Revelation and Reason

[Charlemagne_III]

Often in this forum we hear it said that truth must be decided by reason, rather than revelation. It is not usually the Catholics who say this, since they believe that both reason and revelation are avenues to the truth. But the authority of the Church, obtained through divine revelation, is questioned by many who use reason to assert that revelation is doubtful and unreliable, possibly even mistaken or downright fraudulent depending on the source or interpretation of the revelation.

Then, of course, the requirements of historical accuracy get into the picture, whereby it is insisted that history itself is unreliable and even sometimes very false or, again, fraudulent.

My questions are these:

Who gets to decide the legitimacy of divine revelation … the believer or the unbeliever?

How does the unbeliever bring himself to accept any authority other than his own?

How does the believer persuade the unbeliever that his revelation is authoritative?

 

[4love2God]

Charlemagne asks 3 questions :

1)** Who gets to decide the legitimacy of divine revelation … the believer or the unbeliever?**

Both of them decide.
I decide that my Divine Revelation came from Heaven.
The Atheist ALSO decides, but he decides that I am wrong.

Of course, I could gather 10 of Friends to agree that I had a Revelation (strength in numbers).
But then, he will gather 20 Atheists who will ALL agree that I had NO Revelation.

Then, I can get notarized statements from 10 Priests (and one Bishop) to declare the Revelation came from God.
The Atheist ALSO has 20 duly-sworn affidavits, all of them declare that I had NO Revelation.
I think you can see where this one is going . . .
Everyone has their own opinions. My opinion : “God is real.”

1. How does the unbeliever bring himself to accept any authority other than his own?

This seems simplistic.
A person has a Job. He has a Boss.
That Atheist MUST accept the authority of his Boss.
Well, either that … or look for employment elsewhere.

An Atheist is driving down the street.
A Cop flashes his Red Lights on the Atheist’s car.
Does the Atheist accept the authority of that Cop?
Well, either that or he will ACCEPT the authority of the County Jail.

Everybody has an inner feeling which helps them accept authority.

1. How does the believer persuade the unbeliever that his revelation is authoritative?

He does NOT persuade the Atheist.
This also seems simplistic.
You can lead a horse to water … but you can’t make him drink.

You could have Jesus Christ come down from Heaven, and tell that Atheist that your Revelation is real.
The Atheist can STILL deny that Jesus is authoritative (because Jesus does not exist, in his mind).

 

[Sparkythedog]

Often in this forum we hear it said that truth must be decided by reason, rather than revelation. It is not usually the Catholics who say this, since they believe that both reason and revelation are avenues to the truth. But the authority of the Church, obtained through divine revelation, is questioned by many who use reason to assert that revelation is doubtful and unreliable, possibly even mistaken or downright fraudulent depending on the source or interpretation of the revelation.

Then, of course, the requirements of historical accuracy get into the picture, whereby it is insisted that history itself is unreliable and even sometimes very false or, again, fraudulent.

My questions are these:

Who gets to decide the legitimacy of divine revelation … the believer or the unbeliever?

The person who decides the legitimacy of a religious claim (or any claim for that matter) is the one to whom the claim is addressed (in this case the unbeliever). The believer, by definition, already accepts the claim.

How does the unbeliever bring himself to accept any authority other than his own?

Evidence. The more evidence the believer can provide to back up a claim, the easier it is for me to believe them.

How does the believer persuade the unbeliever that his revelation is authoritative?

Once again, evidence. For simplicities sake, let’s say I make the claim that my friend owns an expensive flying car. What would make that claim credible for you?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Evidence. The more evidence the believer can provide to back up a claim, the easier it is for me to believe them.

Once again, evidence. For simplicities sake, let’s say I make the claim that my friend owns an expensive flying car. What would make that claim credible for you?

As to your first point, the unbeliever generally has already made up his mind that the revelations are false and suspect. The usual argument is that the evangelists were not witnesses to the events they describe. Also, the argument is made that in the case of the miracles, there had to be tamperings with the manuscripts to make Jesus more impressive. And, of course, the last ditch effort is to doubt the very existence of Jesus as a historical fact. So it’s pretty difficult to break through that wall of resistance and disbelief from the believers’ point of view.

As to you second point, that is of course the way an unbeliever must react to something he hasn’t seen happen. Such as Jesus rising from the dead. So you might say that kind of evidence is dead in the water.

 

[GratefulFred]

Faith is a Gift from God. Some have it, some don’t. Those who have it, have it varying degrees. If one does not have the Gift of Faith, one can receive it, if he prays sincerely and is patient.

Christ personally encountered many who could not accept His Teachings and His Miracles. Many of them had their own preconceived ideas of what the Messiah would look like - not a lowly carpenter for sure, and what he would do - beat the Romans. Some saw Christ as a threat to the good life they had established for themselves and they were unwilling to change regardless of the sound teaching and miracles.

Christ told the Apostles to go and teach and if they reject you, go elsewhere.

So the best we can do in the face of those who stiff arm God, is the present our reasons for relying and Revelation and Reason and pray that they will some day accept the Gift of Faith before it is too late.

 

[Aloysium]

To find Truth, how about:

" . . . I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and he heard me: I cried out of the belly of hell, and thou hast heard my voice. And thou hast cast me forth into the deep in the heart of the sea, and a flood hath compassed me: all thy billows, and thy waves have passed over me. And I said: I am cast away out of the sight of thy eyes: but yet I shall see thy holy temple again. The waters compassed me about even to the soul: the deep hath closed me round about, the sea hath covered my head. I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains: the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever: and thou wilt bring up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul was in distress within me, I remembered the Lord: that my prayer may come to thee, unto thy holy temple. They that are vain observe vanities, forsake their own mercy. But I with the voice of praise will sacrifice to thee: I will pay whatsoever I have vowed for my salvation to the Lord. . ." (Jonah 2)

 

[Bob_Crowley]

When it comes to the core belief of Christianity, that Christ is the Messiah, as stated by SImon Peter …

Matthew 16:16 NIV

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

… we are all in the position of Peter when we ourselves make the realisation or declaration …

Matthew 16:17 NIV

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah,* for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven./*QUOTE]

We can’t make that declaration unless God Himself is revealing it to us. From that starting point, we go on to accept that the Pope has power to bind and release, Christ will lead us to all the truth, that there are some things that for now are too hard to bear etc. etc.

The text in the Scriptures is the same regardless of who is reading it. So there is an third party at work when one person can read it and suddenly realise Who Christ is, whereas another man may read it and dismiss it all as a myth. The first man has been spiritually “got at” - the second man is relying on flesh and blood.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Faith is a Gift from God. Some have it, some don’t. Those who have it, have it varying degrees. If one does not have the Gift of Faith, one can receive it, if he prays sincerely and is patient.

So the best we can do in the face of those who stiff arm God, is the present our reasons for relying and Revelation and Reason and pray that they will some day accept the Gift of Faith before it is too late.

Is faith a gift or is it given as part of the natural law?

That is, doesn’t God give us all the same natural law? And isn’t belief in God included in the natural law? And isn’t that why faith (in a God of one kind or another) is so universal?

Put it this way: we are told that we must follow our conscience in all things, because conscience is an innate gift of God through the natural law. Then we hear people say that they have no faith, and their lack of faith results from following their conscience. That is, they cannot have faith because they see no reason for faith, and there is no way to prove to them that they should have a reason for faith.

How would you answer them? That faith is a gift and you must pray for the gift? But how can you pray if you don’t have the faith in the first place?

 

[Sparkythedog]

As to your first point, the unbeliever generally has already made up his mind that the revelations are false and suspect. The usual argument is that the evangelists were not witnesses to the events they describe. Also, the argument is made that in the case of the miracles, there had to be tamperings with the manuscripts to make Jesus more impressive. And, of course, the last ditch effort is to doubt the very existence of Jesus as a historical fact. So it’s pretty difficult to break through that wall of resistance and disbelief from the believers’ point of view.

I don’t know if you’re talking about a specific case here. But, in general, rejection of a claim is not the same as saying the claim is false. To say a claim is false is a claim in itself and requires evidence for that position. To reject a claim based on limited or faulty evidence is just not being convinced.

I’m not a biblical scholar so I don’t know anything about the ancient manuscripts. But if you are going to claim something out of the ordinary, you need to show me more evidence than just a story in a very old book.

As to you second point, that is of course the way an unbeliever must react to something he hasn’t seen happen. Such as Jesus rising from the dead. So you might say that kind of evidence is dead in the water.

Perhaps it is true that Jesus died and came back to life. But that is a claim that is well out of the ordinary. And such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone told me Jesus wore a white robe and went for a ride on a boat, that requires less evidence. It’s almost so mundane as to require none at all. But the first claim, if true, overturns much of what we know about humans and death. Do you understand why it requires more explanation?

I’m curious why you didn’t answer my question about my friend and the flying car?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’m curious why you didn’t answer my question about my friend and the flying car?

But I did. I said: “As to you second point, that is of course the way an unbeliever must react to something he hasn’t seen happen. Such as Jesus rising from the dead. So you might say that kind of evidence is dead in the water.”

Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear?

I would not believe the claim unless I saw it happen.

Then again, I might believe the claim if General Motors made called a press conference and made the claim. That would be because the witness of General Motors would be credible. I wouldn’t have to see the flying car, and that claim would not be dead in the water.

But since Jesus rose from the dead only once, you cannot be expected to believe the claim unless you believe the witnesses who proclaimed it. If you find the witnesses unbelievable, you need to explain why you find them unbelievable. Are you saying they all lied about the Resurrection?

 

[Aloysium]

Is faith a gift or is it given as part of the natural law?

That is, doesn’t God give us all the same natural law? And isn’t belief in God included in the natural law? And isn’t that why faith (in a God of one kind or another) is so universal?

Put it this way: we are told that we must follow our conscience in all things, because conscience is an innate gift of God through the natural law. Then we hear people say that they have no faith, and their lack of faith results from following their conscience. That is, they cannot have faith because they see no reason for faith, and there is no way to prove to them that they should have a reason for faith.

How would you answer them? That faith is a gift and you must pray for the gift? But how can you pray if you don’t have the faith in the first place?

:twocents:

1Corinthians:
12:4-31 Men have different gifts, but it is the same Spirit who gives them. There are different ways of serving God, but it is the same Lord who is served. God works through different men in different ways, but it is the same God who achieves his purposes through them all. Each man is given his gift by the Spirit that he may make the most of it. One man’s gift by the Spirit is to speak with wisdom, another’s to speak with knowledge. The same Spirit gives to another man faith, to another the ability to heal, to another the power to do great deeds. The same Spirit gives to another man the gift of preaching the word of God, to another the ability to discriminate in spiritual matters, to another speech in different tongues. Behind all these gifts is the operation of the same Spirit, who distributes to each individual man, as he wills. The human body is an example of organic unity. As the human body, which has many parts, is a unity, and those parts, despite their multiplicity, constitute one single body, so it is with the body of Christ. . . we find God’s distribution of gifts is on the same principles of harmony that he has shown in the human body. You should set your hearts on the highest spiritual gifts, but I will show you what is the highest way of all.
13:1-3 If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.

Revelation is the ground from which reason is able to grasp truth.
As a geocentric model of the solar system presents a jumble of unexplainable and bizarre planetary movements, any science, philosophy, and theology that is not centered on the Triune God will ultimately prove irrational, a distortion, if not a lie.

Seeking truth, God, Himself is our ultimate home, the simplicity that is the answer to all we wish to know.

To guide us to Him, the gifts of the Holy Spirit: understanding, knowledge, wisdom, counsel, piety, and fear of the Lord are given in their share to each of us, although we do not always cultivate them.

 

[Sparkythedog]

But I did. I said: “As to you second point, that is of course the way an unbeliever must react to something he hasn’t seen happen. Such as Jesus rising from the dead. So you might say that kind of evidence is dead in the water.”

Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear?

I would not believe the claim unless I saw it happen.

Then again, I might believe the claim if General Motors made called a press conference and made the claim. That would be because the witness of General Motors would be credible. I wouldn’t have to see the flying car, and that claim would not be dead in the water.

Ah. My apologies. I didn’t quite get that from your other post.

I would take issue with the statement that seeing is the only way to believe the claim. There are a good many magicians who make a living creating the illusion of levitation. Perhaps the flying car is an elaborate hoax.

There are other ways of evaluating strange claims like this though. For instance, someone could explain the physical principles behind the flying car. And by doing some research and experimentation you could determine whether a car can actually fly using those principles.

But since Jesus rose from the dead only once, you cannot be expected to believe the claim unless you believe the witnesses who proclaimed it. If you find the witnesses unbelievable, you need to explain why you find them unbelievable. Are you saying they all lied about the Resurrection?

It is true that an event that only happened once in history with no known precedent would be difficult to verify. I cannot verify the motivations of those who wrote down events that happened 2000 years ago. I have no way to tell whether the witnesses to the resurrection lied, were mistaken or if there were any witnesses at all. I cannot talk to any of these witnesses and there is no physical evidence of the resurrection left that I can examine. So I’m at a loss here.

Tell me why you believe in this particular story. Maybe I can learn more by understanding what it was that convinced you.

 

[oldcelt]

“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 the desire to know the truth — in a word, to know himself — so that by knowing and loving God, men and women can come to the fullness of the truth about themselves” (n. 1). With these words Pope John Paul II begins the encyclical, Fides et Ratio. Some 12 years in the making, it is the first encyclical on the relationship between faith and reason since Pope Leo XIII issued Aeterni Patris in 1879

catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0294.htm

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Tell me why you believe in this particular story. Maybe I can learn more by understanding what it was that convinced you.

Why I believe in the Resurrection story?

There’s a very long answer and a very short answer. You’ll have to settle for the short one.

I believe the Resurrection story because it is the end point of the prophesy made in Genesis, that some day the work of the serpent would be defeated. That work could only be defeated by a second Adam who had come to defeat the serpent and open the gates to Paradise. That second Adam, I believe, was a man named Jesus, the Son of God. His life and death would be the life and death of a man who came to teach the truth and atone for Adam’s sin and all sins ever committed and yet to be committed. This is what he came to do, and this is what the Apostles testified to his claim and believed to be true and went to their deaths believing it to be true. The joy in their lives was made possible by the miracles Jesus performed, by the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and by the promise of their own resurrection from the dead.

If the gospels are not true, it would have to be because the apostles and the evangelists composed a profoundly complex lie. But when you read the epistles and the gospels, you do not get any sense that these men are all liars, and that they are talking about someone who (according to some historians) possibly never even lived.

Beyond all that, the wisdom of Jesus strikes me as particularly divine wisdom that has never been matched by any other human on Earth.

If God has been reaching out lovingly to us all, I can’t think of any other human who seems to me more divine than Jesus Christ.

 

[Sparkythedog]

Why I believe in the Resurrection story?

There’s a very long answer and a very short answer. You’ll have to settle for the short one.

I believe the Resurrection story because it is the end point of the prophesy made in Genesis, that some day the work of the serpent would be defeated. That work could only be defeated by a second Adam who had come to defeat the serpent and open the gates to Paradise. That second Adam, I believe, was a man named Jesus, the Son of God. His life and death would be the life and death of a man who came to teach the truth and atone for Adam’s sin and all sins ever committed and yet to be committed. This is what he came to do, and this is what the Apostles testified to his claim and believed to be true and went to their deaths believing it to be true. The joy in their lives was made possible by the miracles Jesus performed, by the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and by the promise of their own resurrection from the dead.

If the gospels are not true, it would have to be because the apostles and the evangelists composed a profoundly complex lie. But when you read the epistles and the gospels, you do not get any sense that these men are all liars, and that they are talking about someone who (according to some historians) possibly never even lived.

Beyond all that, the wisdom of Jesus strikes me as particularly divine wisdom that has never been matched by any other human on Earth.

If God has been reaching out lovingly to us all, I can’t think of any other human who seems to me more divine than Jesus Christ.

I appreciate you taking the time to explain your reasoning. I can’t say that I find what you’ve written particularly convincing but it is interesting all the same. Thanks.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I appreciate you taking the time to explain your reasoning. I can’t say that I find what you’ve written particularly convincing but it is interesting all the same. Thanks.

I understand because I have been where you are and it ain’t easy crossing the bridge.

 

[GratefulFred]

Is faith a gift or is it given as part of the natural law?

That is, doesn’t God give us all the same natural law? And isn’t belief in God included in the natural law? And isn’t that why faith (in a God of one kind or another) is so universal?

Put it this way: we are told that we must follow our conscience in all things, because conscience is an innate gift of God through the natural law. Then we hear people say that they have no faith, and their lack of faith results from following their conscience. That is, they cannot have faith because they see no reason for faith, and there is no way to prove to them that they should have a reason for faith.

How would you answer them? That faith is a gift and you must pray for the gift? But how can you pray if you don’t have the faith in the first place?

Caveat - I am no expert and cannot claim that I know better. My understanding only goes so far and I am sure I have incomplete knowledge and could be wrong on significant points. I am pursuing better understanding.

*Definition: natural law (Philosophy) an ethical belief or system of beliefs *
*supposed to be inherent in human nature and discoverable by reason *
rather than revelation.

It should be clear to all that mankind does not acknowledge that “we all have the same natural law.” If we did, we would not have terrible political leaders supported by enough people to keep them in power today and throughout history.

I don’t see that a system of “ethical beliefs inherent in human nature” as being Faith in God, and certainly not Faith in Jesus Christ as the Living Son of God who earned for us the opportunity for eternal salvation. Natural Law doesn’t seem to say anything about the immortal soul and eternity or God.

To go a step further, I am currently reading about Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius, philosophers cira early 1600s. They seem to assert that:

*ALL we have is the right to preserve ourselves, *
*that whatever is necessary, **without endangering *
*the right of others to preserve themselves is, *
*ipso facto, *legitimate.

This most basic natural law leads to the End justifying the Means - whatever is necessary. It leads to slavery and absolute monarchy. We will give up a lot to preserve our life. Nothing in this suggests the Law of Love which Christ taught.

Thus, I do not see Faith, as Christians understand it, as a sub-set of Natural Law. For the sake of discussion perhaps 20% of Faith can come from Natural Law, but most of Faith comes from Revelation. Natural Law faith is, IMO, insufficient for Christians. I find it much more reliable to hear from God (Revelation recorded in the Bible) rather than solely rely on my own reasoning to learn my proper purpose. Given Revelation, right reasoning then gives me even a greater understanding.

As to conscience, we must first establish that our conscience is first properly formed. Proper decisions are not based on what we individually think - our own self interest. Your statements, “they see no reason” and “no way to prove” seems based on their limitations. Right reasoning exists. Whether one uses it correctly or not or accepts it when presented, is not sufficient to justify “we must follow our conscience in all things.”

So the Faith that truly matters is a Gift from God. One can pray for it if he but acknowledge the possibility, however slim, that God does exist and that God does love him and wants him to enjoy the greatest gift of all - eternal salvation. Of course, Free Will allows man to stiff arm God and keep God out of his life, in spite of the overwhelming evidence and reasoning he has not studied well enough.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t see that a system of “ethical beliefs inherent in human nature” as being Faith in God, and certainly not Faith in Jesus Christ as the Living Son of God who earned for us the opportunity for eternal salvation. Natural Law doesn’t seem to say anything about the immortal soul and eternity or God.

Aquinas addresses your concern about the distinction between divine law and natural law in his Summa Theologica Question 94, Article 1

“There is an inclination in man to the good according to the nature of reason, which is proper to him: man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society. Accordingly, those things which look to this inclination pertain to natural law, for example, that a man should avoid ignorance, that he should not offend others with whom he must live, and other such things … It should be said that all inclinations to whatever parts of human nature, for example the concupiscible and irascible, pertain to natural law insofar as they are regulated by reason, and are reduced to one first precept, as has been said. Thus there are many precepts of the law of nature in themselves, which, however, share the same root.”

The natural law therefore applies where men have not the written form of the divine law among them. It is governed and supported by virtue of the power of right reason, as you have pointed out.

You are a good Thomist, it seems.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The natural law therefore applies where men have not the written form of the divine law among them. It is governed and supported by virtue of the power of right reason, as you have pointed out.

Perhaps it should be added that right reason is a rare commodity in the world, and so it is by the grace of God that, according to Aquinas, we have the Divine Law to lead us to right reasoning when we fail or refuse to be drawn to it on our own accord.