Faith and Philosophy

Volume 6, Issue 3, July 1989

Reflections on the Truth of Religion

Is it possible to reflect on religious truth from a position outside faith without seriously distorting what faith itself understands by its truth? As long as philosophy and theology remained united---until the end of the middle ages---such a reflection was neither needed nor attempted. The standpoint which an independent philosophy in the modern age has taken with respect to the problem of truth, where the knowing subject becomes the source of truth, would appear to render such an effort suspect. Nevertheless, this essay argues, we are justified in approaching the truth of religion through the models available in present philosophy: correspondence, coherence, disclosure. In all three cases, however, the application of the models needs to be qualified if it is to account for truth as faith itself understands it.