As a youth, passing through a gauntlet of arguments Bible-believing critics have used trying to convince me that the Catholic Church is not Christian, I always knew, in the back of my mind, that eventually I would encounter more sophisticated and formidable arguments against the Catholic Church. But when newer and more formidable arguments against Catholic teaching popped up, something fascinating happened each and every time.
I’m talking about how the objective standards of truth I turned to (whether historical, biblical, or logical) always seemed to vindicate the Catholic teaching under question. I say “seemed” in that even if it didn’t seem vindicated in the eyes of the Protestant or the atheist with whom I was discussing matters, I became convinced that the other guy’s argument just didn’t hold water.
Some arguments in defense of the Catholic Church can be tested empirically, others cannot. But this is not a problem because not all evidence needs be scientific to be valid and legitimate. Unlike mathematical or material things, such as atoms, azimuths, and animals, I am not suggesting that theological propositions — such as the existence of God or the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — can be proven scientifically. While there are objective, empirical methods for measuring, verifying, and even disproving theological claims, they cannot be positively proven with mathematical certitude the way, for example, it can be proved that the radius of a circle is equal to pi times its radius squared.
The goal of this book is not so much to prove the truth of Catholic teaching but to show how, using biblical, historical, and logical proofs, one can demonstrate confidently and effectively that Catholic teaching is reasonable, consistent, and compelling. The old saying is true, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Which is why, in this book, I will teach you how to “salt the oats” so that the horse will want to drink the water.
Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft explains what steps one must take in assessing any truth claim, whether scientific or religious, if the one making the assessment wants to be logically consistent and truly open to the facts.2 Regarding the question “Can you prove life after death?” Kreeft says:
Whenever we argue about whether a thing can be proved, we should distinguish five different questions about that thing:
1. Does it really exist or not? “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
2. If it does exist, do we know that it exists? A thing can obviously exist without our knowing it.
3. If we know that it exists, can we be certain of this knowledge? Our knowledge might be true but uncertain; it might be “right opinion.”
4. If it is certain, is there a logical proof, a demonstration of why we have a right to be certain? There may be some certainties that are not logically demonstrable (e.g., my own existence, or the law of noncontradiction).
5. If there is a proof, is it a scientific one in the modern sense of “scientific”? Is it publicly verifiable by formal logic and/or empirical observation? There may be other valid kinds of proof besides proofs by the scientific method.
Kreeft continues:
The fifth point is especially important when asking whether you can prove life after death. I think it depends on what kinds of proof you will accept. It cannot be proved like a theorem in Euclidean geometry; nor can it be observed, like a virus. For the existence of life after death is not on the one hand a logical tautology: its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, as a Euclidean theorem does. On the other hand, it cannot be empirically proved or disproved (at least before death) simply because by definition all experience before death is experience of life before death, not life after death.
“If life after death cannot be proved scientifically, is it then intellectually irresponsible to accept it?”
Only if you assume that it is intellectually irresponsible to accept anything that cannot be proved scientifically. But that premise is self-contradictory (and therefore intellectually irresponsible)!
You cannot scientifically prove that the only acceptable proofs are scientific proofs.
You cannot prove logically or empirically that only logical or empirical proofs are acceptable as proofs.
You cannot prove it logically because its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, and you cannot prove it empirically because neither a proof nor the criterion of acceptability are empirical entities.
Thus scientism (the premise that only scientific proofs count as proofs) is not scientific; it is a dogma of faith, a religion.
When assessing the truth claims of the Catholic Church, scientifically verifiable evidence is important and helpful, but it is not the only kind of evidence to consider. John Henry Newman, for example, arrived at his conclusion that “to become deep in history is to cease to be Protestant,” in part because of the power of the objective historical data he analyzed. But it also involved his willingness to draw the necessary conclusions toward which the data points.
For example, as early as the year A.D. 90, Pope Clement issued directives to the members of the church at Corinth on how they were to resolve certain vexing controversies that roiled that Christian community. In breathtakingly direct language, he asserted his authority over their affairs in a way that one could only expect would have provoked indignation from the Corinthians unless his authority were not recognized by them.3
“Hey, Clement,” one can just imagine the Corinthian leaders retorting, “mind your own business! You take care of your church and we’ll take care of ours.” But they did no such thing. In fact, for generations the Church in Corinth revered Pope Clement’s letter, regarding it as inspired Scripture and including it among the books of the New Testament read during the Divine Liturgy.
Many examples of Catholic teaching, including the papacy, the Eucharist, the sacraments, honoring Mary and the saints, the existence of purgatory, the Mass as a sacrifice, and infant baptism were clearly present in the early Church. My book Why Is That in Tradition? details much of the evidence for these claims. The facts of history, for example, as well as the objective data found in the Bible, are important empirical streams of evidence in the work of apologetics. They assist us in the process of validating or invalidating various theological claims. But those bodies of evidence are really only useful to apologetics when used in discussion and debate between those who already believe in the trustworthiness of the Bible; for example, Jews, in the case of what Christians call the “Old Testament,” and Christians, in the case of the Old and New Testaments. Atheists and non-Christian believers in God, however, do not place any stock in what the Bible says.
Discussion between Christians and atheists involves what is known as “natural apologetics,” an approach in which the Christian seeks to demonstrate the reasonableness of theism solely on logical, rational grounds (that is, without any appeal to anything like “divine revelation,” which atheists reject in any case).
Apologetics geared for non-Christian theists, such as Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, requires what’s known as “Christian apologetics,” in which the common-ground belief that God exists (regardless of how “God” may be understood in any given religion) becomes the foundation upon which the Christian can build the case for the claim that Jesus Christ is truly God incarnate. This is done by demonstrating the ample rational and historical evidence that corroborates this claim.
My experience of encountering objections to Catholic teachings, listening closely to the objection, testing the objection, and drawing a conclusion as to whether or not it was correct usually happened informally, in discussions with non-Catholics, non-Christians, and nontheists. Sometimes these interactions went on long enough to afford me ample time to really dig into the evidence, pro and con, and finally make a determination based on a fair amount of careful study of the facts. Examples of this kind of thing would include long-term apologetics discussions with non-Catholic friends who, over weeks and even months, kept up a sustained effort to dissuade me from being Catholic. Other times, the time frame was more compressed but still significant. One particularly vivid memory of this kind of encounter sticks out in my mind.