Chapter 2
Having Faith in God’s Revealed Word
In This Chapter
Defining the real, practical meaning of faith
Discovering the ways God reveals truth
Believing in the written and spoken Word of God
Using reason to defend what you believe
You may think that having faith is similar to believing in fantasies or fairy tales, or accepting the existence of UFOs, ghosts, abominable snowmen, the Loch Ness monster, or Bigfoot. But faith is something entirely different. In this chapter, we tell you what faith really is and explain all the divine truths that Catholics believe in. We also sum up some proofs for God’s existence that will make your faith stronger.
How Do You Know If You Have Faith?
St. Thomas Aquinas (theologian of the 13th century) said faith was the assent given by the mind (intellect) to what cannot be seen or proven but is taken on the word and authority of another. The ascertainment of faith is plain and simple: You have faith if you trust the word of someone else. When you take what someone says on faith, you believe in what the other person is telling you even though you haven’t personally witnessed it, may not understand it, or may find it difficult to believe. In other words, faith means agreeing with, believing in, trusting something — without cold, hard evidence — that you can’t know or comprehend on your own.
So far, faith doesn’t sound all that different from believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, but having faith is a bit more complicated. Having faith means being able to live with unanswered questions — sometimes, tough ones. For example, why does evil exist in the world? Why do people still go to war? And what about the existence of terrorism, disease, and crime? Faith doesn’t answer these questions. (Some people think that the answer “It’s God’s will” suffices, but it doesn’t.) Faith, however, gives you the courage to endure and survive without having the answers. Instead of providing a set of answers to painful and complicated enigmas, faith provides the means to persevere.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a book defining the official teachings of the Catholic Church, has this to say about faith:
“Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” (150)
“Faith is a personal act — the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith isn’t an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone.” (166)
To Catholics, faith is a supernatural virtue given to human beings from God. What we do or don’t do with that faith is totally up to us. God offers it freely to anyone and everyone, but it must be freely received as well. No one can be forced to have or accept faith. And when it’s presented, each individual responds differently — at different levels, at different times, and in different ways. Some reject it, some ignore it, and some treat it casually. Others cherish their faith deeply. As the adage goes: For those who believe, no explanation is necessary, and for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
Having Faith in Revelation
Catholic faith involves more than just believing that God exists. It’s about believing in God as well as whatever God has revealed. Objectively, you can look at faith as the sum total of the truths God reveals, which form the basis for the doctrines of the Church and are often called the deposit of faith — the doctrines of the Church. Subjectively, you can consider faith as your personal response (assent) to those revealed truths.
We hear ya: “But what do you mean by revealed truths? And, for that matter, just what are God’s revealed truths?” By revealed truths, we mean revelations, God’s unveiling of supernatural truths necessary for human salvation. (The word revelation comes from the Latin revelare, meaning to unveil.) Some of these are truths that you could never know by science or philosophy; the human mind is incapable of knowing them without divine intervention, so God revealed them to mere mortals. For example, the revealed truth of the Holy Trinity is that there is only one God but three persons (not three gods, mind you). This truth is something that the human intellect could never discover on its own; God had to tell that one himself.
Other revelations, such as the existence of God, can be known by using human reason alone (see the section “Backing Up Your Faith with Reason: Summa Theologica” in this chapter), but God reveals these truths directly anyway because not everyone understands them at the same time and in the same way. The essence of these revelations can be — and is presumed to be — knowable to anyone with the use of reason; so, for example, someone can’t claim he didn’t know it was wrong to commit murder. But because of original sin (see Chapter 8), some of the applications and distinctions of these basic truths require more reasoning and thinking. To even out the playing field, God revealed some important truths so that even those people who aren’t intelligent or quick-minded won’t be caught off guard.
As for what God’s revealed truths are, the most concise answer is His word. The Word of God is the revelation of God to His people. What is the Word of God? Catholics believe that the Word of God comes in two forms:
The written word: Known also as Scripture or the Bible
The spoken word: Also called the unwritten word or Sacred Tradition
Both the spoken and the written word come from the same source and communicate the same message — the truth. The written word and the spoken word of God are not in competition with one another, nor do Catholics believe one at the expense of the other. Rather, the written word and the spoken word have a mutual partnership. Whenever and wherever the Bible is silent on an issue or its meaning is ambiguous or disputed, the spoken word (Sacred Tradition) steps in to clarify the matter. Catholics believe that God’s word reflects what’s in His mind, and because God is all truth and all good, His word conveys truth and goodness. Catholics have deep respect for and devotion to the Word of God.
Faith in the written word: The Bible
Catholicism is a biblical religion. Like all Christian religions, it cherishes the Bible as the inspired, infallible, inerrant, and revealed Word of God.
Having faith in the following aspects of the Bible is crucial to being Catholic:
The belief in the Bible as one of the two channels of revelation
The literal and figurative interpretation of the biblical text
The belief in the Catholic Bible as the most authoritative text
Believing in two forms of revelation
Catholic Christianity and Eastern Orthodox Christianity believe in one common source of divine revelation (God himself), but they believe the revelation is transmitted to us through two equal and distinct modes: the written word (the Bible) and the spoken word (the unwritten word). Protestant Christianity regards the Bible as the only source of divine revelation. Another way of looking at it is to think of some Christians as seeing only one channel of revelation — sola scriptura, which is Latin for Scripture alone — and Catholic Christians as seeing two channels of revelation — both the written word and the unwritten word of God. (Just divert thine eyes to the “Faith in the spoken word: Sacred Tradition” section, later in this chapter, for an explanation of what the unwritten word is.)
Interpreting sacred literature both literally and figuratively
Catholics regard the Bible as the inspired and revealed word of God, but it’s also seen as a collection of sacred literature. Rather than just looking at the Bible as one big book, Catholicism treats the Bible as a collection of smaller books under one cover: the word of God written by men yet inspired by God. Since the time of the Reformation, opinion on the interpretation of the sacred text has differed significantly. Some Christians hold for a literal interpretation of every word and phrase of Scripture; other Christians hold for a faithful interpretation, which is sometimes literal and sometimes not. (In other words, some text is meant to be interpreted figuratively.) Catholics belong to the second camp.
The Bible tells the history of salvation, but it’s much more than a history book. It contains the Psalms of David — songs that the King wrote in honor of God — yet the Bible is much more than a hymnal. It contains poetry, prose, history, theology, imagery, metaphor, analogy, irony, hyperbole, and so on. Because it’s not exclusively one form of literature, as you would have in a science textbook, one needs to know and appreciate the various literary forms in the Bible in order to interpret it as the author intended. For example, when Jesus says in the Gospel (Mark 9:43), “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off,” the Catholic Church has interpreted that to be a figure of speech rather than something to be taken literally. At the same time, Catholicism interprets literally the passage of John 6:55 — “For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed.” Because individuals can disagree on what should be interpreted literally and what shouldn’t, Catholicism resorts to one final authority to definitively interpret for all Catholics what the biblical text means for the Catholic faith. That ultimate authority is called the Magisterium (from the Latin word magister meaning teacher), which is the authority of the pope and the bishops around the world in union with him to instruct the faithful. (For more on the Magisterium, see Chapter 6.) Catholics believe that Christ founded the Church (“I will build my Church” [Matthew 16:18]), a necessary institution, to safeguard and protect revelation by authentically interpreting the biblical texts. The Church is not superior to Scripture, but she’s the steward and guardian as well as interpreter of the inspired and revealed Word of God. The Church assumes the role of authentic interpreter not on her own but by the authority given her by Christ: “He who hears you, hears me” (Luke 10:16). The Church makes an authentic interpretation and an authoritative decision regarding those issues that aren’t explicitly addressed in Sacred Scripture, but only because Christ has entrusted her to do so. To find out how the Church views tough modern-day issues that aren’t addressed in the Bible, flip to Chapter 14.
Trusting the authority of the Catholic Bible
What follows is a snapshot of how the Bible was created and how different versions evolved — the Catholic versions and the Protestant versions. If you’re eager for more information on the Bible, however, check out The Bible For Dummies by Jeffrey Geoghegan and Michael Homan (Wiley).
To understand the history of the Bible, you really have to go back to around 1800 b.c. when the oral tradition of the Hebrew people started, because Abraham and his tribes were nomadic people and didn’t have a written language of their own. Mothers and fathers verbally (orally) handed down the stories of the Old Testament about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and so on. (The Latin word traditio means to hand down, and it’s the root of the English word for tradition.) The stories of the Old Testament were all told by word of mouth, which we call oral tradition.
Moses appeared sometime around 1250 b.c., when God delivered the Hebrew people from the bondage of slavery in Egypt and they entered the Promised Land. The era of Moses opened the road to some of the written word because Moses was raised in the court of Pharaoh, where he learned how to read and write. But the predominant bulk of revelation was still the oral tradition, handed down from generation to generation, because the rest of the Hebrews were slaves and most were unable to read or write at that time. Substantial writings weren’t saved until 950 b.c., during the reign of King Solomon. But after his death, King Solomon’s kingdom was divided between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah, respectively.
The Assyrians conquered Israel in 721 b.c., and the Babylonians conquered Judah in 587 b.c. During the time of the Babylonian captivity and exile, the Jews of the Diaspora (forced exile of Jews) were spread all over the known world. Some retained their Hebrew language, but most lost it and adopted the common language: Greek. (If you could read and write at this time in history, most likely you were reading and writing Greek.)
Consequently, in the year 250 b.c., an effort was underway to translate all Jewish Scripture into the Greek language. The thing is, more Jews lived outside of Palestine than within it. In the third century b.c., nearly two-fifths of the population in Egypt alone, especially in Alexandria, was Jewish and yet unable to read and write in Hebrew. These Greek-speaking Jews were known as Hellenistic Jews. Seven books of Scripture were written in Greek by these Hellenistic Jews and were considered as inspired as the 39 Scriptural books written in Hebrew before the Diaspora.
The Greek version of the Old Testament was called the Septuagint (symbolized by the Roman numeral LXX for the number 70) because it took 70 scholars allegedly 70 years to complete the task. They met in Alexandria, Egypt, and translated 39 Hebrew Scriptures into Greek and included 7 other books originally written by Jews in the Greek language.
These seven books — the Books of Baruch, Maccabees I and II, Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach), and Wisdom — were known and used by Jews even in the Holy Land, including Jesus and His disciples. The early Christians likewise accepted the inspired status of these seven books because no one had refuted them during the time of Christ. Because they were later additions to the more ancient Hebrew writings, however, these seven books were called the Deuterocanonical Books (meaning second canon); the 39 Hebrew books were known as the Canonical Books.
Jewish authorities in Jerusalem had no explicit objection to these seven books until the year a.d. 100, well after the Christians had split from formal Judaism and formed their own separate religion. The Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in a.d. 70, and in the year a.d. 100, Jewish leaders at the Council of Jamnia sought to purify Judaism of all foreign and Gentile influence, which meant removing anything not purely Hebrew. Because the seven Deuterocanonical Books were never written in Hebrew, they got pitched.
By now, though, Christianity was totally separate from Judaism and didn’t doubt the authenticity of the seven books, because these books were always considered equal to the other 39. (Much later, Martin Luther would initiate the Protestant Reformation in 1517 and choose to adopt the Hebrew canon [39 books] rather than the Greek canon [46 books], also called the Septuagint.)
So, in the listing of the Old Testament, a discrepancy exists between the Catholic and the Protestant Bibles. Catholic Bibles list 46 books and Protestant Bibles list 39. Recently, many publishers have reintroduced the seven books in Protestant Bibles, such as the King James Version, but they’re carefully placed in the back (after the end of the canonical texts) and are identified as being part of the Apocrypha, which is from the Greek word apokryphos meaning hidden.
So what the Catholic Church considers Deuterocanonical, Protestant theologians consider Apocrypha. And what the Catholic Church considers Apocrypha, Protestants call Pseudepigrapha (meaning false writings), which are the alleged and so-called Lost Books of the Bible. These Lost Books were never considered as being inspired by the Church, so they were never included as part of any Bible, Catholic or Protestant. Such books as the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Abraham, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of St. John, and others were all considered uninspired and therefore never made it into the Bible.
Interestingly enough, Catholics and Protestants have never seriously disputed the list of the New Testament books, and both the Catholic and the Protestant Bibles have the exact same names and number (27) of books in the New Testament. (For more info about the New Testament, see Chapter 4.)
Faith in the spoken word: Sacred Tradition
God’s word is more than letters on a page or sounds to the ear. His word is creative. When God speaks the word, it happens. For example, the book of Genesis in the Bible tells us that God created merely by saying the word: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
Catholics believe that the Word of God is found not only in the Bible but also in the unwritten or spoken word — Sacred Tradition. In this section, we show you what Sacred Tradition is and introduce you to the single most important part of that tradition, the Creed.
Filling in the gaps of the written word
Before the word was written, it was first spoken. God first said, “Let there be light,” and later on, the sacred author wrote those words on paper. Jesus first spoke the word when He preached His Sermon on the Mount. He didn’t dictate to Matthew as He was preaching. Instead, Matthew wrote things down much later, well after Jesus died, rose, and ascended into heaven. None of the Gospels were written during Jesus’s life on earth. He died in a.d. 33, and the earliest Gospel manuscript, which is the Aramaic version of Matthew (alluded to by ancient sources), was written between a.d. 40 and 50. The other three Gospels — Mark, Luke, and John — were written between a.d. 53 and 100. Matthew and John, who wrote the first and the last Gospels, were 2 of the original 12 apostles, so they personally heard what Jesus said and saw with their own eyes what He did. Mark and Luke weren’t apostles but disciples, and most of their information on what Jesus said and did wasn’t a first-hand eyewitness account; rather, their information was handed down to them by others who were witnesses. (Remember that the word tradition means to hand down.) The unwritten or spoken Gospel was told by word of mouth by the apostles well before the evangelists, the Gospel writers, ever wrote one word. Luke received much of his data from Jesus’s mother, the Virgin Mary, and Mark received plenty of info from Peter, the apostle Jesus left in charge.
If some time passed between what Jesus actually said and did and when the Gospel writers put His words and actions on paper (actually on parchment), what took place during that period? Before the written word was the unwritten, or spoken, word. In the Old Testament, things happened and were said long before they were written down. So, too, in the New Testament, Jesus preached His sermons and worked His miracles, died on the Cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven long before anyone wrote it down. No one took notes while He preached. No letters were written between Jesus and the apostles. Sacred Tradition predates and precedes Sacred Scripture, but both come from the same source: God.
The New Testament is totally silent on whether Jesus ever married or had children. The Bible says nothing about His marital status, yet Christians believe He had neither a wife nor kids. Sacred Tradition tells that He never married, just as Sacred Tradition says that the Gospels number only four. Without a written list, who decides (and how) if the Old Testament contains 39 books in Protestant Bibles or 46 books in Catholic Bibles and the New Testament has 27? If Catholics were to believe only in the written word, then no answer would exist. But another avenue exists, the unwritten word, and we can go by that.
Existing separately from human tradition
Catholicism carefully distinguishes between mere human tradition and divinely inspired Sacred Tradition:
Human traditions are man-made laws that can be changed. An example of a human tradition is Catholics not eating meat on Fridays during Lent. Celibacy for priests of the Western (Latin) Church is another human tradition, which any pope can dispense, modify, or continue.
Sacred Tradition is considered part of the unwritten Word of God because it has been believed for centuries, since the time of the Apostolic Church, which refers to that period of time in Church history from the first (while the Apostles were still alive) to the second century a.d. (before the second-generation Christians died). It’s called Apostolic because the apostles lived at that time.
An example of a Sacred Tradition is the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. A dogma is a revealed truth that’s solemnly defined by the Church — a formal doctrine that the faithful are obligated to believe. Although it’s not explicit in Sacred Scripture, the Assumption of Mary means that Mary was assumed (physically taken up), body and soul, into heaven by her divine Son. Even though it wasn’t solemnly defined until 1950 by Pope Pius XII, this doctrine has been believed (and never doubted) by Catholic Christians since the time of the apostles. Other examples of Sacred Tradition can be found in the doctrines defined by the 21 General or Ecumenical Councils of the Church, from Nicea (a.d. 325) to Vatican II (1962–1965). (See Chapter 6 for more on the councils.)
The Creed
The most crucial and influential part of Sacred Tradition is the Creed. The word comes from the Latin credo, meaning “I believe.” A Creed is a statement or profession of what members of a particular church or religion believe as being essential and necessary. The two most ancient and most important creeds are the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed; the latter is recited or sung every Sunday and on holy days of obligation at Catholic Masses all over the world. (Like Sundays, holy days of obligation are specific days in the calendar year on which Catholics are required to go to Mass. See Chapter 10 for more on holy days.) The Nicene Creed was the fruit of the Council of Nicea, which convened in a.d. 325 to condemn the heresy of Arianism (see Chapter 4) and to affirm the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. The oldest creed, however, is the Apostles’ Creed. Although it’s doubtful that the 12 apostles themselves wrote it, the origin of this creed comes from the first century a.d.
A sophisticated development of the Apostles’ Creed, which is a Christian statement of belief attributed to the 12 apostles, the Nicene Creed reflects one’s loyalty and allegiance to the truths contained in it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the Creed is one of the four pillars of faith, along with the Ten Commandments, the seven sacraments, and the Our Father. The text of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, which follows, succinctly summarizes all that Catholicism regards as divinely revealed truth:
The Apostles’ Creed: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from there He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
The following list explains the Apostles’ Creed in detail, so you can get a better understanding of this Sacred Tradition and the Catholic belief system. (It’s divided into 12 articles for easier digestion.)
Article 1: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. This affirms that God exists, that He’s one God in three persons, known as the Holy Trinity, and that He created the known universe.
Creation is understood as making something from nothing. The created world includes all inanimate matter, as well as plant, animal, human, and angelic life.
Article 2: And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. This attests that Jesus is the Son of God and that He’s most certainly divine. The word Lord implies divinity, because the Greek word Kyrios and the Hebrew word Adonai both mean Lord and are only ascribed to God. So the use of Lord with Jesus is meant to profess His divinity. The name Jesus comes from the Hebrew word Jeshua, meaning God saves. So Catholics believe that Jesus is Savior.
Article 3: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit [and] born of the Virgin Mary. This affirms the human nature of Christ, meaning that He had a real, true human mother, and it also affirms His divine nature, meaning that He had no human father, but by the power of the Holy Spirit He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, He’s considered both God and man by Christians — fully divine and fully human.
The union of the two natures in the one divine person of Christ is called the Incarnation from the Latin word caro meaning flesh. The Latin word Incarnatio or Incarnation in English translates to becoming flesh.
Article 4: [He] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. The human nature of Christ could feel pain and actually die, and He did on Good Friday. The mention of Pontius Pilate by name wasn’t meant so much to vilify him forever in history but to place the Crucifixion within human history. So reference is made to an actual historical person, the Roman governor of Judea appointed by Caesar, to put the life and death of Jesus within a chronological and historical context. It also reminds the faithful that one can’t blame all Jews for the death of Jesus, as some have erroneously done over the ages. Certain Jewish leaders conspired against Jesus, but a Roman gave the actual death sentence, and Roman soldiers carried it out. So both Jew and Gentile alike shared in the spilling of innocent blood. Anti-Semitism based on the Crucifixion of Jesus is inaccurate, unjust, and erroneous.
Article 5: He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. The hell Jesus descended into wasn’t the hell of the damned, where Christians believe that the devil and his demons reside. Hell was also a word that Jews and ancient Christians used to describe the place of the dead, both the good and the bad. Before salvation and redemption, the souls of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Esther, Ruth, and so on, all had to wait in the abode of the dead, until the Redeemer could open the gates of heaven once more. They weren’t paroled from hell for good behavior.
This passage affirms that on the third day He rose, meaning Jesus came back from the dead of His own divine power. He wasn’t just clinically dead for a few minutes, He was dead dead; then He rose from the dead. More than a resuscitated corpse, Jesus possessed a glorified and risen body.
Article 6: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. The Ascension reminds the faithful that after the human and divine natures of Christ were united in the Incarnation, they could never be separated. In other words, after the saving death and Resurrection, Jesus didn’t dump His human body as if He didn’t need it anymore. Catholicism teaches that His human body will exist forever. Where Jesus went, body and soul, into heaven, the faithful hope one day to follow.
Article 7: From there He will come to judge the living and the dead. This article affirms the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world to be its judge. Judgment Day, Day of Reckoning, Doomsday — they’re all metaphors for the end of time when what’s known as the General Judgment will occur. Catholics believe that after the death of any human person, immediate private judgment occurs, and the person goes directly to heaven, hell, or purgatory — an intermediate place in preparation for heaven. (For more on purgatory, see Chapter 18.) At the end of time, when General Judgment happens, all the private judgments will be revealed, so everyone knows who’s in heaven or hell and why. Private judgment is the one that Catholics are concerned about most, because immediately after death, people are judged by their faith or lack of it and how they practiced that faith — how they acted and behaved as believers. General Judgment is merely God’s disclosure of everyone’s private judgment. It’s not an appeal of prior judgment, nor is it a second chance.
Article 8: I believe in the Holy Spirit. This part reminds the believer that God exists in three persons: the Holy Trinity — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What’s referred to as the Force in the movie Star Wars isn’t the same as the Holy Spirit, who is a distinct person equal to the other two — God the Father and God the Son.
Article 9: [I believe in] the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints. Catholics believe that the Church is more than a mere institution and certainly not a necessary evil. It’s an essential dimension and aspect of spiritual life. Christ explicitly uses the word church (ekklesia in Greek) in Matthew 16 when He says, “I will build My Church.”
The role of the Church is seen as a continuation of the three-fold mission Christ had while He walked the earth — to teach, sanctify, and govern — just as He was simultaneously prophet, priest, and king. The Catholic Church continues His prophetic mission of teaching through the Magisterium (see Chapter 6), the teaching authority of the Church. She continues His priestly mission of sanctification through the celebration of the seven sacraments. And the Church continues His kingly mission of being shepherd and pastor through the hierarchy. The phrase communion of saints means that the Church includes not just all the living baptized persons on earth but also the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory as well. (See Chapters 8 and 9 for an overview of the seven sacraments; see Chapter 6 for more on Church hierarchy; for more on the communion of saints, see Chapter 18.)
Article 10: [I believe in] the forgiveness of sins. Christ came to save the world from sin. Belief in the forgiveness of sins is essential to Christianity. Catholicism believes sins are forgiven in Baptism and in the Sacrament of Penance, which is also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. (For more on the Sacrament of Penance, see Chapter 9.) Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “It is not that God is calling us to be successful, rather He is calling us to be faithful.” In other words, Catholicism acknowledges that all are sinners and all men and women are in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Religion and the Church are not for perfect people who never sin (perfect people don’t exist anyway), but they’re for sinners who need the help that religion and the Church provide.
Article 11: [I believe in] the resurrection of the body. From the Catholic perspective, a human being is a union of body and soul, so death is just the momentary separation of body and soul until the world ends and all the dead are resurrected. The just will go, body and soul, into heaven, and the damned will go, body and soul, into hell.
Belief in the Resurrection leaves no room for reincarnation or past-life experiences. Catholics believe that you’re unique, body and soul, and neither part of you can or will be duplicated even if human cloning is perfected someday. This tenet is why Christians believe that death isn’t the last chapter in anyone’s life. For the believer, death is a doorway for the soul. The body and soul will eventually get back together again because the body participated in the good that the soul performed or the evil it committed. So the body as well as the soul must be rewarded or punished for all eternity.
Article 12: [I believe in] life everlasting. As Christ died, so, too, must mere mortals. As He rose, so shall all human beings.
Death is the only way to cross from this life into the next. At the very moment of death, private judgment occurs; Christ judges the soul. If a person was particularly holy and virtuous on earth, the soul goes directly to heaven. If an individual was evil and wicked and dies in the state of mortal sin, that soul is damned for eternity in hell.
But what if a person lived a life not bad enough to warrant hell but not holy enough to go right to heaven? Catholics believe that purgatory is a middle ground between heaven and earth. It’s a place of purgation, hence the name purgatory. Everyone in purgatory eventually gets into heaven. (For more on purgatory, see Chapter 18.)
Backing Up Your Faith with Reason: Summa Theologica
So are having faith and hoping to be saved the same as believing in the Tooth Fairy and hoping for a dollar bill under your pillow? Of course not. The First Vatican Council (1869–1879; also known as Vatican I) taught that you need the intervention of supernatural revelation to be saved, but certain truths, like the existence of God, are attainable on your own power by using human reason.
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas (see Chapter 21), a philosopher, explained how the human mind seeks different kinds of truth. He said that
Scientific truth (also known as empirical truth) is known by observation and experimentation. So, for example, you know that fire is hot by burning your finger with a lit match.
Philosophical truth is known by using human reason. You know that two plus two equals four, for example. So if two chairs are in a room and someone says, “I’ll get two more,” you know by using reason that the total will be four chairs. You don’t need to count the chairs after they arrive.
Theological truth, known only by faith, is the final and highest level of truth. It can’t be observed, and it can’t be reasoned; it must be believed by faith — taken on God’s word, because He revealed it.
St. Thomas Aquinas also delineated five philosophical proofs for the existence of God in a monumental work called the Summa Theologica. Because Vatican I taught that the human mind can know some things of religion on its own without having to depend on divine revelation, it’s good to see the example given by St. Thomas. Aquinas reasoned that humans can prove the existence of God through motion, causality, necessity, gradation, and governance. Granted, you may not be able to persuade an atheist to become a missionary priest this way, but these proofs are still pretty compelling.
Through motion
Before you were conceived in your mother’s womb, you were merely a potential being. You didn’t become real, or actual, until the occurrence of the act that created a new human life.
Likewise, at one time, everything now in existence was merely potential, because everything has a beginning. In other words, to get to the actual here and now, you first must have an actual beginning — a start. So at some point, all human beings — and all things — never were.
Some force had to start the motion from potential existence to actual existence. And that force could never have been potential itself; it always was, is, and shall be. Otherwise, that force would’ve had to be started by some other force, which would’ve had to be started by some other force, and so on. This chain of forces means that an actual beginning would never have been. And, again, the here and now must have an actual beginning.
Before the Big Bang, when the universe was only potential, what force started the motion for it to become actual and real? St. Thomas said that the force is God, the Prime Mover — moving the potential universe into becoming the actual one.
Through causality
Our parents caused us to be born, just as yours did. Our grandparents caused our parents to be born. And so on. So every cause was first an effect of a previous cause. So if you go all the way back to the beginning of everything, something or someone had to be the cause of all causes. Just as the force that started the motion from potential existence to actual existence could never have been potential itself, the cause of all causes could never have been the effect of a previous cause. In other words, the cause of all causes was never an effect but always a cause — or, as philosophers put it, an uncaused cause. St. Thomas said that uncaused cause is God. He caused everything to be by starting creation in the first place.
Through necessity
The universe would not blow up or crash to a screeching halt if you had never been born. This fact is a real ego-popper.
No one individual is necessary. Everything in the universe is basically contingent on — dependent on — something else to exist. Think of it this way: If you turn off a light switch, the flow of electricity to the light bulb is cut off. Without the electricity, you don’t have light. If God removed His Being from sustaining you, you’d be like a turned-off light bulb.
One being must be necessary in order to keep the contingent (unnecessary) beings in existence. Otherwise, nothing would exist at all. St. Thomas said the necessary being is God.
Through gradation
Existence and being have different levels. Following is a gradation, or hierarchy, from the lowest level of existence to the highest level of being:
Inanimate matter: Look at inanimate matter, such as rocks. They represent a basic level of existence. They’re just there.
Plant life: The next level is plant or vegetative life — simple but able to reproduce.
Animal life: Farther up is animal life. Not only can it reproduce and grow like plant life, but it also has sense knowledge. Animals can detect information from their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and so on.
Human life: Next is human life, which can do all the stuff animal life can, as well as reason. Plus, human life has free will.
Angelic life or pure beings: Angelic life consists of pure spirits without bodies. Angels are superior to men and women in that their minds have all the knowledge they will ever have all at one time. Their minds are much more powerful than the minds of mere mortals, too, because they’re not distracted by having a body. Without bodies, they never get sick, feel pain, or need food or sleep or shelter. They’re immortal and, as pure spirits, have power over the material world.
The Supreme Pure Being: The final and ultimate level of existence is a Supreme Pure Being who has no beginning and no end. St. Thomas said that this Supreme Being is God. Like angels, God has no mortal body but is pure spirit. Unlike angels, He has no beginning, whereas He created the angels. Unlike angels, who have limited knowledge and power, God has infinite power, which means that He’s omnipotent; He has infinite knowledge, which means that He’s omniscient; and He’s everywhere — He’s omnipresent.
Through governance
Ever wonder why the earth is just the right distance from the sun and has just the right balance of gases to maintain an atmosphere that supports life? The balance is delicate, much like the ecosystem in which plants produce oxygen and animals produce carbon dioxide to keep one another alive.
The planets rotate and orbit at fixed rates instead of crashing into one another. The fundamental laws of physics, chemistry, and biology must be followed; otherwise, life wouldn’t exist. These facts point to a higher intelligence — a being that made these physical laws, because they didn’t just happen on their own.
Nature tends to go from order to chaos. Who put things in order to begin with? A higher intelligence is indicated when you study how human DNA is so intricate, orderly, and consistent. Rather than being mere chance, life on earth is no mistake, and it follows a plan. St. Thomas said that the Great Governor is God.
These five proofs alone can’t convince atheists or agnostics, but they may get their minds clicking. The bottom line is that the existence of God is reasonable and that faith doesn’t contradict or oppose reason. Rather, faith complements reason.