(46/62; 90/111). Agnosticism withholds judgment on the existence of God (5/14), while atheistic humanism denies the existence of God as a block to the maturity of humankind (46/62), and pantheism claims that everything together is God (80/101). On the other side of the ledger are fideism, biblicism, and radical traditionalism (52/69; 55/73–74). Fideism refers to the position of those who accept absolutes by reason of their religious belief system and reject the work of reason. Biblicism narrows the belief system to what the Hebrew-Christian Bible is thought to teach, radical traditionalism to what has been taught in the past. All these forms either distrust or place unwarranted limits on reason. With a distrust of full-fledged reason goes reliance upon individual feeling regarding the most fundamental things.
The pope discerns in all of these movements a denial of the competency of reason, except as merely instrumental reason, as a tool to get what we want. But there are also positions which affirm that competency. He singles out three that he finds inadequate: rationalism, ontologism (52/69), and eclecticism (86/108). The term eclecticism is derived from the Greek for “selection.” It refers to a position that accepts truths wherever they might be found, but without a comprehensive view of the compatibility of the frameworks within which they have been formulated. Rationalism claims the omni-competence of reason and its superiority to faith, though (for example, in Hegel) it is not necessarily opposed to the truths of faith. Ontologism involves the claim that in the notion of Being (Greek on, genitive ontos) we intuit God himself. John Paul also points to “some forms of idealism” that attempt to transform faith into reason (45/62), though he recommends the idealism of Rosmini, who had been condemned for ontologism (59/77). Idealism holds that there is nothing outside of mind, at least outside the mind of God.
2.
One problem involved in most of these movements is the problem of the fragmentation of human experience. A vision of the Whole is lacking and, in most cases, denied. Metaphysics, as the discipline, based upon the all-inclusive notion of Being, which aims to ponder the most fundamental and comprehensive principles, is ignored or denied (83/104). The pope calls for a rehabilitation of reason as critical and constructive, aiming at a metaphysical view of the Whole that is coherent, systematic, and organic (4/12). Against the general cultural denial of the competence of reason aimed at the Whole, the pope exhorts contemporary thinkers to have confidence in reason (6/16) and to develop a philosophy rooted in the notion of Being (97/119). Against fideism, biblicism, and radical traditionalism, he speaks for the autonomy of reason, its being a law (nomos) unto itself (autos), governed by its own intrinsic principles which cannot be dictated to from the outside. This is a theme that appears throughout the encyclical as one of its central claims (13/23; 14/24; 75/94; 77/97; 45/61).
John Paul sees metaphysics or the philosophy of being as involving the basic principles of noncontradiction, causality, and finality (4/12). What first occurs in intellectual awareness is the notion of Being as a notion of unrestricted scope: outside of being there is nothing, and the notion of Being concerns everything about everything. The principle of noncontradiction follows from the notion of Being: whatever is is such that it cannot both have and not have the same property at the same time and in the same respect. This is the basis for all rationality. What is claimed in one area of experience, e.g., in physics, cannot contradict what is claimed in another area, e.g., in moral experience or in the Bible. If there appears to be a contradiction, we have to learn to wait and work—for centuries if necessary—for a more comprehensive way of understanding. The principle of causality follows from experience: that nothing finite is the cause of its own being. The principle of finality (a.k.a., teleology from the Greek telos, as end) also follows from experience: that every agent acts for an end or purpose (Latin finis). The three principles together form the bases for a comprehensive metaphysical view.
3.
Though he sees the deficiencies of the modern philosophies listed above, nonetheless the pope cautions that they also contain “precious insights” which we neglect at our peril (48/64). In particular, he underscores the historical character of thought by distinguishing between enduring truths and historically conditioned formulations, and he sees a growth in the adequacy of formulations through time (95/117). That is linked to a legitimate pluralism of philosophies as differing angles on the Whole which calls for dialogue and not simply condemnation. He exhorts us to an extension of the dialogue from an exclusively intra-Western focus to one that includes Eastern thought as well (7072/88–92). And because human beings are by nature explorers, the quest for understanding never ceases (64/83).
What does that mean for the faith tradition? The pope reaches back to the Bible to point out the role of reason in the wisdom literature (16/29) and St. Paul’s dialogue with the Greek philosophers. The latter involved both an acceptance of the quest for God and a caution not to be misled by inadequate views (24/47). The pope goes on to show the assimilation of Platonic philosophy in thinking through revelation on the part of the Church Fathers and medieval Doctors. The latter transformed theology through the assimilation of Aristotle as well, reaching a high point in St. Thomas Aquinas. (In succeeding chapters we will examine the assimilation of Platonism in Augustine and of Aristotelianism and Platonism in Aquinas.) One of Aquinas’s basic principles was that grace presupposes and perfects nature (43/58). His appreciation of the integrity of nature bypassed what the pope views as an unnatural tendency to negate the world and its values which persists as a noxious strain in Christianity (43/59). (Readers of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov can see this in the monk Fr. Ferapont as an archetypal world-negating figure. Such negation is the main target for Friedrich Nietzsche’s atheistic critique of Christianity.) As regards theology, for Aquinas revelation presupposes reason in that God speaks to humans who are defined as rational animals.
The God who reveals himself in history is the same God who gave us reason (34/47). Faith demands that the rational being seek to understand its belief: the truths of revelation are to be understood in the light of reason (35/48). The pope cites St. Anselm: fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. He also cites St. Augustine: credo ut intelligam, I believe that I might understand. And he refers to the unusually strong words of St. Augustine that a thoughtless faith is nothing (79/99)—rather strong words, indeed!
When we take up the Bible as the record of revelation, we understand it in terms of our own experience. The problem with biblical fundamentalism is the poverty of reflective self-understanding exhibited by its practitioners as well as a failure to understand the peculiar literary form and role of each of the books of the Bible. As Aristotle said, human beings cannot avoid philosophizing; their only options are to do it well or poorly—that is, attend carefully and reflectively to experience or attend casually and unreflectively. Belief does not excuse one from careful and comprehensive reflection on experience. And that is just what philosophy at its best is. Both the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church understood that. They spoke of certain rationally discernible prolegomena fidei, certain prerequisites to faith such as the existence of God as source of revelation and the credibility of the Bible itself as putative divine revelation (67/85–86). And they saw that revelation, far from being antithetical to reason, is an invitation for reason to extend its scope (14/24). That extension is theology as a logically consistent body of knowledge (66/84). It presupposes “reason formed and educated to concept and argument” (77/97).
4.
The encyclical hearkens back to a recovery of tradition initiated in modern times by Leo XIII’s 1879 encyclical, Aeterni Patris, which called for a renewed study of Scholastic thought, especially though not exclusively that of Thomas Aquinas (57/76). In subsequent papal teaching, this had the unfortunate consequence of adopting Thomistic philosophy as official Catholic philosophy and requiring the defense of the 24 Thomistic Theses by all Catholic teachers of philosophy and theology. That requirement denied the autonomy of philosophy and turned Catholic professors into rationalizers of Thomistic teaching rather than responsible and independent thinkers. John Paul II expressly repudiates that (though prudently avoiding the claim that he is overturning previous papal authority): there is no longer any official Catholic philosophy (49/66; 78/98). When the defense of Thomistic Theses view dominated, there was a lack of
