Sensibility

The argument for Catholicism is ultimately very simple: it has numerous marks of credibility, whereas everything else has numerous marks of incredibility, or outright contradiction. Of course, breaking down the untenability of “everything else” would take a while, but fortunately, I’ve already done that work in the preceding articles on this site. So, instead of making this a 30-page argument, I will just summarize and hyperlink the relevant support pages claim-by-claim.

First, atheism leads to the untenable metaphysical assumption that essence does not exist (if it did, that would necessitate God). This would mean that reality is incoherent, that there is no such thing as real purpose, and that all morality is opinion. Not only is there no evidence for this assumption, our deepest human intuitions tell us these corollaries are not true. Men see essence and coherence in things innately. Men need purpose – men with purpose handled the concentration camps well, while men without purpose become depressed amidst great comfort. Finally, no man is willing to accept true moral relativism, as true moral relativism means the folks like the Nazis did nothing wrong (a social faux pa at worst). Some may say they believe that, of course, but no one really means it – everyone finds some injustice truly, objectively reprehensible.

Beyond the untenability of the atheistic paradigm, atheism itself is a bad proposition, as there is incontrovertible proof that God exists. There are several strongly compelling cosmological arguments aside from the contingency argument. Further, the mystery of consciousness seems unsolvable without a rational actor in charge of reality – how could mind come from mindless matter otherwise? In contrast, the best arguments for atheism are not particularly convincing, and the worst are just glorified schoolyard quips. Further, the idea of a God who isn’t involved in human affairs – Deism – leads to ridiculous conclusions, because the best arguments for God’s existence directly contradict the idea that He is “uninvolved.”

So, we must believe that God exists, and that we need to do something about that fact. Now, the search for a proper spirituality and understanding of the divine cannot begin with religious intuition. The ubiquity of human sacrifice and other abominations among ancient religions proves that our innate estimation of divinity is… lacking. Following our own religious assumptions is playing with fire. Acknowledging this danger precludes any religion which doesn’t have strong evidence supporting it. This immediately eliminates the entire pagan corpus. None of them even claim to approach objectivity, often boasting about their openness to contradictory ideas. The only evidence for any of them are the sayings of wise men, ancient texts with dubious authorship, and emotion.

This leaves the Abrahamic corpus. We will begin with Islam. Though each Abrahamic religion claims historical evidence, Islam’s claims are unbelievably weak. The Quran claims that Jesus was never crucified, which contradicts the central message of the Gospel. This is problematic, since the Quran also states 25 times that the seventh century Bible testifies to its truth. To avoid this contradiction, modern Muslims claim widespread Biblical textual corruption. Not only do the Quran, early scholars, and the Hadith contradict this opinion, but this leaves the Quran with nothing to support its own divinity; modern apologists have to make circular, nonsensical, totally subjective, arguments, such as claiming the “beauty of the poetry” proves its divine origin. It is difficult to find something less believable than Islam.

This leaves Christianity (Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic) and Judaism. Now, the Protestants claim that scripture is the only infallible source of divine truths. This precludes a visible central teaching body with absolute authority, which ultimately leaves scripture open to private interpretation. This is a critical problem for two reasons. First, the New Testament is extraordinarily vague. Second, the Bible itself warns severely and regularly against trying to guide oneself in the spiritual life. There are thousands of Protestant denominations, proving scripture’s point that man is incapable of judging the divine well. The Orthodox Christians have similar issues, as each communion claims to be the true Church, but have no objective way to differentiate themselves. Both are cases of the blind leading the blind; both contradict the warnings of scripture.

Rabbinical Judaism claims legitimacy due to its origin in national revelation (Moses at Mt. Sinai). This is a good point – it’s implausible that someone could fabricate a national event. However, the later Jewish argument used to reject Jesus’ messiahship is a self-defeating argument. Furthermore, Judaism has no claim to the gifts God gave the religion of Moses. The power to interpret the law is gone with the end of the Sanhedrin, Levitical priesthood, and prophetic ministry. Proper sacrifice is gone without the Temple. The substantial presence of God is gone with the loss of the Ark of the Covenant. Lacking these, Rabbinical Judaism is only superficially distinguishable from paganism; this either means that God abandoned His people (meaning Rabbinical Judaism is false), or that the Old Covenant has been abrogated, and the New Covenant the prophets foretold is in force (meaning Rabbinical Judaism is false).

I want to be clear that every single religion listed thus far lacks one critical feature: final authority. Paganism is inherently eclectic. Islam, Judaism, and Protestantism are all based on books, and books can be read multiple ways. Orthodox episcopal autonomy cannot coexist with ultimate authority. These faiths are sports without referees. A Norse pagan cannot objectively call a Celtic pagan’s worship right or wrong, nor a conservative Jew a reform Jew, nor a Baptist a Calvinist, nor a Patriarch another Patriarch. If these are our only options, no one can ever be sure whether one is following God or just following his own desires and calling them God; the entire enterprise of religion is defenseless against rule-bending and rationalization, and is, thus, as worthless and aimless as a sport without a referee.

Well, would be. Luckily, one religion does indeed have a referee. He wears a little white hat.

Catholicism

Christianity is the only religion which began due to a (1) miraculous event (2) attested to by many independent sources (3) who did so within living memory of it happening. There are thousands of manuscripts of the Bible. Read as a historical text, the Gospel presents four eyewitness testimonies to the Jesus rising from the dead and dwelling among them for 50 days, eating and drinking, all transcribed within living memory of the event. These eyewitnesses and their immediate followers were willing to die rather than recant (scholars accept the martyrdoms of Peter, Paul, and James, and Tacitus describes brutal Christian persecution within thirty years of the crucifixion). In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul challenges those who have doubts to simply come to Jerusalem and ask people what happened, testifying that over 500 had seen Jesus resurrected. Compare this to the private, unverifiable revelations of Mohammad, Buddha, or Joseph Smith.

The Gospels serially recounts Jesus calling Himself the Son of God; Mark opens with this phrase, and it is repeated throughout the epistles (Rom. 1:4, Col. 1:15, Heb. 1:3). John opens by designating Jesus the creator of all; later, He describes Jesus calling Himself by the very name of God (John 8:58). The epistles call Him God (Phil. 2:5-7, Col. 2:9, 2 Pet. 1:1, Jam. 2:1), as do dozens of letters from early Church leaders, most famously the Ignatian letters. Roman historian Tacitus relates that the early Christians suffered great persecution on account of Christ due to a “superstition” (116 AD). Pliny the Younger, a Roman lawyer, wrote that Christians worshipped Jesus “as a god” (110 AD). Cynic philosopher Lucian mocks Christians for worshipping their crucified God (165 AD). Philosopher Celsus likewise mocked Christians for worshiping their crucified God (~175 AD).

So we have something unique with Christianity: strong evidence. Hundreds who were willing to die for the sake of a man they personally saw bodily resurrected for a long period of time. We also see that Jesus’ divinity was not imagined centuries later, but something clear to the early faithful. Beyond this, we see the fulfillment of numerous Biblical prophecies, such as Daniel 7, which prophesies that Rome (the Talmud confirms that this prophecy refers to Rome) would persecute God’s chosen, but eventually become their kingdom – the history of Christianity. We also see Daniel 9’s “483 years” prophecy aligning with Christ’s birth and crucifixion.

Speaking of Rome: within Christianity, only Catholicism even claims to have continuity with all three integral pieces of the religion of Moses. The Church has the one truth through the Papacy and magisterium, continuing the role of the Sanhedrin, Levites, and prophets. The magisterium grounds their claim to carrying on the infallible ministry of the prophets in the unifying principle that is the Papacy. This is the only such claim which satisfies the need for an “epistemic ground” and agrees with scripture and tradition. She has the proper ritual sacrifice of the Mass, replacing Levitical sacrifice at the Temple. She has the physical presence of God in the Eucharist, replacing the Ark of the Covenant. Furthermore, the unique Catholic claim to Papal infallibility makes her the only Church qualified to continue Christ’s ministry.

What makes Catholicism special? It acknowledges and solves the problem of human unreliability and foolishness. It is the one path to God which doesn’t rely on emotion nor opinion nor intellect, but obedience. Catholicism is the only path to self-abandonment which does not rely on self to get there. Now, I know, everyone has some sort of personal gripe with Catholicism. This can’t be true, that can’t be true, God can’t be like that, I can’t believe that Bishop did or said that, and so on. But if Catholicism isn’t true, what is? We’ve systematically ruled everything else out. If the Catholic priests – for all their faults – are not the shepherds, the flock is lost. These are hard teachings; the God of Catholicism is a strange God. But He is also real – and that should take precedence over our apprehensions.

“From this time, many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:67-68).