Religious dilemma

[ContegoFides]

Liberanosamalo has been doing a good job of responding to you, but there are a few things I wanted to expand upon. Maybe a different way of approaching the same message might help. And, it’s very good that you are doing in depth reading on Catholic philosophy. If you are to either accept or reject the Catholic Church, you should at least understand exactly what it is that is being taught. I pray that the Holy Spirit will fill you with His grace so that you do come to believe in the Truth.

I apologize in advance if you feel that Liiberanosamalo has already explained some of these matters to your satisfaction.

Let me tell you how I understand it now. Jesus is supposed to deal with the offenses committed, and all the offenses that will be committed in the future. The way this is done is by punishing Jesus in a specific way. He is in this way taking the punishment for what the offenders have done. How this transfer happens is not clear. It seems to be some kind of metaphysical construct doing the transferring. Anyway, Jesus now has the responsibility of righting the wrongs (?). So he does this by suffering. That seems to be the action taken that is meant to make things right.

You say that Jesus was punished. This is not quite right. He accepted our punishment voluntarily. There is a huge difference between the two. In the later case there is a sentiment of force upon an unwilling person who deserves punishment. In the former case there is a show of love in the form of sacrifice for the beloved.

You say how this transfer happens is not clear. The short answer is that there is no ‘transfer.’ Jesus, in His Divinity, holds our debt. All sins are offenses against God, which creates a personal debt to Him (sins have other properties, too, such as societal and personal consequences – but I will digress from the central point if I go into that). Because Jesus (God) holds the debt, he may deal with the debt as he likes. Jesus (God) chose to pay our debt (each one personally) by 1) incarnating Himself as one of us, thereby allowing him to 2) voluntarily suffer torture and death as payment for our debts to Him. Note that Jesus (God) as holder of the debt, and as Judge, is able to both set the required punishment as well as forgive the debt. Jesus (God) chose to set the penalty (torture and death) and then pay the penalty (torture and death).

Jesus is able to suffer and die because He is fully human. Fully human = able to suffer and die and sacrifice. Jesus is able to forgive our sins because He is fully divine. Fully divine = able to forgive our debts to Him.

So, several questions are begged: 1) Why suffering and death, why not just “forgive” without the cross? 2) Why make this all so hard and not make it obvious that God exists and what he expects of us? 3) Why does a loving God allow evil, both moral and physical?

Entire treatises and massive volumes have been written by extremely smart people addressing these problems. I cannot do them full justice, but I will try to briefly touch on the answers.

The answer to all three questions boils down, in my opinion, to an intersection of three things: 1) Free will, 2) Teaching us, who are extremely small and limited, a small something of the nature of an infinitely good and just God, 3) God’s nature as being infinitely powerful, just, and loving. Because we are given the dignity of free will, that free will must be actually free to be meaningful. If God allows true free will, then that means that God must allow real moral evil and God must allow us to choose eternal separation from Him (the greatest evil). Hence, God allows both things that offend Him deeply, as well as the suffering that entails for us. God doesn’t make things easy and obvious because, if He did, there could be no free will. God choose suffering and death as atonement for our sins to teach us the nature of True love: that it is sacrificial in that the lover gives totally to the beloved. God chose suffering and death also to teach us just how ugly sin is to Him in terms we can understand.

So all that begs another question: Why free will? I believe the answer to that derives from love itself: you cannot truly love in response to being loved unless you choose to love in return. Unless that choice is real, it is meaningless.

What God offers us is really extremely amazing: A deep relationship with Him that transcends time and space that leaves us unable to described the depth of joy of being with Him. However, to get there, you have to go through the cross – for the reasons described above.

I’m sure MUCH more can be said about these matters, but I will leave them off for now.

 

[ContegoFides]

To be honest, I don’t see that love requires obedience. I wouldn’t necessarily obey someone just because they loved me, but if God exists, I would probably agree with him as he should be able to explain what was wrong with what I believe about any given subject.

You are missing two key points. First, you don’t obey God because He loves you; but because YOU love HIM. Second, God is inifinite and infallible. We are finite and fallible. Therefore, we must conform ourselves to God. In the end, anything that does not conform to God will be rejected by God and thereby utterly destroyed or excluded from His presence. You can consider conforming yourself to God to be “obedience,” and the consequence of “disobediance” is separation from God by your own choice (because God doesn’t change - YOU have to change).

You say “He should be able to explain what was wrong with what I believe on any given subject.” However, that is not the way God operates. Much like parents (who do understand) to children (who do not understand) sometimes we are required to obey simply because God knows better and we are not in a position to know why.

Many times in the Gospels Jesus explains “how it is” to people – but often they rejected it. When they demand explanations, he didn’t give them. Why would He do this? Because He knew that the people demanding the explanation didn’t really want the Truth. Their minds were already made up and nothing that he said would change their minds. What they wanted was to have some statement that they could try to attack, and Jesus wouldn’t take the bait. He simply required faith.

This is illuminating, but I am afraid these are things I cannot make sense of (as I suspected). I don’t understand justice as a metaphysical force, for instance. Do you?

Sure you do. God gave us all humans everywhere the gift of a conscience in the form of understanding the “natural law.” The natural law is an inherent understanding that some things are wrong and some are good. All people everywhere on Earth, with the exception of people incapacitated physically or mentally, know that premeditated cold blooded murder is wrong and, when it happens, feel a sense of moral outrange that demands a metaphysical notion of justice. You can understand that, and thus you understand a metaphysical notion of justice. People might disagree on what exactly constitutes “premeditated,” “cold blooded,” “murder,” and “justice,” but the fact remains that all people know that unjustified killing is 1) “wrong” (however defined) and 2) demands “justice” (however defined).

Well, the function of the suffering seems to be that it might make the offender understand what he has done. This type of miscarriage of justice (understood as a judicial concept) seems like a very excessive way of doing it . If the offender is supposed to restore things later when he is dead, it seems to me like there would be other ways to make the offender realize that he has done wrong. Also, if the function of the suffering is just to make the offender see how wrong he was, how is the suffering a payment towards the sins committed?

You are still thinking in terms of function. You need to think in terms of relationships.

Also, remember that God (Jesus) both holds the debt of sin and is the judge for the sin. He can decide when the debt is to be paid, if it is to be paid, and the manner in which it is paid. See above for why Jesus went the way He did.

 

[ContegoFides]

P.S. We were also debating the idea that if people didn’t have souls, they had to be viewed as machines - and how seeing people as machines resulted in Nazism and Communism. I think that debate is off the really central point, and I don’t want to throw you off what is important – but am happy to resume it if you wish.

 

[GraceDK]

Hello, guys. I am in the process of getting married, and me and my catholic fiancée are soon to be finished with marriage preparation classes. However, I do still have some concerns. These concerns relates to religious issues. Over the last couple of months, I have tried to learn about Catholicism, but this seems counterproductive. Let me explain how that is. Before I began this learning-process, my views about Catholicism were largely neutral. I didn’t know much, and I didn’t have much of an opinion either way. As I read, I find myself getting discouraged. My views seems to become negative more than positive.

I can see positives in some of the cultural and social aspects of the religion, but intellectually I find it dissatisfying. This should probably not come as a surprise, seen as I am agnostic, (…)
For those who have read some of my previous threads, you might remember that my fiancée has had issues with her faith. She lost her faith some time into our relationship, and didn’t take it well. She has since returned to the faith, but I think her faith is still somewhat unstable. My dilemma is this:

Should I shut up (risking issues further down the line), or should I voice my newfound concerns now? Based on non-catholic advice and my own thinking (I don’t really know any Catholics besides my fiancée), I am leaning towards keeping my mouth shut and just see how it plays out. Would you, as a Catholic, see my concerns as important, or would it not matter that much?

Dear persuader.

Openess is the way forward. If she is with you as an agnostic, she wont leave you because you remain an agnostic. Im sure she is happy you look into the faith because of her.

I am sorry to hear your fiancee lost faith and then came back… why did she loose faith, I wonder. I hope she is in a good environment of people who really believe… and that you of all, being so close to her, help her and respect her by protecting her also like a man ought to, showing temperance, chastity, courage etc.

Of course its very important for a Christian that the person nearest to them understands their heart, because our faith is such a tremendous thing to us, it defines ourselves, the world and the way we view everything…
When you meet Jesus and spend time with Him you chance… everything changes. You see the structures of things like you never saw it before…Really its like a veil being taken away from your eyes, like waking up from a life long slumber,… and you see what people do to each other and you see that in comparison to the love of Jesus Christ.

What disappointed you about Catholicism? It was hardly the main issue which did it… because there is only one main issue, and that is Christ.
And every man or woman who is true to themselves admit in the silence of their heart, their own weakness, how they hurt others, and themselves: they realise sin exists… they realise they need forgiveness, they need peace, they need freedom, the true freedom, salvation and answers.

If you want to know the core of the Christian life and what all the fuss is about read the New Testament. Its that simple. If you read that I cannot imagine that you will be disapointed.
I am travelling through the Catechism right now and especially on ethical teachings I cannot imagine anything more sound and healthy and self evident and needed for modern society, to get the messes straightened out that we all see around us-.

I am a convert to Catholicism myself. And have often been disillusioned by the Church by the way… (but then it has probably also been disillusioned with me and I became a Christian when I was 21…
How, by the direct intervention of Jesus Christ, by reading books and meeting people who were really changed by the Gospel, people healed from cancer in the last stage, and MS, many who had SEEN Jesus, people healed instantly from alcoholism, saved from suicide by the direct voice of God… and the list goes on an on
One day I realised: I believe and my life will never be the same. Thats when I started LIVINg instead of merely existing.
And He has never disapointed me… You see, its not about a book, or a church, or some papal documents, its about a person who desires relationship with you.

Our God is a living God… Go and ask Him who He is, and ask if there is really something to this Jesus of Nazareth… ask it out into the air to the unknown God, if you will… I recommend it.
I once sat at an Evangelical meeting (investigate other brands of Christianity if what you find hard to swallow is the taste of the catholic church) and there, before my eyes, I saw people get healed in the Name of Jesus, from physical illnesses. I thought: WOW, it looks like Jesus is still active.

I didnt know He was because I had not seen His work in the faithless church of my childhood. Being asked if I wanted to have Jesus as King over my life I raised my hand, inspite all embarassment. The Lord of the universe saw that hand…
One year later I was an onfire believer in Jesus, talked about Him so much that people got tired of it… this only comes when you meet a real Person. You cant have a personal relationship unless there is a person who responds. Thats just it. Meet a person… My advice therefore is the sceptics prayer and reading the New Testament.
I always thought… if there is one person who is noble, praiseworthy, humble, GOOD and worthy of trust among all the confused sinners in the world, its Jesus of Nazareth. With Him only I would entrust my life.

God bless you. Dont give up your search… if you ask Him He WILL answer you. And He will give you an intensity of life which you have never known before.

Not we have the truth, but the Truth has us.
Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

Hope you are still there I got excited

 

[jmcrae]

Retributive justice it is then. I am reading some christian material on this, and it says that the primary reason for Jesus’ suffering is retribution. They use the word “propitiation”.

I think this is very poor theology. Jesus was not being punished (other than by the Roman and Jewish authorities, of course) - He was being offered up to God the Father.

My understanding is that Christ’s sacrifice was not a sacrifice in the kind of terms that we understand today (giving up something good so that someone else can have something that is good), but rather, it was along the same lines as the sacrifices that were offered by the Levites (giving something to God in thanksgiving for everything that He has given to us, and as a way of saying sorry for our sins).

The Levites didn’t see themselves as “giving up” the animals and plants that they were sacrificing on their altars - rather, they saw themselves as giving these things to God - they weren’t ceasing to exist, but rather, they were changing their form so as to become useful to God in Heaven.

When we think of Christ as giving Himself as a gift to God the Father in thanksgiving for the goodness of human life, and as a sin-offering in compensation for all of the sins of the world, then it makes a great deal more sense.

The reason that Jesus comes to us under the appearances of bread and wine at Mass is because traditionally, bread and wine were offered by the Jewish people as a thanksgiving sacrifice. At Mass, we are giving thanks that Jesus gave Himself up as a sacrifice (a gift to God) for our sins and for the sins of the whole world.

 

[newbetx]

I guess I never thought that Jesus was being punished. He was being killed. The innocent can not be punished, but they can be made to suffer.

And I don’t see that the Romans punished him as the words in the bible clearly state that what happened appeared to them (the Romans) that there was no crime. They allowed the choice of death from the Jews to cover their own fears of an uprising. Little did they know.

So was Jesus punished? No. Did he die? Clearly. Did God allow it? Absolutely.

 

[Persuader]

I think this is very poor theology. Jesus was not being punished (other than by the Roman and Jewish authorities, of course) - He was being offered up to God the Father.

My understanding is that Christ’s sacrifice was not a sacrifice in the kind of terms that we understand today (giving up something good so that someone else can have something that is good), but rather, it was along the same lines as the sacrifices that were offered by the Levites (giving something to God in thanksgiving for everything that He has given to us, and as a way of saying sorry for our sins).

Right. There are certainly different ways of viewing the practice of sacrifice. In any case, I think the key will be to make sense of theories of atonement. Now, the CC support what is called satisfaction theory, and specifically the theory put forth in Summa Theologica. According to this view, the situation is very much about seeing a need for punishment, and requiring that Jesus take that punishment in our place (substitution). However, it seems like the vicarious suffering of Jesus is to be viewed as medicinal. Also, even though this is a transfer of punishment, it is not a transfer of guilt (which would be, on the face of it, an unjust transfer). If we see Jesus’ sacrifice in this light, we will have to say that Jesus‘ soul was in some way healed by being punished like this (this is at least the effect it is meant to have). Furthermore, the idea of punishment is that punishment for any given sin must equal the pleasure derived from the sin. As an example, we can take the premarital sex I have enjoyed with my fiancée. The pleasure I experienced on those occasions could be atoned for by experiencing an amount of pain or suffering equal to that pleasure. After reading relevant passages in Summa Theologica, this is what I take from it.

I still think this is a very strange scheme, and I am not sure what kind of sense it makes. For instance, it seems a bit strange to say that the torture suffered by Jesus is medicinal. Presumably, Jesus’ soul is perfect, so no amount of medicinal punishment would have any healing effect on Jesus. Thus this aspect of the sacrifice is all but gone, and you have to think “what is left”? The only thing that can be left is the payment of debt, so to speak. And this is a plain transfer described as a straightforward retributive process where the injustice towards God is atoned for by the equivalent suffering of Jesus.

All this seems to relate to the problem I had in the first place, and that is the problem of separating punishment from guilt. More specifically, if I put myself in God’s shoes, I cannot see how I would feel that injustice was being righted by punishing the innocent. The need for punishment is a psychological need in humans. If a human was presented with an analogous situation, he would not feel that justice was served. Let’s say your daughter was raped and killed, and you are in court. The offender has pleaded guilty and there is overwhelming evidence to support his plead. So he gets life in prison. Now, let’s say another person comes in and says: “I am willing to take the punishment for the offender”. If this were allowed, you would not feel that justice was served. You would immediately feel sensitive to the fact that the guilt was separated from the punishment. Even if the offender had to right his wrongs in other ways, you would feel that this act of vicarious punishment would be (at best) superfluous to the case.

The essential problem becomes how any form of retributive justice can be implemented if the guilty is not the one receiving the punishment. Put very simply, how is the debt paid without the guilty party paying it? How can the debt be paid by miscarriage of justice? This problem is not answered by Aquinas (as far as I can see), and it is unimpressive that this obvious objection is not addressed in some significant detail.

 

[ContegoFides]

The essential problem becomes how any form of retributive justice can be implemented if the guilty is not the one receiving the punishment. Put very simply, how is the debt paid without the guilty party paying it? How can the debt be paid by miscarriage of justice? This problem is not answered by Aquinas (as far as I can see), and it is unimpressive that this obvious objection is not addressed in some significant detail.

The correct answer is the same as it was before. The core of your objection is answered by the fact that God (Jesus) is the holder of the debt because sin, by definition, offends God. Let’s go through it again.

Sin is an act that is 1) wrong, 2) you know it’s wrong, and 3) you engage the will to do it anyway. Sin is an offense against God. Thus, God is the one who holds the debt because He is the one who is offended by it. Accordingly, the most important aspect of sin is how it affects your relationship with God; it’s secondary aspect is some abstract notion of justice that (as limited beings) we are simply incapable of truly judging.

Accordingly, Jesus (God) holds the debt of each person’s sin. He is free to do with it as He likes. He can forgive the debt, he can suffer the punishment for the debt, he can offer himself as a blameless sacrifice for the debt, he can inflict punishment on us for the debt, or he can allow us to refuse His mercy.

Jesus (God) chose to suffer and die to make forgivness against our sins possible; but we must cooperate in that grace as we have been given the dignity of free will. We have gone over the reasons why He chose this path; but can do so again if you like.

Your arguments and the whole sense of miscarriage of justice is driven by arguments that fail to recognize that 1) God is the holder of the debt, 2) God defines what true justice is - not you or me - and 3) Our relationship with God is just that; you need to think in terms of relationships, NOT in terms of bottles of sin on one side and bottles of “justice” on the other.

Let me ask a better question: Why are you spending so much time at attempting to disparage Catholic theology when you appear to have already made up your mind? Why not carry on with life convinced you are right, and that everything will be fine when it’s your time to pass from this life? Are you trying to convince yourself by attempting to debunk our arguments? Are you actually and earnestly seeking the truth?

I’m curious, please do tell.

Also, answer Pascal’s wager.

 

[jmcrae]

Right. There are certainly different ways of viewing the practice of sacrifice. In any case, I think the key will be to make sense of theories of atonement. Now, the CC support what is called satisfaction theory, and specifically the theory put forth in Summa Theologica. According to this view, the situation is very much about seeing a need for punishment, and requiring that Jesus take that punishment in our place (substitution).

I am under the impression that this is a very incomplete view of what Jesus did on the Cross. Not being a theologian by trade, I’m not really able to explain it, other than to compare it to the sacrifice of the lamb at Passover - the Jews certainly didn’t perceive the lamb as receiving any kind of a “punishment” for sins or otherwise, but rather, that the lamb was an offering to God in thanksgiving for freedom from Egypt.

Since “Eucharist” means “Thanksgiving” and since we refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, I expect that the formal theological explanation would involve those ideas, for the most part, with the “punishment” idea being more along the lines of, we all deserve to be crucified for our sins, but look, Jesus was crucified, and here we are with our sins forgiven. Not that Jesus was being punished for our sins, but that He was crucified in our place while being offered, totally innocent and good (like the lamb of Passover) to God.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

I still think this is a very strange scheme, and I am not sure what kind of sense it makes. For instance, it seems a bit strange to say that **the torture suffered by Jesus is medicinal. **Presumably, Jesus’ soul is perfect, so no amount of medicinal punishment would have any healing effect on Jesus. Thus this aspect of the sacrifice is all but gone, and you have to think “what is left”? The only thing that can be left is the payment of debt, so to speak.

The torture is medicinal to us - the sinners. By seeing the perfect and sinless Jesus suffer for our sins, we come to hate those sins. God needs to heal us from our sinful nature, because nothing but the purest pure, the whitest white will ever be admitted into the kingdom of Heaven. As long as we are attached to sins, we are not fit to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Fear of eternal damnation and eternal torments in the hell is a good motivating factor, but knowing that there is a price to pay for every sin, a price paid by our beloved Jesus, and knowing that through our sins we cause suffering to Jesus, is a much better motivating factor for us Christians, trying to renounce our sinful ways.

The Church places a high emphasis on devotions that help us meditate on Christ’s passion - e.g. the Stations of the Cross, the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. It really does serve a purpose, reminding us of the horrible nature of sins.

Why did Jesus pay for our sins? I guess because the “bill” is too high, and we don’t have enough “money in our bank account” to settle this debt. Thus, someone else had to pay our debt, and that someone else is Jesus. Not to forget, ALL Christians are asked to atone not only for their own sins, but also for the sins of others. Thus, even I, although I’m a sinner and my prayers and sacrifices are worth so much less than those of Jesus, can participate in Jesus’ suffering and atonement for sins. Most Christians can atone for sins through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but a select few also atone through corporal punishment. Pope John Paul II used to scurge himself (corporal punishment), especially before ordaining bishops and priests, in order to atone for the sins of the clergy.

By studying the lives of the mystics (people who had direct supernatural visions and encounters with Jesus), I was surprized to learn that Jesus allowed practically every single one of them (at least those whose lives I’ve read about) to see his passion. A few such mystics who saw visions of Christ’s passion are St. Teresa of Avila (16th century Spain), St. Faustina Kowalska (20th c. Poland), St. Pio (Padre Pio) of Pietrelcina (20th c. Italy), Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (19th c. Germany), Therese Neumann (20th c. Germany), and Myrna Nazzour (still living, 20th-21th c. Syria). Before you summarily dismiss these people as “mentally ill” or “unbalanced”, just borrow St. Teresa of Avila’s autobiography, or St. Faustina’s book “Divine mercy in my soul” (every priest and parish has these two books, they are among the most important and on the shortlist of reading for any Catholic), and see for yourself whether their authors come across as anything else than sane, balanced, normal persons. They were psychologically healthy people who had direct supernatural encounters with Jesus Christ (=mystical experiences).

 

[Persuader]

I am not sure these issues are any clearer in my mind. Reading some secondhand sources on this, I find objections similar to my own. I think something is missing here. It might very well be the nature of justice, allegedly explained by divine reason, that escapes understanding. If that is the case, I will just have to accept that this is the extent of it. PS: what was said about the suffering being medicinal to us, is separate from the point. In the explanation of vicarious punishment, it is the point to say that the one receiving the punishment/suffering (i.e. Jesus) is supposed to receive the medicinal effects, not the offender. This seems clear in the writing.

Now, it might be the case that I have bias against this, but I am trained in logic and argumentation (and that should help a bit). Also, I do not consider the catholic view to be a challenge to my current views on justice and morality. Although my views are quite tentative and open to changes, the changes I have made in recent years are motivated by scientific and secular knowledge about ethics and justice (for instance by the emerging field of neuroethics). My motivation to understand Catholic theology have more to do with strengthening the basis of my relationship to my fiancée through understanding Catholicism, and less to do with my own views.

ContegoFides:

Also, answer Pascal’s wager.

Pascal’s wager has several problems. I can mention a couple. One assumption made in the argument is that you will automatically believe in the right God. There are several religions with different views on God, and you could produce an uncountable number of additional views. Another assumption is that God values that you believe in him, such that if you believe in him, you will receive a reward. On the face of it, it is just as likely that he will value intellectual honesty or some other attribute or quality. So, you quickly see that the odds and decision matrix of this betting game will dramatically change if you strip some of the hidden assumptions contained in the argument.

 

[ContegoFides]

Now, it might be the case that I have bias against this, but I am trained in logic and argumentation (and that should help a bit). Also, I do not consider the catholic view to be a challenge to my current views on justice and morality. Although my views are quite tentative and open to changes, the changes I have made in recent years are motivated by scientific and secular knowledge about ethics and justice (for instance by the emerging field of neuroethics). My motivation to understand Catholic theology have more to do with strengthening the basis of my relationship to my fiancée through understanding Catholicism, and less to do with my own views

It’s good to have an open mind, at least in terms of understanding what is actually asserted.

We really cannot do justice to the fullness of Catholic theology on this thread. I recommend some of these resources as a starting point:

amazon.com/Gathered-Journey-Theology-Catholic-Perspective/dp/0802825958

amazon.com/Because-God-Real-Sixteen-Questions/dp/158617200X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272305420&sr=1-1 This one is written with a teen audience in mind, but it gets at the essence quickly.

dummies.com/store/product/Catholicism-For-Dummies.productCd-0764553917.html (you are definitely not a dummy, but it’s still an excellent resource for easily spelling out the Faith).

Additionally, I recommend exploring the following author more thoroughly, he’s an acknowledged expert Catholic philosopher: peterkreeft.com/home.htm (author of the “Because God is Real” book).

I also recommend reading the writings of John Paul II (Carol Wojtyła) and Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) - “Jesus of Nazareth” by the latter is particularly interesting.

Pascal’s wager has several problems. I can mention a couple. One assumption made in the argument is that you will automatically believe in the right God. There are several religions with different views on God, and you could produce an uncountable number of additional views. Another assumption is that God values that you believe in him, such that if you believe in him, you will receive a reward. On the face of it, it is just as likely that he will value intellectual honesty or some other attribute or quality. So, you quickly see that the odds and decision matrix of this betting game will dramatically change if you strip some of the hidden assumptions contained in the argument

You are correct that, in a vacuum, these assumptions make Pascal’s Wager untenable - but we’re not in a vacuum. Various religions proclaim different gods, different descriptions of a monotheistic creator God, or no gods at all. By evaluating them on the merits of their beliefs and on the behavior of adherents we can deduce which gods, God (or description of God) would be the correct one to believe in. Note that the fact that they share things in common are hints at the Truth, meaning that some religions might share aspects of the Truth but not have the fullness of Truth.

Briefly, the Catholic faith is the only religion that claims as its founder God Himself. If this claim is true, (a big “if” at the moment I’ll warrant), then the Catholic religion holds the fullness of Truth. Christianity does indeed teach that we all have (each) one life whereupon we are judged, wherein at judgment we either choose (though our actions during life) eternal Hell (separation from God) or - in conjunction with the grace merited by Jesus - eternal life (the Beatific Vision).

In this context, Pascal’s wager takes on meaning because the assumptions become warranted.

So, how to evaluate whether the Catholic claim of Divine foundation and authority is true? There are no positivistic proofs. However, there are many indications - beginning with the internal resonance of the Truth of Jesus’ teachings, the lives of the Saints, the logical consistency and unchaning nature of Catholic dogma, and many others. In the end, it will boil down to faith - a trust without reservation - because there is no positivistic proof.

However, if you do take that leap, your own experience and the actual peace that comes into your life will be the final “proof” you need that this is all very much real. Real converts are very happy people; not because the become automatons, but because they “know” the Lord.

I also recommend these two books as aids for understanding this perspective:

amazon.com/Padre-Pio-Hope-Renzo-Allegri/dp/1569551383 (Padre Pio is one of the greatest saints to have lived in modern times).

amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=surprised+by+truth (Conversion stories; not so much for the apologetics, but rather for observing the effect that conversion had on people).

 

[Arizona_Fat_Gir]

Catholicism is not an easy religion. If you don’t believe me, look around and see all the lapsed Catholics. I have them in my own family.

I am a cradle Catholic, not having had much choice in the matter. I am glad to be Catholic. I love Jesus and want to be with Him.

I understand, however, that it is an uphill battle when your loved ones, like a sister, or daughter, etc. make unkind remarks because you go to Mass on Sunday. They even go so far as to trick you into not going. Visiting my sister, I asked her to drive me to Church for Mass. I had at the time took a plane in, but did not rent a car. She kept goofing around until the last minute. I could tell she just didn’t want to go. We went, but what did she say afterwards? She said she found the Mass to be boring and redundant.

 

[Gabriel_oOLoS]

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