Starting to doubt Catholicism

  • Thread starter Thread starter Platonist
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Forget about the concept of reason when it concerns religion. The whole thing rests on the believer having faith that what is laid out is true. You you are trying to compare apples and oranges here.
 
This is really not what we believe as Catholics. We are not fideists.
 
Odilon said:
Forget about the concept of reason when it concerns religion. The whole thing rests on the believer having faith that what is laid out is true. You you are trying to compare apples and oranges here.
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That is false. Why do you think we would have apologists who commit their whole lives to explaining the reasons that belief is reasonable, if Catholics didn’t believe in reason? We don’t believe in blind faith; that’s typically an atheist slur. The very existence of catholic.com as a website is evidence that “the whole thing” includes both faith and reason.

1 Peter 3:15
“Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you”
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From my outsider perspective…religion begins with a leap of faith, reasons may follow but until that initial leap is made, reasoning will go nowhere.
 
What I know is that the more we walk and act as if God exists-the more, IOW, that we take our faith seriously, that we take Him seriously-the more He responds back, and reveals Himself that much more profoundly and clearly. And so faith, along with the other virtues, grows, grace leading to more grace. It’s a matter of “investing” one’s “talents”, and humility is an absolute key. It’s a matter of walking with God, doing his will as best we can, responding to and acting on grace.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Heb 11:6

Just the way it is… 🙂
 
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MNathaniel said:
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Odilon:
Forget about the concept of reason when it concerns religion. The whole thing rests on the believer having faith that what is laid out is true. You you are trying to compare apples and oranges here.
Click to expand...
That is false. Why do you think we would have apologists who commit their whole lives to explaining the reasons that belief is reasonable, if Catholics didn’t believe in reason? We don’t believe in blind faith; that’s typically an atheist slur. The very existence of catholic.com as a website is evidence that “the whole thing” includes both faith and reason.
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I can only back up what @Pattylt said. I would say that the vast amount of Christians have little or no idea about the five ways or any other arguments for a reasoned belief in God. In fact, I don’t recall ever having come across anyone who was initially led to the faith by reason.

It’s one of the basic arguments against Aquinas that he didn’t go looking for an answer and then discovered God. He started with God and then looked for reasons to back up his faith.
 
Platonist said:
Also I haven’t read Aquinas in depth, but he seems to just present watered down Aristotelianism , ie whenever he cannot find a synthesis between christianity and aristotle/logic, he just cites scripture.
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Far be it for me to defend Thomism, but I’ve always wondered why some people with an interest in philosophy seem to believe that Thomas did Aristotle a disservice by not parroting him, strictly, without deviation or original thought. It’s as if they expect a translator, instead of a philosopher who, like other philosophers of the time, was working on a new development.

Most of his actual development of ideas is not done in the works most people have heard of. The Sententiarum and the De Ente et Essentia contain most of his unique work on metaphysics, and it is at least interesting, even if I don’t think it is the best.
 
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