c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ While Pope John Paul II’s recent encyclical,”Fides et Ratio”(Faith and Reason), is specifically addressed to Catholic bishops, it is clearly intended for a larger audience beyond the confines of the church hierarchy.

The pope, who once taught philosophy in Poland, urges his fellow philosophers”of other religions and all those who, not sharing a religious belief”to join together in a concerted”renewal of humanity.” At the close of what John Paul II has called”the century of the Holocaust,”he sees millions of spiritually restless people with”no valid points of reference”in their lives. Despite our enormous”technical capability,”people still ask eternal questions like,”Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?”… precisely the kind of questions Jews recently confronted during Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

An American Jewish Committee colleague told me that the day the encyclical appeared she noticed nearly every passenger on her Long Island commuter train avidly reading the words of the pope. Many were nodding their heads in approval, including my friend. Proof, indeed, as the encyclical declares, that”Every man and woman is in some sense a philosopher.” In a bewildering world filled with sharply competing views on just about everything, including the meaning or non-meaning of life and death, the pope encourages”philosophers _ be they Christian or not _ to trust in the power of human reason and not to set themselves goals that are too modest in their philosophizing.” When my wife, a former teacher of philosophy at New Jersey’s William Paterson College, read those words, she smiled and said,”At last, somebody appreciates the importance of rational thought. The pope is good news for college philosophy departments.” As a longtime foe of quick fix New Age claptrap, I liked the pope’s bracing words on the mindless phenomenon that currently passes for religion: when”…faith has stressed feeling and experienceâÂ?¦ (it) runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition. By the same token, reason which is unrelated to an adult faith …”is also incomplete.

I especially resonated to the word”adult”in his advocating an organic blending of disciplined philosophy inquiry and a profound religious faith:”Each without the other is impoverished and feeble.” Just imagine. People are actually being asked to”trust in the power of human reason.” Forget those inane psychic readings, polished stones, astrological tables, UFOs, and exotic aromas offered by New Age practitioners. The pope, in his attempt to unify authentic faith with systematic philosophic inquiry, is urging people to discard infantile expressions of religion and substitute them instead with”the toil of patient inquiry into what makes life worth living.” In reading”Fides et Ratio,”I was immediately reminded of another philosophical religious leader who 800 years ago also lived in a world so filled with challenges and questions that a thoughtful person found it difficult to enjoy inner spiritual peace.

Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) sought to bridge the gap between faith and reason. His”Guide for the Perplexed,”completed in 1190, has remained a widely-read classic to this day. Sections were translated into Latin and studied by medieval Christian philosophers. Maimonides strongly believed the Jewish religion was the supreme means for human beings to know God, but he was also an admirer of the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle.

Maimonides perceived God as the Active Intellect who cares for us even as we draw near to our Creator through a life of moral and intellectual achievement. Like the papal encyclical, the”Guide for the Perplexed”was originally addressed to a limited audience of spiritual teachers”…whose studies brought them into collision with religion,”but Maimonides’ work was soon read by the average person.

The extraordinary success and lasting power of”The Guide for the Perplexed”reflects the constant need and intense yearning of people to balance faith with reason. Maimonides taught that a person could be a faithful religious believer and simultaneously live a life of reason and philosophical inquiry.

The pope is attempting to do something similar for Roman Catholics. Will”Fides et Ratio”be widely read 800 years from now? No one knows, but I am certain that when Karol Wojtyla meets Moses Maimonides in that great Academy on High, they will have much to talk about.

DEA END RUDIN