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By Root 451 0

truth standards, and the attacks from postmodern deconstructionists who claim that science is nothing more than a socially constructed myth. But these same scientists would soon part company with John Paul II when he turns, not to more rigorous philosophical standards for reason or empirical guidelines for science, but to faith: “Philosophy and the sciences function within the order of natural reason; while faith, enlightened and guided by the Spirit, recognizes in the message of salvation the ‘fullness of grace and truth’ (cf. John 1:14) which God has willed to reveal in history and definitively through his Son, Jesus Christ.” John Paul II, of course, is not proffering a radical new epistemology. According to the First Vatican Council, which he cites: “There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regard their object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine faith. With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known.” Thus, John Paul II concludes: “The truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive.”

But what does it mean to attain truth through revelation? Here the argument becomes circular. Once you have decided that there is a God, it follows that “by the authority of his absolute transcendence, God who makes himself known is also the source of the credibility of what he reveals. By faith, men and women give their assent to this divine testimony. This means that they acknowledge fully and integrally the truth of what is revealed because it is God himself who is the guarantor of that truth.” In other words, God’s revelations are true because they come from God. What we are to do, then, is apply reason as far as it will go, then take the leap of faith. Why? Because that is the only way to truly understand these divine truths: “Thus the world and the events of history cannot be understood in depth without professing faith in the God who is at work in them.” The self-evident truth of God’s existence leads to the inevitable conclusion that His revelations are true by definition. Reason cannot reveal the nature of these truths or of God, therefore we must have faith. Yet it is with faith that we come to believe in God in the first place, thus closing the circle of this circular argument. If there is no God, of course, or if God is not the omniscient, omnipotent, or omnibenevolent god of Abraham, then faith goes out the window as a viable epistemological system.

In reading Fides et Ratio, one fluctuates between awesome respect for the deep learning and wisdom of John Paul II, and befuddlement as to how so great a mind can so contradict himself in one document. On the one hand, he reflects modernity and liberalism when he writes that “inseparable as they are from people and their history, cultures share the dynamics which the human experience of life reveals,” that “cultural context permeates the living of Christian faith,” and when he warns missionaries that the cultures of other peoples should be respected and preserved because “no one culture can ever become the criterion of judgment, much less the ultimate criterion of truth with regard to God’s Revelation.” On the other hand, in arguing for “the Magisterium’s interventions in philosophical matters,” he continues to get himself entangled in logical knots, such as when he says “how inseparable and at the same time how distinct were faith and reason.” Either faith and reason are inseparable or they are distinct. They cannot be both. Yet that is precisely what John Paul II wants: “Therefore, reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way. There is thus no reason for competition of any kind between reason and faith: each contains the other, and each has its own scope for