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fides et ratio

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Faith and reason; the two complementary sources of truth in the Catholic intellectual tradition.

Detailed Definition
Fides et ratio is the title of John Paul II's encyclical on the relationship between faith and reason, asserting their complementarity rather than their opposition. In poetry, it speaks to the longstanding intellectual and spiritual tradition that seeks to hold religious faith and rational inquiry together, refusing to choose between them. It appears in devotional verse, philosophical poetry, and any poem wrestling with the competing claims of the heart and the mind, revelation and evidence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Boethius and later Aquinas represent the great tradition of fides et ratio in Christian intellectual poetry — the attempt to hold faith and reason together in a single, coherent vision of reality; Gerard Manley Hopkins's Jesuit formation gave him a profound commitment to fides et ratio, and his poetry enacts the attempt to bring the full force of both theological faith and scientific observation to bear on the natural world; Newman's poetry and prose — particularly "The Idea of a University" — are expressions of fides et ratio: the conviction that genuine education must unite reason and faith rather than choosing between them; A student writing about the relationship between science and religion in their own life might use fides et ratio as a framework — exploring how they navigate the tension and complementarity of empirical evidence and personal belief; T.S. Eliot's conversion to Anglo-Catholicism and its effect on his poetry is a case study in fides et ratio — the intellectual poet submitting to a tradition of faith while continuing to bring his full critical intelligence to bear on it
Additional Notes
Fides et ratio is the title of an encyclical letter issued by Pope John Paul II in 1998, described as an exploration of the relationship between faith and reason as two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. Students should note that the image of two wings — each necessary, neither sufficient alone — is itself a poetic image, and it reflects a long tradition of thinking about the complementarity of faith and reason going back at least to Augustine and Anselm. The phrase is relevant to any poetry that grapples with the relationship between religious belief and intellectual honesty — the attempt to be both fully faithful and fully rational, refusing to choose between the demands of the heart and the demands of the mind. Related terms include credo ut intelligam (I believe in order to understand, Anselm's formula), intellectus fidei (the intellectual understanding of faith), and the tradition of the philosophical poem from Lucretius through Dante to the present.
Also Known As
faith and reason reason and faith faith and philosophy
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