Christian Faith is Not Unreasonable
Life without faith is impossible. Consider this.
Human Faith. To live in families and in societies we all must be willing to accept truths we cannot directly verify because we are obliged, by reason, to believe the word of others who are trustworthy. Faith is an act of intelligence. Kierkegaard exaggeratingly said that faith is “a leap in the dark,” but that presumes it is unreasonable to ever put aside hesitation and doubt in order to assent to a trustworthy witness. We all have to trust other people, in fact we begin life that way and as we mature almost everything we learn is in some way fiduciary. We even have to decide when to trust our senses.
Ordinary human faith is necessary and reasonable, not at all an ignorant disposition to belief on weak or insufficient grounds. Such an act of the intellect and of the will is reasonable because through relationships with other people we learn, by experience, whether what they say is true, and so we learn to trust those people. It is not the strength of the evidence other people give or even that the other people declare they can be trusted that inspires us to have faith. Ultimately we have faith in the word of another person because of who that person is, who we know that person to be in totality through time in the relationship.
Christian Faith. The Christian places faith in the Word of God revealed by Christ as taught by the Catholic Church. Truths that come from God the Creator of everything must be objectively true. Is this faith a “leap in the dark?” Christian faith and human faith do differ. They are not the same thing, but they are analogous. We can know God exists through reason, but the great mysteries of faith could not be discovered by human reason – they had to be revealed. We cannot directly verify revealed truths. So, they are forever closed to those unwilling to trust God, in the same way that love is closed to anyone unwilling to trust even a truthful friend.
We can, however, see the intrinsic truth of God’s mysteries by the signs revealed to us. If we recognize in genuine certitude that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then we can trust what he has taught us because God is Truth, and therefore cannot deceive. We have signs from his lifetime such as the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles of healing and casting out demons, and his Resurrection from the dead. We cannot verify those but we have the witness of the Catholic Church that has passed these truths down through history.
How do we know the Church is trustworthy? Her manifest unity, inclusiveness, continuity, and holiness give witness to the Church as a trustworthy miracle.* We profess that the “Church Is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.” The visible Church is a pilgrim church who takes on the appearance of this passing world and requires continual purification and reform. (Romans 8:19-22)
But in spite of the faults of the human members, the Church herself is a “moral miracle” because she transcends what is possible for a merely human community. As the First Vatican Council noted, the “Church herself, with her marvelous propagation, eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything good, her catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission.” The Church shows the presence of Christ in the world being transformed by the Holy Spirit in the past, present and into the future.
For that reason, Christian faith is not unreasonable at all.
Sources:
Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., Living the Truth in Love (NY: Society of Saint Paul, 1996).
Avery Dulles. Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System. (NY: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992).
* For an extensive treatment see the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium Promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, November 21, 1964. Sections 48-51.
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I too agree that Christian Faith is not unreasonable. Apostolic succession is also the strongest argument in favour of the catholic church.
However, to say that the church herself is fully unified is a bit fallacious. It's true that the churches which recognize the teaching authority of the Papacy and Magisterium ARE unified… which is the definition of Catholic. However, there's the small problem of the Protestant churches, not to mention various schismatic or pseudo-schismatic sects. Christiandom is as divided as any other large collection of people.
Christ said that “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”. What then invalidates any of the other churches, apart from apostolic succession?
Hi Zaxhary,
The Catholic position on Protestant churches is that they do not contain the fullness of truth. While I wouldn't personally use the word invalid, each is (from the Catholic point of view) insuffucient because, one way or another, it leaves something of the fullness of truth out in its teaching and ritual. This doesn't mean that Christ isn't real and present to Protestants, but it does mean that they are excluding themselves from the full life He wants for them (and depriving themselves of the full spiritual armor the Catholic Church offers).
Sorry–Zachary!
Thanks Elizabeth, I can't say it any better.
Zachary, the history of the Protestant Reformation (protest and reform) is fascinating. Martin Luther was a troublemaker, to put it mildly.
Wonderful article Stacy –
I studied Kierkegaard and the existentialists a lot during my “wandering” years, so I have a great affinity for his “spirit” toward faith – and it's very palatable to the modern, skeptical mind. However, in the end I'm with Aquinas (and yourself) – faith is a rational enterprise. An analogy I like to use is that reason is like driving across three states to get to the coast. It can take you up to the shore – but it can't make you jump out into the water. There is necessarily some “leap” to be made – but, as you noted, this leap stems from and fulfills our human reason – it doesn't contradict or backpedal on it.
(By the way, Father Barron just did a great youtube video last month on “what faith is, and what faith isn't” that draws some of the same parallels to faith from human relationships. We forget that we “have faith” or trust in other people's heart and soul all the time – it's even a metaphysical “leap” inaccessible to reason to posit that other people have minds at all!)
Hello Elizabeth,
I'm aware of the position, but it doesn't solve the problem of Christian unity. Even discounting the protestant churches, there are still the various orthodoxies to consider. Even within the Church itself, there are divisions among the Rites, and divisions among members (such as the modernist versus traditionalist false dichotomy). This is not necesarily an argument against Catholicism, unless taken in the light that these are not modern divisions.
I'm a baptized and confirmed catholic, and I attend Mass more or less regularly, but the strongest arguments in favour of catholicism (over other sects of Christianity) has always been apostolic succession, not christian unity, which was the point I was trying to make.
However, to be fair, I'm more inclined to agree with some of the protestant churches on the model of Christian Unity and the lack of importance in distinction between one church and another.
“Her manifest unity, inclusiveness, continuity, and holiness give witness to the Church as a trustworthy miracle.”
It's impossible to reconcile this with history. Unity, inclusiveness and continuity are violated not just by the Reformation, but by the Church's earlier split with Greek Orthodox, not to mention the dual and competing popes during the Avignon period.
And as for holiness, the Church has gone through periods of corruption and reform, highs and lows, mercy and power-hungry cruelty. It has no special claim to holiness.
How do we know the church is trustworthy? Because Paul VI said so?
Can I claim that I am supposed to be the supreme ruler of the world and use, as proof, the fact that I said so?
Rob,
How is unity violated by the reformation? People left the Church by choice, but against Luther's predictions, the Church remains and all are still welcome.
To repeat: But in spite of the faults of the human members, the Church herself is a “moral miracle” because she transcends what is possible for a merely human community.
Anonymous,
Also to repeat: Ultimately we have faith in the word of another person because of who that person is, who we know that person to be in totality through time in the relationship.
We have faith in the Church because of who she has proven herself to be over time. It's not a mere claim, it's 2,000 years. There is no other institution that has survived as long in all of recorded history.
“There is no other institution that has survived as long……..”
Judism, Shintoism, Confusianism, Taoism, Zeroastrianism,Hinduism, Jainism all predate the Catholic Church.
No other institution? Chengdu Shishi Middle School in China. Founded 143 BC.
If they claim that Tao is the real religion do they get to be right because they've been around the longest?
It is dangerous to speak in absolutes–and just because something's been around for a long time (like slavery) or because a lot of people think it is true (like Iraq's WMD) doesn't make it right or true.
Professor Mortimer J Adler had something similar to say about belief and reason. In his book “How to Think about the Great Ideas,” he addressed the relationship between knowledge, faith and opinion; he also addresses the idea of God. After presenting an argument for the existence of God and then offering a plausible critique of the argument, he comes to the following conclusion:
“Now I think that some people are better able to understand these matters than I am. And for people who can understand them better than I, I think it is fair to say they really understand and really know the truth about God's existence. I would go so far as to say that even for persons like myself with a weaker understanding of the truth of these propositions, I have some rational grounds for asserting that God exists, even though I have to make a leap, a leap beyond those rational grounds to a belief. My reason, being weak, caries me just so far. My understanding doesn't carry me the whole way yet.
My understanding and reason carry me far enough so that I'm entitled as a rational man, as a reasonable man, to make a leap beyond reason to the belief that God exists. And when I make this leap, I make it not to a belief in the God of the philosophers but I think the God I believe to exist is the God worshipped by the religions of the West. As Pascal and other philosophers say, 'the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' “
Stacy, it's a strange sort of unity if the group keeps fragmenting and breaking up. It's certainly not any sort of unity so powerful that it requires Divine explanation. In fact, it's not unity at all.
Perhaps I'm getting stuck on your choice of the word “unity”; if so, perhaps you could explain using a different word.
And regarding this:
“the Church herself is a “moral miracle” because she transcends what is possible for a merely human community.”
What makes you say this? How do you know that the Church has transcended what's possible for a merely human community?
“There is no other institution that has survived as long in all of recorded history.”
The pharonic rule of Egypt–2700 years.
“Stacy, it's a strange sort of unity if the group keeps fragmenting and breaking up.”
Rob – as noted above, people left the Church, but the Church has remained the Church. This is not internal fragmentation or self-contradiction. By “unity,” we mean the Church as remained one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. Though many groups have come or left, the Church hasn't changed its central doctrines. That isn't striking or astounding to you?
Apropros of that, anonymous mentioned Taoism, Hinduism, etc. have lasted longer than the Church. They are older chronologically – but I really think it's comparing apples and oranges.
From the wikipedia on Hinduism:
“Hinduism is a conglomeration of distinct intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid common set of beliefs.”
These are not so much “institutions,” but traditions, or sets of social values (Confucianism) – or, as with the case with Taoism, a set of philosophical or metaphysical ideas about the nature of reality. A person can be a Taoist and live all kinds of different ways and hold all kinds of differing beliefs about the world and about man. It is not an institution in the same way the Church is – and they aren't exact, definitive world views in quite the same way the Church is.
The only thing comparable, I think, is Judaism – and of course, Christians aren't scandalized by Judaism pre-dating Christ. Judaism is in our blood – we are “spiritual Jews.”
This post was not only helpful but very useful too. Thank you for sharing this piece of your expertise with all of us. Cheers!