Faith and Reason
Fides et Ratio
Faith and Reason
Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II
"The fool thinks that he knows many
things, but really
he is incapable of fixing his gaze on the
things that truly matter."
(Fides et
Ratio, Number 18)
(Bold emphasis provided by Holy Hill Cross Web Site)
To the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the
Relationship between Faith and Reason
My Venerable Brother Bishops,
Health and the Apostolic Blessing! Faith and reason are
like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth;
and God has
placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word,
to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving
God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about
themselves. (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).
INTRODUCTION
“Know
Yourself”
1. In both
East and West, we may trace a journey which has led humanity down the centuries
to meet and engage truth more and more deeply. It is a journey which has
unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-consciousness: the more
human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their
uniqueness, with the question of the meaning of things and of their very
existence becoming ever more pressing.
This is why all that is the object of our knowledge becomes a part of
our life.
The admonition "Know Yourself" was carved on the
temple portal at Delphi, as testimony to a basic truth to be adopted as a
minimal norm by those who seek to set themselves apart from the rest of
creation as “human beings”, that is as those who “know themselves”.
Moreover, a cursory glance at
ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their
different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions
which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going?
Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which
we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta;
we find them in the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of
Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies
of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato
and Aristotle. They are questions which have their common source in the quest
for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer
given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to
their lives.
2. The Church
is no stranger to this journey of discovery, nor could she ever be. From the
moment when, through the Paschal Mystery, she received the gift of the ultimate
truth about human life, the Church has made her pilgrim way along the paths of
the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the
life” (Jn 14:6). It is her duty to serve
humanity in different ways, but one way in particular imposes a responsibility
of a quite special kind: the diakonia of the truth.1
This mission on the one hand makes the believing community
a partner in humanity's shared struggle to arrive at truth; 2 and on the other
hand it obliges the believing community to proclaim the certitudes arrived at,
albeit with a sense that every truth attained is
but a step towards that fullness of truth which will appear with the final
Revelation of God: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully” (1 Cor
3. Men and
women have at their disposal an array of resources for generating greater
knowledge of truth so that their lives may be ever more human. Among these is
philosophy, which is directly concerned with asking the question of life's
meaning and sketching an answer to it. Philosophy emerges, then, as one of
noblest of human tasks. According to its Greek etymology, the term philosophy
means “love of wisdom”. Born and nurtured when the human being first asked
questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that
the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. It is an
innate property of human reason to ask why things are
as they are, even though the answers which gradually emerge are set within a
horizon which reveals how the different human cultures are complementary.
Philosophy's powerful influence on the formation and
development of the cultures of the West should not obscure the influence it has
also had upon the ways of understanding existence found in the East. Every people has its own native and seminal wisdom which, as a true
cultural treasure, tends to find voice and develop in forms which are genuinely
philosophical. One example of this is the basic form of
philosophical knowledge which is evident to this day in the postulates which
inspire national and international legal systems in regulating the life of
society.
4. Nonetheless, it is true that a single term conceals a variety
of meanings. Hence is the need for a
preliminary clarification.
Driven by the desire to discover the ultimate truth of existence, human
beings seek to acquire those universal elements of knowledge which enable them
to understand themselves better and to advance in their own
self-realization. These
fundamental elements of knowledge spring from the wonder awakened in them by
the contemplation of creation: human beings are astonished to
discover themselves as part of the world, in a relationship with others like
them, all sharing a common destiny. Here
begins, then, the journey which will lead them to discover ever new frontiers
of knowledge. Without wonder, men and women would lapse
into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life
which is genuinely personal.
Through philosophy's
work, the ability to speculate which is proper to the human intellect produces
a rigorous mode of thought; and then in turn, through the logical coherence of
the affirmations made and the organic unity of their content, it produces a
systematic body of knowledge. In different
cultural contexts and at different times, this process has yielded results
which have produced genuine systems of thought. Yet often enough in history
this has brought with it the temptation to identify one single stream with the
whole of philosophy. In such cases, we
are clearly dealing with a “philosophical pride” which seeks to present its own
partial and imperfect view as the complete reading of all reality. In effect, every
philosophical system, while it should always be respected in its wholeness,
without any instrumentalization, must still recognize the primacy of
philosophical enquiry, from which it stems and which it ought loyally to serve.
Although times change and knowledge increases, it is possible to discern a core of philosophical insight within the
history of thought as a whole. Consider, for example, the principles
of non-contradiction, finality and causality, as well as the concept of the
person as a free and intelligent subject, with the capacity to know God, truth
and goodness. Consider as well certain fundamental moral norms which are shared
by all. These are among the indications that, beyond different schools of
thought, there exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of
spiritual heritage of humanity. It is as if we had come upon an implicit
philosophy, as a result of which all feel that they possess these principles,
albeit in a general and unreflective way. Precisely because it is shared in
some measure by all, this knowledge should serve as
a kind of reference-point for the different philosophical schools.
Once reason
successfully intuits and formulates the first universal principles of being and
correctly draws from them conclusions which are coherent both logically and
ethically, then it may be called right reason or, as the ancients called it,
orthós logos, recta ratio.
5. On her part,
the Church cannot but set great value upon reason's drive to attain goals which
render people's lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come
to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper
understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those
who do not yet know it.
Therefore, following upon similar initiatives by my
Predecessors, I wish to reflect upon this special activity of human reason. I
judge it necessary to do so because, at the present time in
particular, the search for ultimate truth seems often to be neglected.
Modern philosophy clearly has the great merit of focusing attention upon man.
From this starting-point, human reason with its many questions has developed
further its yearning to know more and to know it ever more deeply. Complex
systems of thought have thus been built, yielding results in the different
fields of knowledge and fostering the development of culture and history.
Anthropology, logic, the natural sciences, history, linguistics and so forth—the
whole universe of knowledge has been involved in one way or another. Yet the
positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate
human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always
called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them. Sundered from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of caprice, and their
state as person ends up being judged by pragmatic criteria based essentially
upon experimental data, in the mistaken belief that technology must dominate
all. It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so
much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to
the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being. Abandoning
the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated
instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of
the human capacity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to
accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned.
This has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its
way in the shifting sands of widespread skepticism. Recent times have seen the
rise to prominence of various doctrines which tend to devalue even the truths
which had been judged certain.
A legitimate plurality of
positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the
assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today's most
widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth.
Even certain conceptions of life coming from the East
betray this lack of confidence, denying truth its exclusive character and assuming that truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines,
even if they contradict one another. On this understanding, everything is
reduced to opinion; and there is a sense of being adrift.
While, on the one hand, philosophical
thinking has succeeded in coming closer to the reality of human life
and its forms of expression, it has also tended to
pursue issues—existential, hermeneutical or linguistic—which ignore the radical question of the truth about personal existence,
about being and about God. Hence we see among the men and women of our time,
and not just in some philosophers, attitudes of widespread distrust of the
human being's great capacity for knowledge.
With a false modesty, people rest content with partial and provisional truths, no longer
seeking to ask radical questions about the meaning and
ultimate foundation of human, personal and social existence.
In short, the hope
that philosophy might be able to provide definitive answers to these questions
has dwindled.
6. Sure of her competence as the bearer of the Revelation of Jesus Christ,
the Church reaffirms the need to reflect upon truth. This is why I have decided
to address you, my venerable Brother Bishops, with whom I share the mission of “proclaiming
the truth openly” (2 Cor 4:2), as also theologians and philosophers whose duty
it is to explore the different aspects of truth, and all those who are
searching; and I do so in order to offer some reflections on the path which
leads to true wisdom, so that those who love truth may take the sure path
leading to it and so find rest from their labors and joy for their spirit.
I feel
impelled to undertake this task above all because of the Second
In reaffirming the truth of faith, we can both restore to
our contemporaries a genuine trust in their capacity to know and challenge
philosophy to recover and develop its own full dignity. There is a further
reason why I write these reflections. In my Encyclical Letter Veritatis
Splendor, I drew attention to “certain fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine
which, in the present circumstances, risk being distorted or
denied".4 In the present Letter, I wish to pursue that reflection by
concentrating on the theme of truth itself and on its foundation in relation to
faith. For it is undeniable that this time of rapid and
complex change can leave especially the younger generation, to whom the future
belongs and on whom it depends, with a sense that they have no valid points of
reference.
The need for a foundation for
personal and communal life becomes all the more pressing at a time when we are
faced with the patent inadequacy of perspectives in which the ephemeral is
affirmed as a value and the possibility of discovering the real meaning of life
is cast into doubt. This is why many people
stumble through life to the very edge of the abyss without knowing where they
are going. At times, this happens because those whose vocation it is to give cultural expression to their
thinking no longer look to truth, preferring quick success to the toil of
patient enquiry into what makes life worth living.
With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great
responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive
resolutely to recover its original vocation. This is why I have felt
both the need and the duty to address this theme so that, on the threshold of
the third millennium of the Christian era, humanity may come to a clearer sense
of the great resources with which it has been endowed and may commit itself
with renewed courage to implement the plan of salvation of which its history is
part.
CHAPTER
I - THE REVELATION OF GOD'S WISDOM
Jesus, Revealer of the
Father
7. Underlying
all the Church's
thinking is the awareness that she is the bearer of a message which has its
origin in God himself (cf. 2 Cor 4:1-2).The
knowledge which the Church offers to man has its origin not in any speculation
of her own, however sublime, but in the word of God which she has received in
faith (cf. 1 Th 2:13). At the origin of our life of faith there is
an encounter, unique in kind, which discloses a mystery hidden for long ages
(cf. 1 Cor 2:7; Rom 16:25-26) but which is now revealed: “In his
goodness and wisdom, God chose to reveal himself and to make known to us the
hidden purpose of his will (cf. Eph 1:9), by which, through Christ, the Word
made flesh, man has access to the Father in the Holy Spirit and comes to share
in the divine nature”.5 This initiative is utterly gratuitous,
moving from God to men and women in order to bring them to salvation. As the
source of love, God desires to make himself known; and the knowledge which the
human being has of God perfects all that the human mind can know of the meaning
of life.
8. Restating
almost to the letter the teaching of the First Vatican Council's Constitution
Dei Filius, and taking into account the principles set out by the Council of
Trent, the Second Vatican Council's Constitution Dei Verbum pursued the age-old
journey of understanding faith, reflecting on Revelation in the light of the
teaching of Scripture and of the entire Patristic tradition. At the First
Vatican Council, the Fathers had stressed the supernatural character of God's
Revelation.
On the basis of mistaken and very
widespread assertions, the rationalist critique of the time attacked faith and
denied the possibility of any knowledge which was not the fruit of reason's
natural capacities. This obliged the Council to reaffirm emphatically that there exists a knowledge which is peculiar to faith, surpassing the
knowledge proper to human reason, which nevertheless by its nature can discover
the Creator.
This knowledge expresses a truth based upon the very fact
of God who reveals himself, a truth which is most certain, since God neither
deceives nor wishes to deceive.6
9. The First
Vatican Council teaches, then, that the truth
attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor
mutually exclusive: “There exists a twofold order of
knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regards their
object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine faith.
With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason
can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which,
unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known”.7 Based upon God's
testimony and enjoying the supernatural assistance of grace, faith is of an
order other than philosophical knowledge which depends upon sense perception
and experience and which advances by the light of the intellect alone. Philosophy and the sciences function within the order of natural
reason; while faith, enlightened and guided by the Spirit, recognizes in the
message of salvation the “fullness of grace and truth” (cf. Jn 1:14) which God
has willed to reveal in history and definitively through his Son, Jesus Christ (cf.
1 Jn 5:9; Jn 5:31-32).
10. Contemplating Jesus as revealer,
the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council stressed the salvific character of
God's Revelation in history, describing it in these terms: "In this Revelation, the
invisible God (cf. Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17), out of the abundance of his love
speaks to men and women as friends (cf. Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15) and lives among
them (cf. Bar 3:38), so that he may invite and take them into communion with
himself.
This plan of Revelation is realized by deeds and
words having an inner unity: the
deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the
teaching and realities signified by the words---while the words proclaim the
deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this
Revelation, then, the deepest truth about God and human salvation is made clear to us in Christ,
who is the mediator and at the same time the fullness of all Revelation”.8
11. God's
Revelation is therefore immersed in time and history. Jesus Christ took flesh in the “fullness of
time” (Gal 4:4); and two thousand years later, I feel bound
to restate forcefully that “in Christianity time has a fundamental importance”.9 It is within time that the whole work of
creation and salvation comes to light; and it emerges clearly above all that,
with the Incarnation of the Son of God, our life is even now a foretaste of the
fulfillment of time which is to come (cf. Heb 1:2).
The truth about
himself and his life which God has entrusted to humanity is immersed therefore
in time and history; and it was declared once and for all in the mystery of
Jesus of
For the People of God, therefore, history becomes a
path to be followed to the end, so that by the unceasing action of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 16:13)
the contents of revealed truth may find their full expression.
This is the teaching of the Constitution Dei Verbum when it
states that “as the centuries succeed one another, the
Church constantly progresses towards the fullness of divine truth, until the
words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her”.11
12. History
therefore becomes the arena where we see what God does for humanity. God comes to us in the things we
know best and can verify most easily, the things of our everyday life, apart
from which we cannot understand ourselves.
In the Incarnation of the Son of God we see forged
the enduring and definitive synthesis which the human mind of itself could not
even have imagined: the
Eternal enters time, the Whole lies hidden in the part, God takes on a human
face.
The truth communicated in
Christ's Revelation is therefore no longer confined to a particular place or
culture, but is offered to every man and woman who would welcome it as the word
which is the absolutely valid source of meaning for human life.
Now, in Christ, all have access to the Father, since by his
Death and Resurrection Christ has bestowed the divine life which the first Adam
had refused (cf. Rom 5:12-15). Through this Revelation, men and women are
offered the ultimate truth about their own life and about the goal of history.
As the Constitution Gaudium et Spes puts it, “only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the
mystery of man take on light”.12 Seen in any other terms, the
mystery of personal existence remains an insoluble riddle.
Where might the human being seek the answer to
dramatic questions such as pain, the suffering of the innocent and death, if
not in the light streaming from the mystery of Christ's Passion, Death and
Resurrection?
Reason before the Mystery
13. It should
nonetheless be kept in mind that Revelation remains charged with mystery. It is
true that Jesus, with his entire life, revealed the
countenance of the Father, for he came to teach the secret things of God.13 But
our vision of the face of God is always
fragmentary and impaired by the limits of our understanding. Faith alone makes
it possible to penetrate the mystery in a way that allows us to
understand it coherently.
The Council teaches that “the obedience of faith must be
given to God who reveals himself”.14 This brief but dense statement points to a
fundamental truth of Christianity. Faith is said first to be an obedient response to God. This
implies that God be acknowledged in his divinity, transcendence and supreme
freedom. By the authority of his absolute transcendence, God who makes himself
known is also the source of the credibility of what he reveals. By faith,
men and women give their assent to this divine testimony. This means that they
acknowledge fully and integrally the truth of what is revealed because it is
God himself who is the guarantor of that truth. They can make no claim upon
this truth which comes to them as gift and which, set within the context of
interpersonal communication, urges reason to be open to it and to embrace its
profound meaning. This is why the Church has always considered the act of entrusting
oneself to God to be a moment of fundamental decision which engages the whole
person. In that act, the intellect and the will
display their spiritual nature, enabling the subject to act in a way which
realizes personal freedom to the full.15 It is not just that freedom is part of
the act of faith: it is absolutely required. Indeed, it is faith that allows
individuals to give consummate expression to their own freedom. Put
differently, freedom is not realized in decisions made against God. For how
could it be an exercise of true freedom to refuse to be open to the very
reality which enables our self-realization? Men and
women can accomplish no more important act in their lives than the act of
faith; it is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth and chooses to
live in that truth.
To assist reason in its effort to understand the
mystery there are the signs which Revelation itself presents.
These serve to lead the search for truth to new depths,
enabling the mind in its autonomous exploration to penetrate within the mystery
by use of reason's own methods, of which it is rightly jealous. Yet these signs
also urge reason to look beyond their status as signs in order to grasp the
deeper meaning which they bear. They contain a hidden truth to which the mind
is drawn and which it cannot ignore without destroying the very signs which it
is given. In a sense, then, we return to
the sacramental character of Revelation and especially to the sign of the
Eucharist, in which the indissoluble unity between the signifier and signified
makes it possible to grasp the depths of the mystery.
In the Eucharist, Christ is truly present and
alive, working through his Spirit; yet, as Saint Thomas said so well, “what you
neither see nor grasp, faith confirms for you, leaving nature far behind; a sign it is that
now appears, hiding in mystery realities sublime”.16 He is echoed by the
philosopher Pascal: “Just as Jesus Christ went unrecognized among men, so does his truth
appear without external difference among common modes of thought. So too does
the Eucharist remain among common bread”.17
In short, the knowledge proper to faith does not destroy the
mystery; it only reveals it the more, showing how necessary it
is for people's lives: Christ the Lord “in revealing the mystery of the Father
and his love fully reveals man to himself and makes clear his supreme calling”,18
which is to share in the divine mystery of the life of the Trinity.19
14. From the teaching of the two Vatican Councils there
also emerges a genuinely novel consideration for philosophical learning.
Revelation has set within history a point of reference which cannot be ignored
if the mystery of human life is to be known. Yet this knowledge refers back constantly
to the mystery of God which the human mind cannot exhaust but can only receive
and embrace in faith. Between these two poles, reason has its own specific
field in which it can enquire and understand, restricted only by its finiteness
before the infinite mystery of God. Revelation therefore introduces into our
history a universal and ultimate truth which stirs the human mind to ceaseless
effort; indeed, it impels reason continually to extend the range of its
knowledge until it senses that it has done all in its power, leaving no stone
unturned. To assist our reflection on this point we have one of the
most fruitful and important minds in human history, a point of reference for
both philosophy and theology: Saint Anselm. In his
Proslogion, the Archbishop of Canterbury puts it this way: “Thinking of this
problem frequently and intently, at times it seemed I was ready to grasp what I
was seeking; at other times it eluded my thought completely, until finally,
despairing of being able to find it, I wanted to abandon the search for
something which was impossible to find. I wanted to rid myself of that thought
because, by filling my mind, it distracted me from other problems from which I
could gain some profit; but it would then present itself with ever greater
insistence... Woe is me, one of the poor children of Eve, far from God, what
did I set out to do and what have I accomplished? What was I aiming for and how
far have I got? What did I aspire to and what did I long for?... O Lord, you
are not only that than which nothing greater can be conceived (non solum es quo
maius cogitari nequit), but you are greater than all that can be conceived
(quiddam maius quam cogitari possit)... If you were not such, something greater
than you could be thought, but this is impossible”.20
15.
The truth of Christian Revelation, found in Jesus of Nazareth, enables all men
and women to embrace the “mystery” of their own life. As absolute truth, it summons
human beings to be open to the transcendent, whilst respecting both their
autonomy as creatures and their freedom. At this point the relationship between
freedom and truth is complete, and we understand the full meaning of the Lord's
words: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32). Christian Revelation is the true
lodestar of men and women as they strive to make their way amid the pressures
of an immanentist habit of mind and the constrictions of a technocratic logic.
It is the ultimate possibility offered by God for the human
being to know in all its fullness the seminal plan of love which began with
creation. To those wishing to know the truth, if they can look beyond
themselves and their own concerns, there is given the possibility of taking
full and harmonious possession of their lives, precisely by following the path
of truth. Here the words of the Book of Deuteronomy are
pertinent: “This commandment which I command you is not too hard for you,
neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, 'Who will go up
for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Neither
is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us,
and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it?' But the word is very near you;
it is in your mouth and in your heart, that you can do it” (30:11-14).
This text finds an echo in the famous dictum of the holy philosopher and
theologian Augustine: “Do not wander far and wide but return into
yourself. Deep within man there dwells the truth." (Noli
foras ire, in te ipsum redi. In interiore homine habitat veritas).21
These considerations prompt a first conclusion: the truth made known to us by Revelation is neither the product nor the
consummation of an argument devised by human reason. It appears instead as something
gratuitous, which itself stirs thought and seeks acceptance as an expression of
love. This revealed truth is set within our history as an anticipation of that ultimate and definitive vision
of God which is reserved for those who believe in him and seek him with a
sincere heart.
CHAPTER
II - CREDO UT INTELLEGAM
“Wisdom Knows All and
Understands All” (Wis 9:11)
16. Sacred Scripture indicates with remarkably clear cues how deeply
related are the knowledge conferred by faith and the knowledge conferred by
reason; and it is in the Wisdom literature that this
relationship is addressed most explicitly. What is striking about these
biblical texts, if they are read without prejudice, is that they embody not
only the faith of Israel, but also the treasury of cultures and civilizations
which have long vanished. As if by special design, the voices of Egypt and
Mesopotamia sound again and certain features common to the cultures of the
ancient Near East come to life in these pages which are so singularly rich in
deep intuition.
It is no accident that, when the sacred author comes to
describe the wise man, he portrays him as one who loves and seeks the truth:“"Happy the man who meditates on wisdom and reasons intelligently,
who reflects in his heart on her ways and ponders her secrets. He pursues her
like a hunter and lies in wait on her paths. He peers through her windows and
listens at her doors. He camps near her house and fastens his tent-peg to her
walls; he pitches his tent near her and so finds an excellent resting-place; he
places his children under her protection and lodges under her boughs; by her he
is sheltered from the heat and he dwells in the shade of her glory"
(Sir 14:20-27).
For the inspired writer, as we see, the desire for
knowledge is characteristic of all people. Intelligence enables everyone,
believer and non-believer, to reach “the deep waters” of knowledge (cf. Prov
20:5). It is true that ancient Israel did not come to knowledge of the world
and its phenomena by way of abstraction, as did the Greek philosopher or the
Egyptian sage. Still less did the good Israelite understand knowledge in the
way of the modern world which tends more to distinguish different kinds of
knowing. Nonetheless, the biblical world has made its own distinctive
contribution to the theory of knowledge.
What is distinctive in the biblical text is the
conviction that there is a profound and indissoluble unity between the
knowledge of reason and the knowledge of faith.
The world and all that happens within it, including history
and the fate of peoples, are realities to be observed, analyzed and assessed
with all the resources of reason, but without faith ever being foreign to the
process. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason's autonomy nor to reduce its
scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in
these events it is the God of Israel who acts. Thus the world and the events of
history cannot be understood in depth without professing faith in the God who is
at work in them. Faith sharpens the inner eye,
opening the mind to discover in the flux of events the workings of Providence.
Here the words of the Book of Proverbs are pertinent: “The human mind plans the
way, but the Lord directs the steps” (16:9).
This is to say that with the light of reason human
beings can know which path to take, but they can follow that path to its end,
quickly and unhindered, only if with a rightly tuned spirit they search for it
within the horizon of faith. Therefore, reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing
the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and
God in an appropriate way.
17. There is
thus no reason for competition of any kind between reason and faith: each
contains the other, and each has its own scope for action. Again the Book of
Proverbs points in this direction when it exclaims: “It is the
glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out”
(Prov 25:2). In their respective worlds, God and the human being are
set within a unique relationship. In God there lies the
origin of all things, in him is found the fullness of the mystery, and in this
his glory consists; to men and women there falls the task of exploring truth
with their reason, and in this their nobility consists. The Psalmist
adds one final piece to this mosaic when he says in prayer: “How deep to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
If I try to count them, they are more than the sand. If I come to the end, I am
still with you” (139:17-18). The desire for knowledge is so great
and it works in such a way that the human heart, despite its experience of
insurmountable limitation, yearns for the infinite riches which lie beyond,
knowing that there is to be found the satisfying answer to every question as
yet unanswered.
18. We may say,
then, that Israel, with her reflection, was able to open to reason the path
that leads to the mystery. With the Revelation of God Israel could plumb the
depths of all that she sought in vain to reach by way of reason. On the basis
of this deeper form of knowledge, the Chosen People understood that, if reason
were to be fully true to itself, then it must respect certain
basic rules. The first of these is that reason must realize that human knowledge is
a journey which allows no rest; the second stems from the awareness that such a
path is not for the proud who think that everything is the fruit of personal
conquest; a third rule is grounded in the “fear of God” whose transcendent
sovereignty and provident love in the governance of the world reason must
recognize.
In abandoning these rules, the human being runs
the risk of failure and ends up in the condition of “the fool”. For the Bible,
in this foolishness there lies a threat to life.
The fool thinks that he knows
many things, but really he is incapable of fixing his gaze on the things that
truly matter. Therefore he can neither order his mind (Prov 1:7) nor assume a correct
attitude to himself or to the world around him. And so when he claims that “God
does not exist” (cf. Ps 14:1), he shows with absolute clarity just how
deficient his knowledge is and just how far he is from the full truth of
things, their origin and their destiny.
19. The Book of
Wisdom contains several important texts which cast further light on this theme.
There the sacred author speaks of God who reveals himself in nature. For the
ancients, the study of the natural sciences coincided in large part with
philosophical learning. Having affirmed that with their intelligence human
beings can “know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements...
the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars, the natures of
animals and the tempers of wild beasts” (Wis 7:17, 19-20)—in a word, that he
can philosophize—the sacred text takes a significant step forward. Making his
own the thought of Greek philosophy, to which he seems to refer in the context,
the author affirms that, in reasoning about nature, the human being can rise to
God: “From the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding
perception of their Creator” (Wis 13:5). This is to recognize as a first stage
of divine Revelation the marvelous “book of nature”, which, when read with the
proper tools of human reason, can lead to knowledge of the Creator. If human
beings with their intelligence fail to recognize God as Creator of all, it is
not because they lack the means to do so, but because their free will and their
sinfulness place an impediment in the way.
20. Seen in this light, reason is valued without being
overvalued. The results of reasoning may in fact be true, but these results
acquire their true meaning only if they are set within the larger horizon of
faith: “All man's steps are ordered by the Lord: how
then can man understand his own ways?” (Prov 20:24). For the Old
Testament, then, faith liberates reason in so far as it allows reason to attain
correctly what it seeks to know and to place it within the ultimate order of
things, in which everything acquires true meaning. In brief, human beings
attain truth by way of reason because, enlightened by faith, they discover the
deeper meaning of all things and most especially of their own existence. Rightly,
therefore, the sacred author identifies the fear of God as the beginning of
true knowledge:
“The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7; cf. Sir 1:14). “Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding” (Prov
4:5)
21. For the Old
Testament, knowledge is not simply a matter of careful observation of the human
being, of the world and of history, but supposes as well an indispensable link
with faith and with what has been revealed. These are the challenges which the
Chosen People had to confront and to which they had to respond. Pondering this
as his situation, biblical man discovered that he could understand himself only
as “being in relation”—with himself, with people, with the world and with God.
This opening to the mystery, which came to him through Revelation, was for him,
in the end, the source of true knowledge. It was this which allowed his reason
to enter the realm of the infinite where an understanding for which until then
he had not dared to hope became a possibility.
For the sacred author, the task of searching for the truth
was not without the strain which comes once the limits of reason are reached.
This is what we find, for example, when the Book of Proverbs notes the
weariness which comes from the effort to understand the mysterious designs of
God (cf. 30:1-6). Yet, for all the toil involved, believers do not surrender.
They can continue on their way to the truth because they are certain that God
has created them “explorers” (cf. Qoh 1:13), whose mission it is to leave no
stone unturned, though the temptation to doubt is always there. Leaning on God,
they continue to reach out, always and everywhere, for all that is beautiful,
good and true.
22. In the first
chapter of his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul helps us to appreciate better
the depth of insight of the Wisdom literature's reflection. Developing a
philosophical argument in popular language, the Apostle declares a profound
truth: through all
that is created the “eyes of the mind” can come to know God. Through the medium
of creatures, God stirs in reason an intuition of his “power” and his “divinity”
(cf. Rom1:20). This is to concede to human reason a capacity
which seems almost to surpass its natural limitations. Not only is it not
restricted to sensory knowledge, from the moment that it can reflect critically
upon the data of the senses, but, by discoursing on the data provided by the
senses, reason can reach the cause which lies at the origin of all perceptible
reality. In philosophical terms, we could say that this important Pauline text
affirms the human capacity for metaphysical enquiry. According
to the Apostle, it was part of the original plan of the creation that reason
should without difficulty reach beyond the sensory data to the origin of all
things: the Creator. But because of the disobedience by which man
and woman chose to set themselves in full and absolute autonomy in relation to
the One who had created them, this ready access to God the Creator diminished.
This is the human condition vividly described by the Book of Genesis when it
tells us that God placed the human being in the Garden of Eden, in the middle
of which there stood “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (2:17). The symbol
is clear: man was in no position to discern and decide for himself what was
good and what was evil, but was constrained to appeal to a higher source. The
blindness of pride deceived our first parents into thinking themselves
sovereign and autonomous, and into thinking that they could ignore the
knowledge which comes from God. All men and women were caught up in this primal
disobedience, which so wounded reason that from then on its path to full truth
would be strewn with obstacles. From that time onwards the human capacity to
know the truth was impaired by an aversion to the One who is the source and
origin of truth. It is again the Apostle who reveals just how far human
thinking, because of sin, became“empty”, and human reasoning became distorted
and inclined to falsehood (cf. Rom 1:21-22). The eyes of the mind were no
longer able to see clearly: reason became more and more a prisoner to itself. The coming
of Christ was the saving event which redeemed reason from its weakness, setting
it free from the shackles in which it had imprisoned itself.
23. This is why the Christian's relationship to philosophy requires thorough-going
discernment.
In the New Testament, especially
in the Letters of Saint Paul, one thing emerges with great clarity: the opposition
between “the wisdom of this world” and the wisdom of God revealed in Jesus
Christ. The depth of revealed wisdom disrupts the cycle of our habitual
patterns of thought, which are in no way able to express that wisdom in its
fullness.
The beginning of the First Letter to the Corinthians poses
the dilemma in a radical way. The crucified Son of God is the historic event
upon which every attempt of the mind to construct an adequate explanation of
the meaning of existence upon merely human argumentation comes to grief. The
true key-point, which challenges every philosophy, is Jesus Christ's death on
the Cross. It is here that every attempt to reduce the Father's saving plan to
purely human logic is doomed to failure. “Where is the one who is wise? Where
is the learned? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor 1:20), the Apostle asks emphatically. The wisdom of the wise is no longer enough for what God wants to
accomplish; what is required is a decisive step towards welcoming something
radically new: “God chose
what is foolish in the world to shame the wise...; God chose what is low and
despised in the world, things that are not to reduce to nothing things that are”
(1 Cor 1:27-28). Human wisdom refuses to see in its own weakness
the possibility of its strength; yet Saint Paul is quick to affirm: “When I am
weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). Man cannot grasp how death
could be the source of life and love; yet to reveal the mystery of his saving
plan God has chosen precisely that which reason considers “foolishness” and a “scandal”. Adopting the language of the philosophers of
his time, Paul comes to the summit of his teaching as he speaks the paradox: “God
has chosen in the world... that which is nothing to reduce to nothing things
that are” (cf. 1 Cor 1:28). In order to express the gratuitous nature of the
love revealed in the Cross of Christ, the Apostle is not afraid to use the most
radical language of the philosophers in their thinking about God. Reason cannot
eliminate the mystery of love which the Cross represents, while the Cross can
give to reason the ultimate answer which it seeks.
It is not the wisdom of words, but the Word of
Wisdom which Saint Paul offers as the criterion of both truth and salvation.
The wisdom of the Cross, therefore, breaks free of all
cultural limitations which seek to contain it and insists upon an openness to
the universality of the truth which it bears. What a challenge this is to our
reason, and how great the gain for reason if it yields to this wisdom! Of
itself, philosophy is able to recognize the human being's ceaselessly
self-transcendent orientation towards the truth; and, with the assistance of
faith, it is capable of accepting the “foolishness” of the Cross as the
authentic critique of those who delude themselves that they possess the truth,
when in fact they run it aground on the shoals of a system of their own
devising. The
preaching of Christ crucified and risen is the reef upon which the link between
faith and philosophy can break up, but it is also the reef beyond which the two
can set forth upon the boundless ocean of truth. Here we see not only the border between
reason and faith, but also the space where the two may meet.
CHAPTER
III - INTELLEGO UT CREDAM
Journeying in Search of
Truth
24. In the Acts
of the Apostles, the Evangelist Luke tells of Paul's coming to Athens on one of
his missionary journeys. The city of philosophers was full of statues of
various idols. One altar in particular caught his eye, and he took this as a
convenient starting-point to establish a common base for the proclamation of
the kerygma. “Athenians,” he said, “I see how extremely religious you are in
every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects
of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an
unknown god'. What therefore you worship
as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-23). From this starting-point,
Saint Paul speaks of God as Creator, as the One who transcends all things and
gives life to all. He then continues his speech in these terms: “From one
ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the
times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would
live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though
indeed he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27).
The Apostle accentuates a truth which the Church has always
treasured: in the far reaches of the human heart there is a seed of desire and
nostalgia for God. The Liturgy of Good Friday recalls this powerfully when, in
praying for those who do not believe, we say: “Almighty and eternal God, you
created mankind so that all might long to find you and have peace when you are
found”.22 There is therefore a path which the human being
may choose to take, a path which begins with reason's capacity to rise beyond
what is contingent and set out towards the infinite. In different
ways and at different times, men and women have shown that they can articulate
this intimate desire of theirs. Through literature, music, painting, sculpture,
architecture and every other work of their creative intelligence they have
declared the urgency of their quest. In a special way philosophy has made this
search its own and, with its specific tools and scholarly methods, has
articulated this universal human desire.
25. “All human beings desire
to know”, 23 and truth is the proper object of this desire."
Everyday life shows how concerned each of us is to discover
for ourselves, beyond mere opinions, how things really are.
Within visible creation, man is the only creature
who not only is capable of knowing but who knows that he knows, and is
therefore interested in the real truth of what he perceives. People cannot be genuinely
indifferent to the question of whether what they know is true or not.
If they discover that it is false, they reject it; but if they can establish
its truth, they feel themselves rewarded. It is this that Saint Augustine teaches when he writes: “I have met many
who wanted to deceive, but none who wanted to be deceived”.24
It is rightly claimed that persons
have reached adulthood when they can distinguish independently between truth
and falsehood, making up their own minds about the objective
reality of things. This is what has driven so many enquiries, especially in the
scientific field, which in recent centuries have produced important results,
leading to genuine progress for all humanity.
No less important than research in the theoretical field is
research in the practical field—by which I mean the search for truth which
looks to the good which is to be performed. In acting ethically, according to a free and
rightly tuned will, the human person sets foot upon the path to happiness and
moves towards perfection. Here too it is a question of truth.
It is this conviction which I stressed in my Encyclical Letter Veritatis
Splendor:
“There is no morality without freedom... Although
each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the
truth, there exists a prior
moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to
it once it is known”.25
It is essential, therefore, that the values chosen and
pursued in one's life be true, because only true values can lead
people to realize themselves fully, allowing them to be true to their nature.
The truth of these values is to be found not by turning in on oneself but by
opening oneself to apprehend that truth even at levels which transcend the
person. This is an essential condition for us to become ourselves and to grow
as mature, adult persons.
26. The truth
comes initially to the human being as a question: Does life have a meaning?
Where is it going? At first sight, personal existence may seem completely
meaningless. It is not necessary to turn to the philosophers of the absurd or
to the provocative questioning found in the Book of Job in order to have doubts
about life's meaning. The daily experience of
suffering—in one's own life and in the lives of others—and the array of facts
which seem inexplicable to reason are enough to ensure that a question as
dramatic as the question of meaning cannot be evaded.26
Moreover, the first absolutely certain truth of our life, beyond
the fact that we exist, is the inevitability of our death. Given this
unsettling fact, the search for a full answer is inescapable. Each of us has
both the desire and the duty to know the truth of our own destiny. We want to
know if death will be the definitive end of our life or if there is something
beyond—if it is possible to hope for an after-life or not.
It is not insignificant that the death of Socrates gave
philosophy one of its decisive orientations, no less decisive now than it was
more than two thousand years ago. It is not by chance, then, that faced with
the fact of death philosophers have again and again posed this question,
together with the question of the meaning of life and immortality.
27. No-one can avoid this questioning, neither the
philosopher nor the ordinary person. The answer we give will determine whether
or not we think it possible to attain universal and absolute truth; and this is
a decisive moment of the search.
Every truth—if it really is truth—presents itself
as universal, even if it is not the whole truth. If something is true, then it must be true for all
people and at all times.
Beyond this universality, however, people seek an absolute
which might give to all their searching a meaning and an answer—something
ultimate, which might serve as the ground of all things. In other words, they
seek a final explanation, a supreme value, which refers to nothing beyond
itself and which puts an end to all questioning. Hypotheses may fascinate, but
they do not satisfy. Whether we admit it or not, there comes for everyone the moment when
personal existence must be anchored to a truth recognized as
final, a truth which confers a certitude no longer open to doubt.
Through the centuries, philosophers have sought to discover
and articulate such a truth, giving rise to various systems and schools of
thought. But beyond philosophical systems, people seek in
different ways to shape a “philosophy” of their own—in personal convictions and
experiences, in traditions of family and culture, or in journeys in search of
life's meaning under the guidance of a master. What
inspires all of these is the desire to reach the certitude of truth and the
certitude of its absolute value.
The Different Faces of
Human Truth
28. The search for truth, of
course, is not always so transparent nor does it always produce such results.
The natural limitation of reason and the inconstancy of the heart often obscure
and distort a person's search. Truth can also drown in a welter of other
concerns. People can even run from the truth as soon as they glimpse it because
they are afraid of its demands.
Yet, for all that they may evade it, the truth still
influences life. Life in fact can never be grounded upon doubt, uncertainty or
deceit; such an existence would be threatened constantly by fear and anxiety. One may define the human being, therefore, as the one who seeks the
truth.
29. It is
unthinkable that a search so deeply rooted in human nature would be completely
vain and useless. The capacity to search for truth and to pose questions itself
implies the rudiments of a response. Human beings would not
even begin to search for something of which they knew nothing or for something
which they thought was wholly beyond them. Only the sense that they can arrive
at an answer leads them to take the first step. This is what
normally happens in scientific research. When scientists, following their
intuition, set out in search of the logical and verifiable explanation of a
phenomenon, they are confident from the first that they will find an answer,
and they do not give up in the face of setbacks. They do not judge their
original intuition useless simply because they have not reached their goal; rightly
enough they will say that they have not yet found a satisfactory answer.
The same must be equally true of the search for truth when
it comes to the ultimate questions. The thirst for truth is so
rooted in the human heart that to be obliged to ignore it would cast our
existence into jeopardy.
Everyday life shows well enough how each one of us is preoccupied by the
pressure of a few fundamental questions and how in the soul of each of us there
is at least an outline of the answers. One reason why the truth of these
answers convinces is that they are no different in substance from the answers
to which many others have come.
To be sure, not every truth to
which we come has the same value. But the sum of the results achieved confirms
that in principle the human being can arrive at the truth.
30. It may help, then, to turn briefly to the different modes of truth.
Most of them depend upon immediate evidence or are confirmed by
experimentation. This is the mode of truth proper to everyday life and to
scientific research. At another level we find philosophical truth, attained by
means of the speculative powers of the human intellect.
Finally, there are religious truths which are to some
degree grounded in philosophy, and which we find in the answers which the
different religious traditions offer to the ultimate questions.27 The truths of philosophy, it should be said, are not restricted only to
the sometimes ephemeral teachings of professional philosophers. All men and
women, as I have noted, are in some sense philosophers and have their own
philosophical conceptions with which they direct their lives. In one
way or other, they shape a comprehensive vision and an answer to the question
of life's meaning; and in the light of this they interpret their own life's
course and regulate their behaviour. At this point, we may pose the question of the link between, on
the one hand, the truths of philosophy and religion and, on the other, the
truth revealed in Jesus Christ. But before tackling that question,
one last datum of philosophy needs to be weighed.
31. Human beings
are not made to live alone. They are born into a family and in a family they
grow, eventually entering society through their activity. From birth,
therefore, they are immersed in traditions which give them not only a language
and a cultural formation but also a range of truths in which they believe
almost instinctively. Yet personal growth and maturity imply that these same
truths can be cast into doubt and evaluated through a process of critical
enquiry. It may be that, after this time of transition, these truths are “recovered”
as a result of the experience of life or by dint of further reasoning.
Nonetheless, there are in the life of a human being many more truths which are
simply believed than truths which are acquired by way of personal verification.
Who, for instance, could assess critically the countless
scientific findings upon which modern life is based? Who could personally
examine the flow of information which comes day after day from all parts of the
world and which is generally accepted as true? Who in the end could forge anew
the paths of experience and thought which have yielded the treasures of human
wisdom and religion?
This means that the human being—the one who seeks the truth—is
also the one who lives by belief.
32. In
believing, we entrust ourselves to the knowledge acquired by other people. This
suggests an important tension. On the one hand, the knowledge acquired through
belief can seem an imperfect form of knowledge, to be perfected gradually
through personal accumulation of evidence; on the other hand, belief is often humanly richer than mere evidence, because it involves
an interpersonal relationship and brings into play not only a
person's capacity to know but also the deeper capacity to entrust oneself to
others, to enter into a relationship with them which is intimate and enduring.
It should be stressed that the truths sought in this
interpersonal relationship are not primarily empirical or philosophical.
Rather, what is sought is the truth of the person—what the
person is and what the person reveals from deep within.
Human perfection, then, consists
not simply in acquiring an abstract knowledge of the truth, but in a dynamic
relationship of faithful self-giving with others. It is in this faithful self-giving that a
person finds a fullness of certainty and security.
At the same time, however, knowledge through belief,
grounded as it is on trust between persons, is linked to truth: in the act of believing, men and women entrust themselves to the truth
which the other declares to them.
Any number of examples could be found to demonstrate this;
but I think immediately of the martyrs, who are the most authentic witnesses to
the truth about existence.
The martyrs know that they have
found the truth about life in the encounter with Jesus Christ, and nothing and
no-one could ever take this certainty from them.
Neither suffering nor violent death could ever lead them to
abandon the truth which they have discovered in the encounter with Christ. This
is why to this day the witness of the martyrs continues to arouse such
interest, to draw agreement, to win such a hearing and to invite emulation.
This is why their word inspires such confidence: from the moment they speak to
us of what we perceive deep down as the truth we have sought for so long, the
martyrs provide evidence of a love that has no need of lengthy arguments in
order to convince. The martyrs stir in us a
profound trust because they give voice to what we already feel and they declare
what we would like to have the strength to express.
33. Step by
step, then, we are assembling the terms of the question. It is the
nature of the human being to seek the truth. This search looks not
only to the attainment of truths which are partial, empirical or scientific;
nor is it only in individual acts of decision-making that people seek the true
good. Their search looks towards an ulterior truth which
would explain the meaning of life. And it is therefore a search
which can reach its end only in reaching the absolute.28 Thanks to the inherent
capacities of thought, man is able to encounter and recognize a truth of this
kind. Such a truth—vital and necessary as it is for life—is attained not only
by way of reason but also through trusting acquiescence to other persons who
can guarantee the authenticity and certainty of the truth itself. There is no doubt that the capacity to entrust oneself and one's life
to another person and the decision to do so are among the most significant and
expressive human acts.
It must not be forgotten that reason too needs to be
sustained in all its searching by trusting dialogue and sincere friendship. A
climate of suspicion and distrust, which can beset speculative research,
ignores the teaching of the ancient philosophers who proposed friendship as one
of the most appropriate contexts for sound philosophical enquiry.
From all that I have said to this point it emerges
that men and women are on a journey of discovery which is humanly unstoppable—a
search for the truth and a search for a person to whom they might entrust
themselves. Christian faith comes to meet them, offering the concrete
possibility of reaching the goal which they seek.
Moving beyond the stage of simple believing, Christian
faith immerses human beings in the order of grace, which enables them to share
in the mystery of Christ, which in turn offers them a true and coherent
knowledge of the Triune God. In Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, faith
recognizes the ultimate appeal to humanity, an appeal made in order that what
we experience as desire and nostalgia may come to its fulfillment.
34. This truth,
which God reveals to us in Jesus Christ, is not opposed to the truths which
philosophy perceives. On the contrary, the two modes of knowledge lead to truth
in all its fullness. The unity of truth is a fundamental premise
of human reasoning, as the principle of non-contradiction makes clear.
Revelation renders this unity certain, showing that the God of creation is also the God of salvation history.
It is the one and the same God who establishes and guarantees the
intelligibility and reasonableness of the natural order of things upon which
scientists confidently depend,29 and who reveals himself as the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. This unity
of truth, natural and revealed, is embodied in a living and personal way in
Christ, as the Apostle reminds us: “Truth is in Jesus” (cf. Eph
4:21; Col 1:15-20). He is the eternal Word in whom all things were created, and
he is the incarnate Word who in his entire person 30 reveals the Father (cf. Jn
1:14, 18).
What human reason seeks “without
knowing it” (cf. Acts 17:23) can be found only through Christ: what is revealed
in him is “the full truth” (cf. Jn 1:14-16) of everything which was created in
him and through him and which therefore in him finds its fulfillment (cf. Col
1:17).
35. On the basis
of these broad considerations, we must now explore more directly the relationship
between revealed truth and philosophy. This relationship imposes a twofold
consideration, since the truth conferred by Revelation is a truth to be understood in the
light of reason. It is this duality alone which allows us to
specify correctly the relationship between revealed truth and philosophical
learning. First, then, let us consider the links between faith and philosophy
in the course of history. From this, certain principles will emerge as useful
reference-points in the attempt to establish the correct link between the two
orders of knowledge.
CHAPTER
IV - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON
Important Moments in the
Encounter of Faith and Reason
36. The Acts of
the Apostles provides evidence that Christian proclamation was engaged from the
very first with the philosophical currents of the time. In Athens, we read,
Saint Paul entered into discussion with “certain Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers” (17:18); and exegetical analysis of his speech at the Areopagus
has revealed frequent allusions to popular beliefs deriving for the most part
from Stoicism. This is by no means accidental.
If pagans were to understand
them, the first Christians could not refer only to “Moses and the prophets”
when they spoke. They had to point as well to natural knowledge of God and to
the voice of conscience in every human being (cf. Rom 1:19-21; 2:14-15; Acts
14:16-17).
Since in pagan religion this
natural knowledge had lapsed into idolatry (cf. Rom 1:21-32), the
Apostle judged it wiser in his speech to make the link with the thinking of the
philosophers, who had always set in opposition to the myths and mystery cults
notions more respectful of divine transcendence. One of the major concerns of
classical philosophy was to purify human notions of God of mythological
elements. We know that Greek religion, like most
cosmic religions, was polytheistic, even to the point of divinizing
natural things and phenomena. Human attempts to
understand the origin of the gods and hence the origin of the universe find
their earliest expression in poetry; and the theogonies remain the
first evidence of this human search. But it was the task of the fathers of philosophy to bring to light the link
between reason and religion. As they broadened their view to
include universal principles, they no longer rested
content with the ancient myths, but wanted to provide a rational foundation for
their belief in the divinity. This opened a path which took its rise
from ancient traditions but allowed a development satisfying the demands of
universal reason. This development sought to acquire a critical awareness of
what they believed in, and the concept of divinity was the prime beneficiary of
this. Superstitions were recognized for what they were
and religion was, at least in part, purified by rational analysis.
It was on this basis that the Fathers of the Church entered into fruitful
dialogue with ancient philosophy, which offered new ways of proclaiming and
understanding the God of Jesus Christ.
37. In tracing Christianity's adoption of philosophy, one should not forget
how cautiously Christians regarded other elements of the cultural world of
paganism, one example of which is gnosticism. It was easy to confuse philosophy—understood
as practical wisdom and an education for life—with a higher and esoteric kind
of knowledge, reserved to those few who were perfect. It is surely this kind of
esoteric speculation which Saint Paul has in mind when he puts the Colossians
on their guard: “See to it
that no-one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to
human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe and not
according to Christ” (2:8).
The Apostle's words seem all too pertinent now if
we apply them to the various kinds of esoteric superstition widespread today, even among some believers who lack
a proper critical sense. Following Saint Paul, other
writers of the early centuries, especially Saint Irenaeus and Tertullian, sound the alarm
when confronted with a cultural perspective which sought to
subordinate the truth of Revelation to the interpretation of the philosophers.
38. Christianity's engagement with philosophy was
therefore neither straight-forward nor immediate. The practice of philosophy
and attendance at philosophical schools seemed to the first Christians more of
a disturbance than an opportunity. For them, the first and most urgent task was the
proclamation of the Risen Christ by way of a personal encounter
which would bring the listener to conversion of heart and the request for
Baptism. But that does not mean that they ignored the task of deepening the
understanding of faith and its motivations. Quite the contrary. That is why the
criticism of Celsus—that Christians were “illiterate and uncouth”31—is
unfounded and untrue. Their initial disinterest is to be explained on other
grounds. The encounter with the Gospel offered such a
satisfying answer to the hitherto unresolved question of life's meaning that delving
into the philosophers seemed to them something remote and in some ways
outmoded.
That seems still more evident today, if we think of
Christianity's contribution to the affirmation of the right of everyone to have
access to the truth. In dismantling barriers of race, social status and gender,
Christianity
proclaimed from the first the equality of all men and women before God.
One prime implication of this touched the theme of truth. The elitism which had
characterized the ancients' search for truth was clearly abandoned. Since access
to the truth enables access to God, it must be denied to none.
There are many paths which lead to truth, but since
Christian truth has a salvific value, any one of these paths may be taken, as
long as it leads to the final goal, that is to the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
A pioneer of positive engagement with philosophical
thinking—albeit with cautious discernment—was Saint Justin. Although he
continued to hold Greek philosophy in high esteem after his conversion, Justin
claimed with power and clarity that he had found in Christianity “the only sure
and profitable philosophy”.32 Similarly,
Clement of Alexandria called the Gospel “the true philosophy”,33 and he
understood philosophy, like the Mosaic Law, as instruction which prepared for
Christian faith 34 and paved the way for the Gospel.35
Since “philosophy yearns for the wisdom which consists in rightness of soul
and speech and in purity of life, it is well disposed towards wisdom and does
all it can to acquire it. We call philosophers those who love the wisdom that
is creator and mistress of all things; that is knowledge of the Son of God”.36
For Clement, Greek philosophy is not meant in the first
place to bolster and complete Christian truth. Its task is rather the defense
of the faith: “The teaching
of the Savior is perfect in itself and has no need of support, because it is
the strength and the wisdom of God. Greek philosophy, with
its contribution, does not strengthen truth; but, in rendering the attack of
sophistry impotent and in disarming those who betray truth and wage war upon
it, Greek philosophy is rightly called the hedge and the protective wall around
the vineyard”.37
39. It is clear from history, then, that Christian thinkers were critical in
adopting philosophical thought. Among the early examples of this,
Origen is certainly outstanding. In countering the attacks launched by the
philosopher Celsus, Origen adopts Platonic philosophy to shape his argument and
mount his reply. Assuming many elements of Platonic thought, he begins to
construct an early form of Christian theology. The name
“theology” itself, together with the idea of theology as
rational discourse about God, had to this point been tied to its Greek origins.
In Aristotelian philosophy, for example, the name signified the noblest part
and the true summit of philosophical discourse. But in the light of Christian
Revelation what had signified a generic doctrine about the gods assumed a
wholly new meaning, signifying now the reflection undertaken by the believer in
order to express the true doctrine about God. As it developed, this new Christian thought made use of philosophy, but at the same time tended
to distinguish itself clearly from philosophy. History shows how Platonic thought, once adopted by theology, underwent profound changes,
especially with regard to concepts such as the immortality of the soul, the
divinization of man and the origin of evil.
40. In this work
of christianizing Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought, the Cappadocian Fathers,
Dionysius called the Areopagite and especially Saint
Augustine were important. The great Doctor of the
West had come into contact with different philosophical schools, but
all of them left him disappointed. It was when he encountered the truth of
Christian faith that he found strength to undergo the radical conversion to
which the philosophers he had known had been powerless to lead him. He himself
reveals his motive: “From this time on, I gave
my preference to the Catholic faith. I thought it more modest and not in the
least misleading to be told by the Church to believe what could not be
demonstrated—whether that was because a demonstration existed but
could not be understood by all or whether the matter was not one open to
rational proof—rather than from the Manichees to have a rash promise of
knowledge with mockery of mere belief, and then afterwards to be ordered to
believe many fabulous and absurd myths impossible to prove true”.38
Though he accorded the Platonists a place of
privilege, Augustine rebuked them because, knowing the goal to seek, they had
ignored the path which leads to it: the Word made flesh.39
The Bishop of Hippo succeeded in producing the first great
synthesis of philosophy and theology, embracing currents of thought both Greek
and Latin. In him too the great unity of knowledge, grounded in the thought of
the Bible, was both confirmed and sustained by a depth of speculative thinking.
The synthesis devised by Saint Augustine remained
for centuries the most exalted form of philosophical and theological
speculation known to the West. Reinforced by his personal story and
sustained by a wonderful holiness of life, he could also introduce into his
works a range of material which, drawing on experience, was a prelude to future
developments in different currents of philosophy.
41. The ways in
which the Fathers
of East and West engaged the philosophical schools were,
therefore, quite different. This does not mean that they identified the content
of their message with the systems to which they referred. Consider Tertullian's
question: “What does Athens have in common with Jerusalem? The Academy with the
Church?”.40 This clearly indicates the critical consciousness with which
Christian thinkers from the first confronted the problem of the relationship
between faith and philosophy, viewing it comprehensively with both its positive
aspects and its limitations. They were not naive thinkers. Precisely because
they were intense in living faith's content they were able to reach the deepest
forms of speculation. It is therefore minimalizing and mistaken to restrict
their work simply to the transposition of the truths of faith into
philosophical categories. They did much more. In fact they succeeded in
disclosing completely all that remained implicit and preliminary in the
thinking of the great philosophers of antiquity.41
As I have noted, theirs was the task of showing how reason, freed
from external constraints, could find its way out of the blind alley of myth
and open itself to the transcendent in a more appropriate way. Purified and
rightly tuned, therefore, reason could rise to the higher planes of thought,
providing a solid foundation for the perception of being, of the transcendent
and of the absolute.
It is here that we see the originality of what the Fathers
accomplished. They fully welcomed reason which was open to
the absolute, and they infused it with the richness drawn from Revelation.
This was more than a meeting of cultures, with one culture perhaps succumbing
to the fascination of the other.
It happened rather in the depths
of human souls, and it was a meeting of creature and Creator. Surpassing the
goal towards which it unwittingly tended by dint of its nature, reason attained
the supreme good and ultimate truth in the person of the Word made flesh.
Faced with the various philosophies, the Fathers
were not afraid to acknowledge those elements in them that were consonant with
Revelation and those that were not. Recognition of the points of convergence did not
blind them to the points of divergence.
42. In
Scholastic theology, the role of philosophically trained reason becomes even
more conspicuous under the impulse of Saint Anselm's interpretation of the
intellectus fidei. For the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury the priority
of faith is not in competition with the search which is proper to reason.
Reason in fact is not asked to
pass judgement on the contents of faith, something of which it
would be incapable, since this is not its function. Its function is rather to
find meaning, to discover explanations which might allow everyone to come to a
certain understanding of the contents of faith.
Saint Anselm underscores the fact that the intellect must
seek that which it loves: the more it loves, the more it desires to know.
Whoever lives for the truth is reaching for a form of knowledge which is fired
more and more with love for what it knows, while having to admit that it has
not yet attained what it desires: “To see you was I conceived; and I have yet
to conceive that for which I was conceived (Ad te videndum factus sum; et
nondum feci propter quod factus sum)”.42 The desire for truth, therefore, spurs
reason always to go further; indeed, it is as if reason were overwhelmed to see
that it can always go beyond what it has already achieved. It is at this point,
though, that reason can learn where its path will lead in the end: “I think
that whoever investigates something incomprehensible should be satisfied if, by
way of reasoning, he reaches a quite certain perception of its reality, even if
his intellect cannot penetrate its mode of being... But is there anything so
incomprehensible and ineffable as that which is above all things? Therefore, if
that which until now has been a matter of debate concerning the highest essence
has been established on the basis of due reasoning, then the foundation of
one's certainty is not shaken in the least if the intellect cannot penetrate it
in a way that allows clear formulation. If prior thought has concluded
rationally that one cannot comprehend (rationabiliter comprehendit
incomprehensibile esse) how supernal wisdom knows its own accomplishments...,
who then will explain how this same wisdom, of which the human being can know
nothing or next to nothing, is to be known and expressed?”.
43 The fundamental
harmony between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once
again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of
reason; and at the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot
do without what faith presents.
The Enduring Originality
of the Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas
43. A quite special place in
this long development belongs to Saint Thomas, not only because of what he
taught but also because of the dialogue which he undertook with the Arab and
Jewish thought of his time.
In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of
ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Thomas had
the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between
faith and reason. Both the
light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued;
hence there can be no contradiction between them.44 More radically, Thomas
recognized that nature, philosophy's proper concern, could contribute to the
understanding of divine Revelation.
Faith therefore has no fear of
reason, but seeks it out and has trust in it. Just as grace builds on
nature and brings it to fulfilment,45 so faith builds upon and perfects reason.
Illumined by faith, reason is set free from the fragility and limitations
deriving from the disobedience of sin and finds the strength required to rise
to the knowledge of the Triune God.
Although he made much of the supernatural character of
faith, the Angelic Doctor did not overlook the importance of its
reasonableness; indeed he was able to plumb the depths and explain the meaning
of this reasonableness. Faith is in a sense an “exercise of thought”; and human reason is
neither annulled nor debased in assenting to the contents of faith,
which are in any case attained by way of free and informed choice.46
This is why the Church has been justified in
consistently proposing Saint Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the
right way to do theology. In this connection, I would recall what my
Predecessor, the Servant of God Paul VI, wrote on the occasion of the seventh
centenary of the death of the Angelic Doctor: “Without doubt, Thomas possessed supremely the
courage of the truth, a freedom of spirit in confronting new problems, the
intellectual honesty of those who allow Christianity to be contaminated neither
by secular philosophy nor by a prejudiced rejection of it. He
passed therefore into the history of Christian thought as a pioneer of the new
path of philosophy and universal culture. The key point and almost the kernel
of the solution which, with all the brilliance of his prophetic intuition, he
gave to the new encounter of faith and reason was a reconciliation between the secularity
of the world and the radicality of the Gospel, thus avoiding the unnatural
tendency to negate the world and its values while at the same time keeping
faith with the supreme and inexorable demands of the supernatural order”.47
44. Another
of the great insights of Saint Thomas was his perception of the role of the
Holy Spirit in the process by which knowledge matures into wisdom. From the
first pages of his Summa Theologiae,48 Aquinas was keen to show the primacy of
the wisdom which is the gift of the Holy Spirit and which opens the way to a
knowledge of divine realities. His theology allows us to understand what is
distinctive of wisdom in its close link with faith and knowledge of the divine.
This wisdom comes to know by way of connaturality; it presupposes faith and
eventually formulates its right judgment on the basis of the truth of faith
itself:
“The wisdom named among the gifts of the Holy
Spirit is distinct from the wisdom found among the intellectual virtues. This second wisdom is acquired
through study, but the first 'comes from on high', as Saint James
puts it. This also distinguishes it from faith, since faith accepts divine
truth as it is. But the gift of wisdom
enables judgment according to divine truth”.49
Yet the priority accorded this wisdom does not lead
the Angelic Doctor to overlook the presence of two other complementary forms of
wisdom—philosophical
wisdom, which is based upon the capacity of the intellect, for all its natural
limitations, to explore reality, and theological wisdom, which is based upon Revelation
and which explores the contents of faith, entering the very mystery of God.
Profoundly convinced that “whatever its source, truth is of
the Holy Spirit” (omne verum a quocumque dicatur a Spiritu Sancto est) 50 Saint
Thomas was impartial in his love of truth. He sought truth wherever it might be
found and gave consummate demonstration of its universality. In him, the
Church's Magisterium has seen and recognized the passion for truth; and,
precisely because it stays consistently within the horizon of universal,
objective and transcendent truth, his thought scales “heights unthinkable to
human intelligence”.51 Rightly, then, he may be called an “apostle of the truth”.52
Looking unreservedly to truth, the realism of Thomas could
recognize the objectivity of truth and produce not merely a philosophy of “what
seems to be” but a philosophy of “what is”.
The Drama of the
Separation of Faith and Reason
45. With the rise of the first universities, theology
came more directly into contact with other forms of learning and scientific
research. Although they insisted upon
the organic link between theology and philosophy, Saint Albert the Great and
Saint Thomas were the first to recognize the autonomy which philosophy and the
sciences needed if they were to perform well in their respective fields of
research. From the late Medieval period onwards, however, the legitimate
distinction between the two forms of learning became more and more a fateful
separation. As a result
of the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers, positions grew more radical
and there emerged eventually a philosophy which was separate from and
absolutely independent of the contents of faith. Another of the many
consequences of this separation was an ever deeper mistrust with regard to
reason itself. In a spirit both skeptical and agnostic, some began to voice a
general mistrust, which led some to focus more on faith and others to deny its
rationality altogether.
In short, what for Patristic and
Medieval thought was in both theory and practice a profound unity; producing
knowledge capable of reaching the highest forms of
speculation; was destroyed by systems which espoused the cause of rational
knowledge sundered from faith, and meant to take the place of faith.
46. The more
influential of these radical positions are well known and high in profile,
especially in the history of the West. It is not too much to
claim that the development of a good part of modern philosophy has seen it move
further and further away from Christian Revelation, to the point of setting
itself quite explicitly in opposition. This process reached its
apogee in the last century.
Some representatives of idealism sought in various
ways to transform faith and its contents, even the mystery of the Death and
Resurrection of Jesus, into dialectical structures which could be grasped by
reason. Opposed to this kind of thinking were various forms of atheistic
humanism, expressed in philosophical terms, which regarded
faith as alienating and damaging to the development of a full rationality.
They did not hesitate to present themselves as new
religions serving as a basis for projects which, on the political and social
plane, gave rise to totalitarian systems which have been disastrous for humanity.
In the field of scientific research, a positivistic mentality took hold
which not only abandoned the Christian vision of the world, but more especially
rejected every appeal to a metaphysical or moral vision. It follows that certain scientists, lacking any ethical point of reference, are in
danger of putting at the centre of their concerns something other than the
human person and the entirety of the person's life. Further still, some of these, sensing the
opportunities of technological progress, seem to succumb not only to a
market-based logic, but also to the temptation of a quasi-divine power over
nature and even over the human being.
As a result of the crisis of
rationalism, what has appeared finally is nihilism. As a philosophy of
nothingness, it has a certain attraction for people of our time. Its adherents
claim that the search is an end in itself, without any hope or possibility of
ever attaining the goal of truth.
In the nihilist interpretation, life is no more than an
occasion for sensations and experiences in which the ephemeral has pride of
place. Nihilism is at the root of the widespread
mentality which claims that a definitive commitment should no longer be made,
because everything is fleeting and provisional.
47. It should also be borne in
mind that the role of
philosophy itself has changed in modern culture. From universal wisdom and
learning, it has been gradually reduced to one of the many
fields of human knowing; indeed in some ways it has been consigned to a wholly
marginal role. Other forms of rationality have acquired an ever higher profile,
making philosophical learning appear all the more peripheral. These forms of
rationality are directed not towards the contemplation of truth and the search
for the ultimate goal and meaning of life; but instead, as “instrumental reason”,
they are directed—actually or potentially—towards the promotion of utilitarian ends, towards enjoyment or power.
In my first Encyclical Letter I stressed the danger of
absolutizing such an approach when I wrote: “The man of
today seems ever to be under threat from what he produces, that is to say from
the result of the work of his hands and, even more so, of the work of his
intellect and the tendencies of his will. All too soon, and often in
an unforeseeable way, what this manifold activity of man yields is not only
subject to 'alienation', in the sense that it is simply taken away from the
person who produces it, but rather it turns against man himself, at least in
part, through the indirect consequences of its effects returning on himself. It
is or can be directed against him.
This seems to make up the main chapter of the drama
of present-day human existence in its broadest and universal dimension. Man
therefore lives increasingly in fear. He is afraid of what he produces—not all
of it, of course, or even most of it, but part of it and precisely that part that contains a
special share of his genius and initiative—can radically turn against himself”.53
In the wake of these cultural shifts, some philosophers
have abandoned the search for truth in itself and made their sole aim the attainment of a subjective certainty or a pragmatic sense of
utility. This in turn has obscured the true
dignity of reason, which is no longer equipped to know the truth and to seek
the absolute.
48. This rapid survey of the history of philosophy, then, reveals a growing separation between
faith and philosophical reason.
Yet closer scrutiny shows that even in the philosophical
thinking of those who helped drive faith and reason further apart there are
found at times precious and seminal insights which, if
pursued and developed with mind and heart rightly tuned, can lead to the
discovery of truth's way. Such insights are found, for instance, in
penetrating analyses of perception and experience, of the imaginary and the
unconscious, of personhood and intersubjectivity, of freedom and values, of
time and history. The theme of death as well
can become for all thinkers an incisive appeal to seek within themselves the
true meaning of their own life. But this does not mean that the link
between faith and reason as it now stands does not need to be carefully
examined, because each without the other is impoverished and enfeebled.
Deprived of what Revelation
offers, reason has taken side-tracks which expose it to the danger of losing
sight of its final goal. Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and
experience, and so run the risk of no longer being a universal proposition.
It is an illusion to think that faith, tied
to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith
then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or
superstition. By the same token, reason which is unrelated to an
adult faith is not prompted to turn its gaze to the newness and radicality of
being.
This is why I make this strong and insistent appeal—not,
I trust, untimely—that faith and philosophy recover the profound unity which
allows them to stand in harmony with their nature without compromising their
mutual autonomy. The parrhesia of faith must be matched by the boldness of reason.
CHAPTER
V - THE MAGISTERIUM'S INTERVENTIONS IN PHILOSOPHICAL MATTERS
The Magisterium's
Discernment as Diakonia of the Truth
49. The Church
has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular
philosophy in preference to others.54 The underlying reason for this reluctance
is that, even when it engages theology, philosophy must remain faithful to its
own principles and methods. Otherwise there would be no guarantee that it would
remain oriented to truth and that it was moving towards truth by way of a
process governed by reason. A philosophy which did not
proceed in the light of reason according to its own principles and methods would
serve little purpose.
At the deepest level, the
autonomy which philosophy enjoys is rooted in the fact that reason is by its
nature oriented to truth and is equipped moreover with the means necessary to
arrive at truth.
A philosophy conscious of this as its “constitutive
status” cannot but respect the demands and the data of revealed truth.
Yet history shows that philosophy—especially
modern philosophy—has taken wrong turns and fallen into error.
It is neither the task nor the competence of the
Magisterium to intervene in order to make good the lacunas of deficient
philosophical discourse. Rather, it
is the Magisterium's duty to respond clearly and strongly when controversial
philosophical opinions threaten right understanding of what has been revealed,
and when false and partial theories which sow the seed of serious error,
confusing the pure and simple faith of the People of God, begin to spread more
widely.
50. In the light
of faith, therefore, the Church's Magisterium
can and must authoritatively exercise a critical discernment of opinions and
philosophies which contradict Christian doctrine.55 It is the task
of the Magisterium in the first place to indicate which philosophical
presuppositions and conclusions are incompatible with revealed truth, thus
articulating the demands which faith's point of view makes of philosophy. Moreover, as philosophical learning has
developed, different schools of thought have emerged. This pluralism also
imposes upon the Magisterium the responsibility of expressing a judgment as to
whether or not the basic tenets of these different schools are compatible with
the demands of the word of God and theological enquiry.
It is the Church's duty to
indicate the elements in a philosophical system which are incompatible with her
own faith.
In fact, many philosophical opinions — concerning God, the
human being, human freedom and ethical behavior — engage the Church directly,
because they touch on the revealed truth of which she is the guardian. In
making this discernment, we Bishops have the duty to be “witnesses to the truth”, fulfilling a humble but tenacious ministry of service which every
philosopher should appreciate, a service in favor of recta ratio, or of reason
reflecting rightly upon what is true.
51. This discernment,
however, should not be seen as primarily negative, as if the Magisterium
intended to abolish or limit any possible mediation. On the contrary, the Magisterium's
interventions are intended above all to prompt, promote and encourage
philosophical enquiry. Besides, philosophers are the first to understand the
need for self-criticism, the correction of errors and the extension of the too
restricted terms in which their thinking has been framed. In particular, it is
necessary to keep in mind the unity of truth, even if its formulations are
shaped by history and produced by human reason wounded and weakened by sin.
This is why no historical form of philosophy can legitimately claim to embrace
the totality of truth, nor to be the complete explanation of the human being,
of the world and of the human being's relationship with God.
Today, then, with the proliferation of systems, methods,
concepts and philosophical theses which are often extremely complex, the need
for a critical discernment in the light of faith becomes more urgent, even if
it remains a daunting task. Given all of reason's inherent and historical
limitations, it is difficult enough to recognize the inalienable powers proper
to it; but it is still more difficult at times to discern in specific philosophical
claims what is valid and fruitful from faith's point of view and what is
mistaken or dangerous.
Yet the Church knows that “the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are hidden in Christ (Col 2:3) and therefore
intervenes in order to stimulate philosophical enquiry, lest it stray from the
path which leads to recognition of the mystery.
52. It is not
only in recent times that the Magisterium of the Church has intervened to make
its mind known with regard to particular philosophical teachings. It is enough
to recall, by way of example, the pronouncements made through the centuries
concerning theories which argued in favor of the pre-existence of the soul,56
or concerning the different forms of idolatry and esoteric superstition found
in astrological speculations,57 without forgetting the more systematic
pronouncements against certain claims of Latin Averroism which were
incompatible with the Christian faith.58
If the Magisterium has spoken out more frequently since the
middle of the last century, it is because in that period not a few Catholics
felt it their duty to counter various streams of modern thought with a
philosophy of their own. At this point, the Magisterium of the Church was
obliged to be vigilant lest these philosophies developed in ways which were
themselves erroneous and negative. The censures were delivered even-handedly:
on the one hand, fideism 59 and radical traditionalism,60 for their distrust of
reason's natural capacities, and, on the other, rationalism 61 and ontologism
62 because they attributed to natural reason a knowledge which only the light
of faith could confer. The positive elements of this debate were assembled in
the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, in which for the first time an Ecumenical
Council—in this case, the First Vatican Council—pronounced solemnly on the
relationship between reason and faith. The teaching contained in this document
strongly and positively marked the philosophical research of many believers and
remains today a standard reference-point for correct and coherent Christian
thinking in this regard.
53. The
Magisterium's pronouncements have been concerned less with individual
philosophical theses than with the need for rational and hence ultimately
philosophical knowledge for the understanding of faith. In synthesizing and
solemnly reaffirming the teachings constantly proposed to the faithful by the
ordinary Papal Magisterium, the First Vatican Council showed how inseparable
and at the same time how distinct were faith and reason, Revelation and natural
knowledge of God. The Council began with the basic criterion, presupposed by
Revelation itself, of the natural knowability of the existence of God, the
beginning and end of all things,63 and concluded with the solemn assertion
quoted earlier: “There are two orders of knowledge, distinct not only in their
point of departure, but also in their object”.64 Against all forms of
rationalism, then, there was a need to affirm the distinction between the
mysteries of faith and the findings of philosophy, and the transcendence and
precedence of the mysteries of faith over the findings of philosophy. Against
the temptations of fideism, however, it was necessary to stress the unity of
truth and thus the positive contribution which rational knowledge can and must
make to faith's knowledge: “Even if faith is superior to reason there can never
be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals
the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit
the light of reason. This God could not deny himself, nor could the truth ever
contradict the truth”.65
54. In our own
century too the Magisterium has revisited the theme on a number of occasions,
warning against the lure of rationalism. Here the pronouncements of Pope Saint
Pius X are pertinent, stressing as they did that at the basis of Modernism were
philosophical claims which were phenomenist, agnostic and immanentist.66 Nor can the importance of the Catholic rejection of Marxist philosophy
and atheistic Communism be forgotten.67 Later,
in his Encyclical Letter Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII warned against mistaken
interpretations linked to evolutionism, existentialism and historicism. He made
it clear that these theories had not been proposed and developed by
theologians, but had their origins “outside the sheepfold of Christ”.68 He
added, however, that errors of this kind should not simply be rejected but
should be examined critically: “Catholic theologians and philsophers, whose
grave duty it is to defend natural and supernatural truth and instill it in
human hearts, cannot afford to ignore these more or less erroneous opinions.
Rather they must come to understand these theories well, not only because
diseases are properly treated only if rightly diagnosed and because even in
these false theories some truth is found at times, but because in the end these
theories provoke a more discriminating discussion and evaluation of
philosophical and theological
truths”.69
In accomplishing its specific task in service of the Roman
Pontiff's universal Magisterium,70 the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has more recently had to
intervene to re-emphasize the danger of an uncritical adoption by some
liberation theologians of opinions and methods drawn from Marxism.71
In the past, then, the Magisterium has on different
occasions and in different ways offered its discernment in philosophical
matters. My revered Predecessors have thus made an invaluable contribution
which must not be forgotten.
55. Surveying
the situation today, we see that the problems of other times have returned, but
in a new key. It is no longer a matter of questions of interest only to certain
individuals and groups, but convictions so widespread that they have become to
some extent the common mind. An example
of this is the deep-seated distrust of reason which has surfaced in the most
recent developments of much of philosophical research, to the point where there
is talk at times of “the end of metaphysics”. Philosophy is expected to rest
content with more modest tasks such as the simple interpretation of facts or an
enquiry into restricted fields of human knowing or its structures.
In theology too the temptations
of other times have reappeared. In some contemporary theologies, for instance,
a certain rationalism is gaining ground, especially when opinions thought to be
philosophically well founded are taken as normative for theological research.
This happens particularly when theologians, through lack of philosophical competence,
allow themselves to be swayed uncritically by assertions which have become part
of current parlance and culture but which are poorly grounded in reason.72
There are also signs of a resurgence of fideism,
which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical
discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of
belief in God. One currently widespread symptom of this fideistic tendency is a
“biblicism” which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scripture
the sole criterion of truth. In consequence, the word of God is identified with
Sacred Scripture alone, thus eliminating the doctrine of the Church which the
Second Vatican Council stressed quite specifically.
Having recalled that the word of God is present in both
Scripture and Tradition,73 the Constitution Dei Verbum continues emphatically: “Sacred
Tradition and Sacred Scripture comprise a single sacred deposit of the word of
God entrusted to the Church. Embracing this deposit and united with their
pastors, the People of God remain always faithful to the teaching of the
Apostles”.74 Scripture, therefore, is not the Church's sole
point of reference.
The “supreme rule of her faith”
75 derives from the unity which the Spirit has created between Sacred
Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church in a reciprocity
which means that none of the three can survive without the others.76
Moreover, one should not underestimate the danger inherent
in seeking to derive the truth of Sacred Scripture from the use of one method
alone, ignoring the need for a more comprehensive exegesis which enables the
exegete, together with the whole Church, to arrive at the full sense of the
texts. Those who devote themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture should
always remember that the various hermeneutical
approaches have their own philosophical underpinnings, which need to be
carefully evaluated before they are applied to the sacred texts. Other modes of latent fideism appear in the
scant consideration accorded to speculative theology, and in disdain for the
classical philosophy from which the terms of both the understanding of faith
and the actual formulation of dogma have been drawn. My revered Predecessor
Pope Pius XII warned against such neglect of the philosophical tradition and
against abandonment of the traditional terminology.77
56. In brief, there are signs of a widespread
distrust of universal and absolute statements, especially among those who think
that truth is born of consensus and not of a consonance between intellect and
objective reality. In a world subdivided into so many specialized fields, it is
not hard to see how difficult it can be to acknowledge the full and ultimate
meaning of life which has traditionally been the goal of philosophy.
Nonetheless, in the light of faith which finds in Jesus
Christ this ultimate meaning, I cannot but encourage philosophers—be they
Christian or not—to trust in the power of human reason and not to set
themselves goals that are too modest in their philosophizing. The lesson of
history in this millennium now drawing to a close shows that this is the path
to follow: it is necessary not to abandon the passion for ultimate truth, the
eagerness to search for it or the audacity to forge new paths in the search. It
is faith which stirs reason to move beyond all isolation and willingly to run
risks so that it may attain whatever is beautiful, good and true. Faith thus
becomes the convinced and convincing advocate of reason.
The Church's Interest in
Philosophy
57. Yet the
Magisterium does more than point out the misperceptions and the mistakes of
philosophical theories. With no less concern it has sought to stress the basic
principles of a genuine renewal of philosophical enquiry, indicating as well particular
paths to be taken. In this regard, Pope Leo XIII with his Encyclical Letter
Æterni Patris took a step of historic importance for the life of the Church,
since it remains to this day the one papal document of such authority devoted
entirely to philosophy. The great Pope revisited and developed the First
Vatican Council's teaching on the relationship between faith and reason,
showing how philosophical thinking contributes in fundamental ways to faith and
theological learning.78 More than a century later, many of the insights of his
Encyclical Letter have lost none of their interest from either a practical or
pedagogical point of view—most particularly, his insistence upon the
incomparable value of the philosophy of Saint Thomas. A renewed insistence upon the thought of the
Angelic Doctor seemed to Pope Leo XIII the best way to recover the practice of
a philosophy consonant with the demands of faith. “Just when Saint Thomas distinguishes perfectly
between faith and reason”, the Pope writes, “he unites them in bonds of mutual
friendship, conceding to each its specific rights and to each its specific
dignity”.79
58. The positive
results of the papal summons are well known. Studies of the thought of Saint Thomas
and other Scholastic writers received new impetus. Historical studies
flourished, resulting in a rediscovery of the riches of Medieval thought, which
until then had been largely unknown; and there emerged new Thomistic schools.
With the use of historical method, knowledge of the works of Saint Thomas
increased greatly, and many scholars had courage enough to introduce the
Thomistic tradition into the philosophical and theological discussions of the
day. The most influential Catholic theologians of the present century, to whose
thinking and research the Second Vatican Council was much indebted, were
products of this revival of Thomistic philosophy. Throughout the twentieth
century, the Church has been served by a powerful array of thinkers formed in the
school of the Angelic Doctor.
59. Yet the
Thomistic and neo-Thomistic revival was not the only sign of a resurgence of
philosophical thought in culture of Christian inspiration. Earlier still, and parallel to Pope Leo's
call, there had emerged a number of Catholic philosophers who, adopting more
recent currents of thought and according to a specific method, produced
philosophical works of great influence and lasting value. Some devised
syntheses so remarkable that they stood comparison with the great systems of
idealism. Others established the epistemological foundations for a new
consideration of faith in the light of a renewed understanding of moral
consciousness; others again produced a philosophy which, starting with an
analysis of immanence, opened the way to the transcendent; and there were
finally those who sought to combine the demands of faith with the perspective
of phenomenological method. From different quarters, then, modes of
philosophical speculation have continued to emerge and have sought to keep
alive the great tradition of Christian thought which unites faith and reason.
60. The Second
Vatican Council, for its part, offers a rich and fruitful teaching concerning
philosophy. I cannot fail to note, especially in the context of this Encyclical
Letter, that one chapter of the Constitution Gaudium et Spes amounts to a
virtual compendium of the biblical anthropology from which philosophy too can
draw inspiration. The chapter deals with the value of the human person created
in the image of God, explains the dignity and superiority of the human being
over the rest of creation, and declares the transcendent capacity of human
reason.80 The problem
of atheism is also dealt with in Gaudium et Spes, and the flaws of its
philosophical vision are identified, especially in relation to the dignity and
freedom of the human person.81 There is no doubt that the climactic
section of the chapter is profoundly significant for philosophy; and it was
this which I took up in my first Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis and which
serves as one of the constant reference-points of my teaching: “The truth is
that only in the
mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam,
the first man, was a type of him who was to come, Christ the Lord. Christ, the
new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love,
fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling”.82
The Council also dealt with the study of philosophy
required of candidates for the priesthood; and its recommendations have
implications for Christian education as a whole. These are the Council's words:
“The philosophical disciplines should be taught in
such a way that students acquire in the first place a solid and harmonious
knowledge of the human being, of the world and of God, based upon
the philosophical heritage which is enduringly valid, yet taking into account
currents of modern philosophy”.83
These directives have been reiterated and developed in a
number of other magisterial documents in order to guarantee a solid
philosophical formation, especially for those preparing for theological studies. I have myself emphasized several times the importance of this
philosophical formation for those who one day, in their pastoral life, will have
to address the aspirations of the contemporary world and understand the causes
of certain behavior in order to respond in appropriate ways.84
61. If it has
been necessary from time to time to intervene on this question, to reiterate
the value of the Angelic Doctor's insights and insist on the study of his
thought, this has been because the Magisterium's directives have not always
been followed with the readiness one would wish. In the
years after the Second Vatican Council, many Catholic faculties were in some
ways impoverished by a diminished sense of the importance of the study not just
of Scholastic philosophy but more generally of the study of philosophy itself.
I cannot fail to note with surprise and displeasure that this lack of interest
in the study of philosophy is shared by not a few theologians.
There are various reasons for this disenchantment. First, there is the distrust of reason found in much contemporary philosophy,
which has largely abandoned metaphysical study of the ultimate human questions
in order to concentrate upon problems which are more detailed and restricted,
at times even purely formal. Another reason, it should be said, is the
misunderstanding which has arisen especially with regard to the “human sciences”.
On a number of occasions, the Second Vatican Council stressed the positive
value of scientific research for a deeper knowledge of the mystery of the human
being.85 But the invitation addressed to theologians to
engage the human sciences and apply them properly in their enquiries should not
be interpreted as an implicit authorization to marginalize philosophy or to put
something else in its place in pastoral formation and in the
praeparatio fidei. A further factor is the renewed interest in the
enculturation of faith. The life of the young Churches in particular has
brought to light, together with sophisticated modes of thinking, an array of
expressions of popular wisdom; and this constitutes a genuine cultural wealth
of traditions. Yet the study of traditional ways must go hand in hand with
philosophical enquiry, an enquiry which will allow the positive traits of
popular wisdom to emerge and forge the necessary link with the proclamation of
the Gospel.86
62. I wish to repeat clearly
that the study of philosophy is fundamental and indispensable to the structure
of theological studies and to the formation of candidates for the priesthood.
It is not by chance that the curriculum of theological
studies is preceded by a time of special study of philosophy. This decision, confirmed
by the Fifth Lateran Council,87 is rooted in the experience which matured
through the Middle Ages, when the importance of a constructive harmony of
philosophical and theological learning emerged. This ordering of studies
influenced, promoted and enabled much of the development of modern philosophy,
albeit indirectly. One telling example of this is the influence of the
Disputationes Metaphysicae of Francisco Suárez, which found its way even into
the Lutheran universities of Germany. Conversely, the dismantling of this
arrangement has created serious gaps in both priestly formation and theological
research.
Consider, for instance, the disregard of modern
thought and culture which has led either to a refusal of any kind of dialogue
or to an indiscriminate acceptance of any kind of philosophy.
I trust most sincerely that these difficulties will be
overcome by an intelligent philosophical and theological formation, which must
never be lacking in the Church.
63. For the
reasons suggested here, it has seemed to me urgent to re-emphasize with this
Encyclical Letter the Church's intense interest in philosophy—indeed the
intimate bond which ties theological work to the philosophical search for truth. From this comes the Magisterium's duty to discern and promote
philosophical thinking which is not at odds with faith. It is my task to state
principles and criteria which in my judgment are necessary in order to restore
a harmonious and creative relationship between theology and philosophy.
In the light of these principles and criteria, it will be possible to discern
with greater clarity what link, if any, theology should forge with the
different philosophical opinions or systems which the world of today presents.
CHAPTER
VI - THE INTERACTION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND
THEOLOGY
The Knowledge of Faith and
the Demands of Philosophical Reason
64. The word of
God is addressed to all people, in every age and in every part of the world;
and the human being is by nature a philosopher. As a
reflective and scientific elaboration of the understanding of God's word in the
light of faith, theology for its part must relate, in some of its procedures
and in the performance of its specific tasks, to the philosophies which have
been developed through the ages. I have no wish to direct theologians to
particular methods, since that is not the competence of the Magisterium. I wish
instead to recall some specific tasks of theology which, by the very nature of
the revealed word, demand recourse to philosophical enquiry.
65. Theology is structured as
an understanding of faith in the light of a twofold methodological principle:
the auditus fidei and the intellectus fidei. With the first, theology makes its
own the content of Revelation as this has been gradually expounded in Sacred
Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Church's living Magisterium.88 With the
second, theology seeks to respond through speculative enquiry to the specific
demands of disciplined thought.
Philosophy contributes specifically to theology in
preparing for a correct auditus fidei with its study of the structure of
knowledge and personal communication, especially the various forms and
functions of language. No less important is philosophy's contribution to a more
coherent understanding of Church Tradition, the pronouncements of the
Magisterium and the teaching of the great masters of theology, who often adopt
concepts and thought-forms drawn from a particular philosophical tradition. In
this case, the theologian is summoned not only to explain the concepts and
terms used by the Church in her thinking and the development of her teaching,
but also to know in depth the philosophical systems which may have influenced
those concepts and terms, in order to formulate correct and consistent
interpretations of them.
66. With regard to the
intellectus fidei, a prime consideration must be that divine Truth “proposed to
us in the Sacred Scriptures and rightly interpreted by the Church's teaching”
89 enjoys an innate intelligibility, so logically consistent that it stands as
an authentic body of knowledge.
The intellectus fidei expounds this truth, not
only in grasping the logical and conceptual structure of the propositions in
which the Church's teaching is framed, but also, indeed primarily, in bringing
to light the salvific meaning of these propositions for the individual and for
humanity. From the sum of these propositions, the believer
comes to know the history of salvation, which culminates in the person of Jesus
Christ and in his Paschal Mystery. Believers then share in this
mystery by their assent of faith.
For its part, dogmatic theology must be able to articulate
the universal meaning of the mystery of the One and Triune God and of the
economy of salvation, both as a narrative and, above all, in the form of
argument. It must do so, in other words, through concepts formulated in a
critical and universally communicable way. Without philosophy's contribution, it would in fact be impossible to
discuss theological issues such as, for example, the use of language to speak
about God, the personal relations within the Trinity, God's creative activity
in the world, the relationship between God and man, or Christ's identity as
true God and true man. This is no less true of the different
themes of moral theology, which employ concepts such as the moral law,
conscience, freedom, personal responsibility and guilt, which are in part
defined by philosophical ethics.
It is necessary therefore that the mind of the believer
acquire a natural, consistent and true knowledge of created realities—the world
and man himself—which are also the object of divine Revelation. Still more,
reason must be able to articulate this knowledge in concept and argument.
Speculative dogmatic theology thus presupposes and implies a philosophy of the
human being, the world and, more radically, of being, which has objective truth
as its foundation.
67. With its
specific character as a discipline charged with giving an account of faith (cf.
1 Pet 3:15), the concern of fundamental theology will be to justify and expound
the relationship between faith and philosophical thought. Recalling the teaching of Saint Paul (cf. Rom
1:19-20), the First Vatican Council pointed to the existence of truths which
are naturally, and thus philosophically, knowable; and an acceptance of God's
Revelation necessarily presupposes knowledge of these truths.
In studying Revelation and its credibility, as well as the corresponding act of
faith, fundamental theology should show how, in the light of the knowledge
conferred by faith, there emerge certain truths which reason, from its own
independent enquiry, already perceives. Revelation endows these truths with
their fullest meaning, directing them towards the richness of the revealed
mystery in which they find their ultimate purpose. Consider,
for example, the natural knowledge of God, the possibility of distinguishing
divine Revelation from other phenomena or the recognition of its credibility,
the capacity of human language to speak in a true and meaningful way even of
things which transcend all human experience. From all these truths,
the mind is led to acknowledge the existence of a truly propaedeutic path to
faith, one which can lead to the acceptance of Revelation without in any way
compromising the principles and autonomy of the mind itself.90
Similarly, fundamental theology
should demonstrate the profound compatibility that exists between faith and its
need to find expression by way of human reason fully free to give its assent.
Faith will thus be able “to show fully the path to reason in a sincere search
for the truth. Although faith, a gift of God, is not based on reason, it can
certainly not dispense with it. At the same time, it becomes apparent that
reason needs to be reinforced by faith, in order to discover horizons it cannot
reach on its own”.91
68. Moral
theology has perhaps an even greater need of philosophy's contribution. In the
New Testament, human life is much less governed by prescriptions than in the
Old Testament. Life in the Spirit leads believers to a freedom and
responsibility which surpass the Law. Yet the Gospel and the Apostolic writings
still set forth both general principles of Christian conduct and specific
teachings and precepts. In order to apply these to the particular circumstances
of individual and communal life, Christians must be able fully to engage their
conscience and the power of their reason.
In other words, moral theology requires a sound philosophical
vision of human nature and society, as well as of the general principles of
ethical decision-making.
69. It might be
objected that the theologian should nowadays rely less on philosophy than on
the help of other kinds of human knowledge, such as history and above all the
sciences, the extraordinary advances of which in recent times stir such
admiration. Others, more alert to the link between faith and culture, claim
that theology should look more to the wisdom contained
in peoples' traditions than to a philosophy of Greek and Eurocentric
provenance. Others still, prompted by a mistaken notion of cultural
pluralism, simply deny the universal value of the Church's philosophical
heritage. There is some truth in these
claims which are acknowledged in the teaching of the Council.92 Reference to
the sciences is often helpful, allowing as it does a more thorough knowledge of
the subject under study; but it should not mean the rejection of a typically
philosophical and critical thinking which is concerned with the universal.
Indeed, this kind of thinking is required for a fruitful exchange between
cultures. What I wish to emphasize is the duty to go beyond the particular and
concrete, lest the prime task of demonstrating the universality of faith's
content be abandoned. Nor should
it be forgotten that the specific contribution of philosophical enquiry enables
us to discern in different world-views and different cultures “not what people
think but what the objective truth is”.93
It is not an array of human opinions but truth
alone which can be of help to theology.
70. Because of
its implications for both philosophy and theology, the question of the
relationship with cultures calls for particular attention, which cannot however
claim to be exhaustive. From the time the Gospel was first preached, the Church
has known the process of encounter and engagement with cultures. Christ's
mandate to his disciples to go out everywhere, “even to the ends of the earth”
(Acts 1:8), in order to pass on the truth which he had revealed, led the
Christian community to recognize from the first the universality of its message
and the difficulties created by cultural differences. A passage of Saint Paul's letter to the Christians of Ephesus helps us to
understand how the early community responded to the problem. The Apostle
writes: “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have
been brought near in the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the
wall of hostility” (2:13-14).
In the light of this text, we reflect further to see how
the Gentiles were transformed once they had embraced the faith. With the richness of the salvation wrought by Christ, the walls
separating the different cultures collapsed. God's promise in Christ
now became a universal offer: no longer limited to one particular people, its
language and its customs, but extended to all as a heritage from which each
might freely draw. From their different
locations and traditions all are called in Christ to share in the unity of the
family of God's children. It is Christ who enables the two peoples
to become “one”. Those who were “far off” have come “near”, thanks to the
newness brought by the Paschal Mystery. Jesus destroys the walls of division
and creates unity in a new and unsurpassed way through our sharing in his
mystery. This unity is so deep that the Church can say with Saint Paul: “You are no
longer strangers and sojourners, but you are saints and members of the
household of God” (Eph 2:19).
This simple statement contains a great truth: faith's encounter with
different cultures has created something new. When they are deeply rooted in
experience, cultures show forth the human being's characteristic openness to
the universal and the transcendent. Therefore they offer different paths to the
truth, which assuredly serve men and women well in revealing values which can
make their life ever more human.94 Insofar as cultures appeal to the values of
older traditions, they point—implicitly but authentically—to the manifestation
of God in nature, as we saw earlier in considering the Wisdom literature and
the teaching of Saint Paul.
71. Inseparable
as they are from people and their history, cultures share the dynamics which
the human experience of life reveals. They change and advance because people
meet in new ways and share with each other their ways of life. Cultures are fed
by the communication of values, and they survive and flourish insofar as they
remain open to assimilating new experiences. How are we to explain these
dynamics? All people are part of a culture, depend upon it and shape it. Human beings are both child and parent of the culture in which they are
immersed. To everything they do, they bring something which sets
them apart from the rest of creation: their unfailing openness to mystery and
their boundless desire for knowledge. Lying deep in every
culture, there appears this impulse towards a fulfilment. We may say, then,
that culture itself has an intrinsic capacity to receive divine Revelation.
Cultural context permeates the living of Christian faith, which contributes in
turn little by little to shaping that context. To every culture Christians
bring the unchanging truth of God, which he reveals in the history and culture
of a people. Time and again, therefore, in the course of the centuries we have
seen repeated the event witnessed by the pilgrims in Jerusalem on the day of
Pentecost. Hearing the Apostles, they asked one another: “Are not all these who
are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own
native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia,
Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the
parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and
proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the
mighty works of God” (Acts 2:7-11).
While it demands of all who hear
it the adherence of faith, the proclamation of the Gospel in different cultures allows people to
preserve their own cultural identity. This in no way creates division, because
the community of the baptized is marked by a universality which can embrace
every culture and help to foster whatever is implicit in them to the point
where it will be fully explicit in the light of truth.
This means that no one culture can ever become the
criterion of judgment, much less the ultimate criterion of
truth with regard to God's Revelation. The Gospel is not opposed to any
culture, as if in engaging a culture the Gospel would seek to strip it of its
native riches and force it to adopt forms which are alien to it. On the
contrary, the message which believers bring to the world and to cultures is a
genuine liberation from all the disorders caused by sin and is, at the same
time, a call to the fullness of truth. Cultures are not only not diminished by
this encounter; rather, they are prompted to open themselves to the newness of
the Gospel's truth and to be stirred by this truth to develop in new ways.
72. In preaching
the Gospel, Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy; but this does not
mean at all that other approaches are precluded. Today, as the Gospel gradually
comes into contact with cultural worlds which once lay beyond Christian
influence, there are new tasks of enculturation, which mean that our generation
faces problems not unlike those faced by the Church in the first centuries.
My thoughts turn immediately to the lands of the East, so
rich in religious and philosophical traditions of great antiquity. Among these
lands, India has a special place. A great spiritual impulse leads Indian
thought to seek an experience which would liberate the spirit from the shackles
of time and space and would therefore acquire absolute value. The dynamic of this
quest for liberation provides the context for great metaphysical systems.
In India particularly, it is the duty of
Christians now to draw from this rich heritage the elements compatible with
their faith, in order to enrich Christian thought. In this work of discernment,
which finds its inspiration in the Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate, certain
criteria will have to be kept in mind. The first of these is the universality
of the human spirit, whose basic needs are the same in the most disparate
cultures.
The second, which derives from the first, is this: in
engaging great cultures for the first time, the Church cannot abandon what she
has gained from her enculturation in the world of Greco-Latin thought. To
reject this heritage would be to deny the providential plan of God who guides
his Church down the paths of time and history. This criterion is valid for the
Church in every age, even for the Church of the future, who will judge herself
enriched by all that comes from today's engagement with Eastern cultures and
will find in this inheritance fresh cues for fruitful dialogue with the
cultures which will emerge as humanity moves into the future.
Thirdly, care will need to be taken lest, contrary to the
very nature of the human spirit, the legitimate defense of the uniqueness and
originality of Indian thought be confused with the idea that a particular
cultural tradition should remain closed in its difference and affirm itself by
opposing other traditions.
What has been said here of India is no less true for the
heritage of the great cultures of China, Japan and the other countries of Asia,
as also for the riches of the traditional cultures of Africa, which are for the
most part orally transmitted.
73. In the
light of these considerations, the relationship between theology and philosophy
is best construed as a circle. Theology's source and starting-point must always
be the word of God revealed in history, while its final goal will be an
understanding of that word which increases with each passing generation. Yet,
since God's word is Truth (cf. Jn 17:17), the human search for truth—philosophy,
pursued in keeping with its own rules—can only help to understand God's word
better. It is not just a question of theological discourse using this or that
concept or element of a philosophical construct; what matters most is that the
believer's reason use its powers of reflection in the search for truth which
moves from the word of God towards a better understanding of it. It is as if, moving between the twin poles of
God's word and a better understanding of it, reason is offered guidance and is
warned against paths which would lead it to stray from revealed Truth and to
stray in the end from the truth pure and simple. Instead,
reason is stirred to explore paths which of itself it would not even have
suspected it could take. This circular relationship with the word of God leaves
philosophy enriched, because reason discovers new and unsuspected horizons.
74. The fruitfulness
of this relationship is confirmed by the experience of great Christian
theologians who also distinguished themselves as great philosophers,
bequeathing to us writings of such high speculative value as to warrant
comparison with the masters of ancient philosophy. This is true of both the
Fathers of the Church, among whom at least Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint
Augustine should be mentioned, and the Medieval Doctors with the great triad of
Saint Anselm, Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas. We see the same
fruitful relationship between philosophy and the word of God in the courageous
research pursued by more recent thinkers, among whom I gladly mention, in a
Western context, figures such as John Henry Newman, Antonio Rosmini, Jacques
Maritain, Étienne Gilson and Edith Stein and, in an Eastern context, eminent
scholars such as Vladimir S. Soloviev, Pavel A. Florensky, Petr Chaadaev and
Vladimir N. Lossky. Obviously other names could be cited; and in referring to
these I intend not to endorse every aspect of their thought, but simply to
offer significant examples of a process of philosophical enquiry which was
enriched by engaging the data of faith. One thing is certain: attention to the
spiritual journey of these masters can only give greater momentum to both the
search for truth and the effort to apply the results of that search to the
service of humanity. It is to be hoped that now and in the future there will be
those who continue to cultivate this great philosophical and theological
tradition for the good of both the Church and humanity.
Different Stances of
Philosophy
75. As appears
from this brief sketch of the history of the relationship between faith and
philosophy, one can distinguish different stances of philosophy with regard to Christian
faith. First, there is a philosophy completely independent of the Gospel's
Revelation: this is the stance adopted by philosophy as it took shape in
history before the birth of the Redeemer and later in regions as yet untouched
by the Gospel. We see here philosophy's valid aspiration to be an autonomous
enterprise, obeying its own rules and employing the powers of reason alone.
Although seriously handicapped by the inherent weakness of human reason, this
aspiration should be supported and strengthened.
As a search for truth within the
natural order, the enterprise of philosophy is always open—at least implicitly—to
the supernatural.
Moreover, the demand for a valid autonomy of
thought should be respected even when theological discourse makes use of
philosophical concepts and arguments. Indeed, to argue according to rigorous
rational criteria is to guarantee that the results attained are universally
valid. This also confirms the principle that grace does not destroy nature but
perfects it: the assent of faith, engaging the intellect and will, does not
destroy but perfects the free will of each believer who deep within welcomes
what has been revealed.
It is clear that this legitimate approach is
rejected by the theory of so-called “separate” philosophy, pursued by some
modern philosophers. This
theory claims for philosophy not only a valid autonomy, but a self-sufficiency
of thought which is patently invalid. In refusing the truth offered by divine
Revelation, philosophy only does itself damage, since this is to preclude
access to a deeper knowledge of truth.
76. A second stance adopted by philosophy is often
designated as Christian philosophy. In itself, the term is valid, but it should
not be misunderstood: it in no way intends to suggest that there is an official
philosophy of the Church, since the
faith as such is not a philosophy. The term seeks rather to
indicate a Christian way of philosophizing, a philosophical speculation
conceived in dynamic union with faith.
It does not therefore refer simply to a philosophy
developed by Christian philosophers who have striven in their research not to
contradict the faith. The term Christian philosophy includes those important
developments of philosophical thinking which would not have happened without
the direct or indirect contribution of Christian faith.
Christian philosophy therefore has two aspects. The
first is subjective, in the sense that faith purifies reason. As a theological
virtue, faith liberates
reason from presumption, the typical temptation of the philosopher. Saint Paul, the Fathers of the Church and,
closer to our own time, philosophers such as Pascal and Kierkegaard reproached
such presumption. The
philosopher who learns humility will also find courage to tackle questions
which are difficult to resolve if the data of Revelation are ignored—for
example, the problem of evil and suffering, the personal nature of God and the
question of the meaning of life or, more directly, the radical metaphysical
question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?".
The second aspect of Christian philosophy is objective, in
the sense that it concerns content.
Revelation clearly proposes
certain truths which might never have been discovered by reason unaided,
although they are not of themselves inaccessible to reason.
Among these truths is the notion of a free and personal God who is the
Creator of the world, a truth which has been so crucial for the development of
philosophical thinking, especially the philosophy of being. There is
also the reality of sin, as it appears in the light of faith, which helps to
shape an adequate philosophical formulation of the problem of evil. The notion
of the person as a spiritual being is another of faith's specific
contributions: the Christian proclamation of human dignity, equality and
freedom has undoubtedly influenced modern philosophical thought. In more recent
times, there has been the discovery that history as event—so central to Christian
Revelation—is important for philosophy as well. It is no
accident that this has become pivotal for a philosophy of history which stakes
its claim as a new chapter in the human search for truth.
Among the objective elements of Christian philosophy we
might also place the need to explore the rationality of certain
truths expressed in Sacred Scripture, such as the possibility of
man's supernatural vocation and original sin itself. These are tasks which challenge reason to recognize that there is something true and rational
lying far beyond the straits within which it would normally be confined.
These questions in fact broaden reason's scope for action.
In speculating on these questions, philosophers have not become theologians, since
they have not sought to understand and expound the truths of faith on the basis
of Revelation. They have continued working on their own terrain and with their
own purely rational method, yet extending their research to new
aspects of truth.
It could be said that a good part of modern and contemporary philosophy
would not exist without this stimulus of the word of God. This
conclusion retains all its relevance, despite the disappointing fact that many thinkers in recent centuries have abandoned Christian orthodoxy.
77. Philosophy
presents another stance worth noting when theology itself calls upon it. Theology in fact has always needed and still needs philosophy's
contribution. As a work of critical
reason in the light of faith, theology presupposes and requires
in all its research a reason formed and educated to concept and argument.
Moreover, theology needs
philosophy as a partner in dialogue in order to confirm the intelligibility and
universal truth of its claims. It was not by accident
that the Fathers of the Church and the Medieval theologians adopted
non-Christian philosophies. This historical fact confirms the value of
philosophy's autonomy, which remains unimpaired when theology calls upon it;
but it shows as well the profound transformations which philosophy itself must
undergo.
It was because of its noble and indispensable contribution
that, from the Patristic period onwards, philosophy was called the ancilla
theologiae. The title was not intended to indicate philosophy's servile
submission or purely functional role with regard to theology. Rather, it was
used in the sense in which Aristotle had spoken of the experimental sciences as
“ancillary” to “prima philosophia”. The term can scarcely be used today, given
the principle of autonomy to which we have referred, but it has served
throughout history to indicate the necessity of the link between the two
sciences and the impossibility of their separation. Were theologians to refuse the help of philosophy, they would run the
risk of doing philosophy unwittingly and locking themselves within
thought-structures poorly adapted to the understanding of faith. Were
philosophers, for their part, to shun theology completely, they would be forced
to master on their own the contents of Christian faith, as
has been the case with some modern philosophers. Either way, the grounding
principles of autonomy which every science rightly wants guaranteed would be
seriously threatened.
When it adopts this stance, philosophy,
like theology, comes more directly under the authority of the Magisterium and its
discernment, because of the implications it has for the understanding of
Revelation, as I have already explained. The truths of faith make
certain demands which philosophy must respect whenever it engages theology.
78. It should be
clear in the light of these reflections why the Magisterium has repeatedly
acclaimed the merits of Saint Thomas' thought and made him the guide and model
for theological studies. This has not been in order to take a position on
properly philosophical questions nor to demand adherence to particular theses.
The Magisterium's intention has always been to show how Saint Thomas is an
authentic model for all who seek the truth. In his thinking, the demands of
reason and the power of faith found the most elevated synthesis ever attained
by human thought, for he could defend the radical newness introduced by
Revelation without ever demeaning the venture proper to reason.
79. Developing
further what the Magisterium before me has taught, I intend in this final
section to point out certain requirements which theology—and more fundamentally
still, the word of God itself—makes today of philosophical thinking and
contemporary philosophies. As I have already noted, philosophy must obey its own rules and be based
upon its own principles; truth, however, can only be one. The content of
Revelation can never debase the discoveries and legitimate autonomy of reason.
Yet, conscious that it cannot set itself up as an absolute and exclusive value,
reason on its part must never lose its capacity to
question and to be questioned. By virtue of the splendor emanating
from subsistent Being itself, revealed truth offers the
fullness of light and will therefore illumine the path of philosophical
enquiry.
In short, Christian Revelation
becomes the true point of encounter and engagement between philosophical and
theological thinking in their reciprocal relationship.
It is to be hoped therefore that theologians and
philosophers will let themselves be guided by the authority of truth alone so
that there will emerge a philosophy consonant with the word of God. Such a
philosophy will be a place where Christian faith and human cultures may meet, a
point of understanding between believer and non-believer. It will help lead
believers to a stronger conviction that faith grows deeper and more authentic
when it is wedded to thought and does not reject it.
It is again the Fathers who teach
us this: “To believe is nothing other than to think with assent... Believers
are also thinkers: in believing, they think and in thinking, they believe... If
faith does not think, it is nothing”.95 And again: “If there is no assent,
there is no faith, for without assent one does not really believe”.96
CHAPTER
VII - CURRENT REQUIREMENTS AND TASKS
The Indispensable Requirements
of the Word of God
80. In Sacred Scripture are
found elements, both implicit and explicit, which allow a vision of the human
being and the world which has exceptional philosophical density. Christians have come to an ever
deeper awareness of the wealth to be found in the sacred text. It is there that
we learn that what we experience is not absolute: it is neither uncreated nor
self-generating. God alone is the Absolute.
From the Bible there emerges also a vision of man
as imago Dei.
This vision offers indications regarding man's life, his freedom and the
immortality of the human spirit. Since the created world is
not self-sufficient, every
illusion of autonomy which would deny the essential dependence on God of every
creature—the human being included—leads to dramatic situations which subvert
the rational search for the harmony and the meaning of human life.
The problem of moral evil—the
most tragic of evil's forms—is also addressed in the Bible, which tells us that
such evil stems not from any material deficiency, but is a wound inflicted by
the disordered exercise of human freedom.
In the end, the word of God poses the problem of the meaning of life
and proffers its response in directing the human being to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate
Word of God, who is the perfect realization of human existence. A
reading of the sacred text would reveal other aspects of this problem; but what
emerges clearly is the rejection of all forms of relativism, materialism and
pantheism.
The fundamental conviction of the
“philosophy” found in the Bible is that the world and human life do have a
meaning and look towards their fulfillment, which comes in Jesus Christ.
The mystery of the Incarnation
will always remain the central point of reference for an understanding of the
enigma of human existence, the created world and God himself.
The challenge of this mystery
pushes philosophy to its limits, as reason is summoned to make its own a logic
which brings down the walls within which it risks being confined. Yet only at
this point does the meaning of life reach its defining moment. The intimate essence of God and of the human being become
intelligible: in the mystery of the Incarnate Word,
human nature and divine nature are safeguarded in all their autonomy, and at
the same time the unique bond which sets them together in mutuality without
confusion of any kind is revealed.97
81. One of the most significant aspects of our current situation, it should
be noted, is the “crisis of meaning”. Perspectives on life and the world, often of a scientific
temper, have so proliferated that we face an increasing fragmentation of
knowledge. This makes the search for
meaning difficult and often fruitless. Indeed, still more dramatically, in this
maelstrom of data and facts in which we live and which seem to comprise the
very fabric of life, many
people wonder whether it still makes sense to ask about meaning. The array of
theories which vie to give an answer, and the different ways of viewing and of
interpreting the world and human life, serve only to aggravate this radical
doubt, which can easily lead to skepticism, indifference or to various forms of
nihilism.
In consequence, the human spirit is often invaded
by a kind of ambiguous thinking which leads it to an ever deepening
introversion, locked within the confines of its own immanence without reference
of any kind to the transcendent.
A philosophy which no longer asks
the question of the meaning of life would be in grave danger of reducing reason
to merely accessory functions, with no real passion for the search for
truth. To be consonant with the word of
God, philosophy needs first of all to recover its sapiential
dimension as a search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life.
This first requirement is in fact most helpful in
stimulating philosophy to conform to its proper nature. In doing so, it will be
not only the decisive critical factor which determines the
foundations and limits of the different fields of scientific learning,
but will also take its place as the ultimate framework
of the unity of human knowledge and action, leading them to converge towards a
final goal and meaning. This sapiential dimension is all the more necessary
today, because the immense expansion of humanity's technical capability
demands a renewed and sharpened sense of ultimate values.
If this technology is not ordered
to something greater than a merely utilitarian end, then it could soon prove
inhuman and even become potential destroyer of the human race.98
The word of God
reveals the final destiny of men and women and provides a unifying explanation
of all that they do in the world. This
is why it invites philosophy to engage in the search for the natural foundation
of this meaning, which corresponds to the religious impulse innate in every
person.
A philosophy
denying the possibility of an ultimate and overarching meaning would be not
only ill-adapted to its task, but false.
82. Yet this
sapiential function could not be performed by a philosophy which was not itself
a true and authentic knowledge, addressed, that is, not only to particular and
subordinate aspects of reality—functional, formal or utilitarian—but to its
total and definitive truth, to the very being of the object which is known.
This prompts a second requirement: that philosophy verify the human
capacity to know the truth, to come to a knowledge
which can reach objective truth by means of that adaequatio rei et intellectus
to which the Scholastic Doctors referred.99
This requirement, proper to faith, was explicitly reaffirmed by the
Second Vatican Council:
“Intelligence is not confined to
observable data alone. It can with
genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable, though in consequence
of sin that certitude is partially obscured and weakened”. 100
A radically phenomenalist or relativist philosophy would be
ill-adapted to help in the deeper exploration of the riches found in the word
of God. Sacred
Scripture always assumes that the individual, even if guilty of duplicity and
mendacity, can know and grasp the clear and simple truth.
The Bible, and the New Testament in particular,
contains texts and statements which have a genuinely ontological content. The
inspired authors intended to formulate true statements, capable, that is, of
expressing objective reality.
It cannot be said that the
Catholic tradition erred when it took certain texts of Saint John and Saint
Paul to be statements about the very being of Christ. In seeking to understand and explain these
statements, theology needs therefore the contribution of a philosophy which
does not disavow the possibility of a knowledge which is objectively true, even
if not perfect. This applies
equally to the judgments of moral conscience, which Sacred Scripture considers
capable of being objectively true. 101
83. The two requirements already stipulated imply a third: the need for a philosophy
of genuinely metaphysical range, capable, that is, of transcending
empirical data in order to attain something absolute, ultimate and foundational
in its search for truth.
This requirement is implicit in sapiential and analytical
knowledge alike; and in particular
it is a requirement for knowing the moral good, which has
its ultimate foundation in the Supreme Good, God himself. Here I do not mean to speak of metaphysics in the
sense of a specific school or a particular historical current of thought. I
want only to state that reality and truth do transcend the factual and the
empirical, and
to vindicate the human being's capacity to know this transcendent and
metaphysical dimension in a way that is true and certain, albeit imperfect and
analogical.
In this sense, metaphysics should
not be seen as an alternative to anthropology, since it is metaphysics which
makes it possible to ground the concept of personal dignity in virtue of their
spiritual nature. In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus
for the encounter with being, and hence with metaphysical enquiry.
Wherever men and
women discover a call to the absolute and transcendent, the metaphysical
dimension of reality opens up before them: in truth, in beauty, in moral
values, in other persons, in being itself, in God. We face a great challenge at the
end of this millennium to move from phenomenon to foundation, a step as
necessary as it is urgent. We cannot stop short at experience alone; even if
experience does reveal the human being's interiority and spirituality,
speculative thinking must penetrate to the spiritual core and the ground from
which it rises.
Therefore, a philosophy which shuns metaphysics
would be radically unsuited to the task of mediation in the understanding of
Revelation.
The word of God refers constantly to things which transcend
human experience and even human thought; but this “mystery” could not be
revealed, nor could theology render it in some way intelligible, 102 were human
knowledge limited strictly to the world of sense experience. Metaphysics thus plays an essential role of
mediation in theological research.
A theology without a metaphysical horizon could not
move beyond an analysis of religious experience, nor would it allow the
intellectus fidei to give a coherent account of the universal and transcendent
value of revealed truth.
If I insist so strongly on the metaphysical
element, it is because I am convinced that it is the path to be taken in order
to move beyond the crisis pervading large sectors of philosophy at the moment,
and thus to correct certain mistaken modes of behavioor now widespread in our
society.
84. The
importance of metaphysics becomes still more evident if we consider current
developments in hermeneutics and the analysis of language. The results of such
studies can be very helpful for the understanding of faith, since they bring to
light the structure of our thought and speech and the meaning which language
bears. However, some scholars working in these fields tend to stop short at the
question of how reality is understood and expressed, without going further to
see whether reason can discover its essence. How can we fail to see in such a
frame of mind the confirmation of our present crisis of confidence in the
powers of reason? When, on the basis of preconceived assumptions, these
positions tend to obscure the contents of faith or to deny their universal
validity, then not only do they abase reason but in so doing they also
disqualify themselves.
Faith clearly presupposes that
human language is capable of expressing divine and transcendent reality in a
universal way—analogically, it is true, but no less meaningfully for that. 103
Were this not so, the word of God, which is always a divine word in human
language, would not be capable of saying anything about God. The interpretation
of this word cannot merely keep referring us to one interpretation after
another, without ever leading us to a statement which is simply true; otherwise
there would be no Revelation of God, but only the expression of human notions
about God and about what God presumably thinks of us.
85. I am well
aware that these requirements which the word of God imposes upon philosophy may
seem daunting to many people involved in philosophical research today. Yet this
is why, taking up what has been taught repeatedly by the Popes for several
generations and reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council itself, I wish to
reaffirm strongly the conviction that the human being can come to a unified and
organic vision of knowledge. This is one of the tasks which Christian thought
will have to take up through the next millennium of the Christian era.
The segmentation of knowledge, with its splintered
approach to truth and consequent fragmentation of meaning, keeps people today
from coming to an interior unity. How could the Church not be concerned by
this?
It is the Gospel which imposes
this sapiential task directly upon her Pastors, and they cannot shrink from
their duty to undertake it.
I believe that those
philosophers who wish to respond today to the demands which the word of God
makes on human thinking should develop their thought on the basis of these postulates
and in organic continuity with the great tradition which, beginning with the
ancients, passes through the Fathers of the Church and the masters of
Scholasticism and includes the fundamental achievements of modern and
contemporary thought. If philosophers can take their place within this
tradition and draw their inspiration from it, they will certainly not fail to
respect philosophy's demand for autonomy.
In the present situation, therefore, it is most significant
that some philosophers are promoting a recovery of the determining role of this
tradition for a right approach to knowledge. The appeal to tradition is
not a mere remembrance of the past; it involves rather the recognition of a
cultural heritage which belongs to all of humanity. Indeed it may be said that
it is we who belong to the tradition and that it is not ours to dispose of at
will. Precisely by being rooted in the tradition will we be able today to
develop for the future an original, new and constructive mode of thinking. This
same appeal is all the more valid for theology. Not only because theology has
the living Tradition of the Church as its original source,
104 but also because, in virtue of this, it must be able to recover both the
profound theological tradition of earlier times and the enduring tradition of
that philosophy which by dint of its authentic wisdom can transcend the
boundaries of space and time.
86. This
insistence on the need for a close relationship of continuity between
contemporary philosophy and the philosophy developed in
the Christian tradition is intended to avert the danger which lies hidden in
some currents of thought which are especially prevalent today. It is
appropriate, I think, to review them, however briefly, in order to point out
their errors and the consequent risks for philosophical work.
The first goes by the name of eclecticism, by which is meant the
approach of those who, in research, teaching and argumentation, even in
theology, tend to use individual ideas drawn
from different philosophies, without concern for their
internal coherence, their place within a system or their historical context.
They therefore run the risk of being unable to distinguish
the part of truth of a given doctrine from elements of it which may be
erroneous or ill-suited to the task at hand. An extreme
form of eclecticism appears also in the rhetorical misuse of philosophical
terms to which some theologians are given at times. Such
manipulation does not help the search for truth and does not train reason—whether
theological or philosophical—to formulate arguments seriously and
scientifically. The rigorous and far-reaching study of philosophical doctrines,
their particular terminology and the context in which they arose, helps to
overcome the danger of eclecticism and makes it possible to integrate them into
theological discourse in a way appropriate to the task.
87. Eclecticism is an error of method, but lying hidden within it can also
be the claims of historicism. To understand a doctrine
from the past correctly, it is necessary to set it within its proper historical
and cultural context.
The fundamental claim of historicism, however, is
that the truth of a philosophy is determined on the basis of its
appropriateness to a certain period and a certain historical purpose. At least
implicitly, therefore, the enduring validity of truth is denied. What
was true in one period, historicists claim, may not be true in another. Thus for them the
history of thought becomes little more than an archeological resource useful
for illustrating positions once held, but for the most part outmoded and
meaningless now.
On the contrary, it should not be forgotten that, even if a
formulation is bound in some way by time and culture, the truth or the error
which it expresses can invariably be identified and evaluated as such despite
the distance of space and time.
In theological enquiry, historicism tends to
appear for the most part under the guise of “modernism”. Rightly concerned to make theological discourse relevant and
understandable to our time, some theologians use only the most recent opinions
and philosophical language, ignoring the critical
evaluation which ought to be made of them in the light of the tradition. By exchanging relevance for
truth, this form of modernism shows itself incapable of satisfying the demands
of truth to which theology is called to respond.
88. Another threat to be reckoned with is scientism. This is the philosophical
notion which refuses to admit the
validity of forms of knowledge other than those of the positive sciences; and
it relegates religious, theological, ethical and aesthetic knowledge to the
realm of mere fantasy. In the past, the same idea emerged in positivism
and neo-positivism, which considered metaphysical statements to be meaningless.
Critical epistemology has discredited such a claim, but now
we see it revived in the new guise of scientism, which dismisses values as mere products of the emotions and rejects
the notion of being in order to clear the way for pure and simple facticity.
Science would thus be poised to dominate all aspects of human life through
technological progress.
The undeniable triumphs of scientific research and
contemporary technology have helped to propagate a scientistic outlook, which
now seems boundless, given its inroads into different cultures and the radical
changes it has brought. Regrettably, it
must be noted, scientism
consigns all that has to do with the question of the meaning of life to the
realm of the irrational or imaginary.
No less disappointing is the way in which it approaches the
other great problems of philosophy which, if they are not ignored, are
subjected to analyses based on superficial analogies, lacking all rational
foundation. This leads to the impoverishment of human thought, which no longer
addresses the ultimate problems which the human being, as the animal rationale,
has pondered constantly from the beginning of time. And since it leaves no
space for the critique offered by ethical judgment, the scientistic mentality has succeeded in leading
many to think that if something is technically possible it is therefore morally
admissible.
89. No
less dangerous is pragmatism, an attitude of mind which, in making its choices,
precludes theoretical considerations or judgments based on ethical principles.
The practical consequences of this mode of thinking are significant. In
particular there is growing
support for a concept of democracy which is not grounded upon any reference to
unchanging values: whether or not a line of action is admissible is decided by
the vote of a parliamentary majority. 105 The consequences of
this are clear: in practice, the
great moral decisions of humanity are subordinated to decisions taken one after
another by institutional agencies.
Moreover, anthropology itself is severely compromised by a
one-dimensional vision of the human being, a vision which excludes the great
ethical dilemmas and the existential analyses of the meaning of suffering and
sacrifice, of life and death.
90. The positions
we have examined lead in turn to a more general conception which appears today
as the common framework of many philosophies which have rejected the
meaningfulness of being.
I am referring to the nihilist interpretation,
which is at once the denial of all foundations and the negation of all
objective truth. Quite apart from the
fact that it conflicts with the demands and the content of the word of God, nihilism is a denial of the
humanity and of the very identity of the human being. It should never be forgotten
that the neglect of being inevitably leads to losing touch with objective truth
and therefore with the very ground of human dignity.
This in turn makes it possible to erase from the
countenance of man and woman the marks of their likeness to God, and thus to
lead them little by little either to a destructive will to power or to a
solitude without hope.
Once the truth is denied to human
beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either
go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery. 106
91. In
discussing these currents of thought, it has not been my intention to present a
complete picture of the present state of philosophy, which would, in any case,
be difficult to reduce to a unified vision. And I certainly wish to stress that
our heritage of knowledge and wisdom has indeed
been enriched in different fields. We need only cite logic, the philosophy of
language, epistemology, the philosophy of nature, anthropology, the more
penetrating analysis of the affective dimensions of knowledge and the
existential approach to the analysis of freedom.
Since the last century, however, the affirmation of
the principle of immanence, central to the rationalist argument, has provoked a radical
requestioning of claims once thought indisputable.
In response, currents of
irrationalism arose, even as the baselessness of the demand
that reason be absolutely self-grounded was being critically demonstrated. Our
age has been termed by some thinkers the age of “postmodernity”. Often used in
very different contexts, the term designates the emergence of a complex of new
factors which, widespread and powerful as they are, have shown themselves able
to produce important and lasting changes. The term was first used with reference
to aesthetic, social and technological phenomena. It was then transposed into
the philosophical field, but has remained somewhat ambiguous, both because
judgement on what is called “postmodern” is sometimes positive and sometimes
negative, and because there is as yet no consensus on the delicate question of
the demarcation of the different historical periods. One thing however is
certain: the currents of thought which claim to be postmodern merit appropriate
attention.
According to some of them, the time
of certainties is irrevocably past, and the human being must now learn to live
in a horizon of total absence of meaning, where everything is provisional and
ephemeral. In their destructive critique of every certitude, several authors
have failed to make crucial distinctions and have called into question the
certitudes of faith.
This nihilism has been justified in a sense by the
terrible experience of evil which has marked our age. Such a dramatic
experience has ensured the collapse of rationalist optimism, which viewed
history as the triumphant progress of reason, the source of all happiness and
freedom; and now, at the end of this century, one of our greatest threats is
the temptation to despair.
Even so, it remains true that a certain
positivist cast of mind continues to nurture the illusion that, thanks to scientific and technical progress, man and woman may live as
a demiurge, single-handedly and completely taking charge of their destiny.
Current Tasks for Theology
92. As an
understanding of Revelation, theology has always had to respond in different
historical moments to the demands of different cultures, in order then to
mediate the content of faith to those cultures in a coherent and conceptually
clear way. Today, too, theology faces a dual task.
On the one hand, it must be increasingly committed to the task
entrusted to it by the Second Vatican Council, the task of
renewing its specific methods in order to serve evangelization more effectively.
How can we fail to recall in this regard the words of Pope John XXIII at the
opening of the Council?
He said then: “In line with the keen expectation of those
who sincerely love the Christian, Catholic and apostolic religion, this
doctrine must be known more widely and deeply, and souls must be instructed and
formed in it more completely; and this certain and unchangeable doctrine,
always to be faithfully respected, must be understood more profoundly and
presented in a way which meets the needs of our time”. 107
On the other hand, theology
must look to the ultimate truth which Revelation entrusts to it, never content
to stop short of that goal.
Theologians should remember that their work corresponds “to a dynamism
found in the faith itself” and that the proper object of their enquiry is “the Truth which is the living
God and his plan for salvation revealed in Jesus Christ”. 108
This task, which is theology's prime concern, challenges philosophy as well.
The array of problems which today need to be tackled demands a joint effort—approached,
it is true, with different methods—so that the truth may once again be known
and expressed.
The Truth, which is Christ,
imposes itself as an all-embracing authority which holds out to theology and
philosophy alike the prospect of support, stimulation and increase (cf. Eph
4:15).
To believe it possible to know a universally valid
truth is in no way to encourage intolerance; on the contrary, it is the
essential condition for sincere and authentic dialogue between persons. On this basis alone is it possible
to overcome divisions and to journey together towards full truth, walking those
paths known only to the Spirit of the Risen Lord. 109 I wish at this point to
indicate the specific form which the call to unity now takes, given the current
tasks of theology.
93. The chief purpose of theology is to provide an understanding of
Revelation and the content of faith. The very heart of theological enquiry will
thus be the contemplation of the mystery of the Triune God. The approach to
this mystery begins with reflection upon the mystery of the Incarnation of the
Son of God: his coming as man, his going to his Passion and Death, a mystery
issuing into his glorious Resurrection and Ascension to the right hand of the
Father, whence he would send the Spirit of truth to bring his Church to birth
and give her growth.
From this vantage-point, the prime
commitment of theology is seen to be the understanding of God's kenosis, a
grand and mysterious truth for the human mind, which finds it inconceivable
that suffering and death can express a love which gives itself and seeks
nothing in return. In this light, a careful analysis of texts emerges as a basic and
urgent need: first the texts of Scripture, and then those which express the
Church's living Tradition. On this score, some problems have emerged in recent
times, problems which are only partially new; and a coherent solution to them
will not be found without philosophy's contribution.
94. An initial
problem is that of the relationship between meaning and truth. Like every other
text, the sources which the theologian interprets primarily transmit a meaning
which needs to be grasped and explained. This meaning presents itself as the
truth about God which God himself communicates through the sacred text. Human
language thus embodies the language of God, who communicates his own truth with
that wonderful “condescension” which mirrors the logic of the Incarnation.
110
In
interpreting the sources of Revelation, then, the theologian needs to ask what
is the deep and authentic truth which the texts wish to communicate, even
within the limits of language.
The truth of the biblical texts, and of the Gospels in
particular, is certainly not restricted to the narration of simple historical
events or the statement of neutral facts, as historicist positivism would
claim. 111 Beyond simple historical occurrence, the truth of the events which
these texts relate lies rather in the meaning they have in and for the history
of salvation. This truth is elaborated fully in the Church's constant reading
of these texts over the centuries, a reading which preserves intact their
original meaning. There is a pressing need, therefore, that the relationship
between fact and meaning, a relationship which constitutes the specific sense of
history, be examined also from the philosophical point of view.
95. The word of
God is not addressed to any one people or to any one period of history.
Similarly, dogmatic statements, while reflecting at times the culture of the
period in which they were defined, formulate an unchanging and ultimate truth. This prompts the question of how one can reconcile the absoluteness and
the universality of truth with the unavoidable historical and cultural
conditioning of the formulas which express that truth.
The claims of historicism, I noted earlier, are untenable; but the use of a
hermeneutic open to the appeal of metaphysics can show how it is possible to
move from the historical and contingent circumstances in which the texts
developed to the truth which they express, a truth transcending those
circumstances.
Human language may
be conditioned by history and constricted in other ways, but the human being
can still express truths which surpass the phenomenon of language.
Truth can never be confined to
time and culture; in history it is known, but it also reaches beyond history.
96. To see this
is to glimpse the solution of another problem: the problem of the enduring
validity of the conceptual language used in Conciliar definitions. This is a
question which my revered predecessor Pius XII addressed in his Encyclical
Letter Humani Generis. 112 This is a
complex theme to ponder, since one must reckon seriously
with the meaning which words assume in different times and cultures.
Nonetheless, the history of thought
shows that across the range of cultures and their development certain basic
concepts retain their universal epistemological value and thus retain the truth
of the propositions in which they are expressed. 113
Were this not the case, philosophy and the sciences could
not communicate with each other, nor could they find a place in cultures
different from those in which they were conceived and developed. The
hermeneutical problem exists, to be sure; but it is not insoluble. Moreover,
the objective value of many concepts does not exclude that their meaning is
often imperfect.
This is where philosophical speculation can be very
helpful. We may hope, then, that philosophy will be especially concerned to deepen
the understanding of the relationship between conceptual language and truth,
and to propose ways which will lead to a right understanding of that
relationship.
97. The interpretation of sources is a vital task for theology; but another
still more delicate and demanding task is the understanding of revealed truth,
or the articulation of the intellectus fidei.
The intellectus fidei, as I have
noted, demands the contribution of a philosophy of being which first of all
would enable dogmatic theology to perform its functions appropriately.
The dogmatic pragmatism of the early years of this
century, which viewed the truths of faith as nothing more than rules of
conduct, has already been refuted and rejected; 114 but the temptation always
remains of understanding these truths in purely functional terms. This leads
only to an approach which is inadequate, reductive and superficial at the level
of speculation. A Christology, for example, which proceeded solely “from below”,
as is said nowadays, or an ecclesiology developed solely on the model of civil
society, would be hard pressed to avoid the danger of such reductionism.
If the intellectus
fidei wishes to integrate all the wealth of the theological tradition, it must
turn to the philosophy of being, which should be able to propose anew the problem of
being—and this in harmony with the demands and insights of the entire
philosophical tradition, including philosophy of more recent times, without lapsing into sterile repetition of antiquated formulas.
Set within the Christian metaphysical tradition, the philosophy of being is a dynamic philosophy which
views reality in its ontological, causal and communicative structures.
It is strong
and enduring because it is based upon the very act of being itself, which
allows a full and comprehensive openness to reality as a whole, surpassing
every limit in order to reach the One who brings all things to fulfillment.
115 In theology, which draws its principles from
Revelation as a new source of knowledge, this perspective is confirmed by the
intimate relationship which exists between faith and metaphysical reasoning.
98. These
considerations apply equally to moral theology. It is no less urgent that philosophy be recovered
at the point where the understanding of faith is linked to the moral life of
believers. Faced with contemporary challenges in the social,
economic, political and scientific fields, the ethical conscience of people is
disoriented. In the Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, I wrote that many of
the problems of the contemporary world stem from a crisis of truth.
I noted that “once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human
reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience
is no longer considered in its prime reality as an act of a person's
intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the
good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right
conduct to be chosen here and now.
Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the
individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria
of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite
congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his
own truth different from the truth of others”. 116
Throughout the Encyclical I underscored clearly the
fundamental role of truth in the moral field. In the case of the more pressing
ethical problems, this truth demands of moral theology a careful enquiry rooted
unambiguously in the word of God. In order to fulfill its mission, moral theology must turn to a
philosophical ethics which looks to the truth of the good, to an ethics which
is neither subjectivist nor utilitarian. Such an ethics implies and presupposes
a philosophical anthropology and a metaphysics of the good.
Drawing on this organic vision, linked necessarily to Christian holiness and to
the practice of the human and supernatural virtues, moral theology will be able
to tackle the various problems in its competence, such as peace, social
justice, the family, the defence of life and the natural environment, in a more
appropriate and effective way.
99. Theological work in the
Church is first of all at the service of the proclamation of the faith and of
catechesis. 117 Proclamation or kerygma is a call to
conversion, announcing the truth of Christ, which reaches its summit in his
Paschal Mystery: for only in Christ is it possible to know the fullness of the
truth which saves (cf. Acts 4:12; 1 Tm 2:4-6).
In this respect, it is easy to see why, in addition to
theology, reference to catechesis is also important, since catechesis
has philosophical implications which must be explored more deeply in the light
of faith. The teaching imparted in catechesis helps to form the person.
As a mode of linguistic communication, catechesis
must present the Church's doctrine in its integrity, 118 demonstrating its link
with the life of the faithful. 119 The result is a unique bond between teaching
and living which is otherwise unattainable, since what is communicated in
catechesis is not a body of conceptual truths, but the mystery of the living
God. 120
Philosophical enquiry can help greatly to clarify
the relationship between truth and life, between event and doctrinal truth, and
above all between transcendent truth and humanly comprehensible language. 121
This involves a reciprocity between the theological disciplines and the
insights drawn from the various strands of philosophy; and such a reciprocity
can prove genuinely fruitful for the communication and deeper understanding of
then faith.
CONCLUSION
100. More than a hundred
years after the appearance of Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical Æterni Patris, to
which I have often referred in these pages, I have sensed the need to revisit
in a more systematic way the issue of the relationship between faith and
philosophy. The importance of philosophical thought in the development of
culture and its influence on patterns of personal and social behaviour is there
for all to see. In addition, philosophy exercises a powerful, though not always
obvious, influence on theology and its disciplines. For these reasons, I have judged it appropriate and necessary to emphasize the value of
philosophy for the understanding of the faith, as well as the limits which
philosophy faces when it neglects or rejects the truths of Revelation.
The Church remains profoundly
convinced that faith and reason “mutually support each other”; 122 each
influences the other, as they offer to each other a purifying critique and a
stimulus to pursue the search for deeper understanding.
101. A survey of
the history of thought, especially in the West, shows clearly that the
encounter between philosophy and theology and the exchange of their respective
insights have contributed richly to the progress of humanity. Endowed as it is
with an openness and originality which allow it to stand as the science of
faith, theology has certainly challenged reason to remain open to the radical
newness found in God's Revelation; and this has been an undoubted boon for
philosophy which has thus glimpsed new vistas of further meanings which reason
is summoned to penetrate.
Precisely in the light of this consideration, and just as I
have reaffirmed theology's duty to recover its true relationship with
philosophy, I feel equally bound to stress how right it is that, for the
benefit and development of human thought, philosophy too should recover its
relationship with theology. In theology, philosophy
will find not the thinking of a single person which, however rich and profound,
still entails the limited perspective of an individual, but the wealth of a
communal reflection.
For by its very nature, theology is sustained in
the search for truth by its ecclesial context 123 and by the tradition of the
People of God, with its harmony of many different fields of learning and
culture within the unity of faith.
102. Insisting on
the importance and true range of philosophical thought, the Church promotes
both the defence of human dignity and the proclamation of the Gospel message.
There is today no more urgent preparation for the
performance of these tasks than this: to lead people to discover both their
capacity to know the truth 124 and their yearning for the ultimate and
definitive meaning of life. In the light of these profound needs, inscribed by
God in human nature, the human and humanizing meaning of God's word also
emerges more clearly.
Through the mediation of a
philosophy which is also true wisdom, people today will come to realize that
their humanity is all the more affirmed the more they entrust themselves to the
Gospel and open themselves to Christ.
103. Philosophy
moreover is the mirror which reflects the culture of a people. A philosophy
which responds to the challenge of theology's demands and evolves in harmony
with faith is part of that “evangelization of culture” which Paul VI proposed
as one of the fundamental goals of evangelization. 125 I have unstintingly
recalled the pressing need for a new evangelization; and I appeal now to philosophers to explore more
comprehensively the dimensions of the true, the good and the beautiful to which
the word of God gives access. This task becomes all the more
urgent if we consider the challenges which the new millennium seems to entail,
and which affect in a particular way regions and cultures which have a
long-standing Christian tradition.
This attention to philosophy too should be seen as
a fundamental and original contribution in service of the new evangelization.
104.
Philosophical thought is often the only ground for understanding and
dialogue with those who do not share our faith. The current
ferment in philosophy demands of believing philosophers an attentive and
competent commitment, able to discern the expectations, the points of openness
and the key issues of this historical moment.
Reflecting in the light of reason and in keeping
with its rules, and guided always by the deeper understanding given them by the
word of God, Christian philosophers can develop a reflection which will be both
comprehensible and appealing to those who do not yet grasp the full truth which
divine Revelation declares.
Such a ground for understanding and dialogue is all the
more vital nowadays, since the most pressing issues facing humanity—ecology,
peace and the co-existence of different races and cultures, for instance—may
possibly find a solution if there is a clear and honest collaboration between
Christians and the followers of other religions and all those who, while not
sharing a religious belief, have at heart the renewal of humanity.
The Second Vatican Council said as much: “For our part, the
desire for such dialogue, undertaken solely out of love for the truth and with
all due prudence, excludes no one, neither those who cultivate the values of
the human spirit while not yet acknowledging their Source, nor those who are
hostile to the Church and persecute her in various ways”. 126
A philosophy in which there
shines even a glimmer of the truth of Christ, the only definitive answer to
humanity's problems, 127 will provide a potent underpinning for the true and
planetary ethics which the world now needs.
105. In concluding this Encyclical Letter, my thoughts
turn particularly to theologians, encouraging them to pay special attention to
the philosophical implications of the word of God and to be sure to
reflect in their work all the speculative and practical breadth of the science
of theology.
I wish to thank them for their service to the Church. The
intimate bond between theological and philosophical wisdom is one of the
Christian tradition's most distinctive treasures in the exploration of revealed
truth. This is why I urge them to recover and express to the full the
metaphysical dimension of truth in order to enter into a demanding critical
dialogue with both contemporary philosophical thought and with the
philosophical tradition in all its aspects, whether consonant with the word of
God or not.
Let theologians always remember the words of that
great master of thought and spirituality, Saint Bonaventure, who in introducing
his Itinerarium
Mentis in Deum invites the reader to recognize the inadequacy of “reading without repentance, knowledge without devotion, research
without the impulse of wonder, prudence without the ability to surrender to
joy, action divorced from
religion, learning sundered from love, intelligence without humility, study
unsustained by divine grace, thought without the wisdom inspired by God”.
128
I am thinking too of those responsible for priestly
formation, whether academic or pastoral. I encourage them to pay special
attention to the philosophical preparation of those who will proclaim the
Gospel to the men and women of today and, even more, of those who will devote
themselves to theological research and teaching. They must make every effort to
carry out their work in the light of the directives laid down by the Second
Vatican Council 129 and subsequent legislation, which speak clearly of the
urgent and binding obligation, incumbent on all, to contribute to a genuine and
profound communication of the truths of the faith.
The grave responsibility to
provide for the appropriate training of those charged with teaching philosophy
both in seminaries and ecclesiastical faculties must not be neglected. 130
Teaching in this field necessarily entails a
suitable scholarly preparation, a systematic presentation of the great heritage
of the Christian tradition and due discernment in the light of the current
needs of the Church and the world.
106. I appeal also to
philosophers, and to all teachers of philosophy, asking them to have the
courage to recover, in the flow of an enduringly valid philosophical tradition,
the range of authentic wisdom and truth—metaphysical truth included—which is
proper to philosophical enquiry.
They should be open to the impelling questions which arise
from the word of God and they should be strong enough to shape their thought
and discussion in response to that challenge. Let them always strive for truth, alert to the
good which truth contains. Then they will be able to
formulate the genuine ethics which humanity needs so urgently at this particular
time. The Church follows the work of philosophers with interest and
appreciation; and they should rest assured of her respect for the rightful
autonomy of their discipline. I would want especially to encourage believers
working in the philosophical field to illumine the range of human activity by
the exercise of a reason which grows more penetrating and assured because of
the support it receives from faith.
Finally, I cannot fail to address a word to scientists,
whose research offers an ever greater knowledge of the universe as a whole and
of the incredibly rich array of its component parts, animate and inanimate,
with their complex atomic and molecular structures. So far has science come,
especially in this century, that its
achievements never cease to amaze us.
In expressing my admiration and in offering
encouragement to these brave pioneers of scientific research, to whom humanity
owes so much of its current development, I would urge them to continue their efforts without ever abandoning the
sapient horizon within which scientific and technological achievements are
wedded to the philosophical and ethical values which are the distinctive and
indelible mark of the human person.
Scientists are well aware that “the search for
truth, even when it concerns a finite reality of the world or of man, is
never-ending, but always points beyond to something higher than the immediate
object of study, to the questions which give access to Mystery”. 131
107. I ask
everyone to look more deeply at man, whom Christ has saved in the mystery of
his love, and at the human being's unceasing search for truth and meaning. Different
philosophical systems have lured people into believing that they are their own
absolute master, able to decide their own destiny and future in complete
autonomy, trusting only in themselves and their own powers.
But this can never be the
grandeur of the human being, who can find fulfillment only in choosing to enter
the truth, to make a home under the shade of Wisdom and dwell there.
Only within this horizon of truth will people
understand their freedom in its fullness and their call to know and love God as
the supreme realization of their true self.
108. I turn in the end to the woman whom the prayer of the Church invokes as
Seat of Wisdom, and whose life itself is a true parable illuminating the
reflection contained in these pages.
For between the
vocation of the Blessed Virgin and the vocation of true philosophy there is a
deep harmony. Just as the Virgin was called to offer herself entirely as human
being and as woman that God's Word might take flesh and come among us, so too
philosophy is called to offer its rational and critical resources that
theology, as the understanding of faith, may be fruitful and creative.
And just as in giving her assent to Gabriel's
word, Mary lost nothing of her true humanity and freedom, so too when
philosophy heeds the summons of the Gospel's truth its autonomy is in no way
impaired. Indeed, it is then that philosophy sees all its enquiries rise to
their highest expression.
This was a truth
which the holy monks of Christian antiquity understood well when they called
Mary “the table at which faith sits in thought”. 132 In her they saw a lucid
image of true philosophy and they were convinced of the need to philosophari in
Maria.
May Mary, Seat of
Wisdom, be a sure haven for all who devote their lives to the search for
wisdom. May their journey into wisdom, sure and final goal of all true knowing,
be freed of every hindrance by the intercession of the one who, in giving birth
to the Truth and treasuring it in her heart, has shared it forever with all the
world.
Given in Rome, at
Saint Peter's, on 14 September, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, in the
year 1998, the twentieth of my Pontificate.
Ioannes Paulus PP. II
References in working file; available upon request.
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