Theology Annual 23(2002)85-104 Faith and Reason "Fides et Ratio" as The Interpretative Key To The Principal Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II Bruno Forte "Faith" and "reason" are the two terms around which John Paul II builds his reflections on the human being and his/her highest vocation. This is true not only of the encyclical on "Faith and Reason" but also of the entirety of his magisterium as both thinker and as pastor. In order to clarify the meaning of this affirmation it is necessary to understand the meaning of the two terms faith and reason in the light of two backgrounds: the back- ground of the time in which Karol Wojtyla worked, and the other one of his heart. Together they constitute the very core of his “theological biography". It is only in this way that the full mean- ing of these two terms and the motive which John Paul I speaks of as being "like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of the truth"! can be fully understood. 1. John Paul Il, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio, Preface, Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1998, p. 3.86 Theology Annual 23(2002) 1. What reason? The metaphors of modern time In the events of the twentieth century, "reason" is the singular and decisive protagonist: it lies at the very heart of the parable on the modern era, which sees both its apex and decline in this twentieth century. Opening with the triumph of "strong reason", characteristic of the Enlightenment, modemity has led to the widespread diffusion of the experience of fragmentation and non-sense so typical of "weak reason", which has flourished since the fall of ideologies. Succeeding the "lengthy" century, which began with the French Revolution and ended with the out break of the Great War (World War 1), is the so-called "short twentieth century" (E. Hobsbawm), marked by the affirmation of the extreme fruits of totalitarianism and of ideological models, which ultimately led to their downfall and collapse (1989). This process is described by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adomo through a powerful metaphor at the beginning of their Dialectic of Enlightenment: "The fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant."? The Enlightenment - taken in the broadest philosophical sense as a continuous process - had pursued the objective of ridding men and women of all fear and of. rendering to them complete control of their destiny, thanks to boundless faith in the Possibility of reason. Its final outcome - fulfilled through the dramas of the two world wars and the high costs of totalitarianism - can be recognized in the condition of renunciation, in the denial of questions of meaning and the search 2, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment, NY, 1969, p. 3. vasFaith and Reason ..., of Pope Jobn Paul It 97 for the foundation, which is the Condition of th thought". Three stages can be identifi lies at the origin of the crisis of the E the threshold of the third millennium, so-called "weak icd in this Process, which ‘ropean consciousness on Slages which can be traced back to the metaphor of light, darkness and dawn Tespectively 1.1 The light of strong reason and its decline The first stage is characterised by the metaphor of light, which expresses the principal inspiration underlying modernity, which is the pretext of the adult reason to be able to understand and illuminate every thing, According to this pretext, the ability rationally to embrace the world means to make the human person the master of his/her own identity. Emancipation is the dream that pervades all the great processes of transformation in the modern era. The presumption to triumph over every obscurity through the use of reason is expressed by the total visions held of the world, which are the ideologies. Ideology tries to impose the order of reason on the whole of. reality, to the Point of establishing a complete equation between the ideal and the real. It excludes any form of diversity and is by its very nature violent. The dream of totality becomes inexorably totalitarian, It is not by chance, nor is it an accident of time, that all forms of modern ideology have resulted in totalitarian and violent forms. Indeed, it is precisely this historical experience of the violence of totalitarian ideologies that has produced the crisis of the absolute pretexts of "enlightened" reason.88 Theology Annual 23(2002) 1.2 The night of weak reason If adult reason sought to give sense to everything, then the "weak thought" of the post-modern condition does not recognize the possibility of any sense in anything. It is a condition that can be expressed by way of the metaphor of darkness; it is a period of ruin and of failure, of darkness and uncertainty, a period which has, above all, been marked by indifference. For many people, the rejection of the strong and total horizons offered by ideology bears the inability of posing the question about meaning, This has led to the extreme point of a loss of all interest in seeking out the ultimate reasons for human life and death. The extreme face of the epochal crisis of the European consciousness can be associated with the face of "decadence". This means the loss of value, since there is no longer any interest in comparing or measuring oneself to anything. It is in this way that the passion for the truth has been lost. The "strong culture" of ideology shatters into the fragmentation of "weak cultures", in which the loss of hope folds in on itself and every- thing is reduced to the narrow horizon of the individual's own particular. In this way, then, the end to ideologies appears more truly as the pallid avant-guard of the advent of the idol, which is the total relativism of those who no longer have any faith in the power of the truth, and as a result seem incapable and unin- terested in realising the Passage from phenomenon to foundation. This is the extreme face of the crisis surrounding the European consciousness at the close of the "short twentieth century."Faith and Reason ...of Pope Jobn Paul It 89 1.3 The dawn of an open and questioning reason In the analysis of this process, which takes us from the triumph of ‘modern reason to its decadence, we cannot exclude some signs of change and of hope, with which we will associate the metaphor of the dawn. There is a “nostalgia for a perfect and consumed justice" (Max Horkheimer), which will enable us to recognize a sort of search for lost meaning. We are not talking about "une recherche du temps perdu", of an operation based in the past, but rather of a diffused attempt to rediscover a meaning that goes beyond that of ruin and failure, one that enables people to discern a horizon that inspires and moves them. Among the many expressions used in relation to this search we should point out the use of the expression: a rediscovery of the other. We are witnesses to a growing awareness of the need for solidarity, at an interpersonal level, as also at social and international levels. We can see a sort of "nostalgia for the Totally Other" emerging (Max Horkheimer), a rediscovery of the ultimate questions and the ultimate horizon. This outlines the need for a new consensus on ethics to motivate a moral involvement, not for the sake of the benefits that arise from it, but rather for the sake of the good it arouses in itself. The nostalgia that is evident in the crisis of our present time has, therefore, the face of the other, not only the face that is near by and immediate but also of the Other, that is the transcendent foundation of life and of living together. Thus we can say that there are in fact some signs of a return to a Teason that is open to transcending itself and to seeking out the Other.90 Theology Annual 23(2002) 2. What faith? A theological biography It is against the background of the time - described above - that the intellectual and spiritual biography of Karol Wojtyla is found. His life resounds naturally within the historical context in which it has developed and on which it has had considerable influence. His profound identity as thinker and as pastor finds its essence in the strong sign of faith: every aspect of his existence and of his work is characterised by a living and fecund relationship with the Christian God. If Wojtyla, as an alternative to the rationalistic pretexts of ideology, develops a strong sense of the Transcendent, which is characterised by a true and pure mystical experience, in response to the renunciation of the very foundation by the "weak reason", he does not hesitate to propose a thoughtful faith, one which does not flee the challenges of the inquiring or searching intelligence. In both of these attitudes the faith of John Paul II is highly responsible. It never calls on one to step outside of history but is rather very much a part of history, with a precise ethical consciousness. In this way the connotations of the faith, to which his magisterium is testimony, are clearly outlined: a mystical faith, a thoughtful faith and a responsible faith. 2.1 A mystical faith A constant and characteristic motif of the magisterium of the word and life of John Paul II is the sense of the absolute primacy of God. We are not dealing here with merely one element among others, but with a dominant note. We are talkingquestion, Sollicitudo (1991); and finally outlined in light of the Singularity of the Redeemer and of the Trinitarian communion in Redemptoris Missio (1991), Slavorum Apostoli (1985) on the East ‘ern Christians, and Ut unum sint (1995) on Scumenism. In the reflecti ‘on on Mary offered in Redemptoris Mater (1987) the various aspects of the Christian mystery are Sathered together in the dense icon of the Mother of the rei socialis (1988) and Centesimus annus he reflection on ecclesiology, Redeemer, in which everything returns to the work of the92 Theology Annual. 23(2002) Trinity and to the glory of God. From the very beginnings of his research, Karol Wojtyla has borne witness to the strong coincidence of the mystical experience with the truth. Proof of this is evident in his degree thesis on the Doctrine of the Faith according to St. John of the Cross (1948), defended within an academic context - the Dominican one of the Angelicum - marked at that time by the absolute predominance of the neo-scholastic, and therefore towards an elaborate theology which finds its basis in the mystical. It will remain the profound conviction of Wojtyla, man and thinker, that the light necessary to a clear intelligence which desires to discern the divine design for life and history, is drawn from an experience of God, as the following expressions from a great mystic poet, one much loved by Wojtyla, say with the greatest of intensity: "!Oh lamparas de fuego, / en cuyos tespandores / las profundas cavernas del sentido, / que estaba oscuro y ciego, / con extrafios primores / calor y luz dan junto a su Querido!"® Truly, as a significant witness from the "Lumen Orientale" affirms, "it is not the conscience that illuminates the mystery, but the mystery that illuminates the conscience. We can only know, thanks to that which we can never know", 3. St.John of the Cross, Llama de amor vivo, translated: The Living Flame of Zove', 3rd Stanza; "O Lamps of fire! /In whose splendlors / The deep caverns of feeling, / Once obscured and blind, / Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely, Both warmth and light to their Beloved." Kavanagh, The Collected Works of St. John 1966. p. 579, Trans., Kieran of the Cross. London: Nelson, . P. Evdokimoy, La donna e la salvezza del m rondo, Milano : Jaca Book , 1980, p.13.Faith and Reason .., -of Pope John Paul I 93 2.2 A thoughtful faith The strong emphasis on the mystical dimension does not in any way take away the questioning and Searching character of the faith: the faith of John Paul II is and will always remain thoughtful! "Fides nisi cogitetur nulla est" - “if faith does not think it is nothing": these words of Saint Augustine? - quoted in Faith and Reason® - express the profound conviction behind the entire existential and intellectual itinerary of Karol Wojtyla, for whom to think means to continually move from the phenom- enon to the foundation, taking the two terms of this transcendent movement with the utmost seriousness. In the Encyclical Faith and Reason the Pope writes: "We face a great challenge at the end of this millennium to move from phenomenon to foundation, a step as necessary as it is urgent. We cannot stop short at expe- rience alone; even if experience does reveal the human being's interiority and spirituality, speculative thinking must penetrate to the spiritual core and the ground from which it rises."” This concept of thought - which faith can never renounce, if it desires to be as it should be, a faith of historical beings open to the Mystery and entrusted to it - matures in Wojtyla as a result of an encounter with two great authors, to whom he owes his intellec- tual formation. On the one hand we have Thomas Aquinas, whom he got to know in full during his years studying at the Angelicum, and on the other hand we have Edmund Husserl, the father of 5. St. Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, 2, 5: PL 44,963. 6. Faith and Reason, p. 116, 79. 7. Faith and Reason, p. 123, 83.94 Theology Annual 23(2002) Phenomenology, to which the future Pope was to dedicate much research. From Saint Thomas Wojtyla draws on the strong meta- physical question, and therefore the need to base the phenom- enon on the foundation in order to avoid falling into the incon- sistency of much pragmatic and purely functional thought. From Husserl he learns to give full value and attention to the phenomenon, which is also the exclusive key to gaining access to the metaphysical profundities of all that exists. The sobriety of Husserl's phenomenology and the teaching that it gives on attention to others and to things as they appear to us - another peculiar characteristic of Karol Wojtyla - are expressed for example in the following statement from Husserl's Ideas: “Everything originally offered to us in ‘intuition’ is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there."* To stop at phenomeno- logical observation would, however, reduce reality to the all too narrow horizon of that which can only be experienced. This is why true phenomenological intuition points to the essence, that is to say, to the transcendent ground of the phenomenon in the direction of that which profoundly constitutes it in its identity and relevance. It is at this point that St. Thomas' teaching integrates the study of Husserl: the world of beings is consti- tuted in its intimacy by being immanent to each. Here we have the true and ultimate foundation of reality. In a formulation of 8. E, Husserl, /deen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen philosophie, trans. F. Kersten, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. The Hague: Nijhaff, 1982. 1, 24. p44.Faith and Reason ....0f Pope Jobn Paul Il 95 great audacity Thomas affirms that: "Esse autem est illud quod est magis intimum cuilibet, et quod profundius omnibus inest"?. To summarise, then, the ontological level coincides with the profundity of reality. It is that which gives stability and dignity to what exists and which prevents everything being reduced toa transient moment that is inconsistent and empty. However, if the phenomenon is transcended in the direction of the founda- tion in order to draw on its profound source and hidden root, then the foundation is only attainable by means of the phenomenon, through history. No devaluation of the worldly reality is therefore admissible. Thoughtful faith will live, therefore, in a twofold and unique fidelity: faithful to the eternal, but equally faithful to the earth, uniting heaven and earth in one unique movement, transcending toward the ultimate mystery and returning to things and their consistency. 2.3. A responsible faith The third characteristic that qualifies faith in the "theologi- cal biography" of Karol Wojtyla is his being responsible: by this adjective we desire to indicate the ethical relevance of the experience of believing. The polemic of the Reformation against "works" as means of merit and salvation, has favoured a certain separation between a life of faith and an active life. We have arrived at this point on the one hand by way of spiritualism, which is characterised by an evasion of history, and on the other hand by pragmatism, which has, above all, exiled God from the 9. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1. 8 a. 1c.96 Theology Annual. '23(2002) sphere of worldly responsibilities. The presence of Wojtyla, the believer, in history has always been acute, involved, from the years of resistance to Nazism to the years when he faced the daily struggle against militant ideological atheism and communist totalitarianism, to the battle against the ethical emptying of consumerist capitalism. Even in this area there was a thinker at whose school the future Pope was to be formed, namely Max Scheler. In response to the "formalism" of Kantian ethics, which ran the risk of reducing moral behaviour to good intentions, Scheler emphasised the value of a "material ethics", which is attentive to the actual contents of actions, and is far from being limited merely to the intentional, formal aspect. The ethics of values moves in this direction because it recognizes a real criterion in them and not just some abstract and theoretical reference, a criterion that takes on a visible form in the actual living of historical choices and responsibilities. John Paul II has always demonstrated a great interest in the ethical dimension of every option, even those that are apparently more speculative. His fundamental theoretical work, Person and Acting, is a rigorous speculative foundation for the indissoluble relationship of the personal being to its moral acting in the concreteness of decisions. From faith, ethics draws on the ultimate horizon, within which the actual value of penultimate choices is situated and qualified. From ethics, faith draws on the real space from within which it can translate itself into history, as well as the living questions that stimulate the search for fundamental orientations in light of the Absolute, in whose horizon the weight and the value of every act is actually qualified. cd