Truths found by mean of faith cannot be contradicted by truths found through philosophy for they aim at the same thing— truth. Since truth cannot be contradicted by truth, it is logical to say that philosophy and theology are non contradictory (St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles). Averroes, an Arabic philosopher, say there is nothing inherently contradictory between philosophy and theology; it is the means used to reach the truth that conduct the pursuer in confusion. “Theologians deal with revealed truth with regards to God as the Creator and His relation with His creation. Lovers of wisdom, on the other hand, seek truth and permanence in a constantly changing world (The Decisive Treatise, 18).” So for Averroes the means employed by these seekers may throw them off track, but if both philosophy and theology are done rightly, they cannot find contradictory conclusion pursing the same thing.

One interesting observation made by Pascal, who came long after these masters were gone, signaled that “There are three kinds of people in the world; those who have sought God and found Him and now serve Him, those who are seeking Him but have not yet found Him, and those who neither seek Him nor find Him. The first are reasonable and happy, the second reasonable and unhappy, and the third unreasonable and unhappy”. The truth remains that today’s society has to deal with these people. This issue spurs me to ask: what went wrong? Why is the more one plunged into philosophy the further away he or she tends to browse from the truth? Why were only the ancients able to find truth through philosophy?  Let me be more direct; why does philosophy not lead to truth anymore?

Anyone who has studied philosophy knows that philosophy remains what it is regardless of culture. It asks the same fundamental questions that have always been pervaded humanity for eternity: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life etc? In fact, these questions are not merely peculiar to philosophy; we find them in the Bible, in Islam, in ancient philosophy, in religion like Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. Blessed Pope John Paul II noticed that these are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. The answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives. So why do most people fail to take the right road then?

JPII seems to strike at the heart of the issue. “Reason,” He says,” in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth that transcends them”.

JPII—It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being. Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of the human capacity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned. This has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the shifting sands of widespread skepticism. While philosophical thinking has succeeded in coming closer to the reality of human life and its forms of expression, it has also tended to pursue issues—existential, hermeneutical or linguistic—that ignore the radical question of the truth about personal existence, about being and about God.

Philosophy has clearly then lost its aim. It bitterly fails to pursue the beautiful original path traced by the ancients. Of course it can no longer cohabit with theology in this environment. They become like a divorce husband and wife that can neither stay away from each other nor get along. Philosophers ask questions known by only theologians. Rather they prefer to reject all insights that come from theology. The reason why today’s philosophers find not the truth is because they don’t accept the theologians’ answers. Though they do acknowledge the limit of their science, they reject theological answers because they use a tool that had never been employed before then, namely the tool of revelation. Why else would philosophers not want to work with theologians? Sheer arrogance. Do you now see why philosophy does not conduct to truth anymore? The day philosophers finally understand that it is sine qua non to work with theologians, no longer will there be unhappy and unreasonable people out there.