The Two Ways to Know the Truth: Reason and Faith

There are two ways to know the truth, which we need so badly during these difficult times. “Unity” is a buzzword now. Real unity can only be built on truth. If still waters run deep, so do turbulent waters. We need to get to the intellectual depth of the divisiveness in our country and in the Church.

Reason

One way to know the answer to a particular problem is to figure it out yourself. The same is true about all reality. One of the two most basic ways human beings know the truth about reality is by figuring it out. Its traditional name is Reason. Reason is the use of evidence and logic. Evidence is something specific or particular, which is observable or quantifiable. Examples from criminology are finger prints and DNA. Logic is putting together evidence in a way that makes sense. It is having reasons for a conclusion. An example from criminology is “Because . . . and because . . ., therefore the butler did it.”

Examples of Reason are common sense, being practical (e.g., doing what an electrician does), and being theoretical (e.g., understanding electricity like a physicist does).

When humans use Reason correctly, they get objective truth – thoughts that correspond to or are in touch with reality.

Faith

Another way to know the answer to a problem is to be shown it by someone with greater knowledge. Likewise, there are things we need God to show or reveal to us. Faith is the acceptance of God’s Revelation. If we do not accept Revelation, we do not have Faith. Faith in God’s Revelation is the other most basic way humans know the truth about reality.

Just as we know the answer after it is revealed it to us, we know reality after God reveals it to us. Faith in God’s Revelation is knowledge. “I believe in one God” really means “I know there is one God because God has revealed He is one.” When humans have true Faith, they have objective truth about reality.

God has revealed not only things about Himself, but also the Faith He wants us to have. Faith is not believing whatever is meaningful to us at the time. Faith is not accepting God’s Revelation in any way or to whatever extent we feel. God the Son, Jesus Christ, instituted the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (the bishops under the leadership of the pope) in order to clarify both God’s Revelation and the Faith He wants us to have. These clarifications are expressed in doctrine (and not in opinions or prudential judgments of the pope and bishops).

For more on Divine Revelation and Faith, see Section One of Part One of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Right Relationship between Faith and Reason

Reason is knowledge that comes from humans. Faith is knowledge from God. Reason is all knowledge that does NOT come from Faith, and Faith is all knowledge that does not come from Reason. In the words of Saint John Paul the Great, “Faith and Reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the . . . truth.”

Furthermore, as the First Vatican Council declared, as cited in Paragraph 159 of the Catechism:

[T]here can never be any discrepancy between Faith and Reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses Faith has bestowed the light of Reason on the human mind, God cannot deny Himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.

Reason and Faith (that is, right Reason and true Faith in real Revelation) do not contradict each other. A person who values Faith can and should also value Reason (e.g., Science). A person who values Reason can and should also value Faith. There are many examples from history. The Catholic Church invented the university, the first of which was the University of Bologna in 1088. The first free library was built by a Catholic cardinal, Federigo Borromeo, in 1609. As Angelo Stagnaro has pointed out, many Catholics have played key roles in the development of science. It is because Reason and Faith are essentially in harmony that Catholic schools teach subjects other than Religion or Theology.

The enduring power of poetry, paradox, and parable gives witness that Reason alone is not enough to grasp all of reality. Faith gives knowledge that is beyond Reason’s ability to give. God Himself gives knowledge to us human beings that we can NOT figure out for ourselves. Faith is supra-rational or beyond-rational, but it is NOT anti-Reason. It is NOT irrational or anti-rational. True Faith is NOT a “blind faith” or a “take it or leave it” kind of faith without reasons for believing it. Catholic Faith is NOT the faith of Tertullian, who famously said, “I believe because it is absurd.”

The proverbial “leap of Faith” is not that big a leap. There are reasons for having Faith. Reason supports Faith. Faith makes sense. Faith never requires that we give up Reason or that we suspend Reason while we have Faith. When we say at Mass “I believe in God,” we should NOT stop believing in Physics, Biology, and Chemistry.

Of course, there are also people who are irrational in their disbelief. Reason will not convince someone who is simply being emotional. There are many reasons people are irrationally hostile to Faith. Maybe they are rebelling against Faith because they hate their father or mother. Maybe they cannot get past that time when a Catholic was unfair to them. Maybe they are depressed. Maybe they simply want to get drunk or high, or they do not want to give up hook-ups and pornography. Maybe they are so arrogant that they cannot admit that someone with Faith can be wiser than they are. Maybe they have been traumatized in some way.

Faith is not a substitute for Reason. Even with Faith, we need to know something about finance, home maintenance, time management, interpersonal skills, career discernment, sexuality, and all the other things which make life fulfilling – since God does not reveal how to invest, maintain a home, etc. But Faith provides the context and the parameters for everything else. Faith provides balance to other things and prevents them from becoming too important or too unimportant.

Classic (pre-Enlightenment) Western Philosophy has given us the “Laws of Thought” which are the laws that thinking must obey in order to be good thinking. Both right Reason and true Faith obey these Laws of Thought. Here are the most fundamental:

1. The Law of Correspondence: A thought (or its spoken or written expression) is true ONLY when it corresponds to or expresses reality; and so a thought (or its expression) is false when it does NOT correspond to/fit/match reality. g., the statement “God exists” is true because it corresponds to or expresses reality.
2. The Law of Non-Contradiction: Any thought (or its spoken or written expression) cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same way. E.g., The statements “God exists” and “God does not exist” cannot both be true at the same time and in the same way. Either God exists, or He does not exist.

Modernism and Postmodernism

The attempt to harmonize Reason and Faith has been under attack by Modernism and Postmodernism.

Modernism began with the so-called “Enlightenment” and can be traced back to Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD). Modernism values Reason over Faith, and it considers some things to be completely subjective and some objective. Modernists disagree among themselves over what is subjective and what is objective. For example, Karl Marx (1818-1883 AD) considered morality to be objective, but David Hume (1711-1776 AD) considered morality to be subjective; both considered science to be objective; both considered traditional religion to be objectively false. Other Modernists consider science objective but religion subjective.

Postmodernism, as its name suggests, is newer and can be traced back to Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900 AD). It can be found in the writings of Michel Foucault (1926-1984 AD) and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004 AD). Postmodernism considers everything (even math and science) to be completely subjective. It is as disenchanted with Reason as it is with traditional religion. The spin which Postmodernism puts on the Law of Correspondence is that “truth” corresponds to one’s emotions or desires. That “truth” can be about God, morality, sexuality, or anything else. Something is “true to me” depending on “how I feel” or “what I want.” Postmodernists have no use for the Law of Non-Contradiction. It does not matter to them if different beliefs or values contradict each other. The ethic of Postmodernism is one of narcissism, Nietzsche’s “will to power”: the end justifies the means; I can do whatever gives me what I consider good; there is no action that is intrinsically evil.

Our country has been experimenting with Postmodernism since the 1960s, e.g., we have often heard, “You have your truth, and I have my truth.” We need to realize that Modernism has been reasserting itself. That reassertion might have started, although generally unnoticed, with the climate change scare. Its proponents have not been saying, “You have your truth about the climate, and I have my truth about the climate, and who’s to judge since it’s subjective?” They have been saying that climate change is an “inconvenient truth” of an objective nature, disagreement with which is “denial.” The shift from Postmodernism back to Modernism can also be detected in the growth of Neo-Marxism (Woke Ideology) and our cultural elites’ obsession with “social justice” instead of “tolerance.” Tolerance allows for subjectivity. Social justice claims objectivity (“Check your bias at the door!”) and calls for conformity. See Edward Feser’s brilliant, more comprehensive treatment.

We need to realize that hard-core Neo-Marxists will use words in any way that will be persuasive and give them power. Sometimes they will speak like Postmodernists, sometimes like Modernists, sometimes even like people of Faith. Once one becomes aware of Modernism and Postmodernism, one realizes that, sad to say, they are alive and well in the hierarchy of the Church.

Being Catholic

What is obvious to most people is that there is a Catholic way of acting or doing things: Catholic morality, such as never choosing or supporting abortion; Catholic worship, such as the Mass; and Catholic prayer, such as the Rosary. What is probably less obvious to most people, but needs to be realized, is that there is a Catholic way of thinking that uses BOTH Reason AND Faith in order to know the objective truth about God and everything else.

The word “Catholic” comes from the Ancient Greek words kat’ holon, which mean “according (kat’) to the whole (holon).” To think the Catholic way is to think holistically or completely. To think without either Faith or Reason is to think incompletely. We need to avoid Fideism, which values Faith without valuing Reason. We need to avoid Rationalism, which values Reason without valuing Faith. (The different versions of Modernism are all Rationalisms; Postmodernism seeks to be neither Fideist nor Rationalist.)

The Catholic way of thinking is NOT simply the way any individual Catholic thinks. It is possible for any individual Catholic, including a priest or bishop, to believe he is thinking the Catholic way when he is not actually thinking the Catholic way.

It is also possible to act the Catholic way (e.g., receiving the Eucharist) while not thinking the Catholic way about that action (e.g., not considering the Consecrated Host to be the actual Body of Christ). The Catholic way of acting makes much more sense when the Catholic way of thinking is understood.

There will be real unity in our country and in the Church only to the extent that both Reason and Faith are valued, and in right relationship to each other.

Your ways, O Lord, make known to me;

Teach me Your paths,

Guide me in Your truth and teach me,

For You are God my savior.

(Psalm 25, Responsorial Psalm for Third Sunday in Ordinary Time)