Faith, Reason and Person: on Belief as an Anthropological Dimension of the Personal aAt of Faith

Abstract

This paper studies the anthropological roots of faith from the believing dimension of man, highlighted by Phenomenology, Sociology of Communication and, especially, Anthropology. It continues then dealing with the step taken from religious belief to faith, understood as an obedient response to the call of God, as it presented out in the Scriptures. Now unlike the various religions, monotheistic faith took from the beginning the route of reason, both in the sphere of theoretical knowledge and in that of civil coexistence, despite the deviations that have occurred in both spheres throughout the course of History. Thus, the Christian faith has been the driving force of universities and has contributed to the growth of knowledge, while laying the foundations for rec- ognizing the authority of civil power (laicality in the positive sense).Yet a particularly eloquent sample of the convergence between reason and faith is found in the notion of person, on the one hand inexistent in preChristian world, and on the other, elaborated in the first councils in the categories of Reason put forward by the Greeks.