Fides et Ratio

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The encyclical issued by Blessed John Paul II has a tremendous value for a person to completely understand, not only about the Social Doctrine of the Church, but in fact about the thought of the Church. The Pope states that “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves”. How can I reach and contemplate the truth? Is my heart desiring to know this truth? Am I loving tenderly my neighbors as God loves me? Therefore, a person can analyze this encyclical and find the answers of these questions with a wise approach, which is visibly the search for the meaning and total sense of life, with the help of ratio, fides is able to lead a person to God and vice versa, and we will see how. Therefore, with the testament I will address some points that will help us to see the importance of metaphysics for deepening a theological aspect, and finally I will enclose the circularity between theology and philosophy to finally reach that total sense of life.
John Paul mentions how most of the contemporary humanity is in deep crisis. Why is humanity in crisis? This crisis has its roots in a broken thought as such. This broken thought is not only about social or political issues, but a shift in the process of thinking that we do. For instance, to renounce ‘thinking’ or at least the resignation to think and meditate deeply to get to the root of intelligence, to the foundation of this act of thinking. This crisis has led to a relativism and scientism which affirms by one way or another, that human intelligen...

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... would never merely take concepts and considerations, but he would rebuild them inside, illuminating them and valuing them from the perspective of his own, that is, from what the word of the revelation is manifested about God, about man and the world. With philosophical concepts, when theology refers to them, they are always rethought and transformed. All this work is done without forgetting that in other moments, theology open ways, providing concepts and considerations that philosophy had not reached. This circularity conveys the connaturality of man with God, the total sense of life, the perfect and pure love which is believed, but humbly understood by reason. The connaturality which helps man to contemplate the truth, and to humbly thirst for more and more until finally enter fully into God’s love and to reasonably share it with those who do not possess it yet.

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