But thats not Faith,
faith is suspending your reason and choosing to believe in something that is not of this world-that is- something we can not KNOW in the sense that we know about how the earth works and the planets orbit the sun.
Well, no, actually. Faith is a supernatural virtue. That means it is a gift that is bestowed upon us by God (as in a capacity or power added onto the natural powers of a human being, which is what the word “virtue” means - a capacity or power.) By exercising any virtue, the operation of that capacity becomes more robust. Faith, as a virtue, operates in conjunction with the two other supernatural virtues - hope and love -and the four cardinal virtues - prudence, justice, fortitude (or courage), and temperance (or moderation). All of these presuppose reason, intention and free will. None, not even faith, suppose a suspension of reason, but rather its full implementation.
What secular humanists and atheists demand is natural or physical evidence; that is, some measurable or observable evidence to confirm God exists in order to believe he does. That is not proof, that is a tangible and reproducible sensory experience. Proof, on the other hand, utilizes reason, and is not limited to physical evidence for a “proof” to obtain. There are many things we “know” to be true that are not evidential, in essence. We know, for example, all mathematical proofs quite apart from inductive evidence because these are derived from axioms or principles that no rational being would deny, but for which no amount of sensory evidence could ever suffice.
To insist that only tangible physical evidence counts, is to reduce human “knowing” to that of mere sentience - to claim we are no better at “knowing” than animals since they cannot apprehend using the intellect, but only using the senses. The Catholic position is that human beings are rational and can use the intellect to “grasp” or apprehend the “form” of real existing things rather than merely the immediate and sensible attributes of those entities. To “know” something is to grasp its form, its “whatness” with the intellect. To “sense” something, on the other hand, is to grasp its tangible properties with the senses. These are quite different capacities.
To demand “evidence” in a scientific sense, is to reduce everything to merely sensible attributes. Since God is not a physical or material entity, it is impossible to show the sensible attributes of God, per se, because he has none - he is immaterial. God may, on the other hand, be “known” in terms of being the fullness of intelligible transcendals or universals - truth, goodness, beauty, being, etc. - which can be apprehended by the intellect but not “sensed” or measured. God’s existence can be “proved” by logical deduction from accepted premises, but it cannot be “evidenced” because available sensory data could never amount to sufficiency of evidence.
Physical evidence can only sufficiently demonstrate the existence of physical things. God is not another physical thing, he is Being itself, who is the ground and precedent of all reality and of all existent things.
Animals do not “sense” beauty, truth or goodness, for example. Animals are capable of only the raw “experience” of physical entities, their colour, shape, size, relative location, etc. The capacity for grasping beauty, truth or goodness involves the apprehension of the abstract qualities of truth, goodness or beauty in those entities, qualities that are beyond or transcend the mere sensory data from their physical state.
