Journal: Challenges to Faith Challenges to Faith
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1. Summary of the Chapter:In this chapter, Challenges of Faith, we learn that Atheism, Science, and Dehumanization all offer potent challenges to our faith and Faith. Atheists, whether they be the positive (those who make a conscious, deliberate decision that God does not exist), like Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, or the practical (those who claim to support a religion, but in fact, in practice are atheists), like Thomas Hobbes, maintain that religion is ridiculous and pointless and that morality is completely relative. However, Ignatius Loyola opposes their views, supporting the theories that their is a loving God, humanity is destined for something great because of God's plan, acknowledges that we are all unable to reach perfection, reason always prevails, and morality is objective. Science offers the argument that every Catholic belief in a "mystical" event can be easily proved natural through the scientific method, yet; Catholics have for centuries attempted to work with science rather than against it. The history between the relationship between science and faith consists of periods of unreflective unity, reflective disunity, and reflective unity, similar to the relationship of a child to its parent. The challenge of science could also be countered by the limitations of the scientific method: science presupposes the uniformity of nature, science emphasizes empirical knowledge, and the scientific method does not give us certitude. The power of dehumanization, as explained by John Kavanaugh, S.J., is probably the biggest challenge of faith to us today, with consumerism and advertisements running rampant in our lives and causing us to believe that the more goods we have the more happiness we have.
2. Two Important Ideas:1. The Church's relationship with Science is directly related to a parent's relationship with its child: a period of disreflective unity based on lack of knowledge, then an adolescent period of reflective disunity where science/the child questions its superior, and finally a soon-to-be state of reflective unity between the two sides.
2. A person's worldview often depends on their belief in either objective or relative morality, where, if objective, they are more likely to believe in a God, and, if relative, they are more likely to move away from the notion of God.
3. Image that Reminds of the Topic:
4. Greatest Challenges to faith/Faith:Challenges to my faith include people that lie, people that cheat, and the spread of rumors. Meanwhile, advertisements flood our minds with ideas about sex, religion, love, and happiness that blind us to true faith and Faith. My friends are telling me Church is not "cool;" it's cool not to care. Practical atheism is almost becoming a norm. Church leaders in both St. Louis and Belleville have seem to taken a turn for a worse, and all of this adds up to the question: Why believe?