The Case for Religion (and Catholicism Especially)

Update (5/24/2021): I have updated this post because people have told me how helpful they’ve found it – non-Catholics especially. One person who is (was?) an atheist said they share it in skeptical forums because they thought it was worthy of consideration. That makes me smile. Either way, the updated version includes more links, some embedded relevant videos/podcasts, and further book recommendations. Comment questions if you have them.

Update (6/1/2021): A condensed version of this post has been published at Word on Fire.

Perhaps we can break religion (or people’s relationship to religion) into the following categories.

Atheist – not only does not affirm religion/God, but holds there is no God nor anything like God.
Agnostic – does not affirm religion/God, but remains open to the possibility. Is not currently convinced, either way.
Religious pluralist – maintains some value and truth in religion, and is generally of two varieties:
- The naïve religious pluralist says all religions are true because all religions are saying essentially the same (or very similar) things.
- The sophisticated religious pluralist says all religions are false in one sense, true in another: false in their specific claims to divinely revealed truth, but true as helpful though imperfect guides to transcendent reality.
Religious particularist – a person who holds that one religion (say, Christianity, or Islam) is true.

Atheism and agnosticism can be addressed via philosophical arguments and scientific evidence for the existence of God. To the former I believe at least some arguments are metaphysically decisive and can demonstrate the existence of God, though a cumulative case can be made, as well (see below), when looking at cosmological evidence for the beginning of the universe (winking toward a transcendent creation event), physical fine tuning required for intelligent life (suggesting a creative intellect); alongside medical studies on near death experiences (and other medical miracles) which provide corresponding evidence for the human soul and some existence hereafter. Not only does philosophy provide a case for theism, but it can narrow the theological hunt by helping us to arrive at a robust monotheism in the tradition of Classical Theism. I do not, however, maintain a person who is an atheist is irrational. I should hope not, since I used to be one (see video interview below).

Before I became Catholic — as is the case of many converts from religious skepticism — I went through stages of being “spiritual but not religious”/a religious pluralist. The naïve form of religious pluralism, which is becoming increasingly popular in North America, is that all religions are effectively the same, because all religions teach the same thing (more or less), so just pick whichever one does it for you. But this is obviously false. For if one takes time to study the worldview claims of differing religious (Hinduism vs Islam, say) they will encounter — and pretty quickly, at that — positions that are mutually exclusive. For example, some systems of religious belief (certain branches of Buddhism, for example) are borderline nihilistic, do not believe in a personal God, nor an immortal human soul. Other religions, obviously, do. Because of such competing claims, one cannot sustain a naïve religious pluralism, and so either they will have to move toward the more sophisticated view, and say, “OK, so religions don’t get any of the particular details right, but still, their moral teachings and spiritual practices (or whatever) are what matters for getting people to become less egotistical and prepared for the life to come, etc” or become a religious particularist, by parsing through religious philosophical and historical claims, and seeing if any can be adequately established.

Aldous Huxley was one of the first people I read when it came to religious pluralism; specifically, his book The Perennial Philosophy. Though he got important historical facts and theological facts wrong, the book is still a worthwhile and interesting read, and it did reinvigorate my interest in religion generally. To that extent it was a helpful stepping stone. John Hick (author of Evil and the God of Love) is another religious pluralist of the sophisticated sort.

One small problem I had with religious pluralism is that it is hard to see how it is not just another form of religious particularism, if only because in saying, “all religions are wrong, but here’s the right way of looking at things,” that itself is something of a particular claim to having *the* truth of the matter. My suspicion then is that religious pluralism of the more sophisticated sort either collapses into, or edges otherwise very close to, particularism. Someone is still claiming to “see the entire elephant,” as it were.

Either way, I am not a religious pluralist. I am a religious particularist, and believe there is one, true faith: The Catholic faith.

Why so?

How best to put it…

I’ll argue as follows.

Every once in a while it’s worthwhile to step back from the tall grass of philosophical/theological/historical argumentation and take in the overall landscape, observing just how many things point powerfully in favor toward the truth of Catholicism, big and small. Of course, before I converted, I paid no great attention to what might be called “the cumulative case” — frankly, I didn’t even know there was a cumulative case to be made – but, having become Catholic, the big picture, as it were, now seems so evident and forceful that it is almost obnoxious (like, how did I ever miss it?). Below, I will briefly present some of these converging and cumulative evidences – by which I mean data points and experiences and philosophical reasons and scientific discoveries and whatever else, that are best predicted (or explained) by the hypothesis, “Catholicism is true,” and, from there, link to further reading and resources for those who want to go deeper on any particular aspect they choose.

For example:

Scientifically scrutinized eucharistic miracles. Surely, eucharistic miracles are an incredible confirmatory sign of an essential Catholic teaching: the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They are (I submit) just the sort of thing we might expect God to give us if Catholicism is true, by way of occasional reminder.
Marian apparitions (including Fatima, though there are others), which testify to the core deposit of the Catholic faith, including the important role of our Blessed Mother.
The sheer endurance of the Catholic Church and Her Indefectibility. (Put simply, not only has the Catholic Church outlasted any other “merely human” institution, but has remained firm in her essential teachings on faith, morals, and sacraments throughout her earthly existence – and, here’s the key – even in times of great corruption, which no sincere Catholic should deny. To me, such endurance and stability is only explicable in virtue of God providentially guiding His Church, even if individual priests/bishops/popes sometimes fall into moral corruption.)
Biblical and historical support for Christ founding the Catholic Church, along with early belief in the real presence of the Eucharist.
The fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Christ.
Historical evidence supporting the resurrection of Christ. (more detailed works here and here.)
Philosophical arguments for Classical Theism. (Also, here , here, and here.)
Cosmological evidence pointing toward a transcendent Creator.
Philosophical arguments for the existence of our trans-physical soul.
Scientific evidence for the existence of our trans-physical soul; i.e. near death experiences and terminal lucidity.
Michelangelo, Mozart, waterfalls, and starry nights. There is objective beauty in the world. Make of that what you will.
Also: the general, explanatory poverty of metaphysical naturalism and other branches of philosophical atheism concerning contingency, consciousness, morality, and evil. (FWIW, I believe the best representatives of philosophical atheism are J.L. Mackie, J.H. Sobel, and Graham Oppy; probably in that order.)

Regarding the last point, it sometimes helps to flip the perspective and ask, if I hypothesize that God does not exist, and that miracles are impossible, and that humans are an otherwise unplanned and seemingly haphazard ensemble of chemical impulses, particle decay, and so on, would I expect any of the experiences or data points above? Even if I thought the experiences or data points above were possible given a broadly atheistic worldview, do I believe they are nearly as probable than if theism/Catholicism is true? The answer it seems to me is firmly negative: I do not believe I would expect everything listed above to more probably occur on any other hypothesis aside from “Catholicism is true,” and certainly not in the cumulative sense (perhaps one thinks one or two of the above points could be as well explained by atheism, but all of them? I cannot honestly see it.)

For example: If atheism were true, I would neither expect a moral standard, nor moral communities capable of reflecting upon it and reasoning therefrom. Furthermore, I would not expect miracle accounts capable of withstanding scientific scrutiny, nor anything like near death experiences, mystical experiences, religious experiences, and so on. Surely, I would not expect anything close to historical Christianity to emerge. I would not even expect rational agents to transcend whatever their gooey, evolutionary pre-figurements given the hard problem of consciousness currently faced in philosophy of mind. Nor would I expect evolution itself, if only because I don’t see a plausible explanation for teleology and/or physical fine-tuning within atheistic metaphysical proposals, all of which is a necessary condition to evolution to take hold. But most assuredly, even if I thought any of the mentioned points were possible on atheism (or the illusion of them, depending how one looks at it) they seem so obviously and enormously less probable, they count strongly against atheism generally, and toward Catholicism, specifically. All this, I contend, is something one can see – directly, by light of reason – when not blinded by emotion or ideological fog.

I would like to hedge off one possible confusion before going further. Obviously, if most any one of those points above could be argued for beyond any doubt of its validity — especially something like a Eucharistic miracle — that alone would refute atheism (because atheism has no room for even one miracle occurring) and establish Catholicism, but that is not the argument I am making. Rather, I am asking one to think about a broad “degree of expectation.” This lessens the argumentative load for any particular point, since I am only asking the reader to consider what worldview hypothesis “best accommodates/predicts/explains” the above collection of data, experience, argumentation, etc. I submit the hypothesis “Catholicism is true,” explains all the data above handily and robustly and with elegant simplicity: because the data above are the sorts of experiences we might expect if Catholicism is true, but not at all the sorts of experiences we might expect if atheism (or even deism) were true. There is also hypothetical flexibility here: such that at least some of the above points could turn out to be false (some Eucharistic miracles say, or apparitions), and “Catholicism is true” would still remain the best overall hypothesis, or at least no worse than other theistic proposals. Atheism does not have the same flexibility within its hypothesis, however: in fact, very few of the above points could turn out to be true (God’s existence, miracle accounts, immaterial human soul, life after death, Marian apparitions) and atheism still be correct. Of course, the Catholic hypothesis is still falsifiable (which is good; we want that), since some of the data points could not be proven false and Catholicism still be correct: God’s existence and Christ’s resurrection, especially. The difference, however — and this is significant — is the evidence in my estimation falls strongly in favor of those points, and so in favor of the Catholic hypothesis overall.

But there are other worldview hypotheses that are evidenced against, as well, including pantheism or polytheism. And while other monotheistic belief systems and certainly Protestantism can account for some of the data, they fail in other respects (especially concerning the Catholic specific miracles and historical evidence: eucharistic, apparition, origination and endurance of the Catholic Church itself).

Similarly, if Protestantism were true, I would not expect there to still be a Catholic Church with a Pope, etc.

Naturally, there will be push back to this, and different people will respond differently, perhaps as follows: Isn’t evolution more probable on atheism, and, if so, why isn’t that considered, or what about miracle claims of other religions? To the first line of response, I contend that whatever seems more probable on atheism is often superficially the case but ultimately finds a deeper and more satisfying explanation on theism. And so it is only upon an insufficiently critical reflection — and only when paired with a fundamentalist reading of certain Biblical passages — that evolution would appear more probable on atheism than theism. For one thing, what is so improbable about God bringing life about gradually? (note “gradually” applies only to what is created; For God is eternal and sees everything at once.) The answer is hard to find, unless one is committed to 6-day creationism, which (I would argue) is a faulty interpretation for reasons independent of the physical sciences, including internal indications within Genesis itself. Really we have just not gone deep enough: for evolution requires teleology and physical fine tuning, and physical fine tuning is (as many have argued) far more probable on theism than atheism: for if an intentional intellect is behind the ordering of the universe, we might expect to see precision and hallmarks of design in our fundamental, physical set up and… that is precisely what we encounter. That this would occur absent super-intellectual intentionality is beyond surprising, and has left many an atheist-agnostic scientist baffled. As former atheist physicist Fred Hoyle remarked about this, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”

As for other (and possibly competing) miracle claims, these must be taken case by case, but to avoid dragging this article out longer than need be, I’ll leave that investigation up to the reader, and encourage them to take it up. Look into the historical case for the resurrection, the Eucharistic miracles, and Fatima. Then, see how they compare in terms of historical veracity and/or scientific scrutiny to those miracle claims of other religions. You may be surprised.

To summarize, the case for religious particularism is that philosophical reason alongside scientific and historical evidence builds the cumulative and positively powerful case for Catholicism. This does not mean there is no room for doubt, and people can always (and often do) dial up their skepticism when it comes to entertaining positions they may have independent (and perhaps emotional) reasons to reject. But for people who, like my former self, landed rock bottom in their naturalistic atheism, rejected the broad philosophical suite of godless philosophies outright, and then vowed to find answers wherever they may lead, Catholicism is that big, obvious, “look at me!” — the parish you drive by everyday on your way to work, on the street named after some Catholic St. you never previously paid attention to — that so many people in our modern age assume to be little more than spooky, superstitious nonsense, but is the only place — or so I contend — that contains all the deep, soul-searching answers they’ve been looking for.

– Pat

PS – When I say that only Catholicism is true, I don’t mean all other religious/belief systems are wrong from start to finish. That would be too strong, and I believe God can manifest himself in other systems of belief (but with the qualification that these are pointers toward the fullness of truth found only in Catholicism). There are many good and true and beautiful things in the other world religions. So, I only mean that it is true that God exists, that God has revealed himself through the person of Christ, and that Christ founded the Catholic Church. Those are the three essential pillars of Catholicism (God, Christ, Church) and it is to those truths that I — in accord with the best overall, cumulative evidence — attest.

PPS – I’m copying/pasting below a list of books and other resources that I compiled a while back for listeners of my podcast.

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Books That Might Just Make You Catholic ; )

What follows is a list, in no particular order, of resources for people considering (or re-considering) Catholicism from both a philosophy and historical perspective. I’ve separated the resources into their respective categories — whether on the existence of God, divinity of Christ, and/or historical foundations of the Catholic Church — along with a notation of their difficulty.