It is Good for Us to Be Here: Joseph Ratzinger’s Christocentric Doctrine of Creation in Response to Anti-Natalism

Abstract This paper sets out Joseph Ratzinger’s Christocentric theology of creation as a counter to the increasingly popular naturalist movement anti-natalism. Paradoxically, anti-natalism is parasitic on the doctrine of creation and yet, at the same time, denies creation, for, as Ratzinger argues, the doctrine of creation affirms both the human person and the natural world within which she lives; creation is necessary for self-acceptance. Furthermore, creation and redemption go together. It is with and through the human person, not without, that the natural world is brought to its proper end.