Faith Falsifiable
The Gates of Hell and The God of War
The Devil’s Whore
Catholicism can be confusing.
On the one hand, it’s kinda-sorta dogma that “The Magisterium” (a fancy word which in theory refers to the whole leadership of The Church but which in practice pretty much only means the pope) can never be wrong.
On the other hand… that’s… really difficult to believe.
Now, this whole Never Wrong thing only applies, again in theory, to matters of faith and morals, and even then only when “The Magisterium” is acting in their roles as church leaders. In other words, what a bishop or a pope has to say on, I don’t know, recombinant DNA doesn’t really matter too much, nor is what he says or does in private. Privately, any given pope might well be an idolator or a sexual deviant or even blaspheme Jesus Christ and, from a dogmatic point of view this poses no real problems.
It ain’t great… but, the Theology of the Church can handle that sort of thing.
It’s only Publicly, when acting in their capacity as bishops and speaking on matters of Faith, that The Magisterium is supposed to be infallible. Catholicism you see is first and foremost a religion based upon an institution. Men might be wrong, fine. But The Church, as an institution… can’t be.
At least that’s the theory.
And for a lot of Catholics this poses big problems.
It’s not a small thing because Catholics view The Church as having authority because Christ gave it authority, and they believe that it’s teaching and dogma are guided and protected from error by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in a sense if The Church were to falter then Christ would falter. As a result all Catholics are supposedly duty bound, often on threat of damnation for noncompliance, to believe everything The Magisterium has taught throughout the ages.
Unfortunately, this is impossible.
Examples are numerous and we need not get into any here, but suffice to say that Church History goes back about two thousand years and in that time a lot of popes and bishops and saints and theologians and church councils have come and gone and said a lot of different things on their way out. Often, such things have been said authoritatively, with the speakers summoning the full weight of their position and rank to stand behind their proclamations. “You’re anathema (damned), if you don’t believe me.” “All the faithful are bound to confess…” “We do solemnly and surely declare…” That sort of thing.
And… you know…
Some of these statements conflict…
Some of the authoritative, magisterial, and presumably infallible teachings of The Church… they just don’t mesh. Like, “five hundred years ago a pope solemnly declared ‘A’ and then two decades ago another pope declared ‘Not A’” levels of not meshing.
It’s a shit show.
A totally indefensible intellectual position.
To its credit, the Church cunningly addresses these conflicts in its teachings simply by ignoring them. Old texts and old proclamations can be drug out now and again if they support the current position, sure. But, if they don’t… well, they can just as easily be swept under the rug.
For 99% of the Catholic population of the world, this works fine. The number of people who are going to dig up, let along take the time to read, The Council of Trent from the 1560s or the fourteen canons of the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553 is vanishingly small. After all, Catholicism is a peasant religion (I say this fondly, peasants aren’t bad), and mostly full of working men and women who have neither the interest, education, nor time to fuss about such things. They just go to mass, keep a rosary on the bedside table, and think about going to confession once a year around Easter. These are the good Catholics. The bread and butter of the faith. Salt of the Earth. These are not the sort of people who are going to catch you in an ideological blunder.
Others though? The bad Catholics? That 1% of the faithful who take the whole things far too seriously and don’t know that you’re meant to just cheat on your wife ten times and then say a Hail Mary… For them Catholic Culture has created a small army of apologists whose entire job is to try and smooth out the theology. Get rid of all its rough spots. Youtubers. Bloggers. Radio hosts and television personalities and no end of authors… Their job is to come up with Reasons. Reasons for why that problematic proclamation from the 1300s wasn’t really valid, or for why that document from log ago wasn’t actually infallible. Pope GotItWrong The Blessed wasn’t wearing the right hat that day you see, or he didn’t say Simon Peter Says before signing it, so, really, the whole thing’s a wash. How can he have invoked Magisterial Infallibility when he wasn’t wearing his signet ring!?!?
I’m being sarcastic here but honestly what I’m saying isn’t that much of a stretch compared to what really goes on.
The smallest word, the slightest hint of an error in sentence formulation or punctuation… Things as small as this will be used to discredit whole centuries of Church teaching which are unpalatable to modern faithful and which seem to run counter to the latest theological fads out of Rome. And this has to happen because, again, The Church, as an institution… can’t be wrong. Moreover, it can never have been wrong. Because if you open the door to The Church being wrong in the past then, well, logic dictates it’s also possible for it to be wrong now.
And that… is simply not how religions work.
Broadly speaking, this small army of apologists has been very successful. You know, if you talk long enough and use a lot of big words you can get most people to back down. Public debates aren’t meetings of the mind, they’re wars of attrition, and The Church has deep pockets to keep its soldiers well supplied.
But, for those whom they can’t convince…
For that 1% of the 1% for whom all the above circumlocutions are insufficiently convincing…
Catholicism™ has a Trump Card.
The words of Jesus.
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” — Jesus, Bible, The Gospel of Matthew 16:18
See, when Christ gave Simon Bar-Jonah his new and far more recognizable name of Peter, The Rock, as in petrified (peter-fied), he said that on this rock he would build his church and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
And my God.
Do Catholics love this verse.
If you want to see them use it in the wild, simply go on any public forum where Catholics dwell and ask them how they can be so sure that their church has never taught error. Boy. You’ll be slapped in the face with these words so fast…
Personally, because I am the sort of person foolish enough to visit such places often, I see it almost every day. I long ago stopped interacting with such forums but, you know, I still lurk and check in now and again, to get a sense of where the Catholic Zeitgeist is headed amongst those who are terminally online. As I said, Good Catholics, the ones who aren’t on the internet or reading books trying to “figure things out”… they probably don’t get this verse thrown at them very often. But the Bad Ones? The ones trying to hold onto their faith despite a 130+ IQ?
Why, I bet they get the Gates of Hell Trump Card thrown at them ten times a day. “Listen man, I know it seems like The Church contradicted herself here but we know Jesus said the gates of hell won’t prevail against The Church so it must work out somehow.”
This is a fantastically dumb argument.
An argument so dumb it can only have every gotten off the ground by bashing people’s minds in through sheer repetition.
It’s really almost hypnotic… no, scratch that, it is hypnotic. Hypnosis by repetition is the only way I can explain how such a stupid line of reasoning came to dominate so much of the religious conversation. The entire premise doesn’t even make sense! Does no one engage in ancient warfare anymore!? The idea that by saying “The Gates of Hell will not prevail against The Church”, Jesus meant that The Church must be infallible… is… is an insane inversion of the metaphor. GATES DON’T ATTACK. Gates are defensive structures. Part of a wall. Something meant to keep people out. Christ is not promising you that the intellectual integrity or doctrinal consistency of The Church will be impregnable to enemy forces. Rather, he’s saying the exact opposite. He’s saying that Hell won’t be able to stop The Church if The Church chooses to go on the offensive.
It’s absolutely not a promise that you can sit there and do nothing and never get conquered.
It’s instead a promise that, if you go on the warpath, you will win.
If Jesus had meant what people who use this trump card imply that he meant he would have rather said “Hell will not prevail against the gates of The Church.” But… he didn’t.
Because… and I know this is hard to swallow…
Christ never actually promised any institution would be perfect.
That’s very much not the point.
Intellectual perfection, doctrinal consistency, dogmatic purity…
Not the point.
Get out of your head. Those are all intellectual pursuits and following God is not about the intellect. Philosophy, theology, all the realms of the mind… in these places with your sense of reason you can convince yourself of all manner of nonsense.
And, as Martin Luther rightly said, Reason is the Devil’s Whore.
How A Goddess Lost Her Feet
The Titan Prometheus was a great potter and worker of clay. All men and women did he fashion from the dust of the ground, using his own spit to make mud and mold our forms. With his breath he breathed into the nostrils of these poppets and gave them life, setting them free upon the earth to live and to love as they saw fit.
Unfortunately… it turned out that these beings were easily misguided.
Having no one to teach them, the new species often found itself confused, engaging in dubious and dangerous affairs. Great mistakes were made. Mistakes that cost many of them their happiness and their lives.
This saddened their creator.
To correct this, Prometheus decided he would create Mankind a teacher. Someone to lead and guide them in the ways of knowledge and wisdom. The great potter returned once again to his wheel and to his kiln and began to fashion out of the mud Veritas, Truth, that she might regulate Man’s behavior. Beautiful, wise, with a far-reaching mind and great imagination, she would be able to keep them on the righteous path.
Well… it wouldn’t be a Greek Myth without a twist, would it?
As it happened, Prometheus had almost finished his new creation and was about to fire it in the kiln when he was unexpectedly called away by Jove and had to leave the finishing touches to his apprentice, Dolos. Dolos, the god of deception, was meant to simply place Veritas in the kiln for hardening but, enflamed with his own ambitions and seeking to prove his skill to his master, Dolos instead decided to copy his master’s work. Groove for groove and part for part and piece for piece, Dolos set about creating a replica of the unfinished Veritas, to prove to his master that he too was a cunning sculptor. Unfortunately, before Dolos could finish the feet of his replica, he discovered that he’d run out of clay. The god looked here and there about the workshop for more but found none, and, just as he’d resolved to go out and make more on his own… he heard his master’s footfall on the veranda.
Not good.
Prometheus was a kind and generous god, yes, but, at the same time, you did not want to be on his bad side. Dolos had planned to finish his replica and fire both his master’s statue and his own at the same time, but now neither of them were finished and he had neglected the one task his master had given him. Dolos was terrified of his master’s wrath but, to his surprise, The Titan displayed no anger, but rather appreciation for the young god’s skill.
The copy was so good in fact that, the more he laid his eyes on it, the more The Titan grew nervous. Had there at last come a rival to his skills? Was there now in Heaven a peer to his art and creativity?
Prometheus grew jealous.
Not wanting anyone to think that another god could match his own talent, The Titan resolved to fire both works in the kiln before his apprentice could gather more clay to finish his copy, ensuring forever that Dolos's work would be inferior to his. When both statues had baked and cooled, The Titan once more breathed the breath of life into both. With a start they awoke, and Veritas rose joyfully and with steady steps set out to explore the wide world.
But her sister… the copy without feet who acquired the name Mendacium, or Falsehood…
She could not move.
For Lies do not have legs.
Crippled, Mendacium could not survive on her own and while Veritas roamed freely in the woods and hills, Mendacium had to be placed in the city to be cared for by its men and women.
Thus truly therefore do Men say that, “There is no Lie in Nature”, for Lies are stuck here, with us, and cannot move on.
Now…
I’m a big fan of physical reality. Stuff with weight. Stuff with mass. Trees. Sticks. Rocks. Water. Things that hurt if they fall on your foot and objects which stubbornly refuse to be moved. A mountain. A bullet from a gun. The steady onslaught of the Columbia River rolling ever onwards to the sea. I like Resistance. Friction. I enjoy the tendency of an object in motion to stay in motion and the predilection of an object at rest to keep from moving. The pliant flesh of a lover beneath your fingertips. The weight of a child pressing on your shoulders.
Physical reality is a check. A limitation on your hubris. Online, in the realm of the digital, or in academia, the world of the intellect and of philosophy…
In these places you can’t get punched in the mouth. There is no check. Only endless, endless words. Claims about metaphysics are often useless because there is no way to test them. Claims about regular physics on the other hand? Well. In physical reality things are self-evident.
You claim to know how to build a bridge? Very well. Go. Build one. We will see if it falls down. You’re a doctor? Fine. Heal this patient. If you cannot your claims of expertise are of no account. Ah! You’re a tough guy? Good. Enter the ring. Bone muscle and sinew will test your claim, and all will see if you exit with a broken jaw.
There is no lie in Nature.
You can’t bullshit physical reality.
In the cities though, in the towns and villages and suburbs and all the other artificial places inhabited by Man… Falsehoods flourish. Men and women get all sorts of silly ideas into their heads and, absent the need to ever test them in the arena of physical reality, all kinds of insanity can go for centuries unchecked.
Zeno and his followers, for example, argued that motion was impossible, and that time and space were fake. The Egyptians got the idea that you could carry all your stuff with you into the afterlife, if only you were buried with it, and caused all sorts of misery and oppression trying to acquire such otherworldly goods. Doctors who on religious grounds refused to perform autopsies to check, thought that women’s mental health issues were caused by “wondering wombs” which crawled around inside them like an octopus pursuing pleasant smells. UFO cults murder themselves to catch a ride on passing comets. Every now and again society convinces itself that there is simply no rational alternative but to have a genocide.
…
None of that happens in Nature.
None of that happens Outside.
I do not know how intelligent ducks are but I know they’ve never rationalized themselves into thinking they cannot move. Marmosets probably don’t know how they get pregnant, but they’ve never developed ridiculous theories about the matter either. Lions have never been persuaded to wipe antelope off the planet and rocks don’t worship The Greys and trees have never claimed one of their own was an avatar of The Sun.
Falsehood is only found in the cities, the places where men and women dwell.
Only by our care can Mendacium be kept alive.
“In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscus, closely resembling an animal; for it is moved of itself hither and thither in the flanks, also upwards in a direct line to below the cartilage of the thorax, and also obliquely to the right or to the left, either to the liver or the spleen, and it likewise is subject to prolapsus downwards, and in a word, it is altogether erratic. It delights also in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it has an aversion to fetid smells, and flees from them; and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal.” — Aretaeus, a second century physician from Cappadocia.
Faith Falsifiable
I realize I am biased.
As I’ve written about before, I cut my teeth doing battle with The New Atheist Movement and I stood on the front lines watching Christianity get slaughtered in the trenches. As a young adult I had a front row seat to perhaps the greatest apostasy in history, the more or less wholesale rejection of the faith they were raised in by an entire generation of people. I watched over and over again as people my age, college kids, tried desperately to cling to the faith they’d been handed, only to have it savagely beaten out of them by others asking more or less the same single question:
“Can you show me?”
If the proof is in the pudding an entire generation realized they had none. They might have had the recipe, but they’d never once set foot inside a kitchen. The rubber of their faith had nowhere met the hard unyielding road of life and what they had instead were dogmas, statements, and assertions. Appeals to tradition. Appeals to logic. Appeals to authority. What they had instead was Aquinas and his five proofs or John Wesley and his Method. They had the emotional enthusiasm of a Billy Graham devotional or the stern proclamations of an encyclical from the Pope.
Words in a book.
Ultimately, they just had words in a book.
Too often Faith is divorced from physical reality, to the point of often having a disdain for it. The body, flesh, matter… very often religions hate these things, probably for no other reason than for their capacity to prove religions false. For most people today, their faith, their religion… it operates on the purely Intellectual level. The level of the philosophers and the theologians. Inside their heads and inside their books they have created wondrously complex and beautifully complete systems. Series of axioms and lemmas and inferences and deductions which cover everything in Life. Systems of theology which truly leave no stone unturned. Pristine, crisp, pure… In the realm of the mind they possess perfect knowledge of God, the human soul, morality, and the afterlife. And it is beautiful.
As clean and perfect as the realm of Plato’s forms.
In such an abstracted system, isolated as they are from the physical world, the only possible threat can come from internal contradictions, which is why so many Catholics have fever dreams about monstrous attacking gates trying to tear down the Vatican.
When your only threat is internal inconsistency…
Well, you get pretty damn good at the mental gymnastics required to make such threats go away.
So it was that one of Christopher Hitchens’ favorite go-to questions back in the New Atheist days was simply, “What would it take to convince you that you’re wrong?”
That gives the game away you see. That shows people’s religion for a fraud. Because if there is nothing that would cause you to abandon your belief system then that is only because it has been built on nothing from the start.
That means it’s all an “in your head” type of faith. It’s Intellectual. It’s Fake. It’s the kind of faith that can be endlessly rationalized and re-interpreted and re-contextualized to mean anything and everything or also nothing at all. You’re not following a god you’re just playing a game. A game with a lot of internally consistent rules that might indeed tell a wonderful story… but which have no relation to anything in the outside world.
See, you don’t actually have a Religion.
You have Dungeons and Dragons and just got confused.
No.
Faith should be falsifiable.
It should have more threats. Not less.
If the only thing that threatens your faith is its own internal inconsistencies… then you have nothing at all. You should burn your Bible and go home. For Fatih to be real you have to fight with it. You have to test it. You have to march against Evil and see if your beliefs hold up. The Gates of Hell will buckle beneath the onslaught of True Faith…
But a faith is only True if it’s attacking.
If it’s out in the field.
Test it. Go out armed with your doctrines and dogmas and try to do the equivalent of building a bridge. Let’s see if it falls down.
You say your faith has all the answers about sexual morality and the roles of men and women? Great. Go. Get in a relationship and see if such dogmas can hold a marriage together. See if you can keep believing all those things and not have her leave you. See if you can expect him to be the man you believe God wants him to be and not have him crack under the strain.
Try it.
Go to war with it.
If it fails, it’s wrong.
Your beliefs don’t work. They’re false. You have to revise them.
You say you believe God is your provider. That he takes care of his children? Fine. Then why do you live in fear of losing your job? Who are you to worry about the loss of a paycheck. I say you do not believe it. Prove me wrong. The next time you are asked to do something immoral at work, to foreclose on a widow, or to lie about quality control, or to sweep the bad behavior of a fellow police officer under the rug… say no. Stand up for what’s right and don’t fear the consequences. See if God provides.
Will he?
If he does great. If he doesn’t you will have to abandon that belief, or at the very least rework it, try it again from another angle and refine and retool until belief matches your experience.
Go out and build the bridge.
Go out and see if it all falls down.
When I say you have to wrestle with God I mean it. Draw God down out of your head and into your blood and into your bones. Into your teeth. Into something you can bite with.
You say you believe in Heaven and yet you fear death? You claim God is protecting you and yet each night you lock your doors? You say the sacraments have power to heal sin and yet still you are a scoundrel?
Faith without works is dead.
If your actions do not match your beliefs then you do not really believe them and you need to either alter your beliefs or change your actions. Test your dogmas in the Arena. Let die whatever The Enemy can kill.
Everything else is word games. Everything else is fake.
Everything else is a product of Mendacium, and you just go round and round the same intellectual arguments forever because your beliefs are Lies and they have no feet.
They can’t stand up to Reality. They can’t move.
They just sit in one spot. And die.
If your version of faith is sitting around trying to assure yourself that your beliefs are intellectually sound, trying to round out the errors and smooth over the rough patches of inconsistency, if you think belief boils down to simple intellectual assent and verbal affirmation…
Just go home.
Your religion’s already dead and it deserved to die.
So I’ll see you in The Arena. A lot of us won’t make it and that’s okay. Our worldviews will be shattered, our faith will falter, and yes, perhaps, some of us will even physically die.
That’s Life.
God, after all, is a God of War.
Amor Vincit Omnia.
Excellent, Yoshi. Stick a knife in the problem and twist it.
But what also needs to be admitted today as primary tools to build faith are the same tools the early church relied on to stand up their message -- miracles, signs, and wonders. People healed. The dead raised. Transportation of persons. Prophecies that came true. These unfalsifiable events firmly, convincingly, showed that there is a spiritual presence that can and did invade the material world which, then as now, was the only reality the world at large believes in. Hell MUST yield to that higher reality.
"These things don't happen today." Yes, they do, but only those who are willing to risk having their prejudices overturned will expose themselves to the unconventional (and often off-putting) influence of action-defined believers who've been marginalized by a world that does not want to know.
If Christopher Hitchens had ever aimed his rhetorical cannon at me my response would have been, "What would it take to convince you, Mr. Hitchens, that you're wrong?" Imagine the thick silence that would follow! LOL
Just wow. At the end of the day God can be trusted or He can't. Though He slay me, yet will I love Him. He may not shield from all evil, but He will shield from The evil; the second death.