Belief in God – Part 1

As mentioned in my previous apologetics posts, if I were going to explain the Catholic faith to someone then I would start by discussing three topics:

I. Faith and Reason
II. Spirit and Matter
III. The Spirituality of the Human Soul

Only after covering these three topics would I then feel comfortable discussing belief in God and answering the question: is it reasonable for man to believe in God?

Adoration of the Shepherds by Anton Raphael Mengs

God and the Light of Human Reason

As Catholics we believe through the use of human reason alone man can know that God exists.

Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason. 1

As Catholics we are also people of faith. Although we believe faith is superior to reason, we also believe faith and reason can never contradict each other since both come to us from the same God.

Reason can show that there is a God and can demonstrate his primary attributes such as his power and divinity. Reason lays the foundation for faith and makes revelation “credible”. Reason is thus the common ground between believers and unbelievers. 2

Skeptics will argue that the virgin birth, turning water into wine, and Christ’s resurrection are not reasonable and only wishful thinking on our part. I agree with the first part. These events are not reasonable- that’s why they are miracles- they are simply beyond human reason.

As we have seen, we can use our reason to know spirit, matter, and the spiritual human soul exist. We can also use our reason to know God exists. Reason tells us not only that there must be a God but that He must be an all-powerful, infinite spirit God (we will explore all this a bit later).

Therefore, with regards to the virgin birth, turning water into wine, and Christ's resurrection, it is quite reasonable for us to assume that an all-powerful, infinite spirit God can do whatever He chooses with spirit and matter- even if it appears to defy reason- since He created everything from nothing and continues to hold it in place.

As Catholics we believe our faith in God is completely reasonable. I think the more one studies philosophy and theology the more one discovers that belief in God is the most reasonable thing there is.

It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature. 3

Last Judgment by Michelangelo

The Spirituality of the Human Soul 

As mentioned in my previous apologetics entries, as Catholics we believe:

1. Faith is not opposed to reason.
2. Each human being is a union of spirit and matter.
3. The human soul is a spirit that never dies.

These are not easy concepts to grasp, but once we have grasped them we must continue to think about them and soon the fog begins to dissipate and the light begins to illuminate.

To believe in God requires belief in spirit. But to believe there is no spirit- as the materialist does- is to not only deny God’s existence but to deny man has a spiritual soul.

Yet it is quite easy- through reason- to establish man has a spiritual soul- a rational, immaterial faculty capable of forming abstract ideas and making decisions.

Before discussing belief in God, I would first like to revisit the subject of man’s spiritual soul and how it is we know he has one- as explained by Frank Sheed:

If we are continuously producing things which have no attribute of matter, there must be in us some element which is not matter, to produce them. This element we call spirit.

Oddly enough, the materialist thinks of us as superstitious people who believe in a fantasy called spirit, of himself as the plain blunt man who asserts that ideas are produced by a bodily organ, the brain. What he is asserting is that matter produces offspring, which have not one single attribute in common with it, and what could be more fantastic than that? We are the plain blunt men and we should insist on it.

Occasionally the materialist will argue that there are changes in the brain when we think, grooves or electrical charges or what not. But these only accompany the thought, they are not the thought. When we think of justice, for instance, we are not thinking of grooves in the brain; most of us are not even aware of them. Justice has a meaning, and it does not mean grooves. When I say that mercy is kinder than justice, I am not comparing mercy’s grooves with the stricter grooves of justice. 

Our ideas are not material. They have no resemblance to our body. Their resemblance is to our spirit. They have no shape, no size, no color, no weight, no space. Neither has spirit whose offspring they are. But no one can call it nothing; for it produces thought, and thought is the most powerful thing in the world- unless love is, which spirit also produces. 4

Once we have grasped what spirit is- and have accepted the reality that man is a union of spirit and matter- then perhaps we are ready to talk about belief in God, for if a person believes in the existence of his or her own spirit then belief in a spirit God does not seem like such a great leap.

The Annunciation by Philippe de Champaigne

____________________________
1 Catechism of the Catholic Church (Città del Vaticano, Libreria Editrice Vatican, 1994)
2 John E. Fagan, “Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason)” from The Teachings of Pope John Paul II: Summaries of Papal Documents (New York: Scepter Publishers, 2005)
3 Catechism of the Catholic Church (Città del Vaticano, Libreria Editrice Vatican, 1994)
4 Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners (Brooklyn, NY : Angelico Press, reprint edition 2011)