November 23, 2008

Try to believe that 2 + 2 = 5...

From chapter five of Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua...

...People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant--but how is it difficult to believe?......

Newman is getting at an important point. (Just in case anybody out there in "the audient void" is repelled from faith because various things are "hard to believe.")

In general, Christian doctrines are not hard to believe, they are hard to imagine.

If someone told you that 2 + 2 = 5, now that's hard to believe!

On the other hand, that a god created the universe is unimaginable (ie: You cannot imagine what the event might have been like), but at least as believable as any scientific explanation I've encountered.

(Scientific explanations such as this: "The creation of the universe itself involved information processing: random fluctuations in the quantum foam, like a random number generator in a computer program, produced higher-density areas, then matter, stars, galaxies and life...").

Likewise, once you believe in a creator god, it's not unbelievable that he might be interested in us, if only on the analogy that we can be very interested in microbes and insects.

Likewise, if there is a god who created the universe, he presumably is outside the realm of this physical universe which we apprehend by our senses. Therefore it's believable that there are realms where god and other beings can exist that our five senses cannot perceive. Ie: the Supernatural.

You can apply this down the line, and find that it works...

Posted by John Weidner at November 23, 2008 8:55 AM
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