By JOHN YOUNG
“We all have doubts at times about our faith. Even the saints had doubts.” We sometimes hear this statement, with the implication that doubt is inevitable where faith is involved. Faith is even thought of as intrinsically uncertain: accepting something on authority, but with the possibility that it is not correct. So our belief in Christianity or in the Catholic Church will be a belief which could possibly be wrong; but we simply trust that it is true.
This view is quite mistaken, however. We can have, and should have, complete certainty about the truth of Christianity and of the Catholic Church. Yet many Catholics are in the position of feeling uncertain as to whether this is so or not. And a major reason why they are in this unfortunate position is that they lack a grasp of the case for Christianity, and specifically for the truth of the Catholic Church.
Since Vatican II there has been a neglect of apologetics, although it is coming back now. I know from my own experience how important it is to have a good grasp of the reasons for what we believe. I first became interested in this matter when in my teens in Sydney, Australia; an interest that was kindled by a famous priest, Dr. Leslie Rumble, MSC.
For some 40 years, until 1968, he had a question and answer session on a Sydney radio station, and he also wrote articles on apologetics. He visited the United States where he and Fr. Charles Carty (the famous apologist who ran the Catholic Radio Hour from St. Paul, Minn.) produced three volumes of Radio Replies.
It was particularly through him that I came to see the force of the rational grounds for what we believe. Reason, when used correctly, can prove beyond doubt the existence of God, the truth of Christianity, and of the Catholic Church as the Church founded by Christ Himself.
Take, for example, the question of the historicity of the Gospels. They can be shown to be authentic historical documents, written shortly after the death and Resurrection of Christ while many of the eyewitnesses of what actually happened during His ministry were still alive: not just His followers, but also His enemies. It would have been impossible for the facts to be seriously falsified at that early stage because such falsification would be shown up as what it was by those who knew the truth.
There are many ways of establishing the truth of the Catholic Church, including a study of the ever-renewed vigor shown by the Church through the centuries; for the dark periods which often occurred are always followed by a renewed vigor, a phenomenon which is inexplicable by any natural explanation.
Also, the consistency of Catholic teaching through the ages is impossible to explain unless the Holy Spirit was guiding the Church. We can see this by comparing the Church with other movements, whether religious, philosophical, or political. These other movements change over time, with the later stages contradicting what had been held earlier. And this is inevitable with any merely human institution. That it has not happened in the case of Catholic teaching can be explained only through divine guidance.
That becomes very clear when we look at the complexity of the Church’s dogmas, the number of such dogmas — there are a great many — and the circumstances in which they developed, including the interference of civil authorities who pushed for their own understanding of this or that doctrine.
Another conclusive proof is found in the many miracles through the centuries which have been verified and which are beyond any natural explanation.
A problem may be raised here regarding Thomas the Apostle. He insisted upon reasons for believing in the Resurrection of Christ: He insisted that he wanted to put his finger into the marks made by the nails before he would believe. But Christ, on appearing to him, rebuked him for this and said: “You believe, Thomas, because you have seen; blessed are those who have not seen but believe.”
If those who don’t see are more blessed than those who do, then surely we should avoid apologetics and just have faith! However, Thomas had been given many reasons for believing in Christ: He had seen His miracles, he had the testimony of the other apostles that Christ was indeed risen. So the position regarding Thomas is that he had solid grounds for believing, but refused to see their force.
Also, when he did see Christ and was invited to put his fingers into the nail holes, he made an act of profound faith: “My Lord and my God.” That act of faith arose from a rational cause in the sense that he came to believe through what he could see, namely, the risen Christ.
Jesus Himself appealed to reason and did not expect His listeners to have blind faith. For example, when He said to the man who had been let down through the roof, “Your sins are forgiven,” and the Pharisees objected, He then healed the cripple, thereby showing them through the working of this miracle that He had power from God. Time after time He worked miracles to show that He had divine authority.
Similarly, the apostles pointed to miracles as a guarantee of the truth of their message, particularly the physical Resurrection of Christ.
None of this means that we can gain faith simply by our human efforts, but only that rational arguments prepare the way for faith and give us reasons for believing. But faith itself is a supernatural virtue, put into the soul by God, normally at Baptism. We cannot give ourselves faith, but can only prepare ourselves for it.
Further, while some of the truths we believe by faith can also be known by reason, there are many others that can be known only by faith: for example, that there are Three Persons in one God.
As the Epistle to the Hebrews says, faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Even regarding the truths of the faith which can be established by reason, faith gives us an immediacy and a clarity in accepting these truths which reason alone cannot give.
While faith is far superior to reason, an appreciation of the reasons for faith is a means of strengthening our faith. Today especially people need that support, with the secularism that pervades our society and the determined attacks on Christianity from those who wish to destroy it. It is particularly urgent that young people be given a grounding in apologetics, and the lack of this is, I believe, one of the principal reasons why so many young people give up the practice of the faith.
Back in the first century St. Peter tells the early Christians: “Be always ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you.” Perhaps never before has this injunction been more important than at the present time.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress