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 36- Important
moments in the encounter of 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 defence of the faith: “The teaching of
the Saviour 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.
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