I keep on telling Erik that I’m going to post an entry on Catholicism, and never getting around to it. Part of the problem was that my thoughts were mutating too quickly for me to feel that I had reached any kind of internal consensus, and then too there were some external events that made it rather difficult to feel that I was approaching the issue in a real search for the truth.

Epistemelogically speaking, decisions about religion are made in a space that is in many ways entirely alien to the space in which we decide truth or factuality about everyday occurances. Obviously, empirical methods avail little, but history, logic, reason, and metaphysics are almost equally useless. Religious ideas are so all-encompassing it is impossible to be disinterested enough to be totally rational while at the same time being involved enough to really understand them. C.S. Lewis talks about his conversion experience (in Surprised By Joy) as taking place in a strange suspension of ordinary value systems, a moment when all choices were possible.

In light of this problem, and considering my own experience, I suspect that the single greatest determinant, aside from divinely bestowed grace, of what one chooses in those moments is the character of the people we know. I never took Catholicism seriously until I started dating a Catholic about a year ago, a woman who possessed a remarkable synthesis of serious belief along with a real involvement in the ideas and concerns of the world. Perhaps that doesn’t sound remarkable, but I come from a fairly strict Protestant upbringing in which “the world”—the human order of things, at least—is portrayed as a fairly nasty place, full of temptations, and best avoided by going to church three times a week and so on.

Although I retained a certain detachment from things as a result of that childhood, for the most part I found the whole monastic impulse in conservative Protestantism basically unpalatable. I certainly had no interest in dating Protestants of that breed, who seemed, at least at the time, to be completely blinded by faith and uninterested in history, literature, music, or natural science. Christianity and I entered into an uneasy truce, in which I continued to believe all the important doctrinal points, but felt increasingly that it had nothing to say to the world. As a result, because I cared a great deal about the world and the human situation, I lost any substantive emotional connection with the church, and eventually with my own belief system.

Only fairly recently have I really seen the causes behind my increasing distance from Protestantism. I remember having debates with Erik and others about the validity of Scripture. It always seemed like I did well on logical grounds, but in the end neither one of us was convinced. The emotional connection simply wasn’t there any more, our values moved in different realms than those preached by our churches, and all the reason in the world wasn’t helping.

The core problem is this: belief is not a matter of abstraction. Over the centuries, Protestants burned churches, tore down “idolatrous” icons and crucifixes, and cut out all the substantive meaning from ritual, leaving (at best) mere symbol. Most Protestants in America worship in barn-shaped church buildings with the scantest hint of decoration. Of course, there was a sea change in philosophy and human values that accompanied this. The divine office of kingship was replaced by the naked word enshrined in laws and constitutions. Believing something on authority is as foreign to the modern mind as airplanes would have been to the medieval mind.

Now, it’s essential to point out that what put me off might not be considered orthodox Protestant theology by most Protestant theologists. Faith must express itself in works, thus belief cannot be entirely abstract even for Protestants. But the great schism over grace and works was so vitriolic that Protestant culture has evolved with some very stupid and poorly developed ideas about obedience. The result is a religion that exists almost entirely in the abstract. And the history of twentieth-century philosophy ought to make it clear that a disconnection from the world (and thus the grace of God) leads to nihilism, existential immobility, and despair.

I learned my lessons the hard way. My ideas about love and grace were so abstract that I had no idea how, when it really mattered, to give someone real, concrete evidence of love. Over time, and in combination with a really pretty serious mistake, she lost her trust in me. It’s impossible to adequately express how little I intended for it to end that way. The result was a complete rethinking of my theology.

Around this time I started going to Mass with my housemate at St. Albert’s Priory in Oakland. Fairly traditional for the post-Vatican II missal, and what really struck me was the reverence and physicality of the service. I remember thinking to myself, that’s really the body of a God up there on the altar. If I could go to some pagan ceremony for Orpheus I think I would see the same sort of movements. This is not to say that Christianity or Catholicism is some warmed-over corn god myth; rather, that the Mass actually fulfills the spiritual longings of mankind, as mankind has expressed them throughout centuries of trying to understand. Chesterton’s Everlasting Man (which I read recently, it’s available online) makes this exact case in far more detail.

Protestantism, for the large part, throws this history away in favor of Scripture, the divinely inspired word of God. Taking all the passages about idolatry literally led to the sweeping iconoclasm of the last few centuries and the bare-as-bones churches that most people worship in. All fine and good, perhaps, but the lack of any liturgy or reverence leaves the mythical, poetic portion of a man unengaged. (There is more to discuss here in the context of the performative, normative, and descriptive modes of language, but this essay is long enough as it is.)

To recap. The central problem with Protestantism as I was taught it is that by eschewing Real Presence (both literally and metaphorically) it becomes a religion of the mind, incapable of understanding and moving in the real world of human emotion and need. It is incredibly susceptible to doubt of the postmodern type, because at the end of the day one’s belief is based on one’s own interpretation of the text, and conversely, one’s interpretation of the text is based on one’s belief. A vicious cycle drags many into despair. Mainline Protestants have already gone that way and practice a religion utterly devoid of any real contact with God.

Catholicism speaks to the heart without denying the importance of the mind (although historically this was not true for lay members until Vatican II). Obedience, properly understood, occurs in the context of love and grace. It is, in a logical and relational sense (but not a contingent sense), necessary for salvation. The relationship between grace and works is a mystery, operating outside the constraints of logic (in the same way that divine omniscience and free will can coexist). The problem, however, is that under the influence of Aquinas and Scholasticism, Catholic dogma has backed itself into a corner with so many “infallible” declarations on the nature of grace and works that it lacks the flexibility and mystery of the Scripture. The Council of Trent, in particular, was a complete disaster of both politics and theology. Bishops and cardinals who had bought their positions had no interest in any kind of conciliation with Luther, and thus the official position of the Roman Catholic Church is stuck in a position that incompletely explains the true relationship. The utterly ridiculous doctrine of papal infallibility has made it impossible for the Church to backtrack in any substantive way.

For most Catholics, especially those in America, the problems inherent in papal primacy and the monarchical hierarchy of the church (an historical artifact–bishops were originally elected by the people) are not show-stoppers. Doctrines can be winked at by those who are already part of a system. But the long and short of it, for those who care, is that I don’t have any plans to convert. If I were still thinking of marrying a Catholic (I suppose it’s still a possibility, I do like Catholic women an awful lot) I would certainly consider it. But coming from outside the Church I find it hard to assent to all the specifics, and I’m not sure I could defend the decision, especially to my parents. The pain it would cause them is largely unnecessary, and at least for the moment I’m happy to go on with some modifications to my understanding while worshipping in a more liturgical environment.