Stats for nerds
0recommend
5mentions
4people
2015–2026years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- There are so many encyclicals, apostolic letters, etc. One could spend years reading just a fraction of them, depending on reading and comprehension speed, of course, which varies by person.
Two I recommend, from the last 40 years:
Veritatis splendor, John Paul II, 1993
Argues that Christian freedom is fulfilled, not limited, by objective moral truth: some acts are intrinsically evil regardless of intention or circumstance, conscience must be formed by divine law rather than self-authorization, and the Church must faithfully teach this moral truth as the path to authentic human flourishing in Christ.
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/d...
Fides et Ratio, John Paul II, 1998
Argues that faith and reason are complementary paths to truth: reason needs faith to avoid skepticism, relativism, and reductionism, while faith needs reason to express, defend, and deepen its understanding of divine revelation and the human search for meaning.
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/d...
- > I find the Nicene Creed to be a major stumbling block as a person of Christian faith with a background in formal philosophy.
And yet intellects like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas did not: what do you 'know' that they did not, or vice versa?
Also, are you aware of the encyclical Fides et ratio ("Faith and Reason")?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).
* https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/d...
Further, in your "formal philosophy" studies, how much of logic and proofs did you study?
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...
- > A Christian will tell you that this is how you ought to think too because all truth comes from the bible, which is why I call it objective meaning. There is a single source of truth.
This is a grossly uninformed misrepresentation. Some Protestants do espouse the idea of sola scriptura, however these groups are largely the minority of Christians. The Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, and Anglicans/Episcopalians vastly outnumber the Lutherans, Pentecostals, Calvinists, and Baptists.
Catholic philosophy (Catholicism being the largest Christian group and approximately as large as all the other groups combined[0]) holds that faith and reason are the two pillars by which we can come to know truth. By faith is meant in general the knowledge received through revelation (e.g. the Bible). By reason is meant the workings of the intellectual processes, empirical evidence, and scientific knowledge.
Through the working together of faith and reason, we can come to know the fullness of the truth. The Bible is not the sole source of truth to Catholics. See also Fides et ratio by Pope St. John Paul II.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denomination... (data as of 2011)
- This encyclical is very interesting too: http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/do...
FIDES ET RATIO (Faith and reason) [..] 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 [..]
- Persons of deep faith have been, are, and can be great scientists.
See, for example, Scientific Geniuses and Their Jesuit Collaborators[1]. Not to mention that the author's field (physical cosmology) was deeply influenced by a Catholic priest-scientist[2]. There are numerous other examples spanning the last few centuries, including our own.
Faith and reason ought to go together and are entirely compatible with one another – at least that's the Catholic view, not new but recently articulated by Pope St. John Paul II.[3]
[1] http://www.strangenotions.com/scientific-geniuses-and-their-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
[3] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/doc...
