[nyokodo]

> How could they know?

I can’t speak for any religious leader but in terms of Catholic leadership: because in many matters God spoke through the Prophets and then He came down and told us directly which is preserved in Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:15-17), and the Holy Spirit guides the Church (John 14:26) and does so through the prime ministerial office of the Pope the successor of Peter (Mathew 16:13-19) and through the Bishops the successors of the Apostles (Acts 1:12-26)(Acts 15)

[nonameiguess]

Granting it's been 30 years since I've considered myself Catholic, so speaking entirely from the perspective of a non-believer at this point, but to me, the central dilemma is say I buy that we and our universe have a thinking, feeling creator that watches events, possibly intervenes, and actually cares how we behave in a way we can translate into human language and moral directives, given all the thousands upon thousands of conflicting historical text claiming to be that, why should I accept what one specific council of European priests 600 years ago or whatever decided is to be considered holy canon?

Other commenters trying to compare to science seem to misunderstand the analogy. You don't have to accept the conclusions of Francis Bacon himself because he sort of formalized the scientific method as we know it today. Nor do we read the texts of Newton and consider that eternal canon. Science involves empirical investigation and all claims can be corroborated or contradicted by further investigation. They're probabilistic claims based on statistical analysis of the currently available known evidence and always subject to change.

If you don't think this works, then explain how AI is able to exist in the first place, because adjusting probability estimates based on statistical modeling of incoming evidence conditioned on past evidence is exactly what machine learning does.

I love Catholicism for all the reasons given elsewhere. It has produced a grand tradition of clear writers and erudite thinkers. The basic morality and orientation of man's purpose with respect to other men rings "true" to me even if it lies outside of empiricism. But the core dogma of "believe specific claims of fact because they were written down in one text and not another" is bad epistemology no matter how you cut it. If God himself ever spoke to me directly, I'd have no choice but to consider that (but would also have to consider that I might be insane). No priest and no prophet, however, is ever going to convince me that they speak with the mandate of God just because they believe it very strongly themselves.

[lolinder]

> But the core dogma of "believe specific claims of fact because they were written down in one text and not another" is bad epistemology no matter how you cut it.

My understanding of Catholicism comes from outside of it, but this isn't how I understand Catholic epistemology—this sounds more like Sola Scriptura, which is a Protestant doctrine and emphatically not a Catholic one.

Since I'm not a Catholic, I'm going to link out to an explanation from people who are [0]:

> The living magisterium, therefore, makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present thought of the Church in continuity with her traditional thought, which is for it the final criterion, according to which the living magisterium adopts as true or rejects as false the often obscure and confused formulas which occur in the monuments of the past. Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings; she judges them more than she is judged by them.

So the epistemological problem to resolve is not why these particular documents, it's why this particular organization? Not why do I trust what's written here but not there—the answer to that is because the Church says so—but why do I trust this Church?

Not being a Catholic, I can't really answer that question, but I do think it's important to approach the Catholic question on its own terms rather than Protestant terms.

[0] https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/tradition-and-living-m...

[nyokodo]

> why should I accept what one specific council of European priests 600 years ago or whatever decided is to be considered holy canon?

Well, firstly the canon doesn't just come from the decisions of Europeans and bringing race into it is a non-sequitur. The canon of Scripture comes from the Sacred Tradition, preserved by the Church and lead by the Pope and the Bishops (who FWIW weren't and aren't just white guys), and then sealed by the authority given by Christ to the Pope and the Bishops on issues of faith and morals. The Sacred Tradition and the authority of the Pope and Bishops comes from Christ, so why should you trust the canon of Scripture? Because Jesus Christ is God and you should believe in Him and be apart of His Church because the canon comes from the Church which comes from Christ. If you don't believe in Jesus Christ or that He was God then worrying about the canon of Scripture and trying to criticize medieval ecumenical council decisions is just foolishness.

> But the core dogma of "believe specific claims of fact because they were written down in one text and not another" is bad epistemology

This is closer to Protestant dogma which tends to assert that the Church and all our beliefs come from Scripture. To slightly rephrase and expand on what I already said above, Catholic dogma is that the canon of Scripture comes from the Church not the other way around, that is to say Christ gave us the Sacred Tradition and the Apostles and their successors are what determined the canon of Scripture.

So now I've distilled a vague distrust you have in medieval and ancient sources down to a historical and empirical question. Did Jesus Christ die and rise again, and did He found a Church that has kept his Tradition alive through the centuries and alive fundamentally unchanged. These questions have been ignored and then ridiculed by empiricists but I've noticed more and more people starting to take them seriously, I suggest you do too.

[wrfrmers]

That's a lot of talking around the actual question

>that has kept his Tradition alive through the centuries and alive fundamentally unchanged

the answer to which is an emphatic, "No." Which is why Protestantism exists in the first place.

The fundamental conundrum is whether or not you believe god is operating through people who are clearly behaving in self-serving ways, as many Catholic officials have in the past. There's nothing empirical about such a question and no use becoming indignant over some taking the perfectly sentimental (if not also reasonable, though that's beside the point) stance that they simply don't trust those dudes. The appeal to being the Church which is Jesus who is God, and therefore you can't question anything a church official says, is, like... the whole point of tension.

[nyokodo]

> the answer to which is an emphatic, "No." Which is why Protestantism exists in the first place.

Early Church scholarship makes it impossible to maintain the Protestant contention that the teachings have changed in their essence, obviously vocabulary has changed. Some recommended reading on the topic that is a mix of popular and scholarly works:

* The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin

* Upon This Rock by Steve Ray

* Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett

* The Faith of the Early Fathers Volumes 1 to 3 by William Jurgens

* The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon in 451 by Adrian Fortescue

[wrfrmers]

The medium is the message, as it were. Changing vocabulary changes the essence, since the minds and souls that would provide consistency across shifting intonation aren't still here to speak/bare them, respectively.

I think you overestimate my interest in soil-testing when I'm removed enough from the scene to see the mountain for myself. I suppose it could be a mirage; that's the best you can hope for.

[achierius]

Is it a no? Many archeological finds since the reformation have shown that the early church was indeed very much alike to what the Catholic Church later claimed. What differences in doctrine or practice do you know of?

[wrfrmers]

There was a famous list that a guy once nailed to a church door. That was a few hundred years ago.

[grahamj]

Books are written by people. It’s humans all the way down.

[lolinder]

OP is giving the correct answer for the Catholic worldview.

You and the Catholic Church are operating under completely different axioms, so there's no point in responding to someone's explanation of Catholic axioms by just repeating your own axioms more forcefully.

[buu700]

I think it's a more interesting approach to disregard the metaphysical claims, which are inherently unfalsifiable and thus irrelevant to life in this universe, and look at religious texts as constitutions governing human behavior and morality. The metaphysical bits are just a side note to help sell that social contract and give it a theoretical enforcement mechanism.

In other words, the relevant question isn't how some pastor "knows" that God says to do XYZ. Obviously they don't. The relevant question is whether and to what extent there's value to be extracted from the collective wisdom of generations of members of an institution whose history stretches back thousands of years.

Whether or not a literal god may have been involved at any point is irrelevant. Right now, we're very far removed from any such claimed involvement, looking at documents that have been written, cherry-picked, translated, rewritten, and reinterpreted many times by many different fallible humans. If the only meaning someone sees in religious guidance is its connection to a literal physical deity, they're in for an exercise in frustration from what is at best the world's longest game of telephone. I think it makes more sense to just accept a religion and its culture and teachings for what they are, and try to be the best person you can be without worrying about how the guy controlling the simulation we live in may choose to mete out rewards and punishments.

[lolinder]

> Whether or not a literal god may have been involved at any point is irrelevant. Right now, we're very far removed from any such claimed involvement, looking at documents that have been written, cherry-picked, translated, rewritten, and reinterpreted many times by many different fallible humans.

This is only true from the Protestant Sola Scriptura perspective. The Catholic and Orthodox traditions hold that God still directs the Church through the Holy Spirit, which makes the documents that you identify only some elements of that direction—an output of the authority granted to the Church—not its final form. So, no, it's not accurate to say that we are far removed from any claims of direct involvement from Deity—several branches of Christianity hold that He is still actively involved.

> If the only meaning someone sees in religious guidance is its connection to a literal physical deity, they're in for an exercise in frustration from what is at best the world's longest game of telephone.

Again, it's not a long game of telephone if God is actually still directing the Church today. If you accept that He guides leadership right now through the Pope and the Bishops, which is the stance articulated by OP, you're at most a few steps removed from His regular guidance.

Which gets back to my original point, which is that this really all comes down to which axioms you want to accept. All religion is unfalsifiable, as you observe, but falsifiability cuts both ways and you can't logic your way out of that to logically conclude the absence or irrelevance of a God. What you can do is decide which axioms you're going to start from and work from there.

[buu700]

That's fair. It isn't outside the realm of possibility that the Pope and every previous Pope is and was a true agent of God (despite how historical issues around papal succession and legitimacy may complicate that story), and there's no way to logic your way into an answer on that one way or another.

Nevertheless, whether or not someone's particular doctrine agrees with the "long game of telephone" stance, I would suggest that a mindset which finds meaning in the teachings and institutions of one's religion independent of their divinity is a more straightforward path to prosocial behavior and inner peace. The idea that anyone should ever suffer genuine anguish or question their personal morals based on doubts of their assumptions about the metaphysical nature of the universe just seems alien and like a non sequitur to me, but from what I understand it's a very real struggle for some people.

[Juliate]

This is also true from a Catholic point of view (I am).

At the very least, that’s debatable or less absolute than that.

Because evidence (schisms, actual errors from the Church institution throughout time, not the least sex scandals we are not done with yet) shows that if God was actively directing the Church in the past and today, oh boy… not sure you would be sane to want to follow such a “peculiar” guidance.

[nyokodo]

> Because evidence (schisms, actual errors from the Church institution throughout time, not the least sex scandals we are not done with yet) shows that if God was actively directing the Church in the past and today, oh boy…

Except all the scandals and anti-Popes are empirical evidence of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church. Despite all that the teachings of the Church are fundamentally unchanged. I can read St Justin Martyr and recognize the teaching of the Eucharist from the second century that itself is in continuity with John 6. Go through all Catholic teachings and you’ll find continuity from the beginning despite all the forces that wanted to change it for thousands of years.

The religion founded by the man betrayed by His own Apostle and then disowned or abandoned by the rest, executed brutally and sadistically by the Romans, that religion went on to conquer the Roman world within a few centuries and then make its way through the whole world for thousands of years. Why? Because Jesus rose from the dead and against His Church the gates of hell won’t prevail.

[zoogeny]

I think this is a bad direction to argue from. Science is humans all the way down and we want to have confidence in the scientific process. That is, it is fundamental to our understanding of science that we can trust the collective output of numerous humans working together to uncover "Truth".

You wouldn't accept the counter argument: "Science is wrong because it is the work of humans; religion is right because it is the word of God".

We have to assume, no matter what side of the argument we take, that humans are at least in principle capable of discerning "Truth". We should focus on how humans discern truth rather than on whether or not they can.

[pixl97]

A major problem it seems is that people get caught up and forget that philosophy can exist without religion can just get trapped in the arguments religious philosophy presents.