Abstract
This paper intends to question the conventional wisdom that philosophy should limit its endeavours to the horizon of modern transcendentalism, thus rejecting the presuppositions of faith. By reappraising Edith Stein's views of faith and reason, which are also shared by the magisterial document of John Paul II, Fides et ratio, an argument for the possibility of “thinking in faith” is put forward. But why would it be important nowadays to engage in rational research in philosophy in a quest for truth which also draws its inspiration from faith? First of all, as I shall argue, because the two great modern transcendental projects, namely the Kantian and the Husserlian one, which were both in tune with Spinoza's project to liberate philosophical reason from theology, have failed. Secondly, because “faith” (fides) is not based on “irrational sentiments,” but is “intellectual understanding,” as Edith Stein argues. Third, because the natural light of the created intellect is, as was shown by St. Thomas Aquinas, a participated likeness of the supernatural light of the uncreated divine intellect. Therefore, even the natural philosopher gets their own light from the eternal Truth of faith. Finally, by following another Thomistic stance, one may argue that the end of human life is an intelligible one: the contemplation of God. In order to attain this end, the human being should endeavour to attain as much as is possible, in an intelligible way, the thing desired. Even if the philosophical inquiry has its own limits, it may however sustain such progress towards the end of human life.
Highlights
This paper intends to question the conventional wisdom that philosophy should limit its endeavours to the horizon of modern transcendentalism, rejecting the presuppositions of faith
For discovering what really is in nature and in the physical universe, the scientist might have an inquisitive mind, and “a religious attitude” ennobled by the humility of faith. Even those scientists who believed in a pantheistic deity, like Einstein for example, reasserted at least ”the God of philosophers” who besides Spinoza’s rationalist God, is the Greek logos who created the mysterious harmony of the physical universe – the same logos taken by early Christian theology as conveying much of the Christian understanding of God, in the pagan world
In her article ”Der Intellekt und die Intellektuellen”, originally published in 1931, Edith Stein points out the main characteristic of what could be understood by ”thinking in faith”
Summary
In her article ”Der Intellekt und die Intellektuellen”, originally published in 1931, Edith Stein points out the main characteristic of what could be understood by ”thinking in faith”. After seeing that our natural knowledge is usually only a fragmentary one (Stückwerk), the intellectual pride normally gets dissolved After gaining this awareness as to its own limits, there are, according to Edith Stein, two possibilities for the intellect: either it turns upside down in despair, or it recognizes with humility that the divine, inscrutable truth cannot be approached without the supplementary light that comes from faith, since faith can enhance the natural capacity of the intellect. In 2008, when the tenth anniversary of the Encyclical Fides et ratio was celebrated, Pope Benedict XVI significanly encouraged a relaunching of philosophical studies in universities and schools In his address to the participants at the Sixth European Symposium for university professors held in Rome in June 2008, he explicitely invited philosophers to assume a more courageous anthropological research that has in view the cultural context of modernity, and to conduct their reflection both on the real situation of the human being in our times and on ontology and metaphysics. Even if courage is required, a necessary precondition of such a metaphysical research is, as Edith Stein has emphasized, the virtue of humility
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