What are the benefits of living a Catholic life? Trent Horn discusses the advantages of embracing Catholicism. Explore the connection between faith, happiness, and purpose. Learn why Christianity offers a unique perspective on life’s meaning and challenges. Discover the role of grace in overcoming sin and finding true fulfillment.
Transcript:
I’m a, but I’m someone who’s been considering becoming Catholic, and obviously whether it’s true or not is an important thing. There’s something I spend a lot of brain power on. But one other thing that’s important is being a Catholic isn’t just holding some philosophical positions. It’s also a life that you live out, right? So I’m just curious what you think, you think there’s kind of two parts to the question. What do you think the advantages of living a religious life over someone who’s not religious is? And then do you think there’s benefits to being a Catholic particularly to your life, if that makes sense.
Yeah, sure. Well, we can look at benefits. I mean, you can look at something from a pragmatic perspective that people who are firmly committed to a religious life tend to be happier, tend to live longer. Now, some people say, well, the happier people, they become religious. But really when we look at that, it’s because they have greater social connections. I think the Harvard Adult Development Study tracked people over 80 years, and the number one sign of good health is social connections. People who have few. That’s why I have been debating and involve recently on the internet, people who are spreading the idea that overall it’s a bad idea for men to get married. The studies actually show that is not true. Men who are ever married, which include divorced men, are on average happier, live longer than men who are never married. Religion also provides a similar kind of social benefit to people.
But ultimately, I would say the greatest benefit is truth and the truth that we recognize our purpose in life. We’re not an accident to say, why am I here? It’s not to say, oh, it’s just kind of a cosmic accident, or I’ll just try to make the best of it. But there’s a great piece in knowing that God made it so I was here. There are untold numbers of possible people who could have come into existence instead of me, but God made it so I would come into existence. You and me, and anyone listening to this podcast, your life is not an accident. God wanted you to exist and be here in this moment right now, and he has a wonderful plan for your life. Doesn’t mean it’s always going to be free of suffering, but God loves you. He wants you to have unending life with him and to experience even some of that joy right now.
And part of experiencing that joy is be freed from sin. And a lot of people don’t believe in sin, but you look around at the world around us, we treat human beings differently than non-human animals. We hold human beings morally accountable. People often try to say, oh, it’s not a sin, it’s a mistake. It’s this, it’s that. But when we look down to it, a lot of times we do things we’ll say, Hey, that’s not me, or, I’m ashamed, or I’m embarrassed. I want to be just freed from that and be the real good person. We know we can be like this other person if we had help. And we do have that help. It’s called grace. Grace from God that Christ merited for us on the cross to die for our sins so that we can live eternally with him. So I would say that that’s the biggest thing.
That’s what fills me with joy. That’s what fills me with not being afraid of death. I’m past the midlife crisis and I’m on the hill rolling down. I’m at the top of the hill rolling down. So I’ve just begun. But I don’t feel that fear. I feel happy. And if it comes tomorrow, if it comes in 50 years, that’s fine. So I would say that being Catholic provides that benefit. I would say that Christianity is unique. Even atheists admit that Christianity has a unique amount of historical evidence for the miracle of the resurrection. I would say there’s unique historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ, as well as when I talk to atheists, many of them will say, yeah, the resurrection of Jesus. And even some Catholic miracles like St. Joseph Cupertino who flew and dozens and dozens of people saw him and wrote this down. There have been books about Yale University Press writing about this, or our Lady of Atune and Fatima and Marian Apparitions. I would say there really is unprecedented, miraculous evidence for Christianity and Catholicism in particular. That really does point me in that direction.