranger’ through the Samaritan figure. The Samaritan ‘outsider’ re-presents Jesus. By identifying himself with the ‘outsider,’ Jesus reveals the logos of God.

The ‘Logos’ of Faith

The logos of the Christian faith has gone through different stages from the very beginning. Confronting his Jewish heritage, the apostle Paul had to oppose those Christians who obstinately and rigidly held firm to their Jewish paradigm as a precondition for preaching the Good News. By preaching Christ beyond and without the Torah, Paul prevented the early Church from becoming one of the many sects within first-century Judaism. The Gospel secundum Paulum reminds Christians through the centuries that the logos of Christian faith is not at peace with any attempt to block or moderate the power of the Christ-event. Such an understanding of the logos of Christian faith allowed the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be transferred from Asia to Europe by a process of Hellenization and De-Hellenization. It was not an easy process. There were still those who wanted a divorce between reason and faith, like Tertullian (De praescriptione haereticorum), for the sake of preserving Christian identity; but, on the other side, Augustine (Commentary on the Gospel of John) and Anselm (Proslogion) endorsed a fruitful exchange between faith and reason: credo, ut intellegam; intellego, ut credam.

In the Modern Age, the logos of Christian faith has lost its consensus and been shattered into a plurality of logoi and methodologies. Biblical narratives have become problematic for the modern theological mind. Theology has become more and more disseminated in various disciplines: the science of history, exegesis, fundamental theology, dogmatic, moral, practical theology. From a homogeneous logos present within the Church and between Church and society, we have moved to a cultural and religious heterogeneity. In the global, pluralistic, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious setting, we may ask, how the logos of Christian faith can remain faithful to its original identity and at the same time be open to the cultural processes that are taking place?

To try to answer this question we might call to mind the address that Pope Benedict XVI gave at the University of Regensburg (12 September 2006). In his speech, he boldly highlighted the essential connection between ‘reason’ and ‘the nature of God,’ by affirming that both reject ‘violence.’ Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and of reason: not acting reasonably, therefore, is contrary to God’s nature. Pope Benedict XVI has thus indirectly united logos to agape, non-violence, affirming that

the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, ‘transcends’ knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, quoting Paul—λογικη λατρεία, worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

On this point we are reminded of Augustine’s epistemological condition: ‘Non intratur in veritatem, nisi per caritatem’ (One does not enter truth, except through charity). ⁹ Agape makes it possible that the logos of Christian faith remains open to the processes that the Church is living in the modern world, without complaining how ‘barbaric’ the world is.

Discerning ‘Logos’

In his first interview to La Civiltà Cattolica, Pope Francis remarked that ‘God manifests himself in historical revelation, in history. Time initiates processes, and space crystallizes them. God is in history, in the processes.’ ¹⁰ The logos of Christian faith must be prepared to give up its many forms of crystallization and rigidity, and be ready to become more of a process of discernment inside the world and the history of human cultures.

In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium at n. 36, Pope Francis points to the ‘hierarchy of truths,’ quoting n. 11 of Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio. Doctrines of faith and of morals ‘vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith.’ Dealing specifically with ecumenical dialogue, at n. 246, Pope Francis emphasizes this principle of discernment:

If we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service and witness . . .. How many important things unite us! If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another! It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us. To give but one example, in the dialogue with our Orthodox brothers and sisters, we Catholics have the opportunity to learn more about the meaning of episcopal collegiality and their experience of synodality. Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness.

Pope Francis describes this process of discernment as welcoming ‘differing currents of thought in philosophy, theology and pastoral practice’ (n. 40). The logos that forms Christian faith ‘is not a monolithic body of doctrine guarded by all and leaving no room for nuance,’ but is shaped by a substantial plurality and diversity that ‘bring out and develop different facets of the inexhaustible riches of the Gospel.’

In today’s vast and rapid cultural changes, the logos of Christian faith demands that the distinction of ‘the deposit of the faith’ and ‘the way it is expressed’ always be kept in mind. ‘There are times when the faithful, in listening to completely orthodox language, take away something alien to the authentic Gospel of Jesus Christ, because that language is alien to their own way of speaking to and understanding one another. With the holy intent of communicating the truth about God and humanity, we sometimes give them a false god or a human ideal which is not Christian. In this way, we hold fast to a formulation while failing to convey its substance’ (n. 41).

Discernment of Doctrine

One of the main objectives in Pope Francis’s ecumenical endeavour is the reconciliation of differences in pursuing the unity of the body of Christ. During his homily at the Lutheran Cathedral of Lund (31 October 2016), Pope Francis acknowledged that at the time of the Reformation on both the Catholic and Lutheran sides there was a sincere desire ‘to profess and uphold the true faith,’ but at the same time by being closed in on oneself out of fear and bias arose towards ‘the faith which others profess with a different accent and language.’ In his journey to Egypt (28 April 2017), at the address to Pope Tawadros II, Francis said that ‘it is no longer possible to take refuge behind the pretext of differing interpretations, much less of those centuries of history and traditions that estranged us one from the other.’ The logos of Christian faith urges Churches to define their respective identity and doctrine in facing the other, and not without the other, so that a process of transformation and ‘new creation’ (2 Cor 5:17) may take place among religious identities.

Such discernment and transformation of Christian self-understanding not only challenges religious institutions but affects the inner core of the conscience of believers. In an essay on The Faith of the Christian and the Doctrine of the Church, Karl Rahner referred to Vatican II’s concept of the hierarchy of truths and affirms that each single truth does not always reside with the same certainty and infallibility in every single conscience or throughout the life of an individual. Truth is always perceived within an existential and historical hierarchical setting.

In this context we can discern not merely an objective structure in this Christian truth taken as a whole, but also (and this is just as important) a subjective ‘hierarchy of truth’ and, moreover, one that is perfectly justified. What we are seeking to convey is this: the various aspects and perspectives from which any Christian regards his personal life as it unfolds, or alternatively the totality of Christian doctrine from his own individual standpoint, vary very greatly. ¹¹

A distinction must be made, therefore, between the official teaching of the Church and personal acquisition by affective and rational assent. The acknowledgment of the individual conscience in the process of discernment, so that remarried Catholics might have access to the sacraments, is a further step in reshaping the logos Christian faith in our post-Christian culture. In the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis recognizes the decisive task that the faithful have in ‘carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them’ (n. 37). Discernment does not simply mean to apply doctrines or rules into real life; discernment is a creative process in which conscience does not simply recognize that a given situation objectively contradicts the Gospel. Discernment aims at identifying the most generous response to God’s call ‘amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. In any event, let us recall that this discernment is dynamic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized’ (n. 303).

Recent common declarations between the Catholic church and other Churches, for example, the ‘Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East’ (1994) and the ‘Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification’ (1999), have clearly shown how discernment not only engages the life of the Church on a pastoral and individual level, but involves the development of doctrine. In the Common Christological Declaration, it is stated also that the process of dialogue and discernment has brought churches to understand better that the doctrinal differences of the past are not today understood as contradictory. They were misunderstandings and not unorthodox beliefs. In the Joint Declaration between Catholics and Lutherans it is said that both churches ‘are now able to articulate a common understanding’ that makes possible ‘a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification and shows that the remaining differences in its explication are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations’ (n. 5).

The process of discernment which constitutes the logos of Christian faith allows an evolution of doctrine, as John Henry Newman described in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. The development of doctrine does not simply consist in a change of the outward formulation of the doctrine, while the core and essence remain immutable. Such an evolution would only consist in a movement from old to new, from implicit to explicit, without paying attention to external factors. In such a case, the process of tradition would not influence from within the revelation of the truth. In such an understanding of dogma, history would not play any role in the development of dogma. History would be considered like a stage on which dogma has its own destiny. However, if the development of dogma is similar to the development of a plant from a seed, the external conditions—field, weather, and water—do influence the essence of a dogmatic definition. ‘Tradition’ is not a pipeline through which the water of faith passes: it is an organic structure, in which life (that is faith) is affirmed and confirmed by growing and evolving.

Tradition cannot be compared to a dead coin that is passed down from hand to hand; it does not consist in dead formulations that you only need to repeat. It is not simply to develop premises already given. The vitality of a tradition is not even in a change of expression more suitable to the changing times but keeping the same content. We theologically understand historicity when we comprehend that the one and the same tradition is once again called always into question while facing new historical situations. ¹²

During the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum (11 October 2017), Pope Francis stressed that the more we direct to charity

all the substance of doctrine and teaching, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (n. 25), the more there is a need to reform and develop Church teachings. The recognition of the dignity of the human person, which the Catholic church solemnly declared in Dignitatis humanae, urgently requires a development of doctrine, in this case of the death penalty, leaving aside arguments which now appear to be strongly contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth. ¹³

Quoting Vincenzo di Lérins’s Commonitorium (23.1: PL 50), Pope Francis recalled that doctrinal progress belongs to the very essence of the Church of Christ.

The Mystical Dimension of the ‘Logos’ of Faith

The logos of Christian faith is determined by two decisive conditions. On the one hand, Christians do not already possess the truth in all its fullness, while, on the other, they are subject to the influence of historical conditions. In his Letter to a non-believer, Pope Francis responded to Eugenio Scalfari, former head and journalist of the newspaper La Repubblica, and remarks that for believers there are no ‘absolute’ truths,

in the sense that the absolute is that which is disconnected and bereft of all relationship.. . . truth is a relationship. As such each one of us receives the truth and expresses it from within, that is to say, according to one’s own circumstances, culture and situation in life. ¹⁴

The logos of Christian faith is sustained by both the notion of truth as relation and of God as magis. Both notions identify the ‘object’ (the Trans-cendent), the never unfolding mystery of God (Deus semper maior), and the ‘way’ (trans-cendere), as the ongoing process of transcending any grasp of the mystery, as an event of encounter. Truth does not overtake us as a statement, but as someone we experience and who needs to be encountered over and over again.

The need for transcending doctrines and dogmatic formulations is well expressed in the Apostolic exhortation, Evangelii gaudium, at nn. 40–41. The Church

needs to grow in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth . . . For those who long for a monolithic body of doctrine guarded by all and leaving no room for nuance, this might appear as undesirable and leading to confusion. . . . In this way, we hold fast to a formulation while failing to convey its substance. This is the greatest danger. Let us never forget that the expression of truth can take different forms. The renewal of these forms of expression becomes necessary for the sake of transmitting to the people of today the Gospel message in its unchanging meaning.

We may say that Pope Francis has been inspired by the principle of ‘consolation without preceding cause’ which Ignatius of Loyola explains in the eighth rule of discernment for the second week (n. 336) of the Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius argues that there are two different kinds of consolation. The first kind has a ‘preceding cause’ in the person’s own acts, or in the movements caused by the good or the bad spirit. The second kind of consolation is called ‘without preceding cause’ because God alone is the immediate cause, and no other created entity: neither human nor spiritual. Many Ignatian scholars think that such an immediate awareness of God is non-conceptual and transcendental. One of these scholars is Karl Rahner. ¹⁵

The Jesuit theologian speaks of the consolation without preceding cause as an athematic experience, whose object is God alone. By ‘God’ is meant not a definition or a concept but the horizon which is beyond any concept and definition. The consolation without preceding cause is a critical and transcendental presupposition which makes everything else relative. It is an experience of ‘pure openness and receptivity of the consciously experienced transcendence towards God.’ ¹⁶ Because ‘it is the condition of the possibility of all cognition, it is without error, and is the ultimate certitude.’ ¹⁷

Ignatius instructs the retreatant to distinguish carefully with great vigilance and attention the actual consolation without any preceding cause, which has no deception in it, from the consequent reception of this consolation: ‘for in this second period it often happens that by its own thought, in accordance with its habits, and in consequence of its own conceptions and judgments, or by the suggestion of the good or the evil spirit, it forms various resolutions and plans, which are not inspired immediately by God our Lord; and hence it is necessary that they be very carefully examined before they receive entire credit and are carried into effect.’ ¹⁸

There are two levels or moments in the experience of consolation without cause: (1) the transcendental moment, when God is active as first cause; (2) the categorical moment, when human responsiveness appropriates and translates God’s direct action. This distinction makes any definition and dogmatic formulation relative. This distinction allows the right understanding of the dynamic transcendence of God, implied in the Ignatian notion of magis.

In such a context, Rahner advocates for a sound and appropriate understanding of agnosticism and apophaticism. ‘The unconditional surrender of oneself to the incomprehensibility of God is radical agnosticism, and actually this is the only true agnosticism because every other view of agnosticism is innocuous.’ ¹⁹ In the previously mentioned interview to La Civiltà Cattolica, Pope Francis reminds us of the Jesuit mystical tradition: ‘The Jesuit must be a person whose thought is incomplete, in the sense of open-ended thinking. There have been periods in the Society in which Jesuits have lived in an environment of closed and rigid thought.’ This transgressive character of mystical thinking defines any experience, and any understanding of the mystery of God. The meaning of the word ‘transgressive’ derives from transgredior which means to ‘move on and proceed beyond.’ In the interview to La Civiltà Cattolica Pope Francis advocates for an area of uncertainty, as we more and more approach God.

If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation. ²⁰

The vacuum or the ‘not-yet’ left open by this never-ending uncertainty defines the areopagus, the public area in which religious identities convene and converse, and the synodal space, in which Christian communities move forward on the journey towards the fullness of visible unity. By thinking and living truth as ‘the event of the encounter,’ Christian faith identifies its logos by three essential traits: the mystical or apophatic understanding of God (deus definiri nequit) which can be summarized in Anselm’s axiom of ‘something than which nothing greater can be thought’ (id quo maius cogitari nequit); the dogmatic or kataphatic understanding of God which has symbolic and metaphorical feature; and the dialogical, that is the understanding of God ‘not-without-the-others.’ In an interview with Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis acknowledges that the God he believes in is not ‘catholic.’ ‘I believe in God. Not a Catholic God, a Catholic God does not exist. God exists.’ ²¹ And in the interview given to the director of La Civilità Cattolica:

God is encountered walking, along the path. . . . Discernment is essential. If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life.

In the letter to Scalfari, Pope Francis comments on Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John (14:26): ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’

The truth, being completely one with love, demands humility and an openness to be sought, received and expressed. Therefore, we must have a correct understanding of the terms and, perhaps, in order to overcome being bogged down by conflicting absolute positions, we need to redefine the issues in depth. I believe this is absolutely necessary in order to initiate[a] peaceful and constructive dialogue. ²²

In Dialogue and Proclamation (1991) at n. 49, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue affirmed that the knowledge of the truth received in Jesus Christ is an unending process. ‘While keeping their identity intact, Christians must be prepared to learn and to receive from and through others the positive values of their traditions. Through dialogue they may be moved to give up ingrained prejudices, to revise preconceived ideas, and even sometimes to allow the understanding of their faith to be purified.’

The Form of the ‘Logos’ of Faith

The logos of Christian faith expresses the ‘mind of Christ’ (Phil 2:5), ‘the way of the cross,’ which is clearly summed up in the way of life of the disciple: ‘Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it’ (Mk 8:35). Christian identity cannot but conform its form and essence to the same process of loving kenosis.

As God has emptied Godself, by becoming human and crucified/cursed (Phil 2:7–8), so Christians are called to discover their identity and the form, the essence, and the logos of their faith in the never-ending process of giving up crystallized and petrified truths for the sake of love. Christian identity, as it is divine identity, is not to be considered as a ‘robbery’ (Phil 2:6), something to be seized, but as letting go and a gift. ‘The future of Christianity, and of the Church, is to become an ever more refined religion of pure charity.’ ²³ One of the petrified truths that Christianity humbly renounces for the sake of love is its claim to ‘uniqueness’ and ‘superiority’ over other religions, setting ‘itself among other religions as one of them, just like Jesus who lives as a human being among his fellow human beings. Such a theology may be called “kenotic,” in the self-emptying (kenosis) way of Jesus.’ ²⁴

Christians need to move beyond an apologetic form of logos, defined by Parmenides’s principle of identity where tertium non datur, and embrace a dialogical form of logos, in which the logical argument (elenchus) is given by a non-dualistic thinking, by a kenotic, self-emptying form of logos.

The evidence of faith is not solely rational evidence, as Thomas Aquinas affirms, since the act of faith requires the consent of the will in order to be realized. ‘The intellect of the believer is determined to one object, not by the reason, but by the will, wherefore assent is taken here for an act of the intellect as determined to one object by the will.’ ²⁵ The dynamic tension between the evidence of faith, moved by the external faculty of the will, and the rational evidence can never be overcome. Such tension creates situations of disagreement between intelligence adhering to faith doctrines and intelligence adhering to incontrovertible truth. It is a dissension that leads to research, investigation, exploration within the same irrepressible and unshakeable attachment of faith. The act of faith (fides qua) does not remove the movement of intelligence to the evidence of what is believed (fides quae) and, therefore, the recognition of the difference between believing and thinking. The above-mentioned tension defines the believing bond between conscience and belief as a living bond, whereas dead faith blurs the difference between believing and thinking and considers doctrines as incontrovertible. Such a perversion of the truth of faith makes a doctrine of faith into a rigid formulation. A believer, however, is not a parrot who repeats incomprehensible words for the sake of tradition; a believer is engaged by and is shaping the doctrine he or she confesses.

At the Convention of the Italian Church in Florence (10 November 2015), Pope Francis has reminded Catholics that

Christian doctrine is not a closed system that cannot raise questions, doubts, enquiries, but is alive, knows how to disquiet the mind, knows how to animate the soul. It has no rigid expression, it has a body that moves and develops, it is made of caring flesh: the name, given to the Christian doctrine, is Jesus Christ. ²⁶

Between the ‘objective’ (fides quae) and the ‘subjective’ reality of faith (fides qua) there is a perichoretic movement, so that the ‘objectivity’ of the doctrinal statement (belief) is within and not outside the act of faith (believing). A strictly and well-defined proposition of faith is not correctly understood and interpreted, if it does not intrinsically imply the existential involvement of believing. The ‘truth’ in dogmatic formulations is not something to be objectified and reified, outside of the believing process and the free consent of the subject that professes it. Any doctrinal expression loses its value, even its ‘essence,’ if it is unable to awaken the act of faith in the believer. ²⁷

Instead of perverting the logos of Christian faith, by becoming more and more apologetic, Christians should transform their minds in becoming more and more theo-morphic or Christo-morphic, giving up the ‘dual-thinking’ of the tertium non datur and conforming to the ‘form’ of Christian logos which is intrinsically ‘non-dual’: two-one (Christology); three-one (Doctrine of the Trinity); virgin and mother (Mariology); simul iustus et peccator (Grace).

Such a different form of Christian self-understanding is not a compromise or a way of escaping intellectual rigour but a quality, a paradoxical method of thinking imbued with that Trinitarian logic (whose pivotal centre is the tertium), which does not proceed by ‘either/or’ but rather by ‘both/and,’ in which the Spirit is operative (datur) and ‘the mind of Christ’ is shared. By doing this, the Christian logos will rediscover the ‘catholicity’ and ‘inclusivity’ of et-et, instead of aut-aut.

We find a narrative example of this different logos in the answer Jesus gives to the question of the Samaritan woman (John 4:21–24). ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The opposition between Mount Gerizim and Mount Zion (Jerusalem) symbolizes the dual thinking in which one party is winning (we know what we worship) and the other is losing (you do not know what you worship), whereas the non-dualist thinking is well illustrated by Jesus’ answer to the woman. In order to know God we need to move beyond the Mount-thinking (zero-sum game) and put on the mind of Christ, a non-dual logos which embraces opposite and contradictory sides ‘in spirit and truth,’ and move forward to define doctrines in face of the other, and not without the other, so that a process of discernment of doctrine may take place.

In his homily (25 January 2015) during the Celebrations of Vespers on the Solemnity of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, at the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, Pope Francis commented on these words to the Samaritan woman, saying that Jesus

does not side with the mountain or the temple, but goes deeper. He goes to the heart of the matter, breaking down every wall of division. He speaks instead of the meaning of true worship: ‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’ (John 4:24). So many past controversies between Christians can be overcome when we put aside all polemical or apologetic approaches, and seek instead to grasp more fully what unites us, namely, our call to share in the mystery of the Father’s love revealed to us by the Son through the Holy Spirit. Christian unity—we are convinced—will not be the fruit of subtle theoretical discussions in which each party tries to convince the other of the soundness of their opinions. When the Son of Man comes, he will find us still discussing! We need to realize that, to plumb the depths of the mystery of God, we need one another, we need to encounter one another and to challenge one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who harmonizes diversities, overcomes conflicts, reconciles differences. ²⁸

In such Christian logos, formed by kenosis and agape, the ‘other’ is no longer excluded or dissolved in the ‘idem’ or in the ‘zero-sum’ logic, but the ‘other’ is acknowledged in its uniqueness as ‘ipse.’ ²⁹ The logos of Christian faith is, therefore, grounded on a form of discourse that is non-competitive. According to Christian theology, ‘the glorification of God does not come at the expense of creatures.’ ³⁰ This means that a ‘non-zero-sum’ logic should shape the notion of God and the understanding of dialogue with other faith traditions.

The logos of Christian faith has the potential—if it wants to be faithful to its very origin and divine matrix—to go through the process of denying any outdated and rigid expression of Christianity, in order to more and more conform itself to the Christ-event and to the Trinitarian perichoresis of self-giving. ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain and yields a harvest’ (John 12:24).

Through a knowledge of the religion of the other and by entering its spiritual tradition, Christians better understand their faith and redefine their boundaries in a dialogical and non-hostile way. The logos of Christian faith enables Christians to understand their own religious identity no longer in an exclusive or inclusive way, but in-relationship to the other. What is unique for the logos of Christian faith is the capacity to see and to be ‘oneself as another.’ ³¹

This transformation of religious identities is happening, for example, in the dialogue between Christianity and Judaism. According to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Judaism is to be considered as preparatio evangelica, and Christianity as preparatio messianica. ³² Cardinal Roger Etchegaray stated that Christianity cannot think of itself without Judaism. Christianity and Judaism have their own specific role in the divine plan of redemption. When we Christians rejoice in the past, Jews remind us of the not yet, and this fruitful tension remains at the heart of the Church’s life. ³³ The document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, recognizes as possible and legitimate the Jewish reading of sacred texts.

The Jewish–Christian dialogue is a clear example of how the logos of Christian faith is a process of discernment, reconciliation, and transformation. By recognizing that the Jewish hope in the Messiah is not vain (n. 21), the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission has de facto rejected what is termed supersessionism: the idea that the ‘new’ has replaced as ‘better’ the ‘old.’

The notion of fulfilment is an extremely complex one, one that could easily be distorted if there is a unilateral insistence either on continuity or discontinuity. Christian faith recognises the fulfilment, in Christ, of the Scriptures and the hopes of Israel, but it does not understand this fulfilment as a literal one. Such a conception would be reductionist. In reality, in the mystery of Christ crucified and risen, fulfilment is brought about in a manner unforeseen. It includes transcendence. ³⁴

The category of ‘fulfilment’ can be rightly understood only within a logos of faith which has overcome the ‘zero-sum’ logic and in which the ‘other’ is no more considered in terms of idem but ipse, that is, in its uniqueness. The anti-supersessionist theology of Jewish–Christian dialogue can be applied to wider interreligious dialogue, enabling a process of reconciliation and transformation among religious identities. Such a theology may be called ‘a kenotic theology of religion, in the mold of Christ’s kenosis (self-emptying) affirmed in Philippians 2:7 . . ..’ ³⁵

Discernment, reconciliation, and transformation of doctrines of faith will make it possible to ‘unmask the violence’ that covers them as something sacred, an idol of the absolute instead of being an authentic openness to the Absolute, as Pope Francis has reminded us in his recent address at Al-Azhar. ³⁶

Christianity does not define its logos by excluding its neighbour. The ‘other’ is a witness, the image of the truthfulness of what Christians believe. The more the logos of Christian faith is able to give up its absoluteness for a greater fidelity to its spiritual source, the more its identity will be transformed into the logos of Christ.