Redemption is always related to freedom. This is what you might call its risk structure. Redemption is thus never imposed from the outside or cemented by firm structures but is held in the fragile vessel of human freedom. If we believe that human nature has attained a higher level, we have to reckon with the fact that it can all collapse. This, I would say, is nothing less than the conflict that Jesus settles in his temptations: Must redemption be something that stands permanently as a structure in the world and that can then be calculated quantitatively: Everyone has gotten bread, from now on there is no more hunger? Or is redemption something quite different? Because it is bound to freedom, because it is not something that is already imposed in structures but again and again appeals to freedom, which in turn makes it to a certain degree vulnerable.

We must also see that time and time again Christianity has released the greatest forces of love. When one compares what actually has come into history through Christianity, it is rather considerable. Goethe said: It brought reverence for what is below us. As a matter of fact, it was Christianity that first gave rise to an organized care for the sick and weak and a whole organization of love. Christianity was also responsible for the growth of respect for all men in all stations of life. It is quite interesting that when the Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity, he felt it was his very first duty to introduce legal changes that freed Sunday for all, and he took care that slaves obtained certain rights. Where man leaves faith behind, the horrors of pagandom return with reinforced potentialities. I think that we have really been able to see that God has entered into history in a much more fragile way, so to speak, than we would like. But also that this is his answer to freedom. And if we want God to respect freedom and approve of it when he does, then we must also learn to respect and love the fragility of his action.