Relationship And Distinction Between The Reason And The Faith

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Relationship and distinction between the reason and the faith

Reason and faith

The faith and reason are two forms of conviction that subsist with more or less degree of conflict, or compatibility. Faith is generally defined as a basis for a belief, as a conviction that admits the absolute. While the reason is the basis of evidence, which approximates the object of faith to the idea of myth. Actually, each one has its own scope of realization. According to San Pablo Segundo Ll, in his Encyclical Fides et Ratio (1998), faith and reason (Fides et ratio) are like the two wings with which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.

Relationship between reason and faith

The relationship of Christianity with philosophy is determined, since its inception, by the predominance of faith on reason. This attitude is reflected in the ‘Creed Utintelligam’ of San Agustín, a tributary in this aspect of the ‘Absurdum est’ of TertulianBetween faith and reason, giving it with greater autonomy. However, this relationship of dependence on reason with respect to faith will be substantially modified by Saint Thomas Aquinas. The truth of reason can coincide with the truth of faith, or not.

Saint Thomas will reject this theory, insisting on the existence of a single truth, which can be known from reason and from faith. This implies a substantial modification of the traditional conception of relations between reason and faith. Philosophy, the own scope of application of reason leaves, in a sense, of being the ‘servant’ of theology, recognizing an object and an own method of knowledge.

Faith and reason in philosophical reflection

One of the most appreciable acquisitions of contemporary philosophy is to have demonstrated that man is a being in a situation, that is, he lives within a precise and defined historical framework that limits and conditions. In this sense, Heidegger has said that man is a being in the world, joining with a script the terms to highlight that the world and man do not constitute two isolated substances, but that they are compensated and interfered reciprically. Such statements coincide, therefore, to recognize that the concrete location of a particular man affects, in some way in his conception of the world. Religion, family, education, friendships, etc., They are ingredients that condition the personality of the individual and although, on the other hand, it does not imply absolute determinism, since human freedom can modify and alter the factors of their situation, the gravitation of this cannot be ignored. Christian philosophy, whose notion and reality has promoted a series of interesting discussions translate, in some way, the problem of being in a situation.

Since the whole man is the one who believes and philosopher, the Christian cannot be unfolded, as if a part believed and the other philosopher in his own way autonomously. Man cannot, therefore, divide into stagnant compartments, without connections and interference to each other. We simply want to note that faith, in the case we analyze, places man within a specific area of ideas, whose validity is undeniable. The Christian who philosophizes, therefore, as registered in a faith freely assumed by him, cannot deny the influence of the capital truths of his religion.

If we turn to the history of thought, the attitude of Saint Thomas Aquinas, as presented by and. Santo Tomás was fundamentally a worried Christian theologian, first of all, for understanding the word of God and the mysteries by the revealed. And while Saint Augustine concludes from here that God is the supreme, something immutable and permanent, holy Tomás, boldly surpassing that interpretation, affirms that God is not something, that is, it is not an entity, by sublime and excellent that he is, but the pure act of being. God is real, but without being something, since his own nature simply consists of being.

Such a position indicates the spirit itself that encourages Christian philosophy considered as that purely rational effort, illuminated by the Christian faith, to intelligible the universe. It will be objected to that such attitude is not philosophically genuine, because philosophy constitutes the own and perfect work of reason. Philosophy is undoubtedly the work of reason and will not cease to be, although she recognizes the importance of revelation, since faith does not denatures philosophical reflection, but makes it advance in her own terrain, that is, in orderstrictly natural and rational. In this sense, it should be said that faith promotes philosophy itself as philosophy, that is, to philosophy understood as a rational knowledge about everything that is, since it allows it to progress in its peculiar scope and without altering its ownmethod.

Therefore, the situation of the Christian, far from constituting an obstacle to rational work, provides the philosopher with an efficacy and fertility that, otherwise, would not have had. In this sense, the idea of creation, revealed by God and object of acute controversies between Christians and pagans during the first centuries of our era, radically affected the very speculation of Christian thinkers, to the point that the conception of being as actus, for example, typical of Thomistic thought, could only arise, according to C. The governing function of faith is due, on the other hand, to the fact that we participate in the wisdom of God. And if God has communicated to man "things hidden since creation," the Christian philosopher must attend to them, because, even God has also revealed truths of a natural nature.

All diatribes directed against the evidence of God’s existence finally rest on the confusion of both orders. In this way, the religious is specifically different from the philosophical and irreducible to the natural order.

Distinction between faith and reason and harmonious collaboration between the two

Some of his truths are available to reason, and others exceed. Some beliefs can never be demonstrated by reason and others, such as the preambles of faith.

  1. The reason has limits: the faith is not against reason, but about reason, and therefore it is not said that it refuses to reason as if the true reason is destroyed, ‘but that it captivates it in the gift of Christ’.  The object provided to human reason is not spiritual realities, but sensitive realities. Human reason, therefore, has limits, since, about God and spiritual realities we only have indirect and imperfect knowledge.
  2. Reason and faith are distinguished: there are certain truths about God that exceed the ability of human reason, as it is, for example, that God is one and triune. There are others that can be achieved by natural reason, such as the existence and unity of God, etc., who even demonstrated philosophers for the natural light of reason. Therefore, with regard to the origin of the respective knowledge, an autonomy of reason and an autonomy of faith must be defended. Then there are certain divine truths accessible to human reason, and others that absolutely exceed their ability.
  3. There can be no contradiction between reason and faith: it cannot be defended, as does Averroism, a double truth, since the truth is only one and God is the source of all truth, both of the supernatural, and of thenatural. The contradictions between truths of faith and truths of reason are, by force, only apparent
  4. Reason helps faith: reason orders the truths of faith in a systematic body of doctrine;It provides philosophical data in order to confirm and clarify the truths of faith, and, finally, go in defense of these truths when they are attacked by philosophers.
  5. The faith helps reason: there are many truths revealed in Christianity that also belong to the domain of reason. Sto.Tomás believe that, given the poor human condition, this support that reason receives from faith appears very convenient. In the first place, because many men lack sufficient time and philosophical preparation to know, quickly and safely, those truths that are necessary for the ethical ordering of their lives. And, secondly, a reason that I already targe. Agustín -, because human reason is affected by a constant weakness that continually takes her to error. The criterion of faith, in addition, serves the Christian philosopher of constant norm to get rid of the error in their speculation.

 

Separation of faith and reason

The union or collaboration between philosophy and theology, a fundamental aspect of speculation in the Middle Ages, enters crisis with Guillermo de Ockham. This separation constitutes one of the significant aspects of the new spirit of the modern age, represented by the Protestant reform. Luther, in fact, is an Ockham disciple, opening a type of irrational faith (trust) opposite to the Catholic mentality.

Reason cannot achieve the truths of natural theological and ethics: Ockham, consistent with its "nominalist" thesis, denies that reason can give safe claims about God, about the immortality of the soul and about ethics, as opposed to what has been defended by what is defended byThe previous philosophy. Only the Christian faith gives us certainty about the suprasence: the existence of God, its attributes, the immortality of the soul and the ethical order we know only because it is revealed in the Bible. Ockham defends divine voluntarism: good and evil are not demands of human nature, but free decrees of the divine will. In summary: Reason acquires full autonomy in the field of sensitive, on the one hand, and faith acquires full autonomy in the field of suprasensitive, on the other. The separation is, therefore, total.

Free Relationship And Distinction Between The Reason And The Faith Essay Sample

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