Faith and Reason

[1]  Vatican I

          In order to correct the errors of fideism and rationalism the Fathers of the First Vatican Council defined the nature of the relationship that exists between faith and reason; and they explained it in this way:  

          The perpetual agreement of the Catholic Church

          has maintained and maintains this too:  that there

          is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only 

          as regards its source, but also as regards it object.

          With regards to the source, we know at the one

          level by natural reason, at the other level by 

          divine faith" [Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap. 4; see 

          Norman P. Tanner, 2:808].

This same truth was defended and reiterated by the Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio.  In the encyclical he spoke about the relationship that naturally exists between knowing and believing, and how faith presupposes the use of reason.  For it is through reason that man is able to bring to light the interconnections between the various mysteries of the faith, and in the process he gains a deeper understanding of the mystery of God revealed in Christ.  Faith proposes to man many truths which reason alone could not discover, but it also confirms truths that can be known by the light of unaided reason, and in this way it helps to bring clarity to man's knowledge of the natural world itself.  Reason can know various principles, things like the relationship that exists between cause and effect, the goal or purpose of actions in the moral order, and the fact that man is a free being, to name just a few.  Faith is not necessary in order to know these things, but faith can bring clarity of mind to these principles and help to establish them more firmly as fundamental principles of truth.  As it concerns the natural gift of the light of reason, it is proper to say that it is perfected by faith, because faith enables reason to investigate matters that are beyond its natural abilities.  Both faith and reason are gifts of God, and as such they are ordered to each other, and complement each other; for just as a man and a woman complete and complement each other in the covenant of marriage, so too, faith and reason fulfill and complement each other.  It is important to keep the dictum of Augustine in mind, for as he said, "I believe in order to understand, and I understand the better to believe" [CCC, no. 158].

          When looking at the Sacred Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church with a primary focus on the events of salvation history, it is possible to use the gifts of divine faith and natural reason in order to understand more fully the interconnectedness of the things revealed by God in the Old and New Testaments.  In this way the Divine Pedagogy is revealed to man, because God reveals Himself and His will in a manner suited to man's own abilities, and this is a part of the condescension of God.  In other words, God comes to man and enters into a personal relationship with him, and does so at a level that man can comprehend.  This idea can be called a principle of incarnation, for just as God enters into the world in the New Testament by becoming man, so too He reveals Himself in the Old Testament in a manner suited to human comprehension.  Thus, revelation itself bears the mark of the incarnation even before the Christ event occurs.  This is true because God uses human language to reveal Himself to man, and so things that far exceed the ability of reason and language to convey, are nevertheless in some mysterious way really communicated and in some sense the realities are contained in words used to describe them.  As a consequence of this, it follows that God's revelation is something that man can investigate using his natural rational abilities.  Thus even when one looks at the supernatural revelation of God contained in scripture, one is able to use reason to reflect upon the word of God in order to discover deeper meanings within the events recorded.  By reflecting and meditating upon the sacred page man is able to see more clearly how God's plan unfolds through time and in this way the divine pedagogy itself becomes evident and it in turn reveals something about who God is in Himself.  Reason can grasp the fact that the events recorded in scripture are not simply factual episodes of raw data to be memorized, but instead they are works of God that reveal who He is and make it possible for man to have a personal relationship with Him.

[2]  Vatican II

          Scripture, Tradition and the living Magisterium of the Church are structured in such a way that each one is necessary, and that all three of them stand together forming in some sense a single complexus.  It is the inspired Scriptures that relate to us in writing the great deeds of God which He wrought in order to create and sustain His people; and it should also be noted that Sacred Tradition participates in the communication of these saving deeds, because the liturgy of the Church, which is the manifestation and re-actualization of the events of sacred history, empowers man to participate in the foundational events of the covenant with God.  The living Magisterium of the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him, understood in a diachronic and not merely a synchronic fashion, possesses the sure charism of truth and authoritatively expounds and explains the meaning of the revelation which God has entrusted to the Church.  That is why the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council said that:

          The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the

          Word of God, whether in its written form on in the

          form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living 

          teaching office of the Church alone.  Its authority in

          this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. 

          Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of

          God, but is its servant.  . . . It is clear, therefore, that

          in the supremely wise arrangement of God, Sacred

          Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of 

          the Church are so connected and associated that one 

          of them cannot stand without the others.  Working 

          together, each in its own way under the action of the 

          one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the

          salvation of souls" [Vatican II, Dei Verbum, no. 10; see

          Fr. Austin Flannery, 755-756]

          In addressing the Church's understanding of inspiration, I want to point out the analogy that exists between the sacramental economy and the sacred scriptures.  Just as the sacraments are visible signs of an inward spiritual grace, so too the words of scripture are an outward sign of the events that they record.  Thus, the words of scripture in some sense contain and convey the realities that they relate and signify.  The sacramental nature of scripture is so powerful that Pope Pius XII was able to draw an analogy between the inspiration of scripture and the incarnation of the Word, as he puts it:  "Just as the substantial Word of God became like men in all things except sin; so the words of God in human language became like human speech in ever respect except error" [Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Divino Afflante Spiritu, no. 37; see Claudia Carlen, 4:73].  Clearly, the Catholic understanding of inspiration is very complex, and thus it cannot be reduced to a simple mechanistic understanding of inspiration.  When God inspired the human authors to write what they did, He used their own natural abilities; and so they did not write as mere automatons.  In addition to this it is important to remember that they wrote only that which God wanted consigned to writing in the sacred text, and that the scriptures are preeminently the Word of God, because God is their author.  The fact that God is the author of sacred scripture does not mean that the men who wrote the various books included in the canon of scripture are not authors as well, because clearly they are, but God is the primary author.   In the doctrine of inspiration one can see that grace perfects nature, and that the sacred authors used their natural abilities in order to convey the truth of God's word. 

          In drawing out the meanings contained within the sacred text, the Church's Magisterium teaches that one must interpret scripture in the light of the same Spirit who inspired it, and in doing this there are three fundamental criteria to be kept in mind:  (1)  it must be interpreted in the light of the Church's living tradition, (2) the exegete must also keep in mind the content and unity of the sacred text, and (3) it is important to bear in mind the analogy of faith, that is, the interrelationship that exists between the truths of the faith and how they shed light upon each other.  It is important also to keep in mind the two senses inherent in the scriptural texts, that is, the literal sense and the spiritual sense.  The literal sense concerns the literal meaning of the events recorded in the Bible, while the spiritual sense leads us to the theological and spiritual realities intended by God who inspired scripture for man's salvation.  The spiritual sense itself can be divided into three parts:  the allegorical sense, which concerns the events recorded in scripture in reference to the person and work of Jesus Christ, and to their fulfillment in Him; the tropological sense, which concerns the way to live a proper moral life; and the anagogical sense, which deals with man's last end, that is, with the eschatological fulfillment of the mystery of Christ.  One additional point should be made, as far as the literal sense is concerned, it was not my intention to say that there are no spiritual or theological meanings to be found at that level of the text, because the literal sense can be profoundly theological.  Instead, my intention was to make a distinction, especially as it concerns the Old Testament, between the text taken at face value and the Christological signification of the various texts which find their fulfillment in Christ, and which point to Him as a paradigmatic figure.

[3]  Theology and Economy

          In his book, The Nature and Mission of Theology, Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out that the Church's normative theologians are the authors of sacred scripture, and thus scripture itself has a central place in the life of the Church, and especially in the liturgy.  Theologians must not view the Bible as a mere source from which they can pull out proof texts for the dogmatic teachings of the Church; instead, as the Second Vatican Council taught, scripture must be seen as the focus of theology, and that focus should be understood in an holistic manner, taking into account the whole scope of sacred revelation as it is contained in the written word of God, and lived by the Church.  Faith is by its nature one, but there can be many theological expressions of this one faith within the Church.  Thus, faith and theology are not synonymous.  Theology, in the proper sense of the term, concerns God Himself, and the scriptures reveal to us God's communication of Himself to man through the economy of salvation, and this economic Trinity images the immanent Trinity of God's inner life and being.  In other words, the oekonomia reveals things about theologia of God's life.  There is a mutual penetration of these two concepts, so much so that it can be said that the divine oekonomia reveals to us the inner workings of God's life and being, while the immanent divine relations, that is, the theologia sheds light upon the revelation of God in sacred history.

Covenants and Grace

[1]  Creation and the Divine Pedagogy

          Beginning with the book of Genesis the importance of covenants becomes clear.  It is in the creation narrative itself, that is, in the creation of the Sabbath that the idea of covenant is first made known.  It should also be noted that the Sabbath covenant is made both with Israel and with the whole world.  A covenant is the creation of a kinship bound, and it can be made between two men or groups of men, but it can also be made between God and man.  In latter case it is God who stoops down in order to elevate man into a familial relationship with Him.  It involves the taking of an oath, which then creates a familial connection between the two parties, and word for this making of an oath is related to the word seven, that is, to the Sabbath covenant made by God in the creation.  Covenants are all about family ties, they are about the creation and maintenance of familial relationships; thus the covenants made in scripture between God and man are concerned with creating, extending, and maintaining the family of God.

          The series of covenants made in sacred scripture manifest God's plan for humanity.  They show that God is concerned for His creation and that He intends to empower it, and man in particular, to participate in His very life and glory.  God condescends to enter into the world in order to lift it up into Himself, and in this way He becomes more than the man's Creator, He becomes his Father.  Christ as the only begotten Son of God, who is God by nature, establishes a kinship bond with man, and in the process He draws man up into God and makes all men sons in the Son.  The series of covenants in succession reveal the divine pedagogy, that is, they show the unfolding of God's plan for man and progressively build upon each other, while also moving from a particular or national interaction between God and man, to a more universal interaction between them.  In addition, it should be noted that each covenant is familial in nature, so that God can be seen as fathering His people throughout time.

[2]  A Series of Covenants

          The first covenant is made with Adam, and in it Adam acts as God's son, and through his bond of marriage with Eve, the first family of God is created.  Through Adam's marital union with Eve, he acts as a mediator between God and his family, and this means that he can rightly be seen as a priest.  In addition, his own fatherhood images God's loving care for His children, thus one can already see the imaging of God in man's natural familial bonds established in the creation itself and signified in the Sabbath rest.  This can be seen as one of the many manifestations of how grace perfects and elevates the natural order. 

          In the Noahic covenant God acts in order to restore and cleanse a world that had fallen so profoundly into sin and vice that it practically called for a new creation.  In this covenant Noah acts as the head and father of his household.  After God has destroyed the wickedness of the world in the flood, the waters subside and Noah offers sacrifice as a priest of God for the blessings he has received.  God then promises that He will never destroy the world again by flooding it, and He gives Noah the sign of the rainbow as a reminder of this divine promise.

          In Abram, whose name is later changed to Abraham by God Himself, one can see the expansion of the covenant to the level of a clan.  The act of circumcision initiates and signifies this covenant, and circumcision can also be seen as a sacrificial act, which affects Abraham in a very intimate manner, because it visibly alters his generative organ.  In the Book of Genesis God gives Abraham a threefold promise, that is, He promises to make Abraham a great nation, give him a great name, and finally, He promises to bless all nations through Abraham and his seed.

          The Abrahamic cycle of readings unfolds through a series of three covenants that correspond to this threefold promise.  Thus, there is a prefiguration of the later covenants within the Abrahamic promises.  The first blessing in Genesis 15, as indicated above, concerns God's promise to make Abraham into a great nation.  In that pericope Abraham offers sacrifice and God moves between the parts of the animals as a flaming torch and this acts as a covenant making ceremony.  God accepts Abraham's offering and makes a solemn oath to that effect thus sealing the covenant.  This raises God's promise to Abraham to the level of a covenant.  Additionally, the cutting of the animals into parts symbolically indicates what will happen to Abraham should he fail to keep the covenant.  In Genesis 17 God raises the second promise, which concerned giving Abraham a great name, to the level of a covenant through the act of ritual circumcision.  This act, like the earlier offering, is itself a type of sacrifice and God accepts this offering, which visibly marks Abraham and which also signifies his bond of union with God.  Also, like the first sacrifice, circumcision is in some sense a self-curse, because just as a part of Abraham has been cut off in the ritual act itself, so too if he should fail to keep the covenant with God, he will be cut off.  It is during these events that God changes Abraham's name from Abram to Abraham.  The final promise is raised to the level of a covenant through the events surrounding the binding of Isaac, the events in which Abraham harkens to God's command and does not withhold his son, his only son, from God.  Because he has done this he is blessed by God, and God covenants Himself and then promises to extend this blessing to the whole world.

          In the Mosaic covenant there is a movement from a clan or tribal relationship with God to a national one.  God identifies Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in this way He shows that He is building upon the previous covenants, without contradicting them, but by fulfilling them and moving them on to a new stage in the development of the life of the People of God with their Father and creator.  In the events of the Exodus God reveals that He is making the people of Israel into a holy nation and a royal priesthood, and that they are to offer sacrifice to Him, a sacrifice of those animals that are held to be sacred by the Egyptians; or in other words, a sacrifice of the animals that represent the Egyptian gods.  This is called normative inversion, which is a way of saying that the religion of Israel is like a counter-religion to that of Egypt, and that it is in fact the complete rejection of Egyptian religion and piety.  Once the people are in the wilderness God gives them His law, and in doing this He uses Moses as His mediator and as a judge over the people of Israel.  Thus, the Mosaic covenant is a covenant of law, which makes the people of Israel into a nation in the proper sense of the term.  Finally, the sign of this covenant is the Passover, which is seen as the foundational event of the Old Testament people of Israel. 

          The Davidic Covenant is centered on the Davidic dynasty, for the Davidic king is supposed to reign forever upon the throne given to him by God, in order to bring blessings to all mankind.  This universal blessing is fulfilled in Christ, who as the Son of David rules for all eternity.  So, as men are brought into the Catholic Church it becomes clear that they are united in a New Covenant, a covenant of universal scope and power, with the true Davidic King, Jesus Christ.  Thus, the full import of the Davidic Covenant is revealed and completed in the New Covenant.

          The Church has always insisted on the unity of the Old and the New Covenants, for as the ancient saying goes, "It is often and firmly indicated that fear belongs rather to the Old Testament just as love does to the New, although the New is hidden in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New" [Augustine, Questiones in Heptateuchum 2:73; see Boniface Ramsey, 14:125].  Thus the Old and New Testaments must be seen as a single complex reality.  That is why the Church always rejected any attempt to get rid of the Old Testament revelation, and why she has always insisted that the two testaments are both from God and are both divinely inspired.  The liturgical mystagogy shows forth this truth, because through the visible sacramental rites of the Church, the invisible grace of God is made accessible to man.  The liturgy, as the sacramental re-living of salvation history, is the work of God continued throughout time in the Body of Christ, the Church.  All of the sacraments, and Eucharist in particular, render present the Paschal Mystery of Christ, and thus they continue the work of our redemption.  The mystagogical catechesis of the Church Fathers was meant to show the coherence of the mysteries revealed in both testaments and how they relate to and fulfill one another in the Church's sacred liturgy.

[3]  Grace Perfects Nature and Restores Man's Likeness to God

          The theology of the early Fathers often developed in opposition to heretical notions about the relationship between God and the world and between faith and reason.  The Fathers used the sources of the Church's knowledge of God, that is, the sacred scriptures and the Church's rule of faith, in order to refute the positions taken by the various heretical groups.  St. Irenaeus in his magnum opus Adversus Haereses focused the majority of his attention on the refutation of the various Gnostic sects that arose in the second century [see ANF 1:309-567].  Gnosticism predated Christianity and attached itself to Christianity as a type of syncretistic hybrid.  In order to refute the Gnostics, St. Irenaeus espoused a biblical theology founded on the recognition of the permanent validity of the revelation of God in the Old Testament, and of the unity that exists between the two testaments.  In opposition to the Gnostics St. Irenaeus asserted that the God revealed to the Patriarch's is one and the same with the God revealed in the person and life of Jesus Christ.  He rejected the dualism of the Gnostics and asserted that God is creator of both the material world and of the immaterial or spiritual world.  He also asserted that man is a single composite being, or to use the Aristotelian term, a hylomorphic being, and so any type of dualism in relation to man or the world, which held that there was a good God who made the spiritual world, and an evil God who made material things, is by definition foreign to the Church's rule of faith and to the revelation of God found in sacred scripture.

          St. Athanasius, the great defender of Nicene Orthodoxy, fought against the Arian heresy throughout his life, and suffered greatly in the process.  He recognized the dangers inherent within the Arian understanding of God, Christ, and of salvation itself, and so he wrote and worked vociferously in defense of the full divinity of the Eternal Word in opposition to the views of the Arians who saw Word as a created being.  St. Athanasius realized that the Son had to be co-essential with the Father if the Son was going to be able to save mankind.  Because no created being could on its own save humanity, only God could do that, and so God became man in order to redeem man, that is, God became man in order to deify man.  Only the uncreated Creator could overcome the barrier between the created world and Himself.  The Arians failed to grasp the true meaning of the revelation of God in Christ, and that is why St. Athanasius affirmed the eternal generation of the Son from the Father's essence.

          Augustine fought a battle on three fronts.  He defended the truth against the Manicheans, the Pelagians and the Donatists.  In doing this he had to emphasize the fact that God is all good, and related to this he had to emphasize that creation itself, as the Book of Genesis clearly teaches, is good as well.  The Manicheans were dualists and held that good and evil were co-eternal principles, but Augustine, following the teaching of scripture, the Cappadocians, and the neo-Platonists, taught that evil and sin are not essential things, but are negations, that is, that they are a relative absence of the good in the will of the creature.  Thus, evil cannot fulfill man in any sense, because to perform evil actions is to embrace nothingness.  Augustine also had to defend the primacy of grace over nature.  Thus reminding man that he cannot come into communion with God by his own natural powers alone.  In order to come to a living faith in God, one must receive the grace of God, which then empowers him to make an act of faith.  In rejecting Pelagianism, Augustine was rejecting an exaggerated naturalism.  Augustine's dealings with the Donatists concerned the nature of the Church's unity and the proper understanding of the nature of ministerial actions.  The Donatists confused the subjective holiness of the minister with the valid and efficacious celebration of the sacraments.  Augustine pointed out that Christ is the true priest and that the ordained minister acts in His person, and thus the personal holiness or lack of holiness on the part of the earthly minister cannot effect the validity of the sacramental rite.  Of course it goes without saying that for the sake of the minister's own soul, he should be in a state of grace when he celebrates the sacraments, but the validity of the sacraments is not effected by his personal sins.

          Grace builds upon nature, thus it heals, perfects and elevates nature, without destroying it.  Nature is ordered to the reception of grace, so although they are different, they are coordinate principles and that is why grace completes and fulfills nature.  Both the Fathers of the Church and the Scholastic theologians understood grace as the gift of the divine life imparted to man through the mediation of Christ.  One of the earliest expressions of this truth is found in the writings of St. Irenaeus, in a book called The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, where he indicates that man is created in the image of God because of the predestined incarnation of the eternal Son of God; and then speaks of the likeness to God which Adam lost through the original sin, as being restored by Christ's obedience to the Father [see J. Robinson, 80 and 89-90].  As he sees it the unregenerate man is in the image of God, but not in His likeness, but once man is baptized the likeness to God (i.e., in virtuous activity) lost by sin is restored and man is once again a Triadological being, composed of body, soul, and the Spirit of God, which animates him unto everlasting life.  This idea expresses the view of grace in the Catholic tradition, that is, the idea that grace perfects nature without destroying it.  Grace empowers man to act in a supernatural way.  One could say that the life of grace involves the elevation of man into the very life and energy of God, and that is why the Fathers speak of divine filiation as the deification of man.  Clearly then, what Christ is by nature, man becomes by grace; and that means that man becomes a son of God in the only begotten Son of God.  This involves the restoration of the supernatural and preternatural gifts lost in the fall.  The restoration of these gifts, heals, perfects, and elevates man into a state of life that exceeds nature, but does so without destroying nature; and in the process man receives the gift of a familial bond with God.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Claudia Carlen, IHM.  The Papal Encyclicals 1740-1981.  (Ann Arbor, MI:  The Pierian Press, 1990).  5 Volumes.

Fr. Austin Flannery.  Vatican Council II:  The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents.  (New York:  Costello Publishing Company, 1987).

Scott Hahn.  A Father Who Keeps His Promises:  God's Covenant Love in Scripture.  (Cincinnati:  Servant – an imprint of Franciscan Media, 1998).

Pope John Paul II.  Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio.  (Boston:  St. Paul Books and Media, 1998).

Boniface Ramsey and John E. Rotelle (Editors).  The Works of St. Augustine:  A Translation for the 21st Century.  (New York:  New City Press, 1990).  44 Volumes.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.  The Nature and Mission of Theology.  (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1995).

Joesph Cardinal Ratzinger.  Principles of Catholic Theology.  (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1987).

Alexander Roberts (Editor).  Ante-Nicene Fathers.  (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).  10 Volumes.

J. Armitage Robinson.  St. Irenaeus: The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.  (New York:  The MacMillan Company, 1920).

Norman P. Tanner, S.J.  Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils.  (London:  Sheed and Ward Limited, 1990).  2 Volumes.

Catechism of the Catholic Church.  (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1994).

Abbreviations used in citations for some multi-volume works:

          ANF:  Ante-Nicene Fathers

          CCC:  Catechism of the Catholic Church

Faith, Reason, Covenants and Grace in Catholic Theology

by Steven Todd Kaster

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Theology 602:  Theological Foundations

Dr. Scott Hahn

5 May 2004 (revised 31 July 2021)

Copyright © 2004-2024 Steven Todd Kaster