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patg
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Yes, many have tried and are still trying. They obviously haven’t been convincing enough for many.
The attributes and actions of God, however, are purely items of faith.
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Contarini
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That is the Church’s claim. However, the Church does not say, nor did Aquinas say, that the proof will be apparent to everyone. I, for one, find the arguments only probable, not demonstrative. I am willing to accept the Church’s word that they are demonstrative to those capable of understanding the issues more adequately than I myself do.
But since many people are in the same boat I am, you aren’t going to get very far starting out with the premise that God’s existence can be proven when talking to such folks.
And the other two claims obviously can’t be proven. That doesn’t mean there is no evidence for them–of course there is–but it’s certainly probable rather than demonstrative in nature.
The claim that Jesus founded a Church, for instance, is largely based on Matt. 16. But the parallel passage in Mark 8 does not contain this language. Hence, many scholars reasonably conclude that this is a theological interpretation/addition by the author of Matthew (whom they do not believe to be Matthew).
Now we could have a discussion about whether this position is compatible with orthodox Christian faith. I would point to the fact that many Catholic scholars accept it; you would call those scholars heretics; I would point out that they haven’t been declared heretics by the Church; you would say that this isn’t necessary; and so on.
But since we are talking about what can be proven by reason, we can skip all of that. Clearly scholars do not conclude that Christ founded a Church when they are using purely historical methods.
Edwin
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PRmerger
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Well, as both you and patg have alluded to this, I must have inadvertently given the impression that I believe that “the proof will be apparent to everyone.”
To clarify: I do not believe that it will be apparent to everyone.
However, to all who seek, they will find.
God gives enough light so that for those who seek, they will find.
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Nicea325
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Not extreme at all,simply a response based on your conclusion. You pretty much said the same thing,which again leads me to state the following,according to the bolded words:
So Jesus telling His Apostles they would not be orphaned and be guided by the Holy Spirit was all a scam? Yes or No?
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Contarini
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You can’t prove such things. You can make “probable” arguments, but not demonstrative proof. This is in Aquinas!
Much modern apologetics is nonsense, because it tries to create proof for what can’t be conclusively proven. Karl Keating’s “spiral argument” (which he took from Arnold Lunn, though the argument is very similar to that used by Protestants of the 19th and early 20th centuries) is a particularly popular (and hence, in my view, unfortunate) example. It contains absurdities such as the leap from textual evidence for the NT to the assumption that the NT is historically accurate, which makes no sense at all. It ignores the opinions of most actual NT scholars. And so on.
But if you give up the fantasy of “proof” and “100% certainty”–if you accept that our rational judgments in historical and religious matters are always probable and never entirely certain–why then, I think you find (at least I have found) that there are excellent reasons for trusting the claims of the Church and taking it as your guide.
Edwin
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PRmerger
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They may only be probable and not demonstrative—but if you as a Christian use reason alone to argue for the existence of God you will indeed be impaired in your contemplation of truth.
As Pope JPII said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves”
Okay. Then I appeal to your use of faith as well as reason.
Just so you know, I don’t ever call anyone a heretic. I may identify heresy, but the charge of “heretic” applied to anyone the Church has not identified as a heretic, I do not give myself the authority to make.
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Ranp
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rom422
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The Wikipedia has a good article on Galileo. Here is the link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affairI can’t understand the Church’s explanation! Can you rephrase it for me? This topic (Galileo) comes up often, so I would really like to be informed.
If geocentrism wasn’t doctrine, why would the Church care what Galileo taught about it? Why would they care enough to lock him up for it?
And if it was doctrine, then the Church was wrong about doctrine?
I want to add a few notes that I thought would be helpful:
- The Catholic Church did not infallibly nor formally teach geocentrism (or the idea that the earth is the center of the universe) as a dogma. None of the Popes, and no Church Council acting with the Pope, ever taught geocentrism as an article of faith.
- Although geocentrism is not an article of faith, it was a scientific hypothesis that agreed with the literal sense of the scriptures. Naturally, many theologians during the time of Galileo were comfortable with the hypothesis. Actually, it was not just the theologians. Many scientists at that time were also comfortable with the geocentric model of the universe.
- As a scientist Galileo favored the heliocentric model (that the sun was at the center, and that the earth and other planets moved around it). This model of the universe was not his invention. Many ancient Greeks already thought that the earth also moved, and Aristarchus of Samos particularly thought that it moved around a stationary sun. However, it was Copernicus who gave a precise formulation of the heliocentric system, so the model was named after him.
- Was the Church against the heliocentric system (or the Copernican system) favored by Galileo? I don’t think so, not as a scientific hypothesis at least. Let us not forget that Copernicus himself was a humble Polish Catholic priest. And that he even dedicated his work, “Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs” to Pope Paul III. If Holy Mother Church was against heliocentrism per se, then how could She have regarded Copernicus as a good Catholic?
- Then why did Galileo get in trouble with the Church, particularly with the Inquisition? Because he went beyond his bounds as a researcher. He started teaching the heliocentric system as if it were already an established fact, which made many churchmen uneasy. The truth was, that although he had some indications that the heliocentric system was the better model, he had not yet succeeded in proving this even to the scientific community. Holy Mother Church was concerned because some people were making assertions, based on Galileo’s support of the heliocentric model, that Holy Scripture therefore had inexact or wrong statements.
- Cardinal Bellarmine advised Galileo to temper his passion for the heliocentric model by teaching it only as a scientific hypothesis, which it really was. For lack of sufficient evidence the heliocentric system was not actually accepted unanimously by the scientific world until about the year 1700.
- Upon investigation Galileo was prohibited by the Inquisition from teaching the heliocentric model. It was a disciplinary action, NOT a dogmatic proclamation that the geocentric model was the right model. Perhaps the Cardinals who issued the prohibition against Galileo were convinced that the geocentric model was the right one. But their prohibition to Galileo was not a dogmatic proclamation, and it was not signed by the Pope either.
- Nevertheless Galileo disobeyed, and was therefore punished. However, the idea that Galileo was locked up and tortured by the Church was completely false. This assertion is often made by critics of the Catholic Church, but there is no evidence supporting this claim. On the contrary, Galileo was merely detained and prevented from teaching. His so-called “prison” was actually the home of his friend Nicolini. And after visiting another friend, Cardinal Piccolomini of Siena, for five months, he was allowed to retire in his own villa near Florence. During this time he was allowed to receive visitors and to continue his research. The Pope continued to grant him a pension of one hundred crowns, which Galileo received since 1630. Then on his death-bed the Pope even sent him his Apostolic Blessing.
Also, the story of Galileo teaches all of us an important lesson: that science can never be in conflict with Holy Scripture,* if *Holy Scripture is rightly understood. As Pope John Paul II said, “The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture…”
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chuckfrmvalyfrg
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I suggest you do a search at catholic.com . Enter the Galileo Controversy ( by Robert H. Brom ) . The Galileo Controversy is a " Black Myth " .I can’t understand the Church’s explanation! Can you rephrase it for me? This topic (Galileo) comes up often, so I would really like to be informed.
If geocentrism wasn’t doctrine, why would the Church care what Galileo taught about it? Why would they care enough to lock him up for it?
And if it was doctrine, then the Church was wrong about doctrine?
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rom422
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The existence of God is obviously not self-evident, otherwise there would be no need to prove it. But God’s existence can be reached by reason, unaided by divine revelation; for example, it can be proved by philosophy. And I think that some philosophers have succeeded in doing that. St. Thomas Aquinas was one of them. That other philosophers rejected his proof (or proofs) does not mean that his proof was refuted or that it was not convincing. Some simply reject it because they are not prepared to accept the moral obligation that God’s existence would imply. But I will stop discussing that issue here because its thorough discussion would require another thread.
I just want to mention, however, that some people find God, not by the method of philosophy or by discursive reasoning, but by other equally valid ways. As Jacques Maritain once said, “there are as many approaches to God as there are paths leading to the human heart.” Some people find God in the good example or mercy of other believers. Others find God by an intuitive approach, in their pursuit of beauty, in music, or the arts or even in their scientific research. Then in the present world there are also many who find God in their frustrations, in the emptiness of their lives, and in their moral wreckage. In all these other ways man is discovering God also by the use of reason unaided by revelation, but not necessarily by philosophical thinking.
In this connection I’d like to quote a passage from the late Fulton Sheen. In his book, *Peace of Soul *(Chapter 1), he said that modern man is different from men of earlier generations. “For one thing, the modern soul no longer looks to find God in nature. In other generations, man, gazing out on the vastness of creation, the beauty of the skies, and the order of the planets, deduced the power, the beauty, and the wisdom of God Who created and sustained that world. But the modern man, unfortunately, is cut off from that approach by several obstacles: he is impressed less with the order of nature than he is with the disorder of his own mind, which has become his main preoccupation… This change in our times does not mean that the modern soul has given up the search for God, but only that it has abandoned the more rational - and even more normal way - of finding Him. Not the order in the cosmos, but the disorder in himself; not the visible things of the world, but the invisible frustrations, complexes, and anxieties of his own personality - these are the modern man’s starting point when he turns questioningly toward religion. In happier days, philosophers discussed the problem of man; now they discuss man as a problem.”
Not all attributes and actions of God are purely items of faith because some of them are also discoverable by reason. For example, a philospher who knows that God is a necessary being (that means, a being that does not depend on another for existence), would know that if God exists, then He would also have no beginning and no end. Likewise, although the Procession of the Son and the Holy Spirit are strictly above reason, God has exterior actions in the world knowable by reason without revelation, such as the fact of God’s Providence and His governance of the world. Certainly, these actions of God can also be objects of faith, but they can also be attained by reason unaided by divine revelation.
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PRmerger
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Indeed. I know of an atheist who was converted, on the spot, upon seeing the birth of his child in the delivery room.
OTOH, I know of many a man who has witnessed that and has said quietly to himself, “May I never see that again, God help me!”
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adrift
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This jumped out at me. The line I believe was at Disney World.
I don’t know about you but when I was there I was directed to a line by the employees. I regarded them as an authority.
What would have happened if I just pushed to the front. I don’t have to tell you that they would have kicked me out. So I think you are wrong about it not requiring authority.
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PRmerger
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That reminds me of a story I heard: while in line at DisneyWorld a man noticed a teenager in front of him with a t-shirt that said, “There are NO RULES!”. The man quietly waited for the no-rules teenager to get to the front, then the man walked up and got in front of this teen. When the teen protested, “Hey! It’s my turn!”, the man pointed to this teen’s t-shirt, shrugged, and got on the ride.
This would also work, I think, with someone with a “Question Authority!” t-shirt.
(NB: Of course questioning authority can be a good thing. Catholics ought to do this. Just saying that this “Question Authority” t-shirt is often aimed at Church authority, as if to imply that the Church can’t have any.)
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rom422
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I would change your sentence to: “Hence, many scholars carelessly conclude that this is a theological interpretation/addition by the author of Matthew …” I do not think that it was a reasonable conclusion. I do not think that it was a responsible conclusion either. The fact that Mark omitted some details that you find in Matthew does not mean that Matthew merely added his own interpretation of the events, and that the events did not really happen as Matthew described them. What it really means is that Matthew was not a mere copycat who would copy only what Mark wrote. There are actually other instances in the gospels where one evangelist recalls an incident that is not recorded by the other evangelists. For example, Matthew wrote about the visit of the Magi, but none of the other evangelists recorded it. So, should we doubt that this episode did not actually happen, or that it was merely a “theological interpretation” added by Matthew?
I do not know who your “scholars” are. The historical method consists of using historical facts – relics, tools, ancient documents and writings, etc. – to learn or acquire knowledge of past events. If we both accept that the gospel of Matthew is a reliable historical document, then why can’t we conclude that Christ founded a Church when Matthew clearly recorded that event? True, Mark’s account omitted one detail recorded by Matthew. It means that Mark’s story is not complete. It does not mean that it is different. The truth is, none of the other evangelists discredited Matthew’s account as being factual. And the Acts of the Apostles even gave examples that Peter did, in fact, assume leadership of the newly established Church.
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adrift
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It is always nameless scholars??? These same said scholars are the ones who have ignored early Christians who said that Matthew wrote first then Mark. Ah but in there superiority to those who were closer to the events they have decided that It was Mark that was written first. I found such “scholars” unscholarly" and unconvincing. Matthew added nothing. Mark dropped it.
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