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When the earliest of Christian writers were searching for ways in which to articulate the meaning of what we might call the \u201cJesus Event,\u201d i.e., the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, one of the first associations they made was between Jesus and the \u2018wisdom\u2019 [\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1] or \u2018reason\u2019 [\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2] of God. Drawing from the book of Wisdom, St. Paul refers to Christ as \u201cthe wisdom [\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03bd] of God\u201d (1 Cor 1:24). \u201cAll things were created through him and for him,\u201d the Apostle states elsewhere, \u201cHe is before all things, and in him all things hold together\u201d (Col 1:16-17).<\/p>\n
These latter remarks about Jesus, the identification of him with God\u2019s divine wisdom, NT scholars agree pre-date St. Paul himself. They were, most likely, part of a hymn to Christ which the early Christian community used in their liturgical services. Thus, from the very beginning of Christianity, before the composition of the NT, Christians understood Jesus as the incarnation, the en-fleshment, of God\u2019s divine wisdom; the wisdom by which God created, governs and sustains the natural world. The living embodiment of the \u2018plan\u2019 (ratio<\/i>) according to which the cosmos was designed and functions.<\/p>\n
A bit later in Christian history, around the year 90, this belief was given its classic expression in the prologue to St. John\u2019s Gospel: \u201cIn the beginning was the Word [\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be\u201d (Jn 1:1-3).<\/p>\n
The Greek term for \u2018Word\u2019 [\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2] in this translation can have many meanings: word, speech, language, an account or narrative, or an explanation. It can also mean, most importantly, \u2018reason\u2019 or \u2018thought.\u2019 So if we exchange translations, we can read the same passage as: \u201cIn the beginning was Reason and Reason was with God, and Reason was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.\u201d With his obvious linguistic allusion to Genesis 1:1 [i.e., \u201cIn the beginning\u2026\u201d], the author of the prologue is affirming the divine nature of God\u2019s reason and wisdom. A few verses later, of course, the author takes the further step of associating this Reason with the person of Jesus: \u201cAnd the Word [Reason] became flesh and made his dwelling among us\u201d (Jn 1:14).<\/p>\n
For the Catholic, then, as true now as was for these early Christian authors, it is in God, and especially through the person of His Son Jesus Christ, that Wisdom, Reason and Truth have their being. As Jesus said: \u201cI am the way the truth and the life\u201d (Jn 14:6) and \u201cfor this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth hears my voice\u201d (Jn 18:37).<\/p>\n
Understanding that the world was created according to divine reason, and that the seeds of reason are to be found in the entire created order, the Catholic tradition has long affirmed the human capacity, and supported the human effort, to discover truth in the natural world by the light of human reason. It is true that the early Christian theologian Tertullian famously asked the question: \u201cWhat has Athens to do with Jerusalem?\u201d (De praescr. haeret.<\/i> 7). But on that matter, and quite a few others, Tertullian was departing from the established Christian thought of his time. The Catholic tradition, on the other hand, acknowledges that since truth cannot be opposed to itself, the truths of the faith cannot contradict those of science or reason (cf. Aquinas SCG<\/i> 1.7). Faith and reason are not competitors, but the two complementary ways in which humankind might come to know the truth.<\/p>\n
This point has been articulated throughout the Catholic intellectual tradition and, more recently, the Second Vatican Council stated that \u201cmethodical research, in all realms of knowledge, if it respects [\u2026] moral norms, will never be genuinely opposed to faith: the reality of the world and of faith have their origin in the same God\u201d (GS<\/i> \u00a7 36). Likewise, Pope St. John Paul II stated that faith and reason are two complimentary ways of coming to the truth because \u201cthe unity of truth is a fundamental premise of human reasoning, as the principle of non-contradiction makes clear\u201d (FR<\/i> \u00a7 34).<\/p>\n
The mutual necessity of both faith and reason is nowhere more evident than in the discipline of theology. In examining the application of reason to matters of faith, St. Augustine once wrote: intellege ut credas, crede ut intellegas<\/i> (\u2018to understand so that you might believe, to believe so that you might understand\u2019) (s<\/i>. 43.9). More than half a millennium later, the Benedictine archbishop of Canterbury, St. Anselm, meditating on St. Augustine\u2019s thought, would famously define theology as fides quaerens intellectum<\/i>\u00a0 (\u2018faith seeking understanding\u2019) (Cf. Pros<\/i>. 1-2).<\/p>\n
In attempting to sum up this intellectual inheritance, this particularly Catholic way of viewing, inter alia<\/i>, the relationship between faith and reason, many writers have taken to calling this hermeneutic<\/p>\n
the Catholic \u201cboth\/and.\u201d As opposed to looking at the world and seeing a multitude of choices which demand an \u201ceither\/or\u201d decision, the Catholic \u201cboth\/and,\u201d being sensitive to false dichotomies, sees the value \u2013 and in many instances the necessity \u2013 of each choice: nature and<\/b> grace, action and<\/b> contemplation, freewill and<\/b> providence, invisible grace and<\/b> material signs, and, of course, faith and<\/b> reason. From the Catholic perspective, therefore, the relationship between faith and reason has never been an antagonistic one. Rather, the Catholic sees the proper use of one’s intellect as an activity which draws us nearer to God by seeking His Wisdom.<\/p>\n
Anthony Coleman<\/strong> teaches theology for Saint Joseph’s College Online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The belief that faith and reason are complementary ways of coming to know the truth, rather than antagonistic rivals or competitors for one\u2019s allegiance, has its foundation in the NT itself and, ultimately, in a person rather than a text. … Continue reading