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How to Use Reason to Learn About God

July 31, 2024

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Caroline: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me! You’re a veteran course presenter here at the Word on Fire Institute. This third course of yours, How to Use Reason to Learn About God, sounds mystifying. What do you cover in the course, and how do you break it down?   

Dr. Christopher Kaczor: I like to offer courses for Word on Fire that I’ve offered previously for university students. In this way, I can know what does or doesn’t work based on multiple presentations to people who can give me immediate feedback. This helps me to know what wasn’t clear the first time, what needs expanding or deleting, and how to craft the course so it is as clear and compelling as possible. 

In this course, I look at how we can understand more about God using philosophy. Some people think that faith and reason are like two fighters who cannot be reconciled. I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas, who thought that faith and reason work in harmony. So, this course is aimed at helping people to understand this perspective.

Why are both faith and reason necessary in your recipe for evangelizing the culture, and does an effective evangelist need to harness both?

Faith and reason are necessary for evangelization, as so many saints have taught us. Faith alone can lead to distortions and superstitions. Reason alone, especially “reason” understood as scientific reasoning, leaves unconsidered enormously important questions for human flourishing as well as our understanding of reality.   

How do you think Thomas Aquinas is uniquely suited to guide us in our quest to gain answers to our faith questions? Is his thought “black and white,” as some suggest? 

St. Thomas Aquinas is an especially good guide for us today for several reasons. First, he was a thinker who drew on all kinds of different sources of wisdom, including ancient Greek thinkers like Aristotle, Jewish thinkers like Moses Maimondies, Islamic thinkers like Averoes. Today, we too need to learn from every resource available. Secondly, Aquinas was a very clear thinker who communicated in a straightforward way but also in a deep and insightful way. Third, Aquinas was a careful thinker—looking for what is true even in views and thinkers that he ultimately rejects. In this way, he is just the opposite of a “black and white” thinker. He reads widely and creatively and his writing reflects this diversity of thought. 

You don’t need faith, or the Bible, or to appeal to religious authority to come to know that there must be a First Cause of the universe.

What do you think are the biggest hurdles people face today in their journey toward a real faith relationship?

I’d guess the biggest obstacle for most people is making time to pray. To have a real relationship with God requires (like all relationships) time to communicate. How much would the world improve if each person would make 15 minutes a day dedicated only to God? It is great to pray on the run, in difficult moments. But I think it is more helpful to set time aside each day to be alone with God.

I’ve always enjoyed your use of vivid analogies and examples in your writing for Evangelization & Culture Online. It makes the discussion more accessible for the average reader, regardless of the complexity of the subject matter. Is that something we can expect in the course? Should the viewers be well-versed in philosophy? What would you say is the difficulty level of the course? 

Thank you for your kind words! This course is designed for anyone and everyone. Viewers need no background in philosophy or special training. I hope that anyone viewing these lectures will be able to profit from them. The course is not designed as a PhD seminar studying Latin texts and scholarly secondary sources. Rather, the course is designed for anyone interested in how reason can teach us some things (not everything!) about God.

What key takeaways do you want to instill in those that take the course?

The key takeaways of this course include the following points. First, I argue that it is reasonable to believe that God exists. You don’t need faith, or the Bible, or to appeal to religious authority to come to know that there must be a First Cause of the universe. Secondly, the course points out that reason alone (not just faith) can show us that there can be only one God and that God has to have certain characteristics like understanding, choosing, and loving. Finally, I aim to show that certain objections to faith do not work such as that Jesus cannot be fully God and fully a human being. I’m delighted to be able to present these ideas beyond the walls of my classroom, and I hope that many people find the ideas that I discuss helpful. 

Thank you very much for taking the time to discuss the course!

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The first lesson launches today! Check it out now
in the Word on Fire Institute.