Why I'm Catholic (Sola Scriptura leads atheist to Catholic Church)

Et Tu ^ | October 23, 2007 | Jennifer F.

[NYer]

When I was 26, I had never once believed in God. Raised entirely without religion, I was a contented atheist and thought it was simply obvious that God did not exist. I thought that religion and reason were incompatible, and was baffled by why anyone would believe in God (I actually suspected that few people really did). After a few years in the Bible Belt, I became vocally anti-Christian. Imagine my surprise to find myself today, just three years later, a practicing Catholic who loves her faith (I entered the Church at Easter 2007). This is the chronicle of my journey.

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I am asked with increasing frequency why I converted to Catholicism as opposed to one of the other Christian denominations. Though this blog is sort of one long conversion story, I've never put together a post summarizing that part of my journey because that subject matter can be a hot (and divisive) topic.

Also, these types of posts are often interpreted to have an implication that people who have had different experiences and have come to different conclusions about religion and God are wrong and therefore not going to be saved. I want to make it really clear that that is not what I believe (nor what the Church believes -- in fact, one of the many things that resonated as true about Catholic teaching is the belief that non-Catholics and non-Christians could also go to heaven).

Anyway, I've decided to go ahead and write about that part of the conversion process, but I want to add a big disclaimer that I'm sharing this in the spirit of telling my story. I am far too concerned about what I see happening in the world today to have any interest in causing division among Christians. We're in this together.

As always, please take this for what it is: the ramblings of some fool with an internet connection. :) Take it (and everything else I write) with a grain of salt.

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My search for God really began in earnest when I started reading up on Christianity. For a couple years I'd been making half-hearted attempts to open my mind to the possibility of God's existence but it never really went anywhere. And then I stumbled across some reasonable Christian writers who laid out a logical case for Jesus having actually existed, the events as described in the New Testament having actually happened, and for Jesus being who he said he was (former atheist Lee Strobel's Case for Christ has a nice, quick summary). Not that these authors "proved" their case irrefutably or that no arguments could be made against them, but they had a much more compelling, evidence-based case than I'd thought they had. I was intrigued.

I decided to see what it meant to be a Christian. Some bad childhood experiences had left me with a bad taste in my mouth about the religion, but I decided to give it my best effort to start fresh, exploring this belief system with an open mind. I bought a copy of the Bible.

Before I even opened the cover, we had a problem.

I wanted to know if the people who did the English translation of this version were said to have been inspired by God as the writers of the original texts were. When I found out the answer was no, I was concerned. Translators have a lot of leeway and can really impact a text. If this book could potentially be the key to people knowing or not knowing God, I was uneasy about reading a 21st century English version of texts that were written in far different cultures thousands of years ago, translated by average people. Could God not have inspired all translators? Though I was concerned, I decided to set the issue aside for the time being and move on.

Somewhere around page two, we had another problem.

I found the creation story fit surprisingly well with what we know of the origin of the universe through science, albeit in symbolic form. I could definitely believe that this was true. I could not, however, believe that it was a journalistic style account of events, like something you'd read in the newspaper. So I immediately needed to know: is it required of Christians to believe that Genesis is to be taken literally? I asked people and looked around online, and quickly found that there was not unanimous agreement on this. I found people who laid out a pretty good case that, yes, it is required of Christians to believe that Genesis is a literal, blow-by-blow description of events that happened about 6,000 years ago; yet others made a good case that Christians should believe that it is truth conveyed through symbolism. I really couldn't tell who I should believe.

I decided to move on and get to what I really wanted to know about: the Christian moral code. One of the things that had originally piqued my interest in religion in the first place was the fact that humans throughout history have all had this same sense that objective truth exists, what is "right" and "wrong" is not subjective. Also, I had begun to feel confused and lost when I looked at the world around me. This was around the time of the Terri Schiavo controversy, and when I tried to weigh issues like that, as well as the other big ethical dilemmas like human cloning, research on embryos, etc. I just felt sad and adrift. I really didn't know what was right or wrong, yet I had this vague sense that a true "right" answer must be out there somewhere. If there was a God, surely he had opinions about these things. And surely he could guide me to find them.

So I picked the Bible back up and continued reading.

One example of the type of answers I was searching for was what Christianity had to say about abortion. At the time I considered myself staunchly "pro-choice", yet something had started to nag at me about that position. I felt uneasy about the whole thing, and wanted to know if Christianity said that God is OK with abortion or not. I read through the New Testament (eventually reading it cover to cover), and couldn't find much. I kept instinctively flipping to the last page for some sort of answer key. How was I supposed to find the part where God tells us what he thinks about terminating pregnancies? Someone recommended that I get a concordance. I was happy to do that, but it felt strange: in order to know how to live as a Christian you need a Bible and a concordance? And were the writers of the concordance inspired? What if they missed something big or made a mistake?

I wasn't coming up with much so I Googled around to see what Christians had to say about it. And I found as many different opinions as I found people, everyone offering Bible verses to back up their claims. Each person stated their interpretation confidently as a fact -- yet they contradicted one another. When I looked up the verses they cited in my own Bible, sometimes I felt they were right-on, other times I felt they were taken out of context, and other times I didn't even know what the context was (e.g. some Old Testament verses where I just had no idea what was going on).

What frequently happened when I was looking for Biblical answers to my ethical dilemmas was that I'd read two contradictory opinions from two different Christians. I'd decide that Christian #1 made the best case based on Scripture, so I had my answer. But then Christian #2 would come back with a new verse that I'd never seen before that shed new light on it, and then I'd think his case must be the right one. And then Christian #1 would come up with yet another verse and I'd think he had the right answer. And then...well, you get the idea. It seemed that in order to form my own opinion about any of these issues I'd have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible to make sure I didn't miss anything.

So I started reading. I decided to skip ahead to the New Testament since that's where Jesus comes in. And, as with the Old Testament, we quickly had a problem. Here is a sort of sample discussion I'd have with whatever Christian I could find to pester with questions:

ME: Ack! I just read this part in the New Testament where Jesus tells some rich dude he has to give away all his stuff! If I decide this Christianity thing is true am I going to have to give away all my stuff?! [Worried glace at brand new Dell Inspiron laptop.]

FRIEND: Hah! No, don't worry, Jesus was just talking to that one guy.

ME: Where does it say that? Does he later clarify that that instruction was only for that one guy?

FRIEND: No, but that's clearly how he meant it.

ME: That's not clear to me. Anyway, there's this part where he tells this woman Martha that her sister Mary did the right thing by putting Jesus before trivial stuff. Was that only a lesson for her?

CHRISTIAN: No, that's a lesson for all of us.

ME: [Flipping to last page to look for answer key.] Where is that clarified?

This usually ended with my Christian acquaintances telling me to let the Holy Spirit guide me (and probably making a mental note to find less annoying friends). Even though I wasn't sure I believed in God, I had been praying through this whole process. So I prayed for guidance. I asked God to lead me to the right conclusion about all these questions, to speak to me through Scripture about everything from abortion and experimentation on human embryos to whether or not I needed to give away all my stuff.

After a while of praying, reading the Bible, and visiting some churches, I felt like I had some conclusions. I decided that a good Biblical case could be made for "a woman's right to choose" (as I thought of it then), that I didn't need to give away all my stuff, that it was probably OK to experiment on embryos if it was for curing diseases, etc. I'd felt led to these conclusions, presumably by God, and had found some scriptures that would seem to support them.

But something didn't feel right.

As I continued thinking and praying about whether or not I'd come to the right conclusions about what God wants for us, I realized what the problem was, the reason I couldn't relax: I couldn't trust myself. You have to understand, I am a seriously sinful, selfish person. I realized that my self-serving nature severely clouded my ability to be confident in my interpretation Scripture. I had some pretty passionate opinions about all of these issues, and it was so hard to tell what was leading me to my conclusions. Was my decision that the Bible would be OK with me continuing in my comfy American lifestyle led by the "Holy Spirit" or "Jen's seriously deep desire not to give away all her stuff"? I couldn't tell.

My confusion about all of this made me wonder how people who are severely unintelligent could use the Bible as their guide. I'm probably in the middle of the Bell curve on intelligence, and I was really struggling. For that matter, what about the illiterate? Widespread literacy is a relatively recent phenomenon, yet people who couldn't read couldn't use the Bible as their guide. They'd have to go through another, fallible person, which seemed dangerous.

Taking all of this as a whole, the writing was on the wall, so to speak. Christianity did not seem to be the path to God, if he even did exist. At least not for me. I was just too sinful, too selfish to trust myself to get it right. I felt as adrift as ever in terms of the big ethical questions of our day. Though I thought I might have "experienced" God or the Holy Spirit or something from outside the material world a few times in my exploration, using the Christian holy book to find out how God would want me to live was just not working. I was leaning towards moving on to the next religion, seeking God through some other belief system. I prayed for guidance.


Around this time someone told me that one of the Christian denominations claimed that God did leave us this "answer key" I'd been yearning for. I found out that the Catholic Church claimed to be a sort of divinely-guided Supreme Court, that God guided this Church to be inerrant in its official proclamations about what is right and wrong, how to interpret the Bible, how to know Jesus Christ, and all other questions of God and what he wants us to do.

That got my attention.

Clearly there was a need for this. Surely I was not the only person to ever feel lost in the world, unable to trust myself to objectively interpret the Bible to discern what God wants from us, unable to clearly tell which of my conclusions about right and wrong were guided by the Holy Spirit and which were guided by deeply-rooted selfishness (or perhaps something worse).

Now, obviously I wasn't going to become Catholic. I mean, the Catholic Church is weird and antiquated and sometimes the people in it do seriously bad stuff. But I was interested to at least explore this line of thinking and see what I found.

I could have never, ever imagined what I'd find. Reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church was like nothing I'd ever experienced. This was truth. I knew it. I'd finally found it. It described God, our relationship to him, the Bible, Jesus, moral truths -- the entire human experience -- in a way that resonated on a deep level.

When I started living my life according to Catholic teaching the proof was, as they say, in the pudding. It worked. It worked better than I could have ever guessed it would. And since I've been able to receive what they say is really the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, my soul, my entire life, has changed profoundly. But that is whole separate story (and, really, the main subject of this blog). To summarize my experience, I leave you with a quote from G.K. Chesterton, writing about why he converted to orthodox Catholicism:

I do it because the [Catholic Church] has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is true. Alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive; it turns out to be right, like my father in the garden.

My thoughts exactly.

Again, I share this not to cause division, but for the same reason anyone talks about anything they love -- that mysterious desire we all have to shout from the rooftops about the things that we find to be profound, beautiful, and true.

[Wonder Warthog]

"To this very day Catholic/Orthodox chr*stians reject Jewish Holy Tradition as man-made and imply that the ancient Jews were supposed to go by the written text of the "old testament" alone. Supposedly Jewish Oral Tradition leads one away from chr*stological interpretation of the OT while the simple text itself causes it to "jump out" at the reader (not true, by the way)."

WHEREEVER did you get this idea?? You're quite wrong. I've seen knowledgeable Catholic apologists make very effective use of "Jewish Holy Tradition" to make certain areas of the Old Testament more understandable. Of course, Protestants don't believe in either sort of Tradition,

The one point the Catholics assert is that the validity of those traditions end with the ascension of Jesus, and that they are not binding on non-Jewish Christians by virtue of revelations of the Holy Spirit to St. Peter.

And in fact, if you read the conversion stories of some prominent Jewish converts to Catholicism, you'll see that they continue to follow those traditions in addition to their new Catholic ones.

[Claud]

I read it but found precious little comfort in it. You basically said the literal truth of the text must be accepted absolutely but then defined that term out of existence.

I'm dealing with the reality of the tradition we've received--which is not at all unanimous.

Otherwise, tell me whose "literal" reading we accept? Rashi? Maimonedes? Which rabbi or combination of rabbis? Which Church Father or combination of them? Augustine or Basil? Which school? You know as well as I that there are competing interpretations even among the most literalist.

The literal truth of the text must be upheld absolutely. But no interpreter Zionist, nor school of interpretation gets to define what "literal" is. And that includes you, and that includes me.

[papertyger]

...vanity of vanities; all is vanity

[papertyger]

So are you saying “Bible only” is an unacceptable description, and “There is no authority over & above Scripture” is acceptable?

[Claud]

I keep observing that Catholics/Orthodox are essentially making Jewish arguments to Protestants--arguments that taken with logical consistency must legitimize the scorned Jewish Oral Tradition, while simultaneously making Protestant arguments in their anti-Jewish apologetics (argments that taken to their logical conclusion would delegitimize their own oral traditions). Yet no one seems to notice this!

As I said before and still believe, yours is an excellent point that we Christians ignore at our peril.

However, here's the rub. The Jewish tradition itself--or at least certain schools of thought in it that certainly cannot be ignored--held that aspects of the Mosaic Law would be abrogated in the days of King Messiah. Add to that various concepts of the Messiah ben Joseph. And then realize that the only *binding* decision of the Sanhedrin at the behest of Gamaliel was a wait-and-see attitude toward Christianity, to see if it would take off or die on its own.

Adding all that up, I'm not so sure we can agree with those later rabbis at Jamnia and elsewhere that believed Christianity to be outside the pale of Jewish tradition. Seems to me once a bunch of Jews decided that *this* person was the Messiah--a decision that was not officially rejected by the Sanhedrin--they were wholly within the scope of their tradition to believe that the Mosaic Law was no longer binding and to no longer follow it.

[Claud]

He actually has an excellent point. but see my #85

[LurkingSince'98]

Dear between,

“only trust in God and believe in Jesus Christ” per John 3:16? Only? That’s it? That’s all you need do???

What about John 6:53-58? Are you doing that between??

Or are you part of the John 6:60-66 crowd??

After all Sola Sciptura is sola scriptura - what about that scriptura?? Just Curious
Lurking’

[NYer]

Sola scriptura does not teach there are no authorities for the Christian but scripture, rather that scripture, since it is the purest communication we have from the original Apostles, correctly understood is the FINAL authority.

Then you should have no problem providing a Scriptural reference for that statement.

[AnalogReigns]

I agree with you, on your argument, however I take a middle path: Namely that Jesus’ rejection of Jewish tradition was only where it contradicted the bible, and made itself a rival authority to Holy Scripture itself. Of course the layers of Jewish tradition were significant by Jesus’ day, and where it subverted the Torah Jesus was very upset and severe about...

In the same way the earliest Protestants were very upset and severe about old Roman Catholic traditions when they came to read and understand scripture itself. This is one reason why especially in the Reformation period, even until relatively recently, bible reading and study has been discouraged among Roman Catholics. One can go too far however, as many of the more radical strands of Protestant theologies have—particularlly where they are most free, that is in America. Many American Protestants have a reflexive view that ANY tradition at all is suspect and to be rejected. This may have as much to do with the “rebel” attitude which is so quinessentailly American, as it does with Protestant roots—as the original reformers, for the most part, were unwilling to throw out their Christian past, to supposedly look just at the New Testament—pretending to be without any interpretive history in-between. The writings of Luther, Calvin, and even Zwingli, are full of references to medieval and patristic scholars; they made no pretence that they alone in history knew how to interpret scipture correctly. Unfortunately for your average American Protestant today, especially among evangelicals, rejecting all that comes before is exactly what happens. Emphasis on the bible becomes the Bible ONLY without any respect at all for 2000 years (let alone 4000 years...) of bible-interpretive history.

I believe the original magesterial Protestants were right, tradition should be repected, but only as it comes under the final authority of God’s inspired word, the scripture. Many heavily emphasized Roman doctrines do not (such as the near-deification of Mary, for example) hence are rightly rejected—in spite of many hundreds of years of tradition supporting them. It appears this was Jesus’ Himself practice too—He didn’t oppose tradition in all ways, only in those ways were tradition had no scriptural foundation—where it subverted actual Torah law.

[NYer]

Does she really believe that "real presence" stuff? Maybe science should investigate and make a definitive pronouncement (like they did on the creation of the universe)!

Science has already done this.

In 1970-'71 and taken up again partly in 1981 there took place a scientific investigation by the most illustrious scientist Prof. Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy. He was assisted by Prof. Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena.

The analyses were conducted with absolute and unquestionable scientific precision and they were documented with a series of microscopic photographs.
These analyses sustained the following conclusions:

• The Flesh is real Flesh. The Blood is real Blood.
  
  
• The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
  
  
• The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart.
  
  
• In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium.
  
  
• The Flesh is a "HEART" complete in its essential structure.
  
  
• The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB (Blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin).
  
  
• In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of the fresh normal blood.
  
  
• In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
  
  
• The preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.

Miracle of Lanciano

[wmfights]

Actually I would like people to explain to me why Catholic Teachings are not Biblical?

Immaculate conception, Assumption, purgatory, Sabatine Privelege just to name a few are not Scriptural.

It is a common fact that the Bible was put together in 397 AD at the Council Of Carthage by the Catholic Church and ratified by Pope Boniface.

Actually they came to the party kind of late. If this is when the Canon was formed how did Jerome know which books to translate into the Vulgate.

[Between the Lines]

How do you know what books belong in the Bible?

I don't. Why did the Church add 7 books to the Bible 1200 years after first compiling it?

What teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are not in the Bible?

I don't know. Let's go for the short list and tell me what teachings of the RCC are in the Bible and we can go from there.

The Bible was not meant to be read cover to cover.

You are right, if it were it would be in chronological order.

It was designed to be read in the Mass.

I am sure that will come to a great surprise to the original authors/Author.

[wmfights]

Trusting the Church IS trusting other Christians. DUH!

How do you know they got it right?

When he said, "This is my body," that isn't the truth. He only meant, "This is a reminder of my body."

Does the RCC teach the difference between literal and figurative speech in any Bible studies?

When he said, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,"...

What exactly was Peter confessing and what exactly are the "Keys"? I'll give you a hint the ROCK is whom? The key thing you must do to be saved is?

[wmfights]

Simple is "better?"

Yes!

[papertyger]

rather that scripture ...correctly understood is the FINAL authority

That qualifier would seem so broad as to make the statement meaningless.

[Between the Lines]

Only? That’s it? That’s all you need do???

If you read my post in context you will see that it was referring to Jennifer's trust issues. "Only trust is God" was about whom she should trust, it was not a recipe for being a Christian.

After all Sola Sciptura is sola scriptura - what about that scriptura??

Sorry, even though I am Southern Baptist, I am not part of the sola scriptura crowd.

[wmfights]

There is no authority over & above Scripture (Scripture taken as a whole, not just snippets here or there to support a position about something). Teachings outside of Scripture may be fruitful, but if they contradict Scripture they must be rejected.

Very well said.

When clearly explained it becomes obvious why Sola Scriptura must be rejected by the RCC. If you accept this it would diminish the authority of the magesterium and tradition.

[AnalogReigns]

Sola scriptura does not teach there are no authorities for the Christian but scripture, rather that scripture, since it is the purest communication we have from the original Apostles, correctly understood is the FINAL authority.

Then you should have no problem providing a Scriptural reference for that statement.

Scripture is not a textbook of systematic theology, so you know as well as I no that bible verse I can come up with will satisfy your standard for an answer in the abstract. However, St. Paul's statement below, speaking of scripture, has no equal in scripture about any other authority. Therefore logically by omission, all other authorities, as godly and helpful as they can be, must be subject to God's word:

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom* you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."(II Timothy 3:14-17)
*[that is St. Paul, an Apostle, an eyewitness to the resurrected Christ]

There are no verses in Holy Scripture which give as high an estimate to any other authority, that is as actually being "God breathed," be that the current body of Christ itself, or its tradition.

Tradition is valuable, but only in as much as it is under the authority of God, communicated in his Word.

[Grudgebringer]

“I don’t. Why did the Church add 7 books to the Bible 1200 years after first compiling it?”

They didn’t The Council of Carthageon 28 August 397 issued a canon of the Bible restricted to: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Paralipomenon, Job, Psalter of David, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Esdras, 2 books of Machabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 of him to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Judas, and the Apocalypse of John.

Ask me what is not in the Bible and I will show you where it is.

“It was designed to be read in the Mass.

I am sure that will come to a great surprise to the original authors/Author.”

Show me it wasn’t meant to be read in Mass. The Canon wasn’t settled until the council of Carthage.

People didn’t have books back then. They were too expensive. Not only that literacy wasn’t a common thing. They only read the Bible in Mass.

[papertyger]

Yes!

Ever considered the "simplicity" of a single living cell?

You might like things that are simple, but they have to be complex enough to function in a real-world environment or they're useless.