The birth of civilization as we know it started with man’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge and truth about himself and the world in which he lives. In his book entitled Fides et Ratio: On the Relationship between Faith and Reason, John Paul II shows how man manages to achieve greater self-consciousness as he gains knowledge of the reality of the world. Faith and reason are the pivotal forces that allow men to contemplate and rationalize issues of truth. However, it is God who places in us an innate desire to know the truth—the very essence of knowing himself. Since God is the causality of all truth, it is the goal of John Paul II in this book to show that man may also come to know himself by knowing and loving God. To know God, however, the individual cannot thoroughly rely on reason—it requires faith to understand the mysteries of God, and therefore the mysteries of man and the world in which he lives.