Mexican Cardinal says faith and reason together lead to encounter with God

Abuja, Nigeria, Nov 15, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Amidst the confusion and disorder of certain scientific and technological “advances,” man must understand that reason alone cannot address his fundamental questions, says Cardinal Norberto Rivera, Archbishop of Mexico.

During the 57th National Congress of the National Union of Parents, the Cardinal referred to the example of St. Augustine who as a young man mistakenly sought “to separate reason from the supernatural, from faith.”  Only after trying set faith against reason did the saint realize that uniting them together was the only way to find the Eternal Beauty and “the truth that sets us free.”

Cardinal Rivera explained that when man only wants to be governed by reason, he ends up falling into positivism and a “scientific philosophy that has no answers” for his fundamental questions.

When St. Augustine “was able to bring together faith and reason, he knew he had found God,” the Cardinal said.  The challenge for the 21st century is also to find God in the union of faith and reason.

“This is the tragedy of education when the main dogma is secularism, and secularism as the denial of God,” he added.

Nevertheless, he went on, it would also be “a tragedy to just rely on faith” to the detriment of reason.  “It would be to deny that God himself gave us the capacity to investigate,” he argued.

“The Church opposes neither scientific advancement” nor that which, through “strict scientific method,” cultivates reason. 

During a Mass he celebrated the following day, Cardinal Rivera called on the faithful to face the problems of today with a positive attitude and as citizens of Heaven.

Christians should act knowing that their works have transcendence for eternal life, he said.  Therefore they should act according to “the law of selfless love,” collaborating in the building of a better society and Church.