Dear Moen: I was delighted when you made known one day in your Facebook account that you were making an effort to renew your relationship with our good Lord. From a Christian perspective, this only shows how God has been looking for you. “You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,” Aslan the Lion said somewhere in C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.” That statement may as well be Jesus Christ’s word to everyone who reaches for him.
You were often on my mind since the day you forwarded me some questions about matters of faith. I promised to reply but only now found the time to, owing to exigencies that left me pressed for time. My apologies for the delay. May these answers be good starting points for your reflection.
First, you asked, “Why was religion created?”
I do not believe man created religion in the way, say, a confectioner would prepare cotton candy. I believe, rather, that man was drawn to religion by his inborn need to adore a Higher Power.
We don’t need a time machine to visit prehistory and verify among Neanderthals the innateness of this human desire to worship. Current affairs demonstrate that people either believe in God or adore a wide variety of substitutes. One either trusts in a providential Father almighty, or, out of pure disbelief, goes it alone in life in his worship of control. One either finds joy in being a beloved son or daughter of God in Christ, or, misunderstanding this dignity, seeks a different identity in the fading joys of loud fashion statements, killer good looks, bottomless bank accounts, tenaciously held positions of power, self-centered relationships and gluttonous or lustful pursuits.
By religion, therefore, man opens himself to that entity which he believes will guarantee him peace once he dedicates himself to it. Having said that, we pray in earnest that those who expect peace by consecrating themselves to fake gods may steer clear of that path to tragedy.
Second, you asked, “Is it possible that the authors of the Bible wrote to deceive us?” You acknowledged that the Catholic Church teaches that the Bible’s authors wrote inspired by the Holy Spirit. Yet you observed that many people use the Bible to promote their selfish interests.
The deceptiveness of the Bible’s abusers, Moen, does not negate the nobility of its writers. If patriarchs like Moses, Joshua and Samuel wanted to con the world into monotheism, they would have had an easier time if they wrote in the Old Testament about a faithful Hebrew people deserving of the love and protection of God. But they didn’t. They instead chronicled the sins of Israel as part of the epic of salvation. You might insist: To make the lie believable. I would counter: Judaism weathered the tyranny of Egypt’s pharaohs, the wars of David’s time, Rome’s siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 or indeed the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler because it was not founded on scrolls of falsity. In contrast, the polytheism of ancient Rome, a bygone based on unsustainable myth, is now fit only for entertainment.
The Christian authors of the New Testament deem their Old Testament counterparts true because they accurately prophesied the arrival of Christ, the Messiah, God the Son. Note that the gospel according to Saint Matthew, among other things retells how priests and teachers in King Herod’s time knew the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem through a prophecy written in the book of Micah. This is just the tip of the iceberg concerning the culmination of Old Testament prophecies in the person of Christ.
Why doesn’t the Catholic Church doubt the credibility of the Bible’s writers? She doesn’t because they vouched for the truth of their message, one that caused the rise and fall of many, as well as miracles and conversions, to the point of death. Saint Matthew was axed to death, Saint Mark was dragged through the streets of Alexandria, Saint Luke was crucified on an olive tree, Saint John died in old age but not before being thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. (He emerged unscathed.) Would Spirit-led writers die for a lie?
The Church early on screened the biblical books. A book became part of the Bible only if (1) Its authorship could be traced to any of the first generation apostles or their closest companions (2) It was acknowledged by all the major Christian communities in the Mediterranean world by the end of the fourth century (3) It was read publicly along with the Old Testament when early Christians gathered weekly for Mass (4) Its theology complemented the ideas in other accepted Christian writings.
Third, you asked, “Wouldn’t it be better if we all abandoned religion and instead believed in science so that the world would be war-free?”
No. It wouldn’t be better. Religious wars, at least in Christianity (as in the Crusades or the Sack of Constantinople), happened as a result of the perversion of the tenets of Christian faith, not because the faith is evil. Science by itself cannot ensure peace. Doesn’t the world still tremble in fear from the proliferation of the science of nuclear weapons manufacturing? There won’t be peace without faith in Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Fourth and last, you asked, “What would happen if ethics was not introduced by the Church?”
Well, the Catholic Church did not introduce ethics. God himself wrote natural law on the heart of man, enabling him to tell between good and evil. Saint Paul narrated the consequences of ignoring this law: “Women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love… And then all hell broke loose: Rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: Mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!” (Romans 1:26-32)