Leo XIV encourages Christian thinkers to show that reason and faith are not opposed

Pope Leo XIV encouraged Christian thinkers to show that “human rationality is a gift expressly willed by the Creator” which, hand in hand with faith, allows man to have his encounter with Jesus Christ, “who reveals the Father to us.”

The Pontiff made this invitation in his message to the participants of the International Congress of Philosophy that took place from October 8 to 10 at the Catholic University of Our Lady of the Assumption, in Paraguay.

In your messageread by Mons. Francisco Javier Pistilli Scorzara, grand chancellor of the university, the Holy Father highlighted the objective of the congress to “analyze the role and meaning of Christian philosophical thought in the cultural configuration of the continent, with a view to illuminating contemporary challenges from faith.”

In that sense, he said that the desire to be a meeting space is laudable, especially in the face of the temptation “of those who have seen in rational reflection – given that it arose in a pagan environment – a threat that could ‘contaminate’ the purity of the Christian faith.”

Leo XIV said that Pio XII He had already warned against this temptation in his encyclical The human race and that this distrust of philosophy has been perceived even “in some modern authors, such as the reformed theologian Karl Barth.”

“Faced with this, Saint Augustine recalled: ‘Whoever reproves all philosophy indiscriminately, condemns the very love of wisdom’. Therefore, the believer should not remain distant from what the various philosophical schools propose, but rather enter into dialogue with them from the Holy Scripture,” he stated.

In that sense, Leo

For this reason, he said that, “without reducing philosophy to a mere apologetic tool, the good that a believing philosopher can achieve with his life testimony and with what the apostle Peter encourages us to do is immense: ‘Glorify Christ, the Lord, in your hearts. Always be ready to defend yourself before anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that you have.'”

In his message, the Pontiff also referred to the claim of wanting to “achieve transcendent knowledge through mere rational analysis.”

He pointed out that thinkers such as Hegel and the monk Pelagius, whose ideas led to the heresy of Pelagianism, have fallen into this error of “thinking that reason and will are sufficient by themselves to achieve the truth.” The latter maintained in ancient times “that the human will was sufficient to fulfill the commandments without the indispensable help of grace, a thesis to which Saint Augustine responded in a way as complete as it was profound.”

In that sense, he called to keep in mind that philosophy can reach summits that illuminate, but also “descend into dark abysses of pessimism, misanthropy and relativism, where reason, closed to the light of faith, becomes a shadow of itself.”

“Not everything that is given the name ‘rational’ or ‘philosophical’ has, in itself, identical value: its fruitfulness is measured by its conformity with the truth of being and by its openness to the grace that illuminates all intelligence,” he explained.

For this reason, he encouraged us to offer the contribution of Christianity “so that the noble task of philosophizing reveals more and better the dignity of man created in the image of God, the clear distinction between good and evil, and the fascinating structure of the real that leads to the Creator and Redeemer.”

The Pope also encouraged seeking dialogue as did great Christian thinkers, theologians and philosophers who demonstrated “how human rationality is a gift expressly willed by the Creator and how the deepest search of our intelligence tends towards wisdom, which is manifested in creation and reaches its culmination in the encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ, who reveals the Father to us.”

Leo

Likewise, he cited the encyclical Fides et Ratio, in which Saint John Paul II points out that “the intimate relationship between theological wisdom and philosophical knowledge is one of the most original riches of the Christian tradition in the deepening of revealed truth.”

“In times when so many things, and even people themselves, are seen as disposable, and when the multiplication of technological advances seems to leave the most transcendent problems in darkness, philosophy has much to question and much to offer, in the dialogue between faith and reason and the Church and the world,” he stated.

“Without a doubt, philosophy, even more through its questions than through its answers, allows us to investigate the core of the values ​​and defects present in each people. In this line, the work of believing philosophers cannot be limited to proclaiming, even in elaborate language, what is exclusive to their own culture,” he added.

The Pope recalled that, in his Letter to Dioscorus, “Saint Augustine affirms that one should not love the truth because it was known by this or that wise man or philosopher, ‘but because it is the truth, although none of those philosophers have known it’.”

In that sense, he explained that, without losing sight of cultural riches, he encouraged thinkers to help situate ideas “within the set of great traditions of thought.”

“In this way, their contribution will be magnificent and if bishops, priests and missionaries who are called to bring the Good News are also instructed with this knowledge, the saving Message will be transmitted in a more understandable and pertinent language for all,” he stated.