The Reasonableness of Catholic Belief

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 26, 5 July 1923, Page 26

The Reasonableness of Catholic Belief

' (LECTURE BY REV. L. BUXTON* D.D., M.A.) At a recent meeting of the Catholic University Stu- > dents’ Club, of Dunedin, a lecture on the “Reasonableness of Catholic Belief” was delivered by Rev. L. Buxton, D.D., M.A., of Holy Cross College, Mosgiel, in the presence of a good audienCe. The president (Mr. R. O’Regan) was chairman. The lecturer prefaced his address by .remarking that if the young men and women of to-day, especially those attending the universities, were to retain a strong grip of the faith of their fathers, at least a realisation of the solid foundation of reason on which their faith was based was necessary. In a single lecture on this subject, it would be impossible to do more than explain the basic position and to trace the general proofs. Others might later develop important points. Faith was simply the acceptance of truth on the word of God. God’s assistance was ever with the man making an act of faith, but God’s part in the work did not render man’s part unreasonable. The greater part of our -knowledge we accept on trust from others— our parents, professors, friends. All we require is to be reasonably certain our informants are not deceived themselves and are not deceiving us. God, we know, knows all truth, and cannot lead us astray. All we have to assure ourselves about is, then, whether God has even asked men to believe anything. This is simply a question of history. But why do we bother about it at all? Here the lecturer made a brief survey of history, and showed that always even among the most primitive peoples, a religion of some sort has been practised. Science, he declared, has not succeeded in proving the existence of a. religionless people, and he gave some interesting results from the study of some of the most backward peoples known to-day. Religion, then, is found among all men, and this points to its being called for by the depths of his nature. What a medley of beliefs and practices, however, does the study of the history of religions give us! Left to himself, man seems powerless to propose a system of religion which will answer with assurance the all important questions he wants to know about his origin and his end, or to suggest a system of morality in following which he will have complete trust. Perhaps God, ever mindful of the necessi- ■ ties of the creature of His, Hands, has made known to man in what man’s end consists and how it is to be obtained. The lecturer showed how there was nothing to take exception to in this idea, and that its truth seemed so probable that, considering the supreme importance of the matter, .no one could rightly neglect the question. Among the figures of history who had declared they had a message from God to man none was so striking as Christ. Could He be believed, was it reasonable for ns to trust Him and accept His doctrine and practice His morality? It was not immediately necessary to show whether Christ was God Himself or no ; it was sufficient to see whether Christ could prove His claim to be a messenger from God. If He were, then there must be signs by which we can be morally certain, signs which come from God alone. The lecturer now proceeded to outline briefly the various credentials for Christ’s divine authority. The pels, he., insisted must be taken as historical documents simply, and he showed how the modern critic had been driven to admit that, at least substantially, the Gospels were to be fully trusted. Christ’s doctrine, he went on to show, was the completion of the preaching of the ancient prophets, a preaching that, in spite of every humanobstacle, maintained its harmonious development until Christ * so perfected it that the result, Christianity, so transcended every other system of life philosophy or religion, that the finger of God’s Hand was plainly visible. The prophets, too, had, during the space of hundreds of years, added . each as it were a stroke to the pen picture of Christ, that God’s directive power shone clearly forth. The sublimity of Christ’s doctrine, its miraculous spread in a world ./steeped deeply in vices absolutely opposed to it, the heroic constancy of the numberless martyrs of every age and

condition who fearlessly professed that doctrine and calmly died for it,, all this pointed to God’s power behind Christianity. The lecturer now developed more at length the proof from miracles. He showed how a'miracle was not opposed to the laws of nature rightly understood. God alone could work a true miracle; In developing the tests of miracles, he emphasised the truly scientific manner in which-mir-acles are treated by the Catholic Church, for still, he declared, this test of divine sanction remains with us. The lecturer completed this section of his address , by the words of St. Augustine: “Either evident miracles were performed in the work of converting the world, and then Christianity is divine and approved by God; or no miracle was performed, and then the very conversion of the world without a miracle is the greatest miracle of all, as altogether contrary to the laws of the moral order.” God then guaranteed everything. Christ taught and did. One thing He taught was His own Divinity; one thing He did was to set up a society or Church. That Church had several distinctive features, and these features we find reproduced to-day in the Church that claims to be of Christ and in that Church alone. In conclusion, the lecturer pointed out that it clearly followed that to place complete trust in the teaching of that Church to which Christ had promised His unfailing assistance was most reasonable.

At the conclusion, a very hearty vote of thanks was accorded the lecturer on the motion of Mr. J. B. Callao, seconded by Dr. O’Neill. . .