Abstract
An individual's understanding of faith and reason always develops within a community context. Unless a person is raised in a multi-cultural setting, he or she is likely to equate the notion of faith or reason with a given community's articulation of it. This was the situation in which I found myself. I was raised in a Polish Catholic family in a predominantly Catholic city and attended Catholic schools from grade one through college. For me, faith meant the Catholic faith, a gift of God that was to be expressed in one's personal life, one's ritual participation and in one's intellectual assent to various doctrinal formulations. Similarly, reason could be relied upon not only to generate proofs for the existence of God but to provide criteria for demonstrating the superiority of Christianity. Over the years, however, as my sense of community has expanded, my theological framework has broadened from an exclusively CATHOLIC one to an increasingly catholic (i.e., universal) one that crosses traditional religious boundaries and challenges the traditional patriarchal categories in which the notions of faith and reason have been formulated. To explain this shift, I find it helpful to describe two significant events that served as defining moments in my personal and professional life.
Recommended Citation
Martin, Judith G.
(1994)
"Defining Moments of Faith,"
University of Dayton Review: Vol. 23:
No.
1, Article 13.
Available at:
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/udr/vol23/iss1/13
Comments
The first annual Humanities Symposium was held Feb. 28-March 1, 1994. The Humanities Symposium was part of "Viva Humanitas," a yearlong series of programs celebrating the opening of the Jesse Philips Humanities Center in August 1993.