Much has been written about the relationship between Christianity and contemporary culture. To a large extent, what is at stake here is not only the question of the relationship between faith and reason, but also the very possibility of offering a rational answer to questions about life and death, about God and eternity, about the fundamental questions of human existence at final. Do the answers to these questions make sense, or are they merely expressions of subjective preferences and therefore lacking any claim to truth? Can Christianity contribute to answering them, or is it to be kept within the limits of individual subjectivity?

There are not a few who doubt that these questions can be considered by reason since it is thought that they are not susceptible of scientific treatment. The only propositions about which truth or falsity could be predicated would be those of natural science. Certainly, if one questions the role of reason in posing and answering these questions, it seems difficult to think that faith can contribute its vision of them. In the face of this status there are, very generally speaking, two options: either a flat rejection of the convictions of our time by means of a negative critique of them, or a study of contemporary culture from within, recognising the obvious positive elements that it has, and engaging in a dialogue between it and Christianity.

It is precisely this Pauline spirit of examining everything and keeping the good that encouraged me as a professor to address the relationship between contemporary culture and Christianity. Traditionally, the university has been and is the setting multidisciplinary par excellence. We academics are aware that reality has many dimensions and that it would be a mistake to think that it is reduced to the dimension that can be studied by scientific rationality. This has to do with the core topic of the dialogue between faith and reason, namely the perception of the intelligible structure of reality. In this context, in order to understand today's world, it is necessary to delve into historical and social keys in order to discern the central elements of the dialogue between the scientific worldview and religion in the 21st century, the way in which contemporary thought approaches the question of transcendence, as well as the relationship between the search for meaning in contemporary arts and literature.

Studying the relationship between Christianity and contemporary culture invites us to focus on the study of the main issues that shape today's world: thought, the arts, science and, of course, religion. In order to understand the close relationship between Christianity and our culture, an interdisciplinary approach is required to develop a unified understanding of reality. The most pressing issues need to be addressed through a circular dialogue between faith and reason, analysing them jointly from the humanities and theology.  

It is precisely in this context of the perception of the intelligible structure of reality that the question of truth, essential for Christianity and for contemporary culture, arises. Insofar as faith and reason refer to this structure, the two are complementary; faith is reasonable and reason is faithful. Their cooperation can do full justice to the reality presented to them. As St. John Paul II pointed out in Fides et Ratio, "there is, therefore, no reason for any competition between reason and faith: one is within the other, and each has its own space for realisation".

In this sense, faith must necessarily be related to reason. Without the question of truth, as Joseph Ratzinger pointed out, faith "would be left without air to breathe". Truth, grasped by "faithful reason", thus appears - again in Ratzinger's words - as the "open space in which all can mutually encounter one another and where nothing loses its proper value and dignity". By virtue of its own will to rationality, Christianity presents itself today as a serious commitment to the role of an "expanded" reason, a reason that is not "deaf" to the divine and "open" to faith; a reason, at final, that is "faithful". God is Logos, but Logos is not only reason, but a reason that speaks, that is in relationship. We would like to contribute to this dialogue at Master's Degree in Christianity and Contemporary Culture.