Christian Faith: Christian Definition of True Reality

By Keith D'Souza and Janina Gomes

Christian Definition of True Reality

How does one define reality from the perspective of faith? St Anselm defines theology as "faith seeking understanding".

St Augustine, citing Plato, argued for the necessity of eternal, universal spiritual principles and laws on which our contingent and temporal realm of existence is based. For Augustine, God is the author and overseer of these principles and laws.

Making this Platonic distinction between the spiritual and material, early mediaeval Christianity came to value the spiritual realm of life far more than the material. The attendant dualistic anthropology led to an overvaluation of the development of the soul, in comparison to the body.

St Thomas Aquinas, departing from this Platonic dualism, used the comparatively more realistic and 'this-worldly' philosophy of Aristotle to present a reality that harmonised with Christian doctrine. Aquinas understood the human soul as developing on account of its bodily potentialities.

After death, the immortal soul will be united with the resurrected body, constituting complete personhood. Aquinas also understood the universe to be constituted of a hierarchy of created objects, from those having the least potency for development to those having the most. Only God has no potentiality, as God is pure Act.

For Aquinas, although reason was autonomous from faith, the latter complemented and completed the former. Renowned for his proofs for the existence of God based on rational argumentation, Aquinas yet relied more upon revelation to provide enlightenment about the nature and functioning of spiritual reality.

Catholic thinker Karl Rahner demonstrates that theology builds upon and completes anthropology. For Rahner, the starting point for philosophical reflection is being-in-the-world. Being human entails a "supernatural existential", or a predisposition towards self-revelation and the grace of God.

For Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, consciousness and matter are aspects of the same reality - the "within" and the "without". Evolution represents a steady increase of complexity, from inanimate matter to animate matter, and finally the emergence of human consciousness. This crossing of the "threshold of reflection" gave birth to a new planetary sphere, which Chardin calls the 'Noosphere', a sphere of rationality and interpersonal love, progressively oriented towards the Christic Omega Point.

The human person, for Chardin, is the leading axis and shoot of evolution. So he has to be open-minded towards fellow human beings as well as to the Divine. Only then the human mind will progress along the evolutionary path towards "collective human reflection" rather than adopt a route of anarchy and mutual self-destruction.

This anthropological and sociological emphasis in contemporary Catholic thought supports the practical emphasis given by the Church to social development and social service as part of spiritual progress. In recent times, the emergence of "liberation theology" - a theology for the oppressed and a pedagogy of social change, influenced by critical sociological analysis - has provided a boost to the importance given to social development and the values of social justice and peace as integral to spiritual development.

Christian philosophy may be defined as a form of 'critical realism' - a realism that takes into serious account the human situation, and estimates how best to address it in terms of personal and collective spiritual development, aided by the grace of God.