Conversion of Francis (or - Out to Lunch?)

And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
  - Luke 22:31,32 [KJV]

Writing such a blog post has been particularly difficult for this revert to Catholicism.

After many years as a nominal Catholic / practicing Evangelical, I gradually began to realize that Truth must be singular. The false dogma of Sola Scriptura is ever subject to individual interpretation and can therefore never lead to anything like verifiable Truth. Real authority, established by God, must trump personal and subjective interpretation of the Bible. Thus I returned to Catholicism and to the divinely established authority of the Church's Magisterium. It is no accident that 'Catholic' simply means 'Universal'.

It must be acknowledged that the 70s and 80s saw a steady deterioration into what can be called soft heresy. You know what I mean: Discounting or soft-pedaling the seriousness of such things as abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Studiously avoiding certain teachings out of fear of disturbing anyone. Denying or downplaying the hard reality of God's righteousness and the fact of eternal judgment. In lieu of teaching, sanctifying and governing their sheep, pastors increasingly limiting their 'ministry' to consoling, nurturing and affirming. Instead of warning people against the imminent dangers of hell, comforting them on their way thither.

The sad fact that many Catholic 'faithful' and clergy were believing and practicing such soft heresies was troubling, but did not detract seriously from my faith in the aformentioned Church authority. Always needful is a clear distinction between Church teaching and the beliefs and practices of individual 'Catholics', including clergy. The solid teachings remain a sure anchor, and the Magisterium - i.e, the bishops collectively in union with the Pope - could be counted upon to faithfully safeguard and transmit those teachings. I took no small comfort in the fact that while other denominations were altering their doctrines to conform with worldly values and norms, the true Church would never follow suit.

Yet here we are in 2015, and I must declare honestly that what I thought could never happen is in fact happening, has been happening for some time. I first began having some misgivings over 5 years ago, and have seen practically nothing since then to relieve my doubts. To the point where, starting about two years ago, some kind of threshold seems to have been crossed. When the reigning pontiff says he cannot judge homosexual clergy, he is in fact publicly confessing that he is not their pastor. When a majority of bishops, led by the bishop of Rome, meet to discuss the possibility of changing Church teaching on marriage, something is seriously, seriously, seriously amiss.

The gut-wrenching question I find myself asking is: Are these realities reversible? May the devout Catholic pray in good faith for the conversion of Francis, per Jesus' words to Simon Peter? Or has it gone way beyond that? Have the vast majority of the episcopacy left their posts? Have they abdicated their authority as pastors? Are they collectively Out To Lunch, leaving shepherdless the dwindling minority of faithful Catholics? Are those faithful few left as orphans in spiritual exile?

Rediscover Catholicism?

It is very rare to find a relatively young person who has acquired the wisdom of old age. Matthew Kelly is no exception. He is undoubtably a gifted and charismatic writer and speaker, travelling the world since his teen years, spreading his vision of a dynamic Catholic faith.

Judging from Rediscover Catholicism, however, what he has been promoting is more like a Norman Vincent Peale approach, a self-help program designed to inspire people to become the best-versions-of-themselves. This is a fine and noble pursuit (with or without the hyphens), but it is not what Kelly claims it to be. It is not what the Catholic Faith is essentially about.

You will be hard pressed to find any mention of the cross in the pages of Rediscover Catholicism. Pretty much everything else is covered - the Sacraments, the Rosary, fasting & prayer, Scripture, the Saints, etc, - but rather than seeing these as flowing from Calvary, Kelly presents all things Catholic, including the Mass itself, as opportunities to become a better-version-of-yourself. No kidding. And all along we thought the cross was the crux of the matter. How silly of us.

It must be admitted that Kelly's advice to bring a notebook to Mass in which to record insights about becoming a better-version is a quantitative improvement over, say, listening with earphones to your favorite music while thinking about last night's date. But is it qualitatively better? Were you privileged to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ? Can you imagine yourself witnessing that awful and awesome Calvary event (and that is what every Mass is) and devoting that time to making an entry in a better-version-of-yourself journal?

I will not add Rediscover Catholicism to my list of Recommended reading.

Incarnational faith

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.

Last Saturday, Lenore and I were talking with two friends, strong Catholic converts. The 6:00 bells rang, and we paused to recite the Angelus. Then we resumed our conversation about the physical aspects of Catholicism: kneeling and standing at Mass, the employment of our bodies in our worship.

The Angelus prayer commemorates that singular moment in history when Mary said yes to the angel, and the second person of the Holy Trinity came to physically dwell within her: God Incarnate, God in the flesh. This is central to the ancient Christian faith, that Jesus was both true God and true man. The baby growing within Mary's womb was no disembodied spirit, but a physical baby, who also happened to be God. Like any human, Jesus nursed at Mary's breast, dirtied his diaper, slept, cried, and grew. He lived a completely human life, working with his hands and growing tired and requiring rest. He felt real pain when he was scourged and nailed to the cross. He shed real blood, and died a real death. It was through his physical human flesh that Jesus won our salvation. From this it becomes clear how we, too, composed of both body and spirit, must live out our faith. Faith involves the whole person: spirit, mind, and body. This is incarnational faith. So, standing and kneeling are a part of our worship, and not mere incidentals. We employ the Sacraments and sacramentals: Baptism, Holy Communion, bells, incense, etc.

Almost as ancient is the Gnostic denial of all the above. To the Gnostic, Jesus was either not truly human, or (like the present-day Jehovah's Witnesses believe) not truly God. Typically, this denial of the Incarnation turns the life of faith into a purely spiritual affair, with minimal thought given to our physical nature and the material world.

Protestantism can run the gamut between these two extremes, but classic Protestantism is also likely to see faith as spiritual, comprised solely of an internal relationship with Jesus. Any emphasis upon physical trappings like rosaries, holy water, ashes, and such may be regarded as unnecessary and even as superstitious or idolatrous. To the Evangelical Protestant, salvation comes via an internal, purely spiritual encounter with Jesus, and baptism is just an act of obedience following that faith experience. To the Catholic, Baptism is the channel of saving grace, the water just as necessary as the internal faith response. To the Evangelical, the Lord's Supper is a symbolic remembering. To the Catholic, the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus. So it is with the other Sacraments as well - in the Catholic understanding, each one truly confers God's grace by physical means.

One more Sacrament in particular bears mentioning: Matrimony. In incarnational terms, marriage consists of some essential physical realities, namely, the union of two bodies, one male and one female, with the usual result of producing more incarnations. For that is precisely what every human conception involves: the knitting together of a physical body with an immortal soul to produce an incarnate spiritual being. This explains the incarnational believer's horror over the crime of abortion, the murder of a priceless human being, newly incarnated in the image of God. To overlook or downplay the seriousness of this crime involves a Gnostic-like denial of the pre-born's humanity. Likewise, many folks attempt to redefine human marriage via a Gnostic-like spiritualizing, a denial of the physical essence of marriage. The incarnationalist can never facilely spiritualize these essentials, and can never divorce the physical from the spiritual.

And that's why I find the typical 'Catholic' politician so repugnant. It was, ironically, our only Catholic President, JFK, who popularized the current mantra of not letting his personal religious beliefs interfere with his job as President. Such is not true Catholicism, but is the cry of the Gnostic: Let me be personally and privately and spiritually religious with no Incarnation, with no outward and concrete expression of that faith. The early Gnostics could pretend to be Christian while doing nothing to warrant martyrdom. The modern one claims to be privately spiritual while conveniently accepting or promoting the politically correct heathenism of modern culture.

Epistemology - Part 2

OK, back to the epistemology theme (see my first epistemology post below )...

Virtually every system of knowledge begins on an a priori basis, that is, with one or more unproven or self-evident principles. For instance, the entire system of mathematics begins with the concept of quantity. Given two piles of rocks, it is observed that there is a difference between the two piles - namely, that one pile is bigger, one smaller. To account for the concept of quantity, of more-ness and less-ness, man starts counting things and measuring things, and before you know it, he's calculating the distance to the moon.

As another example, scientific thought rests upon the unproven assumption that the stuff of our universe behaves in a predictable and reliable manner, that there are physical laws at work. Man sees things fall, comes to recognize and formulate the law of gravity, and before you know it, he's explaining how the moon orbits Earth. The assumption isn't as obvious here; it must be taken almost on faith that the universe behaves according to certain laws. There's no particular reason that this should be so; the universe could just as well behave in a haphazard and capricious manner. As Albert Einstein once remarked, "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible".

Well, then, are the principles of science worthless because they are based upon an unprovable assumption? Of course not. Having begun with an act of faith in the reliability of physical laws, we eventually come to have tremendous evidence to bolster this faith. The accumulated wealth of knowledge serves us very well, and does a wonderful job of explaining how things work. The pieces fit together, it all makes sense, there is internal consistency, and it seems to conform remarkably to reality as we experience it. We may therefore with good reason assume that the original assumption was valid.

Now consider the various systems of theological thought, also based upon unprovable assumptions. Oh, there are proofs for the existence of God, but these rest upon the a priori assumption that there is such a thing as provable truth. The nihilist rejects this assumption, and so he sees no proof. Of course, the nihilist is likewise starting from an a priori position which defies proof. There seems to be no other way; you have to start with an assumption of some kind, and forget (for now) about proving it.

So i begin with some assumptions, then see where that takes me, what system of thought can be built upon the assumptions; that will be my proof. I might start with the atheistic assumption that there is no god, and build a system of thought upon that assumption. In such a case, i find myself forced into a purely materialistic and nihilisitic system, one that does not explain or even consider such spiritual concepts as justice, love, or good vs. evil.

If i try the theistic assumption, that God exists and cares for us, i can at least begin to build a system that explains something of the meaning of life, that also incorporates the idea of good and evil, and the moral dimension of human life. Because this results in a better system of thought, i think that the starting assumption must be more sound.

At this point i would like to know more details about this God, and more about how we ought to live. This calls for a creedal system, in which the details are fleshed out. Of the major creedal religions, Christianity stands out for a couple of reasons. First, because it confirms and completes another major creedal system, that of Judaism. Secondly, it makes the fantastic claim that God has been here in person. This claim must either be debunked or be recognized as the most complete revelation possible. More on that shortly.

Likewise, within Christianity, one particular system stands out, that of Catholicism. Firstly, it possesses the most credible historic claim to being the one church going back to the Apostles, founded by Jesus Himself. Secondly, because it has the most trustworthy epistemology, the most solid authority.

The epistemology of Bible-based Christianity is pretty solid, and fairly trustworthy in its adherence to the authority of the Bible, but there are some problems here. For one thing, the existence of several thousand denominations, all claiming to be Bible-based, is evidence that this approach is prone to errors. Like the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:31), how can the believer know which interpretation of Scripture is the correct one, unless there is some reliable authority to guide him? Secondly, the Bible itself doesn't teach the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, that Scripture alone is all you need. Indeed, it points to the Church as the 'pillar and bulwark of truth' (1 Tim 3:15 RSV). And even if Scripture did proclaim Scripture as the only source of revelation, that would be circular reasoning, wouldn't it? No, the one fundamental doctrine that the Fundamentalists left out is that Christ built His Church upon the Apostles, and that He gave His authority to them, which remains a clear mark of His Church today.

Note that this authority does not preclude the obvious sinfulness of many priests, bishops and popes throughout history. Authority does not depend upon sanctity. (Indeed, the fact that the Church survived all her corrupt popes and bishops, and never lost the Gospel, can be seen as evidence of divine protection.)

So, i start with these assumptions: God exists, and reveals Himself to us in the person of Jesus who gives authority to men, thus establishing the Church. This produces a system of thought that answers an amazingly wide berth of life's questions, and answers them in an internally consistent way that makes sense of life, and corresponds extremely well to the realities around me. The Catholic system addresses not only specifically religious questions, but also issues of economics, politics and other things touching the demands of faith and morals. If anyone can come up with a more complete system of thought, i would truly love to hear about it. For now, this seems to be by far the best game in town, and explains why i am Catholic.

To return now to the startling assumption that forms the basis for all Christian faith - that Jesus is, in fact, God in the flesh - what to say about that? The veracity of this claim would seem to be tied to the Resurrection. If that man who was crucified really did rise victorious from the grave, then he must be taken seriously indeed, and not merely as a good teacher. Power over death would certainly seem to indicate a superhuman nature. If Jesus didn't really rise, then he was just a man, the whole thing is fool's work, and i would have to reject the Christian way, probably reverting to a creedless theism. I would be left to explain why the early disciples were all so willing to suffer death by martyrdom for a hoax, and i would still have to admit that the Christian system of thought blows the theistic system out of the water. But it needs to be said that, without the Resurrection, the Christian Faith makes no sense at all.

It comes down, then, to this: I have very strong intellectual reasons for embracing the Catholic Faith; other systems of thought simply pale by comparison. But in the final analysis, it still has to be a step of faith. I believe Jesus really rose from the dead, and so i am Catholic.