Questions for John Lamb

[TheReturnofLive]

Plus, I'm not referring to the Catholic Church's declarations, in that I accept the Catholic Church's authority on X or Y declaration, I'm referring to epistomological certainty of the Catholic Church - and further than that, whether or not the Trinity is the True God, or if there is even a God at all.

My question is this - how can one get to the point of absolute certainty without Confession, without the Eucharist, without prayer and reconciliation, if one CAN even GET to absolute certainty?

[Stubborn]

Let me ask you something - what's the point of Eucharist being a medicine to forgive sins and progress in one's Spiritual relationship with God when one has to be near perfect to receive it?

It's incredibly selfish, narcissistic, and delusional to assume that anybody is perfect to receive the Eucharist but Christ Himself. And it's shocking that one can assume they are ever worthy to receive the Eucharist in a theological system whose sole basis is Satisfaction and Reparation.

Being "near perfect" is not the requirement to worthily receive Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, being in the state of grace, which is to say, being free from mortal sin, is the requirement. So your posts assumes a false premise, from there it flies off the rails and into the river never to be seen again.

The reason we receive Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist is because He told us that eating His Body and drinking His blood is a requirement for heaven - in doing so, He  unites the Eucharist to faith. We must believe it and it is only through faith that we believe. Except for the twelve Apostles, Christ's own disciples showed they had no faith in Him when they all walked away after Christ told them that if they want Life, they will need to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. No faith = no belief. 

Our Lord teaches in Ch 6 of St. John, that there are three things all essentially related. Faith, the Eucharist and everlasting life. Without faith you cannot possess the second, without the second, you cannot have the third.   
 

[Kreuzritter]

People can't even be absolutely certain if they exist or not, if all of their encompassing reality is just that of a computer simulation, or you are a brain in a vat, or you are in a coma - if Descartes's demon is fooling you.

Nonsense. I am absolutely certain that I exist. The negation of that statement is an absurdity, regardless of brains in vats, comas and "computer simulations": I am, and I am what I am, namely I, not a simulation, not a brain and not some other nonsensical ontological reduction of a thing to something other than what its signifier points to.

[Michael Wilson]

Plus, I'm not referring to the Catholic Church's declarations, in that I accept the Catholic Church's authority on X or Y declaration, I'm referring to epistomological certainty of the Catholic Church - and further than that, whether or not the Trinity is the True God, or if there is even a God at all.

My question is this - how can one get to the point of absolute certainty without Confession, without the Eucharist, without prayer and reconciliation, if one CAN even GET to absolute certainty?

One does not arrive at absolute certainty before assenting to the truths of the Catholic faith; one can only arrive at moral certainty through the use of reason; then the grace of God is necessary to enable us to make the assent of faith; which assent (with the grace of God), then gives us the certainty which is so absolute that we would be willing to lose our lives rather than deny a single article of faith.
Does the absolute certainty exclude temptations and trials of faith? No, this we see especially in the life of the mystics, as they pass through the "dark night of the soul" where God purifies their intellects in order to prepare them for the higher states of union with Him.

[TheReturnofLive]

Okay, I apologize. I guess I just misunderstood the initial argument.

[TheReturnofLive]

Nonsense. I am absolutely certain that I exist. The negation of that statement is an absurdity, regardless of brains in vats, comas and "computer simulations": I am, and I am what I am, namely I, not a simulation, not a brain and not some other nonsensical ontological reduction of a thing to something other than what its signifier points to.

The only thing you can be certain of is the fact that you can choose to form thoughts in your own head. But how do you know that the thoughts in your head are actually yours?

[St.Justin]

Okay, I apologize. I guess I just misunderstood the initial argument.

Don't think so. This whole thread seems to be running rampant with scruples over certainty.

[Quaremerepulisti]

But lack of doubt and certainty are not necessarily the same thing.

They are for one with the use of reason.

Again, how do you account, Quare, for Eastern Catholic babies being allowed to receive the sacraments without certainty?

They don't have the use of reason.

Furthermore, AFAIK, the Catholic Church has never officially taught that those who move their wills to believe are to be ranked among the unbelievers.   Pius X's decree "Lamentabili sane" n. 25,  the assent of faith is ultimately based on a sum of probabilities, won't cut it.

The Catholic Church has not taught that, but I fail to see the relevance though, or what you are getting at.  Pius X is saying faith is incompatible with saying that what is believed is only probably true, which is exactly what I'm saying.

Could you be a little less searing during Christmastide?

Have a wonderful Christmas season.

[Kreuzritter]

The only thing you can be certain of is the fact that you can choose to form thoughts in your own head.

Once again, everything you've stated presupposes the existence of the I, built into the very structure of your language. It seems you can't formulate what you believe you are saying without implicitly contradicting yourself.

I am what is and what acts. Even the cogito ergo sum is deficient and ultimately redundant in this regard, as the certainty of ones own self-identical existence is grounded in ones immediate awareness of that existence, which si the essence of the I: I am - no if, but or therefore required.

But how do you know that the thoughts in your head are actually yours?

I'll get back to you when you can clarify what that is even supposed to mean, namely, in what sense my spiritual act, in this case of thinking, could possibly not be what it is. I'm not "aware"of my thinking so much as thinking is an act of an awareness, essentially, so that the whole thing reads as nonsense to me. What I think is in principle what I think, even if there is an influence upon my act (which there always is, after all, I am thinking about something). Also, thoughts are not "in my head", whatever the modern English idiom, as though immaterial acts could have a location in a material space.

[St. Columba]

To Quare:  Thank you for your post.

What I want to say is: supernatural faith is an integral good.  When the baby is baptized, they receive the gift of supernatural faith.  The faith received is, in itself, a perfection, lacking nothing proper to itself.  There is no inherent defect in the supernatural faith a baby possesses, else it would be evil as such.  Therefore, intellectual certainty is not something integral to supernatural faith.

The fact that the Church permits babies to receive the Holy Eucharist further demonstrates that, despite the subject lacking certainty, the supernatural faith, and the rights that that faith engenders, are not thereby vitiated.

Finally, it is not altogether clear what Pope Pius X was getting at in n.25 of Lamentabili. Pope Sarto, of felicitous memory, was not a statistician.  Raging against the modernists, perhaps he was speaking on the level of ontology, not epistemology: the assent of faith rests on the authority of God (you silly modernists), not on "probabilities" gleaned from any other source.  Again, it difficult to exegete n.25 accurately, as there is little in the way of context: it is, afterall, a single, isolated, statement that he was condemning.  Applying an overly mathematical hermeneutic to his words might be ill-advised...

[St. Columba]

But lack of doubt and certainty are not necessarily the same thing.

They are for one with the use of reason.

Thanks Quare.  A baby has no doubt, but they also have no certainty.  Hence, lack of doubt and certainty are not the same thing.

If we move the goalposts to those who have reason, what you say may be true (that lack of doubt and certainty are the same), but unfortunately -- tragically --- this won't generally be true in practice, where reason is not employed perfectly.

If I may quote St. Thomas:

ST I, q 1, a5, ad 2: Hence the doubt which happens in some people about articles of faith, is not because of the incertitude of the thing, but because of the weakness of the human intellect.

...IOW's, doubt co-existing with certitude, given our limited human faculties.

[Daniel]

.

[Michael Wilson]

St. Columba you might be interested in reading the C.E. Entry on "Doubt" here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05141a.htm
I think that in the case of a doubt arising in our mind about the truths of our faith, we should immediately reject it, and make a short act of faith; discussing it and pondering it, doesn't do us a lot of good.

[Kreuzritter]

But lack of doubt and certainty are not necessarily the same thing.

They are for one with the use of reason.

Thanks Quare.  A baby has no doubt, but they also have no certainty.  Hence, lack of doubt and certainty are not the same thing.

If we move the goalposts to those who have reason, what you say may be true (that lack of doubt and certainty are the same), but unfortunately -- tragically --- this won't generally be true in practice, where reason is not employed perfectly.

If I may quote St. Thomas:

ST I, q 1, a5, ad 2: Hence the doubt which happens in some people about articles of faith, is not because of the incertitude of the thing, but because of the weakness of the human intellect.

...IOW's, doubt co-existing with certitude, given our limited human faculties.

How can I have certitude of something yet doubt it? Are we speaking of certitude in some vague, ill-defined and questionable subconscious sense in which I "have" it but don't recognise that I do? To know something to be true is to know that one knows it, at which point it becomes impossible to hold both certitude and doubt of it in mind at the same time. Either I am certain of a proposition or I am doubting it, as conscious acts, or its truth is not a question in my mind to begin with, though that information may be accessible to me through memory. You can say the words, but that doesn't mean they make sense.

[St. Columba]

Premise 1: No one can pass from the state of grace to the state of mortal sin through no fault of their own
Premise 2: A baby who is baptised is in the state of grace
Premise 3: It is possible (probable even) that one does not gain absolute epistemic certainty when one surpasses the age of reason, and this from no fault of their own
Conclusion: It is possible for someone to be in the state of grace after the age of reason and not have absolute certitude in their faith.

QED

[And if it is true that lack of certainty = doubting, then I have also proven that a person can doubt after the age of reason and yet possibly be in the state of grace.  But this is not a claim I am necessarily making]