Penny Plain:
Thank you Torquemada, but you’re still missing the point.
The point is not whether I believe them. The point is whether any of them are suceptible to proof before we die and get to see for ourselves.
There certainly is evidence of the existence of a historical figure named Jesus. Probably less contemporary evidence than there is for the existence of Julius Caesar or Moctezuma, but there’s some.
Proof that he’s the son of God? Well, He said He was. My youngest son told me today that he’s a fire truck, but just because you say something doesn’t make it true. And just because somebody writes it down doesn’t make it true, either. Do I believe it’s true? Yes. Can I prove it’s true?
Nope. It’s a belief, a feeling. (Edit: “it” refers to Jesus’s assertion that He was the son of God, not my son’s assertion that he is a fire truck. I apologise for any confusion. The fact that my son is not a fire truck can be empirically proven.)
Same with the other stuff. Vern and you and a whole bunch of other people believe the magisterium (whoops, Magisterium) is the infallible successor to the apostles, at least in matters of faith and morals. Leaving aside the fact that the apostles don’t come across as a very infallible bunch to begin with, that’s a claim that can’t be proven one way or the other.
We can argue that it is. We can argue that it isn’t. But neither side can prove it, in the way that we can prove that being hit on the head with a mallet hurts. There’s no question that there’s a right answer, but there’s also no question that you can’t prove what it is, and neither can I.
It’s a question of belief. Faith. Feeling.
The equating of Faith with feeling does a disservice to the word Faith. Feelings are things that are specific to a person’s state. I feel cold, I feel hurt, I feel happy. Feelings are irrelevant to universal Truth. I can feel cold despite the room being 100 degrees. Faith means “unquestioned belief” and it is about a subject that transcends an individuals knowledge, biases, or perception.
Pope Benedict (as Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote “Introduction to Christianity” and spent nearly 90 pages explaining what the words “I believe” mean. In summary, to say “I Believe” means to say that I understand what I believe and I stand for what I believe.
So while I don’t know everything about God (to do so would make me God as He is the only one all-knowing), I believe in God the Creator. We can get into a long dissertation about why I believe but it isn’t important to this discussion. However, I can use statistics and a lot of science to “prove” that there is a Supreme Creator who transcends time and place (Lee Strobel’s “Case for a Creator” is a pretty good book describing this thought although my thoughts on this existed prior to reading the book). Granted, the proof isn’t absolute. Just as it is impossible to prove a negative, it is impossible for a finite limited being to absolutely prove there is an Almighty (to be able to do so would require the prover to be God himself).
Once you reach a rational conclusion that there is a Supreme Creator, you have to quickly reach some conclusions that such a Supreme Creator by definition has to be all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving and the other alls or omnis. And with there being such a God, there has to be absolute Truth as this all-everything couldn’t lie or decieve as to to do so would mean the all-everything wasn’t perfect and thus wouldn’t be God or the Supreme Creator. The perfect loop argument regarding God.
Now that you have an all-everything Supreme Creator, you have to accept that His love is perfect. Perfect love means that He also wants us to love Him. But to love anything requires knowledge (you can’t love what you don’t know) which means that He has to reveal Himself to us. Since He can’t lie or decieve, His revelation has to be always Truthful meaning that conflicting “truths” can’t both be right. And because this Supreme Creator wants us to love Him, you can expect Him to intervene/intercede to quell untruths and encourage that what is True.
This is where the Magisterium comes in. When analyzed, probed, and dissected by theologians over the past 2,000years, it becomes virtually impossible for contradictions (conflicting truths) to be raised about the Teachings of the Church. Suddenly, the sheer magnitude of this consistent “body of work/thought” seems to be beyond the capacity of limited humans. Granted there have been “failures of execution and interpretation” of the Truth over time but the core Teachings have been consistently inerring.
