The Incarnation and human science

Father Paolo Scarafoni, L.C.

Rector of the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum

Human science has its own dignity and autonomy. The Revelation has important duties regards to human science, and affects it through the great principles that actually guide this effort to achieve knowledge and with specific contributions that are not achievable by natural forces.

Firstly, the Revelations maintains alive the need to know the universally valid Truth, which is not a source of intolerance; on the contrary, it is the necessary condition for an authentic dialogue and for respect.

The Truth is God, and it unites and sets in order all human knowledge. We access the Triune God through the incarnation of the Word, a mystery that goes beyond the human capabilities for knowledge and expectations. This is the Christocentric principle of knowledge. For this very reason, we receive enlightened contribution deriving from Christ’s Incarnation.

In fact, a person’s knowledge derives from Christianity. Its absolute characteristics have been perceived in the light of the identity of Christ, the real God and the real Man, one single person who is the Son of God; and in contemplating the one and only God in three persons. Our condition as children of God, with whom the Only Son of God identified Himself, our being in the likeness of God, has encouraged the application of the analogy and the discovery of the absoluteness of the human person, participating in some way in the in the gratuitousness and absoluteness of Christ’s and God’s mystery. This remained not understood in cultures without the Christian revelation. The light of the Revelation continues today to be indispensable so as not to retreat within the person’s knowledge and maintain respect of his absolute dignity. Real experience shows us that all science and culture closed to the enlightening of the Revelation is no longer capable of maintaining this clarity regards to the human person.

The concept of the person is distorted, and is reduced to a self-affirmation of the ego, respected only according to what the person is capable of doing and the strength and ability expressed. This is certainly referred to the rational and psychological level, but also extended to the body, assessed for its capability and the results obtained in well-being, beauty and the appreciation aroused in others etc.

This distorted concept of the person has strongly permeated the culture and the thoughts of philosophers, scientists, men of letters, jurists and communicators, and is also becoming a widespread mentality affecting a priori many sectors of life and culture, (from the formulation of scientific hypotheses to legislative debates in parliaments, from television programs to educational text books, from medical practice to experiments in bio-medical laboratories).

Within the framework of morals, the need for the Universal truth is supported by the Christian Revelation faced with the contemporary challenges in the fields of social affairs, economics, politics and science, and must rectify the inevitable decline in individualist ethics, in which the conscience autonomously determines good and evil. In this field, the specific contributions provided by the revelation are charity, forgiveness and mercy, in the light of the Incarnation of the Word, without which the implementation of human cohabitation and development for the good of families and society, guaranteeing justice and respect, seems impossible.