*John and Paul are two undergraduate students who share an apartment together near their university. John is studying for a degree in mathematics, whilst Paul wants to one day be a professor of history.
One day, they are sitting and reading their books, when Paul looks up to say to John, ‘I often wonder about you. Why do you love mathematics in the way that you do? It is so boring and stuffy.’
‘Perhaps,’ replies John, ‘but I adore math because it is logical, because it is provable, and because it is a foundation of our society. Do you realise how important math is to so many things, from the very architecture of this building to the car that we share?’
‘Oh, of course I do. But simply, I could never understand the subject. I would sit and study it, and never be able to fathom what it was that was happening in an equation or a proof. I would labour over my work for what seemed like hours, only to observe that a few minutes had passed. Why should I solve for * x*? Why disguise numbers as letters? On the other hand, I read history, and I sit for hours doing so, and feel as if only a moment has been spent.’*
My little analogy, I feel, describes the fact that there are a great deal of people who will observe our religion, and will see within it only things which confuse them. They do not feel as if the religion is ‘for them’, in the sense that they never feel at home in it, that it doesn’t sit well within their heart, and that they only feel stifled by it. I know that a lot of Catholics believe that every man can be Catholic and enjoy the ‘splendour of truth’ just as much as they themselves do; but in my experience of people, this is simply not so. Just as there are people who will never ‘understand’ math, there are those who will never ‘understand’ Catholic dogma.
I do not speak of the implication of this for theology, and I do not want to set any sort of pre-destination tone, and I do not insinuate elitism. I simply observe that many people *feel *the way about Catholicism that many others do about math. There are very many, who, quite simply, are bored with Christianity, and who might for ever find it be boring and stale and humdrum. To understand this feeling is the first key to understanding the perception of a lot of folk we wish to convert, and I think there are at least two more such keys.
‘Orthodoxy and the clarity of proof’ is the second.
You and I are obviously both aware of *Catholic Answers, *and thus that there is such a thing as apologetics. We find on this website numerous sources for explaining with evidence and argument a lot of the central ideas of Catholicism, such as its ecclesiology, its scripture, and its theology. But if we are aware of the dialogue of apologetics, we are also aware that there are those who see such a defense as being inconclusive or else, even pointing to conclusions which are different from ours.
The fact is, that there are people who might understand Catholicism better than we, who are more intelligent than we are, and who have a firmer grip on the arguments used in apologetics, but who nonetheless are not Catholic. Let us assume that even one-tenth of such people do not reject our religion because they are wicked, but because they adhere to their conscience. Why is this? We can say it is because the evidence is not clear; but rather, can point to probabilities, and that this is the first necessity of the grace of faith.
But let us be very clear and honest: probability is not enough to convince everyone to live against their conscience, and that moreover, such probability is not always viewed as being in our favour. Many honest and intelligent and sincere and informed people, nonetheless remain Protestant, or Calvinist, or Polytheist, or Jewish, or Muslim, or Atheist.
We must understand, then, that what we consider to be evidence, another might consider to be poor evidence, and that whilst we *must *explain and defend our faith, we cannot demonstrate its truth as we could the nature of a programming language with symbolic algebra.
Many people, I say, find our orthodoxy and the clarity of its proof to be, in fact, as clear as mud; and that this is a limitation that we have.
The third key, I think is one of authority.
Very often, I have heard something like the following: ‘You tell me that I must believe in your orthodoxy, or else, that God will allow me to be punished eternally, but yet, I cannot see in your orthodoxy sufficient evidence to believe it. I grow frustrated with the idea that, on the one hand, the Church seeks to justify its beliefs, and to then, on the other, turn to threat to establish its authority. This causes me to distance myself from your religion. I am not a slave to your doctrine, but a thinking individual who may or may not agree with it. If you view God as being the sort who will not allow this, then I say I cannot believe in Him as you describe Him.’
Sadly, many hold to such opinions, but I must say that I cannot fault them for their view. Why can’t I? Because I think it is reasonable to be suspicious of the threat of hell, and, although I confess to you all that I believe it, I do not grow shocked that others must set up emotional boundaries when we begin to force them into action against their minds and hearts. This is something which I feel is God’s business, and not mine.
