2

I. INTRODUCTION
“God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves’.”
(Gen 1:26) Every creature reflects God’s beauty and creativity, but man’s reflection is
the most brilliant, since he imitates and participates in God’s divine nature in a
privileged way. He is the unique earthly being capable of penetrating the universe’s
order, capable of choosing to follow or manipulate it, and capable of seeking and
discovering the purpose of his and the world’s existence. His uniqueness is found in his
reason: that mysterious spiritual faculty which is “open to the language of being”1.
II. THE UNIFICATION OF FAITH AND REASON
In his communication with being, and principally with rational beings, man has
discovered the very communicative nature of the universe’s order, expressing a
language spoken by Creative Reason. The first inclination toward an understanding of
this cosmic language appeared in ancient Greece, when philosophers, such as Socrates,
began to question the validity and veracity of mythological religions2. Man’s natural
desire to know inspired him to question the merely imaginary and superstitious,
beginning to see if what most believed really corresponded to their surrounding reality.
Confident in their capacity to discover meaning, they recognized man’s unique power to
know, the fundamental goodness of all that exists, his ethical responsibility, and the
contingency of this world which implied the necessity for an ultimate, absolute, and
fundamentally good principle. The little that could be determined about this principle,
also known as Logos, was that it was, and is.
Centuries later, seventy Hebrew intellectuals in Alexandria, Egypt, undertook
the task of translating the Bible into Greek3. The book of Exodus recounts God’s
revelation to Moses, when He called himself “I Am who I Am”. (Exod 3:14) The
newly-translated text eventually encountered Greek philosophy, and instead of
destroying the Greeks’ rational investigations, God’s revelation only enriched it,
showing man that God was not only a principle, but also a loving and personal creator.
Even though what was revealed could not be directly demonstrated, it could be
believed, because it did not contradict man’s surrounding reality; reality, or being as
such, was the language spoken by Creative Reason which could be understood by
created reason.
God eventually became man; the Logos became flesh. Jesus Christ came as the
most complete response to man’s highest investigations and aspirations, but never took
away his freedom to accept this divine response. Ever since God’s birth in Bethlehem,

1
BENEDICT XVI, “The Listening Heart: Reflections on the Foundations of the Law”, Pope’s Word to
Germany’s Lower House of Parliament in http://www.zenit.org/article-33495?l=english, September 22,
2011.
2
Cf. BENEDETTO XVI, Allocuzione del Santo Padre Benedetto XVI per l’Incontro con l’Università degli
Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", in
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/january/documents/hf_ben-
xvi_spe_20080117_la-sapienza_it.html, 16 Gennaio 2008.
3
Cf. J. VILLAGRASA, La Communanza dell’Essere, Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, Roma 2009,
53.
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men have refused to listen to the Word, believing that their unaided reason suffices in
their search for meaning and happiness in this world. Others have believed that faith
alone is enough, without any need for knowledge acquired from this world. History,
however, clearly demonstrates the benefits of both faith and reason, and consequently,
their inseparable nature in man’s pursuit for true meaning.
While ancient civilizations witnessed great human accomplishments, it was
Christian revelation that contributed to the greatest scientific achievements. The
Chinese, Hindu, Maya, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Arabic civilizations of old
took steps forward in scientific fields, but they all stopped at a certain point and
experienced stillbirths in their thought4. The worldview that Christian revelation
inspired in man, however, spurred him on to investigate further, understand better this
divine work of love, and improve his performance as steward of all the goods he had
been entrusted. In Medieval Christian Europe, universities were born, and more
dimensions of reality were removed from the fields of magic and brought into the
rational realm of scientific investigation5. There was no need for recourse to
superstition; created reason was capable of further penetration of the loving language
spoken by Creative Reason.
III. THE SEPARATION OF FAITH AND REASON
While faith and reason are complementary, they also have certain autonomy. But
autonomy does not imply inseparability, and man has impoverished both religion and
science by failing to make this distinction. In the 16th century, together with a stronger
emphasis on the individual man, faith was gradually separated from reason in a flood of
fideism, emphasizing the need for a personal sentimental experience, and no longer
faith’s universality. Two centuries later, those still interested in rational knowledge
decided that they no longer needed faith, since, being separated from this world it was
nothing more than superstitious myth6. The bridge that was built by Greek philosophers
and Hebrew intellectuals was ruined by men who believed they could build a better one
on their own.
Rationalism’s prediction never came true. The more powerful man believed to
be, the weaker his reason became, gradually reducing his reason’s openness to the
infinite spectrum of truth, and transforming it into a mere instrument for the obtainment
of power or pleasure7. Rather than giving birth to new sciences, rationalism tends
toward reductionism, in which man looks for ultimate answers in sciences incapable of
providing a response. Today, while rationalists consider religion to be superstitious,
they themselves resort to the imaginary to provide ultimate answers: Stephen
Hawking’s quantum universe and Christopher Hitchens’ aspiration to separate
unrestrained sexuality from disease and guilt are examples of imaginary aspirations.

4
Cf. P. HAFFNER, Creation and Scientific Creativity: A Study in the Thought of S. L. Jaki, Christendom
Press, Front Royal 1991, 33 – 48.
5
Cf. BENEDETTO XVI, Allocuzione per l’Incontro con l’Università degli Studi di Roma 16 Gennaio 2008.
6
Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Fides et Ratio, 47.
7
Ibid.
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Rationalism has returned to pre-Socratic times, in which man’s natural desire to know
no longer questions the imaginary and superstitious, but resorts to it in the name of
science. Fideism, on the other hand, only aggravates the problem by denying the results
of scientific experimentation in the name of religion.
Rationalism has led to positivism, reducing the world to mere material
functionality, which in turn has led to nihilism, robbing the world of any transcendental
meaning8. The loss of the world’s metaphysical dimension has led man to separate
science from ethics; a world without intrinsic value implies no objective need for
responsibility. But this world, which is now for the taking, is still imperfect and needs to
be changed. What has been the response? The fideism of fundamentalists has brought
confusion and terror to the world, while rationalism has led to totalitarian systems and
an inhumane use of science. Fideism and rationalism seem to be diametrically opposed,
but their paradoxical natures are almost identical: after exaggerating the subjective
importance of an individual, they eventually lead to his destruction. Instead of listening
to Creative Reason, created reason listens to itself, tries to manipulate its surroundings,
and inevitably errs.
IV. CONCLUSION
What could possibly be the most adequate response to fideists and rationalists?
The greatest response is to show, once again, man’s capacity to communicate with both
created and Creative Reason. The greatest manifestation of this communicability is the
man who lives according to natural and revealed truth. This man is the hope that
responds to the despair of impoverished created reason. If both faith and reason come
from the same God, then they cannot but contribute to the ultimate fulfillment that every
man seeks, and history only confirms this assumption.
Have there been any modern examples of this personified communicability?
Among the many Saints that God has provided, John Paul II has been a particular light
in the debate between faith and reason. He was exposed to evil and disorder within the
world and subjected to totalitarian systems that tried to hide from him his fundamental
dignity. But he was able to humbly recognize that evil was not God’s doing, but man’s,
and that without God, man would only continue to destroy himself. His faith was not an
escape from the world, but his strength and courage in discovering its fundamental
goodness in the midst of horrendous evil. His search for answers was never reduced to a
particular science. He recognized reason’s vast and mysterious capacity to understand
the same thing from many different angles, searching for meaning in the midst of evil
through philosophy, theology, history, literature, drama and poetry. His love for God
increased his love for man; his intense prayer was transformed into engaged dialogue
with intellectuals with all sorts of beliefs. The closer he grew to God, the wider he
opened his arms to embrace the world that He had created. History once again has
shown that if both faith and reason come from the same God, then they cannot but
contribute to the ultimate fulfillment that every man seeks, and bring to the world the
hope of rediscovering the bridge between created and Creative Reason.

8
Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Fides et Ratio, 46.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BENEDICT XVI, “The Listening Heart: Reflections on the Foundations of the Law”,
Pope’s Word to Germany’s Lower House of Parliament in
http://www.zenit.org/article-33495?l=english [September 22, 2011].
BENEDETTO XVI, Allocuzione del Santo Padre Benedetto XVI per l’Incontro con
l’Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", in
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/january/document
s/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080117_la-sapienza_it.html [16 Gennaio 2008].
HAFFNER, P., Creation and Scientific Creativity: A Study in the Thought of S. L. Jaki,
Christendom Press, Front Royal 1991.
HAWKING, S., The Illustrated A Brief History of Time: Updated and Expanded Edition,
Bantam Books, New York 2001.
HITCHENS, C., God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Twelve Books,
New York 2007.
JOHN PAUL II, Fides at Ratio, in
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-
ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html, [September 14, 1998].
RUSSELL, B., “Why I Am not a Christian”, Lecture delivered on March 6, 1927 to the
National Secular Society, in http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html, [July
1996].
VILLAGRASA, J., La Communanza dell’Essere, Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum,
Roma 2009.