and valuing truth for its own sake is not simply highly prized but is absolutely demanded, and thus, rigorously and relentlessly pursued across the board. The empirical method has become the primary means of testing the reliability and accuracy of claims by comparing and contrasting them with empirical data. This enables scientists, mathematicians, and so on, to avoid conclusions based on bias rather than objectively verifiable data.1 We can thank God that we actually live in this world. In the world of science, mathematics, accounting, et cetera, discovering and adhering to objective standards of truth are not just important but are rightly regarded as absolutely necessary.
Okay. We all understand that truth is important in math, science, et cetera. No one argues with this. But for some strange reason, many people today seem to take a very unscientific approach to matters of faith and religion. And in my own search for answers to the question, “Why be Catholic?,” I determined early on that merely having a good feeling about the Catholic Church is no substitute for knowing whether or not the teachings of the Catholic Church are true. For me, plausibility is not enough. I need to know whether these teachings are, in fact, the truth. Because if they aren’t, I decided, I want no part of the Catholic Church. In fact, if Catholic teaching is false, or if even some Catholic teachings are false, then, I told myself, I’d hit the door running and never look back.
Over the years, I’ve been challenged by countless Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons with biblical and historical arguments against various truths. Other challenges came from Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and other non-Christians, not to mention atheists. Each in his own way and with his own set of objections, challenged my Catholic beliefs using, variously, the Bible, historical events, logical arguments, claims to revelations that were incompatible with the claims of Jesus Christ, science, and the dull yet forceful cudgel of denying God’s existence. More than a few atheists have over the years taken their fair share of whacks at my belief in God, though with about the same effect as one who attacks a piñata with a feather duster.
As a youth, passing through a gauntlet of arguments Bible-believing critics have used trying to convince me that the Catholic Church is not Christian, I always knew, in the back of my mind, that eventually I would encounter more sophisticated and formidable arguments against the Catholic Church. But when newer and more formidable arguments against Catholic teaching popped up, something fascinating happened each and every time.
I’m talking about how the objective standards of truth I turned to (whether historical, biblical, or logical) always seemed to vindicate the Catholic teaching under question. I say “seemed” in that even if it didn’t seem vindicated in the eyes of the Protestant or the atheist with whom I was discussing matters, I became convinced that the other guy’s argument just didn’t hold water.
Some arguments in defense of the Catholic Church can be tested empirically, others cannot. But this is not a problem because not all evidence needs be scientific to be valid and legitimate. Unlike mathematical or material things, such as atoms, azimuths, and animals, I am not suggesting that theological propositions — such as the existence of God or the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — can be proven scientifically. While there are objective, empirical methods for measuring, verifying, and even disproving theological claims, they cannot be positively proven with mathematical certitude the way, for example, it can be proved that the radius of a circle is equal to pi times its radius squared.
The goal of this book is not so much to prove the truth of Catholic teaching but to show how, using biblical, historical, and logical proofs, one can demonstrate confidently and effectively that Catholic teaching is reasonable, consistent, and compelling. The old saying is true, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Which is why, in this book, I will teach you how to “salt the oats” so that the horse will want to drink the water.
Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft explains what steps one must take in assessing any truth claim, whether scientific or religious, if the one making the assessment wants to be logically consistent and truly open to the facts.2 Regarding the question “Can you prove life after death?” Kreeft says:
Whenever we argue about whether a thing can be proved, we should distinguish five different questions about that thing:
1. Does it really exist or not? “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
2. If it does exist, do we know that it exists? A thing can obviously exist without our knowing it.
3. If we know that it exists, can we be certain of this knowledge? Our knowledge might be true but uncertain; it might be “right opinion.”
4. If it is certain, is there a logical proof, a demonstration of why we have a right to be certain? There may be some certainties that are not logically demonstrable (e.g., my own existence, or the law of noncontradiction).
5. If there is a proof, is it a scientific one in the modern sense of “scientific”? Is it publicly verifiable by formal logic and/or empirical observation? There may be other valid kinds of proof besides proofs by the scientific method.
Kreeft continues:
The fifth point is especially important when asking whether you can prove life after death. I think it depends on what kinds of proof you will accept. It cannot be proved like a theorem in Euclidean geometry; nor can it be observed, like a virus. For the existence of life after death is not on the one hand a logical tautology: its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, as a Euclidean theorem does. On the other hand, it cannot be empirically proved or disproved (at least before death) simply because by definition all experience before death is experience of life before death, not life after death.
“If life after death cannot be proved scientifically, is it then intellectually irresponsible to accept it?”
Only if you assume that it is intellectually irresponsible to accept anything that cannot be proved scientifically. But that premise is self-contradictory (and therefore intellectually irresponsible)!
You cannot scientifically prove that the only acceptable proofs are scientific proofs.
You cannot prove logically or empirically that only logical or empirical proofs are acceptable as proofs.
You cannot prove it logically because its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, and you cannot prove it empirically because neither a proof nor the criterion of acceptability are empirical entities.
Thus scientism (the premise that only scientific proofs count as proofs) is not scientific; it is a dogma of faith, a religion.
When assessing the truth claims of the Catholic Church, scientifically verifiable evidence is important and helpful, but it is not the only kind of evidence to consider. John Henry Newman, for example, arrived at his conclusion that “to become deep in history is to cease to be Protestant,” in part because of the power of the objective historical data he analyzed. But it also involved his willingness to draw the necessary conclusions toward which the data points.
For example, as early as the year A.D. 90, Pope Clement issued directives to the members of the church at Corinth on how they were to resolve certain vexing controversies that roiled that Christian community. In breathtakingly direct language, he asserted his authority over their affairs in a way that one could only expect would have provoked indignation from the Corinthians unless his authority were not recognized by them.3
“Hey, Clement,” one can just imagine the Corinthian leaders retorting, “mind your own business! You take care of your church and we’ll take care of ours.” But they did no such thing. In fact, for generations the Church in Corinth revered Pope Clement’s letter, regarding it as inspired Scripture and including
