Faith and reason: how reason can explain God without leading to skepticism

Authors

  • Rafael Antonio Faraone Dutra Mestrando em Teologia pela PUC/SP
  • José de Souza Paim Mestrando em Teologia pela PUC/SP

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23925/2177-952X.2016v10i17p287-297

Keywords:

Faith, Reason, God, Skepticism, Fundamentalism

Abstract

The society is in a constant transformation caused by changes in people´s mentality that, as time goes by, feel the necessity and will learn how to question, from the most simple things of life to the most complex ones, which were formerly imposed and accepted by all. With time, something that became an object of investigation is faith. Through reason, several questions are asked with the intention to solve the mysteries of faith. It is certainly true that such questions produce evolution and maturing in the construction of the thinking process, however, to which point is this faith beneficial or has a tendency to lead to a skepticism? The subject of this work is faith and reason, aiming to explore where it is reconcilable that the two may walk together, without reason interfering negatively. As an objective, explore the benefits that reason brings to faith, and which are the negative impacts that it can produce, besides defining what is faith and reason, demonstrating how through time reason started to make part of the society. As a conclusion, we try to show that reason and faith are two realities that are not opposed to each other, but both must walk together in the search of the truth. The absolutization of the reason can lead to a skepticism that ignores basic elements of the faith. In counterpart, the speech of faith without the consideration of reason can produce fundamentalist religious practices.

Issue

Section

Articles