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To: kosta50
Faith begins where reason stops.

I am not sure I know what that means. I am inclined to think that reason acts in the playpen where faith puts it, not the other way around. This is why: It is by faith that I assume that because I observe objects fall to the ground every time I drop them, objects always fall to the ground now and forever, no matter who drops them. In other words, before I even begin reasoning, say, about gravity, I need faith in the scientific method. Reason begins where faith tells it to.

For a more learned view, see Fides et Ratio:

what for Patristic and Medieval thought was in both theory and practice a profound unity, producing knowledge capable of reaching the highest forms of speculation, was destroyed by systems which espoused the cause of rational knowledge sundered from faith and meant to take the place of faith.

46. The more influential of these radical positions are well known and high in profile, especially in the history of the West. It is not too much to claim that the development of a good part of modern philosophy has seen it move further and further away from Christian Revelation, to the point of setting itself quite explicitly in opposition. This process reached its apogee in the last century.

[...]

In the field of scientific research, a positivistic mentality took hold which not only abandoned the Christian vision of the world, but more especially rejected every appeal to a metaphysical or moral vision. It follows that certain scientists, lacking any ethical point of reference, are in danger of putting at the centre of their concerns something other than the human person and the entirety of the person's life. Further still, some of these, sensing the opportunities of technological progress, seem to succumb not only to a market-based logic, but also to the temptation of a quasi-divine power over nature and even over the human being.

[...]

This is why I make this strong and insistent appeal—not, I trust, untimely—that faith and philosophy recover the profound unity which allows them to stand in harmony with their nature without compromising their mutual autonomy. The parrhesia of faith must be matched by the boldness of reason.

[...]

In expressing my admiration and in offering encouragement to these brave pioneers of scientific research, to whom humanity owes so much of its current development, I would urge them to continue their efforts without ever abandoning the sapiential horizon within which scientific and technological achievements are wedded to the philosophical and ethical values which are the distinctive and indelible mark of the human person. Scientists are well aware that “the search for truth, even when it concerns a finite reality of the world or of man, is never-ending, but always points beyond to something higher than the immediate object of study, to the questions which give access to Mystery”.


4,342 posted on 04/03/2006 7:48:00 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex
You are equating faith with proof. Gravity is a no brainer. Believing in something that makes no sense (i.e. Incarnation, Resurrection, Burning Bush, raising of the dead, Jonas living in a belly of a large fish/whale/sea monster for three days and so on) is much, much more difficult because it has to start with the Faith.

Your example of gravity is just the reverse. You have no faith, then something happens, and, as you can reproduce the result on demand, you believe in it. That's faith but not blind faith.

The proof of the faith is in the experience, not experiments. We cannot express it in the words we know, not transfered it in the media we use. "Blessed are those who believe but have not seen" says the Lord

4,345 posted on 04/03/2006 8:20:24 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: annalex
The spirit of my reply is expressed in the Orthodox Catechism:

In our understanding of God we often rely upon cataphatic notions since these are easier and more accessible to the mind. But cataphatic knowledge has its limits. The way of negation corresponds to the spiritual ascent into the Divine abyss where words fall silent, where reason fades, where all human knowledge and comprehension cease, where God is. It is not by speculative knowledge but in the depths of prayerful silence that the soul can encounter God, Who is ‘beyond everything’ and Who reveals Himself to her as in-comprehensible, in-accessible, in-visible, yet at the same time as living and close to her - as God the Person.

4,346 posted on 04/03/2006 8:26:18 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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