Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
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I guess I would say my understanding is that scripture is a mixture of fallible bits and infallible bits. There are undeniable moments in the Bible where the human author is shown to be imperfect - I can't recall the exact verse, but there's a part in one of Paul's letters where he says that he forgot something or other. Clearly, God doesn't seem like he would be in the business of telling Paul "yeah say you forgot this bit". But the Catholic belief is that those things are fine because they aren't the essence of the message (which is infallible, cause that is the part God inspired).
Great question, because yeah once you open that door you now need to distinguish which parts are inspired by God, and which parts are not. Unfortunately the answer in my case is that I am just not well-versed in this stuff enough to know. I would bet that at least part of the answer is going to be rooted in what Catholics refer to as Sacred Tradition - basically, the idea is that not all of the teachings of the early church were written down as a modern audience would expect, but at least some were handed down orally. Those teachings are considered to be authoritative as well, and the Catholic justification for how we know which books of the Bible are canonical is basically "God gave men the grace to discern it and pass that down as part of Sacred Tradition". Given that the answer for which books are canonical is believed to be rooted in tradition, I imagine that so too is the answer to your question. But ultimately I don't know - sorry about that, because it is a totally fair question.
A couple of things. One thing (and basically the reason I came back to the faith after I left it in my 20s) is basically that my dad attests to having seen two genuine, cannot-mistake-it miraculous (or at least supernatural) events (I can give you more detail if you like, but I generally figure that "my dad said so" is not something which would convince anyone who doesn't know him, lol). Obviously I have a high degree of confidence that he wouldn't lie to me, and I have a high degree of confidence as well that he didn't just hallucinate the things he reports. So while that doesn't exactly prove that my faith is correct, that gives me a pretty strong nudge towards the faith my dad has (i.e. Christianity) being correct.
The second thing is the way in which I met my wife. It probably sounds trite, but it's true. I was single up until I was 30 - I couldn't even get a date, much less a girlfriend. I was pretty unhappy but couldn't really make any headway, and I would've bet you every last penny I owned that I was going to die alone. Eventually, I had a friend who had good success with online dating and I made an OKCupid profile basically just to earn the right to be bitter and mad at the world (kind of like how people will vote so they "have the right to complain about the result"). I wound up meeting my wife, who unknown to me also made a profile in more or less sheer desperation after she had been in a couple of bad relationships. Before she met me she was also going to give up on dating (for a long time if not forever), because it had just been so negative for her. To me... I just can't really believe that is coincidence. I know it's possible! But ultimately I really do think that the most likely explanation is that God brought us together at the right time when we both really needed each other. So that also solidifies my day to day belief.
I believe that sometimes we get justice in this life, but that ultimately justice is only guaranteed in the afterlife.
Yeah, I definitely feel the frustration of how messed up this world is and how it really seems like it's ripe for God to step in and correct things. Surely people deserve that from him, right? I have had the same thoughts myself more than once. Ultimately, the problem of evil is just really hard and I don't know that there's a perfect answer. But if I had to say what I think, it's probably something like this.
God is not exactly alien to us (like a Lovecraftian elder god or something), but he's not entirely comprehensible to us either. That means that having faith in God means I need to accept that sometimes, the way he chooses to handle things is going to seem really messed up in the short term but will pay off in the long term. Unfortunately, I think that sometimes "long term" here means "in the afterlife", which is really hard for us humans. But I do believe that God loves us, and that everything is ordered towards our ultimate good. I've had my own experience where I had something happen to me that I thought was catastrophic, but ultimately made me better, and I think of that whenever I think of all the horrible things God allows to happen in our world. I know that's cold comfort to those who suffer. I wish I had a better answer. But that's what I believe at least, and what I try to cling to whenever I find myself questioning "what the hell, God? Why would you allow this?"
For sure man. Feel free to ask, I'll at least do my best to answer. And I try to be honest when the answer is "I don't know", which it will probably be more often than not. ;) But I am always down to try to answer the questions.
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