Facs
Transcript
in this. And this is so self-understood in a Christian culture that we don't remember any more opposite possibility, namely the possibilities that the gods look at men according to their hierarchical order, and that consequently some men are by birth nearer to the gods than the others; that the earthly hierarchy is a mirror of the heavenly hierarchy; and that therefore, after death, the religious-sacramental position a man has on this earth, the consecrated position in the hierarchy of beings – and finally in the hierarchy of man – is decisive for his ultimate destiny.
Against this the development – to which I come later when I speak about the concept of person – has brought about an attitude which comes to absolute fulfillment in Christianity, namely that the individual human being, that his soul, is immediately related to God, in complete indifference to his status in time and space; it is dependent on other factors: on his justice (on righteousness), and on the righteousness of God, which is fulfilled in His forgiving love.
This kind of individualism is always in the basis of Christian thinking. But don't forget that this Christian individualism is only valid seen from the Christian tradition with respect to the relation of God and man, or of man to God. It has not the consequence to abolish hierarchical orders in time and space. There the equality before God, the evaluation of the individual, is dependent on the hierarchical order as a whole.
Now this is the one concept of individualism, and Christianity should be clear that this is in the relation between God and man and not in the relation between man and man.