Why are there still Christian universities?
Christian faith is a great yes to reason at its various levels. In university life, this translates in the first place into a yes to reason as a legitimate human faculty.
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| Laurentius de voltina |
Does it make sense that confessional universities such as these continue to exist in the 21st century?
In order to outline an answer to this question, it is necessary to look at the way in which faith and reason are related. In fact, it was precisely this relationship that led to the development of universities in the Middle Ages. Recently, the great theologian Joseph Ratzinger reminded us that "the university was born because faith considered the search for truth possible and impelled this search in such a way that it subsequently required the extension of its scope to all fields of human knowledge." That is, at the core of Christianity was the conviction that faith can and must be thought and take root in human rationality. It was this conviction that prompted the creation of the universitas, which is the place where we open ourselves to universal knowledge and allow ourselves to be guided by the light of faith.
In order to understand correctly how faith and reason relate to each other, it is important first to be clearer about what each of these words means. Faith is in a way an essential component of human nature, because no one has a direct vision of truth as a whole, no one sees the whole. At the same time, however, we all need a worldview, that is, we all need to have an idea of what things are in their totality. This tension forces us to assume a position in the face of reality, a point from which we look at and interpret everything around us. The stance we take normally assumes one of two broad categories.
En primer lugar, tenemos el materialismo. Desde esta perspectiva, todo lo que existe se reduce en última instancia a la materia como forma más fundamental y primordial de la realidad. Las partículas, que por sí mismas no piensan ni tienen intenciones voluntarias, serían la forma primordial del ser. Por otra parte, existe una opción que descubre algo más fundamental que la materia. Si observamos atentamente el mundo, podemos ver que en él se refleja una realidad inteligente, de modo que las cosas parecen ser la expresión de un pensamiento. Como cuando miramos un puente: no estamos viendo sólo hierro, sino la expresión intelectual de un gran ingeniero. Así, esta posición ve la idea o el pensamiento como la forma más fundamental del ser, que se oculta como causa de la realidad material.
The choice in favor of the primacy of matter or the primacy of thought cannot be decided scientifically. That is, science does not reveal to us whether material things really express a thought or whether it just seems by chance that they were thought, but in reality things were arranged that way by an impulse of the roasting. So our choice depends on something else. In any case, it depends on the position we adopt whether we recognize in things an ultimate meaning and a rational truth or whether we simply look at them as a product of chance that in reality have no ultimate significance for the whole of the real.
The way to situate ourselves in front of reality from one of these positions is the most fundamental act of faith of our existence, and we all have to do it. There is no escape from this responsibility. Therefore, it does not seem very appropriate to divide the world into believers on one side and non-believers on the other, because deep down we are all believers. The question, rather, is what each one believes in. From this point of view we can understand what Ratzinger means when he explains that the Christian faith can be summarized as a decisive option in favor of truth and reason. His option is for the primacy of thought and not for the primacy of matter. If matter were the most fundamental aspect of reality, reason would be only a mere by-product in the order of things. But in this case, the rational itself would be a result of irrational chance and would have no definitive importance for the whole of the real. It would be just an accident without ultimate relevance. Therefore, openness to faith in a university does not mean the admission of irrational contents. On the contrary, it means the resolute affirmation of the importance of reason at its different levels.
Let us now say something about reason. When we speak of reason we may be referring to different things. For example, we can be talking about our faculty with which we do science and know the world; we can also be talking about an internal rationality that we observe in the way things behave (such as the rationality of the water cycle or of ecosystems or of evolutionary processes). We may also be referring to that rationality which is at the origin of all things and which we commonly call God. Finally, Jesus Christ is also recognized by his Apostles as the divine rationality that has come to meet us.
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| Texas Christian University was founded by East Texas brothers Addison & Randolph Clark, together with the support of their father Joseph A. Clark. The Clarks were preachers and educators associated with the American Restoration Movement–the spiritual ancestor of the modern Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). |
I said a moment ago that the Christian faith is a great yes to reason at its different levels. In university life, this translates in the first place into a yes to reason as a legitimate human faculty. As a firm confidence that human beings can really have access to the knowledge of truth. This is a great challenge for a relativistic world that is suspicious of man's capacity for true knowledge in a broad and strong sense. Nevertheless, the university was born of this confidence and can only continue to live in it. Secondly, the Christian university says yes to the rational structure of the world, which has also been from the beginning a fundamental presupposition of the sciences, which throw themselves into scrutinizing their different objects confident that they will find a rationality that is transparent and accessible to our intelligence.
Many contemporary philosophies propose that the rationality of the world is more like a mirage, an illusion. If reason is a mere by-product of chance, in effect, this supposed reason has no structuring value for the whole of the real and nothing would guarantee that reality will be rational at all its levels nor that it will continue to be so in the future. From this follows a great yes to the reason that is at the origin of all things, a creative reason that fills the world with authentic rationality, truth and meaning. This original rationality is also what guarantees the unity of knowledge on which the possibility of interdisciplinary dialogue is based, because it is what gives unity to all the manifestations of reason. It is like the glue that binds all reality into a unity, so that all parts relate to each other. This opens the door for some disciplines to dialogue with others and to seek how they relate to and illuminate each other. Finally, a Christian university dares to say yes to the scandal of reason incarnate. That is to say, it finds in Jesus Christ the reason of God who makes himself present among us and speaks to us personally.
It is no coincidence that the university was born in the heart of Christianity. Of course, I would not go so far as to say that there cannot be excellent non-Christian universities. However, I think that when the university remains within the tradition of Christianity it has the internal structure that best guarantees the fidelity of the university vocation, which must always be oriented to truth and reason.
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