Faced with a positivist and relativist culture, Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, points out the profound division of knowledge and excessive specialization in the university sphere, which leaves out an overall vision that gives meaning to each specific science. Relativism, scientism, and pragmatism leave no room for an integrative knowledge that encompasses the objects of study in an orderly manner, preventing a priori the search for truth.
The Pope Emeritus expressed constant concern about the positivist conception that categorically denies a global vision of man and the recognition of his dignity. This vision denies philosophy and theology scientific status, separating them completely from the world of science, which is reduced to mathematics and experimental verification.
In light of this, Ratzinger returns to the need to have a broad and open vision of reason and its exercise in the search for truth and answers to fundamental questions about man and his destiny.
The use of reason, the so-called "open reason," and the search for truth in Ratzinger are found not so much in the academic articles that the emeritus pontiff has devoted to the question, but rather in its effective use, that is, in how he himself has used reason to grasp reality. It is therefore a question of seeing how reason is used and seeing it in action. In short, it is about a use of reason that is challenged by reality, which leads him to marvel and to know the truth.
The concept of reason must be broadened in order to encompass and explore aspects of reality that go beyond the purely empirical and achieve a harmonious synthesis of knowledge that integrates theology and philosophy in order to understand reality while respecting its metaphysical dimension. The fundamental questions of humanity, how to live and how to die, cannot be excluded from the realm of rationality.
Open reason is, therefore, that which is open to truly knowing what surrounds it, escaping the ideological and subjective restrictions that often permeate the realm of knowledge.
It is about seeking broad knowledge, not only in terms of the quantity of knowledge, but also in terms of the fullness and depth of what is known, giving each science the authority that corresponds to it in its field and category, but without neglecting the ultimate meaning that gives meaning and unity to the specificity of each one.
In the positivist view, anything that is not verifiable or "falsifiable" does not fall within the realm of reason in the strict sense. This concept of reason is not a culture that corresponds to and is sufficient in its entirety to human beings in all their breadth.
The concept of reason, on the other hand, must be "broadened" in order to explore and encompass aspects of reality that go beyond the purely empirical. This open-minded approach to reason allows for a more fruitful and complementary approach to the relationship between faith and reason. The birth of European universities was fostered by the conviction that faith and reason are destined to cooperate in the search for truth, each respecting the nature and legitimate autonomy of the other, but working together harmoniously and creatively in the service of the fulfillment of the human person in truth and love.
From this perspective of open reason, the university must never lose sight of its particular vocation to be a "universitas," in which the various disciplines, each in its own way, are seen as part of a larger unum. There is an urgent need to rediscover the unity of knowledge and to oppose the tendency toward fragmentation and lack of communicability. The effort to reconcile the drive toward specialization with the need to preserve the unity of knowledge.
Source: Speech by Monsignor Federico Lombardi at the presentation of the Razón Abierta Awards in September 2016.
