Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-15T17:35:41.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Amidst Fractured Faith and the Fragility of Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Peter Admirand*
Affiliation:
Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, Bea House, Milltown Park, Dublin 6, Ireland

Abstract

In his controversial Regensburg Address, Pope Benedict referred to ‘reason's grandeur’.

In this essay I will argue that the best way to engage ‘the whole breadth of reason’ is to remain in close, sympathetic dialogue with the challenges and evidence of what seems to gainsay reason's grandeur without being mired by what Benedict rightfully rebukes as the ‘self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable’. Thus, in light of mass atrocities, many perpetrated in the name of reason or ‘God’, one must approach all theological and philosophical investigations with heightened humility and openness to the opposing views of the Other. Such an approach will also seek to flesh out a ‘Biblical faith’, which will not be bereft of elements of rupture, doubt, and loss.

A few questions will form the core of this essay: What is the relationship between admitting a fractured faith and recognising the fragility of reason? Why would such admissions ultimately strengthen one's religious identity and provide fertile grounds for ecumenism and interfaith dialogue? Lastly, as a Catholic theologian, why would I contend that such a stance is more in tune with both the spirit of the gospels and Catholic social teaching?

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The author 2009. New Blackfriars © The Dominican Council.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Paul, John II, ‘Faith and Reason’ in Swindal, James C. and Gensler, Harry J. S.J., eds., The Sheed and Ward Anthology of Catholic Philosophy (Lanham: Sheed and Ward, 2005), p. 415Google Scholar.

2 Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections,’ Lecture given at the Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_benxvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html. Accessed 10 June 2009. For Benedict's clarification of the use of the quotation that stirred so much controversy, see his footnote number 3.

3 Ibid.

4 In Gaudium et Spes, we read: ‘This sacred Synod, therefore, recalling the teaching of the First Vatican Council, declares that there are ‘two orders of knowledge’ which are distinct, namely faith and reason’[Abbott, Walter M., ed., The Documents of Vatican II, (New York: Guild Press, 1966), p. 265 (59)]Google Scholar.

5 Ibid.

6 In the Regensburg Address, Benedict seeks to recover a ‘rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry’ through his discussion of the Logos, which, as God, means ‘both reason and word – a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason.’

7 Greenberg, Irving, ‘Covenants of Redemption’ in For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter Between Judaism and Christianity (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2004), p. 224Google Scholar.

8 Catechism of the Catholic Church, ‘Faith and Understanding,’ (New York: Doubleday, 1995), p. 48 (157).

9 Adalbert, interviewed by Hatzfeld, Jean, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, trans. Coverdale, Linda (New York: Picador, 2006), p. 140Google Scholar.

10 Hinze, Christine Firer, ‘Straining Toward Solidarity in a Suffering World: Gaudium et Spes ‘After Forty Years’’, in Madges, William, ed., Vatican II Forty Years Later, (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006), pp. 166–7Google Scholar.

11 Irving Greenberg, as quoted in Alice and Eckhardt, Roy, Long Day's Journey Into Night: A Revised Retrospective on the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988), p. 11Google Scholar.

12 ‘Yes, my faith was wounded and still is today,’ Eli Wiesel writes, ‘but it is because I still believe in God that I argue with him’[Wiesel, Elie, And the Sea is Never Full. Memoirs 1969 – trans. Wiesel, Marion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), p. 70Google Scholar].

14 Ibid., Par. 1.

15 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The House of the Dead, trans. McDuff, David (London: Penguin, 1985), p. 305Google Scholar.

16 Borowski, Tadeusz, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, trans. Vedder, Barbara (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 122Google Scholar.

17 For my analysis of the need for a fractured faith in the context of theodicy, see my Testimonies of Mass Atrocity and the Search for a Viable Theodicy’, Bulletin ET, 18 (2007), pp. 8899Google Scholar.

18 Myers, Ched, Say to This Mountain: Mark's Story of Discipleship (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1997), p. 134Google Scholar. See also his Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1992)Google Scholar.

19 See also my Healing the Distorted Face: Doctrinal Reinterpretation(s) and the Christian Response to the Other’, One in Christ, 42 (2008), pp. 302317Google Scholar.

20 Hollenbach, David, ‘Commentary on Gaudium et spes’ in Himes, Kenneth R., ed., Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2005), p. 276Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., 278.

22 Rumi, ‘Be Melting Snow,’ The Essential Rumi. trans. Coleman Barks (New York: Quality Paperback Club, 1998), p. 13.

23 Quoted in Craig, Mary, Tears of Blood: A Cry for Tibet (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), p. 206Google Scholar.

24 See, for example, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, ‘Norms of Illicit Dissent,’ in Curran, Charles E. and McCormick, Richard A. S.J., eds., Dissent in the Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), pp. 127–8Google Scholar.

25 Sobrino, Jon, ‘Depth and Urgency of the Option for the Poor’ in No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic–Utopian Essays, trans. Wilde, Margaret (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008), p. 26Google Scholar.

26 While ultimately supporting the value and beliefs inherent in the preferential option for the poor, Stephen Pope shows how there may be multiple ‘privileged locations’ where aspects of God's goodness, mercy, and justice can be acknowledged and experienced. Poverty, or another form of marginalisation, is not the only privileged location. He gives as examples ‘the obstetrician who experiences each new birth as a precious gift from God, or an astrophysicist's (or microbiologist's) appreciation of the majesty of creation’[Stephen Pope, ‘Proper and Improper Partiality and the Preferential Option for the Poor’, Theological Studies 54 (1993), p. 250].

27 Levinas, Emmanuel, ‘Revelation in the Jewish Tradition’ in Beyond the Verse, trans. Mole, Gary D. (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 134Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., 138–9.

29 Laytner, Anson, Arguing With God: A Jewish Tradition (Northvale: Jason Aronson Inc., 1990), p. 238Google Scholar.

30 Teresa, Mother, Come Be My Light: The Revealing Private Writings of the Noble Prize Winner, ed. Kolodiejchuk, Brian (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 223Google Scholar.

31 Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, Para. 1.

32 Pollefeyt, Didier, ‘Christology After Auschwitz: A Catholic Perspective’ in Jesus Then & Now: Images of Jesus in History and Christology, eds. Meyer, Marvin and Hughes, Charles (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), p. 246Google Scholar.

33 See, for example, Katz, Steven T., ‘The Issue of Confirmation and Disconfirmation in Jewish Thought After the Shoah’, in Katz, Steven T., ed., The Impact of the Holocaust on Jewish Theology (New York: New York University Press 2005), pp. 51–2Google Scholar.

34 Referring to one of the points of the Pope's address at Regensburg, I must say I consider the perceived relationship of theology in the academy of minor importance. In some ways, a humbled theology may become an ever-greater spiritually and rationally rich one. While issues of funding and grants (and so the retaining of theological jobs), matter to the majority of us, I want to speak of a faith and reason where it ultimately matters: in the presence of the suffering Other.

35 Jon Sobrino, ‘Depth and Urgency of the Option for the Poor’, p. 26.

36 Bau, Joseph, Dear God, Have You Ever Gone Hungry?, trans. Yurman, Shlomo (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998), p. 115Google Scholar.

37 See, for example, the essays in Rittner, Carol, Roth, John K., and Whitworth, Wendy, eds., Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches? (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2004)Google Scholar.

38 Casas’, Bartolomé de las A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Griffin, Nigel (London: Penguin, 1992), p. 73Google Scholar.

39 As Didier Pollefeyt writes: ‘A consequence of this theology of substitution is a moralistic, apologetic, and intolerant Christian attitude toward the Jewish people…’[‘Christology after Auschwitz: A Catholic Perspective,’, 230]. See also Zenger, Erich, ‘The Covenant that was Never Revoked: The Foundations of a Christian Theology of Judaism,’ in Cunningham, Philip A., Hofman, Norbert J., and Sievers, Joseph, eds., The Catholic Church and the Jewish People, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), pp. 92112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, Para. 3. http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0221/_INDEX.HTM. Accessed 10 June 2009.

41 Referring to the rich and deep history of Christianity outside of Europe, Philip Jenkins observes: ‘Yet an awareness of the Christian past reminds us that through much of history, leading churches have framed the message in the context of non-Greek and non-European intellectual traditions…’[The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and How it Died (Oxford: Lion Book, 2008), p. 39Google Scholar].

42 Levinas, Emmanuel, ‘Loving the Torah More than God,’ in Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, trans. Hand, Seán (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 145Google Scholar.

43 Levinas, Emmanuel, ‘Judaism and Kenosis’ in In the Time of Nations, trans. Smith, Michael B. (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 101Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., 102.

45 Quoted in Levinas, ‘Judaism and Christianity,’ p. 148.

46 Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Judaism and Christianity,’ p. 150.

47 See, in particular the three essays of Thomas Talbott in Parry, Robin A. and Partridge, Christopher H., eds., Universal Salvation: The Current Debate (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003), pp. 152Google Scholar.

48 Moltmann, Jürgen, ‘God is Unselfish Love’ in Cobb, John B. Jr., and Ives, Christopher, eds., The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1990), p. 123Google Scholar.

49 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, ‘God's Grandeur,’ in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th Edition, Vol. 2, ed. Abrams, M.H. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), p. 1546Google Scholar.

50 John Paul II, ‘Faith and Reason’, p. 415.

51 Augustine, , Confessions, trans. Chadwick, Henry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 3Google Scholar.

52 Chieh-Yü, Pan, ‘Fan-Piece for Her Imperial Lord,’ trans. Ezra Pound in The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, ed. Weinberger, Eliot (New York: New Directions, 2003), p. 20Google Scholar.