331 articles from the existing collection.
As stated above, God gave the true religion to mankind gradually, so that men would be prepared by more simple doctrines for still more noble truths. Thus He sent Moses the lawgiver, and after him a series of prophets to explain the law and to predict the coming of the Messiah. Christ fulfilled these predictions and taught the p…
No. Buddhism knows nothing of God in the Christian sense of the word. It is definitely pantheistic. It knows nothing of the Holy Spirit. The very story of Buddha is not the story of a birth from a virgin. And in any case, it is certain that Buddhism was not known by the early Christians, and the Gospel writers never heard of its…
Catholics believe that the universe is the creation, and the exclusive dominion, of an infinitely powerful Spirit Being, called God, because the evidence which points to that conclusion is so overwhelming that there is no room left for even the slightest vestige of doubt. First, there is the evidence of logic. Through the proces…
He did not promise that the Holy Spirit would teach each individual separately. If every individual were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, all who read Scripture sincerely should come to the same conclusion. But they do not. The frightful chaos as to the meaning of Scripture is proof positive that the Holy Spirit has not ch…
The passage you quote was never meant to indicate a permanent test of the true Church. Christ predicted that certain signs would occur to justify the preaching of His followers. He did not say that they would occur continuously, nor that every individual follower would be endowed with such miraculous powers. The signs did occur …
Yes. He declared His divinity when He said, “I and the Father are one.” Jn. X., 30. The Jews knew it, and said, “For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Again, Christ accepted the supreme homage implied by the words of Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” Jn. XX., 2…
Catholic dogma concerning the existence and nature of God is in perfect harmony with the conclusions of sane philosophy, which have already been discussed.
That is taking refuge in credulity. Every rational man, if he does a thing, should know why he does it. Moreover, Christianity is a set of truths to be believed as well as a life to be lived. It imposes obligations upon the intelligence as well as upon the will and the passions. Jesus said, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” But b…
It would be mortal sin for any Catholic to regard Mary as a goddess. If a Catholic expressed such a belief to a Priest in confession he would be refused absolution unless he promised to renounce such an absurd idea. If you wish to attack Catholic doctrine, at least find out what Catholics do believe before you begin.
No. You must be a non-Catholic to suspect that the Church did invent it. The idea that there is no purgatory is the invention of Protestants. The reformers corrupted the true doctrine, and many good Protestants, realizing this, are returning to the Catholic religion of their forefathers even as I myself have done. Meantime, if I…
All do not know that creed has nothing to do with conduct. In fact no man knows precisely what motive has moved men to do given things. God alone can read the heart. We have no experience save of our own interior dispositions. Religious people may sin. But they do not call vice virtue. They know they sin. Nor do their sins dispe…
By reason alone any ordinary man can know that God exists, that He has given a revelation to man, and any ordinary man is capable of learning the fundamental teachings of Christianity. Yet the perception of the vital force and the sheer reality of the truths God has revealed, with consequent belief in them, requires grace from G…
The Divine Mind does not “work.” God does not have to reason slowly and painfully to conclusions, as do men. His Divine Intelligence is a permanent and simultaneous act of perfect knowledge embracing all things, past, present, and future. We cannot fully understand God’s being, knowledge, and plans. However, St. Paul rightly sai…
This life is not the only one of which we have knowledge. We can have knowledge in two ways, experimental knowledge, or knowledge based upon reason and authority. I have experimental knowledge of America for I have been in America, but I have no experimental knowledge of Africa. Yet you cannot say that I have no knowledge whatev…
You take up an extraordinary position. If you do not say that you are right, you cannot have definite grounds for your belief, and such belief is credulity. And do you really believe in everyone believing in his own belief? Whether that belief be right or wrong? If so, you believe in people believing in error. But Christ came pr…
That is because you do not understand the Christian religion, nor the nature of the eternal moral law. Hell exists, and since it does exist, it is treason to the God of truth and treachery to man to try to blind men to the fact.
Such an admission would do violence to both reason and history. The invention theory supposes that the writers of the Gospel were liars, a theory abandoned by all the critics of Christianity worth while. The borrowing theory involves the old post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. That one thing is prior to another does not prove tha…
It is necessary in so far as God has decided that we should be here. It is not absolutely necessary for any being to exist except God. All other beings depend upon God’s will. But God has willed that we should have our opportunity to praise, love, and serve Him in this life, and be happy with Him forever in the next. Surely a gr…
No. I do not believe that. Nor does Scripture say that there were no rainbows before the flood. If God said, “Look at the sun. As surely as it is there in the heavens I shall not do this thing again,” that would not suggest that the sun had not existed before that moment.
They certainly did. The angel reassured Joseph in his bewilderment, “Fear not to take Mary … for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” Matt. I., 20. To Mary herself God had revealed, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall…
There is a good God, and He does wish that. But He does not wish our attention to be wholly given to creatures, and the Creator to be ignored. We must acknowledge and love Him. He can no more dispense us from this than He could dispense children from their privilege and duty of honoring and respecting their parents.
In that case, of course, you are purely a materialist. Nor only that You are an atheist, for such an assertion denies the very existence of God. God is a pure spirit, and can certainly create beings of a purely spiritual nature.
One who is firstly just to all others, including God. His first duty is to render to God what is due to Him. Secondly, and for the love of God, he renders all that is due to his fellow men. In addition he must manage himself in his own personal life, overcoming with fortitude the difficulties in the way of right conduct, and pra…
All decent Protestants are getting rid of that principle as rapidly as possible. Faith alone without a good moral life is not enough. Everyone is disgusted with the man who professes a Christian life yet who lives an evil life, and no one really believes that to be the road to salvation. St. James tells us that “Faith without wo…
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