To Representatives of Culture (13 June 1984)

On Wednesday, 13 June 1984, the Holy Father addressed the Representatives of Culture at the University of Fribourg.

Mr. Rector,
Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the Teaching Staff or
Representatives of Culture,
Gentlemen, Representatives of the Government of Fribourg and of
the Confederation,
dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
dear students, and all of you, friends of this University,

1. I thank the Rector with all my heart for his warm words of welcome and for the delicate evocation of the links between the University of Fribourg and Poland, my homeland. I certainly feel a very deep joy in this contact with the university community of Fribourg, whose influence extends well beyond this country. I am pleased to emphasize first and foremost the originality of your University. It seems to me to reflect the political genius of Switzerland, made up of balance, marked attention to the religious and cultural traditions of each canton and to the autonomy of its constituted authorities. Indeed, the University of Fribourg is both a State University and a University of Swiss Catholics. This is why one can admire its respect for pluralism and its fidelity to the heritage of Christian civilization. Congratulations to all for helping to make your University a place of dialogue between science and faith, between the cultural traditions of humanity, a place where we know how to welcome representatives from other university centres, a place of fruitful collaboration between professors from the various Faculties of Theology in Switzerland.

In this friendly meeting, I would like to talk to you about science and culture, the crisis they are going through and the ways to overcome it.

2. Modern culture, characterized by the astonishing rise of science and its applications, is experiencing a profound crisis. But it would be insufficient to remain at a denunciatory, pessimistic or nostalgic diagnosis of a bygone past. It is important above all to rediscover and affirm the principles of all authentic culture, which will allow humanity to do a truly constructive work. Our era and those that preceded it have believed too easily that scientific and technical conquests would be the equivalent, or at least the guarantor, of human progress, generating liberation and happiness. Today, many scientists, and with them a growing number of our contemporaries, realize that the thoughtless transformation of the world risks seriously compromising the complex and delicate balances of nature, and they are anguished by technical achievements likely to become terrifying instruments of destruction and death, as well as by other recent discoveries, fraught with threats of manipulation and enslavement of man. This is why some minds are tempted to discredit the great modern adventure of science as such. Moreover, more and more scientists are becoming aware of their human responsibility and are convinced that there can be no science without conscience. This fundamental reflection is a positive and encouraging acquisition of our time which better measures the limits of the scientistic ideology, which we will be careful not to identify with science itself.

3. It is in this context that the responsibility and the greatness of your mission as Christian intellectuals appear. You must become increasingly aware of the gift that the Creator has given to man by endowing him with reason. It is from God - the foundation of all truth and the first origin of all meaning - that comes the irrepressible aspiration of human reason for the truth. Reason is capable of knowing the truth and of finding in it, as it were, its perfection. The intellectual who reflects on the meaning of his mission understands that the soul of this mission is love of truth above all else. His fundamental attitude can only be the search for and acceptance of the truth. This requires great strength of soul, inner freedom, independence from prevailing mentalities and fashions, loyalty and humility. But the greatest joy of intellectuals, at the end of their arduous quests, is indeed the “gaudium de veritate” of which Saint Augustine spoke with enthusiasm. Certainly, I cannot forget the unanswered questions and painful anxieties of many minds in sincere search of the truth. Their sufferings also testify to the greatness and nobility of the intellectual vocation, and they even constitute a form of service to the truth. If science is a work of reason, it is not by being wary of it that we will overcome the crisis of contemporary culture. On the contrary, it is important to trust the immense scientific effort of men: their growing discoveries are an enrichment of the heritage of truths and, as such, correspond to the design of the Creator. However, scientists, legitimately proud of the technical applications of their knowledge, will be careful not to identify these results with the supreme purpose of science. The latter would then be reduced to a simple instrument of domination of nature. Scientists always have to convince themselves that the truths discovered have value first in themselves.

4. Furthermore, the scientist's approach obeys a rigorous method. It is the nature of science to obtain precise but limited results, to the point that science is not capable of itself to answer the fundamental questions arising from its own discoveries. Science is not able to answer the question of its own meaning. And the present crisis is to a large extent a crisis of the scientistic ideology persisting in affirming the self-sufficiency of the scientific project, as if it could by itself give satisfaction to all the essential questions that man asks himself, and approach culture as an achievement of man in the totality of his being. The awareness of the limits of science is a great opportunity offered to our time. Indeed, it points towards one of the major tasks of culture: that of the integration of knowledge, in the sense of a synthesis in which the impressive body of scientific knowledge would find its meaning within the framework of an integral vision of man and the universe, of the “ordo rerum”. I am aware of the difficulties of such an undertaking, at a time when many minds are tempted to resign themselves to the fragmentation of knowledge, or, on the contrary, to hasty and fragile syntheses. But today's University can and must be the privileged place for the confrontation of the methods used and the results obtained in the multiple sectors of research. Such a confrontation is essential to lay the foundations of an integral humanism, radically different from the artificial juxtaposition of fragmentary knowledge about man, who needs to be understood in his unity and transcendent dimension.

5. At this point I would like to stress the role that philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of being, has in this integration. Since its foundation, the University of Freiburg has become famous thanks to many metaphysicians. I would also like to briefly recall what I said on the occasion of the centenary of Albert Einstein's death. The conflicts that could previously arise from religious authorities influencing the development of scientific knowledge are not in the nature of reason and faith and are now outdated. Should they arise again, then a dialogue that is free from passions alien to reason and prepared to protect itself strictly against the pressures of a public opinion that is only superficially informed and often little aware of the significance of scientific problems is best able to clarify the questions that have arisen and to discover a possible convergence of truths. There should therefore be no contradiction between the results of science, the work of reason, and the statements of faith. Of course, theology, which scientifically develops the “intellectus fidei”, the “understanding of faith”, can and should make an essential and decisive contribution to the integration of knowledge mentioned above within a university such as yours.

Contemporary culture, characterized by an accumulation of individual knowledge that must be brought together in a living and meaningful unity, needs this wisdom, as it has been inherited from Greek thought and deepened in the light of the Gospel. When knowledge leads to the highest realities and attempts to judge the other areas of existence from there, then such knowledge becomes wisdom. By ordering all things in the light of the highest principles, it gives individual knowledge its well-structured unity and its true meaning. Therefore, wisdom is a true creator of culture, and only through it does the researcher become a truly intellectual personality. I hope that the University of Freiburg will produce and form the kind of scholars that our age, which is shaped by science and its application, so desperately needs.

6. A final consideration arises from what has been said so far. It concerns freedom. A great place for knowledge and culture must also be a great place for freedom. Because it is rooted in the spirit and reason, this freedom should not be understood as an unlimited, arbitrary force. A person is free who is able to choose according to the yardstick of the highest values ​​and goals. You will no doubt remember those powerful words of the Gospel: "The truth will set you free" ( Io . 8:32). The person who finds the truth also discovers the basis of his own perfection and independence.

From a similar reasoning, it is easy to understand that science is only truly free when it allows itself to be governed by truth. Scientific activity should therefore not depend so much on immediate goals, on social demands or on economic interests. Research is thus a fundamental good that the university community is rightly careful to protect. Guided exclusively by the strict rules of his method and by the correct use of his reason, the scholar rejects in his research all factors that seek to influence him from outside, that is, factors that are not part of the subject of his research. However, in order for his work to be fully credible, the researcher must, on the other hand, respect in his work those requirements that arise from the very logic of science. I am referring here to loyalty to the reality that is to be investigated, constant self-discipline and freedom from selfish interests, a willingness to collaborate, which leads to comparing one's own research results with those of colleagues and even to questioning them if they are criticized with competence. And when it comes to theological research, the aforementioned fidelity to the object of research includes, above all, fidelity to that truth which comes from God and is entrusted to the care of the Church.

I am pleased to note here that a growing number of scholars and researchers of a high standard and with a particularly clear view of the concerns of this world are becoming more and more aware of their ethical responsibility for political and human coexistence and also - if they are Christians - for the ecclesial community.

Freedom thus makes the scholar open and ready for the truth - and the truth that he understands and interprets in turn justifies his freedom. Maintaining this free access to the truth is part of the responsibility of scientists and the greatness of their calling.

7. May these words of mine encourage and inspire all the members of the great university family of Fribourg and its guests today in their respective activities! This is my sincere wish for all of you, but especially for you students. And why? Because it is up to you now - and even more so tomorrow - to help shape the civilisation of the decades that are on the horizon. At local, national and global levels, you will have to ensure that the human person experiences security and development in all areas of his existence.

Once again I thank you very much for the warm welcome you have given me and I commend each and every one of you and your tasks to God, the Lord of history.

© Copyright 1984 - Vatican Publishing House

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