Marriage Invitation For Tamil

faith is not' EVER AGAINST REASON

Faith and reason: that sun in the night
The two measures of the inaugural International Conference on God recently promoted by CEI have proposed a crucial theme. Cardinal Ruini and the philosopher Robert Spaemann have indeed confirmed the feasibility of developing rational proofs of the existence of God deciding to initiate the conference with this speech is very important also to the Catholic world, for many believers fall into fideism, which denies the contribution of philosophy to faith, considering it unnecessary or even harmful, and faith rests only on an inner feeling and the Bible.

In reality, the ability of reason to come to God is already established by the Bible itself. A passage from the Letter to the Romans (I, 19-21), mentioned more than once at the conference: "What can be known of God is manifest to men [...]. In fact [...] its invisible may be covered with the intellect in the things that are made. " And the Epistle of Peter (1 Pt, 3, 15) calls for promoting Christianity in fact also by reason: "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to answer whoever asks you the reason for the hope that is in you '.
Even on the basis of these steps the Church has often spoken about the possibility of affirming God with reason. For example, in the encyclical Fides et Ratio (§ 24, 36 and 53), where he also criticized John Paul II (in § 55) the "dangerous introspection on fideism, which does not recognize the importance of knowledge rational and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God. "But we could also cite many actions of Benedict XVI. Similarly, Cardinal Bagnasco stressed at the conference that" unfortunately [...] and sentimentality emotivism [...] end up endorsing the widespread view that religion and reason belong to two worlds, if not opposed, at least incommunicable. "

However, philosophy can bring to the faith at least two valuable contributions.
First, the philosophical proofs the existence of God can be suggested to those who are not already a Christian, the atheist can lead to the conviction of the existence of God and may also lead to the threshold of the non-Christian faith in the Christian God. In fact, Christians become significant both because they receive directly from God or the faith of some people who also testifies, or even, at times, because they are convinced by the arguments. For example, s. Augustine was converted by a s. Ambrose and reading the speeches of the Neoplatonic philosophers, s. Edith Stein came to Christianity by reading s. Teresa and thanks to the philosophy of St. Thomas, Janne Haaland Matlary - formerly deputy minister of Norway, who was an agnostic (and at times atheist) - came to Catholicism through his philosophy.

Moreover, philosophy can help even those who is already a believer: even the greatest saints have gone through periods in which no inner feeling they confirmed the existence of God, as was the case with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It is the "night of the soul," to use the expression of s. John of the Cross. In such moments, the philosophy, which can prove the existence of God as well as some aspects of his nature (omnipotence, wisdom, justice, providence, etc..) Can help us remain convinced that God exists, to recognize it even when it thickens the dark. James Samek
Lodovici