WHEN FAITH AND REASON UNITE

“Faith can move a mountain.”
“Truth will set you free.”
“Wisdom knows all and understands all.”
What are the relevance of these three dicta in us? In our personal lives, we encounter queries about our existence. We try to ask, seek and analyze things especially in making a decision. We try to understand things to know what to do. We would ask questions like, “Can faith really move a mountain?” “How could we move a mountain anyway?” “Why to move it?” “What is the meaning behind such mountain?”
Human reason is a wandering spirit that it naturally seeks for understanding everything just to know the truth or the meaning of existence. This is because we naturally desire to know ourselves. But human as it is, it has limited capacity over the absoluteness of truth that can cause danger in man. Sometimes, what we had found makes our reason distorted and being affected by the worldly and egoistic principles that we acquire in a pure rational way. Thus there must be a guiding foundation to direct reason to its proper end. Here is now the work of faith enters.
Faith is not merely a firm belief in something but a light to guide reason to what must be known. Dei Verbum says that, “By faith man freely commits his entire self to God.” But, how can we freely commit ourselves if we do not know the one whom we are committing ourselves to? It is the same as asking, “How could someone commit himself/herself freely if he/she does not know such self who will commit to? It is truth that will make us free. By truth, we came to commit not the incarcerated self or the superficial assent but the free one who has firm decision to believe that it is as the Absolute Truth who is God has said so. In here again, faith enters. “It is faith that allows individuals to give consummate expression to their own freedom.” To have faith is to decide freely to believe in a particular truth especially the truth concerning what God has revealed.
The aim of reason is not to destroy faith but rather to make it deeper. In a common parlance, “Faith can move a mountain” but in more special and spiritual way, “Faith with a deeper understanding can move God more.” Though “our vision of the face of God is always fragmentary and impaired by the limits of our understanding,” our efforts to know Him are more blessed indeed. We should never be stagnant or a mere nominal believer. We should not be contented “with partial and provisional truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions” about what we believe.
Firm faith and enlightened reason are basically inviting us to have wise existence in relation to God. These will help us to realize our true selves under the shade of Wisdom where we freely commit ourselves to the knowledge and love of God. FAITH and REASON are efforts that will lead us to WISDOM and that these are being given by God and acted by man because of LOVE.