VATICAN CITY, JUN 7, 1999 (VIS) - This afternoon at 5:15 at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, the Pope met with men and women of science and representatives of academic institutions in Poland, including 13 university rectors. His talk to them focussed on love and hope, and on the "ever-present tension between faith and reason."
After reviewing the history of Copernicus University, which recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding, the Pope said: "At the juncture of two centuries as we are, our thoughts turn alternately to the past and to the future. In the past we seek instruction and directions for our future. In this way we wish to better clarify and give a solid foundation to our hope. Today the world needs hope and is searching for hope! But does not the tragic history of our century, with its wars, its criminal totalitarian ideologies, its concentration camps and gulags, make it easy for us to yield to the temptation of discouragement and despair? ... In order to discover hope, we need to lift our gaze on high."
We must turn to Christ, he said, Who "has shown humanity the most profound truth about God, and at the same time about man. God is love ... is the theme of my present visit to my native Poland. ... This Love which is Gift, is given to man through the act of creation and redemption. ... Precisely this truth about 'God-love' becomes the source of the world's hope and points out the path of our responsibility. Man is able to love, because he was first loved by God. ... The truth about God's love sheds light also on our quest for truth, on our work, on the development of scholarship, on our whole culture. Our research and our work need a guiding idea, a fundamental value, in order to give meaning to and to unite in one direction the efforts of scholars, the reflections of historians, the creativity of artists and the discoveries of scientists, which are all growing at a dizzying rate."
Recalling that today's meeting takes place in "the city of Copernicus," John Paul II said that this Polish astronomer's discovery reminds "us of the ever-present tension between reason and faith. ... The split between reason and faith was the expression of one of humanity's great tragedies. It has many causes, Particularly, beginning in the Enlightenment period, an extreme one-sided rationalism led to the radicalization of positions in the realm of the natural sciences and of philosophy. The resulting split between faith and reason caused irreparable damage not only to religion but also to culture. ... Faith and reason are like 'two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth'. Today we need to work for a reconciliation between faith and reason. ... It appears imperative to reaffirm a basic confidence in human reason and its capacity to know the truth, including absolute and definitive truth."
"Scholarship today," stated the Pope in conclusion, " faces great challenges. The unprecedented development of the sciences and technological progress are raising fundamental questions about the limits of experimentation, the meaning and direction of technological development, the limits of man's tampering with nature and the natural environment. This progress gives rise to both wonderment and fear. Man is becoming ever more fearful of the product of his own intelligence and freedom. He feels endangered. Hence it is more important and timely than ever to recall the fundamental truth that the world is gift from God the Creator, who is Love, and that man as a creature is called to a prudent and responsible dominion over the world of nature, and not its heedless destruction."
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