LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
The Thanksgiving holiday is a time to
consider all the blessings for which we
are grateful. In the spirit of Thanksgiving,
I want to acknowledge a major gift
given earlier this year to our Thomistic
Institute: a $100,000 endowment to
fund an annual lecture on an aspect of
Thomistic theology. The lecture is to be
held at our parish of St. Mary
in New Haven, Connecticut,
adjacent to the campus of
Yale University.
The hope of the donor, Ms.
Dorothy Cunningham, is
that through this annual
lecture students and faculty
at Yale might be exposed to
the wisdom of Aquinas! So,
thanks to the generosity
of Ms. Cunningham, the
Thomistic
Institute
of
the PFIC will continue
to expand its outreach,
engaging a highly-secularized culture
with a robust Catholic worldview not
only in Washington, D.C., and New York
City, but now at Yale as well.
At the heart of the work of the Thomistic
Institute, as well as the entire academic
program of the PFIC, is the theological
perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas, our
Dominican brother who lived in the
thirteenth century. And one of the great
contributions he has made to theology is
his synthesis of faith and reason.
For St. Thomas, reason is concerned
with discovering and knowing the truths
of the natural order, while faith is what
Faith & Reason - Volume II, Issue III
171144_Faith & Reason.indd 3
gives us access to supernatural truths.
For example, by reason we know how
human life comes into existence—but
only by faith do we know that human
beings are created in the image and
likeness of God, because God himself
has revealed this. Yet faith and reason
are not two completely distinct silos
that have no relationship to
one another. For Aquinas,
the two are interconnected
and complementary: faith
elevates our natural reasoning
ability by leading us to
know truths beyond our
natural capacity, and reason
helps us better understand
and rationally defend the
mysteries revealed by faith!
Thus reason or philosophy
serves as a “handmaid”
for theology, to borrow an
image from Aquinas.
As fervent disciples of St. Thomas, we at
the PFIC continue to see the relationship
between faith and reason as the best way
to preach the Gospel today. For people
of our time, it is not enough to know
what the Church teaches about God and
morality—they want to understand why!
And the synthesis of faith and reason
enables professors and students of the
PFIC to explain to others why the truths
of faith make sense.
At this time of Thanksgiving, we give
thanks to God for all of you, our donors,
who believe in our mission and who
continue to generously support the work
of the PFIC and our Thomistic Institute!
3
11/3/15 12:14 PM