Today, in modern times, new dimensions of knowledge have opened up. Yet the human journey never simply comes to an end; and the danger of falling into inhumanity is never totally overcome.

The danger is that today, precisely because of the greatness of his knowledge and power, man will fail to face up to the question of the truth. Reason would ultimately bow to the pressure of interests and the attraction of utility, constrained to recognize this as the ultimate criterion. There is a danger that philosophy, no longer considering itself capable of its true task, will degenerate into positivism; and that theology, with its message addressed to reason, will be limited to the private sphere.

—Yet if reason, out of concern for its alleged purity, becomes deaf to the great message that comes to it from Christian faith and wisdom, then it loses the “courage for truth” and thus becomes not greater but smaller.