People resist Catholic Fundamentalism for pretty much the same reasons:
“If God programmed Creation and didn’t tell us, He is misleading us. I can’t believe in a God who would do that. ”
Catholic Fundamentalists reply: “He did tell us. The Bible is clear that He made the world in six days. If He could program in three dimensions, He could do that. He left it to us, in our time, to re-translate ‘Creation’ into ‘Program’.”
Objector: “I cannot see how God could do that.”
Catholic Fundamentalist: “Faith is more important than intellect. Faith, and the obedience that comes from it, separates sheep from goats. Those who reduce God to what they can understand are violating the First Commandment, putting human thinking before God.”
Objector: “I just don’t see how God could program particles.”
Catholic Fundamentalist: “It’s not what we think God can do, but what God can do that’s important. We believe He can program particles and make them work together more quickly than human programmers can program screen savers.”
Objector: “Carbon-14 and geologists tell us the world is billions of years old.”
Catholic Fundamentalist: “How could He give us free will without providing a world we could examine and be free to decide on our own where it came from and how old it is.”
Objector: “Then, He is misleading us.”
Catholic Fundamentalist: “No, He lets us choose to mislead ourselves. His creation shows how much He loves us. The complexity of creation shows how much trouble He went to so we’d have free will.”
Objector: Your argument is circular.”
Catholic Fundamentalist: “So is yours’. Ours is just a vastly larger circle. Faith and science exist very comfortably in it, with science considered the ‘handmaiden of theology’. Souls crippled with vanity don’t like that.”
At the end of the day, Catholic Fundamentalists have Church and Scripture on their side.
Others must rely on a sorry assortment of pseudo-intellectuals who’ve sold their souls for a mess of pottage.
