Introduction

Monsignor J. Francis Stafford, in writing the introduction, says that Guissani explains how every individual has a 'religious sense' which contains "the very essence of rationality" (xiii). Because of this, each one of us has the tools required to experience reality as it truly is.

"Modern mentality reduces reason to a series of categories into which reality is forced to enter" (xii).

In the ages after the Enlightenment, anything that cannot be fitted into nice and neat categories is defined as irrational. Although reason, which is fundamental to our humanity, cannot reveal the mystery of God by itself, it can open the door to experiencing God. The "possibility of a relationship with the Infinite" (xiii) is today quarantined from reason, as if it would taint or destroy it. But instead of elevating reason, this dishonors it, ruling out a category of knowing a priori. Reason, if true to its purpose, recognizes that life is not a world of organisms scurrying about, the result of predetermined causes, but is often mysterious and transcendent, carrying man beyond himself and the visible.