Today’s video responds in a refreshing and appealing way to some of the most common and constant accusations against the faith and the Church in our day: the false equivalence between faith and irrationality, the false dichotomy between faith and science, the mistaken view of religion as something that blinds and harms people (analogically called “opium”), etc.
While true that a thorough response to these questions requires both study and reflection, we must recognize that these subjects aren’t just for the intellectuals. The need to comprehend and to defend the Catholic understanding of faith and reason pertains to each Christian. Many believers are lost or mislead when they enter a high school classroom, a university hall, or even while watching a YouTube video, and are confronted with “scientific truths” and “purely logical arguments” that seem to disprove the very foundations of their faith. Thus, we must take these questions seriously, reflect upon them, and educate both ourselves and others, not so much to defend against “attacks”, but rather to discover the true depth and rich coherence of what we believe.
A Catholic must live faith in the heart, in action, and in the mind. We believe in Him who is both the God of Revelation and, at the same time, the God of creation; the God of the laws of love, and likewise, the God of the laws of logic and reason.
This isn’t just a theory. Let us not forget that it was from the Catholic Church’s womb that the first Universities were born. Not to mention the formation of countless leaders and saints of the Church were men and women of great knowledge, passionate for science and wisdom. The list of Catholics who yielded significant contributions to science, many of whom were priests or religious, is remarkably longer than what many would have us think. Father Georges Édouard Lemaître, a Belgian priest and astronomer who first proposed the theory known as the Big Bang, is just one. In fact, even a quick Google or Wikipedia search could help to remedy some of the “black legends” that have been spread about this issue. A good book to read on this subject is How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas Woods. There, Dr. Woods presents an abundance of evidence of the valuable contributions that the Catholic Church has made in science, philosophy, law, human rights, and much more.
I would like to suggest using the video as a way of introducing some of these topics. Fr. Pontifex mentions quite a few issues, any one of which warrants a discussion. Also, I think it’s well worth spreading on the social networking sites, given its attractive and fashionable rap- poetic style.
Finally, here is an additional, more ironic, video that challenges the idea of a universe brought about by random chance. And, while you won’t find any convincing intellectual arguments here, I would say that it asserts the case of common sense.
