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.

[Claud]

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)!

LOL...take a look at my #3....I meant to ping you but forgot.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Sola Scriptura does not mean Bible-only."

If not, then what "does" it mean???

[Zionist Conspirator]

They've done it, tho I think it was only the body & blood that was transformed for one particular priest. The result was blood type AB.

::Whew!:: It's a good thing science confirmed the real presence, our you'd have had to reject that doctrine just as you've rejected the literal truth of the Creation story! Why not have science verify each and every article of faith before you've decided to accept it?

I don't suppose anyone made any snide remarks about "transubstantiation science" and said it wasn't "real science" at all, did they?

[Zionist Conspirator]

LOL...take a look at my #3....I meant to ping you but forgot.

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. And the old argument that the literal truth of the chapter is merely "one exegesis of the text" is a bit absurd. Are you afraid to say the Red Sea parted because this is merely "one exegesis" of the text? Or that the axe floated? Or that Bil`am's donkey spoke? For some reason it is only the creation is six days whose literal sense is to be distrusted as merely "an exegesis" while everything else gets a free pass (especially "this is my body; this is my blood").

[PAR35]

I see no basis for such a conclusion.

Perhaps, then, you can get someone to explain it to you on your level.

[GoLightly]

If not, then what "does" it mean???

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.

[papertyger]

Atheism is ...etc.

Your point is...?

What does the part of the title added in brackets mean if it doesn't mean what it says?

Whoops, sorry. I'm sure your familiar with getting disparate thoughts juxtaposed when tweaking your posts. I messed up. :o)

I meant to say it was not passive aggressive, and such an assertion was a "straw man."

I think it's easy enough to figure out the bracketed comment conveyed the idea rejecting Sola Scriptura during her investigation of Christianity lead to Catholicism. I just don't see how that's antagonistic in ANY sense.

If the title had said something along the line of, "Disillusionment with Sola Scriptura led", it would have been supported by the article. Sola Scriptura didn't lead her anywhere. Her inability to connect with it did.

You don't see anything wrong with being so picky?

Depends on the way it was added.

Such as...?

You're quite free to do it & when you do, like every other kind of insult you dish out to others, it may generate a certain amount of backlash.

That still does not tell why the line should not be crossed, or who established it...only that crossing has consequences. So while you did answer me, you did not answer my question.

What insult are you referring to?

[Zionist Conspirator]

I know I am often scolded for coming onto these chr*stian threads where I "have no business," but there is something in this "sola scriptura vs. tradition" argument that Protestants and their Catholic/Orthodox opponents always seem to miss (at least the Catholics/Orthodox do).

The first argument for "sola scriptura" within chr*stianity was not made by Protestants. It is in the "new testament" itself, where Jewish Holy Tradition is referred to as "doctrines and commandments of men." 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).

In rejecting chr*stian oral tradition Protestants are merely using logic. If the oral traditions about tying tefillin to one's arm and head, affixing a mezuzah to one's doorpost, reciting Shema`, observing Biblically-mandated holidays, writing a Torah Scroll, etc., are "the doctrines and commandments of men," then how much the more so the Catholic/Orthodox oral traditions about rosaries or holidays found nowhere in the Bible to be similarly rejected???

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!

This is all very frustrating.

[papertyger]

Sola Scriptura does not mean Bible-only.

Please elaborate.

[papertyger]

Well there is that 1 2 3 4 Esdras thing that no one agrees on how to number or which is in or out.

I'm sorry. I wasn't aware this was a substantive controversy. Could you explain to me, please?

[papertyger]

Perhaps, then, you can get someone to explain it to you on your level.

I think it wiser and more charitable to ask the author of the conclusion to retrace the steps used to arrive at said conclusion.

Are you refusing?

[Grudgebringer]

How do you know what books belong in the Bible?

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

All dogma is in the Bible. You have to know how to read the Bible.

The New Testament is Concealed in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New. It is called Typology. The Bible was not meant to be read cover to cover. It was designed to be read in the Mass.

[PAR35]

Sorry, I have bad eyes, and have trouble reading your small print. So find someone else to play with.

[GoLightly]

I don’t think any “confession” teaches exactly what I believe. I believe God created the universe in six days (literally), but I don’t believe it was 6000 years ago. I believe all men, including Adam were “created” on the sixth day, but Adam’s body wasn’t formed until some time later & when the Bible says he is the father of all men who live, it has to do with eternal life, not life as we know it on earth. Prophecies about the Messiah include some things about Adam’s genealogy & point directly to Jesus Christ, the “New Adam”, the true father of all who live.

As far as real presence, my "confession" teaches four elements; body, blood, wine & bread, so no, we wouldn't do any kind of scientific testing to prove anything, because body & blood (real presence) are a matter of faith.

[GoLightly]

See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1916327/replies?c=62

[papertyger]

There is no authority over & above Scripture (Scripture taken as a whole, not just snippets here or there to support a position about something).

What is your Scriptural basis to claim such supremecy, particularly when men of God are shown doing the superceding in Scripture?

Furthermore, how are you drawing this "as a whole" distinction?

Teachings outside of Scripture may be fruitful, but if they contradict Scripture they must be rejected.

What about "interpretation" of Scripture?

[AnalogReigns]

This is a fascinating case of an individual's unguided SOLO scriptura verses one body's creedal understanding of scripture.

Of course only the most radical of non-Roman Christians worldwide believe in individual interpretation as being the highest authority (though most who believe that are in the USA and are evangelicals), the various magisterial (Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist) Reformers didn't accept SOLO scriptura, as if every Christian should hole up in his room and try to figure out the bible in isolation...

Rather the vast bulk of non-Roman Christians have taught SOLA scriptura, using creeds hammered out by the greatest scholars of scripture in the original languages of the day... 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; that all other authorities, and church bodies, creeds and confessions, and tradition are subject to. This is what the full Catholic Church taught for the first 500 years at least, and mostly in the first 1000 years. Instead of annointing the current-curia-defined tradition as a co-equal authority (in the same way the Pharisees did for Jewish tradition at the time of Christ) the magisterial Protestants have said that while yes, traditions are authoritative to a degree, they are also subject to the final authority fo God's inspired word itself, discovered and preserved in a corporate manner.

If Protestant Christianity were all about "individual interpretation" (ie. "solo" scriptura) there would be no Augsburg confession, Formula of Concord, First & Second Helvitic Confessions, Heidelburg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Scotch Confession, 39 Articles, Canons of the Synod of Dort, or Westminster Confession & Catechism. Although written at different times and countries, by different groups, all these confessions are remarkably similar in what they agree about...and that is probably 97%+ in content.

All this shows that the original "sola scriptura" where church bodies use the best of reverent scholarship to work out doctrines from scripture, is NOT the same as contemporary American ideas of "solO scriptura" where our freedom of religion allows an every-man-for-himself kind of attitude toward the bible.

From the article, it appears to me that the only catechism/creed the writer ever studied was the Roman Catholic one written in 1997.

[Uri’el-2012]

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!

Bingo !

[Wonder Warthog]

"Teachings outside of Scripture may be fruitful, but if they contradict Scripture they must be rejected."

Which is precisely what the Catholic church believes. No article of Catholic dogma contradicts Scripture. Some few dogmas are in areas on which Scripture is silent, but none are contradictory.

[papertyger]

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! This is all very frustrating.

I think the non sequitur is in concluding "logical consistency must legitimize the scorned Jewish Oral Tradition."

Maintaining "letters" are not valid for use in arithmatic does not invalidate them from algebra. And even that analogy is faulted in that Christ criticized "traditions of men" for contradicting the Law whereas He gave his Church authority to "ammend" in "binding and loosing."