Engaging in a debate about Catholicism

In reference to an article from last weeks edition of The Record titled “A debate aboout Christianity: faith versus science”,

This was, I can tell, an issue you have deliberated and wrestled with, and admirably so. I would, however, like to make some critiques about some areas.

Firstly, I would say the argument throughout that people claim there is scientific proof is largely untrue. Your argument is contingent, if I am to understand it correctly, on the scientific study and verification of Eucharist miracles as being equivalent to a scientific proof of God, I would offer two points against that. Firstly, there has never been a claim by the Church that there is a way to “scientifically” prove God: “Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of ‘converging and convincing arguments’, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 31). Again, “The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 284). God is not a proof to be written out, but a Being – Being itself, in fact – to engage with. In this I do agree with you that rigorous scientific proof of God is not needed to be a faithful Catholic. (I use the word ‘Catholic’ instead of the more general ‘Christian’ here as it seems your argument is based on specifically Catholic examples such as Eucharistic miracles.)

Secondly, the presence of Eucharistic miracles themselves (and other miracles in the Church: the Shroud of Turin, the Lady of Guadalupe etched in a cloak) are, by definition, an event that transcends the laws of nature. These, while not directly opposed to science (no matter what David Hume may say!), are not consistently testable through the same processes that other scientific events happen. We can test hosts in particular cases (if there is good reasoning to, such as the host bleeding; the Church is usually hesitant to officially approve a Eucharistic miracle), but it will not be a repeatable result. We take as faith that these instances, these special cases of God revealing himself, are simply a more tangible, physically ‘real’ experience than what Catholics know already to be true. As the Angelic Doctor says, “Faith will tell us Christ is present when our human senses fail.”

Again, thank you for the engaging argument.