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 Chapter 3 24-35
Intelligo ut credam
CHAPTER III
INTELLIGO
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 fulfilment.
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
fulfilment (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.
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