Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [221]
The error that underlies this conception is the more dangerous as it corresponds with the anti-personal spirit of the age, which tends towards a glorification of the collective as such. The propagators of this error give proof of their shallowness of mind by equating personality with subjectivity and measuring objectivity by the standard of impersonality. They forget that God, the Origin of all objective reality and validity, is a Person. They attach the derogatory label of subjectivity to ethos and even to the personal conscious mode of being. In fact it is a certain kind of ethos only that is infected with subjectivism. They are blind to the fact that God is Love—in which we participate according to the measure of our own supernatural love.
They disregard the basic truth that it is only by confronting myself with God, by establishing myself in an I and Thou relation with Christ, by my loving adoration of Christ—and not by any consciousness of being a mere part of a big Whole—that I can transcend the narrow limits of my ego.
At bottom, their doctrine smacks of pantheism; for it tends to confuse qualitative height with quantitative width and comprehensiveness. It tends to substitute an absorption of the person into a vaster human unit for the surrender of man’s ego to the divine Thou. True surrender is properly and eminently a personal act, and the only one by which a person can rise above his inherent limitations. They forget the moving grandeur and eternal importance of every immortal soul. St. Teresa of Avila says, “Christ would also have died to save one single soul.”
If it were true that the individual means nothing, the community would not mean anything either. A community—a State or a nation, for instance—if imprisoned in its economic and power interests, is just as subjective and narrow as an individual so imprisoned. Like the individual, the community can only outgrow its narrowness and subjectivity if it is directed to ends that are important before God.
What defines a mere private interest is not the fact that it is the interest of an individual rather than of a group, but the qualitative circumstance that it expresses a pursuit of mere subjective gratification instead of a purpose important in itself and objectively valuable. The humblest and most hidden concern of an individual, once it has moral value, is no longer a mere private concern.
Inversely, the pure interests of a community as such are, in fact, private concerns. As soon as the purpose in question is important in itself and objectively valuable, it transcends the framework of mere subjectivity and acquires an importance before God, a relationship to eternity. Whether it concerns a single person or a group of persons is not the important point.
The error of anti-personalism has today infiltrated even into some Catholic circles. It can be found, for example, in certain enthusiasts of the so-called liturgical movement. These liturgists are prone to regard distrustfully the mystic and ascetical elements in religion. Any intense emotional attitude towards Christ—any I and Thou relationship with Him—appears to them suspect, subjective. In all depersonalization, on the other hand, they are inclined to see religious progress.
Yet, in truth, every religious progress in our life means a higher stage in our becoming, qua persons, transformed in Christ and participants in His holy life. This life, again, means love—charity unconfined and unending towards God and one’s fellow persons. The index to our transformation in Christ consists in the measure of our participation in His love for God and for men. By becoming depersonalized and neutralized, however, we become incapable of such a participation.
Depersonalization is incompatible with love of God and transformation in Christ
What does God, above all, demand of us? Our love. What is the question Our Lord puts thrice, emphatically, to Peter in that great hour when He entrusts him with the care of His flock? It is the question as to his love. “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?” (John 21:16).