Fundamental option in Häring

Abstract

To be or not to be, that is the question." This well known Shakespearean verse in Hamlet expresses an important aspect of the human condition. This is that man has to. choose one way or another. Choice presupposes thought. Man does not choose instinctively like animals do. But every choice. has some connection with the ultimate meaning of our existance. Man hag an inbuilt desire in him for the good. He is created in the image and likeness of God. And indeed God "saw that it was very good". It could not be otherwise for God is goodness. But there is another side to the reality of man. Man is also a sinful being who is born in a sinful world where he continually experiences a certain inclination for evil. Man is conditioned by environment and history. In history man experienced the full which conditions his environment up to the end. But even here in the history of the fall there is a turning point. With the fall there was the promise of the Saviour. And this is the turning point chosen by God from all eternity that his only begotten son should become man through a chosen human being, Mary [...].