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Show j non-atl)ollc .Queries and Answers ' Cbereto (San Franci-co Monitor.) Are r.ot all religions good? Is not one religion as good as another? Why is it necessary, to accept any creed? Will not my hereafter be secure if I live a good, honest life according ac-cording to my conscience? What difference does it make what religion a man professes, provided he lives up to it? Will God ask me hereafter what creed I professed, or rather what kind of a life I have lived? These questions all voice the most popular religion re-ligion of the twentieth century: the religion of indifferent in-different ism. It is practically the creed of nine out of ten in the outside churches today, which have almost al-most completely lost the old-time orthodoxy of the sixteenth century. It is the inevitable reaction from the first false principle of Protestantism: the formula, for-mula, ''Faith alone without works will save," has now become, in ihe hands of the descendants of Luther, Lu-ther, ''Works alone without faith will save." Men have wearied of the many dissensions of the sects, with their denial of one Pope and their creating of many, and have carried the second principle of Protestantism, private judgment, to its logical conclusion con-clusion by utterly denying the right to be taught by any man, which first clothes itself under the qunfi respectable garb of indifferentism prior to going the full way of unbelief. Indifferentism is the most subtle enemy of the true faith, much harder to combat than the bitter bigotry of the old-fashioned Protestant. The latter, lat-ter, once disabused of his false ideas of the Church and his inherited prejudices, is open to conviction. But the indifferentist who declares God is indifferent indif-ferent to truth simply because he himself is so, and who boasts of a religion free from obligations and restraint, is hardly apt to consider the claims of a definite dogmatic religion which requires absolute faith and enforces its laws under penalty of damnation. dam-nation. Is it not strange, however, that the very man who worries night and day over some business difficulties, dif-ficulties, or who sacrifices health and comfort in search for money, political preferment, the interests inter-ests of science and the like, should on the other hand be totally indifferent to his eternal welfare? How can any serious-minded man neglect to consider con-sider the claims of God and his immortal soul? The assertion that "one religion is as good as. another," is evidently a self-contradiction. It is a first principle of reason that two contradictory statements cannot be true. If one is. true, the other is undoubtedly false. Either there are many Gods or one God; either Jesus Christ is the Son of God or He is not; either Mohammed is a prophet or an imposter; divorce is either lawful or not; either Jesus Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament or He is not. To declare that therefore Protestantism, Protestant-ism, Mohammedanism, Polytheism, Catholicism are equally true, is therefore to deny objective truth altogether. al-together. On this theory a man ought to change his religion as he changes his clothes according, to his' environment. He ought to be a Catholic in Italy, a Protestant in Sweden, aMohammeden in Turkey, a Jew in Judea, a Brahmin in India and a Par.-:ee in Persia. . . The God of indefferentism is, moreover, not a God to be adored by rational men; God is the essential, es-sential, absolute, and eternal truth. Of necessity He must hate error and wickedness. To assert, therefore, that God does not care what men believe, be-lieve, that He is indifferent whether they believe truth or falsehood, consider good evil or evil good, accept His revelation or reject it at will, is nothing noth-ing short of blasphemy. A man indifferent to truth a liar, in other words cannot have the respect of his fellows. A God indifferent to truth is a self-contradiction. self-contradiction. Xo wonder,-then, that men who. form so low a conception of the Deity should end in denying Ilim altogether. Indifferentism is unbelief un-belief in disguise. But is not ''goodness' the one thing essential? Why worry about creeds, dogmas, or formulas of belief ? Undoubtedly goodness is absolutely necessary; neces-sary; but the indifferentist forgets that faith. is a virtue essential to salvation; that a firm, unhesitating unhesi-tating belief in the doctrines revealed by God is the very foundation-stone of supernatural goodness. good-ness. A creed is merely the concrete expression of revealed truth. A good man must accept God's word, once ho knows it; a good man must seek to discover what God has said, once he doubts regarding re-garding his own religious faith. Faith is part of a good life; it is the first step on the road to God's Kingdom; it is the entrance virtue to the supernatural super-natural life. H it were not necessary the Son of God could not enforce it upon us all under the penalty of damnation, as He did when He said to ihe apostles, "He that believeth not shall bo condemned con-demned (damned)" (Mark xvi. 16). If it were a matter of option the Apostle could not have written, writ-ten, "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (neb. xi. 6). The indifferentist tends to an easy, vague, varying vary-ing sort of goodness, which reason and revelation both emphatically declare to be evil. He calls good whatever falls in with his own inclinations. He i3 not good according to the divino standard, which is the only kind of goodness that avails for salvation. salva-tion. There is no record of the doctrine of indifferentism indif-ferentism in the Scriptures; there is no trace of it in all Christian history. Jesus Christ told His apostles (Matt, xxviii, 19, 20) to preach to all men the doctrines that He had commanded them to teach: "Going, teach ye all nations; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded com-manded you." His was a definite, clear gospel, that the apostles were to guard faithfuly with their life blood and hand down to their successors until the end of the world. Useless indeed would have been their preaching, suffering, and death, a mock- ery the death of millions of martyrs, a stupendous bit of folly the sacrifices of converts from the first day of Christianity, if it were true that it made no difference what a man believed. Why does St. Paul insist so much on the unit j of faith, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism"' (Eph. iv. 3), and so bitterly denounce the Judaizers of his time for attempting to force the obsolete customs of the old law upon the early Christians, if it -patters nothing? "There are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach gospel to ypu besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (Gal. i. 7, 8; cf. I Tim. vi. 20; II Tim. 1. 14; II Thess ii. 14). So from the beginning, the Popes, as the great confirmers of the faith of the wavering brethren (Luke xxii. 32), have always denounced error and heresy, and council after council of Christian bishops, bish-ops, from the council of. Jerusalem in the first century cen-tury to the council of the Vatican in tlw nineteenth, nine-teenth, have uttered their protest against any corruption cor-ruption of the faith of Christ, giving the lie direct to the false and destructive creed of modern indifferentism. indif-ferentism. It is; therefore, the first duty of a rationalman to love truth, and to embrace it at the cost of any sacrifice. It is the mark of a coward and a fool to shirk one's responsibility to the light that God vouchsafes to every intellect that He has fashioned after His own. We despise a man who has no convictions con-victions or principles ; he is not to be trusted. God despises a man without religious convictions or firm principles of faith. lie says Himself to the indifferentist: "I would thou were cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, arid neither cold or hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth" (Apoe. iii. 15, 16). .We despise a "trimmer;" can God lovo the indifferentist ? Practically also we find that the man who says first, "It does not make any difference what a man believes, is tempted to adopt its logical conclusion and say, "It does not make any difference what a man does." His morality is built on the shifting sands of opinion, fancy, human respect and therefore there-fore will hardly stand the strain of sorrow, disgrace, dis-grace, difficulty or temptation. If religion is mere opinion, a man realizes that all certainty of doctrine doc-trine or morals is impossible, and therefore some form of unbelief is the inevitable result. (Mac-Laughlin, (Mac-Laughlin, "Is one Belicrion As Good As Another ?") "Does not the Bible declare that "God is not a respecter re-specter of persons" and that "He who feareth Him, and worketh justice is acceptable to Him?" (Acts x, 84, 35.) Is It not sufficient therefore, for a man to be good and charitable, as this pagan centurion was, without bothering about creeds? This text is frequently on the lips of men who from force of tradition still quote Bible texts, al-thoughs al-thoughs they are unwilling to follow the Scripture of teaching in every point. To quote the words of St. Peter without the context,-and thus making God's word witness to the doctrine of indifferentism, indifferent-ism, is anything but reasonable. The texts evidently mean that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not limited to the Jews, but is for all people, and that His grace also is given to all men without exception. Again, that a man living according to the light vouchsafed him, fearing Cio.l and doing good as far as-he-possibiy c.)n imr,.r tu' grace of God, although ignorant of tin- tru. . pel, is acceptable to Gud. The intaur u-h a Op., discovers the true religion, he will t'ir.bnirp jr a-once-without question, us Cornelius did, no matter what the cost. AVhy does the God of truth permit so many f religions in the world? In view of the multitu !. of D. ligiohs in the world, and the diversities of s-v t a-ron-Christians, is not the attitude of a sceptic I'rfo t!;-reasonable? t!;-reasonable? All religions claim to be riht. and 't all. Cannot be. What, then, is a man to do, for h: Las not time to study all? We readily admit that the existnco of many false religions is a great evil and that 'it.s explanation will ever remain difficult ami my-terious. my-terious. But because finite man has not been ;,! - mitted.jnto the se-rets of the infinite God, must h-thereby h-thereby deny His all-ruling providence.' By no means. The true manner of arguing is thin s-f forth by Balmes: "The evil exists, it is true. Km that Providence also exists, is no less certain; ap-' ap-' parently these are two things which cannot coexist ; but as you know for certain they do exist, tlu- apparent ap-parent contradiction is not sufficient to make you deny their existence. What you should do i' to seek a means of removing this contradiction; an.' in case you cannot possibly discover one, attributions attributi-ons imposssibility to your own inability" (Lette;-., to a Sceptic," II. p. 24, W. B. Kelly, Dublin, W.V). This is our way of acting in every day life wl,. :i we come across some fact, vouched for by unimpeachable unim-peachable testimony, which appears to cunt rail:.-' our previous knowledge. "I do not see how it r-.ui bo so," a man says, with regard to some of tin-facts tin-facts of hypnotism, "but it undoubtedly is so. 3ly ignorance of the explanation does not render t!i ( facts any the less true." The only solution to the mystery lies in tan Catholic dogma of original sin, with its countl- - train of evils all down the course of history. Practically, however, this fact should not make a man a sceptic or an infidel. The man of science is spurred on to study and investigate, so that the working hypotheses now hold by the scientist in general may be stopping stones for him to true facts and principles. If a man, therefore, is without with-out faith in Christ, he surely ought not to rest content with his ignorance of the truth of God. His reason will tell him that God exists; that God is good and true and loving; that God has spoken. A man that studies conscientiously, and prays with humility for the truth, will, through God's help, find out what God has said and which religion is the true one. He i3 not bound to study them all, any more than a scientist has to worry over the exploded ex-ploded theories of the ancients. Surely the' first demand upon one's study h that Church which has taught infallibly for IW0 years the pure gospel of Jesus Christ, witnessing to Him even through countless storms of persecution thriving on the blood of many m:( tyrs. fulfilling the prophecies of the old law, proving her-lf hy miracles, winning the intellect of men by tie sublimity of her dogma, conquering the heart W the holiness of her morality tho Church Catholic, the great defender of the rights of God and tho rights of man. |
