The article deals with the thought and work of the German theologian and priest Max J. Metzger, in particular his idea of an interrelation between the unity of Europe and the unity of European Christianity. By analysing Metzger’s courage to write a "manifesto" for European unity in which he admitted Hitler’s defeat on the battlefields of World War II and the integration of Germany among the European states, the article highlights his profound reflections on the contribution that Christians and churches should have offered for the reconciliation and unification of the European continent, namely, their conversion as a return to their roots, in order to witness together the "heart" of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: God’s universal love for all humanity and the peoples of the Earth.
Having for many years the theme of “complex thought” as developed by Pavel Florensky at the centre of his philosophical and theological research interest, the author of the article highlights an important aspect of complexity, namely, the imaginary dimension as a structural part of reality. First of all, he shows how Florensky, famous Russian mathematician, physicist, electro-technical engineer, philosopher and theologian, comes to explain the existence of the imaginary dimension starting from his original interpretation of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, made with reference to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Consequently, he explains that the existence of this dimension coincides with the existence of a general predisposition of every human being to the experience of the “imaginary” as a door towards the “mysterious depths” of reality, the depths that in many cases tend to manifest themselves. Christian theology and spirituality help to know and experience exactly this kind of complexity of reality, glimpsing its vital and dynamic connection with the Trinitarian being of God.
Starting from a positive evaluation of Vatican II and taking into account the long period over which the Council has been received, the present study examines certain conciliar documents that have had the greatest influence on the renewal of Catholic theology, in particular its methodology. First, the article underlines how the Council has evolved as a “laboratory” of renewed theology. It consequently examines the key text of the Council’s renewal programme: point 16 from the decree Optatam totius. Finally, it highlights the renewal impulses present in numbers 11 and 17 of the Unitatis redintegratio decree. The analyses of the idea of hierarchia veritatum (UR 11) are aimed at demonstrating how the Council’s most decisive contribution to the renewal of theology consisted of proposing a hermeneutics that was rethought in the light of the Trinitarian Revelation of God Love.
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