Joseph Ratzinger's Theology of the Word

Abstract

Based upon his role as a peritus at Vatican II in the shaping of the Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, Ratzinger reflected back on the deliberations at the Council soon after its conclusion and indicated that the new development of understanding of Revelation was that Revelation is to be seen "basically as dialogue." In his Introduction to Christianity, he would indicate that because of the experience of Jesus Christ, the Church comes to see that God is not only logos, but dia-logos. Throughout his theological and pastoral career, Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, consistently relies upon the framework of "dialogue" as the principle of coherence for how he attempts to articulate the one Christian mystery, whether he is speaking of Revelation, Christology, ecclesiology, eschatology or any other area of Christian theology. I attempt in this dissertation, to trace that principle of coherence in his thought and thereby give a hermeneutic for approaching one of the most influential theologians of our time.