Abstract

This work arises out of the efforts of two college teachers to explain to their beginning students how believing and reasoning are two human activities that may be integrated to form a complete Christian view of human existence. Two Wings takes its title from the opening of John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio, which speaks of how the human spirit rises on the two wings of faith and reason to stretch toward truth. The book offers a basic yet engaging encounter with traditional arguments for and against God's existence, including such troubling topics as the question of evil and Christian belief. It also grapples in non-technical language with arguments arising from the encounter between contemporary natural science and traditional Christian theology. These chapters include accessible discussions of the implications of Big Bang cosmology, arguments from design, and Darwinian evolution. The final chapters of the book take up questions from ethics and politics that impact decisions on how we should structure our lives in light of the engagement between faith and reason. This book is non-dogmatic; it seeks to probe and question the contours of the problems involved in the debate. It addresses arguments supporting and opposing its own viewpoint, and abounds in analogies designed to speak to non-specialists. Today even Christians who do not work in academic environments need to be familiar with such philosophical and theological arguments. Two Wings provides the best available starting point for their efforts to engage with confidence the contemporary situation of Christian believers because it arises directly from the questions of the inquisitive.