Faith and Reason: The Notre Dame Symposium 1999

Rating:
Summary: A smooth assist for a great document
Review: The authors of the Notre Dame Sympsium in the summer of 1999 worked toward the goal of helping people understand and appreciate a profound document from the Holy Father in Rome. Pope John Paul II introduces the 1998 encyclical "Fides et Ratio" with a question. He wonders whether philosophy makes people feel sick and queasy? The immediate answer is to say, Yes, philosophy does make people feel sick, because of a "widespread distrust of the human being's great capacity for knowledge" (paragraph no. 5). Try a simple test and read the following questions: "Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?" (no. 1). Do these questions of John Paul II bring about feelings of sickness and light-headedbess? If you are like some college students in philosophy class, then your anwer may be affirmative.

Sadly, philosophy and the above questions should be attractive to us and should cause us to relax. "These are questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta," writes John Paul. "We find them in the writing of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha." These questions have been confidently addressed in every place and every time history. "They appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle."

Unfortunately, we do not find these questions at Disneyland or Las Vegas. Disneyland in Anaheim has 60 major rides among eight themed lands: Main Street, Tomorrowland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Adventureland, Critter Country, Mickey's Toontown and New Orleans Square. However, Philosophyland is excluded from the park. Las Vegas ignores the tough questions and provides "escapist fun" with colossal hotels and casinos: Excalibur, Luxor, New York-New York, Circus Circus, MGM Grand and Treasure Island. As the AAA Tour Book says, "Las Vegas became a city that thrived on illusion and fantasy" (California/Nevada 2000, p. 262). Sadly, there is no Philosophy land at Disneyland and no philosophy casino in Vegas.

After visiting Dineyland and Las Vegas a person might ask, Where can I find answers to the tough questions on page 9 in the encyclical? The Pope replies by saying that "the Church is no stranger to this journey of discovery" (no. 2). The Church is good place to investigate the philosophical questions, because the Church "received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life" from the Lord, and the Lord is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14: 6).