2. Forget “blind leading the blind”: how about the blind leading everyone!

Much has been written on the subjects of faith, reason, and faith and reason. It is often said faith is contrary to reason, that they are at odds, that faith is blind, but it is reason that helps us to see. This is often the approach taken by many secularists and atheists. The main thrust of their message is that reason is better than faith, and that faith is useless—that it is an instrument of the stupid and the blind. Then, there are those on the other side, the fideists, who believe that faith in God is so vastly better than fallible human reason that reason is discarded almost entirely as a means to know truths about the world. The Catholic Church is very comfortable, and perhaps even happy, to soundly disagree with both of these points of view. And I believe that She (the Church, for She is the Bride of Christ) is right. Faith and reason, as Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason):

“are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed 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.”

I wish to take a somewhat novel approach to this idea of faith, reason, and their inevitable interplay. I believe that there is an entirely different way to view faith and reason: with faith as precursor to reason.  As St. Augustine said, “I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.”

The traditional view is one espoused by Dr. Kreeft in his book, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, wherein he says something to the effect of, “Reason is the guide that brings us to the door; faith is what takes us through it.” This almost gives the implication that reason is our sole guide up to a certain point, faith past that point, and that the two are distinct (insofar as they never overlap); that is, reason takes us from point A to point B, then faith takes us from point B to point C: linear, clean-cut, simple. I believe that this is simply not the case: I would like to expand upon the existent framework—the architecture—of our view of faith and reason. I propose that faith presupposes, and therefore guides, reason. Said another way: one must have some semblance of faith in order that reason may lead him unto deeper faith... until that one fateful, and glorious day, in which reason bid him farewell, and he may now swim in the ocean of faith: ever careful to remain in its warm embrace, moving ever onward—and inward—in the Hope of Christ.

Imagine Reason as a formidable man who leads us unto knowledge of reality. He is a powerful ally, and we are gifted by him with rationality, logic, and powers of deduction and mental juxtaposition in order that we may defeat all those heinous enemies—irrationality, illogic, oversimplification, and unchecked emotion—that lie between us and Perfect Truth, Beauty and Goodness: in a word, God Himself. Reason, however, has one fatal flaw: he has only to work with what we offer him—our finite (and sometimes depressingly fallible) minds. As a result, he cannot lead past the door, or into the water.

Reason, however, does not guide us unaided, for Faith is close at hand, and here is where it gets interesting. I propose that Reason guides, not unaided, but aided—by Faith. I propose that Faith is the unseen, though ever-present guide, on our life-long journey to the Triune God.

Think about it briefly. Why would you pore through book after book, video after video, talk after talk, if you expected to find nothing of use to you concerning a particular subject? If you expected not to find the information that you required, you would not have wasted your time in the first place, right? Therefore, Reason cannot tell us that we should believe in God until Faith has so prompted it to begin seeking Him out. Reason can provide us logical evidence to believe, but only Faith can tell us that it is a worthwhile pursuit at all.

But Reason and Faith most definitely complement each other—there is no doubt about this. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “I would not believe if I did not find it reasonable to believe.” Buried in that sublime and beautiful statement, however, is a pearl of wisdom that we could all benefit from: what does Aquinas not mention that almost assuredly presupposed his finding it reasonable to believe in the first place? Faith! He could not have deigned to so seek reasons to believe if he did not first have faith that he would find something—the answer to his question, his life—its origin, purpose, and ultimate end. It is a bit like a man who has lost his watch: he searches in all the places he has been previously, turning up sofa cushions and stray magazines, all in an attempt to find his watch. Note, however, the way in which he does it. He does not simply check in random places: he checks in places in which he has faith that he will find it; indeed, he checks with the overall faith that he will indeed find his watch somewhere. Reason has no part in the genesis of this search: the man is distraught, upset that he has lost a precious possession, he is running on pure emotion—yet what does he cling to? His faith that the watch will be found! Once Faith has said, “There, there, my child: do not fret, for we will see this thing through,” Reason then has purview to begin his quest.

There is abundant evidence from Sacred Scripture that speaks to this idea as well, but I shall focus on two of the most powerful examples. The story of Abraham immediately springs to mind, and we all know the story: Abraham hears a call from God to perform a gut-wrenching deed—to kill his son. God says, “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There, offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you” (Gen. 22:2). Is it logical to conclude that God’s command made any sense whatsoever to Abraham, who had waited until he was an old man to finally be gifted a son by God? Did it appeal to Abraham’s reason in any way? Of course it didn’t! But what does Abraham do? He takes his son to the place that the Lord shows him, and just as he is about to sacrifice him, an angel of the Lord appears and says to him, “Do not lay your hand on the boy…. For now I know that you fear God…” (Gen. 22:12). Notice the convention about which I have been writing: faith leads to reason. Abraham understands that Isaac was never in harm’s way to begin with—but it is only after he had the initial faith in God did his reason finally make sense of any of it at all.

My second example will be Mary, the Virgin Mother of God. Mary was perhaps only 14 years old when she was betrothed to Joseph. One day, an angel of the Lord, Gabriel, appears to her and says, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus” (Luke 1:31). Mary, full of grace and gifted with the eyes of faith, replies, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Mary, a self-professed (and actual) virgin “was greatly troubled at what was said” (Luke 1:29), but what does she ultimately do, even in the face of fear? She has faith in the Providence of the Lord! Faith preceded reason in this case. It was only later that all of it fell into place for Mary, just like it did for Abraham.

And do you know what the best part about this whole story is, my dear readers? It is found in our relationship with and to God: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). We can approach our search with Hope—not some wishy-washy version of hope that we find in our sad modern-day world, but, rather, authentic, supernatural Hope in God who is ever-faithful and cannot deceive or be deceived, the One Who keeps His promises. The Father, by His Son’s perfect atoning sacrifice on the Cross, has now sent Their joint Holy Spirit, Their Perfect Love for one another, Their very Breath, for the sanctification of the world and the conversion of sinners just like me and you. So have faith, my friends!—even if you do not yet recognize it.

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