Knowledge of Divine Things Twenty-Three--Fides et Ratio Fifteen

I shall skip the rather long and winding section on the philosophical richness the Church can borrow from other Catholic traditions, specifically the Eastern Churches (go back and review the Catholic definition of "church" on this blog two weeks ago and previously).

For the sake of time, and because I want to finish the walk through Caritas in Veritate before Easter, I am moving down to a section in Fides et Ratio which is a critique of different stances of philosophies, an important part of our understanding of Catholic ways of thinking as opposed to other ways.

Here is the section, with my comment, as usual, not in italics. One of those St. John Paul II pithy set of sentences at the end of this selection reminds us all of our duty in religion. The saint refers to the Early Church Fathers here.

“To believe is nothing other than to think with assent... Believers are also thinkers: in believing, they think and in thinking, they believe... If faith does not think, it is nothing”.95 And again: “If there is no assent, there is no faith, for without assent one does not really believe”.96

Different stances of philosophy

75. As appears from this brief sketch of the history of the relationship between faith and philosophy, one can distinguish different stances of philosophy with regard to Christian faith. First, there is a philosophy completely independent of the Gospel's Revelation: this is the stance adopted by philosophy as it took shape in history before the birth of the Redeemer and later in regions as yet untouched by the Gospel. We see here philosophy's valid aspiration to be an autonomous enterprise, obeying its own rules and employing the powers of reason alone. Although seriously handicapped by the inherent weakness of human reason, this aspiration should be supported and strengthened. As a search for truth within the natural order, the enterprise of philosophy is always open—at least implicitly—to the supernatural.

As God created nature, nature can lead to God if one is using the natural order of thought. This is why Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote that one cannot study history without converting..."To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."

As our faith is true and rational, such study can lead, with grace, to God. Faith perfects free will with the use of the intellect and will. I have quoted this many times on the blog with reference to the perfection of our entire being.

Moreover, the demand for a valid autonomy of thought should be respected even when theological discourse makes use of philosophical concepts and arguments. Indeed, to argue according to rigorous rational criteria is to guarantee that the results attained are universally valid. This also confirms the principle that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it: the assent of faith, engaging the intellect and will, does not destroy but perfects the free will of each believer who deep within welcomes what has been revealed.

But, Revelation brings deeper knowledge.

It is clear that this legitimate approach is rejected by the theory of so-called “separate” philosophy, pursued by some modern philosophers. This theory claims for philosophy not only a valid autonomy, but a self-sufficiency of thought which is patently invalid. In refusing the truth offered by divine Revelation, philosophy only does itself damage, since this is to preclude access to a deeper knowledge of truth.

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.

"...faith purifies reason....faith liberates reason from presumption..." The following section rings so true for today, again, when we need to address the basics in the new evangelism.

Christian philosophy therefore has two aspects. The first is subjective, in the sense that faith purifies reason. As a theological virtue, faith liberates reason from presumption, the typical temptation of the philosopher. Saint Paul, the Fathers of the Church and, closer to our own time, philosophers such as Pascal and Kierkegaard reproached such presumption. The philosopher who learns humility will also find courage to tackle questions which are difficult to resolve if the data of Revelation are ignored—for example, the problem of evil and suffering, the personal nature of God and the question of the meaning of life or, more directly, the radical metaphysical question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”.

God gave us Revelation because not all trues are easily discernable merely by the intellect. Although all truths can be known through the intellect, it is difficult for most of us to come to these truths without Revelation. This paragraph should be read in the beginning of every first philosophy class a seminarian ever takes. So much was lost in formation because of the misunderstanding that the philosophy of history is necessary for clerics to know.

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 become pivotal for a philosophy of history which stakes its claim as a new chapter in the human search for truth.

The emotions, the passions, have been emphasized too much.

Among the objective elements of Christian philosophy we might also place the need to explore the rationality of certain truths expressed in Sacred Scripture, such as the possibility of man's supernatural vocation and original sin itself. These are tasks which challenge reason to recognize that there is something true and rational lying far beyond the straits within which it would normally be confined. These questions in fact broaden reason's scope for action.

The abandonment of Christian orthodoxy has been owning to, imho, the over-emphasis on the self and the falling into of nihilism by so many thinkers in the past 150 years.

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.

Without an intellectual basis, how can clerics reach out to address the basic questions for the vast majority of confused adults, who have not taken the time to learn how to think?

77. Philosophy presents another stance worth noting when theology itself calls upon it. Theology in fact has always needed and still needs philosophy's contribution. As a work of critical reason in the light of faith, theology presupposes and requires in all its research a reason formed and educated to concept and argument. Moreover, theology needs philosophy as a partner in dialogue in order to confirm the intelligibility and universal truth of its claims. It was not by accident that the Fathers of the Church and the Medieval theologians adopted non-Christian philosophies. This historical fact confirms the value of philosophy's autonomy, which remains unimpaired when theology calls upon it; but it shows as well the profound transformations which philosophy itself must undergo.

Philosophy is the "handmaid of theology", aiding theologians in their approach to all aspects of human life.

It was because of its noble and indispensable contribution that, from the Patristic period onwards, philosophy was called the ancilla theologiae. The title was not intended to indicate philosophy's servile submission or purely functional role with regard to theology. Rather, it was used in the sense in which Aristotle had spoken of the experimental sciences as “ancillary” to “prima philosophia”. The term can scarcely be used today, given the principle of autonomy to which we have referred, but it has served throughout history to indicate the necessity of the link between the two sciences and the impossibility of their separation.

Yes, and those clerics who did not truly learn how to think, but merely to mimic, most easily fall prey to the false popular philosophies of the day--relativism, subjectivism--as well as the return of the oldest heresies of all. People continually ask me about discernment. Learn how to think, learn how to be objective and you will have discernment.

St John Paul II is stating that here.

Were theologians to refuse the help of philosophy, they would run the risk of doing philosophy unwittingly and locking themselves within thought-structures poorly adapted to the understanding of faith. Were philosophers, for their part, to shun theology completely, they would be forced to master on their own the contents of Christian faith, as has been the case with some modern philosophers. Either way, the grounding principles of autonomy which every science rightly wants guaranteed would be seriously threatened.

When it adopts this stance, philosophy, like theology, comes more directly under the authority of the Magisterium and its discernment, because of the implications it has for the understanding of Revelation, as I have already explained. The truths of faith make certain demands which philosophy must respect whenever it engages theology.

And, go back to Thomas....

78. It should be clear in the light of these reflections why the Magisterium has repeatedly acclaimed the merits of Saint Thomas' thought and made him the guide and model for theological studies. This has not been in order to take a position on properly philosophical questions nor to demand adherence to particular theses. The Magisterium's intention has always been to show how Saint Thomas is an authentic model for all who seek the truth. In his thinking, the demands of reason and the power of faith found the most elevated synthesis ever attained by human thought, for he could defend the radical newness introduced by Revelation without ever demeaning the venture proper to reason.

And, here below, we see why our anti-intellectual low-church protestants and the charismatics fail because of their continual disparagement of reason. I love it when John Paul II states, "in short", for he then is highlighting his thought, for us.  Authority is necessary for both disciplines of philosophy and theology. And, what a powerful last few lines in this section....I find this examination of reason and faith moving, showing all how to find Divine Knowledge.

79. Developing further what the Magisterium before me has taught, I intend in this final section to point out certain requirements which theology—and more fundamentally still, the word of God itself—makes today of philosophical thinking and contemporary philosophies. As I have already noted, philosophy must obey its own rules and be based upon its own principles; truth, however, can only be one. The content of Revelation can never debase the discoveries and legitimate autonomy of reason. Yet, conscious that it cannot set itself up as an absolute and exclusive value, reason on its part must never lose its capacity to question and to be questioned. By virtue of the splendour emanating from subsistent Being itself, revealed truth offers the fullness of light and will therefore illumine the path of philosophical enquiry. In short, Christian Revelation becomes the true point of encounter and engagement between philosophical and theological thinking in their reciprocal relationship. It is to be hoped therefore that theologians and philosophers will let themselves be guided by the authority of truth alone so that there will emerge a philosophy consonant with the word of God. Such a philosophy will be a place where Christian faith and human cultures may meet, a point of understanding between believer and non-believer. It will help lead believers to a stronger conviction that faith grows deeper and more authentic when it is wedded to thought and does not reject it. It is again the Fathers who teach us this: “To believe is nothing other than to think with assent... Believers are also thinkers: in believing, they think and in thinking, they believe... If faith does not think, it is nothing”.95 And again: “If there is no assent, there is no faith, for without assent one does not really believe”.96

to be continued....

Knowledge of Divine Things Part Sixteen Fides et Ratio Part Eight

Many people do not realize how, in this encyclical, and in other writings, St. John Paul II restored the eminence of St. Thomas Aquinas as the philosopher in the Catholic tradition. Beginning with the first scholastic, St. Anselm, John Paul II outlines the basic approaches to truth. I am quoting a long part of the encyclical as this is key to understanding how a Catholic thinks. Faith asks to be understood by reason.  Reason needs faith to be grounded in reality. 


In Scholastic theology, the role of philosophically trained reason becomes even more conspicuous under the impulse of Saint Anselm's interpretation of the intellectus fidei. For the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury the priority of faith is not in competition with the search which is proper to reason. Reason in fact is not asked to pass judgement on the contents of faith, something of which it would be incapable, since this is not its function. Its function is rather to find meaning, to discover explanations which might allow everyone to come to a certain understanding of the contents of faith. Saint Anselm underscores the fact that the intellect must seek that which it loves: the more it loves, the more it desires to know. Whoever lives for the truth is reaching for a form of knowledge which is fired more and more with love for what it knows, while having to admit that it has not yet attained what it desires: “To see you was I conceived; and I have yet to conceive that for which I was conceived (Ad te videndum factus sum; et nondum feci propter quod factus sum)”.⁴² The desire for truth, therefore, spurs reason always to go further; indeed, it is as if reason were overwhelmed to see that it can always go beyond what it has already achieved.

Love leads to work, We know this. We work at what we love. I love philosophy and theology, the mystic writers and heroes of the Church, and therefore work on these subjects. I love Christ, therefore I pray and read the Scriptures. I love the Church, therefore, I try to obey Her laws.

If we love Christ and His Church, we shall work to learn as much as possible about the basics. We start with asking who we are, what is our ultimate destiny, what does it mean to be human, and so on.

 It is at this point, though, that reason can learn where its path will lead in the end: “I think that whoever investigates something incomprehensible should be satisfied if, by way of reasoning, he reaches a quite certain perception of its reality, even if his intellect cannot penetrate its mode of being... But is there anything so incomprehensible and ineffable as that which is above all things? Therefore, if that which until now has been a matter of debate concerning the highest essence has been established on the basis of due reasoning, then the foundation of one's certainty is not shaken in the least if the intellect cannot penetrate it in a way that allows clear formulation. If prior thought has concluded rationally that one cannot comprehend (rationabiliter comprehendit incomprehensibile esse) how supernal wisdom knows its own accomplishments..., who then will explain how this same wisdom, of which the human being can know nothing or next to nothing, is to be known and expressed?”.⁴³

If we cannot understand something, we wait, we pray, and we obey without understanding.

The fundamental harmony between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents.

Knowledge of Divine Things Part Thirteen Fides et Ratio Six

Sometimes in an encyclical, a line "jumps out" at a person. Here is one from Fides et Ratio, the focus of this half of the series, now no longer "mini". I backtrack a bit in this post....

If human beings with their intelligence fail to recognize God as Creator of all, it is not because they lack the means to do so, but because their free will and their sinfulness place an impediment in the way.

I hear so many people, especially in the UK, speaking of the ignorance of people as if humans beings were cattle. St. John Paul II and many others have made it clear to us that our natural, as well as supernatural intellegence can lead us to God. The intellect will be illumined by grace if one is open to metanoia, to change. (See my previous posts on metanoia). The free will can be closed to God by a continual life of sin which causes one's discernment to darken. (See the series on discernment).

True ignorance must be rare in this era of communications. The vast majority of young people have more knowlege, more information, (not necessarily knowledge,) literally at their fingertips. God nudges people to see Him. He wants to "be found".  What is missing is fear of the Lord. Here is John Paul II again.

For the Old Testament, then, faith liberates reason in so far as it allows reason to attain correctly what it seeks to know and to place it within the ultimate order of things, in which everything acquires true meaning. In brief, human beings attain truth by way of reason because, enlightened by faith, they discover the deeper meaning of all things and most especially of their own existence. Rightly, therefore, the sacred author identifies the fear of God as the beginning of true knowledge: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7; cf. Sir 1:14).

One may ask the question as to why a certain person would no longer "fear the Lord" or what true knowledge? I have asked myself this question after speaking with many women and men who are following false seers, even those condemned. Why do they not fear the Lord, who speaks through the Church? Why do they not want true knowledge and are closed when presented with alternative explanations to what they are believing? Why do sodomites not fear the Lord, or the arrogant who oppress the poor?

Why do those in power in the Church not fear the Lord and, instead, follow their own counsels?

 Remember my post on Thomas Merton stating that television was intruding into the space created by God for contemplation of Him and His mysteries? But, television is not the only power which clogs the special ability of humans to reflect reasonably on God and His ways. Power, status, sex, money...the list is endless. Some one I know and respect told me on Tuesday that poverty was a great gift to him, as it made him detached from such things. Here is the saint again:

In the first chapter of his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul helps us to appreciate better the depth of insight of the Wisdom literature's reflection. Developing a philosophical argument in popular language, the Apostle declares a profound truth: through all that is created the “eyes of the mind” can come to know God. Through the medium of creatures, God stirs in reason an intuition of his “power” and his “divinity” (cf. Rom 1:20). This is to concede to human reason a capacity which seems almost to surpass its natural limitations. Not only is it not restricted to sensory knowledge, from the moment that it can reflect critically upon the data of the senses, but, by discoursing on the data provided by the senses, reason can reach the cause which lies at the origin of all perceptible reality. In philosophical terms, we could say that this important Pauline text affirms the human capacity for metaphysical enquiry.

Now, John Paul II is getting to the meat of the encyclical. We are all capable of metaphysical enquiry, what is missing in Catholic newspaper editorials and commentaries, Catholic magazines, Catholic television shows, Catholic blogs. The framework for discussion is not there.

Few are reasoning out the basic questions.

Few.

Why have they turned away from the capacity which is given to all?

As I noted, all the heresies, ALL, are now attacking the Church. The list is long and embodied in particular people, cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, the laity.

And where are, I repeat, the Augustines, the Athanasius, the Bellarmines, to respond to these attacks within the Church?

If all have the capacity, then those who are steeped in heresy have purposefully turned away from truth, as God will allow Himself to be found by the just man.

If all have the capacity, why are the laity putting at the brush fires and ignoring the firestorm creeping over the edge of the mountain? Comments on blogs, letters to editors, petitions, will not change the heresies in the Church. Actions must be preceded by contemplation, meditation, mortification.
The blindness of pride, states John Paul II, removes one from the knowledge which God wants to give. Disobedience, whether in not keeping marriage vows, or following condemned seers, darkens the intellect in a turning away owing to pride.

But, Praise be to Jesus Christ, He came and freed our reason. So, why do so many people go back and choose the shackles?

The blindness of pride deceived our first parents into thinking themselves sovereign and autonomous, and into thinking that they could ignore the knowledge which comes from God. All men and women were caught up in this primal disobedience, which so wounded reason that from then on its path to full truth would be strewn with obstacles. From that time onwards the human capacity to know the truth was impaired by an aversion to the One who is the source and origin of truth. It is again the Apostle who reveals just how far human thinking, because of sin, became “empty”, and human reasoning became distorted and inclined to falsehood (cf. Rom 1:21-22). The eyes of the mind were no longer able to see clearly: reason became more and more a prisoner to itself. The coming of Christ was the saving event which redeemed reason from its weakness, setting it free from the shackles in which it had imprisoned itself.

23. This is why the Christian's relationship to philosophy requires thorough-going discernment. In the New Testament, especially in the Letters of Saint Paul, one thing emerges with great clarity: the opposition between “the wisdom of this world” and the wisdom of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The depth of revealed wisdom disrupts the cycle of our habitual patterns of thought, which are in no way able to express that wisdom in its fullness.

John Paul II knows it is the Cross which brings one back to the basic questions of philosophical thinking, to the metaphysics of all teaching which is good, beautiful and true in the Church.

The wisdom of the Cross, therefore, breaks free of all cultural limitations which seek to contain it and insists upon an openness to the universality of the truth which it bears. What a challenge this is to our reason, and how great the gain for reason if it yields to this wisdom! Of itself, philosophy is able to recognize the human being's ceaselessly self-transcendent orientation towards the truth; and, with the assistance of faith, it is capable of accepting the “foolishness” of the Cross as the authentic critique of those who delude themselves that they possess the truth, when in fact they run it aground on the shoals of a system of their own devising. The preaching of Christ crucified and risen is the reef upon which the link between faith and philosophy can break up, but it is also the reef beyond which the two can set forth upon the boundless ocean of truth. Here we see not only the border between reason and faith, but also the space where the two may meet.

So one reason why so many refuse to think is that they refuse to do the hard thing-follow the Cross. 

The acceptance of suffering clears the mind and allows for the grace of God to illuminate the intellect. Running away from the Cross deadens this process.

What we have seen in recent days are examples of those running away from the Cross, and instead, choosing those "cultural limitations" which attempt to put truth into a box.

Here is the truth:  The search for truth, of course, is not always so transparent nor does it always produce such results. The natural limitation of reason and the inconstancy of the heart often obscure and distort a person's search. Truth can also drown in a welter of other concerns. People can even run from the truth as soon as they glimpse it because they are afraid of its demands. Yet, for all that they may evade it, the truth still influences life. Life in fact can never be grounded upon doubt, uncertainty or deceit; such an existence would be threatened constantly by fear and anxiety. One may define the human being, therefore, asthe one who seeks the truth.

St. John Paul II sheds light on the running away from truth by some...

to be continued...and is it not strange that a prominent Jewish commentator used this passage, referring to the knowledge of the Lord in relation to the eclipse on Friday? Interesting.

Isaiah 11:9: “None will harm or destroy another on My entire holy mountain, for the land will be as 

full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.”

Read more: Solar eclipse Friday has some looking for signs from God | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/solar-eclipse-friday-has-some-looking-for-signs-from-god/#ixzz3Ux5qNU7U
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We Are Not Equal Part Six

One of the readings in today's Divine Office is from Maximus the Confessor. One small paragraph contains the kernel of truth reiterated in the readings of the Mass.

 For surely the word of the Law and the Prophets when it is understood with faith is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in accordance with his decree to recognise the Word incarnate.

The great teacher, Maximus, shows us that "those who are called by the power of grace" are given power in grace to respond to God's Will. These who are called and given power "in accordance with is decree", that is, according to God's Will, recognize Christ as the Savior, as the Incarnated Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Those in the Synod who want to change Church teaching need to read Maximus today, as they must as priests, and ponder their own position.

The heresies I pointed out three days ago are here anticipated by Maximus--sin is not natural, which is against the Semi-Pelagians, as is the last statement, referring to man's pre-Original Sin nature.

Do the synodal fathers hear what they read today? Do they reflect on sin, grace, human nature and the call to holiness, which is possible in Christ, but not outside of Christ?

Here is the reason why God became a perfect man, changing nothing of human nature, except to take away sin (which was never natural anyway). His flesh was set before that voracious, gaping dragon as bait to provoke him: flesh that would be deadly for the dragon, for it would utterly destroy him by the power of the Godhead hidden within it. For human nature, however, his flesh was to be a remedy since the power of the Godhead in it would restore human nature to its original grace.