Students, professors, and other members of the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese gathered together for Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades’ special visit to St. Mary’s College on January 26. The bishop spoke at St. Mary’s Fifteenth Annual Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas.
His lecture, “The Contemplation of Truth by Faith and Reason: St. Thomas Aquinas, Blessed John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI,” discussed the necessity of faith and reason in today’s society. Bishop Rhoades combined ideas from the three great philosopher-theologians to suggest the mutual dependence of faith and reason.
Bishop Rhoades began by quoting Blessed John Paul II’s encyclical Fides en Ratio, which explains the relationship between faith and reason as “two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” For junior Maria Jose Hernandez, this quotation struck a resonating chord.
“I’m a philosophy major, so the fact that the lecture brought together three of my favorite philosophers really made me enjoy the evening,” Hernandez said.
The event was opened by St. Mary’s College Dean of Faculty Joseph Incandela, who holds the Hank Aquinas Chair in Catholic Theology. Bishop Rhoades was introduced by Saint Mary’s College President Carol Ann Mooney.
Incandela explained the origin of the annual symposium: “The intent of the donor, Joyce McMahon Hank (Saint Mary’s College class of 1952), is to make Aquinas’s wisdom accessible to young people. These talks have typically been designed to bring out some aspect of St. Thomas’s theology for a college-age population.”
The bishop used examples from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas to confirm that “faith and reason share the same origin in God.” Faith stimulates and enriches the work of reason, while reason demonstrates the truth of faith. To illustrate this point, Bishop Rhoades compared reason with the existence of God, and faith with the Holy Trinity.
“Bishop Rhoades really made it clear that faith and reason go hand in hand. To have reason you must base it on the origin of faith,” said sophomore Abby Burgan.
“Truth requires us to have faith, and this faith is built upon and strengthened through reason. We must examine, challenge, and evaluate what happens in our life and our beliefs,” sophomore Hannah Mudd said. “It is through this faith that we come as close to the truth as we can, and it will possess us and inspire us.”
Bishop Rhoades highlighted the fact that we as humans have an “innate desire to know the truth.” He projected this desire against the backdrop of Catholic history, referencing philosopher St. Augustine and apologist St. Justin Martyr. According to Bishop Rhoades, however, “Christian philosophy reached its apex with St. Thomas Aquinas.” The namesake of the symposium, whose feast coincides with the event, brought together ideas from both Greek and Christian thought to establish the philosophy we so value today.
While Augustine and Aquinas faced pagan religion, the desire for truth today has become stifled by agnosticism and skepticism. Truth can only be found by overcoming the skepticism in our lives, suggested Bishop Rhoades.
Bishop Rhoades also described the purpose of Catholic institutions “to promote dialogue between faith and reason,” while many institutions today instead increase the fragmentation of knowledge. He paraphrased Pope Benedict XVI, who said we cannot love something that does not strike us as reasonable. As Catholic students and scholars, we must not only work to reunite faith and reason, but also to promote understanding and passion for the truth.
Mudd described her response to this call to action.
“It’s up to us to look carefully and assess different aspects of our life in searching for the truth, especially as college students determining where we want to go with our lives and what we want to do,” she said.
Incandela further commented on the bishop’s remarks.
“We are more than what we do, what we can contribute to society, how useful we are,” he said. “When education doesn’t acknowledge that, it becomes a very truncated education. But when education does acknowledge that, it becomes worthy of the collaboration between faith and reason which Bishop Rhoades discussed.”
Kelly Murphy and Grace Urankar are sophomores at Saint Mary’s College, majoring in communicative disorders and religious studies, respectively. They are thrilled to have joined the IRISH ROVER family upon the completion of this article. They look forward to covering more stories, but hopefully not always together. You can reach them at kmurph04@saintmarys.edu and gurank01@saintmarys.edu.
