Has anyone here had an intellectual conversion to Catholicism?

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YosefYosep

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You often here about a lot of spiritual conversions to Catholicism, where a person finally feels at home. I was wondering, however, whether some of you on these forums had intellectual journeys towards Christ’s Church. If so, do you mind sharing?
 
I consistently have both spiritual and intellectual conversions. 🙂

I’m not sure that I have much of a story, but everyone has some sort of intellectual objections to Catholicism. Mine were largely standard atheistic arguments. Over time, I eventually began to see that there were answers to many of my questions and objections, and I began to investigate them.

Frankly, my intellectual objections were in some way sincere, but they were mostly rationalizations to excuse myself and my behavior. I wanted to do what I was doing, and the idea of certain realities being more than mere religious nonsense was very inconvenient.

But the spiritual aspect was, for me, more than just “feeling at home.” I’ve had three great lights given to me, and the first was to be able to perceive the spiritual effects of Baptism, while the second two were with regard to both Confession and the Holy Eucharist. Those lights were tremendous graces.

Actually, perhaps there’s at least a fourth light: the great awareness of how utterly miserable and pointless life was before Jesus. I had a lot going for me on the external level, but I was full of confusion inside. Finding “the truth” on any subject you can imagine seemed like one big exercise in futility. I wandered about aimlessly.

All of this ties in with the intellectual level because, once I found my world-view being formed by the Church, I’ve noticed how all-encompassing the world-view happens to be. I think I’m a more consistent thinker with a better means of analyzing reality than I ever was before.
 
YosefYosep said:
You often here about a lot of spiritual conversions to Catholicism, where a person finally feels at home. I was wondering, however, whether some of you on these forums had intellectual journeys towards Christ’s Church. If so, do you mind sharing?
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I understand that St Augustin had an intellectual journey, I also understand that an intellectual journey can pre-dispose one to receive the grace of conversion, but is not the cause of conversion. Conversion is a gift of grace through Jesus Christ, all human endeavors will not produce conversion. It is by grace that we are saved. Those who are taught the truths of the Catholic Faith, in Catholic schools are indoctrinated (which is good- the seeds of Faith are planted,) but this does not convert, just informs the conscience. The grace of conversion makes it possible to accept as one’s own convictions those truths of the Faith that were instilled in minds of people No human endeavor will take the credit that belongs to Jesus alone, there is only one Savior, and that involves an “encounter with Him”
 
It began as an intellectual journey and ended up as a full acceptance on every level: spiritual, emotional, cultural, etc. as time went on.

Conversion from one faith to another, from one ideal to another, one allegiance to another is a process that must begin with some rejection of the one to accept the other. For me it was rejecting emotion over mind that began that process for me.

I won’t go into my full story here, but suffice it to say I was in a Pentecostal sect that put intellect on a very back burner in favor of spiritual experience–in reality more emotional that spiritual. I had been raised an Episcopalian before being taken to the sect by my mother as a young teen, so when I read C. S. Lewis’ books I could relate quite well to his arguments and reasoning. In time I realized I no longer agreed with my sects’ ideas and beliefs, so, after much prayer, I returned to the Episcopal Church as a 30-somthing.

But, it too wasn’t satisfying any more. As an adult I now explored truth–I need to know and possess truth almost more than food. I read various Catholic works from apologetics to spiritual works by some of the great Saints. At first I rejected all I read, but with prayer and discernment, truth being my goal, I had to admit that I’d found it.

I did look outside Christianity, and although I found much that I admired and was useful to me, I knew that Christ incarnate and risen from the dead to be the point at which spirituality truly joins with reality. No other faith has this touchstone.

Sorry to write so much. I left out much, but there’s no room to go into more detail here. I hope that’s the kind of answer you wanted, YosefYosep.
 
It strikes me everyone has got to look to have both, not only “before” but especially “after” i.e ongoing ones.

The intellectual angles that most appeal to individuals often begin with issues that aren’t much written about.

Reputedly it is the genealogy in Matthew that converted a New Guinea tribe. And the Japanese reportedly love Revelations (or was it Chronicles).

But once we are “hooked” it gradually falls more and more into place after that. Never in exactly the same sequence. And never fully, in this life.

My journey slowed down when I over focussed on those authorities who were “dumbing down” anything. What got me going again was, both people that affirmed the catechetical value of Scriptures and, in tandem, genuine secular sciences, because they undoubtedly affirm Revelation.
 
Della said:
It began as an intellectual journey and ended up as a full acceptance on every level: spiritual, emotional, cultural, etc. as time went on.
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This was my experience as well.
 
The great Catholic author, Evelyn Waugh, had a conversion based strictly on reason, which eventually led him to deeper understandings of theology and spirituality.
 
I was raised atheist but later on in life decided to make the intellectual leap on the reality of the existence of God.

The rest came later.

I approached conversion like I was approaching a mathematical proof. It all starts with a postulate, the existence of God, and based on said postulate, derived theorems. To me the Catholic Church had the most internally consistent theorems.
 
I had an intellectual reversion, if that counts.

From ages 23-29, I could probably be described as a “cafeteria” or “cultural” Catholic; I went to Mass, but had my own peculiar interpretations of most of the Church’s teachings (“Science FTW! Liberalism!”), though every now and then, I wondered if I was getting it right.

At 29, while sitting at home between jobs, I began seriously studying the “anti-psychiatry” movement (an idle mind…) and came to the conclusion that while it often got the flaws of psychiatry right, it was easily refuted on other grounds. From there, I gradually realized that no purely human system of thought or philosophy could be free of flaws or errors; none could be “absolutely” right.

So where could I find the absolutes, which transcended human reason and its capacities?

The answer, after some entertaining dissection of Calvinism, was “back in the Church, or nowhere at all”.

And so, I went back. 🙂
 
Not precisely. I had intellectual objections to Christianity, especially Catholicism, but it wasn’t until I first took a step of faith and followed a calling that those objections could be put to rest. I had to open my heart before my mind could accept the answers. My conversion was far more spiritual than intellectual, but it definitely had to be both.
 
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