Casen, I have to say that this is one of the most honest and amiable posts I have read on this board. Then again, I’m used to hanging around “In The News” where things are a touch more…confrontational.
Casen said:
1.) Are faith & reason friends or enemies?
NO, …
I assume from your response you meant “enemies.” You are mistaken, but reading the examples you cite I think you are confusing “reason” strictly defined and “reasonable” in the colloquial sense of a “gut response to a claim.” The “concept of an airplane” may have
seemed unreasonable 500 years ago, but it clearly didn’t contradict any science of the time. Perhaps some attempted to extrapolate the impossibility of heavier-than-air flight from their knowledge, but they did so in error, moving outside the bounds of their competence. Witness so many scientists today very unreasonably touting the wonders of embryonic stem-cell research.
Also, remember that this is different than saying “I don’t have the capacity to reason at such a level, so in this I go by faith, trusting those of greater capability.” This is asking whether reason
qua reason has anything to offer faith, and vice versa.
2.) Is it possible to put your faith in the wrong thing?
Yes, hence there are so many religions. Everyone can’t be right, even if most are sincere.
3.) If yes to #2, then isn’t it obligatory in good conscience to abandon faith if it is misplaced?
Yes, but how to know if it’s misplaced?
Good question.
I read the Book of Mormon at age 17 and then prayed to ask God if it was true and God clearly told me it was true in an unmistakable manner, not just a “good feeling” but a clear and undeniable personal sign from heaven that it was true.
The problem here is that signs can come from other places than God. This is essentially a “good feeling” writ large. Many believers of other religions claim to have received signs, and I’d be willing to bet there’s a few that trump yours in scale. Should we abandon our faith for the one that has produced the greatest “sign from on high?”
You can’t make a judgement of religious truth from signs, because then you just end up with a religious experience ****-size contest, which proves nothing.
Then again, I’m Catholic, and we’ve got Fatima, Medjugorie, Lourdes, Czestohowa, Guadalupe, &c., &c., miracles and signs out the wazoo, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the contest.
To you Joseph Smith’s stories of gold plates, angels visiting the earth, modern prophets, etc. may seem very unreasonable but after a diving manifestation from God those things suddenly seem VERY reasonable.
This again is a flawed view of reason. It’s not about what “seems unreasonable,” it’s about what is demonstrably false and openly contradicts both traditional and biblical Christianity, as well as metaphysics (e.g. the “infinite regression of gods” problem in Mormonism).
I’m sure many have mocked you and your faith for those aspects which only
seem unreasonable. That’s facile and tiresome, I admit. To any Catholics who were doing that, I can ony say two things: stick with what you can prove, and ignore that which you can only mock; you’re only making enemies. Remember, there isn’t anything much more seemingly
unreasonable than the Incarnation and the Eucharist themselves.
For that reason whatever dirt can be thrown my direction never sticks.
I have no doubt that some on these forums have flung many rhetorical unmentionables your way, but given your disposition to reasoned argument, you seem equally impervious to Light.
In any case, my goal here isn’t to disparage anyone else’s religion or faith, only to defend my own when it is attacked or mischaracterized.
That is a noble cause, indeed. Whatever we’re discussing, it’s vital that we start from accurate sources. Have you read the Catholic Answers tracts on Mormonism? Are there inaccuracies there, and if so, what are they? Can you demonstrate Catholicism’s falsity? If not, why should I convert?
BJ
