Contending For The Faith

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month. 

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered. This first post will explain the necessity of being able to prove with reason the existence of God and the supernatural and why this series is necessary.  All subsequent posts will begin with a precise topic. (The information on scientism in this post comes from many sources, not the least of which are various essays in Scientism: The New Orthodoxy, ed. Richard M. Williams and Daniel N. Robinson [2015], among others. I give full credit to these sources and take no credit---Introibo). 

Modernism, Scientism, and the Supernatural

A few years ago, I was eating lunch at my desk and re-reading the Catholic classic The Spiritual Combat, by Fr. Scupoli. A colleague of mine was walking past me and saw the book. He stopped and asked, "That's the kind of reading you do outside of work?" Without hesitation, I responded, "Yes." He looked perplexed and inquired, "Weren't you a former science teacher with an advanced degree in science?" "That's correct," I replied. As he turned to walk away, I asked if this is what he was thinking:

I started off in science, which deals with reality—hard facts—and conclusions that could be proved to be true. However, theology was a field in which there were only private opinions or personal feelings, where no one was right or wrong, or if they were, no one could know who was right. Science was cognitive, and theology was personal and emotional. He stared at me dumbfounded, as if I had read his mind, and nodded in the affirmative. My colleague was expressing the view called scientism. Since scientism is so pervasive today—it is the intellectual and cultural air that we breathe—he could not have even named the worldview he was presupposing and articulating. Before I explain scientism, I must explain its origin in Modernism. 

Modernism is an amalgamation of errors. It begins with agnosticism.  According to this teaching, human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, which means things that appear to the senses, and it has no power to overstep these limits. Since we cannot know (or even infer) to the existence of things outside the scope of phenomena, the human intellect is incapable of knowing the existence of God. As a result, Modernism denies the supernatural as an object of certain knowledge. 

God is something which comes forth from man's subconscious. Religion is therefore essentially about feelings, specifically what makes you feel good; if Christianity, or any other religion, is what makes you feel good and more in touch with the Divine, then it is true for you. Religion has never consisted of creeds or objective truth but of feelings. This doctrine is known as vital immanence.

With the advance of science beginning in the mid-1800s, which combined with the tenets of Modernism, scientism was spawned. Roughly, scientism is the view that the hard sciences—like chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy—provide the only genuine knowledge of reality. At the very least, this scientific knowledge is vastly superior to what we can know from any other discipline. Ethics and religion may be acceptable, but only if they are understood to be inherently subjective and regarded as private matters of opinion. According to scientism, the claim that ethical and religious conclusions can be just as factual as science, and therefore ought to be affirmed like scientific truths, may be a sign of bigotry and intolerance.

According to philosopher of science Tom Sorell, “Scientism is the belief that science, especially natural science, is . . . the most valuable part of human learning . . . because it is much the most [sic] authoritative, or serious, or beneficial. Other beliefs related to this one may also be regarded as scientistic, e.g., the belief that science is the only valuable part of human learning. . . .” (See Tom Sorell, Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science [1991], pg.1). Sorell notes that “What is crucial to scientism is not the identification of something as scientific or unscientific but the thought that the scientific is much more valuable than the non-scientific, or the thought that the non-scientific is of negligible value.”(Ibid, pg.9). In other words, when you have competing knowledge claims from different sources, the scientific will always trump the nonscientific.

There are two types of scientism; strong and weak. Strong scientism implies that something is true, rationally justified, or known if and only if it is a scientific claim that has been successfully tested and that is being used according to appropriate scientific methodology. There are no truths that can be known apart from appropriately certified scientific claims, especially those in the hard or natural sciences. Lawrence Principe correctly notes that, when it comes to strong scientism, the central idea is that “science and its methods provide the only fully valid route to gaining knowledge and for answering questions, to the exclusion of other methods and disciplines.” (See Lawrence Principe, “Scientism and the Religion of Science,” in Scientism: The New Orthodoxy, ed. Richard M. Williams and Daniel N. Robinson [2015] pg. 42). 

Weak scientism is still scientism, but it allows for more “wiggle room.” Weak scientism acknowledges truths apart from science, granting them some minimal rational status even if they don’t have scientific support. Nevertheless, weak scientism still implies that science is by far the most authoritative sector of human knowing. For practical purposes, weak scientism amounts to pretty much the same thing as strong scientism, though, technically speaking, they do differ. As noted above, weak scientism does not say that the sciences—especially the hard sciences—are the only way available to us to achieve knowledge of truth about reality; rather, advocates of weak scientism are willing to grant minimal rational status to at least some disciplines that most would not classify as scientific fields, such as philosophy.

The Impact on the Church

Both strong and weak scientism have had a profound impact on the faith. 

 1. Scientism Puts The Claims of the Church Outside of the "Plausibility Structure." To the extent that scientism is embraced in our culture, our moral and spiritual claims will be “de-cognitivized.” In other words, our deepest beliefs about life, knowledge, history, and reality will seem to be utterly implausible—not just untrue, but unworthy of rational consideration.

2. Scientism Has Brought About Several Shifts That Now Define Our Culture.

The first shift is in the realm of religion and ethics and is a shift from knowledge to blind faith. Shortly after the Mohammedan terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, New Age occultist Oprah Winfrey focused an episode of her program on the turn to God since the attack, a turn she herself wished to foster. For those already deadened to cultural shifts, the program was fairly uneventful, but for those with eyes to see, it was breathtaking. To explain, let me note first what Oprah did not do. She did not get on the air, warn that we were under threat of a terrorist smallpox attack, and urge people to seek protection from smallpox, whatever such protection meant to each individual: If your truth implies that smallpox prevention comes by eating cereal and not eggs for breakfast, then go for it. If it implies that you should attend more movies to relax your immune system, then live out your truth in this way. 

We shouldn’t get hung up on the word we use for “smallpox prevention”—cereal, movie attendance, or whatever—the important thing is to seek prevention, whatever that means to you. Indeed, Oprah would not even presume to speak about smallpox prevention, since she is not an expert in medicine. Rather, she would bring a doctor on the show to address such an issue. This is because she, like all of us, would assume that the issue of smallpox prevention is one of objective fact, that there is a body of knowledge relevant to the issue, and that some people—experts—have the knowledge needed to address the problem.

However, this is how Oprah did respond to 9/11: She urged people to seek God, “whatever he, she, it, or they mean to you.” We should not get hung up in the word we use for him, her, it, or them, she cautioned. The important thing is that we all seek our own truth with renewed vigor. Now, what assumptions—most likely subconscious—must Oprah Winfrey and her editorial crew be making about religion and the audience’s understanding of it? The assumption is that, in contrast to scientific assertions, religious claims are neither factual in nature nor subject to rational evaluation. Religion is not a domain of fact and knowledge, so there are no experts (approved theologians) on that subject. Thus, a talk show host’s feelings about her own truth regarding religious matters is no more “valid” than anyone else’s.

 The second shift is in the realm of guidance for living one’s life, and it goes from truth to the immediate satisfaction of desire. Look at the Vatican II sect. The Novus Bogus is a "Happy Meal" where we sing songs, shake hands, and feel good about ourselves. Bergoglio's focus is on the world, environmentalism, youth unemployment, the loneliness of the elderly, etc. The supernatural goal of avoiding Hell and gaining Heaven is outdated and never mentioned seriously.  

 The third shift is from obedience to the Ten Commandments to "minimalist ethics," or "One may morally act in any way one chooses so long as one does not do harm to others." I could retire a multimillionaire if I had a dime for every time someone asked me, "Why are you opposed to same-sex marriage (sic)? They're not hurting anybody." This makes it difficult to justify resistance to a wide range of immoral practices, such as pedophilia. If this is what adults want to do to satisfy their desires,-- "Who am I to judge?" The standard response to this is that pedophilia is wrong because children cannot give consent to sex with an adult.

However, absent moral knowledge, who can say that consent is a morally relevant notion? Also, we don’t get consent to give children only healthy foods they don't necessarily like, and we force them to go to school, because these things are good for children. Believe it or not, some contemporary groups are arguing that the idea that sex with adults harms children is an outdated, "Victorian Christian idea" and, in fact, sex with adults is like forcing a child to go to school: It is healing, liberating, and so on. Sick and sinful beyond description.

 3. Scientism Has Led to Increasing Hostility toward Christianity.

Look no further than the vitriolic attacks against religion in general and Christianity in particular by  the so-called "Four Horsemen of the New Atheism"---Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens. All attacks are based on scientism, and the Vatican II sect does nothing to combat it, except to say, "You can find God in your heart," or some such nonsensical blather. Pope St. Pius X warned that Modernism inexorably leads to atheism. 

A Brief Rejoinder to Scientism

From the Vatican Council of 1870:

Canon I. If anyone says that the one, true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.

• Scientism is self-refuting. Strong scientism claims that "Only that which is testable by science can be true."1. Does this statement establish a requirement of acceptability? Yes: it says that something must be testable to be true. 2. Does this statement place itself in subjection to the requirement? Yes: it purports to convey truth. 3. Does this statement fall short of satisfying its own requirement? Yes: this is a philosophical statement about science that cannot itself be tested by science. 
• Scientism is philosophy, not science. Scientism is a statement about science, not of science. It is a philosophic claim that science is the only (or best) form of knowledge. It is not a scientific statement such as "An atom of water consists of two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom."

Much more could be said, but my purpose of this post is to show why we need apologetics now more than ever. The existence of God was not dogmatically defined by the extraordinary Magisterium until 1870, because very few doubted or denied God's existence prior to the 19th century. In 2022 it is commonplace. 

Conclusion

The Faith needs intellectually equipped defenders like never before. The One True Church needs members who can stand up to the assaults against Her by Satan and his allies (including, of course, the Vatican II sect).The Church needs to gain converts and keep those within from falling away. Let us also not forget to attend to our spiritual growth as well as our intellectual growth, and take St. Thomas Aquinas (whose feast is celebrated the day this post is published) as our guide. When our life has come to a close, may we be able to say that we did indeed contend for the Faith. In the words of 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."