New horizons of knowledge

While few weeks ago Benedict XVI, although invited by the rector, was prevented from delivering his address at Rome’s ‘La Sapienza’ University, in Russia a debate sparked off on the role of religion in the public sphere and in education. The two events were linked together by Aleksej Judin, from Moscow’s humanistic university, who interprets them as “symptoms of the acute crisis currently affecting science and education”. In today’s world, he remarked in an editorial published by “ L’Osservatore Romano” (13/02), the daily of the Holy See, “universal knowledge has been replaced by various science branches, which have monopolized the different areas of human knowledge”. This is a “cultural disintegration”, “reverberating also on education”, which today is mainly aimed at “preparing the “ homo faber”, an alarming feature of “contemporary education”.Cristianity and universal knowledge. Judin maintains that the “renounciation to create a cognitive framework of the world”, must be counterbalanced by “a new universal formative model”. Christianity, “with its enormous cultural potential and its century-long tradition of synthesizing rational and non-rational elements, should serve as founding model”. However, “contemporary scientific realm would view this proposal as a major destabilization”. It is therefore necessary “to be on the guard” to prevent this attitude “from imprisoning our knowledge and extinguishing the light of reason” in a society where “despite his formally granted freedoms”, the Christian believer “undergoes restrictions when he expresses his position in the public sphere”, where “only secular stands are granted recognition”.New contradictions. Nonetheless, continues Judin, since the end of the 1980s, “in Russia religion has been conquering increasing space and recognition in all public spheres, implying increased authority of religious institutions”. This phenomenon invariably arouses new contradictions” while liberal values, “broadly announced in post-Soviet Russia, in reality undergo restricted progress”. The present debate thus is “conferred different nuances as relates to the clericalization of education”, in the framework of which, both the Orthodox church as wells as “scientists and upholders of human rights” feel “that religious formation should be part of school activity. The debate is focused on the contents and modalities of this formation”. The letter of the ten scholars. The tuning point was last June’s open letter sent to President Putin by ten Russian scholars, including world famous scientists expressing distress “for the active presence of the Church in all public spheres”. In particular, for its proposal of “adding theology to the list of scientific university specializations”. The Orthodox Church took a stand against the scholars’ position along with a number of intellectuals and politicians. Theology is “a branch of knowledge without which our Country will certainly fall into ruin”, said Jurij Pivoravov, director of the Institute of scientific information of Moscow’s Academy of Science. The “letter of the ten scholars” and the appeal of the Professors from La Sapienza, for Judin are linked, despite the different contexts, by the belief that theology cannot “be included among the scientific disciplines” “based on logic”. In this way, theology “is denied all connections to rational thought”, this could be partly explained “by the burdensome heritage of materialist scientism of the Soviet era”, if there weren’t “specific elements brought to light comparing the similar conflict” which broke out in Rome’s university. Pre-eminent “reasoning”. “In brief, the rejection of religious knowledge expressed by a part of the scientific world, isn’t a linked to the notorious conflict between science and reason – the scholar pointed out – it’s a problem pertaining to the approach of contemporary science”. This form of hostility could be overcome “only by seeking new horizons of knowledge and with a rationally founded dialogue between the upholders of secular and religious views: the so-called “pre-eminent reasoning”, where “faith ought to be inserted”, as expressed in 1999 in a famous address by the then Cardinal Ratzinger. “It is to be hoped – Judin concluded- that also Russia’s current debate” on religion and society “will draw inspiration from those models of dialogue, complementarity, and association of faith and reason, proposed by philosopher Jurgens Habermas and by Cardinal Ratzinger” during a lecture held in Munich in 2004.