Evangelisation
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven an earth and of all things visible and invisible".
These are the words of the Creed which Catholics proclaim at every Mass on Sunday. It is our personal declaration of why we are there. We believe in God. Not so long ago believing in God was the norm. Certainly evangelisation in the early Church was much easier than today as far as belief in God was concerned. It was a matter of persuading people that the Christian God was the true God. Evangelisation today is among people who have been persuaded that to believe in God, is rather old fashioned and out of date, we have a scientific society and not a superstitious one, "If there is a God", they say "Show him to us". We are not going to waste our time talking to an imaginary friend".
Sadly the scientific mind has persuaded the majority of young people to stay away from our Churches. Confirmation classes are notorious for young people turning up because they were being obedient to their parents, not because the believed in the Catholic Church. Yet this has carried on now for decades. "O they all come back in the end" some would reassure us, but only a very few did.
So here I go again . "He knows it all" is my usual description though not n a complimentary way How would I face this issue. The proving that God exists to people who attended Catholic schools where the whole topic was ignored, but everyone was doing a good job.
We have to tackle science and show its boundaries. On the question of God we have to follow the the science which according to our young people shows the God does not exist. So I show them perhaps a flower and I tell them that it came from a seed. "We know that" they will say but that does not prove the existence of God. "But I got the seed from another flower, and is it not wonderful that I know when I plant it, that it has an interior computer that will cause it to grow?" "Yes, yes, how wonderful. but that is just how things are. Everything as science shows comes for something else and why bring God into it?" Of course they are right. In questions of science we are dealing with the way things are and we should not look for non-scientific explanations by asking 'why' things are. The why is of course very important but that involves logical thinking which seems to be missing.
So let me introduce Richard Hawkins. He made a lot of money out of selling a book 'The God Myth'. He was a scientist and a very good one, but he became a celebrity by his book which explained 'how things are' without quite explaining 'why things are'. You know what I mean. This is how the universe is, how it always was, and will be in the future. Scientists have never seen God in their work, so that means that God does not exist. This of course was a good way of avoiding the question 'Why' but eventually he got overconfident with the reply and undid himself. It was in Australia at a public meeting that he suddenly found the audience laughing at him rather than with him. Now the theory of evolution is widely accepted and as we look at evolution and time we get to what scientists call the "Big Bang' Of course continuing in the scientific mind he was up against the question of what existed before the Big Bang. His answer was "Nothing, but you can get something from nothing" The audience erupted into laughter. "Puzzled, he asked "Why are you laughing? "Because you just said you can get something out of nothing" someone replied. Dawkins had reached the point where he had to give a logical answer because there was no scientific one, and he failed miserably. The difficulty with the Big Bang theory which is put forward to scientifically prove everything, is that it proves nothing. There had to be a beginning otherwise we were into things existing through infinity. To say we have to wait an infinite time to exist is an impossible concept. But there had to be an explanation for the Big Bang, science demands it. This is where I turn to Thomas Aquinas. IF SOMETHING CANNOT EXPLAIN WITHIN ITSELF ITS OWN EXISTENCE THEN ITS EXISTENCE MUST BE EXPLAINED BY SOMETHING OUTSIDE OF ITSELF.
That is one approach I may use but of course catechesis must be taught from where the person is in relation to religion. Getting a lot of people together for a programme usually does not work because of the fact that people have to be taught from where they are. They just get bored otherwise.
These are the words of the Creed which Catholics proclaim at every Mass on Sunday. It is our personal declaration of why we are there. We believe in God. Not so long ago believing in God was the norm. Certainly evangelisation in the early Church was much easier than today as far as belief in God was concerned. It was a matter of persuading people that the Christian God was the true God. Evangelisation today is among people who have been persuaded that to believe in God, is rather old fashioned and out of date, we have a scientific society and not a superstitious one, "If there is a God", they say "Show him to us". We are not going to waste our time talking to an imaginary friend".
Sadly the scientific mind has persuaded the majority of young people to stay away from our Churches. Confirmation classes are notorious for young people turning up because they were being obedient to their parents, not because the believed in the Catholic Church. Yet this has carried on now for decades. "O they all come back in the end" some would reassure us, but only a very few did.
So here I go again . "He knows it all" is my usual description though not n a complimentary way How would I face this issue. The proving that God exists to people who attended Catholic schools where the whole topic was ignored, but everyone was doing a good job.
We have to tackle science and show its boundaries. On the question of God we have to follow the the science which according to our young people shows the God does not exist. So I show them perhaps a flower and I tell them that it came from a seed. "We know that" they will say but that does not prove the existence of God. "But I got the seed from another flower, and is it not wonderful that I know when I plant it, that it has an interior computer that will cause it to grow?" "Yes, yes, how wonderful. but that is just how things are. Everything as science shows comes for something else and why bring God into it?" Of course they are right. In questions of science we are dealing with the way things are and we should not look for non-scientific explanations by asking 'why' things are. The why is of course very important but that involves logical thinking which seems to be missing.
So let me introduce Richard Hawkins. He made a lot of money out of selling a book 'The God Myth'. He was a scientist and a very good one, but he became a celebrity by his book which explained 'how things are' without quite explaining 'why things are'. You know what I mean. This is how the universe is, how it always was, and will be in the future. Scientists have never seen God in their work, so that means that God does not exist. This of course was a good way of avoiding the question 'Why' but eventually he got overconfident with the reply and undid himself. It was in Australia at a public meeting that he suddenly found the audience laughing at him rather than with him. Now the theory of evolution is widely accepted and as we look at evolution and time we get to what scientists call the "Big Bang' Of course continuing in the scientific mind he was up against the question of what existed before the Big Bang. His answer was "Nothing, but you can get something from nothing" The audience erupted into laughter. "Puzzled, he asked "Why are you laughing? "Because you just said you can get something out of nothing" someone replied. Dawkins had reached the point where he had to give a logical answer because there was no scientific one, and he failed miserably. The difficulty with the Big Bang theory which is put forward to scientifically prove everything, is that it proves nothing. There had to be a beginning otherwise we were into things existing through infinity. To say we have to wait an infinite time to exist is an impossible concept. But there had to be an explanation for the Big Bang, science demands it. This is where I turn to Thomas Aquinas. IF SOMETHING CANNOT EXPLAIN WITHIN ITSELF ITS OWN EXISTENCE THEN ITS EXISTENCE MUST BE EXPLAINED BY SOMETHING OUTSIDE OF ITSELF.
That is one approach I may use but of course catechesis must be taught from where the person is in relation to religion. Getting a lot of people together for a programme usually does not work because of the fact that people have to be taught from where they are. They just get bored otherwise.
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