Review of Pope Benedict XVI’s Address to the Science Faculty at Regensburg University

In his address to the science faculty at Regensburg University Pope Benedict XVI stressed the importance of “broadening our concept of reason and its application”. In this review I will answer the question of why the Holy Father thinks a broadening is necessary and what form does this “broadening” take.

What the Holy Father proposes in his presentation is a blueprint for the re-evangelization of Europe. The Holy Father correctly identifies as a key element for this re-evangelization the Church’s need to engage and ultimately enlist academia in this task. This is one reason why there needs to be a broadening of our concept of reason. The universities have excluded the concept of faith in a Christian God as reasonable and the metaphysical sciences as legitimate science. In addition, Pope Benedict XVI recognizes the threat of the Muslim faith and its history of spreading faith by the sword. In this area a broadening is also necessary, but the type of broadening is more basic and fundamental in the case of Muslims. The primary form this broadening should take, however, is the reintroduction into the university setting theological reason and philosophical thought based on the idea of a Supreme Being as a science and the questions the Christian faith poses as reasonable.

Pope Benedict XVI wishes to stress that this reintegration of faith and reason has to occur, but it is not a return to a faith over reason in which a religious belief completely discounts scientific discovery if that discovery does not coincide with the current religious understanding. The pope proposes a new synthesis and interrelationship of the two. Science has the ability to inform religion precisely with the new discoveries it encounters. Each discovery has the potential to give us a deeper understanding of the nature of man, the universe, and God. Conversely religion will inform science about what their discovery can tell us as well as the proper use of the discovery. This is turn will lead to even greater scientific discovery.

Pope Benedict XVI anticipates several objections and has to overcome them in order to engage academia. He overcomes one objection and addresses another by the use of the dialogue between Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian. He effectively shows that the use of the sword is an unreasonable way to spread faith and rejects the use of violence as an acceptable way to enter into a discourse on faith and God. This effectively disavows not only the Muslim historical and current use of violence, but the violence used by some individual Christians in the past to force the Christian beliefs on others. By this denouncing it is made very clear that instead of fear and violence the pope challenges Muslims to lay aside their violent tendencies and engage the Church and the European cultures with the use of the reasonableness of their faith. This sets the “battlefield” of reason as the place where all who seek the Truth should engage each other on the questions of science, religion and our humanity, especially as they interrelate. He also challenges academia to meet the Catholic Christian faith and indeed all religious traditions on this same “battlefield” of reason. The pope goes so far as to say that not only is it contrary to religious faith not to act with reason, but it is contrary to human nature and the very nature of God! There are many leaders within the Muslim faith and some within Muslim academia who can influence the Muslim peoples to take a different stance in the way they spread their faith, especially as the general population in Muslim and Muslim dominated countries becomes more educated.

The next problem the pope has to deal with is the prevailing attitude in universities that in order for something to fall into the arena of science it must be measurable. The tendency in universities is to have science faculties that only include the empirical sciences and exclude the metaphysical sciences as true science. The Holy Father counters this thought with the idea that the metaphysical sciences are entirely reasonable and philosophy in particular is not dependent on positivistic reasoning for its validity. He does so in several different ways.

First he appeals to his past experience as a teacher at the university level. He recounted his time as a teacher at the University of Bonn and noted that even with some serious differences of opinion the different faculties nonetheless agreed that the right use of reason was the responsibility of all faculties. On this common ground the idea of asking about the reasonableness of the Christian faith and the existence and nature of God by the two theological faculties at the university was accepted as a part of scientific discipline which belongs properly in a university setting.

The Holy Father also appeals to history. There is an historical unity between faith and reason which began hundreds of years before the establishment of Christianity. Since the beginning of the modern era there has been a deliberate separation of faith and reason, first by the Reformers, then by liberal theologians, and currently by cultural pluralism. If, however, we peer into the Jewish roots of Christianity we understand that the uniting of faith and reason had been going on since the era of Alexander the Great during a time referred to as the Hellenistic period. The best of the Greek thought and the unique Jewish understanding of a transcendent uncreated God sparked new insights into the nature of God and of man. This unity of the two is evident in the Septuagint. This deeper understanding laid the groundwork necessary for the birth and spread of Christianity. He insists that the throughout the history of Christianity the use of reason existed as an indelible characteristic of the Christian faith and in particular Catholic Christianity. Far from being a simple adherence to a faith that has no intellectual merit the Christian faith and Europe owes its very existence to this unity which finds both its beginning and its culmination in the Logos or Word of God, Jesus. The very word Logos means reason and word. This Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, is creative and capable of self communication precisely in the realm of reason. The pope wishes to stress to the faculty that Christianity is rooted in the intellectual pursuit of Truth and that this intellectual pursuit was and is the will of God. It is not merely a Greek inculturation of the Christian faith. He points directly to God as the Logos revealed in Scripture and Scripture itself as solid evidence that this is true. There is an indelible mark placed upon Greek thought by Christianity and Christianity has an indelible mark placed upon it by Greek thought. The stripping of Greek influences from the intellectual pursuit of faith has caused severe damage to faith and mankind. The stripping of Christian faith from Greek thought has done severe damage to science, human thought and mankind

The result of this dehellenization of Christianity is both a kind of anti-evangelization and de-humanization. When you take human reason out of faith it becomes very difficult to answer scientific questions that are posed challenging the assertions sola scriptura/sola-fides Christians make about science and of our humanity. In the face of evidence that is available to modern man from the different sciences, and especially prehistory, the Christian who holds to sola scriptura/sola fides is at a loss to explain how this evidence coincides with his Christian understanding of the universe and how this furthers our understanding of ourselves as human beings made in the image and likeness of God. The answers he resorts to are a rooted in legalistic view that the bible is a strict historical book in the modern western sense. Therefore if it says it in the bible then it is an historical fact. When the Scripture alone/faith alone Christian is asked about any scientific evidence that seems to contradict his position he is either at a loss to explain, refers to his unwavering faith that the Bible is an historical document not to be questioned, or purports that God deliberately deceived us in order to test our faith. This type of response is untenable to a reasonable person. For example: on the question of God testing us in this way, this would mean that God is a God of deception and if He is then how can we as mere human beings ever know when He is trying to deceive us and when He is not. This is contrary to the entirety of Scripture where God has shown that His desire is to reveal Himself to us. This is contrary to His nature as shown by Jesus’ (The Logos) humbling Himself by taking on human flesh so that He could teach us in a very public way about the Father and then dying on the Cross in order to enable us to live the life He had revealed to us. When the inquisitor hears the explanation given by the solo scriptura/solo fides Christian, which is really an avoidance of the question posed, he thus labels the Christian and Christianity as unreasonable and dismisses him, thus losing the opportunity to pass on an authentic understanding of the faith.

On the flip side of the coin an intellect poorly formed by faith or not informed at all reduces faith and religion to a practical matter. Most individuals, even atheists, can see the good that the religion has done for the world. Unfortunately there are a good number of Christians that do great work for their communities, but they do it because to them the practical social teachings of the Church is not connected to a relationship with God, their Church or their fellow man. They see it as more their civic duty rather than the work God has given them to do. This type of Christian is not interested in bringing their fellow man into relationship with God because they do not have a grasp of what that means and to them the works are what is important. Generally you will not see a reasonable conversation about faith entered into by this individual out of sheer ignorance, a denial of the Truth of faith, or out of his misplaced concern in offending anyone. Atheists will not discourage even the most faithful Christian (those Christians who do the work out of love of God and their fellow man) in their “civic” duty for the practical reasons that if the religions of the world will take care of the poor, for example, the poor will be less of a burden for the rest of society, especially since most of the work done is voluntary.  They also can see that Christians for the most part are non-violent, reasonably good neighbors, try to follow some kind of moral code, and generally are acceptable fellow citizens and neighbors. Therefore they can see logical and practical reasons for keeping religion around for the “uninformed”, but do not see any particular personal reason to believe in God. After all you do not need faith to do good works. This is one of the reasons why faith and reason must be reintroduced to each other in centers for higher leaning. This type of atheist primarily resides in the west; however in the east atheism has taken on an ominous nature.

Among the greatest tragedies that has arisen from this separation of faith and reason and subsequent de-humanization of mankind has come at the hands of the powerful who have established forms of government which are at best agnostic and at worst atheistic. After all who is to say what is true and what is not if truth is based on any number of ever changing variables. If the State becomes god, then the state determines truth and then has the “right’ to determine who will live and who will die. This has lead to the full scale slaughter of millions of human beings by atheistic forms of government and their founders. The communist in Russia and China have either massacred or starved hundreds of millions. These are the most prominent examples, but there are numerous others that are equally brutal in kind if not number. The continued separation of faith and reason will not only result in a continued reduction of mankind, but will continue to give rise to these forms of government hostile to humanity. With the rise of Muslim nations and their history of violence towards Christianity plus the increased Muslim population in Europe the possibility of a Muslim theocracy developing in Europe has become a reality. A theocracy that is devoid of a deep understanding of God and a deep understanding that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God could be catastrophic to Europe and the entire world.

This is why faith and reason must come together again in the dialogue between nations. The only possible way to dialogue with every culture and every individual in the world whether that culture has a strong faith in God or has no faith in any god is through the use of right reason infused with an understanding of the revealed God. From this foundation you can speak intelligently to the man who has a faith in God and be accepted as a man of faith while guiding him to a deeper understanding of God based on reason. In this way it is also possible to be able speak to the man who has no faith in any god and by showing the reasonableness of the idea of a Supreme Being you will be accepted as a man of integrity because of the reasonableness of your position.

The modern age has come up with some wonderful advancements for mankind, but these advancements have come up against questions where science based on positivistic reasoning cannot answer or even thinks to ask such as: If a thing can be done should it be done (i.e. human cloning) What role does a Divine Being have in teaching us about the psychological nature of man? There are an unlimited amount of questions that need to be posed to humankind in these areas, but the “why” questions about our existence are the most fundamental and the most basic question of these questions is “why are we here?” The answer to these questions will bring modern science to new and exciting discoveries.

The lecture Pope Benedict XVI gives adroitly addresses many issues that face Europe. What the pope is proposing is an invitation and a challenge to the universities to explore new horizons in reason by turning themselves over to the great insights and understanding of the world’s religions and in particular Catholic Christianity. Europe desperately needs to rediscover its Christian roots and do so without fear. Modern science must take up this challenge. If it does so it will take the limited intellectual pursuits of the human mind and bring them into the exciting realm of a fully lived human experience. The very survival of Europe as we know it depends upon the universities rediscovering her Christian roots and bringing the Logos to Europe.