DAY 118
CHALLENGE
“Christianity is irrational, for it requires faith, and faith is opposed to reason.”
DEFENSE
On the contrary, “faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth” (Fides et Ratio 1).
From the perspective of faith, reason is a gift from God. He gave us intellects, and he expects us to use them. There is thus no opposition between faith and reason. Both have a role to play.
Certain questions in life can be investigated by reason without invoking the tenets of faith—for example, various truths of mathematics and science.
However, no human is capable of personally verifying everything within the sphere of human knowledge. It exceeds the capacity of anyone to do this, and so every person must rely on others for some of the things he knows. He exhibits a form of faith in what others have learned (ibid., 31).
Further, even when one does personally verify something, an element of faith is present. This is why the findings of the sciences are always provisional. Although the hypothesis that electrons exist may explain many observations and may be accepted as a certainty by scientists who study the structure of the atom, there is always a gap be- tween the observational evidence and the hypothesis proposed to ex- plain it. Scientists make a leap of faith when they accept a particular hypothesis as the likely explanation of the data.
Thus even in the fields most associated with reason, we see a form of faith in play—we see faith and reason collaborating together in a fruitful manner.
The Christian claim is that the same dynamic applies to the field of religion. Reason is capable of establishing certain foundational matters, such as the existence of God. It also is capable of discovering and evaluating evidence of his activity in the world. When these evidences are examined, they point to the proposition that God has revealed himself to man in the person of Jesus Christ. Reason provides evidence supporting the Christian faith like it supplies evidence for scientific proposals.
There is no opposition between faith and reason; they work to- gether to enhance the scope of human knowledge.
TIP
For a thorough discussion of this topic, see Fides et Ratio by John Paul II.