Expert: Marco - 12/26/2009

Question
Marco:  

Hello. You may be one of the best "experts" I can ask about my issue because not only are you a Catholic but also a scientist, so here goes....

My name is Paul.  I am a 40 year old male who was raised in a pretty strict Catholic household.  I did the Catholic school thing from grades 1 through 11.  I was an Altar Boy for 7 years.  I was brought up believing word for word what was taught to me.  Everything from Adam and Eve to the birth of Jesus.  Over the past ten years I have been having a MAJOR "faith crisis".  The reason?  The more I learn, the more questions I have that cannot be answered by my religion but CAN be answered by science.  What led me to write this e-mail was something I heard on the radio Christmas Eve day.  I was listening to a talk show and they had a segment about "things most people don't realize." One of those things was the "Star of Bethlehem".  Growing up I was taught that when Jesus was born, God made a star become very bright in order to lead the 3 wise men to Jesus place of birth.  Now I find out this is 100% untrue.  What actually happened was in that specific time period the planets Venus and Jupiter were only 42 arcseconds apart. At that range the pair would appear to merge into a single brilliant star which is often identified as the "Christmas Star" reported in the book of Matthew.

Now, this is just one of dozens of major events that took place in the Bible that science has proven to be incorrect.  I do understand the concept of "having faith" and / or being a "doubting Thomas" but it seems that people that do believe in God always seems to have an answer for every religious type of question you have.  If something good happens in life such as someone is cured of cancer or survives a bad car accident they'll say "It was God's work or God's will" but when something bad happens like someone dies of cancer or dies in a car accident people will say "God works in mysterious ways."  These people don't stop and think well, "John" was on radiation and chemotherapy for over 2 years.  maybe that’s what cured his cancer or maybe because Jane was wearing her seat belt is the reason she didn't get hurt in the car accident.

Believe me, as I get older there is nothing more that I would want than to know there really is a God and a place called heaven.  Death isn't what scares me, what scares me is the thought of losing my consciousness, which I won't know about anyway because I will be unconscious so why worry, right?  I just try to comprehend the thought of eternity and even if spent in a place called Heaven, it just seems so impossible.

To look at it from another angle, God is everywhere, everyone, everything.  God can do anything he wants. Make a pizza appear in front of him by just thinking it.  He can create a million galaxies with a billion different life forms with a blink of an eye. He says that he made us in his own image.  If this is all true, why he would create "man", put him on a planet we named "Earth" and let the terrible suffering take place that does so on a daily basis.  I also know and understand the concept of "free-will" but what free-will does a baby born in the jungles of Africa have? None.  That baby can't decide to go and get food for itself or defend itself.  So because of that it has to suffer for up to 14 days of hunger, thirst, pain etc until its human body just shuts down and the baby dies.  Why would a being such as "God" who created that baby in his own image allow that to happen?  I just can't comprehend how an all loving, all forgiving God can allow it.

Well, I could go on here for hours but would like to hear your thoughts, ideas on what I have said here.  Again, I do not consider myself an atheist but I just feel "empty" inside when it comes to God.  

Thanks for listening / reading.

Paul  

Answer
Dear Paul,

I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of  God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
The explanation of these aguments is rather long and Allexperts allows only to give short answers. You can find such arguments  in the following site

http://xoomer.alice.it/fedeescienza/englishnf.html

where  I analyse the incongruencies of the materialistic conception of the mind, on the basis of our present scientific knowledges about brain and matter.
This analysis points out how the laws of physics  prove that the   brain cannot generate consciousness, which existence implies  the presence in man of a unbiological/unmaterial element. The problem of consciousness is then strictly connected to the one of the existence of the soul and, consequently, the existence of God.
In the first article entitled “Mind and brain...” you can find a general discussion of the mind and brain problem from a scientific point of view.
In the second article entitled “Scientific contraddictions in materialism”
you  can find an explanation of the fundamental inconsistencies of  the  typical arguments used by materialists, such as the concept of emergent, macroscopic or holist property, complexity, information, etc.
In the section called “FAQ: answers to  visitors' questions” you can find the answer to many typical questions, such as "Are there any scientifically proved miracles?", "Does the existence of the universe imply the existence of God?", "Can science explain God?", "Can science establish which is the true religion?", "Can science explain consciousness in the future?", and many others.


Many sad events occur and we often do not understand why God allows such events to occur. There is however always a good reason why God allows them to occur.
The present life is in fact only a preliminary phase and its purpose is to prepare us for eternal life.
Sometimes our earthly sufferings may be very hard, but the Lord will confort us for eternity.
Our eartly life may last at most about one hundred years; what are one hundred years in comparison to eternity?
I firmly believe that if God allows something to happen there is always a good reason, a benefit for someone.
I think that such benefit for us could be a deeper awareness of the gravity of all our sins. In fact we all are sinners, and sin represents a degerative state, leading man farther and farther from God.
Sin is like a cancer, destined to corrupt all our soul.
Only the grace of the Lord can save us from this degeracy of sin.
Suffering and death exists in the world because of our sins.
We all have sinned and we all are responsible of the presence of suffering and death in the world.
Every sin consists in a rebellion against God.
Jesus is the only innocent who has been tortured and killed in all history, and we all are responsible of His atrocious sufferings because we all have sinned.
I think that physical suffering exists in the world because it is an instrument used by God to induce us to repent and to understand the gravity of our sins.
It is because we have suffered and we have seen other people suffer that we can understand how much Jesus has suffered for us.
It is because we understand how much Jesus has suffered for us that we understand how much He loves us and therefore we believe in Him.
The sufferings of martyrs and children are used by God to make man understand the gravity of his sins and the atrocious sufferings of Jesus.


God loves us infinitely and He desires to lead each of us to the eternal life. But God is perfectly Holy and Good; God cannot tolerate evil because evil is uncompatible with His good and holy nature.
So, we cannot go to heaven as long as we are not completely purified from our sins and sanctified.
Our sanctifcation is necessary for us to go to heaven.
God desires to sanctify us, but He has given us a free-will, so God needs our consent in order to purify and sanctify us. God respects our choices and therefore God cannot santify those who do not want to be sanctified and purified, those who do not want to stop sinning, those who do not want to live a holy life.  So God can save us only if we repent and choose to abandon our sinful life. Sometimes suffering is necessary to induce us to choose to abandon then the way of sin.

The christian concept of divine love and mercy implies that God does not allow suffering and injustice in this world without a good purpose. This good purpose is our repentance and conversion.
God is by nature infinite and eternal goodness. He cannot do anything evil without violating His own nature. One could say that His omnipotence ends there. His power is not actually limited, but it is power capable only of good. God is infinite and eternal justice. He cannot act except in accordance with the truth, which He Himself is. He cannot tolerate evil.  Innocent suffering endured for a time can bring great spiritual and material benefits and Jesus teaches us that innocent suffering endured for a time can bring great benefits to OTHERS. First of all this is the case of Jesus's sufferings.
Another example of innocent suffering is the martidom of the apostoles and many other christians; their martirdom gives to all of us a great example of faith and strenghtens our faith.

Why did Jesus have to suffer on the Cross?

I think this is the most impostant question!

I believe that each of us needed know that God was willing to accept such a terrible suffering for us, in order to really trust God. Every man needed that proof of love, and God, who knew this, has accepted to give him what man consciously or unconsciously asked to Him. Jesus had to suffer and die that way to convince us about God's goodness and God's love towards us. It is man's obstinate distrust against God that has forced God to give man that proof of love, the proof he needed to trust God. By His death on the cross, Jesus destroys our distrust and our doubts, and He gives us the strength to believe in Him and trust Him. This means that each of us is personally responsible of Jesus ' sufferings and death. This distrust, this lack of faith in God is just the essence of the original sin. Christ's Passion has reconciled us to God because it has uprooted from our heart, our distrust and doubts about God; it has satisfied our (conscious or unconscious) desire and need of a proof of love, so that it has given us the strength to trust God and feel loved by Him. I can summarize my thoughts as follows: Salvation implies a deep change of ourselves. God has the power to change us but He wants to do that with our consent. Man cannot really accept to be changed by God and he cannot be in comunion with God as long as even a shadow of doubt and distrust remains in his heart ( it must be stressed that such a distrust may exist even without the man is aware of it, at the unconscious level). God had to destroy every shadow of doubt and distrust in our heart and He has chosen to give us the greatest proof of love that may exist: Christ's Passion.

I hope this may help you.
If you should need some clarifications, please ask again.

Your brother in Christ,

Marco