Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to kn
It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant p
The only-begotten Son of the Eternal Father, who came on earth to bring salvation and the light of divine wisdom to men, conferred a great and wonderful blessing on the world when,
The purpose of the council was, besides the condemnation of contemporary errors, to define the Catholic doctrine concerning the Church of Christ.
Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: "We announce to you the eternal life which
The vigorous impetus that these two Pontiffs gave to biblical studies, as you also said, was fully confirmed and developed in the Second Vatican Council, so that the entire Church
For centuries this University has been a part of the story and the life of the city of Rome, harvesting the fruits of the best intellects in every field of knowledge.
God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth": that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revela
I meet you today with great joy and address my cordial greeting to each one of you. I thank you for being present at this traditional appointment held close to holy Christmas.
Though faith is above reason, there can never be a contradiction between faith and science because both originate in God. It is God himself who gives to us the light both of reason
At the end of the second millennium, Christianity finds itself in profound crisis in the very place of its original dissemination, in Europe. It is a crisis caused by doubt of its
Today I would like to continue the presentation of St Thomas Aquinas, a theologian of such value that the study of his thought was explicitly recommended by the Second Vatican Coun
In the mind of contemporary man, freedom appears to a large extent as the absolutely highest good, to which all other goods are subordinate. Court decisions consistently accord art
The holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incompre
The joy of truth (Veritatis Gaudium) expresses the restlessness of the human heart until it encounters and dwells within God’s Light, and shares that Light with all people.[1] For
In effect, the pandemic brought to light not only our false securities, but also the inability of the world’s countries to work together. For all our hyper-connectivity, we witness
As I recalled in the Encyclical Fratelli tutti, it is urgent to know reality so as to build together (cf. 204). To nurture and develop the desire for knowledge that is hidden in th
God himself, in creating man in his own image, has written upon his heart the desire to see him. Even if this desire is often ignored, God never ceases to draw man to himself becau
The light of Faith: this is how the Church’s tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus. In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: "I have come as light into the world, th
Ten years after its publication, an attentive look at the Encyclical Fides et ratio enables one to perceive admiringly its lasting topicality; it reveals the farsighted depth of my
On one interpretation faith and reason are opposed since faith involves believing something without reason, while reason rejects belief that does not have evidence or other direct rational support. This, however, is a caricature of what are in fact complex and interconnected notions. On the one hand it is important to distinguish between a) believing something in the face of evidence and reasoning to the contrary, and b) believing it though evidence and reasoning are insufficient of themselves to determine its truth. On the other hand, reasoning does not operate in a mental vacuum. It has a context which involves assuming things for which one does not oneself have evidence or rational proof. Believing that there is a material world, that is has existed for a vast period of time, that one was born, that there are other people, that there are chemical elements, that 2+2=4, the English word ‘man’ means man, and so on are taken to be rational but they are all generally assumed rather than personally established by reason or empirical evidence. Indeed, in some cases it is hard to see how they could be established. So, believing without evidence or reason is a widespread phenomenon. Similarly, faith does not operate in isolation from empirical evidence and reasoning. Here it is also important to distinguish between faith-in, and faith-that. Mutually trusting partners have faith-in one another, subscribers to a set of beliefs (religious or otherwise) believe-that such and such is the case. As with faith and reason, these two phenomena are intertwined. If you have faith in someone then you have reason to believe that what they say on certain matters is true. Likewise, if you believe that someone is trustworthy then you have reason to have faith in them. Christians believe a number of things most centrally articles of faith as expressed in Creeds, but the opening words “I believe in God …’ in their original use, derived from Hebrew beliefs in the Abrahamic covenant, express both belief that there is one and only one God and trust in God. Natural theology refers to that field of thought which seeks to establish truths about God on the basis only of natural evidence and reason, i.e. without appeal to revelation. Its central preoccupation has been devising and assessing arguments for the existence of God such as from the existence and nature of the world.
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