Philosophy and Priestly Formation
I consider it simply appropriate to bring into a discourse titled ‘formation, the Catholic priesthood and the modern age’, some candid reflections on the place of philosophy in priestly formation, particularly as attempts have been made in some quarters to represent certain aversion to reason when matters of faith come up. This is known to manifest not only in popular arguments and street conversations but even among pastors, preachers and teachers at Bible schools and Christian communities as noted above by John Wesley. From manifest experience, to embrace faith without reason would either produce a fundamentalist mindset or a fanatical disposition, while of course, reason without faith would either lead to agnosticism or atheism. After all, an act of faith is an intelligent act. 2 And in Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 155) we are admonished that “in faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace. And, I take it to be a privilege to be invited to do an essay in this regard, particularly in honour of a renowned philosopher, teacher and preacher of our time.
Keywords: