Checking your brain at the door!

One thing that I think people sometimes get hung up on with faith/religion is that they feel they have to check their brain at the door before entering the church... that all reason must be set aside if they are to believe what they are going to be told. I think that's very untrue. Granted, there are things that I don't understand, and I may never understand, but I don't just dismiss them as untrue. Sometimes, however, people will think that if there isn't an adequate explanation, that must mean something is not true. I don't think I've heard a good explanation of the theory of relativity that brings it down to my level, but it's still been proven true through the evidence. So I'll still believe it.

Interestingly, even though people don't want to check their brain at the door when it comes to faith and religion (and I don't think they should), it's almost like they make a conscience effort to do so by their own strong will. People should not be expected to set aside their reasoning ability, nor should they be doing it to themselves. People seem to fail to apply the same amount of reason to their faith as they do to the rest of their life. You can tell someone about a news story that seems somewhat unbelievable. Then you present the evidence to that person. If the evidence is reasonable, usually the person will believe you. However, when it comes to matters of the faith, you can point out the truth to someone. You can point out the evidence for the truth and against their erroneous belief, yet no matter how much their ideas contradict each other, they will not let them go. It's simply amazing.

Here's an example from my conversations with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They like to tell you that they have a very accurate translation of the Bible. They like to point out how different passages between the New World Translation match up with how your Bible translation reads. Many times this is true, until you start to get to passages where their translation is so obviously tainted by their agenda of pushing the Watchtower's beliefs. As you may already be aware, Jehovah's Witnesses are very big on calling God by their interpretation of His Hebrew name in the Old Testament, which they believe to be Jehovah. Here's where things get interesting with their Bible translation, the New World Translation (NWT for short).

Let me refer you to this article from the Watchtower's website:

God's Name and the "New Testament"

Interestingly, they freely admit that God's name DOES NOT appear anywhere in the New Testament "in full". (Except,as they claim, in an abbreviated form as part of the word "Hallelujah".) Now, in the NWT, they have taken the liberty of adding in God's name in many, many places.

Also refer to this link from the Watchtower website:

"Hallowed Be Your Name"—What Name?

Here they say, "If someone deliberately changes or omits part of the contents of the Bible, he is tampering with the inspired Word." I agree with this.

So why is it that the Watchtower feels that tampering with scripture is so serious, yet they then proceed to insert what they believe to be God's name all over the place in the New Testament. They do this while admitting that none of the Greek manuscripts contain His name as mentioned above.

Granted, they give many reasons why they believe God's name should be there, but that doesn't make it OK to tamper with scripture. I believe in the Trinity. I believe all the evidence is there to believe in the Trinity. Does that give me the right to go and insert the word "Trinity" where I see fit in my own Bible translation? NO! Can I get an AMEN? AMEN!

So anyway, I decided to bring this up with the JW's when they visited. As best I can recall, the conversation was along these lines (this is just a simplified version):

Me: "The Watchtower has this quote in one of the publications that talks about tampering with scripture." ---I read the quote.--- "Would you agree with this?"

JW: Yes, it is a serious matter.

Me: Do you believe we have accurate Greek manuscripts from which to translate the Bible.

JW: Yes.

Me: "Here's another quote from the Watchtower." ---I read the quote about God's name not showing up in any of the Greek manuscripts.--- "So if the name isn't in the manuscripts, and you believe we have accurate manuscripts, then why does the Watchtower insert His name in the NWT Bible? Isn't that tampering with scripture?"

JW: "Well, I believe that over time, superstition concerning the use of God's name as well as copying errors crept into the Bible."

Me: "So then you don't believe we have accurate Greek manuscripts?"

JW: "That's not what I said."

Me: "I don't understand how this adds up. You believe that superstition and copying errors have crept into the Bible. But at the same time you believe the manuscripts are accurate. How can you believe both of those things at the same time? That seems contradictory."

From here, he just tried to go into explanations as to why it's reasonable to believe that God's name was in the original manuscripts. He could not admit that his beliefs contradicted each other. He could only move on to another subject.

I can only hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will let things like this weigh on his heart and help him to become open to the truth. This example is why I said that I feel people make the choice to check their brain at the door. There is no way to reconcile his contradictory beliefs, yet he seems not to care.

Perhaps it's cases like this that cause others to think that all faiths require you to set your reasoning ability aside. It is good motivation to know why it is that you believe what you do.

Apologetics Approach

I tend to think that people often times approach the defense of the truth in the wrong manner. Of course a lot of your approach will depend on the person you are discussing the truth with.

Hopefully people know why they've decided to believe what they do. However, if you only believe something because it's what you've always believed and you don't know the reasons why it's true, it'll probably be difficult to explain the reasons for your faith to someone of another faith. Here might be an example of this:

Catholic: "I believe in the Trinity."

Jehovah's Witness: "Really? Why? That's not supported by scripture!"

Catholic: "I've been taught about the Trinity all my life. I just know it's true."

Jehovah's Witness: "Can you show me where that is in scripture?"

Catholic: "No one has ever asked me that. I don't know where to tell you to look."

Jehovah's Witness: "Let me show you how scripture doesn't support the Trinity."

And so the conversations goes... The two people look into the scriptural evidence and the Catholic may very well become a Jehovah's Witness. I don't say this because I think scripture is against the Trinity. Scripture does support the Trinity very well. I say this because the Catholic didn't know his faith well enough and didn't know scripture well enough. At the very least he didn't know where to look or he didn't put the effort into prayer and research before converting. A few verses get brought up against the Trinity and the Catholic doesn't know what to say. (One of the JW's that's been visiting me has said that he used to be Catholic, but now he's a convert to the JW church because Catholicism isn't supported by scripture while the JW beliefs are.)

If you don't know your faith well enough as a Catholic, then you're better off turning people of other faiths away when they come to your door. That's just my opinion. However, I feel there is also an exception to this... If you think you'd like to share the truth with them, then you'd better be willing to spend the time in prayer and time looking for the answers to questions about your faith that will arise during the conversations. If you are not willing to do this, your visitors could leave with the impression that there is no support for your faith. In that case, you've strengthened their faith in their lies. Your faith could also get weakened in the process. People like the JW's and the Mormons find easy targets in those that don't know their faith.

Now back to the subject of apologetics approach. I believe when you are talking to someone of another faith, it's best to understand why they believe what they do and where they are coming from. With that knowledge, you can meet them where they are and explain the truth in terms that they need to hear it. Often times I think people make the mistake of showing others the truth through their own eyes. It's approached like this, "You should believe these things for reasons X, Y, And Z. X, Y, and Z are what I consider important, so if I can convince you of these three things, you will believe the truth like I do." The problem is that the person you are talking to may not consider X, Y, and Z important at all.

Let me give you an example. When I was Baptist, I believed in Sola Scriptura (Bible Alone). There was no validity to church tradition. Things outside the Bible were not trustworthy. Heresy crept in over time. If you believed something, it had better be supported in scripture. Now, when I talked to Catholics, they could tell me what they believed, but often times they could not support it from scripture or their support seemed weak at the time. They could mention Church History, or Tradition, but that did not matter to me. Ultimately what would get the ball rolling was disproving me on my own grounds. I needed to see that Sola Scriptura was not Biblical in and of itself. I needed to see that my beliefs about Baptism and the Eucharist were not Biblical. I think that's ultimately what opened the door to looking at other evidence for the Catholic faith. The point is, if I only believe the Bible is true, then the best starting point is to talk to me about the truth based on the Bible. Don't start with Tradition or the early church fathers. That's not what I needed at that time. It was helpful in the end, but likely not the best starting point.

Let's extend this example to the JW's. They believe the New World Translation of the Bible is the most correct. After looking at it and doing a little homework, I can tell you that is complete non-sense, but they believe it none-the-less. If you take the time to find this out from them, you at least have a starting point. Now, if you're going to discuss the Trinity with them based on scripture, then you'd better make sure that you know how the verses you plan to quote are translated in the New World Translation. Otherwise they can just tell you that your translation is not very good. I can tell you that the NWT massacres many of the passages that have to do with the divinity of Jesus. So find verses like John 20:28 where Tomas says to Jesus, "My Lord and my God." This one is translated correctly in the NWT. Don't go with verses like John 1:1 where a normal translation refers to Jesus as "God" where the NWT refers to Jesus as "a god". This will get you nowhere UNLESS you are prepared to discuss the process of Biblical Greek translation with them. I will cover this in another blog post to come.

An example from the Mormons is that you're best bet is probably not to point out how the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible. Mormons don't believe the Bible is as accurate as the Book of Mormon. So if there's a problem, the Book of Mormon wins, hands down. My suggestion is to point out the truth and contradictions starting with their own books. For example, passages in the Book of Mormon indicate that Joseph Smith used to believe in some form of the trinity when he starting writing the Book of Mormon. These things are going to be bigger stumpers, in my opinion, than pointing out Biblical passages that they can just tell you are mistakes.

Let's look at St. Paul for an example. He knew the Jews believed in what we call the Old Testament section of the Bible. So he would reason with the Jews from the scriptures to prove that Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 17:2). He doesn't try to prove that Jesus was the Messiah simply because Jesus appeared to him on the road. St. Paul, in talking with the pagans, pointed out that they had an alter to an "Unknown God". He then told them that he knew who that God was, and he went on to proclaim the truth. He didn't just start talking about Hebrew scriptures that wouldn't have meant anything to the pagans. St. Paul met people where they were at. He discussed the truth from their perspective. He didn't just tell them that they needed to believe for the same reasons he converted.

Bear in mind that the process of spreading the truth is what we are called to do and I'm just giving tips on what I think a good approach is. Ultimately what is most important is that you put this work in the hands of God. Pray that they Holy Spirit will work in their lives. Pray that you will be given the words to say that these people need to hear. Pray that their hearts will be opened to the truth. Pray, pray, pray... Not praying and just relying on your own knowledge is a fallacy that's easy to fall into. I know I've done it! I just have to keep telling myself that this is God's work and put it all in His hands.

With that, I'll end here. I'll start talking about more specifics with apologetics concerning the Jehovah's Witnesses in my next post.

Witnessing to the Heretics

It's been a while since I've created a post, so here I go again. Fr. Erik suggested that I document my dealings with the Jehovah's Witnesses on my blog. (For those that don't know, they've been coming to talk to my wife and me for several weeks in hopes that they can get us to convert.) That's sounded like a good idea. Most people just dismiss the JW's when they come to the door, but I think that few actually know what they believe because they have never talked to them. JW's remind me of the Mormons in a certain sense. They would totally disagree with the Mormons, but here's what they seem to have in common...

Both groups start out with talks about the hope we have in God and the great plan He has for us. I agree, He does have a great plan for us, just not the plan they proceed to tell you. They tell you all about their beliefs that start out seemingly reasonable, but you can see the subtle underlying flaws if you pay attention. They try to make it sound like they believe a lot of the same things you do. As you go on with any of their lessons, the non-sense gets deeper and deeper and deeper, and... well, you get the picture. For example, the Mormons won't tell you that they believe that if your a man, you can eventually become a god of your own planet. They won't tell you about polygamy still being part of their religion when it comes to the afterlife. In the same way, the JW's won't start our by telling you that they believe Jesus is actually the Archangel Michael. They also don't start out with their doctrine that only 144,000 will go to heaven. They don't start out with how they don't hope to go to heaven, they just want to live on paradise earth.

Basically, both groups seem to rely on being good salesmen rather than spending their time actually researching or sincerely spending time in prayer to see if they believe sound doctrine or not.

Often time it seems like people are very surprised that I will give either of these groups the time of day. Most just send them on their way. I have three responses for this.

1. It's an excellent learning experience concerning my own faith. When I get asked questions about my beliefs, or people attempt to point out inconsistencies with my faith, I then go and get the answers to their questions. This teaches me more about my faith, why I believe it, what the early Church believed, what the Church teaches as shown in the Catechism, etc.

2. It's an excellent opportunity to learn about the faith of others. Understanding others' beliefs can be a real eye opening experience. It gives you insight as to why they do the things they do (even if you don't agree with their beliefs). Then you can at least understand their actions rather than just thinking they are totally off their rocker with no basis for their actions.

3. Third, and the most important... we are told to spread the Good News. I tend to not be very good at doing that. So I look at it like this: If they want to come to my house to share what they believe to be the truth, then it gives me the opportunity to share the ACTUAL TRUTH with them. Maybe they walk away thinking I'm an idiot, but at least they gave me the opportunity to plant the seed. I even had the added bonus of not having to leave the house since they came to me to hear the truth week after week. SWEET!!! (Maybe that's just the lazy man's method... who knows...)

My wife pointed out that she doesn't think they even listen to what we are saying. It's like a wall goes up and they don't hear a word. This is my response in a nutshell, "Been there... Done that. And at the core, I don't think that's how it is."

I grew up Baptist. I loved to talk to Catholics about how wrong they were. It was great to point out how their faith did not line up with scripture. I was spreading the truth. I'm sure that when people tried to reply with responses based on history, scripture, Church Tradition, etc, they probably thought I was very hard-headed and wasn't hearing a word. I'll admit, I was hard headed. I was relaying the truth and, by golly, you are not going to try to convince me of a lie.

Well, to make my long conversion story short, there were many Bible passages that ate at me because I had no explanation for them. Catholics used these scriptures in their defense. Mentioning the early church beliefs that were directly in line with the Catholic Church ate at me because I had assumed all my life that Church History would show that Christians were Baptists.

In the end, the Holy Spirit worked in my life. My heart was finally opened enough to at least look into these things that bothered me. Now, here I stand in the Faith of the Catholic Church as handed down through the ages by the Apostles and their successors through the work of the Holy Spirit.

So back to my response to hard-headedness... my view is that maybe it appears that people are not hearing a word you say, but down deep the things you say may bother them to the very core. They won't let you see that. But maybe one day, they will be open to the truth. The Holy Spirit will work in their lives, and there'll be another convert than can help other Mormons or JW's to find the truth. All you had to do was plant the seed in spite of feeling like you were talking to a brick wall. More to come concerning apologetics and my dealings with the JW's...