A condição crente perante os desafios do futuro

Taking as its starting point the definition of faith as given by the Dei Verbum, this article explores some of the fundamental elements of the condition of the believer, related to an understanding of it as a human act (fides qua) and as a content in which to believe (fides quae). On the first plane, to have faith is to accept life and its meaning as a freely given gift; on the second, to be a Christian believer is to comprehend existence as being coming from the other and being for the other, as a nucleus of relationships of real/personal differences lived by a corporeal or incarnate human being. All of these aspects are bound up with specific challenges in a culture that has sought to be self-sufficient and self-constructing, that stresses the value of individual self-realisation, that has a tendency to dissolve personal differences in global systemic holisms, and that manifests a certain mistrust in relation to corporeal existence, through its potentialising transfiguration.