Human History
Just having a conversation about history. Someone who is moving to another part of the world saying he is looking forward to that place because it has history. Of course, North America has history. It is just not recorded. The native tribes that were here were not good record keepers. They did not write things down. So we just don’t know what happened.
It occurs to me that God has preserved just enough history for us to know how He intervened in history. We have been able to reconstruct much of what happened around the middle east way back. Other parts of the world, not so much. So we have a context to put the story of Israel into. So God does not just reveal Himself in history but he provides a way to preserve that revelation.
Now an atheist might argue the opposite. That the Christian/Jewish story eventually won out because they were good record keepers. That eventually what they were saying was more compelling because it was older. But that does not mean it is true. It just means they stumbled onto a good practice and that caused their teaching to be left standing. This is the way Darwinism works. The best available philosophy wins but that does not mean it should not continue to evolve into something really advanced like atheism.
But that only makes sense if the history they passed on was true. Having information is a great thing if you can critically analyze it. That leads to better decisions for the future. But would an atheist accept that the Jews and later the Christians were passing down true information? Is the story of the 10 plagues and the 10 commandments true? The parting of the Red Sea and the manna in the wilderness? Story after story about the supernatural. Including the stories of the miracles of Jesus and He resurrection. Are they true history?
If they are not then an atheist is hard pressed to explain why a sense of history was such a great advantage when most of what they preserved was all wrong? Would that not just lead them to act on false information and leave them worse off? In fact, an atheist is forced to contend that the principle conclusions they drew from this history, namely the ones about God, were completely wrong. So you would think that would make their society dysfunctional and therefore, by Darwin’s theory, less survivable. But it did survive and thrive like no other religion.
Christians can easily accept that the Judeo-Christian respect for history did give the faith strength. That these supernatural events did occur and they not only learned from them but learned to reflect on longer term human experience generally in a way most societies never did. They can also believe that God intervened to create circumstances so that the truth of His revelation would survive. Or they can believe a combination of the two. They don’t end up with the same problem.
Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease to be protestant. He didn’t think atheism was unhistorical in the same sense. The problems with history are not as big for an atheist but they do exist. Lots of the apologetics have focused on the one even of the resurrection of Jesus but that is just the beginning. God does intervene in histort again and again. From Mt Carmel to Fatima, there are events that have been carefully preserved for us. To believe these are all non-events is just not that easy unless you are willing to ignore evidence that contradicts your atheist dogma. Catholics are never asked to ignore evidence. They are the only ones who can fully embrace reason.
