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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2024
It is of profound significance that since the end of the last war Catholic thinkers in Germany should have devoted themselves almost exclusively to the preparation for the struggle for the Faith which is now raging. It is as though they had sensed the impending danger and were concentrating all their energies on the twofold task of arriving at a true appreciation of the present spiritual situation, and of providing the means to solve its problems in the spirit of Christ. This struggle for the Faith, for the very reason that it is fought on the spiritual plane, is by no means identical with the present war, which only becomes relevant as it serves to clarify the situation, and affects the spirits of men. The decisive events will take place in the depths of the human heart; it is here that the future of mankind will be decided. The crucial question is the same, which has at all times determined the fate of the individual as well as of nations : ‘What think ye of Christ?’
This question was asked in the days of the Roman Empire, when to acknowledge the Kingship of Christ meant torture and death. It was asked in ages when belief was easy, when the individual was not yet torn out of community with his fellows, and lived in a world which bore in every detail the stamp of God. It is characteristic of the present situation that the very conditions which enabled such a question to be heard and answered in the past, seem no longer to exist.
1 ‘Christliches Bewusstsein,’ Versuche uber Pascal, Leipzig, 1935.
2 ‘Der Mensch und der Glaube,’ Versuche uber die eligiose Existenz in Dostojewsky's Grossen Roman, Leipzig, 1933.
3 Was ist der Mensch? Leipzig, 1933.
4 Christliche Existenz, Leipzig, 1934
5 Op. cit.
6 Within the scope of one article, it is impossible to do justice to so vast a subject. The works of distinguished men such as Cardinal Faulhaber and Karl Adam have not been mentioned, nor has attention been paid to publications of a doctrinal, devotional or strictly didactical nature, though in this field, too, the German contribution to European thought is by no means small. The choice was determined by the writer's desire to state the spiritual problem of our generation, and show the lines along which its solution may be found.
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