This
speaks to the need for Catholic Faith & Reason in today’s world about as
well as anything I’ve ever read.
“When
people say that in theology 2 + 2 can equal 5, or that we can’t rely on
Christ’s statements as they are recorded in the Gospels because no one followed
him about with a dicta-phone, we have a very foundational problem. If we can’t
trust scripture and tradition and we can’t trust reason, what have we left? The
subjective hunches or prejudices of the local ordinary?? Without the strong
foundations the whole system crumbles and we are left with a crude voluntarism.
Within such an order brutish power trumps reason and the sheep become confused
and scatter.”1
The last Reason Rally was held June 4, 2016.Maybe the novelty has worn off because I
can’t find a date for a 2017 Rally. Perhaps it will be every four years, or perhaps "reason" has left this Nation. In any case, the upcoming anniversary got me
thinking more about reason vs. atheism. I rarely go on YouTube, but I decided
to go ahead and browse some videos of atheists/agnostics debating believers about
the existence of God and also conversing with each other, such as this debate
between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell:
And this conversation between Richard
Dawkins and Matt Dillahunty:
Since I have some experience
conversing (civilly) with atheist/agnostics on this blog and other forums, much of what I
heard was not new. As a case in point, I noticed an underlying premise in the videos
that I have also noticed in personal conversations. There is normally a fundamental
and possibly subconscious premise of “knowing better” about certain things.
For example, if there really was a God
who wanted to save us from sin, he surely would have come up with a better plan
than becoming a man and then sacrificing himself to himself. If I know better, then
I know that a real God would have come up with a plan I can agree with or at
least find sensible. It’s the same type of thing with the Old Testament. Why
would God first reveal himself to only the Jews (or the ancestors of the Jews)?
Why not all people at once? Again, if I know better, then I know a real God
would have revealed himself to the entire world and not just a chosen group of
people. I suppose—in their minds—this would have made things simpler?
It’s a circular argument…
➤ If it is senseless to me, then it
cannot be true
➤ It is not true because I think it
is senseless
Something that was new to me was the question “What
would it take to convince you that God exists?” There was mention of very
clear empirical and sensory evidence that might convince them, like a giant
Jesus descending from the clouds for all to see, but for the most part the answer
was “nothing”. An answer met with enthusiastic applause from a sympathetic
audience in at least one of the videos.
Evidence is another interesting topic
in and of itself. Some atheist/agnostics I’ve conversed with came off as self-proclaimed
authorities of evidence. Only empirical/scientific data was valid evidence for them. Data
from metaphysics, philosophy, witness testimony, inferences and other modes of
reasoning were generally dismissed. This poses a problem when debating something
immaterial (non-physical). Do inalienable human rights exist? Do you have the right to life?
Do you have the right to choose? How do we prove these things? Empirically? If
we truly want to be objective, should we look at ALL the data or only the data
we like best? See 20 non-empirical proofs for the existence of God from the fabulous Dr. Peter Kreeft
➤ Using empirical data is the only valid
way to prove something
➤ The above is a philosophical statement
that cannot be proven empirically
Now, back to the question “What would it
take to convince you that God exists?” Atheist Matt Dillahunty argued that God would
know exactly what it would take to convince him, but God has not done so.
Dillahunty then concludes two possibilities (2nd video above, 45:50)…
➤ Either God does not exist or…
➤ God does not want him to know that he
exists
…and for either case it is of no concern
to him
I thought of a third option. Could it
be that God would want you to form your own conclusions? Perhaps God respects
your mind and does not want to force himself onto your thinking? Maybe there is
a fourth option too. There is a God and there is a reason, but we don’t know it.
Of course, this conflicts with the premise of “knowing better” as mention
above. If I know better, then I know there can only be two possibilities.
What would it take to convince you?
In the spirit of fairness, I pondered
the opposite question. What would it
take to convince you that God does NOT exist?
I had to think about that question for a while. Since Catholics (and others) say
God is the ground of all being or being itself(1), we cannot answer the question
the way one would answer, “What would it take to convince you that Zeus does
not exist?” God is not “one being among many” like Zeus would be and every
other being is. It's like asking “What would it take to convince you that
being itself does not exist?” or perhaps like asking “What would it take to
convince you that existence does not exist?”
In this sense, the question poses a contradiction
and contradictions are essentially meaningless. What would it take to convince
you that I can draw a square shaped circle? What would it take to convince you that
I’m a married bachelor? A square shaped circle or a married bachelor cannot
exist in reality. In a similar, but opposite way I do not see how the “ground
of all being” cannot be or how existence cannot exist.
So as we approach the anniversary of maybe the last Reason Rally, and based on the logic above and the
Catholic understanding of “being”, I would have to "reason" that God cannot…not exist.
I’ll end this post with a dangerous
picture that can cause brain damage. Study it briefly…but then look away!!!
1. Fr. Robert Barron, Catholicism: A
Journey to the Heart of Faith (New York: Image Books, 2011) p. 61-64.
