Here's a link to the lecture Pope Benedict gave at the University of Regensburg last week entitled "Faith, Reason and the University - Memories and Reflections." The lecture discusses the link between faith and reason in Christianity, the Greek heritage in Christian faith, and the limits of modern reason, which is "deaf to the divine." Pope Benedict's conclusion:
"This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is ... the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. ... While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith. "
"The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university."
If you haven't read anything by Pope Benedict, this is a good place to start (and it's only six pages long). It contains many of his themes, including the Christian roots of Europe, the nature of Christian faith and its evolution through the centuries, and the nature of God and his love for us. Pope Benedict has nothing to apologize for.
The "I Support the Pope" banner came from Kenneth Kully, via Relapsed Catholic. She's got more banners there too. Send an e-mail to support the Pope at benedictxvi-at-vatican.va
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