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own light in which they seemed to glow: hence the Christian has,
in genera'l, a more positive and believing attitude toward the world
than the weary, disillusioned, and desperate modern man-but this
must not make us forget that this positive truth was gained only
after the false idols had been overthrown in an enlightenment from
faith. This is equally true of powers which are considered to be as
positive as, for example, the family or the nation.
Every enlightenment has a particular relation to the future. It
is always what has been and what is which is the basis of its criticism;
it occurs for the sake of a truer or better future. Thus absolute en–
lightenment tears man from his native soil and denies his origins.
It is absolute faithlessness. A Christian enlightenment cannot be
such, but it too estranges man from his origins and directs him more
strongly toward the future, toward the goal. This means: Christian
enlightenment will be eschatological. That we seem to feel more
eschatologically than the Christians of recent centuries is connected,
among other things, with the secular turn toward the future in
which we share. We live in a period which is much concerned with
the future. This no longer comes about out of satisfaction, out of
delight in planning, the whim of the powerful for a conscious re–
construction of the world; it comes about out of need and necessity.
The peoples and cultures of the world are growing together into One
World, and the question whether we can succeed in planning and
coordinating rationally will decide the future of this world. It is no
coincidence that, in the same period, Christians are becoming more
clearly aware than ever before that they live toward the future:
toward the end of history. This does not mean that they jump across
the historical future into the super-historical future. They not only
wait, they not only persevere and pray, they go to meet it too. This
Christian progress also contains an element of planning; it is the
opposite of an inactive waiting. In this very time, following Christ
increasingly demands a service of love which has the character of
well-considered, duly planned help, which assumes a political char–
acter. Here faith
in
progress does not predominate, here progress is
seen as a task-as a duty to help our suffering fellow mortals.
The future appears upon two levels: as the field of action
in
solidarity and help to our neighbor-and as the coming Christ. And
both aspects are closely connected in the mystery of the Incarnation.
