Saturday, March 2, 2013

Fr. John Navone, S.J., "Faith Directs Itself To Reason, And That Reason Is A Reality That Is Not Invented By The Human Mind."

John Paul II, in his encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesia, asserts that Christian professors and teachers must “set the content, objectives, methods and results of their (teaching and) research within the framework of a coherent (Christian) world vision.” 1 Richard John Neuhaus states that “A Christian university will settle for nothing less than a comprehensive account of reality. Not content with the what of things, it wrestles with the why of things; not content with knowing how, it asks what for. Unlike other kinds of universities, the Christian university cannot evade the hard questions about what it all  means. Therefore, theology and philosophy are at the heart of a Christian university.” 
Christian faith is a guide to philosophy. Not all philosophies reach the reality that is. Faith directs itself to reason, and that reason is a reality that is not invented by the human mind. We did not fabricate the mind we have that thinks. We are to use it. We invent neither it nor reality.
Surely something has to be said about the wonderful intelligibility of the universe, as assumed and verified by science, in the full context of God as primary cause. Part of the mileage theology gets from the scriptural datum, that the human images the divine, is the insight that our understanding of the universe is the exercise of a created logos mirroring the divine Logos. It is a step from this realization to Augustine’s notion that it is the graced logos in us that is capable to recognize the Logos in Jesus Christ.
Link (here) to the full article by Fr. John Navone, S.J. at Homiletic and Pastoral Review

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