Abuja, Nigeria, Nov 15, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Amidst the confusion and disorder of certain scientific and technological “advances,” man must understand that reason alone cannot address his fundamental questions, says Cardinal Norberto Rivera, Archbishop of Mexico.
During the 57th National Congress of the National Union of Parents, the Cardinal referred to the example of St. Augustine who as a young man mistakenly sought “to separate reason from the supernatural, from faith.” Only after trying set faith against reason did the saint realize that uniting them together was the only way to find the Eternal Beauty and “the truth that sets us free.”
Cardinal Rivera explained that when man only wants to be governed by reason, he ends up falling into positivism and a “scientific philosophy that has no answers” for his fundamental questions.
When St. Augustine “was able to bring together faith and reason, he knew he had found God,” the Cardinal said. The challenge for the 21st century is also to find God in the union of faith and reason.