Izvorni znanstveni članak
FAITH AS A “PRIVATE MATTER”. THE BEGINNINGS, DEVELOPMENT AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE NOTION
Nenad Malović
Sažetak
Contemporary arrangement of the relationship between religion/faith and society, and the relationship between Church and state, is founded on the liberalism based criteria. This can be learned from the constitutions of contemporary democracies, nevertheless it enters into the mentality in a noticeable manner because of the ideological and aggressive general repetition of the theses regarding the separation between Church and state. Sometimes one gets the impression that the Church and the state must not be mentioned in same sentence, as if a red colour alarm turns immediately on, in the name of the protection of the freedom of man, and that of the state. The reasons for such a situation are several: ranging from collective memory up to the everyday politics. One of the reasons is also the inability to make a distinction between the Church as an institution, i.e. ecclesiastical hierarchy and the faithful members of the Church, and on the other side the political elite in the form of political parties and all citizens as the source of political power according to the principle of the sovereignty of the people. The faith is perceived in public from outside, through the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and politics is perceived through the politicians, but faith is not hierarchy, nor are the politicians the politics itself. The justification for such a perception is not the subject matter of this article. Generally, any indications of a mutual affinity between the ecclesiastical and political elites, harms firstly the Church and state administration, and as a consequence, it is harming the whole society. Therefore, the reduction of the faith on the church hierarchy and the politics on the political elite/administration is not good for both. Henceforth, the Church should invest more in laics, encouraging their maturation in faith and responsibility, accentuating more, not only in a declarative manner the self-understanding of the Church as the “people of God”. Further, Christian self-understanding implies “to be a witness in the world”, so the exclusion of the faithful, who can not prescind from their religious dimension, from the political discourse is contrary to the basic way of the existence of the Christian. It is clear that the faithful should be aware of the contingency of the statement regarding the relationship of transcendence and immanency, especially when they are used in the public discourse and surpassing the private. Regarding the principles of the freedom of faith in above mentioned positive sense, politics must avoid the trap of contradiction. If the freedom of faith is based on the human dignity whose constitutive part is right on freedom, then the secular state based on the fundamental principle of tolerance according to which the free self-determination of the person is possible unless the rights of others are hurt, must not forbid to its citizens the introduction of faith in the public discourse. One can not expect citizens to abstract from their religious, agnostic or atheistic beliefs.28 It is impossible to remain neutral in respect to values, either in private or public life. The only question regards the foundation of the values on which man edifies his life, and on which a community defines the rules for a common life. The background for such a question is the relationship between faith and knowledge, two mutually separated and non comparable modalities of the spirit, as characterised by the post-metaphysical philosophy.
Behind the “abstract” political elites and ecclesial hierarchy there is a specific man, a human person which unifies in him the religious and political component, among others. The person is the converging point of the public and the private. Faith is a private matter, but this privacy happens in a person through whom it becomes public in the interpersonal behaviour and acting. It is more appropriate to say that faith is a personal mater. The same person in the same time might be a member of a community of the faithful, of a civil association and of a political party. The division between religious and secular meets and it is surpassed in the human person. The person is “one” and in it the division on secular and religious can be only a theoretical distinction. Problems emerge if we accept a schizophrenic understanding of the person, as if a person would be able turn on and turn off certain, mutually independent dimensions of own existence. It seems that in spite of all contracts and principles of a structural nature, here lies the key for surpassing the misunderstanding, differentiating and even dividing the public and the private. The Luxembourg commission Justice et Paix, commenting the theses “faith is a private matter” remarks: “the theses ‘faith is a private matter’ rightly states that the citizen freely and without compulsion – in that sense private – can choose his religion on its own, and practice. But the thesis is wrong if in the name of a privacy, religions are negated the common, public and socially relevant aspects (modalities of living, ways of presence and activity): here we enter in the field of the freedom of faith.”
Ključne riječi
Public; private; religion; politics; individualism; pluralism
Hrčak ID:
121839
URI
Datum izdavanja:
21.1.2011.
Posjeta: 1.786 *