TRUTH CANNOT CONTRADICT TRUTH

OCTOBER 20, 2007

In my last two columns I responded to claims – some of them outrageous – by Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion. The central claim of the book is that religious faith is a mental disorder that is based on what he considers to be a delusion, namely, that God exists.

Underlying Dawkins’ claims is the belief that religion is somehow opposed to science, and that faith is opposed to reason. For Dawkins, a self-declared atheist, one cannot be reasonable and religious at the same time. Religion, he seems to think, suppresses reason and free inquiry. Actually, the exact contrary is true: authentic faith requires reason. As Pope Benedict XVI stated forcefully in his Regensburg address last year, one cannot be truly religious without grounding faith on reason. If one does not exercise reason to the full, faith will likely become rigid, blind, and wander off into superstition. Faith needs reason to perfect itself. Contrary to Dawkins’ uninformed ideas about religion, authentic religion fosters full human development, which includes the cultivation of the faculties of the intellect. Faith encourages rather than obstructs freedom of inquiry in seeking after truth.

In historical fact, it was Christians who gave birth to modern science in the West. The East, in sharp contrast, never developed methods or tools for scientific inquiry. The reason is that God revealed himself in Old Testament times to be a God of order, not chaos. So, since man and woman were created in God’s image and likeness, it was possible for them not only to know God as children know their father, but also to come to knowledge and understanding of the workings of his orderly creation. God, in other words, endowed man and woman with a share of his own divine intelligence and creative genius.

It was these insights that propelled Christians to develop science and technology, in order to unlock the secrets of nature and harness its powers to serve human betterment, in fulfillment of the responsibility God gave them to be stewards over his creation (cf. Genesis 1:28).

Now, if a certain religion seeks to suppress reason, then yes, it truncates authentic human growth, and cannot be a true religion. By the same token, if a scientist seeks to repress religion or religious inquiry, as Dawkins in fact does, then he becomes a sort of despot by trying to shackle the mind so that it cannot seek to know and live in the truth of what God has revealed.

Just as reason can aid faith, so also reason needs faith as a guide. The human quest for understanding of self, the world, and the ultimate issues of origin, destiny, meaning, and of good and evil is universal. Without God’s revelation to give definitive answers to these questions, and without our reception of God’s revelation in faith, the human search for understanding and ultimate meaning, resting only on unaided human reason, will stumble, delude itself, or collapse in dark despair. Science, as an application of unaided reason, cannot answer these questions. Questions of what God has revealed are beyond the realm and competence of science, and cannot be directly subjected to scientific inquiry, at least according to today’s commonplace understanding of science.

The proper position is to recognize that reason and faith are distinct, but they are not opposed or segregated from one another. They are independent, but also mutually enriching. Faith can strengthen and sustain reason in its lifelong quest for understanding. Reason can never rest until it has found ultimate truth and can rest in it. Contradictions between the findings of science and the truths known by revelation are always only apparent, never real. Truth cannot contradict truth.

As I noted above, a large part Dawkins’ problem is his superficial grasp of religion. This accounts for the fact that he so badly misrepresents it. I don’t want to shake a finger at him, but let me point out one important lesson.

Religious study should go on throughout life, and keep pace with our intellectual development in other areas. It is not enough for adults to know only what they learned as children preparing for the sacraments. A child’s understanding of the faith will later in life seem childish. Adults need to investigate their faith seriously, o\at an adult level, using trustworthy sources, if they expect to find satisfying answers to their deepest questions, and be nourished and sustained by their faith.

Simultaneously, the dedicated pursuit of scientific knowledge deserves our admiration and respect, and we should never be closed-minded or dismissive of scientific claims if ever they seem to threaten our current understanding of God’s revelation to us.

I stand in awe of all that science has discovered, and I do my best to grasp and understand its findings. I also try to grow everyday in my knowledge of the mysteries God has revealed for our life and salvation. Let us all embrace the truth based on faith and reason.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap