How the Catholic Church Seduces the Youth
How the Catholic Church Seduces the Youth
A Criticism of Youcat, the Catechism for Youth
Rational Answers to Catholic Questions
Tectum Verlag
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Kubitza, Heinz-Werner
How the Catholic Church Seduces the Youth
A Criticism of Youcat, the Catechism for Youth
Rational Answers to Catholic Questions
Original title: Verführte Jugend: Eine Kritik am Jugendkatechismus Youcat.
Vernünftige Antworten auf katholische Fragen, Tectum 2011, ISBN 978-3-8288-2800-1
246 pp.
Includes bibliographic references
ISBN 978-3-8288-4400-1 (Print)
978-3-8288-7393-3 (ePDF)
978-3-8288-7394-0 (ePub)
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Inhalt
Foreword
Love of God as the meaning of life?
1 For what purpose are we on earth?
2 Why did God create us?
Is God a question of reason or unreason?
3 Why do we seek God?
4 Can we know the existence of God by our reasoning?
5 Why do people deny that God exists, if they can know him by reason?
6 Can we grasp God at all?
Gods – the eternally invisible revealers
7 Why did God have to show himself in order for us to know what he is like?
8 How does God reveal himself in the Old Testament?
9 What does God show us about himself when he sends his Son to us?
10 With Jesus Christ, has everything been said, or does revelation continue even after him?
11 Why do we hand on the faith?
12 How can we tell what belongs to the true faith?
13 Can the Church err in questions of faith?
14 Is Sacred Scripture true?
15 How can Sacred Scripture be “truth” if not everything in it is right?
16 What is the right way to read the Bible?
17 What significance does the Old Testament have for Christians?
18 What significance does the New Testament have for Christians?
19 What role does Sacred Scripture play in the Church?
Faith – the most popular form of superstition
20 How can we respond to God when he speaks to us?
21 Faith – what is that?
22 How does one go about believing?
23 Is there a contradiction between faith and science?
24 What does my faith have to do with the Church?
25 Why does the faith require definitions and formulas?
26 What are creeds?
27 How did the creeds come about?
28 and 29 The so-called Apostles’ Creed
The triune God
30 Why do we believe in only one God?
31 Why does God give himself a name?
32 What does it mean to say that God is truth?
33 What does it mean to say God is love?
34 What should you do once you have come to know God?
35 Do we believe in one God or three Gods?
36 Can we deduce logically that God is triune?
37 Why is God “Father”?
38 Who is the “Holy Spirit”?
39 Is Jesus God? Does he belong to the Trinity?
40 Can God do anything? Is he almighty?
41 Does science make the Creator superfluous?
42 Can someone accept the theory of evolution and still believe in the Creator?
43 Is the world a product of chance?
44 Who created the world?
45 Do natural laws and natural systems come from God also?
46 Why does the Book of Genesis depict creation as „the work of six days“?
47 Why did God rest on the seventh day?
48 Why did God create the world?
God’s providence: man proposes, but God disposes
49 Does God guide the world and my life?
50 What role does man play in God’s providence?
51 If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why does he not prevent evil?
Catholic mythology – heaven, hell, angels
52 What is heaven?
53 What is hell?
54 What are angels?
55 Can we interact with angels?
Man – really an image of God?
56 Does man have a special place in creation?
57 How should man treat animals and other fellow creatures?
58 What does it mean to say that man was created “ in God’s image”?
59 Why did God make man?
60 Why is Jesus the greatest example in the world?
61 In what does the equality of all men consist?
62 What is the soul?
63 Where did man get his soul?
64 Why did God create man male and female?
65 What about people who feel they are homosexual?
66 Was it part of God’s plan for men to suffer and die?
The myth of sin
67 What is sin?
68 Original sin? What does the Fall of Adam and Eve have to do with is?
69 Are we compelled to sin by original sin?
70 How does God draw us out of the whirlpool of evil?
Jesus Christ – the creation of a God (part 1)
71 Why are the reports about Jesus called “the Gospel”, “the Good News”?
72 What does the name “Jesus” mean?
73 Why is Jesus called “Christ”?
74 What does it mean to say that Jesus is “the only-begotten Son of God”?
75 Why do Christians address Jesus as “Lord”?
76 Why did God become man in Jesus?
77 What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ is at the same time true God and true man?
78 Why can we grasp Jesus only as a “mystery”?
79 Did Jesus have a soul, mind, and body just as we do?
80 Why is Mary a virgin?
81 Did Mary have other children besides Jesus?
82 Is it improper to call Mary the “Mother” of God?
83 What does the “Immaculate Conception of Mary” mean?
84 Was Mary only an instrument of God?
85 Why is Mary our mother too?
86 Why did Jesus wait thirty years to begin his public life?
87 Why did Jesus allow John to baptize him, although he was without sin?
88 Why was Jesus led into temptation? Could he really be tempted at all?
89 To whom did Jesus promise ”the kingdom of God”?
90 Did Jesus work miracles, or are they just pious tales?
91 But why did Jesus work miracles?
92 Why did Jesus call apostles?
93 Why was Christ transfigured on the mountain?
94 Did Jesus know he would die when he entered Jerusalem?
95 Why did Jesus choose the date of the Jewish feast of Passover for his death and Resurrection?
96 Why was a man of peace like Jesus condemned to death on the cross?
97 Are the Jews guilty of Jesus’ death?
98 Did God will the death of his only Son?
99 What happened at the Last Supper?
100 On the Mount of Olives on the night before his death, did Jesus really experience fear of death?
101 Why did Jesus have to redeem us on the Cross, of all places?
102 Why are we too supposed to accept suffering in our lives and thus “take up our cross” and thereby follow Jesus?
103 Was Jesus really dead? Maybe he was able to rise again because he only appeared to have suffered death
104 Can you be a Christian without believing in the Resurrection of Christ?
105 How did his disciples come to believe that Jesus is risen?
106 Are there proofs for the Resurrection of Jesus?
107 Through his Resurrection, did Jesus return to the physical, corporeal state that he had during his earthly life?
108 What changed in the world as a result of the Resurrection?
109 What does it mean to say that Jesus ascended into heaven?
110 Why is Jesus Christ the Lord of the whole world?
111 What will it be like when the world comes to an end?
112 What will it be like when Christ judges us and the whole world?
The Holy Spirit – the creation of a God (part 2)
113 What does it mean to say: I believe in the Holy Spirit?
114 What role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Jesus?
115 Under what names and signs does the Holy Spirit appear?
116 What does it mean to say that the Holy Spirit has “spoken through the prophets”?
117 How could the Holy Spirit work in, with, and through Mary?
118 What happened on Pentecost?
119 What does the Holy Spirit do in the Church?
120 What does the Holy Spirit do in my life?
121 What does “Church” mean?
122 Why does God want there to be a Church?
123 What is the task of the Church?
124 Why is the Church more than an institution?
125 What is unique about the People of God?
127 What does it mean to say that the Church is the “Body of Christ”?
128 What does it mean to say that the Church is the “Temple of the Holy Spirit”?
Why should one believe in, of all things, the Church?
129 Why can there be only one Church?
130 Are non-Catholic Christians our brothers and sisters also?
131 What must we do for the unity of Christians?
132 Why is the Church holy?
133 Why is the Church called catholic?
134 Who belongs to the Catholic Church?
135 What is the relation between the Church and the Jews?
136 How does the Church view other religions?
137 Why is the Church called apostolic?
138 How is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church structured?
139 What is the lay vocation?
140 Why is the Church not a democratic organization?
141 What is the pope’s responsibility?
142 Can bishops act and teach against the Pope, or the Pope against the bishops?
143 Is the Pope really infallible?
144 What is the task of the bishops?
145 Why does Jesus want there to be Christians who live their whole lives in poverty, unmarried chastity, and obedience?
146 What does the “communion of saints” mean?
147 Why does Mary have such a preeminent place in the communion of saints?
148 Can Mary really help us?
149 May we worship Mary?
150 Can the Church really forgive sins?
151 What possibilities are there for the forgiveness of sins in the Church?
A resurrection of the dead with and without a body
152 Why do we believe in the resurrection of the dead?
153 Why do we believe in the resurrection of the “body”?
154 What happens to us when we die?
155 How does Christ help us at our death, if we trust in him?
People want to live for ever
156 What is eternal life?
157 Will we be brought to judgment after death?
158 What is heaven?
159 What is purgatory?
160 Can we help the departed who are in the condition of purgatory?
161 What is hell?
162 If God is love, how can there be a hell?
163 What is the Last Judgment?
164 How will the world come to an end?
165 Why do we say “Amen” to the profession of faith?
Bibliography
Foreword
“How the Catholic Church Seduces the Youth” – reading that title, many will possibly think first of all of the cases of abuse that have convulsed the Catholic Church in recent years. But whoever thinks this book deals with that dark chapter of the Catholic Church, whoever is expecting salacious details, has got it wrong. In this book we are dealing with a mental or spiritual seduction printed in large numbers, for which responsibility is claimed not by individual priests but the Catholic Church as a whole institution.
In March 2011 there appeared in the German book market the German edition of the Catholic catechism for young people, Youcat. Printed as an easy-to-manage volume with bright pictures and a foreword by Benedict XVI, that book enjoyed an unusually big success. After three months more than 100,000 copies had been sold. The Catholic Church has big ambitions with this catechism for youth. It has been translated into 72 languages, and more than 5 million copies have already been sold. 750,000 (!) free copies are said to have been handed out at the World Day of Youth in Madrid alone. Next to the two books on Jesus by Pope Ratzinger, that catechism for the young, Youcat, is probably the biggest publishing campaign of the Catholic Church in years.
The comprehensive attempt to obtain a firm foothold in the thinking and personality of children and adolescents, to attract them to a dubious set of dogmas with absurd teachings and dogmas, gave rise to this book. Instead of stimulating and appealing to belief in an allegedly modern fashion, the book will stimulate and appeal to reason in an allegedly old-fashioned way.
The title may seem provocative. Must we really speak of seduction? Does not the Church also have a right to present itself in the market of possibilities and to find followers? But that the expression is justified is just what this book sets out to prove. It again asks the 165 questions of Youcat that deal with the basis of the Catholic faith and gives for every question its own critical answer. It will be shown from question to question that many statements in Youcat are, first of all, simply flippant, and secondly that the Church that makes them shows many characteristics of an ideology, in this case a religious ideology unacceptable in a pluralistic and open society. Both characteristics, flippancy and the stain of ideology, linked with the powerful propaganda machinery set in motion by the Catholic Church to spread its catechism for youth, justify us in speaking not of promotion but of seduction.
In anticipation of the critical answers to the Catholic questions, that is the first justification.
The Catholic Church is flippant with the catechism it has published for the following reasons:
• Youcat consistently conceals from its readers results of research on the historical Jesus. It gives no indication that the picture of Jesus in the Church is vastly different from a scholarly view of Jesus, and that the Church presents an artificial and scientifically indefensible picture of Jesus. Such a procedure is flippant.
• Youcat conceals that the majority of New Testament scholars active today is of the opinion that the stories of the birth are later legends, the reports of miracles are mostly unhistorical, or that happenings from the environment have been assigned to Jesus, that the historical Jesus of Nazareth presumably did not see himself as a Messiah, and that he proclaimed God, yes, but not himself.
• Youcat conceals from its readers that New Testament research assumes that the teachings on Jesus (christology) were more and more escalated after his death. The human was slowly changed into a God.
• Youcat conceals from its readers the knowledge of modern historical scholarship on the early history of the Church. Remarks on that topic are introduced only when they can support the dogmatic system of the Church. But critical facts are not mentioned.
• Youcat conceals from its readers that scholarly research has long since proved that many parts of the gospels do not contain historical material, but are inventions of the Christian community. That is expressly true also for many statements of Jesus, especially in John’s gospel, which is regarded by researchers as almost completely an invention of the evangelist and his community.
• Youcat argues in an unhistorical manner with quotations from Jesus even though those are, with a probability bordering on certainty, later inventions. Adolescents have to get the impression that the Bible is homogeneous and trustworthy. But researchers have been able to show beyond doubt that that view is indeed pious but clearly false.
• Youcat suggests to its readers that the origins of the office of priest, the office of bishop, and of the Catholic hierarchy are derived from Jesus himself. However, serious scholarship places those origins in a much later time. Those facts too Youcat does not at all mention.
• Youcat mostly promotes or demands a literal interpretation of the Bible, even when it deals with obviously literary texts, for example in the story of creation or of the deluge. From literary texts it draws historical conclusions.
• The Catholic Church is in many places in Youcat, as in its other catechisms, guilty of false labeling, e.g., when it is suggested that in central concepts of his proclamation (the kingdom of God, the Spirit of God, hell, gentiles, end-time visions, the Son of Man) Jesus already thought in the dogmas that was fixed much later in councils. The Spirit of God Jesus understood in a totally different way from the later dogma of the Church. The adolescents learn nothing about that. Youcat is interested less in an historical picture of Jesus than in the dogmatic decisions on him made by the Church.
• The Catholic Church also attempts in Youcat to create the impression that later dogmatic developments, such as the teaching on the Trinity and the two natures, are implicitly contained in the New Testament texts. New Testament research sees that differently.
• Youcat makes out that it is modern, but in its contents it makes no concessions to a modern understanding of Catholicism. It clings to the old dogmatic positions of the Catholic Church. A discussion of that with adolescents is presented pro forma, but is actually not desired.
• Youcat is promoted with the claim that adolescents participated in its composition. But in fact is seems that their influence was limited to the choice of photos. And presumably those adolescents were almost totally youngsters who already believed and even because of their age could scarcely have been able to formulate positions contrary to the usual dogmatic teachings of Catholicism.
• Hence the adolescents were only means to an end; the conversations with them were in the last analysis feigned dialogs with the aim of selling and advertising the Youth Catechism better. Actually questions that are of particular impact for adolescents (sexuality, other religions, hell, infallibility, equal rights for women) are all answered in line with the official magisterium, and nowhere do they leave the well-worn path of Catholic dogma. A dialog looks different.
All of that is flippant. Ostensibly Youcat favors openness towards science, but mentions it nowhere where it contradicts the dogmatic positions of the Church. But a merely verbal acceptance of science is unscientific.
That flippancy is comprehensible from the Catholic Church’s being tainted with ideology. Catholicism is a major representative of religious ideology. That can be recognized in the following points:
• The Catholic Church makes for itself a special claim to truth. It cannot err in questions of faith, and so cannot be criticized either. Such a view is ideological.
• It invokes holy writings that are supposed to prove that truth, but were made holy writings by the Church itself.
• A magisterial politburo watches over the correct interpretation of those holy writings and bans interpretations that differ.
• Like a radical political party, it claims to have understood the law of history, enthuses over a proto-community, and expects a kingdom of peace that will come about when all enemies have been disposed of by divine judgment.
• The Catholic Church detests democratic structures in its own organization and is hierarchically built up. The upper echelons are co-opted, not elected. That hierarchy is derived and justified in a religious way.
• The leaders of that hierarchy enjoy quasi-religious reverence. As with a May Day procession, the leaders are the center of a ritualism aiming at pomp and circumstance.
• The religious foot soldiers on the other hand have almost no possibility of influencing the hierarchy. They are to be led by the Church.
• Like other ideologies the Catholic Church too has big problems with elementary basic rights, such as freedom of opinion, freedom of religion, or the equality of women. And the disenfranchisement of women is justified on religious grounds.
• The Catholic Church adheres to a religious-ideological world view that it upholds even when its unscientific nature has long been proved. It demands of its followers the internalization of that false world view.
The similarity of the Catholic Church to a political ideology has often been noted and described. That, together with the flippancy we have remarked, quite justifies speaking of seduction of youth. Just how that happens will be illustrated in this book question for question.
The anticipated objection that certainly will be raised as a reaction to the title, namely that Socrates was accused of seduction of youth, is not convincing. Unlike the Church, Socrates was on the search for truth and did not imagine he was in possession of it.
Adolescents deserve something better than old and long since refuted religious cant that does not get more correct through ritual repetition. Young people are generally more open-minded, more tolerant, and more freedom-loving than the somewhat rigid gentlemen of an old religion. We can only hope that they do not fall into the net of the Catholic fishers of men (Mark 1:17), and are not ideologically twisted by outsiders, but try to lead a life in free responsibility and self-determined goals; that they prefer to observe human rights rather than the Ten Commandments, feel themselves committed to human dignity instead of church services.
The Pope’s call: “I invite you: Study this catechism! That is my heartfelt desire,” we cannot support. We do not have to accept every invitation. And the Pope’s statement: “You must know what you believe,” really means: “You must know what you should believe.” It is Catholic tradition to present the contents of the faith, not to discuss.
Hence this book aims to do what the Catholic Church on principle does not want to do, that is, to allow critical voices and questions to be heard and to give reasonably rational answers to Catholic questions. The intention is not to do that in a humorlessly serious way, but in a quite ironic manner. In any case, the new answers to the 165 questions offer a critical contrast to Youcat, and it is definitely desired that you switch channels and compare the programs. “Study the catechism!” the Pope exhorts young people. But then please study also the critical objections to the catechism! Or as the apostle Paul put it: “Examine everything, keep the best” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
The ecclesiastical magisterium will certainly be of a different opinion. Here I wish to send it hearty greetings.
Marburg, December 2018 |
Heinz-Werner Kubitza |
Love of God as the meaning of life?
1 For what purpose are we on earth?
Youcat asks as the first thing the question of the meaning of life. And the representatives of an ideology, in this case a religious ideology, mostly are not able to do otherwise than prescribe the same meaning for all men. Just as in the countries of the old, actually existing socialism, all were condemned to construct that socialism and serve it, in a religious ideology like Catholicism every person is supposed to get to know God and love him. Immediately the question is raised: what about people who do not want to follow that? Who see for their lives other paths and other goals than the beaten track of Catholic paths? Who believe in another God than the Catholic one? Or in no God at all? Who as individuals do not want to decide for a ready-made life off the religious shelf, or to have any standards and goals set for them? They have been dealt bad cards. For dissidents, whether religious or political, no ideology lets them rest in peace; they are distrustfully observed and persecuted. That persecution of people of another faith or free thinkers has been bloodily carried out by the Catholic Church for centuries. Today it cannot do that any more, but there is still the threat of hell, because all who do not want to jump through the hoop held out by Catholics will not “some day go to heaven”. For them there is only the other place in the transcendental world.
Adolescents – and not only they – should be critical on principle towards all who want to cheat them into believing that the meaning of existence consists of a very specific behavior or in the acceptance and pious repetition of quite specific ideological faith teachings. They should not let any guru or pope or sect leader or fisher of men take the conduct of their life out of their own hands. Bearers of salvation and their propagandists are per se suspicious, however nicely they might smile and invoke old traditions. It is always false when the variety of blueprints for life and the manifold ways of thinking and living are supposed to be forced into the narrow channels of an allegedly unique and true religious or political ideology. Human beings have for too long suffered under religious paternalism of thought. In many countries they are still suffering under it today. Enlightened societies have been able to free themselves of that religious domination only with difficulty. Instead of allowing eloquent political or religious preachers to capture us and incorporate us in their intended uniform society, each one of us should ourselves give our life a meaning chosen by ourselves and on our own responsibility. It is of course more difficult to shape our lives on our own responsibility than to surrender to the pressure of the mob. But it is part of human dignity to try to do it.
2 Why did God create us?
Did he really create us? According to the position taken up by current scientific research the human species – and all other living beings as well – has come about in an evolutionary process stretching over billions of years, and has in no way originated from the creative act of a God.
If God had created man, would he not have proceeded in an extremely strange way? First of all, populating the earth over billions of years with unicellular creatures; then through the invention of sexuality creating a rapid advance to higher life forms; in an obviously directionless process making a wild variety of living beings appear and then vanish; making more than 99% of all of our ancestral species die out; populating the earth over many millions of years with gigantic dinosaurs and then annihilating them too and leaving the way open to small rodents, and from them then via thousands of intermediate stages developing man? Would you act like that if you were a God? And would not such a creator also be responsible for the innumerable bacteria and viruses on the earth that sometimes decimate in a brutal way even his believers? The malaria pathogen, the Ebola virus, and many other deadly little creatures (that of course snatch away the poor first), are they also creatures of God? Have you been created, as the author of Youcat seems to suggest, “from free and altruistic love”? Hearty thanks then! Justified doubts about the mental condition of a God who acted like that would be legitimate. But we do not need that God hypothesis, indeed it would be only a nuisance; the variety and the changes in life on earth are explained much better by the doctrine of evolution than by all the mythological stories in the Bible. The theory of evolution can explain the emergence of viruses and infectious sicknesses; a religion that seriously has a loving God as its starting point cannot. So whoever wants to know about the factual emergence of life and its varieties must not consult mythological texts. The Old Testament contributes nothing, nothing at all, to answering that question; the knowledge of that comes only and solely from scientific research.
The Bible does not have just minor errors, it transmits a basically false picture of the world. But all churches, not just the Catholic, still insist that the biblical creation myths, even if we do not interpret them literally, have something to contribute to the question of the emergence and variety of life. But that is pure wishful thinking on the part of the churches. However, about 80% of Christians actually believe in the literal correctness of the creation myths in Genesis.
Adolescents, but not only they, should ask themselves if they want to stick with a faith doctrine that so basically opposes the findings of science; and whether they want their picture of the world to be decided by ancient writings that could not have known any better, or by allegedly modern churches that still maintain that their religion can make a substantial contribution to the question of the emergence and variety of life.
Is God a question of reason or unreason?
3 Why do we seek God?
The churches still today act as though the search for God is somehow implanted in man, as though it were a part of human nature. Of course men want to get answers to the basic questions of being human (Where do I come from? Where am I going to? How should I act?), but that is not inevitably bound up with the question of God. And in any case: which of the ten thousand gods of this world is to give the answers? It seems clear that the emergence of religion (in general) brought mankind evolutionary advantages at a distinct phase of development, e.g., explanations of incomprehensible natural phenomena, or the stronger group and tribal solidarity caused by a common religion. All of that is of course totally independent of the correctness of a religious faith. Which religion you belong to is a result first of all of where you are born. That is not a question of truth but of socialization. A person of religious principle like Pope Benedict, if he had grown up not in Bavaria but in a suburb of Teheran, would surely have risen high in the world of Islamic faith.
That today many people cope without that religious feeling shows that the yearning for God is not innate in men; it is not an anthropological constant even if the churches claim that time after time. It it were otherwise, the increasing disappearance of religion in the most developed and best educated nations, e.g., in Europe, would be hard to explain. In Europe millions of people live without belief in God, and only the churches are of the opinion that they are missing something because of that.
4 Can we know the existence of God by our reasoning?
The Catholic Church claims that, in fact it thinks man can know God even with certainty. In doing so it invokes especially a passage of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. If he wrote it, then it must be correct, that, it seems, is what the Church is suggesting. Here as in many other places it would be good for the Church to invoke less the statements of an ancient missionary and more human commonsense that does not observe the world through the dark glasses of dogma. And by the way, Paul probably took over the thought of God’s intelligibility from the Stoics. The question of God’s intelligibility through reason is really not a theological but a philosophical one. In fact it was taken for granted, especially in the Middle Ages, that the very existence of God was knowable for every person. But those days philosophy was still the hand maiden of theology and a non-Christian philosophy was quasi forbidden. But those days are long gone. The proofs of God’s existence, which the Catholic Church still likes to peddle, have been at the latest since the time of Immanuel Kant an unacceptable currency. Philosophy, castrated by the Church in the Middle Ages, has found its voice again and manages today without the concept of God, indeed such a concept is regarded today as quite unreasonable. And whoever as a philosopher thinks he has to use it still, like the Catholic philosopher Robert Spaemann, is looked upon among his colleagues as bizarre or off with the fairies. The intelligibility of God by the light of reason: that dust-gathering bit of Catholic theology can impress nobody today except the ignorant. Or perhaps adolescents, at whom the Youth Catechism is aimed.
5 Why do people deny that God exists, if they can know him by reason?
This question is a pseudo-problem because its premise is incorrect: God is just not knowable by reason (see question 4) even if Paul had written that ten times. Much closer to the truth is that today many people are convinced by their reason that the structure of the world makes a God appear improbable. Of course we cannot rigorously deny the existence of God either. But the same is true of the existence of Snow White, the flying teapot that allegedly is orbiting Mars, and the Spaghetti Monster (work is being done to prove the latter).
6 Can we grasp God at all?
Youcat thinks so – and proves with its answers to the first question that it is less interested in reasonable proof and logical argument than a transmission dressed up to look modern of long since outdated dogmatic teachings that are no longer seriously upheld by many Catholics either. If only it were old wine in new skins; but here we see the brackish water of reactionary religious positions that are offered to adolescents. One cannot meaningfully speak of God as long as a specific religious position may not be seriously called in question, and as long as a religious ideology seriously thinks it is in possession of the truth; and as long as it is not recognized by the religious side that references to some quotations or other in old writings, or even in later council documents, have no force of proof whatever.
Gods – the eternally invisible revealers
7 Why did God have to show himself in order for us to know what he is like?
So that we can know the essence of God, it is necessary that he reveal himself. Here, as with the sections above, we must ask: which God are we talking about? Which of the 10,000 gods has revealed himself? Youcat of course is thinking only of the Christian God, but a revelation of God is not something that distinguishes the Christian God from his colleagues. For millennia people have been experiencing the existence and essence of their gods through revelation, in trance, in dreams, though holy writings, through holy men and women. The revelations of some gods or other are as sure as the Amen in the church. The God of Muhammad also revealed himself, as did the gods of the Greeks and Romans, the gods of India and China. Believers are impressed by the alleged revelations only because generally they do not know of the varieties of religion that our world has to offer. Generally they know only one religion. But why, of the many religious revelations, should just the revelation of their God be the right one? Whoever believes in such coincidences should definitely play lotto. Wishful thinking is the material religious dreams are made of, and here again it is playing its role. And by the way: if a God wants to reveal himself, what could be objected against his doing so in a clear and open manner for everyone – and visible for all – if he is as interested in doing it as Youcat attributes to him. But a constant characteristic of the gods is not only their omnipotence and omniscience, but also their notorious invisibility. It would be a real bombshell if the question which God is the right one could at last be answered through divine intervention. Then that would have given the God-deniers a lesson at last, and they would have to line up for baptism. On the other hand, we never know: after such a revelation perhaps the pope would have to set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca or even consecrate a temple to Jupiter on St. Peter’s Square. The revelation of a God would doubtless be a whack on the head not only for the God-deniers but also for the great majority of believers. But as long as no God really wants to reveal himself indisputably we cannot think badly of thinking people who simply assume that he does not exist.
8 How does God reveal himself in the Old Testament?
Conservative religions like Catholicism think unscientifically and have a troubled relationship with modern, historically critical research results, sometimes even to those of their own historians. In all earnestness Youcat in answering this question makes a reference to Noah, who entered into a “covenant to save all living things” with God. God, so Youcat tells us, makes it possible to “experience [him] in history”. Does that really mean that Youcat takes at face value the old Babylonian myth of a flood and the story of Noah’s ark and its animal passengers, and does not see it as a mythological story, literature? The formulation in Youcat seems to do that, because it would be hard to enter into a covenant with a mere mythological figure. But would a “covenant to save all living things” (Youcat) really be advisable? With, of all things, just that God who despicably drowns the rest of the world? Such a suggestion would always be a little immoral.
Abraham is mentioned by Youcat too: for historical researchers Abraham is not “the father of a multitude of nations”, not did the people of Israel originate from him. Many Old Testament experts deny altogether the historical existence of such a patriarch. It is always an ethnographic construction when whole nations allegedly trace themselves back to a patriarch. The religious view of Abraham is nurtured on the biblical stories of much later generations, presumably not until the post-exile period, when the early history of the people of Israel was interpreted and evaluated in retrospect – and certainly invented with many a theological interest. Not only Catholic theologians are embarrassed that it supports statements of faith on biblical stories which historical research has with relative certainty shown to be of later origin. So there is an attempt to prove the “truth” of the faith with invented stories. Catholic theologians in particular avoid that embarrassment by simply ignoring the results of historical research and going on as they did in the Middle Ages, as though those stories really took place, and as though the religious heroes of old had really lived. It may be alarming for pious Christians, but the historicity of Moses is also looked at very skeptically by many Old Testament experts, even to the point of denying his historical existence. The people of Israel, at the alleged time of the exodus from Egypt, had not existed, and the exodus itself is obviously religious literature or only the experience of a partial group that was then attributed to the whole people. In the same way the Sinai revelation as described was not a historical situation. And even the occupation of the Land of Canaan, in which allegedly God’s loyalty was shown in a special way, took place in a very different manner than told by the biblical stories. The two Israeli researchers Finkelstein and Silberman go so far as to declare that the occupation did not occur at all and that the Israelites are actually Canaanites (cf. their book No Trumpets Before Jericho. The Archeological Truth on the Bible).
But all of those research results are of no interest to a religion that imagines it is in possession of the truth. But adolescents and others should reflect whether they seriously want to belong to a religion that wants to push through its dogmas even at the risk of intellectual dishonesty, and thumbs its nose at scientific results when they do not suit its purposes. In later chapters Youcat will let the cat out of the bag and inform adolescents that the Church cannot err and has sovereign rights to interpret reality. Such guests should not be let into the house; they are bad not only for the truth but also for the atmosphere.
9 What does God show us about himself when he sends his Son to us?
Here the insinuation is made straight away that Jesus was the Son of God. That description is not without its problems, because, with the help of Greek ideas from the fourth century in the background, it presents an essential identity of Father and Son. Protestant and Orthodox theologians also assume that. But Jesus did not live in Constantinople in late antiquity, but in the first century in Palestine, was a believing Jew, and as such a rigorous monotheist. He would most certainly have felt it was blasphemous to place next to God a second or even a third person. It was a much later theology that made out of Jesus a God or a substantial Son of God. New Testament scholars do dispute over whether or not Jesus in some way described himself as the “Son of Man”. But there is scarcely a New Testament researcher who is of the opinion that he described himself as “Son of God”. And that, even though the title Son of God certainly did exist in Judaism. It could, e.g., describe the (earthly) king of Israel, that is, a human being. There had been several such sons of God. The dogmatic Christ of the churches, who is in his essence equal to God and who is more than a man, is an invention of later times. By the way, the further majestic titles of Jesus like Son of David and Son of Man referred to human beings. The description Son of Man could have meant a figure of the end-times, but never a God. The Messiah too, expected by the Jews (it means nothing more than Anointed; kings were anointed), was a human and not God or equal to God. Well into the fourth century there was fierce dispute over whether Jesus was or was not essentially equal to God. Many believers disputed that, but the more absurd viewpoint prevailed, as often in religious systems. The historical Jesus was left by the wayside, stripped not only of his Jewishness but also of his humanity, and made into the founder and finally the God of a new religion which, had he known it, he would certainly have rejected it wholeheartedly. But a dead person cannot defend himself.
A lovely example of religious lyricism is to be found in Youcat in a commentary: “… how far God’s love goes. He bears our whole burden. He walks every path with us. He is there in our abandonment, our sufferings, our fear of death.” Believers feel that, but of course that too is wishful thinking, as proved by the fact that the believers in other religions also feel borne along, etc. It is obviously enough that one thinks that God is helping, a sort of religious placebo effect. But humans must carry their own burdens alone or with other humans, walk their paths alone or with other humans. Jesus too had to recognize that when he cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” At least, that is what is in Mark’s gospel; Matthew and Luke deleted that objectionable passage.
10 With Jesus Christ, has everything been said, or does revelation continue even after him?
The catechism says no, Jesus is “God’s last word”. But in fact the dogmatic caravan did no really set off full speed ahead until after the canon had been closed. A long time after Jesus’ death the essential cornerstones of the new religion were shaped at the major councils. While into the third and fourth centuries Jesus was seen as subordinate, that is, of lower rank than God, he was then placed on the same level as God or defined as equal in nature. The same was true for the Holy Spirit, who was promoted from a characteristic of God – how Jesus probably understood it – to a divine person, even at the risk of a Christian polytheism. Both the divinity of Jesus and the divinity of the Holy Spirit are therefore inventions of the old church, and would certainly have annoyed Jesus (perhaps made him grin too). And is that not continued revelation! The great importance of Mary was not dogmatized until the Council of Ephesus in 381, questions of the church hierarchy and priesthood, the sacraments and the doctrine of justification not until the Middle Ages, and later “defined” by councils. While Protestants have constrained themselves, Catholics have not been able to refrain, even after the Enlightenment, from dogmatizing absurd teachings, for example the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 1854, the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven in 1950 and, to the horror of progressive Catholics, papal infallibility in 1871. All of those absurdities, called truths of the faith by the Church, Catholics have to believe, otherwise they will be sent straight to hell after death. One consolation, it is true, would be: the more interesting people would be there.
11 Why do we hand on the faith?
Yes indeed, why? After 2,000 years one could take a coffee break for 100 years. But Christianity is a missionary religion, different from, e.g., Judaism. It cannot do otherwise. And all churches invoke on that point the so-called commandment to baptize. According to that, after his resurrection in Matthew’s gospel and shortly before his ascension into heaven, Jesus said to his disciples: “Go hence into the whole world and make disciples of all nations.” So the task of missionizing the world is supposed to have come from Jesus himself. But against that common view of things New Testament research has noted that with reasonable certainty we are dealing here not with a quote of the historical Jesus, but an invention of the community, presumably of the evangelist himself. We know from Paul’s epistles and the Acts of the Apostles that the disciples certainly did not turn their attention to the gentiles in the beginning. In fact they consciously stayed on Jewish territory. In line with that there is a series of statements from Jesus in which he definitely refused to expand his activity to non-Jewish areas. “I have been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). He also sent his disciples only to Jewish towns. For exegetes it is relatively clear that Jesus obviously thought in a particularistic way, he had no message for the “gentiles”, he clearly saw himself only as a religious revivalist within Judaism. But when Matthew wrote his gospel the mission outside Jewish territory was already in full action. So he puts into Jesus’ mouth a statement that traces the mission into Hellenistic areas and to the whole world back to Jesus himself. Another indication of the late recording of the words of Jesus is the three-member baptismal formula (in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), of which we know that it is relatively late, because the first Christians were baptized in Jesus or the name of Jesus. As we can see in hundreds of other passages as well, the evangelists had no scruples about leaving out, altering, or inventing statements of Jesus, and in doing so they caused a lot of work for New Testament experts. At that point they were not yet sacred writings. The so-called commandment to baptize, which played such a disastrous role in the bloody periods of church history – Jesus had nothing to do with it.
12 How can we tell what belongs to the true faith?
defined. (sola scriptura), Youcat