This section delt with the challanges to our faith which are presented to us. These challanges come from Atheism, Scientism, and Consumerism. The attack from atheism asks questions about your beliefs concerning God, the maining of life, human beings, reason and morality. Depending upon where you stand, you could believe different things.
Nihilists like Friedrich Nietzsche believe that life is waht you make of it and there is not one universal meaning of life that applies to everyone. Nietzsche also believed that human beings will eventually evolve into a super-race of peopleonly if we have the courage to reject God. He also believed that no form of reasoning is capable of discovering the real truth about the world but humans should be driven by desires instead. Morality is dependant upon the person in Nietzsche's mind. The world is not black and white.
Or there is a materialist approach to everything which is what Thomas Hobbes had. He believed that people cannot have meaning because there is not a creator and no one is free to choose their own meaning. Hobbes had a pretty depressing view of the human reace. He said that we will not ammount to more than animals because we are capable of genuine selflessness. Hobbes strongly beleved that the universe could be rationalized. Hobbes also beleved that morality is relative to the person you are referring to.
The third option is the St. Ignatius Loyola outlook on everything. He believed that everybody had the same purpose in life because we were all created by the same God. He also would have thought that both Nietzsche and Hobbes were right. Human beings are destined for the greatness of the Kingdom of God (Nietzsche's aspect of humanity is destined for greatness) but we are unable to become perfect on our own (Hobbes's idea of humans will never be perfect because we are like every other animal). Ignatius also would have seen truth in both men's ideas on reason. He believes firmly in the power of reason to know the truth but we need God's grace for a relationship because we do not worship reason. Ignatius also believed that morality is completely objective.
I want to remember the Reflective Unity stage between the Church and Science because it is something that I completely agree with. These two realms of knowledge have points in which they connect with each other. They can work hand in hand. We should use science to support our faith and if science proves something that goes against our faith, we should question our faith. If we do not then we have a bad faith life in which we just assume that our beliefs are true and will never change in any way.
The other thing I would like to remember are the limitations of the scientific method. Although I believe in science and faith, I must remember that science can only take me so far and then faith comes in. Science presupposes the uniformity of nature which means that science assumes that all nature acts in the same way. Science also emphasizes empirical knowledge which means that it relies on physical evidence or proof. Last, the scientific method does not give us certitude because there is always a possibility that there is more than one correct hypothesis for the same thing or despite a properly calculated experiment goes correctly, it makes a hypothesis false. These are things we need to remember when we are looking at science as a basis of our beliefs.
The biggest challange of Faith for me is the Church's actions. I do not always agree with what the Church does and this worries me. It makes me begin to question my faith and I start thinking that I am wrong in my faith and that the Church is right. It bothers me some of the things that the Church does and then when someone asks what religion I am and I say Catholic, I think that the actions of the Catholic Church affect what some people think of me because it would seem that I am promoting their actions. The thing is that I should not care what other people think about my faith life. As long as I am growing in my faith life with God, then I am doing ok in my opinion.