Imagine two people facing the same sunset. The first calculates the wavelength and refraction of light in the atmosphere. The second remains silent, and feels that it means something. The question is simple: are these two people enemies?
Does one have to be wrong for the other to be right? Or are they, unknowingly, looking at the same reality with different eyes? The relationship between faith and reason is the most decisive question in a Christian formation, and there are three possible answers. The way you respond decides the type of mind you will build.
First of all, what do the words mean?
Half the fights about faith and reason are, at bottom, fights over ill-defined words. Reason comes from the Latin ratio, which the Romans used to translate the Greek logos: calculation, proportion, measure, speech. Thinking is measuring reality and finding the order that is already there.
Faith comes from the Latin fides, trust and fidelity. In Greek, pistis. The Hebrew root emunah carries the idea of firmness, of something on which the weight of the body can be supported. In modern usage, faith has become synonymous with believing without reason. The original word doesn't say that. Faith is well-founded trust, the kind of trust you place in a tried friend. The opposite of faith is not reason. The opposite of faith is distrust.
First answer: rivals
The first answer says that faith and reason are enemies. Where one advances, the other retreats. It has two opposing faces, and both make mistakes. On the one hand, fideism, the faith that despises reason, summarized in Tertullian's provocation: "what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?". On the other, scientism, the reason that only accepts what can be weighed and measured, and dismisses everything else as superstition.
The idea that science and faith have always been at war is a 19th century invention. Modern science was born within universities founded by the Church, financed by priests and monks convinced that studying Creation was a way of honoring the Creator. The rivalry hypothesis is dramatic, but it does not stand up to history.
Second answer: separate
The second answer is more elegant. Faith and reason would not be enemies, they would just have nothing to do with each other. The most influential formulation is by biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who in 1997 coined the acronym NOMA, teachings that do not overlap: science takes care of facts, religion takes care of values, and no common borders.
It seems wise, but it has a hidden price. Christianity makes claims about facts: that the universe had a beginning, that there is a God who acts, that a man named Jesus lived and died in history. Pushing faith into the room of feelings is saying that it doesn't talk about what is real. Divorce keeps the peace, and pays for it with the truth.
Third answer: allies, the two wings
There remains the answer of the great Christian tradition. Faith and reason are allies, two ways to the same truth, because the truth is one. This alliance has a formula, refined by three authors.
Augustine said: believe to understand, understand to believe. Faith opens the door, reason enters and explores the house. Anselm of Canterbury gave this the name that stuck, fides quaerens intellectum, the faith that seeks understanding. And Thomas Aquinas sealed the principle: grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it. Truth cannot contradict truth, because God is the author of reason and the author of revelation.
It was this intuition that John Paul II transformed into an image, at the opening of the encyclical Fides et Ratio, from 1998.
Faith and reason are like the two wings by which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.
A bird with one wing doesn't fly: it spins in circles on the ground. Faith without reason becomes fanaticism. Reason without faith becomes a cold calculation that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. You have to flap both wings together to climb. It is no coincidence that the first of these three authors, Augustine, is also the most dramatic: he did not convert despite thinking, but because he thought to the limit. This turn is studied in full in the second book of ourChurch History course.
Why does it decide the kind of mind you build
The great Christian tradition has never asked you to choose between believing and thinking. He asked the opposite: that you believe enough to think until the end, and think enough to believe with all that you are. Whoever calculates light and whoever feels meaning are both faced with the same reality. They only see the whole picture when they stop fighting and start looking together.
In-depth study
Church History Course, with Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Bitencourt
In-depth reading of the work of Daniel Rops, where Augustine's conversion and the alliance between faith and reason appear in full.
Discover the courseFrequently asked questions
Are faith and reason opposites?
No, according to the great Christian tradition. The opposite of faith is not reason, it is distrust. Faith and reason are two paths to one truth: faith opens the door and reason explores the house.
What is the image of the two wings?
This is the image that John Paul II uses in the opening of the 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio: faith and reason are the two wings by which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. A bird with one wing spins in circles on the ground.
Has the Church always been at war with science?
No. The idea of permanent war is a 19th century thesis. Modern science was born within universities founded by the Church, financed by priests and monks who saw the study of Creation as a way of honoring the Creator.
Continue: What is Fides et Ratio · What is fideism · What is scientism
Home class (Community NousCast): Fé e Razão (Fides et Ratio)