Is your faith certain enough to stand up against the doubts and different ideas out there?
Fr. Mike shares insight about certainty from Dr. Montague Brown, professor of philosophy at St. Anselm College, New Hampshire. Dr. Brown says certainty is intellectual belief based off the evidence. It’s not blind belief. Someone with certainty is not going to change their mind without new objective evidence. Many times people change their mind not because of new evidence, but just because of new people in their lives. They’ve simply been exposed to new behavior. This happens to students in college quite often.
Christianity is evidential. It hinges upon an indisputable event, the life and death of Jesus.
If you’re from a small town, you may think the way you were raised is just part of your small town’s way of thinking, and that a well-known university in a big city must have a broader, more enlightened way of thinking. But really, the university is just as subject to its way of thinking as the small town is. The culture of a university is just as insulated as that of a small town.
Don’t get so caught up in the culture around you that you give in to new ideas without evidence—whether that culture is a university, a new workplace, new friends, new family, or a new city. Let your faith always be backed up by the evidence. Fr. Mike is certain in his belief that Christianity will then always come out on top.