I
Iron_Donkey
Guest
Forgive the long post, but you touched on an area that is… the opposite of a pet peeve, maybe? One of those subjects that I have a hard time not talking about at length. In any case, you started an avalanche.
True proof is the purview of math, philosophy, and, yes, theology. Some facts, such as the existence of God, can straight up be proved from reasoning. Some other facts, like that the revelation upon which Christianity is built is true, are not philosophically proven as far as I know, but can be shown to be reasonable, can be shown to be the best fit to the data we have - much like scientific theories. Faith comes in at this point, and by it we immerse ourselves in the revelation God has given us and experience it more deeply and order our lives to it - but we don’t just do that randomly. We don’t just pick some random collection of creeds we found on the street somewhere to shape our lives; we put our faith in that which we have seen to be reasonable.
And after that, we’re back to absolute proof again, using the Christianity we’ve accepted as a sort of axiom. Not even necessarily all of it need be axiomatic - you don’t have to have accepted every tenet of Catholicism on the level of faith for reason to lead you to Catholicism. What we know about the general goodness of God, and a few historical events such as the Resurrection and a few conversations with the Apostles (or some other things that logically point to those things) are sufficient. And that leads to the statement, absolutely proven from within the framework of basic Christianity that the Church is the Church, and Catholicism is right. (Obviously non-Catholics would disagree with me here, but I am speaking from a Catholic perspective and, of course, I obviously think they’re wrong. A Catholic should clearly think that the evidence points towards Catholicism.)
And here’s the thing - when someone someone says they are Catholic, they are saying that that is what happened. Some basic factual background - maybe starting with one of the five ways, maybe starting merely with the idea that there is actually such thing as good in the world, something - has led them to believe in God and finally in the Church. But once you say that A is true then you are automatically saying that anything that A implies is true.
So to say “I am Catholic, but I think the Church is wrong about X authoritatively defined issue” is to say “I admit that everything starting from the very basics of how reality is constructed points to God, and that the actions of God point to the truth of Catholicism, and that the truth of Catholicism points to the non-existence of gay marriage (or whatever), and so in essence I admit that the non-existence of gay marriage is a direct result of the most fundamental structure of reality, and yet, because I have yet to grasp some of the last couple steps there, I think that it actually exists despite all of this.”
Our own imperfections (which we certainly do all have) play no role here. Neither does the fact that we’re all at different stages of understanding what little humans can understand play any role in determining what can be understood. And the idea of proof, most definitely does apply. Faith is not an excuse to abandon logic, faith gives us a direction to point our logic, a starting place so that we can better determine what is true.
But second, and more importantly, asking questions is a good thing, seeking answers is a good thing, trying to work through any apparent contradictions you find while doing so is a good thing.
No one is attacking asking questions.
What we’re saying is bad is giving up and accepting the contradiction. “A” and “not A” cannot both be true at the same time, you must pick one.
Asking questions and seeking to understand are absolutely good things. However, the point of asking questions is to find answers, and if you end up finding two contradictory answers, then that means that one of them is wrong, and the next logical step is to determine which one.
Actually, in science no positive theory (about what will always happen) is actually proved, it is just determined to be a reasonably good model to within the parameters of our measurements. Merely finding lots of supporting evidence doesn’t actually prove things.
True proof is the purview of math, philosophy, and, yes, theology. Some facts, such as the existence of God, can straight up be proved from reasoning. Some other facts, like that the revelation upon which Christianity is built is true, are not philosophically proven as far as I know, but can be shown to be reasonable, can be shown to be the best fit to the data we have - much like scientific theories. Faith comes in at this point, and by it we immerse ourselves in the revelation God has given us and experience it more deeply and order our lives to it - but we don’t just do that randomly. We don’t just pick some random collection of creeds we found on the street somewhere to shape our lives; we put our faith in that which we have seen to be reasonable.
And after that, we’re back to absolute proof again, using the Christianity we’ve accepted as a sort of axiom. Not even necessarily all of it need be axiomatic - you don’t have to have accepted every tenet of Catholicism on the level of faith for reason to lead you to Catholicism. What we know about the general goodness of God, and a few historical events such as the Resurrection and a few conversations with the Apostles (or some other things that logically point to those things) are sufficient. And that leads to the statement, absolutely proven from within the framework of basic Christianity that the Church is the Church, and Catholicism is right. (Obviously non-Catholics would disagree with me here, but I am speaking from a Catholic perspective and, of course, I obviously think they’re wrong. A Catholic should clearly think that the evidence points towards Catholicism.)
And here’s the thing - when someone someone says they are Catholic, they are saying that that is what happened. Some basic factual background - maybe starting with one of the five ways, maybe starting merely with the idea that there is actually such thing as good in the world, something - has led them to believe in God and finally in the Church. But once you say that A is true then you are automatically saying that anything that A implies is true.
So to say “I am Catholic, but I think the Church is wrong about X authoritatively defined issue” is to say “I admit that everything starting from the very basics of how reality is constructed points to God, and that the actions of God point to the truth of Catholicism, and that the truth of Catholicism points to the non-existence of gay marriage (or whatever), and so in essence I admit that the non-existence of gay marriage is a direct result of the most fundamental structure of reality, and yet, because I have yet to grasp some of the last couple steps there, I think that it actually exists despite all of this.”
Our own imperfections (which we certainly do all have) play no role here. Neither does the fact that we’re all at different stages of understanding what little humans can understand play any role in determining what can be understood. And the idea of proof, most definitely does apply. Faith is not an excuse to abandon logic, faith gives us a direction to point our logic, a starting place so that we can better determine what is true.
First, even for the person who says they are Catholic and yet rejects Catholic teaching, I only say they are wrong and are explicitly professing a contradiction, not that I think they’re evil scumbags. No denigration implied.
But second, and more importantly, asking questions is a good thing, seeking answers is a good thing, trying to work through any apparent contradictions you find while doing so is a good thing.
No one is attacking asking questions.
What we’re saying is bad is giving up and accepting the contradiction. “A” and “not A” cannot both be true at the same time, you must pick one.
