From the address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia, December 22, 2006:

On the occasion of my meeting with the philosopher Jürgen Habermas a few years ago in Munich, he [Harbemas] said that we would need thinkers who could translate the encoded convictions of the Christian faith into the language of the secularized world to make them newly effective. In fact, the world’s urgent need of the dialogue between faith and reason is becoming more obvious.

Immanual Kant, in his day, saw the essence of illuminism expressed in the so-called ’sapere aude’: in the courage of thought that does not allow itself to be embarrassed by any prejudice.

Well, since then, the cognitive capacity of the human being, his dominion over matter by the power of thought, has made progress that would have been inconceivable at the time.

However, the power of the human being holds in his hands, which science has increased, is increasingly becoming a danger that threatens the human being himself and the world. Reason oriented totally to taking the world in hand, no longer accepts limits. It is already on the point of dealing with the person merely as matter of its own production and power.

Our knowledge is growing, but at the same time, a progressive blinding of reason with regard to its own foundations and the criteria that give it direction and meaning is being recorded.

Faith in that God, who is in person the creative Reason of the universe, must be accepted by science in a new way as a challenge and a chance. Reciprocally, this faith must recognize anew its intrinsic immensity and its own reasonableness. Reason needs the Logos which was at the beginning and is our light. Faith, for its part, needs the conversation with modern reason to take stock of its own greatness and to correspond to its own responsibilities. And this is what I sought to highlight in my lesson at Regensburg. It is a matter which is certainly not solely academic: it addresses the future of us all.

In Regensburg, the dialogue between the religions was only marginally touched on and in twofold perspective. Secularized reason is unable to enter into a true dialogue with the religions. It remains closed to the question of God, and this will end by leading to the clash of cultures.