A popular misconception about faith is that it’s about believing something to be true, even when you know it isn’t true or have no evidence for it. But that’s not what faith is – at least not the Catholic and Christian understanding of faith.
Faith is rather my act of trust and my assent to what God has done and what God has revealed in time, in space and in human history. So it is an act of the intellect and the will that doesn’t go against reason, but actually flows from, is consonant with, and is formed by our rational faculties. It fits and works with the way God has created us as human beings – not just with emotions, but also with a mind and a will.
And so it is important to explore with our minds and reason, what the Church has consistently given over the centuries, as the reasons for our beliefs.
In this interview, Dr. Brant Pitre, a scholar who has studied the historical evidence concerning Jesus, addresses historical questions that modern scholarship for the last 200 years – since the Enlightenment – has had, regarding Jesus Christ and Christianity. It looks at some of these tough questions and issues, and shows that the more we study history, the stronger your faith can become.
