FAITH AND REASON: THE URGENCY OF A MUTUAL INTERACTION.

Introduction

Traditionally, faith and reason have been considered to be sources of justification for belief. Because
both can purportedly serve this same epistemic function, it has been a matter of much interest to philosophers
and theologians how the two are related and thus how the rational agent should treat claims derived from
either source. Some have held that there can be no conflict between the two, whereas others have maintained
that faith and reason can (or even must) be in genuine contention over certain propositions and
methodologies. Those who have taken the latter view disagree as to whether faith or reason ought to prevail
when the two are in conflict. Some relatively recent philosophers, most notably the logical positivists, have
denied that there is a domain of thought or human existence rightly governed by faith, asserting instead that
all meaningful statements and ideas are accessible to thorough rational examination. Consequently, in this
write-up, the meaning, scope and verisimilitude of faith and reason will be critically re-examined, especially
with the view of establishing the urgency and necessity of a mutual dialogue between the two.

The Arrogance of Reason

Perhaps, being inflated by his limited successes with reason, man enthroned himself as his own
master. This arrogance of reason has continued to manifest itself in various forms, especially in its most
pronounced form in the scientific enterprise. Science reduces every facets of human experience to its own
modus operandi, i.e. the empirical. Every statement about God, transcendence, the spiritual, is tagged absurd.
Reason thought that its greatest conquest and achievement is to declare, without any qualms, the death of
God and to occupy his position. Hence, various forms of atheistic humanism, expressed in philosophical
terms, arose, 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. 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. However, he has paid
heavily for it. In fact, for Pope John Paul II, “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.”1 Furthermore, reason has shown itself incapable of shouldering the
responsibilities entrusted unto it by man. At least, it could not answer the fundamental questions that ever
lurk man’s heart. Thus, again, John Paul II comments: “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.”2

Faith Sundered from Reason

Partly, due to counter-reactions to the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers or due to the
activities of the reformers, championed mainly by Lutherans, positions grew more radical and there was an
ever deeper mistrust with regard to reason itself. This led some groups to focus more on faith alone. With

1
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (4th March 1979), 15.
2
John Paull II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14th September 1998), 46.
time, it gave rise 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. 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. The Pope warns in this regard,
“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.” 3 Undeniably, man needs
faith in order to assent to the truth of revelation, but surely not one that is sundered from reason.

The Magisterium’s Stand

The Church has always defended the necessity of both faith and reason in comprehending and
assenting to the revealed truths. Also, she has always warned against the seduction of using only one of these
faculties. For instance, John Paul II has always stated firmly that faith and reason are like two wings on
which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. However, the Church did not blur the distinctive
ambience, nature and significance of faith and reason. On the one hand, she affirms that God’s existence and
attributes can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason. 4 On the
other hand, she maintains that, because the truths that concerns the relations between God and man wholly
transcend the visible order of things, and because of the impairment of man’s reason by original sin, man
experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone. This is why man stands in
need of being enlightened by God’s revelation.5

The Nature of their Mutual Dialogue

Faith and reason are, therefore, not contradictory; rather, they are complementary and at the same
time different. Following Augustine, Thomas defines believing as “thinking with assent.” This coexistence of
thinking and assent is something faith has in common with science. Yet, the relationship between assent and
thought is different in faith from what it is in science. In the case of scientific demonstration, the certainty
attained “determines” one’s thinking, one’s assent. Thus, in the insight obtained, the movement of thought
comes to rest; it finds its conclusion. The structure of the act of faith is quite different. Thomas says about
this that here the thought process and the assent balance each other; they are “ex aequo.”6 This means that in
the act of believing the assent comes about in a different way from the way it does in the act of knowing: not
through the degree of evidence bringing the process of thought to its conclusion, but by an act of will, in
connection with which the thought process remains open and still under way. Assent is produced by the will,
not by the understanding’s own direct insight. Still more, man in his own self, and of himself, cannot bring
about this believing at all; it has of its nature the character of a dialogue. It is only because the depth of the
soul has been touched by God’s Word that the whole structure of spiritual powers is set in motion and unites
in the Yes of believing. Yet, according to Ratzinger, “The pre-knowledge of believing does not oppress
thought; it remains ‘ex aequo’ – that is, it is that which really challenges thought and sets it in a restless
motion that produces results.”7 Thus, here, reason instead of being contradictory becomes ancillary.

Conclusion
3
Ibid, 47.
4
Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 2; Catechism of the Catholic Church, sc. 36.
5
Catechism of the Catholic Church, ss. 37-8.
6
Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 14, art. I.
7
Joseph Ratzinger, “Faith and Theology,” Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnur (eds.) (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 27.
 The concern about the relationship between faith and reason has been perennial because it is at the
same time an existential concern. This is because man knows and continually discovers that he is always
more than what can be perceived, what can be tested; that his destiny is beyond the present. Thus, he toils
hard for a deeper understanding of this mystery which he shares. Throughout this write-up, it has been
discovered that faith and reason have, not a conflicting, but a complementary relationship: reason checkmates
faith from dwindling into a fetish fideism and, in turn, faith uplifts and perfects reason. C. Davies captures
this succinctly, “Faith is reasonable. That means it must be guided in some way by evidence. Unless we
would fall into a blind fideism, we must find in faith some element of vision which enlightens, directs and
justifies our belief. What we see cannot be the truths of faith themselves nor their divine origin; that is
precisely what we accept in obscurity by faith. What we see is the evident knowledge that guides our faith,
which is the knowledge of credibility.... The object of faith cannot be made evident, but there is made
manifest to the mind that it is good and obligatory to give to it the assent of faith.”8

8
Charles Davies, “Faith and Reason,” Faith, Reason and the Gospels, John J. Heaney, S. J. (ed.) (Maryland: The Newman Press,
1961) 20.