I am right.
It is difficult to find anyone on earth that does not hold this belief. Being a Catholic, I believe that my beliefs are right. As a philosophy student, and as a skeptic, I am unsure whether any of my beliefs are true.
I can give reasons for my faith, but these reasons do not make my beliefs true. I understand the world, and my faith in unique terms. I cannot honestly say that I hold all the beliefs of the Catholic Church. This seems like a really bad thing for a seminarian to say, but when you think of all the nutjobs out there who honestly think that Christians should kill all the unbelievers, or believe that God will consign a little girl’s soul to eternal torment just because she had never heard of Christ, it is not hard to conclude that perhaps I don’t have it all straightened out either.
Catholicism is so incredibly big. It is so old, and there are so many dogmas and defined beliefs that it is near impossible for an ordinary working man or woman to know them all. One is almost bound to slip up in his or her understanding somewhere along the way. I think a great sin lies in believing that ‘I am right about everything’. Even if one had an institution –such as the Church- that would communicate the entirety of truth, one would make mistakes.
I try to talk about what I know. If I have not already, I will most likely end up proclaiming a heresy. That is not such a big deal. It is not a big deal to not accept the truth. Often I find that the truth is incredibly hard to swallow. The real sin is not being open to being wrong. Heresy can be recanted, but recanting can only be done if one is open to being wrong.
If we are ever to come to the truth in our beliefs, we must first admit that not all our beliefs are right. So let us swallow our pride and be a little bit more open to being wrong.
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