Why does God demand people to believe the Catholic faith absolutely?

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God demands people to believe the Catholic faith (the existence of God, God is the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, etc.) absolutely, that is, to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true. This demand is not fulfilled by thinking that it is probable that the Catholic faith is true. Why?

Given the many miracles of Catholicism (for example, the miracle of Fatima), it is probable that the Catholic faith is true. However, there are always other possibilities. It is possible that all the testimony of the miracles is false. It is also possible that we are brains in vats and the Catholic faith is a lie made by the operator of the vats. Such possibilities are unlikely, but not impossible. So, it seems that it is reasonable to think that it is probable that the Catholic faith is true, but it seems that it is unreasonable to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true.

And, this is not only a issue about Catholics’ own believing. It is also a issue about telling the Catholic faith to others. How should Catholics respond if others say that there are other possibilities, just like what I say above?
 
This is like a thread Why Catholic Church? Answer - because it is true.

It is true and therefore needs to be believed.

To believe (here) is to have faith to believe in it. Faith is to expect and hope the things to come and things we cannot see.

That it is all about believing.
 
What Reuben says. But God doens’t demand. He invites.
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Or, let me say, God requests. It is required to believe the Catholic faith absolutely for salvation (except some exceptions, for example, infants), isn’t it?
 
This is like a thread Why Catholic Church? Answer - because it is true.
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You may say that to yourself. But what about others? It is likely to be difficult to persuade others to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true by just saying that “it is true”.
 
God doesn’t require us to “think” that Catholicism is true. Nor to “believe”, in the cognitive sense of that term. The word in the New Testament for “faith” certainly does not mean “belief”. The word is pistis, and it means “trust”. It is not a matter of cognitively deciding something is definitely true. It is a matter of acting with your will as if something is true – like a trust fall, as it were.
 
God doesn’t require us to “think” that Catholicism is true. Nor to “believe”, in the cognitive sense of that term. The word in the New Testament for “faith” certainly does not mean “belief”. The word is pistis, and it means “trust”. It is not a matter of cognitively deciding something is definitely true. It is a matter of acting with your will as if something is true – like a trust fall, as it were.
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That seems to be much more reasonable. But, is it real? Is it real that Catholics are not required to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true? Could you please give me some source of your claim?
 
someone429 said:
You may say that to yourself. But what about others? It is likely to be difficult to persuade others to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true by just saying that “it is true”.
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Straw man.
How many times has anyone actually tried to convert you to Catholicism just by saying over and over “But it’s true. But it’s true.”?
 
someone429 said:
That seems to be much more reasonable. But, is it real? Is it real that Catholics are not required to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true? Could you please give me some source of your claim?
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How about you give us a source of yours?
 
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2: 8-9 NIV)
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We use logic to think about God, but faith is different and a mystery. I think God the Father planned that His Son would be the center of humanity. He decided that the way for a human to enter His presence in Heaven would be for that human to believe in the true God (Father, Son and Holy Ghost). Jesus came down to Earth to redeem us of our sins, and He should get the credit for this greatest of works. It is similar to the way we like credit for our own work (at least partial credit for ourselves since God is at the bottom of all good works).
 
This is the only truth for which circular logic is acceptable to justify it, i believe?
 
It is not really possible that we are brains in vats.
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Why? I think that we are unlikely (or very unlikely) to be brains in vats, but not impossible to be so. Why is that impossible?
 
someone429 said:
That seems to be much more reasonable. But, is it real? Is it real that Catholics are not required to think that it is absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true? Could you please give me some source of your claim?
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Read the Catechism on faith. For instance: “Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says.”

Insofar as “belief” is talked about here, it is talked about as an act of the will.
 
And here, from the CCC:
Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to “yield by faith the full submission of. . . intellect and will to God who reveals”,26 and to share in an interior communion with him.
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155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace."27
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How about you give us a source of yours?
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I cannot give a firm source. But I hear that Catholics shouldn’t doubt on the Catholic faith. But if someone thinks that it is probable but not absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true, then naturally there may be doubt, even though small, in his or her mind.
 
pianistclare said:
What Reuben says. But God doens’t demand. He invites.
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Actually the OP is right; God demands.
Our conscience (as Newman observed) is a peremptory voice, a demanding one. We are not allowed to send our “regrets.” We have a free will, so we can. But that is false and unreal. Just as a child can defy its loving parents to its own destruction and misery.

The OP is also right in that the Catholic Faith is highly probable. In time, with enough continued searching, and the help of God, the OP may eventually find the certitude he seems to be looking for and in fact needs.
 
someone429 said:
I cannot give a firm source. But I hear that Catholics shouldn’t doubt on the Catholic faith. But if someone thinks that it is probable but not absolutely certain that the Catholic faith is true, then naturally there may be doubt, even though small, in his or her mind.
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“Doubt” is ambiguous. Lacking cognitive certainty is not doubting, in the sense the Church uses the term “doubt”.
 
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