CARITAS IN VERITATE: no development without God
Without God
man neither knows which way to go, not even understand who he is (no. 78).
Man does not
develop through his own powers. In the course of history it was often maintained
that the creation of institutions was sufficient to guarantee the fulfillment of
humanity’s right to development. Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed
in those institutions, as if they were able to deliver the desired objective
automatically. In reality, institutions by themselves are not enough because
integral human development is primarily a vocation. Moreover, such development requires
a transcendent vision of the person. It needs God: without him development is
either denied or entrusted exclusively to man who falls into the trap of
thinking he can bring about his own salvation, and ends up promoting a dehumanized
form of development. Only through an encounter with God are we able to see in
the other something more than just another creature, to reognise the divine
image in the other, thus truly coming to discover him or her and to mature in
love that becomes concern and care for the other (no. 11).
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