Questions for Quare...

[Daniel]

I mean, if that venerable woman does not have supernatural faith, then it is hard for me to imagine who does....

What I see is two horns of the argument.

1.) Let us suppose that faith brings certainty: those who have faith know with 100% certainty that Catholicism is true and that they themselves have faith. But what does this imply? It seems to imply that most Catholics--including seemingly pious individuals--don't have faith. Further, it seems to imply that God is a monster. He damns people for not having faith, even though He doesn't give it to them.

2.) Let us consider the alternative. Suppose that faith does not bring certainty. What then? It seems that if this is the case, then faith is irrelevant. Even with faith, you cannot know whether or not your religion is true. So what we end up with is a sort of voluntarism. You must blindly pick some religion and follow it, not knowing whether or not the religion you are following is true. And this, too, makes God into some sort of a monster. He damns people for guessing wrong, even though He doesn't give anybody the means of knowing the right answer. Sure, He gives some people faith. But faith is irrelevant. Moreover, those who have faith and who practice the true religion commit many sins of recklessness: To practice a religion, without knowing that it's the true religion, is reckless (because if it turns out it's not the true religion, then you've just committed idolatry), and to receive a sacrament without knowing that you have the faith is reckless (because if it turns out you don't have the faith, you've just committed sacrilege).

Consider Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac: Surely Abraham would have been reckless if he had attempted to offer Isaac as a sacrifice without knowing with 100% certainty that the command had come from God and not from the devil. If Abraham had succeeded in sacrificing Isaac, and if it turned out that the command had come from the devil and not from God, then Abraham would have been guilty of murder and idolatry. The only conclusion seems to be that Abraham was 100% certain.

[Quaremerepulisti]

No, that actually makes you a "subjectivist", which in this case is either a spouter of ontological nonsense or, not to be guilty of an equivocation, someone who claims that there are ways of getting to Heaven other than those Christ and the Apostles taught were necessary, namely faith in him, the regeneration of baptism, and avoidance of sin unto death. These are conditions a Protestant might meet but which Protestantism does not teach.

Debates with this man over theistic evolution or the nitty-gritty pedantries of scholastic theology are really missing the point, the point being that they are only sideshows branching out from his fundamental world view, which is not Christian, and the state of his soul, which looks to be without supernatural faith. At the very least, it's ugly. Notice how on every point he makes it a point to disagree with Catholicism in one way or another. It's patently clear he has lost the Catholic Faith, if he ever subscribed to it, and more broadly anything that might be identified with Apostolic Christianity. He calls himself a "Byzantine Catholic" but of course his views, which are just wordly at heart and poisoned by an ugly cynicism that seeps out of every remark, would endear him neither to them nor to the orthodox Orthodox, and I think his purpose here is to criticise and discredit the Faith: what he needs is not debate, which is meaningless unless one holds to his own views, but a punch in the face.

Wow.  I mean just wow.  You are a truly nasty person, which you mask under rigid adherence to orthodoxy.  I mean, you know there is such a thing as "rash judgment", but you don't care.  And you think threats of violence are just fine.  YOU SUCK as a person frankly.

I'm curious as to your epistemology of faith.

[Quaremerepulisti]

what he needs is not debate, which is meaningless unless one holds to his own views, but a punch in the face.

I publicly challenge you to come to my house and give me said punch in the face.  Of course, you will be held fully financially responsible for any and all medical bills, lost wages, etc., since I have children to support (and as you should know, criminal restitution is not dischargeable in bankruptcy).  And I will not punch back; this is not "mutual combat"; you will be held criminally responsible as well, be charged and convicted of aggravated assault, and spend some time as a "guest" of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

But I'm sure you will regard such as a small price to pay for "defense" of the Faith.  Right?

[Xavier]

Hi St. Columba, it's good to see you back, friend. 

I'm not Quare, but I'd like to have a go at the questions.

1. Wonderful that your son is of age and preparing to receive the Lord Jesus in Holy Communion! At this stage, the most important thing for him is to know and be taught that the Eucharist is the flesh and blood of God Incarnate, Jesus Christ. Faith is the supernatural virtue by which we we believe all that God has revealed. "Truth Himself speaks truly", says the Angelic Doctor, "or there's nothing true". That is true Faith. "Credo quiduid dixit Dei Filius. Nil hoc Verbo Veritatis verius". Let the words for our Saviour, for which also He was rejected, hated and killed, and which we know to be the testimony of God, Who is Truth Himself, always resound in our ears and in our hearts. From the Gospel of St. John:

6:50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
6:51  I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
6:52  If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
6:53  The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
6:54  Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
6:55  He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
6:56  For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
6:57  He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him.
6:58  As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.

It would be highly useful if you yourself, SC, your good wife, or other adults share their testimony and experiece of the Love of God in the Most Holy Eucharist. Try to impress upon your child how great this Mystery of Infinite Love and how immeasurably grateful we should be to Almighty God for remaining always on our Altars to enrich us with His Presence and His blessings.

The Blessed Eucharist: our greatest treasure is one of my favorite books and would be a great first Holy Communion present. Let your son be taught for now and learn and be wise by the experience of others. In time, he will come to know the truth of the Lord's Real Presence even by his own experience, when the Eucharistic Lord comes into him; and if he communicates reverently and frequently, the indwelling gift of faith will be sustained and increased by the Holy Spirit each and every time.

A small excerpt from Fr. Mueller's book. I'm sure you're a great Catholic dad to your 5 children. Pray for your son, and we will all pray for him here, to have a living and earnest faith like this.

"O Love! O Love of God toward us! O Jesus, Thou lovest us too much! Thou couldst not endure that we should be left alone in this world; and that even death might not be able to separate Thee from us, Thou didst leave Thyself to us as our food in the Blessed Sacrament." http://www.catholictradition.org/Eucharist/blessed-eucharist3.htm

Please don't listen to naysayers who don't care for you or your son or your soul and are trying to take this precious gift of grace away from you.

2. Absolutely not. What some people are trying to do, and confusing both themselves and others, is entirely modernist and erroneous.

Let's explain by an analogy. A just man has given testimony in court and his testimony is credible. Therefore, the court believes it and acts upon it. It is analogous here. For God has given His testimony, as the Apostle says, confirming His Word by the signs that attended that. Therefore, He is to be believed much more firmly than we would believe a mere human witness. That's all. These modernists don't understand that there are degrees of faith and that people are not excommunicated or debarred from Holy Communion - which is the Infinite Source from which faith is nourished and increased in the Christian soul - for relatively weaker faith. All of us have a weaker faith than the Blessed Virgin does, for that was a Faith so strong and therefore a merit so great that all hell could not cause it to be unfaithful. To have faith, it is enough by God's grace to make a conscious decision to believe in Jesus Christ. For the Son of God has said He is the Light of the world and that he who follows him will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

For others, who are professing skeptics, the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano convicts you of error and of falsehood for refusing to believe.

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

I regret the necesity to be severe, but it is an "absolute" necessity, so to speak : ) : (

3. If the illative sense is understood as a natural faculty, it could be taken as part of man's natural awareness of truth and goodness that sometimes pertains more to the heart and the will than it does to the mind and the intellect. If considered under grace, it can be thought of as part of the grace and enlightenment the Holy Spirit brings when He comes to us, assuring us Jesus is Lord and God, and that He is dwelling in our soul. Cardinal Newman was not a faithless man, those who claim that are mistaken. It is enough to say sincerely, "Lord Jesus, I believe in You and in Your testimony. Help me to believe more firmly" to have faith. Those who believe more firmly will have a higher degree of glory in heaven and will inherit a greater reward from God. Let us all pray for that. For ourselves, for our children, and for everyone to have grow in faith.

[St. Columba]

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Hi Pon!   

[Daniel]

Xavier -

1. But did Christ not also say that that which is holy must not be given to the dogs? If a person has no faith, then that person cannot receive Holy Communion. So the only question that needs answering is whether or not St. Columba's son has the faith.

You say (or at least imply) that faith has to do with subjective "experience". But that can't be right. If you teach a child the lie that an ordinary piece of bread is God, and that child believes your lie, then when that child eats the bread he's going to have the same subjective "experience" as some other child who actually receives God in Holy Communion. Yet obviously the deceived child is wrong. He doesn't have faith and is in fact committing idolatry, adoring a piece of bread in place of God. Any "experience" that he has as a result of eating the bread is misleading, and if he takes his "experience" as proof that he has faith then he's bound for hell.

2. Your analogy sounds good. However, courts are sometimes wrong. Moreover, without presupposing that Christ is God, we have no way of knowing whether or not Christ is a "just man" and whether or not his testimony is true. Miracles / prophecies can't provide 100% certainty. They can provide proof "beyond a reasonable doubt", but that's not sufficient. It needs to be beyond all doubt. Otherwise there is always room for error... and faith, we know, is incompatible with doubt and error.

edit - speaking of which, the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" is itself misleading. No matter how much evidence you have, there will always be the possibility that Christ is not God. And there's nothing unreasonable in supposing that if Christ might not be God then he might not be God. In fact, it's a tautology. Perfectly reasonable. It would be unreasonable to believe the opposite: that if Christ might not be God, then Christ certainly is God. But then again, maybe it would be non-reasonable, not unreasonable. Maybe it's as QMR says... maybe there's some sort of super-rational "mystical" faculty that allows us to know that "Christ is certainly God" is a true statement even though our intellect cannot arrive at such knowledge.

[Quaremerepulisti]

...what he needs is not debate, which is meaningless unless one holds to his own views, but a punch in the face.

Show me a debater who resorts to threats of violence, and I'll show you one who has lost the debate.

...an opportunity for him to show off his autistic arrogance...

Oh, so now we're taking shots at those on the spectrum?  Really classy.

You're now on my ignore list.  Go fly a kite.

[St. Columba]

He damns people for guessing wrong, even though He doesn't give anybody the means of knowing the right answer.

This is begging that Catholicism is true, and even then, Catholicism has a doctrine of invincible ignorance.  If the bar is set so high, so that only folks with absolute certitude, based on a mystical experience that must also convey, as part of the experience, that Catholicism is integrally true (not just partially good like in other faiths), then those who do not have it, provided they are of good will and open to the truth, are invincibly ignorant, and hence cannot be damned while in that state.  This is because they are not guilty of the sin of unbelief.

Now I personally do not buy this, since I believe morality is still operative in an environment of uncertainty, and how we relate to God obviously has a moral character.  For example, say I was hunting, and I could not tell whether it was a man or a deer I was shooting at.  If I shoot, and it turns out to be a man, I should rightfully be considered rash and negligent, and truly guilty of the murder.  This is an action that is done while uncertain.

But what about doing nothing, when one is uncertain?  This can be sinful too...say there was an amber alert at a hospital, and I see a guy running with something hidden under his coat.  I would sin by omission, by letting him get away, even though I am not sure if there is a kid under there.

Moral theology more or less requires that we resolve doubts before we act.  But faith...the starting point....seems to be different.

You see, God has given me many cogent evidences that Catholicism is true, including mystical experiences.  But I have to admit to myself, while looking squarely in the mirror, that these experiences did not provide certitude that Catholicism is integrally true.  If I stop practicing the faith, God could, I think rightly, turn to me and say, "why did you not believe and practice, since I gave you so many indications it was true, even more than I did for most other people?".  Or, He could say to me, "Peter, I sent you Quare and Daniel to show you that you should not practice this faith until you are absolutely certain...it was reckless of you to assume you had certainty, when in fact, you knew full well that you didn't."

He could say to me, "It is a mortal sin for you not to bring your son to the sacraments", or he could say, "It is a mortal sin for you to bring your son to the sacraments, given that, by all obvious indications, he does not have any clue that Catholicism is true, and hence, Peter, you should have reasonably deduced that he did not have supernatural faith".

What is person who loves God, and wants to do the right thing, supposed to do?  The claim that faith must be absolutely certain seems, in theory, to be true, but also seems thoroughly impractical, and even somewhat fanciful.

John Lamb and Gerard....if you are reading, please chime in....

[St. Columba]

Daniel, I want to say to you: your honesty and humility and integrity are quite edifying to me, and I am graced to have the chance to interact with you. 

[St. Columba]

No, the Church teaches one needs supernatural faith before approaching the sacraments, and at least all theologians who talk on the subject teach that faith demands absolute certainty.  I didn't just make this up.

It would be helpful, dear Quare, if you could provide a few authoritative references showing that theologians have the same conception of "certitude in faith" that you do.  I have found that the terms "certainty" and "probable" are used differently by theologians than what we use in mathematics.  Actually, official Magisterial references would be preferable, since theologians can err, and can't provide absolute certitude!    Van Noort's opinions ain't absolutely certain!

W.r.t. Newman....if everyone has the illative sense, then why is it so faulty, in that the bulk of humanity can't illatively see that Catholicism is integrally true?  It seems to me God must penetrate us with supernatural grace in order to have faith, so this "illative sense", if it even exists, would merely be one means for God to employ to convey certitude, not something that can be relied upon to furnish certitude in and of itself.

[QuaeriteDominum]

In the simplest example in St. Luke's gospel, the man cries out to Christ "Lord I believe; help my unbelief".  The man's imperfect (by his own account) faith did not prevent Our Lord from healing.  This is not a lesson just for adults, but for children also. For the 8 year old boy, I would proceed with the Sacraments, teaching him to beg for the grace of a more perfect faith, which we all must seek.

[John Lamb]

https://archive.org/details/catechismonmoder00lemiuoft/page/24

[Quaremerepulisti]

John Lamb, I simply don't respond to text dumps without an actual argument.

[St. Columba]

I'm curious as to your epistemology of faith.

As am I, Kreuzritter...I would welcome your dispassionate input.

[St. Columba]

Questions for Quare....(con't)....

4. Can a material heretic, or material schismatic for that matter, possess supernatural faith?