Faith and Reason: Historical analysis and perspectives for the present

“The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time” —Benedict XVI This study begins with a detailed historical reconstruction of the relationship between faith and reason from the particular point of view of the Catholic Magisterium. It then considers how Catholic thought has dealt with this question. In reconsidering the relationship between faith and reason, it suggests a key understanding based on the concept of truth as “meaning”; in this way reason is conceived as a “sought meaning” and faith as a “given meaning.” This idea, united with the necessary presupposition of Truth as a horizon of both Reason and Faith, suggests new ways for a fruitful dialogue between faith and reason in the postmodern age — an age in which a reductive concept of reason and an inadequate idea of faith seem to prevail.