Through a Glass Darkly - How Certain is Faith? | Prof. Matthew Ramage

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

This lecture was given at the University of Kansas on November 14, 2019.

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Dr. Matthew Ramage is Associate Professor of Theology at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS. He is author, coauthor, or cotranslator of several books, including Dark Passages of the Bible: Engaging Scripture with Benedict XVI and Thomas Aquinas (Catholic University of America Press, 2013) and Jesus, Interpreted: Benedict XVI, Bart Ehrman, and the Historical Truth of the Gospels (CUA Press, 2017). Dr. Ramage's articles have appeared in a variety of scholarly journals including Nova et Vetera, Scripta Theologica, Cithara, and Homiletic and Pastoral Review as well as popular online venues such as Strange Notions, The Gregorian Institute, and Crisis. Dr. Ramage has been interviewed by news outlets including the National Catholic Register and First Things and has made periodic appearances on the EWTN programs Catholic Answers Live, Catholicism on Campus, and The Son Rise Morning Show. Dr. Ramage lives in Atchison, Kansas, with his wife, Jennifer, and five children. For more on his work and his CV, visit Dr. Ramage's website www.truthincharity.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's good to be back at KU. I worked here in 0405 at the St. Lawrence Center when I was discerning with the Apostles of the Interior Life for those of you guys who might be involved in the St. Lawrence Center out there.
0:10.7	So I want to talk about the certitude of faith. I think this is one of those issues that's in the mind of all Christians, especially college students.
0:19.9	And I'm going to do so through the lens of
0:21.9	Tom Sequinus and Benedict XVI, who are two of the greatest thinkers of all time.
0:29.1	Does God really exist?
0:32.0	How can we be sure of that?
0:34.7	Is Christ divine?
0:36.9	How do we know he's not just another legend like myriad other figures throughout
0:40.6	history? And what about the church's moral teachings? Are those really grounded in reality? Or are they
0:46.3	just the impositions of a bygone age? We aren't bound by anymore? So Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the
0:52.5	greatest critics of Christianity of all time, and he told his sister,
0:57.3	if you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe. But if you wish to be a disciple of
1:04.0	truth, then seek, inquire. So do the church's teachings really give us knowledge, or do they just give us comfort?
1:14.2	We find ourselves today in having an age which the famous philosopher Charles Taylor,
1:19.0	who just won the Vatican's Ratzinger Award, by the way. I'm not sure what that even means,
1:23.1	frankly, but it means he's a good guy. He calls this a secular age in which we live. He doesn't mean
1:30.1	secular in the sense of that most people aren't religious, although that may be part of it,
1:35.7	but the sense that he intends is that in a secular age, the path of faith is seen to just
1:41.9	be one lifestyle among others, and faith is more obviously true than any other path.
1:48.6	But I like how philosopher James Smith puts this.
1:52.4	Faith is fraught.
1:54.3	Our confession of faith is haunted by an inescapable sense of its contestability.
	...

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