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;
The pope is true to assert that faith and reason are both wings this due to the points below;
This is because faith without reason leads to superstition and reason without faith leads to
nihilism and rationalism.

Am going to take the theme of faith and reason are like two wings;
A definition of reason
Reason is defined as the ways that things can be logically investigated and understood. There
are laws that govern the behavior of matter in the real world, defining the ways that things
move and behave with in creation, there are two ways of knowing and understanding
thoughts and ideas about reality. They give dimension and coherence to the world,
establishing boundaries that make knowing something possible. If there were no boundaries
on reality, no way to reliability and rationally, measure or quantify the world, it would be
difficult to understand or make sense of the existence that human beings experience.1
pope john Paul 2 says that the fundamental harmony between the knowledge of philosophy is
once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at
the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith
presents.2
The problem of faith and reason.
The ultimate reason why reason and faith are seen as incommensurable is that human reason
is distorted by sinfulness; from the point of view of Christian faith, human reason is
untruthful and the truth as well as the capacity to know the Truth must be given to human
beings by God himself.3
Why faith and reason never contradict each other.
In the weakest sense of the claim that faith and reason are logically compatible, all that is
required is that the two notions do not logically contradict each other. As such, faith and
reason can be viewed as domains that coexist harmoniously, even though no elements in
either domain intersect or overlap.4
Three approaches to faith and reason;
Thomas distinguishes three aspects of the theological virtue of faith; credere Deo which
means to trust in God as a trueteller,credere Deum which means to assent to the propositions

1
Denis Wayne Heibert, Come Healing Of The Reason, Problematic Practices Of Rationality In Christian
Faith.,dewey decimal press.,newyork.,2007.,p.89
2
Francis Beckwith, Faith And Reason And The Christian University What Pope John Paul 11 Can Teach
Christian Academics, Logos12 Milan press., Milan,.2009.p.,7
3
Ibid,
4
Steve Wilkens., Faith And Reason Tree Views., Intervarsity Press., San Antonio.,2014., P.187.

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that God reveals,credere deum still means to will to assent to the revealed propositions on
God’s will.5
Catholicism professes that what we believe in faith and what we discover by reason are not
only compatible but also mutually beneficial. God is the source of both faith and reason and
there is no contradiction in God.so both faith and truth leads us to truth which is God. Reason
and faith are compatible with one another. The basic religious beliefs are compatible with
reason. There are rational supports for those beliefs. Other beliefs may be strictly mattering of
faith resting upon the basic beliefs.6
Faith is the belief in the truth of something that does not require any evidence and may not be
provable by any empirical or rational means. Reason is the faculty of the mind whereby we
can logically come to rational conclusions. Faith and reason are both sources of authority
upon which beliefs can rest.7
Scholars on faith and reason.
Aquinas held that human reason, without supernatural aid, can establish the existence of God
and the immortality of the soul for those who cannot or do not engage in such intellectual
activity however these matters are also revealed and can be known by faith. As a result, once,
reason alone has attained evidence, faith keeps operating to the extent that it is conceived as
adherence to God due to the love for him and what he has revealed. According to Aquinas,
faith always accompanies the rational investigation performed by the believer,8
For Augustine went further to say that the necessary concordance between faith and reason
means that faith is needed not only in such things that are beyond reason but also in things
that reason could quite adequately handle though not without error. Christian faith is both
reasonable yet more than natural reason. Christian faith is in no conflict with our reason. On
the contrary only rational creatures can believe.9
Faith and reason are both sources of authority upon which beliefs can rest. Reason generally
is understood as the principles for a methodological inquiry, whether intellectual, moral
aesthetic or religious. Thus, it is simply the rules of logical inference or the embodied
wisdom of tradition or authority.10
As humans move through life, they are presented with novel situations and scenarios that
require them to draw on the experience they have gained in their lives up to that point and
adapt that experience to the situation at hand. Beckwith states that faith and reason are
different ways of acquiring beliefs with the former being the weaker epistemic stepbrother
who always must answer to the latter, with the latter being the equivalent to the empirical
deliverances of the hard and social sciences.11

5
Robert Solowoski., Christian Faith And Human Understanding: Studies On The Eucharist, Trinity And The
Human Person., New York., Dewy Decimal Press.,2006., P.190.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Stephen F. Brown., Thomas Aquinas On Faith And Reason., Hackett Publishing Company., Newyork.,1999.
Pp.202.
9
Mhealer C. Anierdes., Augustine’s Faith And Reason., Dewey Decimal Press., Villanova.,2021., P.6.
10
Ibid
11
Augustine’s Faith And Reason., P.7

2
The idea that faith compliments reason is known as the complementarity view. Reason
arrives at a certain crossroads of knowledge based on its workings and faith undertakes to
flesh out the picture into a coherent worldview. There is a balanced and a function to each in
this view, with the details of the specific item of knowledge informed by the combination of
reason and faith.12
There are aspects of the knowledge that can be arrived at the reason and some that can only
be arrived at by faith. Lee states that some beliefs are properly basic or are foundational,
axiomatic beliefs that do not depend on the justification of other beliefs. Such beliefs, like
faith in the existence of a supreme being do not have to be rooted in reason. 13
The complementarity view of the interaction between faith and reason articulates this
balance. Milbank explains reason and faith are always intertwined in a beneficial way, even if
this is hard to formulate theoretically. Reason has to make certain assumptions and trust in
the reasonableness’s of the real. Faith has continually to think through the coherence of its
own intuitions in a process that modifies those ignitions themselves.14
Foundations and supporting structures are important in complex ideas and formulations.
Woltersoff describes the precondition list view of the interaction between faith and reason by
pointing out that in this view faith is a condition for arriving at a fully comprehensive
coherent, consistent and true body of theories. Ideas based on reason do not happen in a
vacuum, they are supported and informed by other views and other experiences. The context
that undergirds reason is as important as the item under consideration.15
However, faith and reason can in one way or the other not be two wings this is due the
following points;
Am going to name this section;
Can reason and faith coincide?
There is a tension between reason and faith. The two disciplines are not antagonistic, but if
misunderstood, they can be seen to be in conflict. Science, reason’s inevitable is sometimes
thought to be wholly at odds with faith. Kim states it cannot be denied that the most dominant
perception of the science-religion relationship in current society is one of conflict. 16

12
Thomas Aquinas On Faith And Reason., P.203
13
Ibid.
14
John Milbank, Hume Versus Kant: Faith, Reason And Feeling, Modern Theology Cambridge Press,
London,2011, P.277.
15
Wolterstorff, Nicholsa,Reason Within The Bounds Of Religion, Grand Rapids Publishers,Berlin,1984.P.31.
16
Ibid.