CHAPTER
II - CREDO UT INTELLEGAM
“Wisdom knows all and understands all” (Wis 9:11)
16. Sacred Scripture
indicates with remarkably clear cues how deeply related are the knowledge
conferred by faith and the knowledge conferred by reason; and it is in the
Wisdom literature that this relationship is addressed most explicitly. What
is striking about these biblical texts, if they are read without prejudice, is
that they embody not only the faith of Israel, but also the treasury of
cultures and civilizations which have long vanished. As if by special design,
the voices of Egypt and Mesopotamia sound again and certain features common to
the cultures of the ancient Near East come to life in these pages which are so
singularly rich in deep intuition.
It is no
accident that, when the sacred author comes to describe the wise man, he
portrays him as one who loves and seeks the truth: “Happy the man who meditates
on wisdom and reasons intelligently, who reflects in his heart on her ways and
ponders her secrets. He pursues her like a hunter and lies in wait on her
paths. He peers through her windows and listens at her doors. He camps near her
house and fastens his tent-peg to her walls; he pitches his tent near her and
so finds an excellent resting-place; he places his children under her
protection and lodges under her boughs; by her he is sheltered from the heat
and he dwells in the shade of her glory” (Sir 14:20-27).
For the
inspired writer, as we see, the desire for knowledge is characteristic of all
people. Intelligence enables everyone, believer and non-believer, to reach “the
deep waters” of knowledge (cf. Prov 20:5). It is true that
ancient Israel
did not come to knowledge of the world and its phenomena by way of abstraction,
as did the Greek philosopher or the Egyptian sage. Still less did the good
Israelite understand knowledge in the way of the modern world which tends more
to distinguish different kinds of knowing. Nonetheless, the biblical world has
made its own distinctive contribution to the theory of knowledge.
What is
distinctive in the biblical text is the conviction that there is a profound and
indissoluble unity between the knowledge of reason and the knowledge of faith.
The world and all that happens within it, including history and the fate of
peoples, are realities to be observed, analysed and assessed with all the
resources of reason, but without faith ever being foreign to the process. Faith
intervenes not to abolish reason's autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action,
but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is
the God of Israel who acts. Thus the world and the events of history cannot be
understood in depth without professing faith in the God who is at work in them.
Faith sharpens the inner eye, opening the mind to discover in the flux of
events the workings of Providence.
Here the words of the Book of Proverbs are pertinent: “The human mind plans the
way, but the Lord directs the steps” (16:9).
This is to say that with the light of reason human beings can know which path
to take, but they can follow that path to its end, quickly and unhindered, only
if with a rightly tuned spirit they search for it within the horizon of faith.
Therefore, reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the
capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an
appropriate way.
17. There is thus no
reason for competition of any kind between reason and faith: each contains the
other, and each has its own scope for action. Again the Book of Proverbs points
in this direction when it exclaims: “It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out” (Prov 25:2). In their respective
worlds, God and the human being are set within a unique relationship. In God
there lies the origin of all things, in him is found the fullness of the
mystery, and in this his glory consists; to men and women there falls the task
of exploring truth with their reason, and in this their nobility consists. The
Psalmist adds one final piece to this mosaic when he says in prayer: “How deep
to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I try to count
them, they are more than the sand. If I come to the end, I am still with you”
(139:17-18).
The desire for knowledge is so great and it works in such a way that the human
heart, despite its experience of insurmountable limitation, yearns for the
infinite riches which lie beyond, knowing that there is to be found the
satisfying answer to every question as yet unanswered.
18. We may say, then, that Israel, with
her reflection, was able to open to reason the path that leads to the mystery.
With the Revelation of God Israel
could plumb the depths of all that she sought in vain to reach by way of
reason. On the basis of this deeper form of knowledge, the Chosen People
understood that, if reason were to be fully true to itself, then it must
respect certain basic rules. The first of these is that reason must realize
that human knowledge is a journey which allows no rest; the second stems from
the awareness that such a path is not for the proud who think that everything
is the fruit of personal conquest; a third rule is grounded in the “fear of
God” whose transcendent sovereignty and provident love in the governance of the
world reason must recognize.
In
abandoning these rules, the human being runs the risk of failure and ends up in
the condition of “the fool”. For the Bible, in this foolishness there lies a
threat to life. The fool thinks that he knows many things, but really he is
incapable of fixing his gaze on the things that truly matter. Therefore he can
neither order his mind (Prov 1:7) nor assume a correct
attitude to himself or to the world around him. And so when he claims that “God
does not exist” (cf. Ps 14:1), he
shows with absolute clarity just how deficient his knowledge is and just how
far he is from the full truth of things, their origin and their destiny.
19. The Book of Wisdom contains several
important texts which cast further light on this theme. There the sacred author
speaks of God who reveals himself in nature. For the ancients, the study of the
natural sciences coincided in large part with philosophical learning. Having
affirmed that with their intelligence human beings can “know the structure of
the world and the activity of the elements... the cycles of the year and the
constellations of the stars, the natures of animals and the tempers of wild
beasts” (Wis 7:17,
19-20)—in a word, that he can
philosophize—the sacred text takes a significant step forward. Making his own
the thought of Greek philosophy, to which he seems to refer in the context, the
author affirms that, in reasoning about nature, the human being can rise to
God: “From the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding
perception of their Creator” (Wis
13:5). This is to recognize as a first stage of divine
Revelation the marvellous “book of nature”, which, when read with the proper
tools of human reason, can lead to knowledge of the Creator. If human beings
with their intelligence fail to recognize God as Creator of all, it is not
because they lack the means to do so, but because their free will and their
sinfulness place an impediment in the way.
20. Seen in this light, reason is valued
without being overvalued. The results of reasoning may in fact be true, but
these results acquire their true meaning only if they are set within the larger
horizon of faith: “All man's steps are ordered by the Lord: how then can man
understand his own ways?” (Prov 20:24).
For the Old Testament, then, faith liberates reason in so far as it allows
reason to attain correctly what it seeks to know and to place it within the
ultimate order of things, in which everything acquires true meaning. In brief,
human beings attain truth by way of reason because, enlightened by faith, they
discover the deeper meaning of all things and most especially of their own
existence. Rightly, therefore, the sacred author identifies the fear of God as
the beginning of true knowledge: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge” (Prov 1:7; cf.
Sir 1:14).
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