International Theological Video Conference

28 January 2005

Prof. Stuart Bate (Johannesburg): –

A major social phenomenon during the modern era of western civilization has been the rise of a system of human truth and knowledge which predicates itself merely upon the power of the human mind and denies the existence of spiritual realities. This system of reason claims that what cannot be clearly perceived by the senses and understood by the human mind has no meaning. The two main sources for the modern system are Cartesian rationalism and empiricism as developed by Bacon, Locke and Hume. Descartes predicated reality on the human mind in his famous aphorism, "I think therefore I am", indicating that innate ideas and mental processes are the starting point for knowledge rather than an acceptance of the authority of other philosophers. Empiricists, on the other hand, maintained that knowledge comes from sense experience and mental reflection about these experiences. The two systems were somewhat integrated by Kant who maintained that all knowledge is conditioned by intellectual categories which mediate information obtained about reality through the senses. The former also conditions the nature of our sense experience. Kant clarified the consequences of rationalism and empiricism in maintaining that it is impossible to have knowledge about supersensible spiritual realities since the human person has no ability to access such realities.

The consequence of these views and their subsequent development in contemporary patterns of thought, world view and conventional wisdom in societies affected by modernity has been what Pope John Paul II has called "the drama of the separation between faith and reason" (FR 45). What does this mean?

In order to answer this question we should first realise that the insights of the modern empiricists and rationalists were not particularly new in themselves. Descartes famous aphorism had been voiced by many philosophers before him, most famously by St Augustine in De Civitate Dei (books XI, 26) '"Ac proinde haec cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima et certissima…". Similarly the major premise of the Empiricists is found in the teaching of St Thomas Aquinus and other scholastics who adapted Aristotles thought in the famous phrase "nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu nisi ipse intellectus" (nothing is in the intellect which wasn’t first in the senses).

The principal change in view which occurs in modernity, then, is not the positions themselves but rather the radicalization of these positions in placing the human mind at the center of the ontology and epistemology of Western thought and praxis. This reflects an historical condition found in the modern era which attempts to affirm human autonomy by creating distance in the relationship between God and human beings. The Holy Father comments on this historical condition in the following way: "Another of the many consequences of this separation was an ever deeper mistrust with regard to reason itself. In a spirit both skeptical and agnostic, some began to voice a general mistrust, which led some to focus more on faith and others to deny its rationality altogether" FR45 .

For the modernists, then, the truth of knowledge communicated in human relationships is only acceptable when it can be demonstrated by intellectual processes in terms of the criteria outlined above. Consequently, knowledge acquired through witness, example, socialisation, enculturation or the like becomes contingent and suspect. Such knowledge is, in fact, always communicated in faith for the recipient believes the message of the interlocutor because he trusts in the authority of the interlocutor. It is through trust that all of us as children learn values, beliefs and cultural truths from our parents and local communities. Religious conviction is also most often transmitted in a similar way. Our beliefs are in fact always dependent on the witness and lifestyle of those around us. This is why God's definitive communication of the Good news to human beings is done in a social context by a human being, Jesus, the Word made flesh.

In the modern era however such knowledge is unacceptable as truth for it cannot be verified by subjection to the prior processes of rationalism, empiricism and Kantian categories of reason. This led to the emergence of two positions outlined by Pope John Paul II (FR 45) as follows:

But the categories of the possibility of truth set up by modern philosophy are deeply problematic for they do not reflect the reality of human life. We are not just minds. In fact human life is always communicated in human relationships and this, as Thomas Kuhn has shown. applies to modern science as well. We receive our truths through the enculturation and socialisation processes in family and society. At the same time the truths we accept are always open to the processes of human reason. That is part of living as adults in the world. Indeed, as John Paul II reminds us, the true goal of reason is "the contemplation of truth and the search for the ultimate goal and meaning of life" (FR 47) and its real dignity is "to know the truth and to seek the absolute" (FR 47). Systems of human understanding and reason which deny this possibility as a first principle eventually lapse into a more immediate and subjective goals such as the promotion of more effective and utilitarian exploitation of resources in scientism and economics, the acquisition and justification of power in group hegemonies and the markets and the realisation of the pleasure principle in consumerism and media. A major social consequence of modernity in contemporary society has been, somewhat ironically, the shift of consumerism, the market, emotion and popular culture towards the centre of cultural truth as discourse analysis limits reason to grand narratives within historically and culturally limited social contexts. In this way the very reason that began by setting itself up as the fundamental arbiter of truth, ends up as the servant of the power of elites in the global community, or is shackled into discourse which only serve the contexts it articulates. This is truly a drama of massive proportions illustrating how the separation of faith and reason eventually leads to problematic ethical and moral consequences.

The religious mode is particularly vilified since secularism is a child of the Christian West and as Rolheiser has pointed out this child is somewhat wont to behave as an adolescent unable to recognise and appreciate the family from which it emerged. This goes some way to explain why the religious and spiritual dimension of the human condition are variously interpreted as superstition (Compte), alienation (Feuerbach), superstructure and the opium of the people (Marx) or as some kind of social function such as the principal of social cohesion (Durkheim). The modern period is thus interpreted as a time of growing up out of the human infancy of religious crutches (Freud) to a time of the adulthood of the human community finally lord of its own world and even superman empowered to fully understand and fully control its own destiny (Nietzsche). Ironically, the same drama of the separation of faith and reason has also led to the emergence of Christian groupings and spiritualities which discount the importance of reason and predicate faith upon personal experience, feelings and the witness and teaching of individual religious leaders. Such groupings go the other extreme of dehumanising religion by robbing religious experience and practice of the essential human quality of reason which seeks truth for all rather then truths for individual communities. In this way, a pseudo Christianity is created in which "life is no more than an occasion for sensations and experiences in which the ephemeral has pride of place" (FR 45).

Ordinary human experience affirm the reality that both faith and reason are necessary parts of a greater whole since they speak to different aspects of what is means to be human. Indeed this is so because " because each without the other is impoverished and enfeebled." (FR 48).

The drama of the separation between faith and reason has led to the justification of ethical systems which promote the interests of human groups and the deconstruction of moral systems which contain universal norms underpinning universal human dignity and in particular the rights of the poor and voiceless.

Scientism, for example, lacks an ethical point of reference rooted in either human or spiritual value systems. It makes the assumption that everything that is scientifically possible should be done because it furthers intellectual knowledge. "These forms of rationality are directed not towards the contemplation of truth and the search for the ultimate goal and meaning of life; but instead, as "instrumental reason", they are directed—actually or potentially—towards the promotion of utilitarian ends, towards enjoyment or power" (FR 47). This is because of the reality that scientific research is expensive and in the end a so-called quest for "intellectual truth" and "human development" actually covers a much more subjective servitude of the interests of elites within the human community.

Systems which detach reason from the complexity of humanity in its personal, interpersonal and social dimensions often end up by placing human production at the centre of human value rather than human dignity. This leads to profound ethical consequences which are stressed by the Holy Father in the following words: "The man of today seems ever to be under threat from what he produces, that is to say from the result of the work of his hands and, even more so, of the work of his intellect and the tendencies of his will." (RH 15). This is clearly the situation when workers are made redundant and when the dumping of surplus goods from developed world into underdeveloped countries leads to the destruction of their own agricultural and manufacturing industries (Cfr. SRS 16-18). But it is even more threatening in the globalised networked world of the information revolution and biotechnology into which we are rapidly moving. People are increasingly fearful and anxious about the consequences of these developments. Movies such as the Terminator series and the Matrix series are popular culture texts which seek to explore these fears. But in essence, the source of the fear is the ethical problem which gives human production power over human being. The Holy Father calls this: "the main chapter of the drama of present-day human existence in its broadest and universal dimension. Man therefore lives increasingly in fear. He is afraid of what he produces—not all of it, of course, or even most of it, but part of it and precisely that part that contains a special share of his genius and initiative—can radically turn against himself " (RH 15).

Further ethical consequences of the developments set in motion by the separation of faith and reason emerge from the philosophy of nihilism which proposes that all values are groundless and that nothing can be really known or communicated. In such a world existence is meaningless and all that remains is the quest for power and pleasure in which all means are valid and, in some cases, destructive violence is promoted. "Nihilism is at the root of the widespread mentality which claims that a definitive commitment should no longer be made, because everything is fleeting and provisional" (FR 48).

In the end the drama of the separation between faith and reason merely demonstrates how profoundly separated philosophy can become from human life. No child can grow into a mature human adult without the network of relationships that accompany us in our early human life. These are relationships that are based on trust: trust in our parents, trust in our teachers, trust in the village elders and the wider social community. The essence of trust is that we believe in what we are told because the belief systems into which we are socialised help to create cosmos out of chaos. It is by faith that we drive on roads knowing that vehicles will generally stick to the correct side of the road, (though perhaps not in Naples). Faith is an essential component of human life because human life is predicated upon relationships. It is significant that the other great exaggeration of the modern age, individualism, has clearly exacerbated the illusion that truth can be arbitered on an individual level with the human mind: Descartes "cogito ergo sum" begs the question that his own thought processes and mental categories were also influenced by the relationships and the culture within which he lived. The way he cogitated was given in part by the network of human relationships, the worldview and the trust system he lived in. The words of St Augustine are pertinent here because he demonstrates the importance of eschewing intellectual arrogance and recognising the value of the authority of the community and its corporate reflection. He writes:

"From this time on, I gave my preference to the Catholic faith. I thought it more modest and not in the least misleading to be told by the Church to believe what could not be demonstrated—whether that was because a demonstration existed but could not be understood by all or whether the matter was not one open to rational proof—rather than from the Manichees to have a rash promise of knowledge with mockery of mere belief, and then afterwards to be ordered to believe many fabulous and absurd myths impossible to prove true". (Saint Augustine, Confessions, VI, 5, 7: CCL 27, 77-78.)

The search for truth for all humanity allows us the possibility to develop ethical systems which will benefit all. That is why Pope John Paul II emphasises that:

Bringing together faith and reason in a recognition of the power of God working in our lives without compromising our human dignity and then use our human reason to the full to articulate this relationship is at the heart of a human wisdom and praxis in the world today.

FR Fides et Ratio. Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the relationship between faith and reason. 14 September 1998.

RH Redemptoris Hominis. Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, 4 March 1979.

SRS Sollicitudo Rei Socialis Encyclical Letter Of Pope John Paul II To The Bishops, Priests, Religious Families, Sons And Daughters Of The Church And All People Of Good Will, For The Twentieth Anniversary Of "Populorum Progressio". 30 December 30 1987.