Why I Believe in God, Christianity, and the Catholic Church
Reason, Revelation, and the Logic of a Visible Church
Chris M. Forte
Independent Writer and Researcher
San Diego, California
Dedication
To my mother,
whose love first taught me the meaning of faith,
and whose passing compelled me to seek God
not as an inherited habit,
but as ultimate truth.
Epigraph
“To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”
— John Henry Newman
“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
— St. Augustine, Confessions
“The Church is in Christ like a sacrament—
a sign and instrument of communion with God
and of unity among all men.”
— Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 1
Acknowledgements
This essay was written as both an intellectual argument and a personal testimony. I owe gratitude to the many authors, historians, theologians, and Christian thinkers whose works helped guide my journey—whether by clarifying the philosophical foundations of theism, illuminating the Jewish roots of Christianity, or demonstrating the continuity of the Catholic Church from the apostolic age to the present.
I am especially grateful for the witness of the early Church Fathers, whose writings shattered modern assumptions about the “primitive Church” and revealed how deeply sacramental, episcopal, and catholic the earliest Christianity truly was.
I also acknowledge the importance of the pastors, teachers, and fellow Christians who shaped my early understanding of Scripture and encouraged serious study. Even where I ultimately disagreed, their commitment to biblical truth helped sharpen the very questions that led me deeper into Christian history and doctrine.
Finally, I offer my deepest gratitude to my family—particularly my Italian American grandparents and elders—whose lived Catholic faith was not merely doctrinal, but cultural, communal, and embodied. Their devotions, traditions, and reverence for the Church gave me an inheritance I did not fully understand until later in life. What I once dismissed as “old world religion,” I eventually came to recognize as a beautiful and enduring form of Christian faith: one that had survived migration, prejudice, hardship, and time itself.
This work is offered humbly, not as the final word on these subjects, but as a sincere attempt to explain why I believe the Catholic Church is not merely a denomination among many, but the living continuation of the apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ—holy in her divine origin, yet always in need of purification in her human members, until the end of history.
Why I Believe in God, Christianity, and the Catholic Church
Reason, Revelation, and the Logic of a Visible Church
I. Introduction: A Cumulative Argument and a Personal Return
My belief in God and Christianity is not grounded in one isolated argument, but in convergence: philosophical reasoning, historical continuity, and the internal coherence of the biblical and ecclesial tradition. Over time, I came to see that Christianity is not merely an inward spirituality; it is a public claim about God acting in history, emerging from Judaism and continuing through a visible Church.
This conclusion was not immediate for me, nor was it purely theoretical. I was raised within two Christian worlds: Lutheranism on my mother’s side and Catholicism on my father’s. Family lore holds that my older sister was baptized Catholic, while I was baptized Lutheran. As a child, the differences felt minimal. The liturgy, the Scriptures, the moral language, even the basic shape of worship seemed broadly similar. The most obvious distinctions, at that age, were practical: we did not call the Lutheran pastor “Father,” and he was married.
Later, of course, I came to understand that the differences were not merely superficial. Yet for a time I drifted—first in practice, then in conviction—until I stepped away from religion and, briefly, from belief in God altogether. I became an atheist for a short period. It was not liberating. I found it bleak, morally thinning, and—more importantly—intellectually unpersuasive. The world’s intelligibility, the reality of moral obligation, and the stubborn presence of transcendence in human experience made atheism feel less like a brave conclusion and more like an attempted escape from meaning.
When my mother died of cancer, the question of God ceased to be abstract. Grief does not function as an argument, but it can strip away pretense. In the aftermath, I decided to return to God—not impulsively, but deliberately. I researched other religions, mythic systems, and Christian denominations, and for a time I returned to the faith of my childhood: Lutheranism. I attended a small Lutheran congregation in my hometown, joined Bible studies, and eventually began one-on-one study with the pastor with the serious intention of pursuing Lutheran ministry.
Ironically, it was in that Lutheran setting—through Scripture study, catechesis, and repeated encounters with Catholic claims—that I began to confront questions I could not dismiss. In Bible studies, Catholic beliefs would come up, often in the form of assumptions or critiques. I found myself clarifying Catholic positions almost reflexively. Then I began to ask myself a simple, unsettling question: If I still believe so much of this, why am I not Catholic?
As my pastoral studies continued, a series of deeper questions surfaced. Where is sola scriptura explicitly taught in the Bible? Where does Scripture teach faith alone as a complete description of justification? And if the early Church possessed structure, sacraments, bishops, and a center of unity, what should one make of the historical claim that the papacy can be traced, in principle and in germ, back to the first century? These questions were not the result of romanticism about tradition; they arose from Scripture and history pressing on my assumptions. They became the doorway through which I came to see Catholicism not as an optional “high church” preference, but as the visible continuity of apostolic Christianity.
II. Judaism’s Revolutionary Monotheism and the Public Logic of Covenant
Christianity is not a free-floating spiritual philosophy. It emerges from Judaism, a tradition that introduced moral monotheism into a polytheistic world. Whatever literary parallels exist between certain biblical motifs and ancient Near Eastern narratives, Israel’s theological claim is distinctive: one God, personal and morally authoritative, who acts in history and binds Himself by covenant. Richard Elliott Friedman observes that while Israel was not culturally isolated, its movement toward exclusive devotion to one God represented a decisive theological leap.¹
Equally significant is Judaism’s public framing of revelation. The Sinai narrative presents God’s law not as a secret gnosis but as a communal event involving the people of Israel (Exod. 19). That covenantal, public structure matters. It ties faith to history and collective identity rather than to the isolated experience of a lone founder.
III. Christianity as Fulfillment Within Second Temple Judaism
Christianity is best understood as fulfillment within its Jewish context. Second Temple Judaism was saturated with longing for deliverance and with expectations of divine action. In that setting, early Christians identified Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, interpreting his suffering and exaltation through Israel’s Scriptures. The New Testament insists that Christ’s death and resurrection occurred “according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4).
Crucially, Christianity frames the resurrection as a public claim grounded in testimony: Jesus “appeared” to many witnesses (1 Cor. 15:3–8). The early Christian movement’s willingness to suffer, preach, and endure persecution does not, by itself, prove the resurrection, but it does support the claim that the earliest Christians understood themselves to be reporting events, not composing myths.
IV. Cosmology, Contingency, and the Question of Creation
Modern cosmology has sharpened an old metaphysical question: why does anything exist at all? Scientific models describe development; they do not supply an ultimate reason for existence. The universe appears contingent—real, intelligible, but not self-explanatory. That contingency invites the classical theistic inference: reality is grounded in a cause or source beyond the universe.
Aquinas’s cosmological reasoning emphasizes that contingent beings require an ultimate ground not itself contingent.² Contemporary defenders of Kalam-style arguments likewise insist that if the universe began to exist, it must have a cause beyond itself.³ While one may debate the precise philosophical framing, the fundamental question remains unavoidable: why does a universe exist at all?
The biblical confession, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), is not offered as science, but it is metaphysically congruent with the intuition that the cosmos is contingent and derives from an ultimate source.
V. Fine-Tuning, Life, and Human Consciousness
The apparent fine-tuning of the cosmos intensifies the philosophical question. Many physical constants appear to fall within an extraordinarily narrow life-permitting range. Physicist Leonard Susskind and others have highlighted the profound improbability of such precision occurring without deeper explanation.⁴ Paul Davies likewise argues that the universe bears features that strongly suggest an underlying rationality.⁵
Biology adds another layer: life is information-rich. DNA encodes vast quantities of complex information, and living systems exhibit interdependent functional structures. Michael Behe’s argument for “irreducible complexity,” while contested, represents one influential attempt to articulate the difficulty of reducing biological complexity to purely gradual processes.⁶
Yet consciousness deepens the problem further. Human beings experience moral obligation, rational insight, beauty, guilt, love, and longing for transcendence. These features fit naturally within the biblical claim that humans are created in God’s image (Gen. 1:27). They fit less comfortably in accounts that reduce mind and moral normativity to material accident.
VI. From Christianity “In General” to the Visible Church of the New Testament
If Christianity is a public historical claim, it cannot remain purely invisible. The New Testament depicts a visible community with offices, teaching authority, and continuity. The apostolic community replaces Judas through an act of discernment and appointment (Acts 1:20–26). Paul gives qualifications for overseers and deacons, implying stable ecclesial roles (1 Tim. 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9). Jesus speaks not merely of private discipleship but of building “my church,” giving Peter “the keys,” and conferring authority to bind and loose (Matt. 16:18–19). This is not merely spiritual language; it is institutional language.
Here my earlier assumptions began to collapse. If the New Testament itself gestures toward a structured Church, then a Christianity that treats structure as optional is at least in tension with the text.
VII. Scripture, Tradition, and the Limits of Sola Scriptura
This is where my Lutheran studies became unexpectedly catalytic. As I worked toward the possibility of Lutheran ministry, the doctrinal architecture of Protestantism naturally came into view—especially sola scriptura and faith alone. Yet the more I read, the more I encountered unanswered questions.
Christianity existed before the New Testament canon was formally recognized. Churches were established, Eucharist was celebrated, baptisms were administered, and apostolic teaching was transmitted before a definitive list of New Testament books was universally settled. The New Testament writings were addressed to communities already living the faith. This suggests that the Church does not derive from the Bible as from a blueprint; rather, the Bible emerges within the Church as a canon recognized by the Church.
This is not an argument against Scripture’s inspiration. It is an argument about how Scripture functions: within the apostolic community that received, safeguarded, and interpreted it. Paul explicitly calls the Church—not the text alone—“the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). He also instructs believers to “stand firm and hold to the traditions” taught “by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thess. 2:15). Catholic and Orthodox theology therefore treat Scripture and Tradition as inseparable forms of the one apostolic deposit, interpreted authentically within the Church’s teaching authority.⁷
Related misconceptions also require context—especially the claim that the Catholic Church “forbade” Bible reading. Historically, access to Scripture was limited largely by literacy and language, especially in Latin-speaking Western Europe. In certain periods, ecclesial authorities restricted unauthorized vernacular translations, particularly when linked to heretical movements or distorted teaching. Yet Scripture was proclaimed publicly in the liturgy, preached constantly in sermons, and eventually translated and promoted widely—especially in the modern era, with Vatican II strongly encouraging Scripture study among the faithful.⁸
In practice, then, the question is not whether Scripture is authoritative—Christians across traditions agree that it is—but whether Scripture is meant to be interpreted as a self-contained authority detached from the Church that received and canonized it. For me, the New Testament’s own logic and the early Church’s historical reality point in the opposite direction: Scripture belongs to the Church’s living apostolic life.
VIII. Apostolic Succession, the Papacy, and Early Patristic Evidence
The early post-apostolic sources further strengthened the case for a visible, hierarchical Church. By the early second century, Ignatius of Antioch could speak naturally of the “Catholic Church” and tie authentic Christian unity to communion with the bishop.⁹ That witness is not late medieval development; it is early Christianity describing itself.
From there, the logic of apostolic succession becomes historically and theologically intelligible: if the apostolic mission was to endure beyond the apostles’ lifetimes, then continuity of office and teaching is not an optional feature but a rational necessity. St. Irenaeus argued that apostolic truth is safeguarded through the succession of bishops, and he appealed to Rome as a principal example of that continuity.¹⁰
The papacy, in Catholic understanding, is not a claim that the Bishop of Rome is an autocrat, but that the Church possesses a visible center of unity rooted in Christ’s commission to Peter (Matt. 16:18–19) and developed within the Church’s historical life.
IX. Cultural Embodiment and Inheritance: Italian American Catholicism
While history and theology are the primary reasons I am Catholic, my ethnicity also plays a meaningful role. I am a proud American, but I also take deep pride in my Italian heritage and the particular devotional texture often associated with “Italian Catholicism.” The Catholic Church is universal rather than national in structure, yet it has long sustained national parishes and cultural communities that preserve language, customs, and devotions.
Italian American Catholicism represents a historically significant form of cultural Catholicism that emerged from the immigrant experience. Italian immigrants arriving in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought with them a faith deeply intertwined with family, feast days, patron saints, and community ritual. In many cases they encountered prejudice not only from Protestant America but even from sectors of the American Catholic establishment, which was often dominated by Irish clergy and suspicious of Italian devotional customs. Over time, Italian parishes became centers of stability and belonging, offering not only worship but social support and cultural continuity.¹¹
In my own family, this “Italian Catholicism” was concrete: home altars, prayer cards, statues of saints, Marian devotion, and a sacramental rhythm that structured life—baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals, and the communal celebrations that surrounded them. Patron-saint festivals, processions, and feast days were not merely social events; they were public catechesis, binding faith to neighborhood, memory, and identity. This inheritance does not serve as a proof of Catholicism’s truth, but it does reinforce that Catholicism is not merely propositional; it is inhabitable.
X. Salvation: Grace, Living Faith, Perseverance, and the Sacraments
The Catholic proclamation of the Gospel remains simple: salvation is a gift of grace, received through faith (Eph. 2:8–9). Yet the New Testament also refuses to separate faith from obedient love. “Faith without works is dead” (Jas. 2:26). Catholic teaching does not place “works” beside grace as a competing cause; rather, it insists that grace produces living faith, and living faith bears fruit.
This is why Catholicism rejects a complacent version of “once saved, always saved.” Scripture warns believers against presumption: “let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Jesus emphasizes perseverance: “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). Paul exhorts believers to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). Other texts warn that one can fall away or become “severed from Christ” (Gal. 5:4), or return to a worse state after having known the Lord (2 Pet. 2:20–22; cf. Heb. 6:4–6; Heb. 10:26–29).
This framework yields a sober personal implication: I cannot treat salvation as a past tense trophy. It is a lived reality. If I am conscious of grave sin, I cannot honestly presume I am presently in the state of grace. Yet Catholic theology does not end in despair. It insists on repentance, mercy, and restoration—especially through the sacramental life of the Church.
The sacraments are not later “additions” to the Gospel but visible means instituted by Christ to communicate grace. The Catechism describes the Church as the “universal sacrament of salvation,” and the sacraments as efficacious signs that strengthen believers in holiness.¹² Confession restores those who fall, and the Eucharist strengthens the faithful in communion with Christ. The Council of Trent clarified that grace remains primary, while human cooperation remains real.¹³
XI. Holiness, Sin, and the Church’s Capacity for Self-Correction
My objections to Catholicism were also shaped by the darker chapters of Church history. More careful study replaced polemic with proportion. The Church’s record includes genuine sin and injustice—because Christians are not angels. Yet sensational claims about history often dissolve under critical scholarship. What mattered more to me was a theological realism: the Church is holy in her divine origin and mission, while her members remain sinners in need of purification.
Vatican II states this with precision: the Church is “at once holy and always in need of purification.”¹⁴ Pope John Paul II’s call for a “purification of memory,” culminating in public acts of repentance, reinforced for me that Catholicism possesses internal resources for moral accountability without surrendering apostolic continuity.¹⁵
XII. Conclusion: Why Catholicism Became the Rational Home of My Faith
My conviction is cumulative. The universe is contingent and intelligible; fine-tuning and consciousness invite metaphysical interpretation. Judaism provides a distinctive matrix of public covenantal revelation. Christianity centers on a public claim about Christ’s resurrection. The New Testament depicts a visible Church with offices and authority. Early patristic evidence confirms that the Church understood itself as catholic—universal, episcopal, sacramental—within living memory of the apostles. My Italian Catholic inheritance adds a culturally embodied depth of belonging, but it is not the foundation of my assent; Scripture, history, and theology are.
Ultimately, the most decisive factor was this: Catholicism answered the questions that arose when I tried to be “Bible-only.” I could not find sola scriptura as a self-contained doctrine taught by Scripture itself; I could not reduce justification to “faith alone” in a way that did justice to the New Testament’s insistence on perseverance and living faith; and I could not deny the historical reality that the Church precedes the canon and preserves the apostolic deposit across time.
I did not become Catholic because I assumed institutions are pure. I became Catholic because I became persuaded that Christ founded a Church—visible, enduring, and sacramental—and that Catholicism is historically continuous with it. In that sense, Catholicism is not merely my preference. It is where my study, experience, and conscience finally converged. I came home.
Footnotes (Chicago Notes Style)
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Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: HarperOne, 1987).
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3.
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William Lane Craig, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (London: Macmillan, 1979).
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Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design (New York: Little, Brown, 2005).
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Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
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Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 1996).
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Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), §§85–86; Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperOne, 2010); Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
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Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum (1965), §§21–26.
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Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8.2, in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Michael W. Holmes, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007).
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Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.3.
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Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§776, 845, 1129, 1422.
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Council of Trent, Decree on Justification (Session VI) and Decree on the Sacrament of Penance (Session XIV).
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Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (1964), no. 8.
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John Paul II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente (Vatican City, 1994); John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Knopf, 1994).
Bibliography (Chicago Style)
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae.
Behe, Michael J. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: Free Press, 1996.
Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993.
Council of Trent. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Session VI (Justification) and Session XIV (Penance).
Craig, William Lane. The Kalam Cosmological Argument. London: Macmillan, 1979.
Davies, Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Friedman, Richard Elliott. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: HarperOne, 1987.
González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. New York: HarperOne, 2010.
Ignatius of Antioch. The Apostolic Fathers. Translated by Michael W. Holmes. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.
Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies.
John Paul II. Crossing the Threshold of Hope. New York: Knopf, 1994.
John Paul II. Tertio Millennio Adveniente. Vatican City, 1994.
McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Orsi, Robert A. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.
Second Vatican Council. Dei Verbum. Vatican City, 1965.
Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium. Vatican City, 1964.
Susskind, Leonard. The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.
About the Author
Chris M. Forte is an independent writer, researcher, and cultural commentator based in downtown San Diego, California. Raised within both Lutheran and Catholic traditions, Forte’s work is shaped by a lifelong engagement with Scripture, theology, history, and the enduring question of how Christianity is grounded in both reason and revelation. His writing frequently focuses on Catholic apologetics, early Church history, the development of doctrine, and the continuity between Judaism, apostolic Christianity, and the Catholic Church.
Forte is also deeply invested in the preservation of Italian American heritage in California and the broader United States. As the descendant of Italian American families rooted in New York and later established in California, he explores the intersection of ethnic identity, Catholic culture, and community memory—particularly as expressed through Italian American devotional traditions, feast-day festivals, and national parish life.
Alongside theological and historical writing, Forte is the creator of several long-term projects that blend scholarship, cultural commentary, and narrative storytelling. His work is informed by both academic research and personal experience, combining accessible prose with a strong emphasis on historical continuity, textual evidence, and fidelity to Catholic tradition.
He currently resides in San Diego, where he continues to write on Christianity, culture, and history while contributing to local heritage and community initiatives.
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