Because of the Encyclical Fides et Ratio’s insistence on the autonomy of the human person and hence of reason and of philosophy — as of science — in their proper spheres, there is no question of philosophy simply drawing its concepts or premises from faith or philosophy and serving merely as a reasoning process to draw out the implications of faith. That would be theology. However faith does inspire a culture, which in turn is the context within which the human spirit is "cultivated" or developed. Hence, for example, a philosophy done within a culture which is marked by a sense of the harmony of humans with their environment can be expected to investigate with empathy and draw out the related philosophical insights: whereas working within a culture which emphasized controlling and subduing nature can be expected to take a quite different turn. The first is proper both to the classical Chinese and Buddhist philosophies of the East and to contemporary developments in philosophy in the West, in contrast to those of modernity.

In this light we can ask what a philosophy done within a cultural context marked by faith would be liable to explore and unfold.

First, a culture which is built upon respect for a sacred text can be expected to be sensitive to issues regarding the interpretation of texts and the ability of people to read a text written in an earlier period. Indeed, the problem of fundamentalism is situated just here. If the faithful reading of the sacred text means reading it in the same way in which it was read in earlier times, if the development of human life cannot raise new issues in the minds of the readers and enable the text to provide new insight to them, then fidelity to the text means remaining immobile in a changing world. On the contrary, if fidelity to the text means unfolding its meaning for each age so that the text is enabled by means of the readers to live through time, then the development of life can continually be informed by the prophetic word of Holy Scripture.

Further, it can be expected that such a religiously inspired philosophy will be realist in character:

Christian theology always has used the distinction between essential and existential being and predominantly in a way which is nearer to Aristotle than to Plato or Ockham. This is not surprising. In contrast to Plato, Christianity emphasizes existence in terms of creation through God, not through a demiurge. Existence is the fulfillment of creation; existence gives creation its positive character. In contrast to Ockham, Christianity has emphasized the split between the created goodness of things and their distorted existence. But the good is not considered an arbitrary commandment imposed by an all-powerful existent on the other existents. It is the essential structure of reality.

 

The agenda of philosophy done in a context marked by faith is greatly enriched beyond that in a reductionist rationalist context. This is not to make of philosophy a theology in the sense that its principles are the revealed contents of the scriptures. Rather, it is to recognize that the agenda of philosophy, the issues which are taken up, and the resources drawn upon must differ notably from one culture to another. For example, in some cultures persons are looked upon as simply individuals, singular and conflictual, so that competition becomes the major virtue. This contrasts to a religiously specified culture in which persons are seen as essentially social in origin and goal; there the major virtue becomes harmony with other persons and nature.

The work of philosophy retains its autonomy as it looks with the light of reason to establish its proper principles and to extend and enrich the appreciation of their implications in time.

(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.

 

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. (Fides et Ratio)

 

Some issues exemplify things which philosophy would not take up were it not for the context of faith, but which become of the greatest importance for the delineation of philosophy. One concerns the paradigmatic instance of reality. This was among the first and most basic issues taken up by Parmenides, at the moment of the creation of metaphysics: namely, does "to be" mean primarily to begin, to be one from among many beings and to change from one kind to another? Or is it, as Parmenides concluded through the reasoning that constitutes the first half of his Poem (see chapter V in Ways to God), to be eternally one and unchanging. Philosophy in a context in which faith has come to be suppressed or ignored easily tends to content itself with what is immediately evident to the senses and even attempts to restrict all thereto, as in modern materialism whether positivist or dialectical. Aristotle would agree with this only as a starting point and would arrange all his work in philosophy to move from Physics to Metaphysics, culminating in divine life, which then became the principle in terms of which all is understood as related thereto (pros hen). Aristotle’s philosophy culminates precisely where the Vedanta Sutras (I, 1, 2) begins: Brahma is that from which, in which, and into which all is. Done in a context of faith, philosophy attends seriously to this culmination of Aristotelian reasoning which, drawing on the insights of Plato and Plotinus, it investigates in itself and as both source and goal of all else.

In the West the insights of Plato and Plotinus have been very important in this regard. Its agenda of philosophy done in the context of faith includes God as personal, that is, as knowing or as truth itself, and as love or as goodness itself. Hence, rather than necessity and control, it is freedom which becomes the hallmark of being. Further there is special attention to the divine life as creative, hence its characteristics mark the whole realm of temporal, finite and changing being.

In this light the human person can be appreciated not reductively, as merely the result of material forces, but also as possessing the capacity to transcend one’s situatedness and reach out to others. In this light also the dignity and equality of all become salient, as does the essential importance of human freedom which cannot be compromised. In this light also there becomes manifest the horror of moral evil as the failure of human freedom and hence as the radical subversion of one’s humanity. Beyond this, moreover, the ultimate goal of life is expanded, as in the beginning and end of Aristotle’s ethics, beyond material or even social achievements and benefits, to the contemplation of the divine. In view of this all of creation is transformed into a dynamic, even awesome, manifestation of the glory of God:

(76) 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 been become pivotal for a philosophy of history which stakes its claim as a new chapter in the human search for truth. (Fides et Ratio)

 

Beyond these truths which pertain to speculative reason or to the knowledge of the existence and nature of the divine and of the human, further factors of the practical order are treated in ethics and moral theology. These concern most fundamentally the abilities of the human person to know the good and to apply this knowledge to particular instances by reasoned judgement, often referred to as the human conscience:

(98) 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, knowledgeable 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 judgement 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 ethics, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth different from the truth of others.

 

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 fulfil its mission, moral theology must turn to a philosophical ethics which looks to the truth of the good, to an ethic 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. (Fides et Ratio)

 

The context of faith contributes not only objectively or to the appreciation of being as the object of philosophy, but subjectively to enlivening the creative spirit of the philosopher as well. Al-Ghazali recognized this as decisive. He came to see his earlier work in philosophy as essentially flawed because it was self-concerned, arrogant and lacking in respect in his argumentation with others. His personal conversion enabled him to open himself to truth and respect of others and to share these with others.

It would be wrong, however, to think of this as purely subjective or attitudual without implications for the process and content of philosophy. In this regard the Encyclical cites the words of St. Bonaventure at the beginning of his Itinerary of the Mind to God on 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."

That is to say, what is the worth:

- of reading, if one is unwilling to learn and to change one’s position;

- of knowledge, if it be cold objectivity without human commitment;

- of research, without that wonder which Aristotle noted as the very beginning or source of philosophy;

- of prudence, if it withholds assent or deadens the ability for joyful engagement in the truth;

- of action, if it is not based on a recognition of the sacred dignity and goals of human life;

- of learning, if it is the cold calculating eye of Plato’s rogue, rather than being inspired by love;

- of intelligence, if it is marked by an overriding pride that isolates one from the truths of nature and society, rather than responding to them in humility;

- of study, if it is a reductively human effort, closed to the cycle of divine creativity or to the attraction of divine love; or

- of thought, if it be closed to that wisdom which is inspired by the understanding of all things in God.

To these rich suggestions of the Encyclical there might be added the need for theology itself to be able to take account of the work of creation in time and hence of the human development of cultures, which generally are based ultimately upon faith. A theology too exclusively focused upon the transcendent can miss this and even suppress it. For if the context of faith opens and stimulates the work of reason it must be remembered that religion is incarnate in time. It is not lived in abstraction from human struggles and the flow and eddies, the discoveries and correctives, of the human attempt to be enlightened by faith. In view of this the history of any faith is significant for philosophy as for the whole of the human effort.

Hence, religion flourished in the Middle Ages to such a degree that it tended to integrate within itself all fields of human activity. This led, at the time of the Renaissance, to the Reformation and its stress on the importance of faith over human activity. In this light all human capabilities came to be seen not only as weakened by sin, but as corrupted thereby. The important fact that salvation is not by human capacities, but by faith then came to mean that till the end of time, that is, throughout history, all efforts of human reason were reflective of the powers of evil and needed to be suppressed. They must be simply supplanted by the revelation contained in the Scriptures, understood as in opposition to all human effort. Resurrection and redemption were situated only at the end of time; they were not already in process.

In such Reformation theology the cultures of humankind tend to be taken negatively. Cultures are not to be promoted as reflections of the divine creator, but rather are works of evil, for redemption takes place not in time, but only after death. In this light the two orders of faith and reason are broken apart and set in opposition one to the other, and with catastrophic results.

Where human nature is conceived as good, in the manner of John Locke who wrote a very lengthy set of biblical commentaries, it is quite separate from religious insight which it would tolerate only negatively. On the contrary, if with Hobbes, human nature is seen as thoroughly corrupt, self-centered, vicious and brutish, then man is wolf to man. In this view human social institutions are built to restrain this viciousness to the degree needed to enable maximum acquisitiveness.

Human social institutions are then constructed on the basis of this theological position in terms of a separation of religion from human life, of Church from state. In philosophy it is supposed that the human intellect is restricted to the empirical, utilitarian and pragmatic; while metaphysics as the sapiential dimension of philosophy is simply expunged. Here, a theological imperialism is regnant, ruled in turn by a reactionary and hence partial vision which was imposed through the Peace of Westphalia. The modernity that is taken as a position of reason is, in fact, a theological fundamentalism not subjected to adequate rational reflection, but imposed militarily in "the religious" wars of early modernity:

(46) 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 which can radically turn against himself.

 

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. (Fides et Ratio)

 

To resolve this situation there is need for a more balanced theology. This may well be in the offing after the ravages of the Cold War. It will require work to reintegrate not only the fall, but redemption and eschatology in time. It will need to be less simplistic and hence will require the more subtle and integrating aesthetic mode of intellection. Only this will allow it to go beyond categorization and classification in general terms, to take new account of the concrete exercise of freedom by innumerable persons and societies and their complex interactions in time, to exercise a more positive and balanced critique of cultures, and to open more hopeful prospects for the work of the Spirit in — indeed as the center of — human history:

(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. (Fides et Ratio)

 

This, indeed, constitutes a charter for the cooperation and synthesis of faith and reason for the new millennium.

1. Seyed Musa Dibadj, The Authenticity of the Text in Hermeneutics (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1998) and Burhanettin Tatar, Interpretation and the Problem of the Author: H.G. Gadamer vs E.D. Hirsch (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1998).

2. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 204.

3. M. Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore, Pakistan: Iqbal Academy and Institute of Islamic Culture, 1989), pp. 48-49.