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)

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