Today’s challenges and the certainty of faith

It is only in our own day that the certainty faith gives us about God and about the plan he has for each of us has been called into question. Scientism and Positivism – which teach that the human person can only be certain of those things observable and demonstrable by the natural sciences – whilst discredited philosophically and intellectually, still shape the opinions of large numbers in the Western world.

However, it does not take much to demonstrate that human persons could never live as if scientism were true. It would mean we could never be certain about those things which are most important and most significant for human life: the love of a spouse and the family, moral truths and how we should live in society, in short, anything regarding our relationships with other human persons. In fact, these are the things we must be most certain of if we are to live a truly human and fulfilling life.

This is even more so with our faith in God – nothing can be more certain than this faith which, although it involves things no eye has seen nor ear heard, is a response to what God himself, who is the foundation of all truth and Truth itself, has already revealed. The Catholic Faith, revealed by God and handed on by the Church, grounds the certainty of our own faith. Because God loved us first and gave himself for us, we no longer need to be uncertain about the most important things in human life, truth, beauty and goodness, because the God who reveals himself and reaches down to us in Jesus Christ would never desire us, his children, to stumble and grasp in the shadows of uncertainty. This is the Faith of the Church, this is our Faith. We are proud to profess it in Christ Jesus our Lord.