5
faith by making room for it alongside the light
of reason. Such room would open up wherever
the light of reason could not penetrate, wher-
ever certainty was no longer possible. Faith was
thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to
be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind
emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps
of warming the heart and bringing personal con-
solation, but not something which could be pro-
posed to others as an objective and shared light
which points the way. Slowly but surely, however,
it would become evident that the light of auton-
omous reason is not enough to illumine the fu-
ture; ultimately the future remains shadowy and
fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result,
humanity renounced the search for a great light,
Truth itself, in order to be content with small-
er lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet
prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the
absence of light everything becomes confused; it
is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road
to our destination from other roads which take
us in endless circles, going nowhere.
A light to be recovered
4.âÂÂThere is an urgent need, then, to see once
again that faith is a light, for once the flame of
faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The
light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illu-
minating
every aspect
of human existence. A light
this powerful cannot come from ourselves but
from a more primordial source: in a word, it must
