Ways of Learning about God according to the Encyclical Fides et ratio

Abstract

The encyclical makes an analysis of the situation of the contemporary culture in which a crisis of the truth about man has occurred as well as a crisis of the meaning of human life that is connected with it. The deformities are first of all concerned with recognising the truth about God and the relations between Him and man. Hence the aim of the encyclical is to point out that „man cannot be understood without God”, and what is more, „man cannot be understood without Christ”.

The problem of learning about God then has a clearly anthropological context in the encyclical. It points to two complementary ways to learn about God as the ultimate source of existence and of the Supreme Good that makes human life meaningful:
1) the way of reason, through learning about the existing reality and explaining it (philosophy)
2) the way of faith, that is, the way of the reason thinking while believing that God's word is true; in it God shows truths about Himself and about man that exceed man's cognitive abilities.

Hence full cognition of the truth about God and about man as significantly connected with Him requires two kinds of cognition. Fides et ratio expresses this in a simple way: „man is a creature in quest of the truth”, he is „a philosopher by nature” and one „whose life is based on faith”. Hence man can „on the wings of reason and faith rise to contemplating the truth”. Both these ways are ways of the truth concerning the existing reality; be it natural or supernatural. When a man recognises and lives through them both they can show him the ultimate meaning of life.