"Criticize the Choir"

You've probably heard the catch phrase "Preach to the choir" meaning that you preach to people who already know about what you are saying.

Over recent months I have developed a sense of what i call "Criticize the choir" which i define as the act of criticizing or correcting one's own side, especially regarding a controversial issue.

I have repeatedly had the feeling of distaste and discontent not so much for faulty things that the opposing side has said as i have for my own side. Most especially my Catholic side.

Have you ever felt embarrassed by a pathetic argument from somebody that was on your own side? it's irritating enough when the opponent is constantly saying stupid things, but for me it's worse when my own side (which i believe to be the true side) can't seem to make a decent case.

Because of repeated experiences of this i have come to the point of basically being a constructive critic of the apologetics of my own side in the Catholic Faith.

To be frank and blunt, i find my own side to be overall not that good at making it's case, not being able to live up to its own intellectual potential.

I'm not really saying that those of you who are my close friends know little to nothing; you guys are the ones that actually know a real amount, but that people in the bigger scope of things know too little of their own belief system, and with that know how to make the case for it. 

I have one, big example of a poor argument from my own side that i have come across that, in all honesty, I Hate...

One of the most critical questions that atheists press against us is this:

"Why doesn't God just show himself and thus end the debate for good?"

The conventional response that i have come across is this:

"Because it would destroy our free will and we would be forced to believe that he exists!"

I'm sorry what?! "destroy our free will"?!?

There is two basic issues i have with this argument:

1. It violates what i have always understood as Catholic philosophy; namely that God's increased involvement = humans being more alive. More authentically how they were made to be. This philosophy can be summed up by a saying from the lips of one of our great church fathers, St. Irenaeus: "The glory of God is a human being fully alive."

note that this includes free will. Free will is a God given function to humanity, so when a human being is fully alive, free will is fully functional.

But according to this argument, God's presence, rather than making free will more functional, is instead a cause of conflict. So in the end, God has to awkwardly distance himself from us in order for us to function with the abilities he gave us. This is insulting to the Catholic Philosophy i have always been told about.

2. (The simpler reason) It's Illogical.

The idea that God's appearance necessarily destroys my free will never followed through in my mind. There's no reason why God's appearance would completely destroy my free will. Sure it would be impractical to doubt his existence in that situation, but I'm pretty sure i would still have the ability in me to doubt his existence.

Aside from those reasons, I'm having a lot of trouble understanding what's the big deal that God has shown himself. people seem to get caught up in the idea that we ought to live in a state of perpetual uncertainly over God's existence, never being able to know for certain that he does in fact exist. This too is a philosophy that i will never adhere to.

I don't see why the certainty of God's existence is such a sin when it's not the issue that matters most. What matters most is not simply that we believe God's existence but that we live the life that he laid out for us to live.

The way i would answer the atheist question:

God is omnipresent: It's important to note the fact that the God we believe in is omnipresent. Meaning he is absolutely everywhere.

This would imply that everywhere we look we ARE looking at God, because God is everywhere.

Now, we might not realize WHAT we are looking at, but that is a different story.

I stress this issue because i believe it is direly important for us Catholics to be the best we can be to live out our call to evangelize. it's one of the most important thing we can do, so i believe friendly constructive criticism of eachothers' arguments is a key element.