第二十三卷 (2002年) Faith & reason “Fides et Ratio”as the interpretati
by Bruno Forte

Faith and Reason "Fides et Ratio" as The Interpretative Key To The Principal Encyclicals of Pope John Paul I




"Faith" and "reason" are the two terms around which John Paul II builds his reflections on the human being and his/her highest vocation. This is true not only of the encyclical on "Faith and Reason" but also of the entirety of his magisterium as both thinker and as pastor. In order to clarify the meaning of this affirmation it is necessary to understand the meaning of the two terms faith and reason in the light of two backgrounds: the background of the time in which Karol Wojtyla worked, and the other one of his heart. Together they constitute the very core of his "theological biography". It is only in this way that the full meaning of these two terms and the motive which John Paul II speaks of as being "like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of the truth" 1 can be fully understood.

1. What reason? The metaphors of modern time

In the events of the twentieth century, "reason" is the singular and decisive protagonist: it lies at the very heart of the parable on the modern era, which sees both its apex and decline in this twentieth century. Opening with the triumph of "strong reason", characteristic of the Enlightenment, modernity has led to the widespread diffusion of the experience of fragmentation and non-sense so typical of "weak reason", which has flourished since the fall of ideologies. Succeeding the "lengthy" century, which began with the French Revolution and ended with the out break of the Great War (World War I), is the so-called "short twentieth century" (E. Hobsbawm), marked by the affirmation of the extreme fruits of totalitarianism and of ideological models, which ultimately led to their downfall and collapse (1989). This process is described by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno through a powerful metaphor at the beginning of their Dialectic of Enlightenment: "The fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant." 2 The Enlightenment - taken in the broadest philosophical sense as a continuous process - had pursued the objective of ridding men and women of all fear and of rendering to them complete control of their destiny, thanks to boundless faith in the possibility of reason. Its final outcome - fulfilled through the dramas of the two world wars and the high costs of totalitarianism - can be recognized in the condition of renunciation, in the denial of questions of meaning and the search for the foundation, which is the condition of the so-called "weak thought". Three stages can be identified in this process, which lies at the origin of the crisis of the European consciousness on the threshold of the third millennium, stages which can be traced back to the metaphor of light, darkness and dawn respectively.

1.1 The light of strong reason and its decline

The first stage is characterised by the metaphor of light, which expresses the principal inspiration underlying modernity, which is the pretext of the adult reason to be able to understand and illuminate every thing. According to this pretext, the ability rationally to embrace the world means to make the human person the master of his/her own identity. Emancipation is the dream that pervades all the great processes of transformation in the modern era. The presumption to triumph over every obscurity through the use of reason is expressed by the total visions held of the world, which are the ideologies. Ideology tries to impose the order of reason on the whole of reality, to the point of establishing a complete equation between the ideal and the real. It excludes any form of diversity and is by its very nature violent. The dream of totality becomes inexorably totalitarian. It is not by chance, nor is it an accident of time, that all forms of modern ideology have resulted in totalitarian and violent forms. Indeed, it is precisely this historical experience of the violence of totalitarian ideologies that has produced the crisis of the absolute pretexts of "enlightened" reason.

1.2 The night of weak reason

If adult reason sought to give sense to everything, then the "weak thought" of the post-modern condition does not recognize the possibility of any sense in anything. It is a condition that can be expressed by way of the metaphor of darkness; it is a period of ruin and of failure, of darkness and uncertainty, a period which has, above all, been marked by indifference. For many people, the rejection of the strong and total horizons offered by ideology bears the inability of posing the question about meaning. This has led to the extreme point of a loss of all interest in seeking out the ultimate reasons for human life and death. The extreme face of the epochal crisis of the European consciousness can be associated with the face of "decadence". This means the loss of value, since there is no longer any interest in comparing or measuring oneself to anything. It is in this way that the passion for the truth has been lost. The "strong culture" of ideology shatters into the fragmentation of "weak cultures", in which the loss of hope folds in on itself and everything is reduced to the narrow horizon of the individual's own particular. In this way, then, the end to ideologies appears more truly as the pallid avant-guard of the advent of the idol, which is the total relativism of those who no longer have any faith in the power of the truth, and as a result seem incapable and uninterested in realising the passage from phenomenon to foundation. This is the extreme face of the crisis surrounding the European consciousness at the close of the "short twentieth century."

1.3 The dawn of an open and questioning reason

In the analysis of this process, which takes us from the triumph of modern reason to its decadence, we cannot exclude some signs of change and of hope, with which we will associate the metaphor of the dawn. There is a "nostalgia for a perfect and consumed justice" (Max Horkheimer), which will enable us to recognize a sort of search for lost meaning. We are not talking about "une recherche du temps perdu", of an operation based in the past, but rather of a diffused attempt to rediscover a meaning that goes beyond that of ruin and failure, one that enables people to discern a horizon that inspires and moves them. Among the many expressions used in relation to this search we should point out the use of the expression: a rediscovery of the other. We are witnesses to a growing awareness of the need for solidarity, at an interpersonal level, as also at social and international levels. We can see a sort of "nostalgia for the Totally Other" emerging (Max Horkheimer), a rediscovery of the ultimate questions and the ultimate horizon. This outlines the need for a new consensus on ethics to motivate a moral involvement, not for the sake of the benefits that arise from it, but rather for the sake of the good it arouses in itself. The nostalgia that is evident in the crisis of our present time has, therefore, the face of the other, not only the face that is near by and immediate but also of the Other, that is the transcendent foundation of life and of living together. Thus we can say that there are in fact some signs of a return to a reason that is open to transcending itself and to seeking out the Other.



1. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio, Preface, Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1998, p. 3.

2. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, NY, 1969, p. 3.

2. What faith? A theological biography

It is against the background of the time-described above - that the intellectual and spiritual biography of Karol Wojtyla is found. His life resounds naturally within the historical context in which it has developed and on which it has had considerable influence. His profound identity as thinker and as pastor finds its essence in the strong sign of faith: every aspect of his existence and of his work is characterised by a living and fecund relationship with the Christian God. If Wojtyla, as an alternative to the rationalistic pretexts of ideology, develops a strong sense of the Transcendent, which is characterised by a true and pure mystical experience, in response to the renunciation of the very foundation by the "weak reason", he does not hesitate to propose a thoughtful faith, one which does not flee the challenges of the inquiring or searching intelligence. In both of these attitudes the faith of John Paul II is highly responsible. It never calls on one to step outside of history but is rather very much a part of history, with a precise ethical consciousness. In this way the connotations of the faith, to which his magisterium is testimony, are clearly outlined: a mystical faith, a thoughtful faith and a responsible faith.

2.1 A mystical faith

A constant and characteristic motif of the magisterium of the word and life of John Paul II is the sense of the absolute primacy of God. We are not dealing here with merely one element among others, but with a dominant note. We are talking about the horizon and dwelling place within which and from which everything else is born. The motif of the living God is the motive behind the life and work of Karol Wojtyla. A valuable indication of this is given by the very structure of the magisterium expressed in his encyclicals. This structure is radically theological and in particular Trinitarian. The fundamental cycle is represented by the three encyclicals: Redemptor Hominis (1979) on the Son, Dives in misericordia (1980) on God the Father, and Dominum et vivificantem (1986), on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The Trinitarian structure resounds significantly in Tertio Millennio Adveniente (1994), the itinerary for the preparation of the great jubilee of the year 2000. Everything else finds accordance in the underlying theological note, as seen in his series of reflections: the reflection on anthropology, presented in the three Encyclicals aforementioned, and again in Laborem exercens of 1981 on the dignity of human work; the reflection on women in the apostolic Letter of 1988, Mulieris dignitatem; the reflection on ethics, proposed in Veritatis splendour (1993), Evangelium vitae (1995), and in the Encyclicals on the social question, Sollicitudo rei socialis (1988) and Centesimus annus (1991); and finally the reflection on ecclesiology, outlined in light of the singularity of the Redeemer and of the Trinitarian communion in Redemptoris Missio (1991), Slavorum Apostoli (1985) on the Eastern Christians, and Ut unum sint (1995) on ecumenism. In the reflection on Mary offered in Redemptoris Mater (1987) the various aspects of the Christian mystery are gathered together in the dense icon of the Mother of the Redeemer, in which everything returns to the work of the Trinity and to the glory of God.

From the very beginnings of his research, Karol Wojtyla has borne witness to the strong coincidence of the mystical experience with the truth. Proof of this is evident in his degree thesis on the Doctrine of the Faith according to St. John of the Cross (1948), defended within an academic context-the Dominican one of the Angelicum-marked at that time by the absolute predominance of the neo-scholastic, and therefore towards an elaborate theology which finds its basis in the mystical. It will remain the profound conviction of Wojtyla, man and thinker, that the light necessary to a clear intelligence which desires to discern the divine design for life and history, is drawn from an experience of God, as the following expressions from a great mystic poet, one much loved by Wojtyla, say with the greatest of intensity: "!Oh lamparas de fuego, / en cuyos respandores / las profundas cavernas del sentido, / que estaba oscuro y ciego, / con extra╴s primores / calor y luz dan junto a su Querido!" 3 Truly, as a significant witness from the "Lumen Orientale" affirms, "it is not the conscience that illuminates the mystery, but the mystery that illuminates the conscience. We can only know, thanks to that which we can never know" 4.

2.2 A thoughtful faith

The strong emphasis on the mystical dimension does not in any way take away the questioning and searching character of the faith: the faith of John Paul II is and will always remain thoughtful! "Fides nisi cogitetur nulla est" - "if faith does not think it is nothing": these words of Saint Augustine 5 - quoted in Faith and Reason 6 - express the profound conviction behind the entire existential and intellectual itinerary of Karol Wojtyla, for whom to think means to continually move from the phenomenon to the foundation, taking the two terms of this transcendent movement with the utmost seriousness. In the Encyclical Faith and Reason the Pope writes: "We face a great challenge at the end of this millennium to move from phenomenon to foundation, a step as necessary as it is urgent. We cannot stop short at experience alone; even if experience does reveal the human being's interiority and spirituality, speculative thinking must penetrate to the spiritual core and the ground from which it rises." 7 This concept of thought - which faith can never renounce, if it desires to be as it should be, a faith of historical beings open to the Mystery and entrusted to it-matures in Wojtyla as a result of an encounter with two great authors, to whom he owes his intellectual formation. On the one hand we have Thomas Aquinas, whom he got to know in full during his years studying at the Angelicum, and on the other hand we have Edmund Husserl, the father of Phenomenology, to which the future Pope was to dedicate much research. From Saint Thomas Wojtyla draws on the strong metaphysical question, and therefore the need to base the phenomenon on the foundation in order to avoid falling into the inconsistency of much pragmatic and purely functional thought. From Husserl he learns to give full value and attention to the phenomenon, which is also the exclusive key to gaining access to the metaphysical profundities of all that exists. The sobriety of Husserl's phenomenology and the teaching that it gives on attention to others and to things as they appear to us - another peculiar characteristic of Karol Wojtyla - are expressed for example in the following statement from Husserl's Ideas: "Everything originally offered to us in 'intuition' is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there." 8 To stop at phenomenological observation would, however, reduce reality to the all too narrow horizon of that which can only be experienced. This is why true phenomenological intuition points to the essence, that is to say, to the transcendent ground of the phenomenon in the direction of that which profoundly constitutes it in its identity and relevance. It is at this point that St. Thomas' teaching integrates the study of Husserl: the world of beings is constituted in its intimacy by being immanent to each. Here we have the true and ultimate foundation of reality. In a formulation of great audacity Thomas affirms that: "Esse autem est illud quod est magis intimum cuilibet, et quod profundius omnibus inest" 9 . To summarise, then, the ontological level coincides with the profundity of reality. It is that which gives stability and dignity to what exists and which prevents everything being reduced to a transient moment that is inconsistent and empty. However, if the phenomenon is transcended in the direction of the foundation in order to draw on its profound source and hidden root, then the foundation is only attainable by means of the phenomenon, through history. No devaluation of the worldly reality is therefore admissible. Thoughtful faith will live, therefore, in a twofold and unique fidelity: faithful to the eternal, but equally faithful to the earth, uniting heaven and earth in one unique movement, transcending toward the ultimate mystery and returning to things and their consistency.

2.3 A responsible faith

The third characteristic that qualifies faith in the "theological biography" of Karol Wojtyla is his being responsible: by this adjective we desire to indicate the ethical relevance of the experience of believing. The polemic of the Reformation against "works" as means of merit and salvation, has favoured a certain separation between a life of faith and an active life. We have arrived at this point on the one hand by way of spiritualism, which is characterised by an evasion of history, and on the other hand by pragmatism, which has, above all, exiled God from the sphere of worldly responsibilities. The presence of Wojtyla, the believer, in history has always been acute, involved, from the years of resistance to Nazism to the years when he faced the daily struggle against militant ideological atheism and communist totalitarianism, to the battle against the ethical emptying of consumerist capitalism. Even in this area there was a thinker at whose school the future Pope was to be formed, namely Max Scheler. In response to the "formalism" of Kantian ethics, which ran the risk of reducing moral behaviour to good intentions, Scheler emphasised the value of a "material ethics", which is attentive to the actual contents of actions, and is far from being limited merely to the intentional, formal aspect. The ethics of values moves in this direction because it recognizes a real criterion in them and not just some abstract and theoretical reference, a criterion that takes on a visible form in the actual living of historical choices and responsibilities. John Paul II has always demonstrated a great interest in the ethical dimension of every option, even those that are apparently more speculative. His fundamental theoretical work, Person and Acting, is a rigorous speculative foundation for the indissoluble relationship of the personal being to its moral acting in the concreteness of decisions. From faith, ethics draws on the ultimate horizon, within which the actual value of penultimate choices is situated and qualified. From ethics, faith draws on the real space from within which it can translate itself into history, as well as the living questions that stimulate the search for fundamental orientations in light of the Absolute, in whose horizon the weight and the value of every act is actually qualified.

      3. St. John of the Cross, Llama de amor vivo, translated: The Living Flame of Love', 3rd Stanza; "O Lamps of fire! / In whose splendors / The deep caverns of feeling, / Once obscured and blind, / Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely, Both warmth and light to their Beloved." Trans., Kieran Kavanagh, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. London: Nelson, 1966. p. 579.

4. P. Evdokimov, La donna e la salvezza del mondo, Milano : Jaca Book , 1980, p.13.

5. St. Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, 2, 5 : PL 44, 963.

6. Faith and Reason, p. 116, 79.

7. Faith and Reason, p. 123, 83.

8. E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen philosophie, trans. F. Kersten, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. The Hague: Nijhaff, 1982. I, 24. p.44.

9. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I q. 8 a. 1 c.

3. Which kind of encounter between faith & reason? Beyond the "aut-aut", the challenge of an "et-et"

Read in the context of the historical period in which John Paul II grew up and lived, and in light of the figures who played such an influential role in determining his "theological biography", "faith" and "reason" are tightly woven within a vital relationship, by a reciprocal stimulus and enrichment. What the Polish Pope affirms in the Encyclical Faith and Reason, he has, above all, experienced in his intellectual adventure and in his own spiritual experience as protagonist of our time. If the presumptions of enlightened reason excluded every residual element linked to the world of faith from the dominion of rationality, opposing reason and faith in an "aut-aut" relationship without any remission, then the history of modernity has shown how this exclusion has been lethal for reason itself, making it inexorably totalitarian and violent. This is why the recovery of the correct relationship between faith and reason has been emphasised by Karol Wojtyla as being of vital urgency, not only at the service of the proclamation of the faith but also in order to promote the dignity and ethical quality of the human person. The "et-et" relationship which the Pope proposes - and, as has been said, it is found "in actu exercito" in all the works that he has produced as thinker and as pastor - moves in three directions: the first could be defined as a sort of apology for "open reason"; the second refers to a faith that is truly involved in a search ("fides quaerens intellectum"); while the third relates more directly to the actual encounter between these two terms, in an open and reciprocally fecund dialogue.

3.1 A reason aware of its limits and open to transcending them

Fides et Ratio is, first of all, an apology for reason 10. In an era marked by a crisis of trust in the possibility of reason, because of the results of the ideological adventures, such an apology is indeed far from insignificant. Reason is certainly not defended as an absolute knowledge, presumptuously closed in on itself, but in so far as it is the fundamental instrument by which human beings set out to live in the service of the truth to which they are originally called by the very fact that they exist. What is at play here is the idea of truth itself. 11 If the truth is a possession to be manipulated, as ideological reason proposed, then the human being is and remains closed within his/her own horizon of truth, limited to the point of suffocation, as the historical parable of ideology demonstrates. If, instead, truth is not a possession, something that is captured and held within the confines of reason, but is the objective and transcendent Other that also embraces us, then it is not possible to disclose oneself to the truth without posing the ultimate questions and without allowing oneself to listen to the various possibilities by which the transcendent and sovereign truth also reaches us. To summarise then, the truth is not circumscribable from the "cogito ergo sum", from the "I think, therefore I am". It rather has to be grasped from within the experience of the "cogitor ergo sum", of the "I have been thought of therefore I am". Truth is the very guardian of existence, and it alone can open up a flight from oneself towards the Other.

What the Pope emphasizes is a faith in the capacity of reason to open itself up to the truth, of being an "open reason". The refusal is not addressed to the exercise of the reason, but rather to a weak exercising of it, one that renounces the possibility of opening up to the horizon towards the Transcendent. To propose the metaphysical question again, in the etymological sense of that which lies "beyond physical things" and that moves beyond the phenomenon in order to arrive at the foundation, means to propose again the one true question which is worth asking in philosophy, that question to which human beings are predisposed by the radical nostalgia that they bear within themselves from the very first moment of existence. It is at this point that philosophy truly appears not to be concurrent with theology, but appears rather as a discipline united by a thought that searches for the horizons and listens to the various ways by which the Other speaks to us, which is precisely the thought of faith.

3.2 A faith which seeks

The Encyclical clearly affirms that there is no one Christian philosophy, even if it supports the full legitimacy of a "Christian Philosophizing", that is, of "a philosophical speculation conceived in dynamic union with faith" 12. Two thousand years of Christianity bear witness to this speculation. Even the inculturation of the faith in new contexts would be superficial if it were to omit some of the baggage of this two thousand years history that has produced extraordinary fruit in both the Western consciousness and beyond. The reference to the history of the thinking of the faith shows how it is possible to exercise the philosophical quest and to be at the same time open to the gift of revelation. From this point of view, one can understand how philosophy is the ground for possible mutual understanding and of dialogue with those who do not share the faith. Reason is not limited by faith but is, rather, empowered by faith. Neither, on the other hand, is faith dominated or subjected to reason. Reason and faith are two sources of knowledge that are neither identical nor concurrent. One is the pure exercise of our understanding, while the other is the reception of the light that comes from on high through the gift of revelation. These two sources do not annul or suppress each another. Rather they meet, and this encounter of the human flight and the advent of the divine is the thought of faith, which makes the baggage of philosophical questioning its own and enriches it through the heard word of revelation.

Dialogue between reason and faith is, therefore, made possible, in the degree to which each one is itself and both are open to the possibility of being transcended. A philosopher who proposes radical questions does not exclude the possibility of hearing the advent of the Other. A thinker of the faith who recognizes the pronunciation of the divine Name in revelation integrates the philosophical questions with the understanding he has been given. In the light of these premises it is possible among contemporary philosophies to point out three great souls which are linked to this searching faith ("fides quaerens intellectum"). The first one is that of a philosophical thinker who is not only open to transcendence but also to the recognition of it in revelation. We are dealing with the so-called "Christian philosophy", which involves the full use of reason within the horizon that is disclosed by the accepted belief in the Deity's self-communication in history. Then there is a second model, which could be characterised as that philosophy which poses radical questions and is open to the ultimate questions but is not conjugated with obedience to the faith. There are various thinkers who move within this dimension, including some of the greatest nineteenth century thinkers. For this form of thought the Encyclical constitutes an ulterior invitation to enter into a dialogue with the faith in revelation and with theology, in the belief that the truth of revelation is neither concurrent with nor adverse to philosophical research, but open to the wonder of transcendence. A third possibility refers to the so-called "weak thought", that is, to the thought that prejudicially closes itself off from the possibility of transcendence and from the questions that surround it, not recognising any effort of the human reason to transcend itself in a move toward the objective truth. In face of such thought, the Encyclical presents itself as both critical and problematic, and rightly so since a thought which from its very beginnings denies the possibility of an objective truth and of a transcendent movement towards it condemns reason to a sort of "solipsism". In reality the Encyclical challenges the "weak" or "nihilist" thinkers to measure themselves against their own philosophies. Even in this way, however, it presents itself as a challenge and as a testimony that favours the highest dignity of human reason and the possibilities given it to search for and arrive at the truth before ever making a decision about it. In this sense it resumes, in the densest possible way, the entire anthropologic magisterium of John Paul II.

3.3 Faith and reason listening to the Other

The terms in which the Encyclical arranges the dialogue between philosophy and theology, between faith and reason, are, therefore, profoundly respectful of the reciprocal dignity and autonomy of these two worlds, as well as of their necessary and fecund integration. In the spirit of his entire magisterium as thinker and pastor, the Pope affirms that the recognition of the truth which is universally valid - that is the truth of revelation - does not determine any intolerance, since it brings one to recognise the value that exists in every human person, in his/her questions and possible responses, even if it offers criteria in respect of which everyone, beginning with the believer, can measure his/her own affirmations and acquisition of the truth. Dialogue is possible, then, and useful where the interlocutors accept to be measured by the truth that transcends them and to some degree embraces them. This would not be possible where one of the two holds himself/herself to be the exclusive guardian of the truth or indeed even goes so far as to identify himself/herself with it. The Pope affirms the transcendence of the truth also in respect of the very mediation of the thought on the faith, which lives in fact through obedience - that is profound hearing - of revealed truth and not in the presumption to dominate it. Even dogma should not be interpreted as a limit to the progress of human thought, but as the bulwark against its regression, that is, the resistance against moving backwards in respect of the possible openness of reason toward the profundity of the revealed Mystery.

The custody of the message and the freedom of the question are not meant to annul one another, but rather to meet one another. We are not talking about imposing limits to philosophy. Where it is understood to be the exercising of a radical questioning, philosophy cannot but recognise its own limits, which are the same as those of the reason by which the question is posed. If the highest task of reason is that of rendering reason, then it cannot but recognize that it is limited by the incapacity to give a reason for everything, especially before the ultimate mystery of existence. "Why does something exist and not nothing?" This fundamental philosophical question, which has turned up again and again even in contemporary philosophy, coincides with the constancy of the radical impossibility to give a reason why everything exists. For this reason one can say that philosophy is such when it recognizes rather than denies its actual limit. In this Encyclical, and indeed throughout his entire magisterium, the Pope reminds us that revelation is the gift by which God helps reason to open itself up to that which lies beyond the limit which it has already recognized. On the threshold of "the wonder of reason", that is, the admission of the very paradox of existence that cannot find any explanation in reason alone, to dispose oneself to the ear of an Other, to His speech in words and in events, does not lessen reason but makes it rather more thoughtful. Faith in revelation is not concurrent with reason. It is rather that which stimulates reason toward a much higher transcendence and in so doing nourishes and strengthens it, opening it up to horizons that would otherwise remain unknown and impenetrable.

It is here that the history of western philosophy, even in the modern era, confirms the fecundity of the encounter that is possible between faith and reason. How much light has the Christian revelation given to human beings in order to make them more intense searchers, opening them up to horizons that alone can truly correspond to their thirst for meaning and their nostalgia for peace! God is not concurrent with the human person, but is his/her friend, the Creator who came down and drew close to us in order to draw us closer to him, in a covenant that is celebrated fully in the person of the Redeemer. This encounter, fulfilled in Christ, is the true reason for his absolute singularity for the salvation of the world. John Paul II has been called to be its herald through the word and the life of his entire itinerary as thinker and pastor. This task he has entrusted to the Church through this Encyclical, "Faith and Reason". It is precisely for this reason that it can be taken as the dense compendium of all of the coordinated fundamentals of what this Pope, who came from the East, has wanted to say and has said to the Church and to the world, for the glory of God and the salvation of humanity. Indeed it is the interpretative key to his Encyclicals and summarizes the entire message of his word and his life.

 

10. Faith and Reason, p. 87, 56: "Faith thus becomes the convinced and convincing advocate of reason".

11. The word "truth" appears 208 times in the text of the Encyclical.

12. Faith and Reason, p. 110, 76.