There are two radically different kinds of belief. One is the willingness to belief without sufficient investigation. It is a form of belief that is not supported by reason. People who are gullible or superstitious fall into this category. On the other hand, there is belief that is indeed supported by reason and is affirmed by investigation. It is of great practical significance that we distinguish these two types of belief.
On the evening of October 30th, 1938, Orson Wells directed and narrated a radio production of H.G. Wells’ novel, “War of the Worlds.” A significant number of listeners believed the broadcast was delivering terrifying news. The headlines the next day in the New York Times read as follows: “Radio listeners in panic, taking war drama as fact. Many flee homes to escape ‘Gas Raid from Mars’—Phone calls swamp police at broadcast of Wells fantasy.” This was an example of belief turned to hysteria.
To celebrate April 1st, Burger King offered hamburgers for left-handed people that were carefully rotated to the left. A surprising number of customers requested this special April Fools Day treat. There are still members of the flat Earth Society. It is bad luck to open an umbrella indoors and breaking a mirror brings 7 years of bad luck. Entering a house leading with the left foot is a bad omen.
Man is easily misled.
I gave a talk in Delaware one time and had my audience believe that their state was originally founded by an intrepid, though uncredited, navigator from Sweden named Loof Lirpa. My listeners began to laugh but only when I told them that he brought with him IKEA furniture and Swedish meatballs, and that his name was April Fool in reverse.
We are all prone to believe in things that lack rational support. This is evident in how people are easily persuaded by television commercials or eagerly taken in by political promises. At the same time, they are slow to believe the truths of the Catholic Church. That the Church has always connected faith with reason is evidenced by the fact that the Church founded universities and has always championed the role of reason in education. In my own case, my theology text was entitled, Reasons for Our Faith.
Are there reasons for believing in the truths of the Catholic Church? Why should we choose this Church and no other? Bishop Sheen offered three reasons:
- The historical fact that Christ was preannounced for centuries;
- The fact of miracles as the guarantee of His mission from God; and
- The agreement of His message with right reason and the aspirations of the human heart.
Sheen argues that faith extends reason just as the telescope extends the eye. Faith, which is to say, what we believe, enlarges our vision. “Once we have faith,” he writes, “new dimensions of knowledge and new areas of wisdom are opened up which before were never disclosed.”
Pope John Paul II gave special attention to the relationship between faith and reason in his Encyclical Letter, Fides et Ratio. He begins by offering the world a memorable phrase:
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has place 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.
The Catholic Faith rests on a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church. None of these three can survive without the others.
Credulity and superstition have proven to be disappointing often enough so that a disbelief in belief in general has risen. But not all belief is deceptive. Once united with reason, as well as personal experience and tradition, belief becomes credible, as it is for the Catholic Faith.
The impressive gains in science have led many to believe that science does not need faith, that it will ultimately penetrate all the secrets of the universe. There are two problems, however, with this view. One is that scientists need to have faith that the mind of man can grasp the principles of the universe. Reason itself cannot explain how the microcosm of man’s mind became attuned to the macrocosm of the world around him. As Einstein put it, that the universe is comprehensible is itself incomprehensible. The second reason has to do with the inherent limitations of reason. Science has made it increasingly clear, given the indeterminacy principle and other formidable obstacles, that reason can go only so far in its exploration of the world. There are realities that we need to know that reason cannot discover. Theology is still needed.
The distinguished American astronomer Robert Jastrow has made the point with a dash of humor:
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
Belief without reason is a blind alley. Reason without faith is severely limited. Neither rationalism nor fideism are satisfactory. Together they open many doors that were formerly closed. United, reason and faith harmonize two yearnings that arise from the heart that help us to know who we are and where we are going.
Photo by Alessandro Cerino on Unsplash
