Theology in the World of Science

Abstract

Culture and modern society are posing new challenges to academic institutions (primarily in Europe). Therefore, the Church has started once again to re-establish its own universities to promote dialogue between faith and reason. In the academic world, student autonomy has begun to increase, and more and more, emphasis is placed on self-teaching using multimedia technologies. This has led to innovative activities in the teaching process and in the teaching system, forcing the transformation of universities, who are questioned about their role to play in the world. There must exist a dialogue between theology and exact sciences, which John Paul II described in Sapientia Christiana, Ex Corde Ecclesiae and Fides et Ratio. Two reflections come to the fore: the first is about the mutual benefits that science and theology can obtain in intellectual dialogue in a university context. Consequently, theology plays an indispensable role in the search for the unity of knowledge, which is why it is obliged to a responsible university presence. The second describes the importance of reaching an integrated view, which oscillates between scientific and religious-theological reading of the world. Veritatis gaudium of Pope Francis shows the prospects for the development of Church studies. New social and cultural dynamics force us to extend the purpose of studies, so that the Gospel not only reaches each person individually, but all cultures in their entirety.