10 Reasons Why Modernist Christianity Will Die

Standing on My Head ^ | 11/24/09 | Fr. Dwight Longenecker

[annalex]

I know there is a pen on my desk for two reasons: (1) it looks it and (2) there is no reason to think it is something else that only looks like a pen (James Bond's rocket launcher?) If, however, (2) had no longer held, I would have faith in that being a pen, or the opposite faith in that being a rocket launcher. So there is no dissimilarity: the eye of faith applies to the natural world just like it applies to the supernatural. Faith and reason cooperate to produce knowledge. People who think otherwise don't think with enough clarity and suffer from nightmares.

More specifically to Christianity, it is about believing a witness who tells you a story. Ours is a belief in the supernatural because it was revealed in a certain natural and historical context. Here is how St. Justin Martyr explained it in 2c.:

Chapter 30. Was Christ not a magician?
But lest any one should meet us with the question, What should prevent that He whom we call Christ, being a man born of men, performed what we call His mighty works by magical art, and by this appeared to be the Son of God? We will now offer proof, not trusting mere assertions, but being of necessity persuaded by those who prophesied [of Him] before these things came to pass, for with our own eyes we behold things that have happened and are happening just as they were predicted; and this will, we think appear even to you the strongest and truest evidence.

The First Apology

It is, in short, a story.