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Unreasonable Faith
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
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I have only one point to make about the recent Papal Encyclical Fides et Ratio in this paper, albeit a complex one. I want to draw attention to the fact that the apparently simple and self-evident term ‘reason’ in English is deceptively so, so that when we hear the term ‘reason’ in the title “Faith and Reason” we hear named a marker for something with a long and difficult history. I do not intend to resolve that history in this paper— which would be much too ambitious a task, but rather to relate its complexity to some of the Encyclical’s underlying themes.
I want to begin by commenting on the sheer awfulness of the English translation of Fides et Ratio. The English translation is often frankly and mischievously inaccurate. Let me give you just one example (of very many). At §49 the English tells us “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others”. The Latin text has “Suam ipsius philosophiam non exhibet Ecclesia, neque quamlibet praelegit peculiarem philosophiam aliarum damno.” Those two last words “aliarum damno” emphatically do not mean “in preference to others” but rather “to the condemnation of the others”. The sense here is quite different: the English implies that one philosophy could be chosen by the Church from a range of systems: rather like preferring white wine to red for a meal. The implication of the Latin is much sharper: to choose one philosophy would be to pronounce a kind of judgement on the others. A quite different inference.
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- Copyright © 2000 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
Footnotes
1
A version of this paper was presented to the Heythrop Association at their annual meeting in October 1999.
References
2 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio. Vatican. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998. Translated as Faith and Reason., London, CTS. 1998Google Scholar.
3 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I Q. 1, A. 1: Obj. 2; ad 2. “Unde theologia quae ad sacram doctrinam pertinet, differt secundum genus ab illa theologia quae pars philosophiae ponitur.”
4 Cf. Aristotle. Metaphysics, VI, I (1026a 15–25); Aquinas, In Libros Metaphysicorum. VI, I, 1166–1168.
5 In I Sent., Q. 1 resp. I. “Immediate ex divino lumine inspiratam… haec est doctrina theologiae.”
6 In I Sent., Q. 1 resp. 3. “Secundum Augustinum, theologia est scientia de rebus quae ad salutem hominis pertinent.”
7 Cf §52; §53; esp. §55. “Neque desunt qui in fideismum periculose regrediantur, quippe qui rationalis cognitionis philosophicaeque scientiae pondus ad fidem intellegendam, immo ad ipsam facultatem possidendam in Deum credendi, non agnoscat.” [“They fail who dangerously return to fideism which does not give due weight to philosophical and scientific knowledge for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God.”] (Author's italics).
8 §46. “Veluti discriminis rationalismi tandem nihilismus crevit.”
9 §55“… radicalis de ratione diffidentia, quam recentes multarum inquisitionum philosophamm explicationes ostendunt.”
10 Questiones Disputatae de Veritate, Q. 1 a. 2. “Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus.”
11 Sententia Libri Ethicorum, Bk. 6, Lect. 5. “(Philosophus) concludit, quod sapientia. inquantum dicit verum circa principia, est intellectus; inquantum autem scit ea quae ex principiis concluduntur, est scientia; distinguitur tamen a scientia communiter sumpta, propter eminentiam quam habet inter alias scientias: est enim virtus quaedam omnium scientiarum.”
12 Fides et Ratio, § 1. “Fides et Ratio binae quasi pennae videntur quibus veritatis ad contemplationem hominis attolitur animus.”
13 Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 3. 2. “Est autem in his quae de Deo confitemur duplex veritatis modus. Quaedam namque vera sunt de Deo quae omnem facultatem humanae rationis excedunt, ut deum esse trinum et unum. Quaedam vero sunt ad quae etiam ratio naturalis pertingere potest, sicut est Deum esse. Deum esse unum, et alia huiusmodi; quae etiam philosophi demonstrative de Deo probaverunt, ducti naturalis lumine rationis.”
14 St. Thomas does admit of theology which only pertains to ‘first philosophy’.
15 I want to make one aside, for the sake of tidiness. I said earlier that God is not a being for Aquinas. The astute listener will have heard him say here that God is one, and so must be separate, a separate thing, a being of God's own. However, Thomas is clear that this is not so: in the Summa Theologiae he notes “‘one’ does not add any reality to being, but is only a negation of division: ‘one’ means undivided being”. I would add here that ‘undivided’ does not mean ‘infinite’ although some would have it so. This is because infinite being is derived in consequence of geometry, where infinity does not imply everything, because it indicates an infinity of points. Infinite does not mean indeterminable, but infinitely determinable: when defined negatively in this way ‘one’ (in contrast) is actually indeterminable.
16 De Veritate, Q. 10, a.13. “Utrum per naturalem rationem possit cognosci trinitas personamm.
17 De Veritate. Q. 10, a. 1. resp. “… nomen mentis a mensurando est sumptum.”Mensurando comes from mensurare, a late verb indeed meaning to measure, itself the corruption of the deponent verb meteri which means rather that which is laid out in measuring, and bears the same passive, negative meaning that metron has in Greek. The significance here is that the metron is originally that which is measured by something, not the measure itself, hence why in Latin the verb is deponent. Here therefore, the world measures me. I do not measure the things in the world.
18 De Veritate, Q. 10, a. 1. resp. “… et ideo nomen mentis hoc modo dicitur in anima, sicut et nomen intellectus. Solum enim intellectus accipit cognitionem de rebus mensurando eas quasi ad sua principia. Intellectus autem, cum dicatur per respectum ad actum, potentiam animae designat: virtus enim, sive potentia. est medium inter essentiam et operationem…”
19 De Veritate. Q. 10. a. 1. resp. “Unde, cum secundum id quod est altissimum in nobis divina imago inveniatur in nobis, imago non pertinebit ad essentiam anima: nisi secundum mentem prout nominat altissimam potentiam eius.”
20 De Veritate, Q. 10 a. 13, resp. “Propria autem personarum sunt relationes, quibus personae: non ad creaturas sed ad invicem referuntur. Unde naturali cognitione in propria personarum devenire non possumus.”
21 §2 “Aliena sane non est Ecclesia. neque esse potest, hoc ab inquirendi opere. Ab eo enim tempore. cum intra Paschale Mysterium postremam accepit de hominis vita veritatem uti donum…”
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