Faith and reason

On February 4th, 2010 Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, primate of Austria, gave a lecture on faith and reason. He asserted that it may be very difficult for us to use our reason in certain circumstances. Original sin, this negative tendency, tries to prevent us from facing reality. It may be so that our mind is overshadowed by our passions and the weakness of our intelligence. Faith is there to enlighten our reason and strengthen it, and reason, on the other hand, helps us to deepen our faith.

Cardinal Schönborn also spoke about the implications of nominalism. Nominalism claims that God’s activity and God’s nature are totally separated from each other. Nominalism asserts that what God decides in His will is totally arbitrary. We are not able to conclude who he is from what he does. God decides, and we do not know why. Strict nominalism leads to fatalism, but Catholic philosophy has proven nominalism wrong. According to the Old Testament God created man in His own image, and thus God reveals himself through his activity.

The Cardinal describes modern science as a child of nominalism, as modern science tends to exclude from its perspective everything that is not measurable. Metaphysics is considered to be absolutely arbitrary. The consequences of this reasoning is that modern science more or less becomes scientism. The Cardinal urges us, like Thomas Aquinas, to adopt a sound approach towards faith and reason. As faith and reason interact they cross-fertilize and enrich each other.