seperation of religion from philosophy : realtionship of faith and reason

PAPER PRESENTED BY: Br. SARATH CHAMAKALAYIL

sarathcthomas@gmail.com

“There is a two fold order of knowledge, and with regard to the source, we know in one by natural reason, the other by divine faith.”

Vatican council-I

Religion

= To Bind Together

GREEK PERIOD

Religion =

The source of science and philosophy

“The distinctiveness of early Greek thinkers is that in

their speculation elements of philosophy, science and

religion mingle in a rich and heady brew. ”

Anthony Kenny

“The notion of supreme being is found in the forms of the good”.

Plato“The unmoved mover”.

Aristotle

In short: Greek philosophy originated and developed in the religious context.

“Faith is not opposed to reason but is higher than reason”. St. Thomas Aquinas

“Christian teachers ought to use pagan thinking when interpreting scripture”. St. Augustine.

Modern Period

An epoch of the revolutionary

thoughts

Philosophy

Vs

Religion

“No plausible place remained at which to locate the Christian heaven and its inhabitants”.

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology”.

Albert Einstein

“Our existence is an accident”. Charles Darwin

“Religion is dangerous. It constitutes a threat to the advance of the modernity and the natural sciences.”

Freud

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature. The heart of the heartless world, it is the spirit of a spiritless situation and it is the opium of the people.”

Karl Marx

“We invent God in order to explain the unexplainable”.

Sartre

“Religion is the projection of the human needs, and the expression of the uttered sorrow of the soul”.

Feuerbach

“We must be the murders of God”. Nietzsche

we maintain a world view that the world is an unfinished existence or it is something in the process of development

The masters of modernity believed in human reason’s power to combat ignorance, superstition and tyranny to build a better world.

“The most significant predicament of the modernity is the disappearance of transcendence.”

Dupre

“ Secularization” designates a long term process by which a disappearance of religious ties and attitudes to transcendence, expectation of an after life, ritual performances and firmly established turns of speech is driven onward in both private and daily public life.”

Blumenberg

SECULARISATION OF RELIGION

Radicalization of the Radicalization of the reasonreason

•Religion should be devoid of its mythic background and context.

•Everything should be subjected to reason.

RELIGION IS MORE AMBITIOUS THAN

PHILOSOPHYReligion is not a departmental affair.

It is not an emotional feeling. It is an expression of the whole man.

THE RESULT OF SEPARATION

POSITIVE RESULTS NEGATIVE RESULTS

It promoted the democratic values, freedom of expression, equality, human dignity, feminism etc.

It could help the church to become a pure spiritual entity.

It paved the way for the tremendous growth in the scientific field.

Liberal thought of modernity challenged the moral values of the people.

Man lost the feeling of affection, care, sympathy, love, etc.

Modernity gave way to the atheistic thoughts and it resulted in evils such as materialistic, hedonistic and atheistic approach to life and reality.

It is needed to recognize each other

Religion and Philosophy are needed to recognize each other

• Philosophy must recognize the central position of religion

• Philosophy provides a rational foundation for religion and on the other hand philosophy gets meaning through religion

• We are in need of a healthy co-existence of philosophy and religion

• Whenever philosophy set out to separate itself from a religious context, It’s scope, vision of its range, its potency, etc. become drastically limited.

• Philosophy itself will be separated from the context in which it originated, which will be a self limitation of philosophy and it is very unfortunate.

“Faith illumined by reason”, it is meeting of creature and creator.

In the far reaches of the human heart there is a desire and nostalgia for God.

Fides et Ratio