Ratzinger’s Understanding of the »Exodus« and the Two »Return« Attempts

Abstract

The historical Exodus from Egypt has as its final goal the making of a covenant on Mount Sinai, while the Earth is to be a place of true worship and righteousness among people in harmony with God’s law. In the broader sense, the Exodus is the abandoning of self–love and of false self–realization in the walk toward freedom and self–realization in the Cross of Christ which is the perfect Exodus. Ratzinger’s grasp of the Exodus may be the key to a correct understanding of what it means to be a member of the Church and that of enculturation which, moreover, does not imply disenculturation of its complex cultural identity. Similarly, the Exodus has the potential to synthesise diverse views on Incarnation theology and on the theology of the Cross, and can facilitate a correct understanding of the scholastic axiom »Gratia praesupponit naturam.« »Return« attempts within liberation theology are considered by Ratzinger to be processes which do not lead to truth and tolerance, but rather to the dictatorship of relativism, and are therefore retrograde, as is also Assmann’s »Mosaic distinction«