©2010 By Steven Schultz. All Rights Reserved. May Not be Reproduced or Reposted in Any Form without Permission.
For centuries, faith and reason enjoyed a close, complimentary, mutually supportive relationship. However, the rise of modern philosophy, with its bad metaphysics, resulted in a growing rift in this relationship. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, called for a return to unity in the relationship between faith and reason, and offered his thoughts on how this reunion might be achieved.
Early Christianity found a ready ally in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly the thought of Plato. The reason for this alliance rested on the commons goals of Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy, namely a quest for understanding of being. Both sought to understand ultimate purposes. Because man’s ultimate purpose is fulfilled in God’s plan of salvation, both streams flowed toward the same final source. The Greeks did not have perfect answers; however their quest for ultimate understanding and truth at least guided them in the right direction. The Greek focus on seeking truth allowed early Christians to adopt Greek thought in giving fuller understanding to the message of Jesus and the salvation of mankind.[i]
This unity of faith and reason reached its zenith with St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas synthesized the philosophy of Aristotle into Christian theology, providing the best demonstration before or since of the great unity between faith and reason. As Pope Benedict XVI recently put it:
In short, Thomas Aquinas showed there is a natural harmony between Christian faith and reason. And this was the great work of Thomas, who in that moment of encounter between two cultures — that moment in which it seemed that faith should surrender before reason — showed that they go together, that what seemed to be reason incompatible with faith was not reason, and what seemed to be faith was not faith, in so far as it was opposed to true rationality; thus he created a new synthesis, which shaped the culture of the following centuries.[ii]
For a brief, shining moment, thanks to St. Thomas’s insightful demonstration of unity between faith and reason, harmony between theology and philosophy reigned supreme. Unfortunately, this was not to last.
The upheaval brought about by the Protestant Reformation introduced a spark of doubt which steadily grew into the full-fledged conflagration of modern thought. René Descartes, with his institutionalization of doubt, became the father of modern philosophy. Descartes began with the notion that certitude does not come from knowledge obtained through sense data, but only through innate ideas. Cogito Ergo Sum – the only thing we know with certitude is our own thought. This “turn to the subject” led to greater skepticism and deconstructionism and has permeated all modern philosophy since.[iii]
Immanuel Kant developed idealism in an attempt to save natural science and the validity of human reason. As a spiritualist, he claimed that while we cannot know the material world through sense data, we can form hypotheses which meet our experiences. In other words, Kant argued truth is merely the consistency of the model of reality which our mind creates. Our sense experience tells us nothing about absolute truth, so “truth” becomes more about consistency and is therefore completely subjective.[iv]
Likewise building on Descartes, David Hume adopted an extreme empiricist position. Hume’s radical skepticism reduced knowledge to nothing more than sense description. His extreme position even rejected the notion of causality as understood in natural scenes. Hume claimed we only know one thing happens after the other, which, according to Hume, does not mean one thing caused the other.[v]
As modern philosophy stopped concentrating on being and instead focused on human knowing, a growing rift developed between theology and philosophy. Instead of pondering the human capacity for knowing, modern philosophy has emphasized the ways in which it is limited and conditioned. Modern philosophy’s rejection of meaningfulness of being has led to a general conception of nihilism and a rejection of all objective truth. Theology’s insistence on the existence of the greatest absolute Truth places it in direct conflict with modern philosophy.[vi]
However, Pope John Paul II tells us faith and reason cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of man to know himself, the world and God in an appropriate way. Since theology engages philosophy to help man know the truth, the study of philosophy is fundamental and indispensable to the study of theology. While there should be no barriers to dialogue, there should also not be indiscriminate acceptance of any kind of philosophy. Consequently, the Magisterium has a right and a duty to discern and promote philosophy not at odds with the faith.[vii]
In Fides et Ratio, the Pope outlines three requirements. First, to be consonant with the Word of God, philosophy must return to its classical roots as a method of searching for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life. Second, philosophy must “verify the human capacity to know the truth, to come to a knowledge which can reach objective truth by means of that adaequatio rei et intellectus to which the Scholastic Doctors referred.” Consequently, radically phenomenologist or relativist philosophies are ill-adapted to help with deeper exploration of the riches found in the Word of God. Third, philosophy needs a “genuinely metaphysical range, capable…of transcending empirical data in order to attain something absolute, ultimate and foundational in its search for the truth.”[viii]
Through this method, philosophy, as “the mirror which reflects the culture of a people,” can serve the new evangelization in its ability “to explore more comprehensively the dimensions of the true, the good and the beautiful to which the word of God gives access…Reflecting in the light of reason and in keeping with its rules, guided always by the deeper understanding given them by the word of God, Christian philosophers can develop a reflection which will be both comprehensible and appealing to those who do not yet grasp the full truth which divine revelation declares;” thereby returning unity to faith and reason.[ix]
Endnotes
[i] P. De Letter, “Theology, Influence of Greek Philosophy On,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Volume 13 (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2003), 918.
[ii] Pope Benedict XVI, On St. Thomas Aquinas, Zenit.org, http://www.zenit.org/article-29447?l=english, accessed 3 July 2010.
[iii] Benedict M. Ashley, OP, “Lecture 3: Why Theology Has Difficulty with Modern Philosophy,” Philosophy for Theologians, DVD, International Catholic University, 2005; Benedict M. Ashley, OP, “Lesson 3: The Intellectual Ambiguities of Contemporary Culture,” Philosophy for Theologians, Lecture Notes, International Catholic University, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c02803.htm, accessed 10 May 2010.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (Boston, MA: Pauline, 1998), 14, 111.
[vii] Ibid., 30, 49, 81, 82.
[viii] Ibid., 102-104.
[ix] Ibid., 125-126.
Bibliography
Ashley, Benedict M. “Lecture 3: Why Theology Has Difficulty with Modern Philosophy,” Philosophy for Theologians, DVD, International Catholic University, 2005.
——. “Lesson 3: The Intellectual Ambiguities of Contemporary Culture,” Philosophy for Theologians, Lecture Notes, International Catholic University, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c02803.htm, accessed 10 May 2010.
Benedict XVI, On St. Thomas Aquinas, Zenit.org, http://www.zenit.org/article-29447?l=english, accessed 2 June 2010.
De Letter, P. “Theology, Influence of Greek Philosophy On.” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Volume 13. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2003.
John Paul II. Fides et Ratio. Boston, MA: Pauline, 1998.
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Traditional Catholic Faith 
Christmas, Catholics, Pagans, and Atheists – Oh, My!
Posted in Christmastide, Commentary, Feast Day, Martyrs, Theology, tagged 25, Annunciation, Atheist, Catholic, Christian, Christmas, Christmastide, Commentary, Conception, Constantine, Date, December, Doctor of the Church, Dwight Longenecker, Easter, Empire, Faith, Fathers of the Church, Feast Day, God, Halloween, History, How Chritsmas Began, Jesus, Jewish, John Chrysostom, Judaism, Julian, Liturgy, March, Martyrs, Nativity, New Age, Origin, Pagan, Protestant, Real Origins of Christmas, Roman, Rome, Saturn, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, Theology, Tradition, Truth, Virgin Mary on December 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
"Adoration of the Shepherds" by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Ah, yes, Christmas, that time of year with a winter nip in the air (unless you live in parts of Florida where record highs in the 80s are forecast this weekend) and the time of year when the thoughts of old school Protestants (meaning those few Protestants who still find the need to base their beliefs on a militant anti-Catholicism), New Age “pagans,” and militant atheists turn yet again to the supposed “pagan” origins of Catholicism. Along with Easter and Halloween, the Feast of Christmas is yet another of those celebrations we are told “prove” the pagan origins of Catholicism. After all, everyone knows Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular are nothing more than “dressed up” paganism. It’s just too bad everyone is wrong…
Instead of merely reposting my piece on the true, non-pagan, origins for the December 25th date of Christmas, I share this link to a wonderful piece by Rev. Dwight Longenecker which does an excellent job of explaining (yet again) once and for all the true background of the Christian celebration of Christmas on December 25th.
Allow me to highlight a few points from Rev. Longenecker:
1. The “pagan origin” claimants begin with the capital mistake of assuming that mere resemblance proves causality. Simply because two things resemble each other does not mean one is the cause of the other. Two things can be strikingly similar yet share absolutely no causal relationship what-so-ever. Simply because Christians and pagans observed certain feasts at similar times throughout the year does not mean one automatically caused the other.
2. The Roman feast most often associated with Christmas by the “pagan originists” is Saturnalia, a Roman feast for the god Saturn which was held from December 17 to 23. However, this feast, while occurring on the wrong date (if Christianity “co-opted” this feast, why not make the date of Christmas December 17th to really sock it to those pagans?), also had nothing to do with the imagery of the solstice and the return of the sun. The focus of this feast centered more on the theme of sacrifice-to-appease-the-gods-for-a-good-harvest.
3. The Roman feast associated with the solstice was Dies Natalis Sol Invictus. The only problem here is the inconvenient fact that this feast wasn’t instituted until around AD 278, well after the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire, and for quite some time remained a rather minor feast with a small cult. Further, we find no evidence that Sol Invictus was celebrated on December 25th until AD 360 – decades after Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in AD 315. In fact, the promotion of the feast was due to the influence of Julian the Apostate who attempted to turn back the tide of Christianity sweeping the Empire. Huh, so that means Sol Invictus was used by the Roman authorities in an attempt to “win back” Christians to paganism, not the other way around.
4. The “pagan origins” nonsense completely ignores the fact that thousands (some sources say millions) of Christians lost their property and in many cases their lives over their complete refusal to, as Rev. Longenecker puts it, “offer so much as one grain of incense to the pagan gods.” Yet, the “pagan originists” would have us believe the very people who were giving their lives over refusal to participate in anything even resembling paganism suddenly decided to “co-opt” pagan festivals.
5. If we actually take time to read the historical record provided us in the writings of the early Church Fathers, we find a clear answer as to why Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. As early as AD 386, we find a sermon by St. John Chrysostom linking the date of Christmas to the date of the Annunciation (the day the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and give birth to Jesus). The wording of his sermon suggests this linking was already a long-accepted tradition within the Church. We need to remember early Christians were primarily Jewish converts and thus the roots of Christianity are in Judaism, not Romanism. The Jews believed the world began on March 25th. They also believed great men died on the same date as the date of their conception. Therefore, we find the early Christians believed the date of Jesus’ conception was March 25th. Let’s count nine months and see what we find: December 25th.
So, just as I pointed out last time, the date of Christmas has nothing to do with Romans or paganism, but everything to do with early Jewish belief and the dating of Jesus’ conception by early Christians.
Merry Christmas!
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