Skeptical Faith

Google Image You know how you can have an experience that you’ve had many times before, that has become almost routine, and then, out-of-the-blue, it brings a new insight? I’ve had that kind of “aha” moment watching sports on TV. One of them was when I first saw a slow-motion version of a major-league pitcher in the process of throwing a fast ball. After seeing it – how unnatural it appears, how it stretches the flexibility of the human body to its limits – I realized how hard it would be to hit and how vulnerable the pitcher is to injuries just from the act of pitching. I had one of those kinds of moments while attending Mass recently. Let me say at the outset that I understand that this was a subjective experience and that some people may never have such insights at religious services. Can Bring Insights It’s just that I write plenty about the problems of belief and religion, and when writing about God and religion for people who may have given up on them, I shouldn’t ...

Google Image Even with 20 years of formal Catholic education, I’ve struggled with faith most of my adult life. Does God exist? Was Jesus really God? Am I fooling myself about God, Jesus, life after death? I know I’m not alone. I suspect the vast majority of people of faith have similar doubts. But doubt doesn’t constitute an absence of faith. Everyone has a different way of approaching this problem. Here are my thoughts on the matter of faith and doubt. First, I believe that faith isn’t just a question of the mind. We probably make most of our decisions - even the most important one, like the question of belief - based on emotion or a mix of emotion and reason. And that mix makes me and millions of others come down on the side of faith. Accepting Uncertainty Secondly, faith means accepting uncertainty, which doesn’t seem a problem in other aspects of our lives. Uncertainty is as pervasive as air. People we were certain were loyal friends turn out not ...

Google Image I recently finished a book called “Not Forgotten, the True Story of My Imprisonment in North Korea” by Kenneth Bae. The author, a Korean-American who had emigrated to the U.S. from Korea with his parents as a youth, is an evangelical Christian who was imprisoned by North Korea after a mission trip to that country. The book is a mix of his prison story and the efforts to free him, and how it was all part of God’s plan. Almost every page recounts how God spoke to him and how God took care of him. It demonstrates a remarkable trust in God. Many, however, would call the story naïve and dishonest and Bae’s attribution of virtually everything to a continually meddling God “magical thinking.” I prefer to withhold judgment. While I believe that God is perfectly capable of such intervention, I think it happens rarely. I believe God expects us to take as much control of our lives as possible, make adult decisions about ourselves and others and not depend on him/her for the ...

Google Image A few years ago, I visited a Greek Orthodox monastery in Arizona with my wife, sister and brother-in-law. It was a beautiful, tranquil place, an oasis in the desert. But in walking around the grounds, we noticed that the monks we past were not communicative. The only one who was worked in the monastery gift shop, and he was not particularly friendly. In fact, when he rang up my purchase, he asked what religion I professed and when I answered, “Catholic,” he began to tell me why Catholicism is inferior to orthodoxy and how the Second Vatican Council – the gathering of Catholic bishops in Rome that aimed to reform many Catholic beliefs and practices – showed that Catholicism isn’t faithful to Christ’s message. I couldn’t resist arguing but soon realized that it was useless and gave up. A couple of ideas occurred to me, however. First, the monks didn’t appear to prize Christ’s “law of love” above all else. Second, they aren’t the only religious people not to...