Section 7 Journal: Faith and Apologetics
By John Clohisy
The seventh section in our readings book deals with apologetics and the way it affect our Faith as Christians. This section also has to do with Jesus as the supreme, most concrete source of evidence for us as Christians that God exits. Apologetics is a defense of the Faith by showing that the weight of the evidence--scientific, philosophical, and theological--favors Christianity. If we say we believe in Jesus, we must believe in His teachings which all point to God. In short, we cannot believe in Jesus as more than just a historical figure and not believe in God because Jesus and His life are the best support of God that we have. Evidence for the existence of God can be classified into two general categories: the natural world and the human person.
Evidence from the natural world:
Several teleological arguments are examined in our reading book, which attempt to show that the universe was purposefully created through logical arguments. William Paley's "Watch and Watchmaker" argument uses the apparent complexity of man to support the concept of an intelligent creator, just like how we would assume a watch stumbled across in the woods had an intelligent creator. The Golden Ratio is the same mathematical ratio recurring in things of beauty in nature and strongly suggests the universe exhibits intelligent design. The Anthropic Principle takes all sorts of scientific evidence and possibilities and uses our extremely slim chances of existence to explain that the universe was deliberately formed in order to make intelligent life possible. Kalam's Argument says that everything has to have a beginning, and the universe is no exception. The most logical reason for the beginning of the universe must be God. The Degrees of Perfection argument outlines the natural hierarchy of being, and concludes that there must be some higher being than man.
Evidence from the human person:
Three arguments for the existence of God dealing with the human person are focused on in our reading book. The argument from religious experience takes man's need for meaning, the mystery of death, the thirst for happiness, and the pain of loneliness and concludes that the existence of God would unquestionably satisfy our desires for meaning, love, security, and peace. The argument from conscience uses the phenomenon of our conscience to explain that there is a higher power providing instincts which we can feel when we go against them. The argument from natural law uses the fact that a Moral Law exists and helps to weaken the argument of atheism.
Three Key Ideas
The first key idea that I want to carry away from this section is the idea Blaise Pascal put forth, often known as "Pascal's Wager." As one of the brilliant minds of the time, Pascal proposed an approach to the belief in God which seems like a very good idea for those on the fence trying to decide whether to believe or not. He reasoned that if there is no God and one believes or does not believe, we lose. If there is a God and we do not believe, we lose. Finally, if there is a God and we do believe, we win. Essentially, believing is the wisest way to go considering the possible outcomes. I personally am not on the fence of belief and disbelief, but I know many intelligent people are and this way of thinking could possibly help them overcome the obstacles to belief in God.
The second key idea that I want to remember from this section is how we as believers do not need, in fact should not have, concrete proof on the existence of God. This chapter and other sources can give us all of the evidence possible pointing to God's existence, but we cannot prove that God exists. This sounds worse than it really is and we do not always realize how different it would be if we were able to prove God's existence. Our Faith is a belief and trust in God and we would not need Faith at all with proof. We would not have the free choice to believe in God because we would automatically be forced to believe. This conscious decision is what leads us closer to God and makes our relationship so special. So if the situation is looked at carefully, we should not use the lack of proof as a reason not to believe, but perhaps even as a reason to believe.
The third idea that I want to remember from this section is that Jesus is the ultimate source of revelation and reason to believe in God for us Christians. I overlooked this fact when our class was going over the ways to support God's existence through the natural world and the human experience. W believe in Jesus and everything he taught, and he taught of His Father in Heaven who created us all. Our single purpose in life is reunion with God. Many reasons support Jesus, too. The Apostles and all of the rest of the people in history who have died for their Christian Faith are very high on this list. We believe that Jesus was God-made-flesh, and this in itself implies the existence of a God. Overall, if we are true Christians, then we should have no problem believing in God.
A Picture Reminding Me of Jesus
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The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
I learned about St. Sebastian early on in my grade school years and I have never really forgotten about him. For that matter, I am always amazed at the lives of the Saints and the stories I hear of martyrs. Now that I am older, I wonder how people can lose the greatest gift given to them in such terrible ways just because they are not willing to renounce their Faith, yet at the same time others can be criticizing and denying the existence of a God. I can see the power and presence of God in the Saints and martyrs and I can also see how real the presence of Jesus is in these people's lives. These are great testimonies to why I should believe in God.
Who Is Jesus?
To me, Jesus is the ultimate source of truth because He is God's son sent to us to show us the way to live. We needed guidance and God sent His son to guide us. The only reason we know our purpose in life is because Jesus told us. Ultimate reality is with God and we as human beings in the human condition are far out of touch with that reality. Jesus serves as a bridge between us and God so that we may know how to work towards our final goal. He is the most important role model to follow, and if we follow Him we can rejoin with God.