About the Course
From early in the existence of the Gonzaga Faith and Reason Institute, Gonzaga Philosophy faculty associated with the Institute designed and offered a course on Faith and Reason to Gonzaga students. During Fr Robert F. Spitzer’s term as President of Gonzaga, the course offerings were expanded to multiple sections team-taught by Fr. Spitzer and a group of faculty members. A highlight of this period of the course was a series of plenary lectures delivered by Fr. Spitzer to all of the students registered in the individual course sections.
After Fr. Spitzer’s departure from Gonzaga in 2009, Gonzaga faculty continued to offer the Faith and Reason course regularly. More recently, the course was redesigned in order to satisfy the requirements for the Core Integration Seminar, the senior-level course that provides an integrative capstone to the Gonzaga Core experience, and as a result Gonzaga students will continue to have the opportunity to explore the dynamic relationship between faith and reason as articulated in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
Two faculty members who have taught the Faith and Reason course for many years, Brian Clayton and Doug Kries, adapted the themes and treatments in the Faith and Reason course into a book, Two Wings: Integrating Faith and Reason (Ignatius, 2018). Clayton and Kries argue that believing and reasoning are two human activities that may be integrated to form a complete view of human existence. They take their title from the opening of Pope Saint John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio (1998), which speaks of the human spirit rising on the two wings of faith and reason to stretch toward the truth that is available to all. Copies of the book may be purchased at your favorite bookstore or directly from the publisher.