Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

248 MARTIN MCKEEVER
ernist illusion of a completely self-founding autonomy or the
postmodern reduction of all moral good to the ephemeral and
the relative.
The ultimate truth about human existence is revealed in
Christ
Against this background image of a needful and searching
human being, open to the truth which reason can discover, the
encyclical gradually articulates its central message: the ultimate
and fundamental answer to the human quest for meaning is to
be found in Revelation. Given all that has just been said about
the importance of reason, this affirmation constitutes an audacious
claim, which requires some justification and explanation.
The fundamental justification of such a claim is that the author
of this truth is not the speculative power of the human
mind but God. The human mind seizes the truths of Revelation
not by dint of its own power (§§ 7, 15) but in faith, by the grace
of the Spirit (§§ 15, 61). Fides et ratio includes extensive narrative
accounts of the ways in which God has revealed Himself in
history and of the culmination of that Revelation in Christ. Such
affirmations clearly ascribe a certain priority to Revelation with
respect to reason, without denying the legitimate and important
role of this later. This primacy of Revelation is articulated in
terms of the two orders of consciousness (natural and supernatural),
the saving purpose of Revelation, the authority of God as
one who reveals Himself in history, obedience as the appropriate
response and the role of the Church as the servant of the revealed
truths of faith. The conclusion of the encyclical is that
without recourse to faith, without the message of salvation in
Christ, our human condition would remain an “insoluble enigma”(§
12) which could easily conduce to despair.
It is only within this context of faith in the Word of God as
the source of revealed truth that the vision of morality presented
in Fides et ratio can be understood. Germane to this vision of
faith is the conviction that human beings are in need of salvation,
that their natural powers of knowing the truth have been
damaged through sin and that the highest good for human beings
is to be more fully united with God, the Supreme good (§