Two Wings of Truth: gifts of faith and reason
Gifts of Faith and Reason
- from St. Thomas Aquinas
Two Wings of Truth
- from St. John Paul II's Fides et Ratio ("Faith and Reason")
Saint Thomas Aquinas
- discussed "natural theology", or the notion of how we understand truth and God
- identified the primary tools to approach truth and God
- The Gift of Reason
- The Gift of Faith
- he also affirmed the role of the Holy Spirit
St. Pope John Paul II
- Called the "Gifts" the "Two Wings" of seeking truth and God:
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).
Reason
- God “can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason“ (CCC 36)
- “limited human ways of knowing and thinking” (CCC 40)
Faith
- Faith is a grace (CCC 153)
- “Faith seeks understanding” (CCC 158)
Theology
- Theology, or the study of God (theo + logy), is called "Faith seeking Wisdom"
Greece & Jerusalem: the sources of the Gifts
- Greece = homeland of philosophy and search of truth through reason
- Jerusalem = homeland of the search for God through faith