Two wings that lift us to God

St. Pope John Paul II wrote: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” In other words, God gave us intelligence to uncover truths – through scientific discovery – about the natural world. He also gave us the capacity to believe in things that are beyond our visible world, to have faith in the unseen Maker. Some say that science and religion are incompatible. But God is truth, and truth will never contradict truth. A person uses reason when she asks a lot of questions; she uses faith when she trusts in someone or something. The happiest people are those who both trust and use logical reason. For example, we trust a road map because someone has already traveled the routes before us and measured all the distances. We trust an older sister who is a stockbroker and recommends that we invest in a certain stock. We know that she wouldn’t intentionally deceive us. We can’t possibly know all about a person before we marry them. But we pay close attention to their moods, habits, likes and dislikes, and we have ruled out any reasons why we should not marry this person. Then we trust, and hope, that our choice is a good one. (If we waited until we knew everything about a person, then no one would ever get married!) The same holds true with our life with God. We have known experiences of beauty, goodness, and truth, when we have felt lifted up beyond ourselves into the Transcendent. Or we know and learn of other people’s experiences of such. These personal experiences are real and can be trusted. The first letter of Peter says: “Always be ready to give … a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Pet. 3:15) – – – Fr. Jim