Pope: to respect man, science cannot do without faith
Rome (AsiaNews) - Restoring research both the "wings" of science and faith, to overcome the situation in which "rich in means, but not in ends, mankind today is often influenced by reductionism and relativism, which lead to a loss of the meaning of things; as if dazzled by technical efficacy, he forgets the essential horizon of the question of meaning" and is linked to a mentality which generates " a dangerous imbalance between what is technically possible and what is morally good , with unpredictable consequences. "
Benedict XVI again today reaffirmed the idea that scientific research and quest for meaning, even in their specific physiognomy "spring from a single source, that Logos that presides over the work of creation and guides the mind of history". His comments came during his visit to the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart University, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Faculty of Medicine, named after the founder Agostino Gemelli.
"Ours - the Pope began- is a time when the experimental sciences have transformed the world view and understanding of man. The many discoveries, innovative technologies that are developing at a rapid pace, are reason for pride, but often are not without troubling implications. In fact, behind the widespread optimism of scientific knowledge, the shadow of a crisis of thought is spreading. Rich in means, but not in aims, mankind in our time is often influenced by reductionism and relativism which lead to a loss of the meaning of things; as if dazzled by technical efficacy, he forgets the essential horizon of the question of meaning, thus relegating the transcendent dimension to insignificance. In this context, thought becomes weak and an ethical impoverishment gains ground, which clouds legal references of value. "
"The once fruitful root of European culture and progress seems forgotten: " In it, the search for the absolute - the quaerere Deum - included the need to deepen the secular sciences, the entire world of knowledge", because everything originates from the same source.
Today it is also "important then that the culture rediscover the vigour and dynamism of the meaning of transcendence, in a word, it must open up to the horizon of quaerere Deum. One is reminded of Augustine's famous phrase "You created us for you [Lord], and our heart is restless until it rests in you" (Confessions, I, 1). One can say that the same impulse to scientific research stems from nostalgia for God which lives in the human heart: after all, the men of science tend, often unconsciously, to reach for that truth which gives meaning to life. But however passionate and tenacious human research is, it is not capable of finding a safe harbour by its own means, because "man is not able to fully elucidate the strange shadow that hangs over the question of eternal realities ... God must take the initiative to encounter and speak to man "(J. Ratzinger, Benedict's Europe in the Crisis of Cultures, Ignatius Press). To restore reason its native, integral dimension we must rediscover the wellspring that scientific research shares with the search for faith, fides quaerens intellectum, according to the Anselmian intuition. Science and faith have a fruitful reciprocity, an almost complementary requirement of intelligence of what is real. ".
"But man's quaerere Deum could loose itself in a tangle of roads if it were not met by a path of illumination and safe harbour, which is God who makes himself close to the man with great love".
"A religion of the Logos, Christianity does not relegate faith to the irrational sphere, but attributes the origin and meaning of reality to the creative Reason, which is manifest in the crucified God as love and invites us to walk the path of quaerere Deum "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life".
" Experienced integrally, research is illuminated by faith and science, and from these two 'wings' draws impetus and momentum, without ever losing the right humility, the sense of its own limitations. Thus the search for God becomes fruitful for intelligence, a leaven of culture, promoting true humanism, a research that does not stop at the superficial".
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