Faith and Reason

Pope John Paul II took up the relationship of faith and reason in Fides et Ratio, his encyclical about theology and philosophy.  This is his introductory passage:

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.

As humans, we ask some fundamental questions:

Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? 

Where do we get the answers?  First, from God, who speaks to us as one person speaks to another:

By the authority of his absolute transcendence, God who makes himself known is also the source of the credibility of what he reveals. By faith, men and women give their assent to this divine testimony. This means that they acknowledge fully and integrally the truth of what is revealed because it is God himself who is the guarantor of that truth. They can make no claim upon this truth which comes to them as gift and which, set within the context of interpersonal communication, urges reason to be open to it and to embrace its profound meaning.

And this inspires our rational search to understand the answers:

Revelation therefore introduces into our history a universal and ultimate truth which stirs the human mind to ceaseless effort; indeed, it impels reason continually to extend the range of its knowledge until it senses that it has done all in its power, leaving no stone unturned.

For more about Fides et Ratio, see the article by Richard John Neuhaus.