Faith and Reason

Pope John Paul II says that faith and reason are like two wings in our contemplation of truth. Faith and reason are inseparable. If faith alone, we call it fideism and this will result to fundamentalism and fanaticism. One example of this is jihad - killing others in the name of religion.  If reason alone, we call it rationalism and this will bring a world without religion (secularism). One example of this is scientism, a belief that everything is empirical or positive and beyond it there is nothing. Thus the trite goes: to see is to believe.

Faith and reason should go together. If one excludes the other there will be unimaginable consequences.

I love this point from St. John of the Cross.  I learned this from Edith Stein.  Faith is always dark for man. Kaya pala we have this phrase “faith is blind.” And it is true, faith is blind for it will always be dark for us. The realm of faith is beyond us. Now, the question is: if it is dark, what is our light? The answer is human reason. Reason is like a candle that will guide us in the dark - in penetrating the realm of faith that is always dark for us. Even in the Bible, God reveals to us through what the Greek calls “logos”. Logos is Word. Remember the opening verse of the gospel according to John:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1).  And going further we read: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (Jn 1:14).

If God never reveals to us through the Word, then we won’t know Him. Now we know him, we see his face in Christ, the Word who became man like us.

God reveals to us according to our manner of reception. There is a principle in philosophy that whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. What is within man is reason. Faith is beyond him. That is why God reveals himself as Logos, meaning Reason. The Bible is also Reason, since it is Logos.

Without reason we can never penetrate the depths of God. Reason is always consistent with the nature of God. Faith will always be dark but we have our God-given reason to guide us towards understanding our faith. St. Anselm calls this “Faith-seeking-understanding.”

Hence, faith and reason should always go together.