Fides et Ratio in Meeting the Crisis of Modernity

By Gary L. Morella

"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)."

With these opening words to the introduction of the encyclical Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II gives the definitive answer to the crises of modern civilization rooted in bankrupt philosophies which totally divorced faith from reason. The Pope issued this encyclical on the 20^th anniversary of his pontificate. The magazine Inside the Vatican reports that "many are calling Fides et Ratio his ‘last will and testament’ on the fundamental questions of human existence." For the sake of the "culture-of-life", I pray that we have not seen the last of the defining documents of our time coming from this pontificate. More to the point, I pray that that the hearts of the pharaohs in our mirrors will cease being hardened, and become open to the Truth as witnessed to by the Vicar of Christ on earth, a transcendent Truth - Universal, Absolute, and Eternal, which is a Somebody, not a something. If, and only if, that occurs, will mankind have any hope of knowing the meaning of life in the only sense possible – metaphysical which bridges the natural and the supernatural. By crossing that bridge, man will come to see the reason for his existence in the only terms possible, i.e., to spend an eternity with his Creator. The Pope sees this truth. But he also understands that before bridges can be crossed, they must be built on the firmest foundations possible with the strongest materials, else they will collapse. The foundation is theology and philosophy; the materials are faith and reason, which are married, not divorced.

The Pope begins by observing that philosophy is directly concerned with asking the question of life’s meaning and sketching an answer to it. It is one of the most noble of human tasks. As "love of wisdom", philosophy is natural to man’s inquisitiveness about the reason for things and their purpose. Through philosophy, speculation, which is proper to and one of the highest forms of thought available to the human intellect, produces a rigorous mode of thought, which in turn, through the application of logic, produces a systematic body of knowledge. The Pope reminds us, however, that 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 toward a truth which transcends them. Separated from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of whim with their state as persons ending up being judged by pragmatic criteria solely as a function of experimental data in the mistaken belief that technology must dominate all.

Modern philosophical research has abandoned the investigation of being in favor of human knowing. Instead of making 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.

The Pope tells us that this has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism, which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the every changing winds of widespread skepticism. Recently, various doctrines have risen to prominence that 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 the truth. In short, if everything is legitimate, than nothing is legitimate. The "everything" in question is reduced to opinion with no sense of what the truth might be in this pluralistic hodgepodge, of late, masquerading as Clintonian democracy in the United States of America, where decisions are solely a function of opinion polls for the sake of staying in power at all costs. The Pope’s description of this situation is "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 . . . 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."

The Pope is alarmed at this situation and sees the need for a foundation for personal and communal life becoming all the more pressing during an age when we’re 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 cast into doubt. The seeds of these errors are related to people no longer looking to truth, preferring quick success over patient inquiry – a "fast food philosophy" for a "fast food world" where thought isn’t allowed in favor of an automaton type reaction to propaganda as news and advertising. People must not be allowed to think in this brave new modern world; it’s too dangerous as they might soon come to see the bankruptcy of their existence by being forced to deal with their inner selves instead of created diversions to keep from doing so.

The Pope in response calls philosophy to its original vocation, its enduring search for the truth with the great responsibility of forming thought and culture. How does the Pope propose to do this? The answer lies in the marriage of philosophy to theology, of reason to faith.

We are called to remember that the First Vatican Council stressed the supernatural character of God’s Revelation, and affirmed 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 certain truth to be sure, since God neither deceives nor wishes to deceive. The Council taught that the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive. The Pope shows this by observing, "That 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)."

The Incarnation of the Son of God gave all access to the Father since, by the death and resurrection of Christ, divine life was bestowed on mankind. It is through the mystery of the Incarnation and the salvific sacrifice of Christ on the cross, with His resurrection giving rise to the faith, that faith itself makes possible the knowledge of the ultimate truth of man’s existence. The Pope tells us quoting Gaudium et Spes, "Only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light." Without this axiomatic theological truth, the mystery of personal existence would remain so. Where would be the Catholic view of redemptive suffering regarding questions such as pain, the suffering of innocents, and death if not for the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection? More to the point, where would be the concept of faith? It would be nonexistent without the resurrection, which is why the resurrection is under attack by those seeking to destroy the faith ala the "Jesus Seminar". One can’t help but see the consummate evil in such attacks as the very name of God is used to destroy God.

To assist reason in understanding these mysteries are the signs which Revelation presents, which in the Pope’s words, "serve to lead the search for truth to new depths, enabling the mind in its autonomous exploration (which must be respected) to penetrate within the mystery by use of reason’s own methods." One of the signs we must return to is the sacramental character of Revelation especially as found in Holy Eucharist where Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity, alive and working through the Spirit. Hence, the attack on the real presence of Christ in Holy Eucharist, as destroying that belief destroys the faith in the same manner that it would be by the destruction of the resurrection. There is no difference whatsoever with one HUGE exception. The devil’s masquerade is even cleverer. Now, instead of a seminar with outrageous pronouncements such as "Christ was nothing more than a Jewish Mediterranean peasant who died a beggars death on the cross, and whose body was eaten by wild dogs" (that courtesy of the heretic John Dominic Crossan, former priest and member of the faculty at a supposed Catholic University), we have clerics, some in miters telling us that "we’re Church, with God’s real presence reserved solely for the assembly with His tabernacles relegated to closets, removed from main altars as they’ve become an embarrassment to the faith, and the Holy unbloody sacrifice of the Mass reduced to being nothing more than a communal meal. And we wonder why Mass attendance has plummeted! No theology or philosophy degrees required; just look at the demeanor of people in Church, talking as if they were at a mall – little wonder since many modern churches are nothing but malls.

The Pope tells us that "The knowledge proper to faith does not destroy the mystery; it only reveals it 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,’ which is to share in the divine mystery of the life of the Trinity." Revelation introduces universal and absolute truths, which stir the mind impelling reason constantly to extend the range of its knowledge until it senses that it has done all in its power leaving no stone unturned.

The Pope uses Sacred Scripture, in particular the Wisdom literature, to show how deeply related faith and reason are. We see that in the biblical text there is a profound and indissoluble unity between the knowledge of reason and the knowledge of faith. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason’s autonomy, not to reduce its scope for action, but solely to make man understand that it’s God Who acts making an understanding of the world and history impossible without professing faith in the God Who is at work in them. Reason acquires its true meaning only if 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). Faith liberates reason insofar 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. Man attains truth by reason as a function of being enlightened by faith.

Saint Thomas is recommended as a model of seeing the proper marriage of philosophy and theology. Thomas and Saint Albert the Great are singled out as being the first to recognize the autonomy which philosophy and the sciences needed if they were to perform well in their respective fields of research, albeit they insisted on the organic link between theology and philosophy. Here they recognized that philosophical arguments in the light of theology would appeal more to the unbeliever in the sense of the proofs of the existence of God in the Summa Contra Gentiles. The order of study in relation to philosophy and theology is clearly illustrated by Thomas, as he was keen to show the primacy of wisdom which is the gift of the Holy Spirit and which opens the way to a knowledge of divine realities in a metaphysical sense. Thomas showed the harmony which exists between faith and reason by arguing that both the light of reason and of faith come from God; hence there can be no contradiction between them.

The Pope proceeds to look at what happens when faith is divorced from reason as a result of the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers. He observes that "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."

Idealism sought to transform faith and its contents to include the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ into dialectical structures which could be grasped by reason. In opposition was atheistic humanism which regarded faith as alienating and damaging to the development of a full rationality. They presented themselves as new religions giving rise politically and socially to totalitarian systems that proved disastrous to humanity.

Positivism surfaced in scientific research, which abandoned the Christian vision of the world along with every appeal to a metaphysics or morality.

Finally, what has appeared due to this crisis of rationalism is nihilism, a philosophy of nothingness, a philosophy of despair – in short, a philosophy of the devil. The search becomes an end to itself, i.e., driving from A to B is important, not getting to B. Moreover, getting to B is never a consideration as there is no hope or possibility of ever attaining the truth. Life is nothing but an occasion for sensations and experiences in which the ephemeral has pride of place. Nihilism claims that definite commitments are no longer required because everything is fleeting. This would seem to be the prevailing philosophy of militant homosexuals who tell us that, not only is there nothing wrong with sodomy, the practice of sodomy with as many people as possible is a virtue. [See Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth].

The Pope makes it very clear that it is the Magisterium’s duty to respond strongly and unambiguously 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, confuse the pure and simple faith of the people of God. "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. 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 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 inquiry. It is the Church’s duty to indicate the elements in a philosophical system which are incompatible with her own faith."

The Pope lets us know that the Magisterium has spoken out against the extremes of fideism and radical traditionalism, for their distrust of reason’s natural capacities, and against rationalism and ontologism because they attributed to natural reason a knowledge which only the light of faith could confer.

Pope Saint Pius X is praised for his cautions against rationalism stressing that at the basis of modernism were philosophical claims which were phenomenist, agnostic and immanentist, as well as Pius XI’s rejection of Marxist philosophy and atheistic communism. Pope Pius XII is cited for his warning 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."

Pope John Paul II describes the relationship between theology and philosophy as a circle with theology’s starting point being the word of God revealed in history with its final goal an understanding of that word which increases with each generation. Since God is Truth, and the Word is God, per the beginning of the Gospel of John, the human search for truth that is philosophy, when pursued in keeping with its own rules to preserve its autonomy, can only help to understand God’s word better.

The most resonant message of the Pope’s encyclical for me was the observation that philosophical thought is often the only ground for understanding and dialogue with those who don’t share the faith. Anyone who has been bloodied in the raging culture wars can immediately relate to what the Pope is saying here. Where direct appeals to faith fail, reason rooted in faith often succeeds.

There is another message that stands out in my mind. And that is the call 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. Here, the Pope again is saying, "Be not afraid." This is a subtlety that is often lost in philosophical discourse, i.e., without the metaphysical dimension of truth, ultimately you will not find Truth spelled with a capital "T".

The Pope concludes with this reflection on the Mother of God. "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." Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!