"Here is an example of modern tension between faith and reason." In this way Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, replied to a question made by a journalist who sensed a difference between the speech made by the Pope in Paris on the historical-critical method (prised as an antidote to fundamentalism in that occasion) and the speech delivered during the Bishops’ Synod on 14 October in which the method was presented with some limitations. "The fundamentalist approach is all faith whereas the use of the historical-critical method in the liberal sense of the term is all reason," explained Mr Levada to the journalists during today’s press conference on the "Relatio post disceptationem." "The fact that Jesus became incarnate is always a crux in the interpretation of the Scriptures and is based on historical and human factors. But a right interpretation of the Scripture as Word of God which was revealed to us cannot be reduced to a human field, but has to be read in the perspective of a new creation having Jesus as a firstborn," explained Mr Levada. As the Pope pointed out, it is important to "consider together the factors of a human understanding, i.e. rational, as well as a wisdom of faith which is already present in the Revelation itself and is calling for our faith to answer."
