Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church (Jesus, rituals, reject, Creator)

[Victor]

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

And of course, I dispute the claim that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter or that it matters. Certainly, I see no reason why a church in communion with the Bishop of Antioch or the Bishop of Alexandria or <insert favorite bishop here> could serve just as well as a point of communion for teaching authority given that they had received the same deposit of faith as Rome had. Besides, isn't the discernment of truth actually the task of the whole church? If so, why place so much emphasis on one man (and why need it be a man)? Isn't that the thrust of paragraph 92?

The idea that the discernment of truth is the task of the whole church is virtually unheard of for most of Christian history. Unless I took what you wrote further then what you meant it, the Church has always functioned in such a way that truth as we know it funnels its way to the top. This took form in different ways and chief among them were holding councils. If you can’t get passed the reality of this, then there is no point in even talking about the Petrine office.

[Runlikethewind]

Hello Dunemeister

Since I am just joining in on the conversation I am going to hop back to your earlier concern about the natural knowledge of God since this is a question that I have struggled with and still struggle with.

I agree with your general discomfort and objection:

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

…THIS text says that people arrive at an understanding of God by way of ARGUMENT from the existence of what is to the existence of God. Thus, this text authorizes so-called "natural theology", which in my opinion is an ambiguous and uncertain venture. It's possible to look at nature and conclude there's no God or that God is different from the way revealed in Jesus. …it seems to say that it's a matter of argument, which I just don't buy.

I am very skeptical as to whether or not reason alone, in considering the natural world or the human person, is sufficient to lead one to knowledge of God. I don’t think that is what the Church is saying. What I think the Church is teaching is that some method, of natural theology for example, can come up with convincing, but by no means conclusive, arguments for the existence of God. You said it yourself

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

It's possible to look at nature and conclude there's no God or that God is different from the way revealed in Jesus.

So really I think the problem is the way that we are interpreting the word argument as used by the Catechism.

Originally Posted by CCC 31

These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.

And so when the Catechism speaks of arguments it is not talking about the type of rational scientific arguments that lead one undeniably, irrefutably to proof of God. That is what convincing means. The arguments don’t prove anything but they can be pretty convincing. And they are converging since there are many arguments starting from different aspects of studying the natural world and the human person, which, when taken together, become very convincing. And certainly the concept of a somewhat blinded spiritual sight plays a role in the failure of some not to be convinced or to come up with the wrong conclusion.

Originally Posted by CCC 37

Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God…and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty…. So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful.

Now that I have rambled on, let me use an example to illustrate what I am trying to get at.
Take the so-called anthropic principle. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it at all. Basically it sees the findings of cosmology that seem to indicate that the laws of forces such as gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear, etc which govern our universe appear to be “fine-tuned” to be conducive to the emergence of life. Now this is a convincing argument that the apparent “fine-tuning” is evidence of a real fine-tuning the fine tuner being God.

But, one could just as easily say that the apparent fine-tuning is just that, apparent, not real. Some scientists postulate an infinite number of alternate universes in which chance alone lead to a different combination of natural laws than ours that are not at all friendly to life. All possible combinations thereby arising by chance in some one of a near infinity or infinity number of universes ours just happens to be the lucky one with the perfect combination. Or it might be possible that beyond the horizon of our visible universe the laws of nature formed differently and we just happen to be in the lucky pocket where the laws happen to be conducive to life. The laws thereby not being fine-tuned at all, just caused by chance alone.

So we see that although the anthropic principle is by no means a “proof” of the existence of God in the strict scientific sense. The fact that the laws of nature are as they are, apparently conducive to the emergence of life, can lead one to be convinced that they are in fact, fine-tuned. And when this argument is placed besides other converging arguments a convincing case can be built that might lead one to conclude that God exists, by means of natural human faculties.

We cannot argue irrefutably for the existence of God using reason alone but we can argue convincingly, although not all will be convinced, there is still a choice, an intellectual assent, that needs to be made.

I hope that helps out a bit and I am more than happy to try and clarify anything that I may have bungled.

PeAcE