Pray!

Hi Nocredo, 

You said:

As an atheist, I can’t grant that there is any faith as you’d understand it.

How do you understand faith?

Here’s how I understand faith. I have faith in my mom. She has loved me and taken care of me all my life. I trust her completely.

I think you’d infer the Trinity, or Church’s guidance (etc.) just like any other belief. But, that’s neither here nor there.

I’m not sure what you mean. Unless you are saying that you don’t “trust” the Church. Which is key to believing her doctrines. But not to believing in God’s existence. Many who believe in God do not trust the Catholic Church.

The motives of credibility are the existence of God and the fact of revelation (usually argued for by Jesus’ resurrection), right?

“Motives of credibility”? Reasons to believe?

I don’t speak for everyone here, but my reasons to believe are all over the place. All I have to do is look around and see that only God could have made such a wondrous creation.

It’s those that I’d take to be overwhelming tasks. It’s not near enough to just wave in the Quinque Viae’s direction and throw a Habermas book at the unbeliever :p. (not saying all Catholics do this)

Been there. I wasn’t brought to faith by the convincing arguments of believers. If anything, they may have turned me off by their insisting that I “didn’t mean what I was saying.”

However, if I was a typical atheist, then there will be times when you will reach out to an Entity which you can’t see. You might curse yourself for being so foolish.

If that ever happens to you, go with the flow.   Ask Him to prove Himself to you.  He will.

Sincerely,

De Maria