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Rupert Shortt (yes, 2 t's) writing in the Times Literary Supplement has some valuable comments. He is reviewing Tracey Rowland's book Benedict XVI. Shortt asserts that Benedict is "the first pope in centuries to be a thinker of the first rank." But he does have criticisms: Benedict doesn't address the Holocaust tragedy as it should be; the Pope has promoted "his own model for church government"; he hasn't been open to the ideas of reform-minded theologians.
Shortt is good at highlighting the themes of Benedict's own theological perspective. In one book Benedict tells the reader that belief in God has much in common with love; that is, if you never give yourself to it, you will never understand it. Benedict offers this bit of reasoning: "Anyone who makes up his [sic] mind to evade the uncertainty of belief will have to experience the uncertainty of unbelief, which can never finally eliminate for certain the possibility that belief may after all be the truth."
Furthermore, Benedict argues that secular reason is not wholly reasonable, because it fails to reckon with the fundamental and inclusive context of meaning that only religion supplies. In other words, if reason and science ignore the spiritual dimension of life, their reasoning isn't big enough.
Shortt thinks that Benedict's approach to other religions is too narrow. Shortt says, "Religious exclusivists have little to offer those outside their own loop. Christians with a more open sense of the holy Spirit's mission will see the subject in a broader light." I agree.
Benedict's interaction with the father of atheism, Frederich Nietzsche, is interesting. Benedict thinks Nietzsche understands a great deal about the human condition, but doesn't offer the right solution. "Either everything means something or nothing means anything." It is the first half of the previous sentence that is correct, according to Benedict.
That is a statement to meditate on. Let me repeat it:
"Either everything means something,
or nothing means anything."
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