THE UNIVERSITY FOR A NEW HUMANISM
Keynote Address of Dr. Pedro Morande Court
At a Meeting of John Paul II with the Academic Community
The theme which brings us here to celebrate our Jubilee is “The University for a New Humanism.” It invites us to renew our sense of vocation and mission in the service of truth to all of the cultures we represent here. But we cannot be bearers of hope for the renewal of the university and the life of society unless we actually live what we profess.
The appearance of “humanistic” movements implies a paradox. Often in the course of history, they entail a radical deformation of human life as seen in social customs and institutions, an abandonment of clear ideas which are discredited because they have been obscured and confused by many. Hence every such humanism is an attempt to renounce the appearances of inhumanity and contains an anguished desire to return human beings to the true source of their dignity.
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The inhumanity implicated in all forms of modern humanism has failed to overcome its own internal contradictions. The pretension of Protagoras, according to which “man is the measure of all things,” symbolizes this paradox. It wants to distinguish the rational creature from all others while at the same time idolizing reason as the fountain of all truth. Thus the history of human progress has also been the history of human degradation. Hence also the irreconcilable opposition in the eyes of the world between those who truly love wisdom, and sophists; between those who see the mind as open to reality so as to comprehend it in all its aspects, and those who enclose the mind within itself and value it only for its ability to manipulate reality, subject only to the limitations of available technology.
Fides et Ratio has given us a profound elucidation of modern thought in regard to this dilemma and the consequent divorce between reason and wisdom. The encyclical lists (85-91) eclecticism, scientism, historicism, pragmatism, and nihilism as various positions which demean the data of revelation and go on to undermine confidence in reason’s capacity to find the unity in reality. When reason loses confidence in its own capacity to contemplate the truth, man is blinded to the objectivity of historical events and becomes capable of corrupting his dignity in the most extreme and arbitrary ways.
As members of university communities, we know that this dilemma affects not only contemporary culture—which emancipates science and technology from moral norms—but also the university itself and our daily labors within it, immersed as we are in a vocation of service to persons of the most diverse backgrounds. As Chesterton said, “The wise man is the one who thrusts his head into heaven; the mad man is the one who thrusts heaven into his head,” believing that he is precisely the measure of all things. That is the dilemma of contemporary humanism which we encounter everyday in the classroom and the laboratory.
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Has the loss of the metaphysical meaning of reality made it impossible to understand human behavior and its freedom? Is the human person completely unique, the only subject and object of culture, as John Paul II told UNESCO (June 2, 1980; 7, 8), or can the proper functioning of society no longer recognize this because of its exclusive concern with efficiency?
Nietzsche portrayed nihilism as lacking in finality and unable to ask the question, Why? (The Will to Power). If reason cannot discern the finality of human acts, neither can it recognize an objective, absolute norm by which human actions can be oriented to their natural end. Fides et Ratio invites us to review the great Christian philosophers and theologians in order to affirm once again that reason is not based on self-regulating natural, social, or political processes in quest of stability, but on the needs of the human heart for ultimate answers concerning life in the world. As the Church’s metaphysical tradition has admirably expressed it, the desire for truth is rooted in human nature. But the same tradition teaches that the search for universal truth must operate within the limits of human understanding. The mind can approach the threshold of the Mystery it so ardently wants to know, but it cannot penetrate that Mystery by itself. Only the light of faith which proceeds from God Himself can cross that threshold.
Besides Fides et Ratio, the Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae is also a prophetic document for the evangelization of culture in the new millennium: “Our era urgently needs to hear the meaning of truth proclaimed, lest freedom, justice, and human dignity disappear….Therefore it is ne-cessary to work enthusiastically and fearlessly in all the fields of knowledge, aware that He who is, the Logos, has gone before us, and that His Spirit of understanding and love gives to the human person the capacity to encounter the ultimate reality which is our principle and our end” (6).
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From the nihilist perspective, the coherence of reality is achieved by a self-sustaining will to power. Such a perspective makes gratitude for self-giving and the experience of inter-personal communion incomprehensible. Violent forms of manipulation further obscure it. Yet Christians bear witness to it and continue to discover in contemplation ever more of the Mystery in the world through God’s mercy and wisdom.
The capacity of culture to overcome the tragedy of nihilism, its arbitrary and self-destructive separation of reason and will, its proclamation of the neutrality of reason and technique, and of the survival of the fittest, will depend in large measure upon the university’s return to its original mission. Fides et Ratio provides the path a sapiential rationality must take in pursuing the ultimate meaning of all things. To follow that path, members of the university community must renew their desire for conversion to Christ, who alone ennobles that mission. That is the “threshold of hope” which the Holy Father invites us to cross.