Starting to doubt Catholicism

[MNathaniel]

Well, the hypocrisy of CAF raises its ugly head again.

Hmmm, yes, the hypocrisy of a Catholic forum for… flagging and removing a comment that applauded someone for publicly doubting their Catholic faith… without adding any constructive or helpful content that might help the person grow closer to their Catholic faith again… wait, what was I saying?

Out of respect for you, I decline to think that you can possibly be serious.

It’s one thing to wrestle sincerely with our faith and soberly encourage one another in honestly engaging with our challenges. It’s another to expect to be allowed to uncritically cheerlead and “applaud” someone away from their religion, on a forum dedicated to helping one another grow ever closer towards the truths of our religion.

 

[Servant31]

We don’t just learn about Christ. We also become Christ.

Or at least more “Christ like”, just for clarity (Some faiths believe you become God… )

 

[Quasi_Tenebrous]

joyfulandactive: not being able to admit your ideas are leading you to self-destruction and the actions that come from that arrogance bringing disaster to others.

Goodness… and people wonder why the Athenians killed Socrates…

 

[lelinator]

Hmmm, yes, the hypocrisy of a Catholic forum for… flagging and removing a comment that applauded someone for publicly doubting their Catholic faith… without adding any constructive or helpful content that might help the person grow closer to their Catholic faith again… wait, what was I saying?

Actually I did try to offer some constructive advice. The advice was…don’t be afraid to question your beliefs. Don’t be afraid to listen to that still small voice, even when everyone around is telling you that it’s wrong.

If you truly believe that God exists, and you truly believe in that still small voice…then don’t be afraid to listen to it. Don’t be afraid to trust it even when everyone around you is telling you not to.

 

[bruisedreed]

Friends, maybe we’re laying it on a bit thick with all this talk about the humility of the simple and a disordered reliance on the intellect. Only a minority of the responses directly addressed Platonist’s “biggest problem”. We should be taking about evidence, as some posters have already started to do. Our faith is Perfect Reason, and our words should reflect this directly.

Platonist, if God is indeed Reason, and if we merely participate in this Reason, it would be reasonable to suppose that there exist such principles of Reason as we are not able to understand or apprehend immediately. It does not follow, that is, that if something is rational, that we rational intellects should be able to apprehend it immediately. But if we are to benefit from and seize the rational truth which we can’t immediately apprehend, we need to have some manner aside from the reason, which is in darkness, in order to seize the principle of reason which we can’t apprehend. We Christians argue that this manner of seizing that rational truth which we can’t immediately apprehend is trust, or “faith”.

Now something is to be trusted only in direct proportion to its authority. Since the authority of God is infinite, we have every reason to trust God. The question is then how we should determine what are the declarations of God which we should trust. Again, us Christians believe that these declarations are set out principally in the Gospels, and communicated and interpreted for us by the Magisterium of the Church. The reason we believe this is that there are things which are stated and done in the Gospels and by the Magisterium which give us reason to believe that the declarations contained therein are those made by God. Following this assent of the reason to those declarations and acts in the Gospels and by the Magisterium which we can apprehend (for example, we might be struck by the very high degree and innovative nature of the love shown by Jesus in the Gospels, or we might be struck by the fact that the Church has survived for so long, which is odd on the face of it), we adhere to those things which we can’t immediately apprehend by the reason by way of trusting–that is, by faith. Therefore, we say as Christians that “faith perfects reason” because it allows us to apprehend truths of Reason which we can’t immediately apprehend, by trusting in an authority which we rationally came to believe was credible.

It follows from this that you should read the Gospels carefully and read the documents of the Magisterium, and learn about the historical acts of the Church, and determine whether these things are credible authorities. If you come to believe that they are, then you will be prepare to trust those things which they say which are not immediately clear to you.

 

[LilyM]

Okay. Have you only just come across Plato? Why are you prioritizing platonist thought above Christian thought? (PS please see my edit to the prior comment; you responded before I got that in there! )

Plenty of philosophers believe neifher in the reality of God or the immortality of the soul. So.it certainly does.not appear to be sufficiently self-evident that it literally requires nothing beyond philosophy.

 

[fhansen]

Even Socrates could take things only so far…beyond which reason alone cannot traverse. So what’s wrong with God, knowing that we need more knowledge, filling in that missing data? What’s necessarily inaccurate-or unintelligent- about the following passages?

"For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

 

[Quasi_Tenebrous]

fhansen: Even Socrates could take things only so far…beyond which reason alone cannot traverse.

Socrates would be the first to agree, since he also professed to know nothing at all - except for that fact, which was given to him by divine revelation through the Oracle of Delphi.

The question Platonist has is whether the claims made by Catholicism are credible; a question some on this thread seem to equate with Stalinism, and others with Buddhism. Ironically, Catholic professors at Pontifical universities are falling over themselves trying to equate the spiritual experiences of the Stoic and Platonic sages with Catholic mystics. Plus, an entire branch of theology (Fundamental, or Systematic Theology) is concerned with precisely that question of credibility. It would seem, then, that his questions deserve to be talked about, on the grounds that he’s laid out. If a person does not have a knowledge of Plato, or of Greek philosophy, he or she should probably listen rather than speak.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Plato’s forms theory indicates that there is precise uniformity in nature. He was wrong about that and other things. What makes you think we need Plato in Christianity? what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?

 

[Quasi_Tenebrous]

Tertullian, possessing Dan_Defender: what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?

Tertullian! Such a pleasure to speak with ye again! You still owe me money from our last marbles game…

Plato’s ideas were often incomplete or completely incorrect. That did not stop Christianity from adapting many of his principles in formulating its doctrine; just as it did not stop it from later using Aristotle, primarily through its scholastic commentators (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas, Bl. Duns Scotus, the Islamic commentators), even though Aristotle was no less infallible.

 

[fhansen]

If a person does not have a knowledge of Plato, or of Greek philosophy, he or she should probably listen rather than speak.

Alright, point taken. But my rather unsophisticated point comes from the “other side” so to speak. Human reason simply cannot relate to or attain to or explain the kinds of experiences that Catholic mystics, for their part, have experienced. Or, similarly, in speaking of other supernatural claims such as the incarnation or the resurrection, what makes reason or philosophy superior to those claims, such that they must bow before or prove themselves to reason first?

What if those claims, simply, happen to be true; what if they happened regardless of reason’s ability to accept or deny them? What if God gave man the truth he really needed because the truths Socrates et al would be able to determine were insufficient to answer man’s deepest and most critical questions? What if Moses’ experiences and instructions were ultimately much more valuable to humankind?

I know God and the realm of spirit are true,

I’m curious-how do you know this? Because all other supernatural claims hinge on this truth first of all.

Also, what if God chose to reveal Himself and His will to a simple “hill people” in one little dusty corner of the world, due in part, perhaps, to their particular qualities, for His purposes? Could He want them isolated and innocent at first from the influence of various philosophies or systems of thought? Instructing and making covenants with them in order to gradually cultivate them until the time was ripe in human history for His fullest revelation to be known in the person of Jesus Christ? And this revelation would just happen to coincide with Greek philosophy developing to the point where a creator-god, for one, had been reasoned to? From the big picture can’t Plato be everyone’s Plato with God’s real purpose to inform and educate man so he may be saved, with this endeavor being a corporate process, taking place as man is ready both individually and as a body? In this case Plato is part of God’s revelation, His light, the reasoned part which Church theologians would later utilize where and as possible, and in the light of faith.

 

[Ana_v]

And why does Reason itself require faith?

The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell found it amusing that Vatican I declared in its Dogmatic Constitution that the existence of God is knowable through reason apart from faith.

I understand why the Church did it. But I also understand why he finds it amusing.

 

[Quasi_Tenebrous]

Human reason simply cannot relate to or attain to or explain the kinds of experiences that Catholic mystics, for their part, have experienced.

I am a Catholic, fhansen - and despite his doubts, Platonist would not be posting here if he did not want to remain a Catholic as well, at least a little bit.

My point was not to call you unsophisticated, only that you are speaking of a body of knowledge that you do not understand, and which has had a profound effect on Catholic thought and on the poster who calls himself Platonist. Reading the responses of most on this thread, I have to wonder why does no one think to ask ‘why did the Catholic medieval monks preserve these texts?’ Most of these treatises could have suffered the same fate as the mass of ancient texts, had they not been considered worth painstakingly preserving.

Platonist is asking about the Church’s credibility which, with the exception of @bruisedreed none of the orthodox Catholics seem to have bothered to try and develop systematically.

 

[fhansen]

Wouldn’t the principle of simplicity mean that God would create all souls at once?

I think the principle of simplicity should actually mean that there could be no point in time, no “at once”, when God created anything. And yet it would be true that all souls owe their existence to Him.

 

[fhansen]

The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell found it amusing that Vatican I declared in its Dogmatic Constitution that the existence of God is knowable through reason apart from faith.

I understand why the Church did it. But I also understand why he finds it amusing.

Can you explain why he found it amusing?

 

[Ludovico]

Ultimately understanding is all about supernatural faith granted by God and received in a state of grace.
Without supernatural faith the mysteries of the faith are out of reach.

Well, practical as you seem to be, perhaps you should follow both paths: one, continue with the path of empirical evidence and logical reasoning; and two, do you best to accept, understand, and develop your faith with the objective of receiving supernatural faith from God.

And, see with of the two path takes you further.
I don’t see why one path should exclude the other.

By the way, Saint Thomas Aquinas could be a great aid to your endeavor for understanding.

 

[Ana_v]

Can you explain why he found it amusing?

Because of the irony.

The Church exercising its teaching authority to bind Catholics to accept that the existence of God is knowable through reason apart from faith… which means, the existence of God is knowable apart from the teaching assistance of the Church…and the Church turned this very point into one of its teachings.

In other words, if you happen to be a Catholic that does not know or grasp the ways in which God’s existence can be demonstrated through reason (Aquinas himself acknowledges that some people believe in the existence of God on the basis of faith alone)… you would have to accept on faith, that his existence can be demonstrated through reason.

 

[Mmarco]

One place to start might be the historical witness

First of all I think that the only way to know the Truth is to believe in the Truth.
However, I do not think that the christian faith is a blind belief, but it has solid rational foundations. I can say that my faith is not based on a blind assent to an historical claim.
The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ, is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God and it is certainly a truth. This concept is fully convincing for me, it proves itself by itself and makes superfluous any other arguments . I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and mercifull and that God is near to us so that we may totally trust Him and open our heart to Him, be in communion with Him and be saved.

There are other religions teaching that God is love, but the problem is to define what the word “love” means, because by itself it could be only a vague and generic concept.
The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divine love: in fact God’s love actualizes in the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ’s Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the concept of divine love which teaches us what is the true meaning of love.

 

[goout]

Yea I know, it just seems like a bit of a cop-out. Knowledge of transcendence seems to be the main thing that matters. If Love is an emanation of God,

Love is not an emanation from God. God is love.
So love is no more an merely intellectual exercise than is knowing your spouse. Catholic thought is full of imagery of love that transcends the intellect.

 

[goout]

Bertrand Russel is not understanding (or not applying) the concept of both/and here. He is rigidly (in fundamentalist fashion) applying either/or to faith and reason. Faith and reason are integrated.