My conversion story (in brief)

[jemfinch]

I recently wrote this to a friend who I’d emailed prior to becoming Catholic, as a follow-up explaining (some of) my reasons for becoming Catholic.

He’d mentioned that he didn’t “feel the romance, the historical pull of the Catholic Church” and that he didn’t find it intellectually compelling, and didn’t know anyone he respected who did. Later, when mentioning particular doctrines he didn’t believe, he noted that they seemed to be entirely irrelevant to the “Mere Christianity” core beliefs all Christians must hold.

Just thought it might be useful to someone. It’s in the next two posts (for length restrictions).

Jeremy

 

[jemfinch]

Oddly enough, for me it was the intellectually compelling nature of the Catholic apologetic that brought me the Catholic Church. I initially began my discussions with a Melkite priest named Fr. Ignatius when Justin, a good friend of mine who’d talked with Fr. Ignatius for a few months, “called in the reinforcements” so I could prove him wrong.

The problem was, I couldn’t.

Ignatius began by giving me some material on /Sola Scriptura/, the doctrine that the Bible alone has authority, or at least, that it has supreme authority. Though I was supposed to call him and schedule a meeting to discuss the material the next week, I didn’t contact him and ignored his calls for six weeks while I sought an answer to the question: “How can /Sola Scriptura/ actually work?”

Some very simple questions seemed to indicate that /Sola Scriptura/ could not be true. What books Comprise Scripture? Luther relegated James, Hebrews, and Revelation to an “Apocrypha” section of his New Testament because he didn’t believe they were God-breathed. How could I ever have reasonable discussions about the meaning of Scripture if, at any point, someone could just deny that the passages I quote are Scripture?

Which interpretation of Scripture is authoritative? I had my interpretation and my dad had his interpretation; at the time, he was Arminian and I was Calvinist (a la John Piper, if you’ve read his works). We’d just completed (somewhat unhappily) a months-long debate about Calvinism. We both know our Bible pretty well, so passages of Scripture were slung back and forth in long emails nearly daily. In the end, neither of us would admit the other was right, and in truth, we didn’t have a good reason to do so: neither of us has the authority to declare our own interpretation of the Bible to be correct.

The Bible can’t arbitrate disputes over its meaning. That’s one reason there are so many books titled “Systematic Theology” in your local Christian bookstore: if the only criteria by which interpretations of the Bible are to be judged is logical consistency, then given the imprecise nature of human language, any number of logical interpretations can be constructed for a work the size of the Bible.

While I was making Fr. Ignatius wait (he called me several times a week during this six-week period; I was rude not to return his calls, but I was still busy investigating the issue), I read R.C. Sproul’s “Scripture Alone,” and didn’t find an answer. I didn’t want “a fallible collection of infallible books”: I wanted authority, something I could point to and say: “This has authority to tell us all what to do, what not to do, what to believe and what not to believe.” I talked to my intellectual (and some not-so-intellectual) Christian friends. I read works both online and in bookstores, I could find no adequate answer to my question.

The Catholic Church, like my previous churches, has a systematic interpretation of Scripture. It doesn’t believe that Scripture contradicts its teachings when properly understood. In fact, the more I learned about the Catholic interpretation of Scripture, the more I came to find that it was, in fact, more systematic than any I’d found before. I learned of Bible passages I’d never even heard of before. “I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” To become Catholic would not be to to abandon the Bible; it just meant that I had to change my interpretation of the Bible.

After that, most of my previous theology fell like dominoes. When examined in light of history, it became very clear that some of my doctrinal and practical distinctives (such as the importance of baptism, the weekly participation in communion, Sunday as a day of worship) were indeed quite historical, but other distinctives I’d held (such as the requirement that elders be married, or that baptism be only of believers and only by immersion) were simply doctrinal or practical innovations. That fact in itself does not disprove them, but it is evidence against them. What that whole experience of debating my dad and subsequently investigating /Sola Scriptura/ had shown me is that determining the correct interpretation of Scripture is not a logical question, but an evidential one. The question isn’t, “Is this interpretation logically consistent?” but “Is this interpretation the one best supported by the evidence?” When it came down to it, the Catholic interpretation was the one best supported by the biblical and historical evidence.

 

[jemfinch]

So it wasn’t romance, or historical pull in itself that drew me to the Church, but a search for the most reasonable interpretation of Scripture. Historicity played a part only insofar as it served as evidence for a particular interpretation of Scripture. As it turned out, it seemed to support the Catholic/Orthodox theology and practice more than my own.

Yes, transubstantiation, purgatory, the immaculate conception, the veneration of the saints–these are probably not parts of “Mere Christianity,” but as Lewis admitted, Mere Christianity is no place to stay; it’s just a hallway with many doors into fuller expressions of Christianity. Lewis constructed Mere Christianity by looking into the doctrine of the major Christian groups in his area and taking the largest subset they had in common. It serves as a fine beginning for teaching non-Christians about Christianity, but the question I had to ask was not, “What’s the least amount of doctrine I can define and still be Christian?” but “How can I find the fullness of Christian doctrine?” Some of the Catholic doctrinal distinctives I held as true before I became Catholic (surprisingly, transubstantiation and “praying to the saints” are two of them), and some (like purgatory, the immaculate conception, etc.) I had to be convinced. The question for me was not whether these doctrines comprise a minimal expression of necessary truths, but whether they are truth at all.

So that’s why I’m now Catholic.

 

[LittleDeb]

Great story! I will mark it for future use. Welcome home!

 

[Eden]

Your story is wonderful. It’s amazing how the Holy Spirit can lead an inquiring mind to His Church when you are genuinely seeking truth. Does Fr. Ignatius know how important his role in your spiritual development was? Prayers of thanksgiving!!!

 

[Quatsch]

Wow, thank you for sharing that.

I love this line:

jemfinch:

but the question I had to ask was not, “What’s the least
amount of doctrine I can define and still be Christian?” but
“How can I find the fullness of Christian doctrine?”

-Q

 

[Happy_Hour87]

I’ve a friend that sounds like yours. All you can do is pray!

 

[Jeanette_L]

Thank you for sharing your conversion story! You will find many here who have been down the same road as yourself. Most who join the Catholic Church apart from being born into it, have had to do so through much study, labor and reasoning. It is a long and hard process most of the time, filled with struggles and many times fear and denial, but in the end, worth every effort!

Welcome home!