Question: Apologetics
As noted in the comment boxes on Paul Lauritzen’s post on The Golden Compass, prominent Catholic apologists are gearing up for an attack on Pullman’s trilogy. I’m not terribly interested in the book, or the movie, but I am interested in apologetics. And I also realize I don’t know much about it. It’s not something to which academic theologians not on an ordination track get any real exposure.
Lots of questions occur: 1) Is it still taught in seminaries; 2) Who is its audience–believers or non-believers? 3) If it’s non-believers, is there any empirical research on what convinces people to become Catholic; 4) If it’s believers, what’s the objective? 5) Do polemics help or hurt?
I think there could be interesting conversations among apologists and jury consultants and litigators–my main exposure to questions of rhetorical persuasiveness came in law school/
Any thoughts?
Would that I had thought of the word “apologetics” when I posted recently about the intellectual sorrows of many college students. It seems to me that apologetics is exactly what they need.. I don’t mean the rhetorical sort of apologetics. I mean they need to learn the facts and arguments on all sides of *current* issues, ‘is a person a brain?’ and ‘did Pius XII implicitly support the Nazis? These questions don’t arise explicitly in the philosophical and theological systems of yesterday, but they need to be addressed.
In my opinion such issues should be treated as objectively as in any other hopefully objective subject, but it should also be made clear that some of the greatest thinkers agreed with the Church that not all knowledge is empirical knowledge, that there is evidence that is not a matter of counting or measuring, evidence of things unseen.
Not all students would keep the faith if they had such knowledge. Some would leave the Church regretfully, but at least they would know that a Catholic is *supposed* to be a thinking person, a rational animal, as the ancients put it.
Sorry, ” I don’t mean the rhetorical sort of apologetics. I mean they need to learn the facts and arguments on all sides of *current* issues, ‘is a person a brain?’ and ‘did Pius XII implicitly support the Nazis?” should have been:
I don’t mean the rhetorical sort of apologetics. I mean they need to learn the facts and arguments on all sides of *current* issues, issues such as, ‘is a person a brain?’ and ‘did Pius XII implicitly support the Nazis?’
(There are, of course, many such issues.)
Doubly sorry. I won’t even try to correct my correction. Sigh.
Interesting questions! I look forward to the answers.
While you’re waiting for knowledgeable people to respond, I’ll observe, anecdotally, that many Catholics in my area seem quite interested in “amateur” apologetics, mostly interested in) helping clarify Catholic teaching for Protestant relatives and b) helping clarify Catholic teaching for “cafeteria Catholics” like me.
The tone of such apologetics may be gentle, triumphal, helpful, or almighty annoying, depending on the personality/attitude of the individual.
Apologetics to me has usually meant defense of the Church and its teaching.
I don’t think you can talk about it univocally.
There’s the Catholic League/Donahue style which has been discussed here on a number of issues and is marked by havy defensiveness that often does more harm than good.
I hear a lot about the “new apologetics”. which strike me as the old apologetics of refuting our enemies as we did in the 1950s.
It tends to suffer three problems:
-it tends to identify the Church with the purely hierachical model and to take current Church teaching on all matters as graven in stone. Someone noted to me we’re celebrating the anniversaery of JPII’s document on women this week, though the issues there are still ively debated in many circles,
-It can suffer an issue of intellectual honesty, even if the authors are well read, Think of the ire aroused by Bishop Curry for his America articles this year. Or, more recently, Cardinal George opining that it was an “intyeresting speculative” question whether Church leaders should be held to a higher standard than folk in general.
-Finally, there’s the question of faith itself and the risk it entails -”By faith, Abraham.” Paul tells us, risked everythin gand was thus justified. Too often I’ve seen folk out to prove the truths of faith.
Thus, from where I sit:
As already pointed out, a;pologetics needs to engage in underscoring the rational basis of what we accept, For the sake of Catholics and non-Catholics alike (and to show we respect them as the adults they are) it needs to be thoroughgoingly honest and devoid of circularity. I’m afraid we’ve got a way to go towards doing that today, though I’m often happy with the coments i read here.
I find b) particularly interesting. But before we get down to discussion of specific teachings of the Church, e.g., on contraception, I think we desperately need some meta-discussions about which sorts of evidence *count* in Catholic discussions and *why* they count, For instance, ‘how important is historical information?’
Most important, we need discussion of the purported infallibility of the Popes, bishops in council, and all the faithful (whoever we are). Not to mention discussions of semantic questions such as the meanings of “definitive” and “consensus”.
Based on the little I know, I can’t see how Catholic apologists and trial lawyers would have much to say to each other. Unfairly or not, I think of apologetics as a collection of canned answers to questions that have been previously raised so that if somebody attacks the idea of, say, confession, the apologist has on hand the Bible verses to quote (“whose sins you shall forgive”) and various other arguments. While I am sure there is a body of knowledge to draw on in jury selection and arguing to the jury, each case is going to be different. There can’t be canned answers.
The Publishers Weekly review in Amazon.com of Scott Hahn’s book Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith ends with this sentence, “Readers wrestling with doubts about their faith may not find much solace in Hahn’s work, but Catholics who feel the need to articulate their viewpoint to fellow believers and nonbelievers could benefit from Hahn’s clear explanation of doctrine.” I am just imagining someone saying, “I believe what the Church teaches, but I need some arguments so I can prove to my Protestant friends that I am right.” Well, why would they believe it in the first place if they didn’t already have reasons?
Well, I guess trial lawyers–and jury consultants care about how to convince people of things. And I guess trial lawyers, within the resources of the framework of law, are making arguments that are ends-oriented. You don’t elaborate upon an argument, no matter how good, that weakens your client’s position. So lawyers are in some sense apologists for their clients’ position. They’re trying to convince 12 relatively impartial people that their side is right.
But I guess the audience is important. I guess most of the prominent Catholic apologists today are not trying to convince people who aren’t already convinced, but are trying to give their already Catholic audiences weapons for the culture wars. The review of Hahn seems to suggest as much.
I guess the question is, does it work? It would be interesting to find out if the weapons are effective.
And for what? Are they trying to convert their non-believing friends? Defend themselves against ridicule for being Catholic?
Cathy et al–This doesn’t answer all of your questions (and I would like to hear the answers to them all) but Cardinal Dulles’ McGinley Lecture at Fordham in 2004 was titled “The Rebirth of Apologetics.” I found it a very good historical overview, and analysis of the present situation.
I recalled it because of Dulles’ conclusion (which I agree with very muc), in which he argues for “an apologetics of religious testimony”–by which he seems to mean the powerful testimony of Christian lives as much as noisy pseudo-scientific arguments.
First Things reprinted the lecture:
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=341
To be fair to Scott Hahn and the other apologists out there, I believe in many things that, were I invited to debate, I would want to do a lot of preparation. For example, I believe in evolution by natural selection, but I wouldn’t want to debate a creationist without thoroughly preparing. But I would like to think of that as deepening the knowledge I already have. I wouldn’t want to round up some experts and say, “I believe in evolution. Give me some good arguments to prove it.”
David Gibson, thanks for the link to the First Things article.
Clearly, there is an evangelical element in good apologetics. And since we don’t go door to door selling Jesus, one place Catholics truly have a place to practice apologetics is in Inquirers and RCIA sessions, CCD and confirmation preparation.
This doesn’t answer Cathleen’s questions about how apologetics works; rather it’s an observation that real apologetics (not just the desire to be right by backing up your statements with chapter and verse from the CCC) has been replaced with the notion that we have to “get through the material,” i.e., make sure you have a valid marriage, learn the parts of the Mass and proper responses, know how to hold your hands to receive, say the Rosary, etc. etc.
No one ever asked the $64,000 question: What makes you think you should be a Catholic instead of an Episcopalian?
I could have given them lots of answers, and I think having those answers tested would have made me a better Catholic. (Not to say that I don’t have an obligation to get off my fanny and augment my understanding where the parish failed …)
Historically, apologetics has included an audience that one thought worth reaching and teaching about Christianity, say philosophically inclined Greek-thinking types, or Romans who thought Christians were anti-state. Apologists sought out what we might call “people of good will.” As I read them, apologists were not so much defensive as they were evangelical. But they were evangelical in a way that respected the perspective of their interlocutors, and so they sought to present Christianity in a way that would seem persuasive to their interlocutors.
Because they were seeking to address particular ways of thinking, and because of the evangelical nature of their writing, apologetics is also a place where rhetoric can be used in a good way. But what this means is that apologetics should never be understood as a definitive articulation of the rationale for Christian belief. It is rather (and unapologetically!) perspectival in its consideration of Christianity.
One final dimension of the historical apologists is that they were an innovative bunch. That is, they were not afraid to articulate Christian ideas in new ways (Plato as a Greek expression of Moses).
I wonder if these conditions — evangelical rather than defensive, respectful of the interlocutor’s worldview, and willing to be novel in articulation of the faith — are possible in many Christian circles today. If not, then I wonder if apologetics is really possible (apologies to David Gibson, as I have not read Dulles’s essay. I got dissed by the NEH today and am in a bad mood, and so am not sure I can risk any Dulles right now. However, I will read it after a few glasses of a fine wine called 7 Deadly Zins).
Cardinal Dulles has also written an interesting book on the history of apologetics. He covers a lot of ground, from the early disciples’ need to be quick on their feet in answering questions from potential converts (e.g., so if this Jesus is God, and God is omniscient, why did Jesus choose Judas as an apostle?), to the Patristics period and the challenges posed by Arianism, Nestorianism, etc. to orthodoxy, and on to the ruptures that resulted from the Reformation. Though not trained in theology, I found the book to be very accessible. It also provided a view of Christianity from another perspective.
Has not apologetics been primarily directed inwardly in Christianity, as say in the case of Luke-Acts and some of the later more polemic apologists? Is not the function of apologetics to help Christians to form answers in their own minds to counter criticisms they may hear or think are leveled against Christianity?
wonder how many apologists actually engaged in disputations with the so-called opponents of Christianity. After all, we only know what Celsus thought from what Origin tells us he thought. Did Celsus ever get to read Origin’s response to his characterizations of Celsus’ arguments?
Similarly today in the “reborn apologetics” my sense is that the new apologists construct arguments which they see as some kind of threat to Christianity in order to provide a convenient refutations. But for whom is the refutation intended? The choir?Or the apologist himself or herself, not a few of whom are recent converts to Catholicism. Are they trying to convince themselves that the conversion was worthwhile?
I was right to be worried about the Dulles essay. Too many issues to be thorough in response, so I will limit myself to two, one straightforward, the other more difficult:
1) How about an apology for the apologists? If Justin Martyr (not mentioned by Dulles), along with Medieval apologists argue that one of the reasons to believe in Christianity is that Jesus fulfills OT prophecies, what is the strength of such a claim after historical-critical study of the NT gives rather good reasons for doubting the historicity of such fulfillment texts? Shall a Christian simply sneer at such work, confident in her or his faith supernaturally received by the grace of God, and so clearly superior to anything produced by a skeptical student of scripture?
2) Dulles speaks of the truths of faith as supernaturally revealed and received, and so out of bounds for rational exploration. This is not apologetics, it is analytics; not a defense of faith, but merely an definition of it. Dulles presents it under the guise of the faith experience, and in doing so he rather flagrantly conflates the experience of God with the understanding of God. No apologist should question or defend the former, but the latter is fair game. Dulles seems to rule otherwise.
How about some renewed interest in the great apologist for humble theology, Peter Abelard (not, himself, a very humble person, as I understand it)? Abelard’s great work, Sic et Non (Yes and No) is a fantastic indictment of theology by authority, and an invitation to new and constructive engagement with perennial problems.
All very interesting, Joe–but my real question right now is how was the 7 Deadly Zins?
(I’m trying to finish a lecture on the Vietnam War for tomorrow; my class is reading Philip Berrigan’s Fighting the Lamb’s War, but otherwise, I’d be so intrigued by the label I’d try to find a bottle at the local liquor store).
More substantive engagement tomorrow–after the lecture.
Joe Petit: Two hours and 34 minutes of Zinfandel, by my math. You shoulda petitioned the NEH (bastards) after a couple bottles. Whatever the weaknesses of Dulles’ overview, I do think his concluding point about the personal witness school of apologetics is somewhat in synch with your laudably humble approach.
Oh, and Cathleen Kaveny’s questions remain to be answered.
Hello All,
I am not an apologist, nor do I play one on the radio, but I do know many apologists personally and am familiar with the apologetic circles.
I think the thing that any legitimate apologist would tell you is that they don’t consider it their job to convince anyone of anything. Conversion is the job of the Holy Spirit. Period. Amateur apologists who are out for blood notwithstanding, legitimate apologists are about explaining and defending, not attacking and crushing.
It is merely the apologist’s job to present reasonable explanations for what Catholics believe and from whence those beliefs come (Scripture, Tradition, reason). It is not the apologists job to “make” somebody “get it.”
JPII’s dictum, “Always propose, never impose.” is the legitimate apologist’s motto.
Incidentally, although his name was referenced in this threadBill Donohue isn’t an apologist. He’s a cultural critic, an activist, maybe an agitator. I also don’t think Amy Welborn would consider herself an apologist. Her work is more in literature, education and catechetics. If you are looking for points of reference, I think it would be safe to say that folks like Jimmy Aiken, Scott Hahn, Pat Madrid , Matt Pinto, and Carl Olson are examples of apologists.
Hope that helps.
Greg
Sorry, but I thought maybe a more specific response to Cathleen was in order.
1) Is it still taught in seminaries?
It wasn’t when I was in seminary, although that was now almost 20 years ago. That said, in my interactions with seminarians I have found that apologetics tends to be more of a personal project than a topic of formal study
2) Who is its audience–believers or non-believers?
Yes.
3) If it’s non-believers, is there any empirical research on what convinces people to become Catholic?
As I indicate, it isn’t about convincing anyone of anything. It is about presenting reasonable arguments upon which the hearer will (hopefully) prayerfully reflect.
4) If it’s believers, what’s the objective?
Same as unbelievers. Present reasonable explanations for why we believe what we do and where those beliefs come from.
5) Do polemics help or hurt?
I would imagine that polemics only hinder the actual acceptance of the truth. But apologetics are not supposed to be polemical. They are supposed to be explanatory only.
Hope that helps.
Greg
Cathleen: Your problem is that you have scholarly integrity. My lecture on the Vietnam war would go something like 1) A big mistake, and 2) Kinda makes you wonder what the heck we learn from our mistakes (maybe that is why the NEH turned me down).
As for the bottle, it is now among the items of history, and, while I am not much for zinning in general (it was a gift from an atheist neighbor, quite aware of my professional occupation), this was rather good — still a bit on the too sweet side for me.
David: Perhaps you are correct about the conclusion of the Dulles essay. However, consider the following claim:
“From its beginnings Christianity has been propagated through the living testimony of believers. The apostles were conscious of imparting a message that came from God.”
It seems to me that every person who has called him or herself Christian, extreme heretic or otherwise, could make such a claim. Everyone thinks they believe something, and theistic types usually believe that what they believe comes from God. Thus, an appeal to the personalism is testimony does not get one very far in sorting out what one should and should not believe.
Gregory: Yes, in the words of my fav writer Heschel, we are not look at a situation of humans searching for God, but of God searching for humans. However, humans remain the servants of God, and thus how they present God might actually make a difference in a person’s wilingness to discover that God is seeking her or him. Thus, I do not think that apologetics is just about show that one is being rational. Rather, it should be that one is being as rational as possible, assuming that truth and reason are never in conflict.
Greg, your separation of the apologists form those who are not intrigues me. I’d consider Amy Welborne an apologist. What about that “Prove It” book she wrote for teens?
Or maybe she’s just an apologist some of the time. And then she’s doing something else–what? watchdogging?–at other times.
My husband, who is a good and faithful every-Sunday-and-holy-days-of-obligation-daily-office Catholic, enjoys listening to “The Family Guy” on the radio and considers you an apologist of the best sort He finds some of the other fellows you mention–and Colin Donavan (sp?), whom you did not–somewhat insufferable.
I’m just too damn stubborn to listen to anybody so my “faith journey” is full of rocks and crevasses.
I was on the Inside Catholic website, and saw this:
“Answers: Next Exit”
“Are you tired of nonstop secularist attacks on your faith? Get responses to the most common charges being made against the Church today.
From condoms and AIDS in Africa to The Da Vinci Code to priestly celibacy, you’ll find all the answers you need right here. Updated Regularly!”
The classic NT text, of course, is 1 Pet 3:15: “Always be ready to make a defense (apologia) to any one who asks for the reason (logos) for the hope that is in you, and do it with gentleness and respect.”
Apologetics has frequently been conceived as supplying answers to objections to the faith, a perfectly legitimate effort.
Sometimes it was identified with what were called “the preambles of faith,” e.g., proving the existence of God or the fact of a revelation in Christ, and some people of the view that these proofs were so valid that no one was not convinced by them could be in good faith. But, as Newman (no mean spologist himself) said, shoot around corners and you may hope to convert people by a syllogism.
Karl Barth was correct, I think, when he said that the best apologetics is a good dogmatics.
Joe and Bob, did you take courses in it in seminary?
Hi Jean,
I appreciate your kind words about my “Family Man” spots on The Catholic Channel. I’m surprised to read that you thought of them as apologetic commentaries though. I’m just think of them as putting a Catholic spin on different psych news stories. Regardles, I’m gratified to hear that your husband finds them interesting.
As for Amy, I feel a little awkward speaking for her, but knowing her as I do (she’s a regular contriubutor to my daily radio broadcast) I don’t think she would consider herself an apologist. I think she would say that her Prove It! books are more catechetical in nature than apologetic although there is that aspect to the series. And I suppose her DaVinci code book would be considered apologetic, but certainly, most of her other work is more catechetical; authoring bible studies, a children’s bible,a kid’s book of saints. Of course, she also served as an editor for the Loyola Catholic Classics series (which brought several out-of-print novels by Catholic authors like Rumer Godden).
My dealings with Colin are very limited. I really don’t know anything about his work. My list of apologists wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. Just illustrative.
What I am reading here though gives the impression that “apologetics” is being too loosely defined as “speaking passionately and publicly about faith-related stuff.” I think that is one way to look at it, but I would suggest that that is an unhelpfully broad definition because it blurs the distinction between intentionally doing apologetics vs. simply fulfilling the prophetic mission we are called to live out by virtue of our baptism. Everybody should be talking passionately and publicly about the faith–and in particular how the faith applies to their particular field or discipline–but that doesn’t make them an apologist.
Thanks for reading.
Greg
Greg, I think you’re onto something. I think the term is too loosely defined. I’ have to go to school now, to try to figure out how to describe a war that my students weren’t born for and I barely remember in order to contextualize Philip Berrigan. But I’ll pick up a bottle of the Seven Deadly Zins and think about this more tonight.
Peace, Baby.
Cathleen
Yes, I’m confused (though maybe this is only just me) about whether there’s a clear distinction between those who lay out the arguments, those who use the arguments to evangelize and those who use the arguments as (often) to defend the faith from inside and outside corrosions.
Practically speaking, it would be nice to try to figure out what we gain my coming to some better understanding of the function of “apologists” as different from “evangelizers” or “defenders.”
So write that all up, Cathleen, and let us know when you have an answer. :-)
I lived in London in the middle 1960s. My Sunday replacement for going to Mass was to head to Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner and listen to the cacophony. One of the best groups for stating their case and defending it with all comers was the Catholic Evidence Guild (http://www.cegguam.org/cegpamphlet.htm ). Now THAT was apologetics in pure form. The beauty of it was that the speakers were a mixture of the ordained, seminarians and skillfully erudite layfolk.
A close second was Rev. Donald Soper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Soper ) who took on one and all re: social justice. I would also deem his work to be apologetics.
I am glad to see Greg Popcak stress mission over apolgetics. Although Dulles concludes that discipleship is the best form of apolgetics (which it is), his thrust is still counter reformation, Which was what it was until VII. Karol W tried to restore while Ratzinger speaks softly but carries a very big stick. Via Dominus Jesus and his controversial speech on Islam.
Cathy, theology in the seminary, prior to Vatican II, was primary apolgetic. We followed Thomas and the main text was by Tanqueray who wrote upteen volumes. While once in a while theology was uplifting, if you wanted inspiration you sought other sources. That is why it was called ‘dogmatic theology.” The basic point was that we were better and more fortunate than everyone else and that it was the devil who is trying to undercut the RCC, like those Protestants.
Unfortunately, even forty some years after Vatican II this thinking persists. The “holy father’ is mentioned more than Jesus and more time is spent defending the clergy than in proclaiming the faith. One Mass has the power to convert a thousand worlds and how good we are to say it or attend it everyday.
An attack on the hierarchy is a personal attack and others are not our brothers but infidels. Hysterical women are ruining the church and we need another Pius X.
Today, of course, there are more salient voices in the Body of Christ and many lay and clergy are working to that end. Dulles, is a kindly man. But he wrapped himself around Rome and did a disservice to theology, as I see it.
As has been pointed out apolgetics is best when led by example. The best apologetics is when we realize that we are church of sinners who are working on love, forgiveness and love of enemies. That must be joined with the crucifixion and resurrection as the archbishops said.
Jean,
I, too, will be interested in what Cathy has to say, but I would suggest the following.
I think we are all “evangelizers.” That seems to be the mission of all Christians. We evangelize through relationship and through the conscientious application of our faith to the various roles we play–our witness, if you will.
I don’t know that I would say that “apologists” and “defenders” are different things. I would say that explaining on the one hand and defending on the other are both functions of the apologist.
Returning to the question of evangelism, I suppose apologetics is a kind of evangelism, but I think it is the weakest form of evangelism. Very few people are ever swayed by an explanation. Rather, I think most people are drawn to the faith through either the example of other Christians or through their relationship with Christians.
That said, apologetics can be a help to those who have questions along the way, or to those who feel they are being attacked along the way and need to have their nascent faith defended. I also think that apologetics can help evangelists get the attention of those who have a flawed understanding of the faith and have been resisting conversion of the heart for faulty reasons. But I think that most apologists I know would agree that apologetics, itself , does little to convert anyone.
God Bless,
Greg
It strikes me that many of those who are called apologists today are really people who are interested in arguing with others in order to help define themselves over/against rather than actually preaching/evangelizing or defending.
In that sense, what I would consider “bad” apologetics is all about oneself, about one’s own anxieties about one’s own belief and identity, rather than a concern for defending the faith or trying to help someone else believe or see the reasonableness of belief.
Then again, perhaps it has always been thus.
David,
Care to share how you’ ve arrived at this assessment of others’ motivations?
I am inclined always to think that looking at motives is a waste of time when the issues have to do with truth, falsity and/or probability. A good apologist tries to show why the critics of the cause she/he defends have not made a good case. The question to consider is whether the apologist has been effective and convincing.
The apologist is like an attorney for the defence. We know that the the attorney may be motivated by a desire to win, or a desire to see justice served, or whatever. The question the jury has to decide is whether he/she has given good reasons for doubting the force of the prosecution’s arguments.
I continue to think that the art of apologia requires some measure of respect for the persons at whom one is directing the apology. Thus, I do not think that classic defenses of Christianity “against the heretics” should be counted as apologetics. Rather, they should be more like what is being refered to as “defense.”
The NFP rip off of the PC/Mac commercials is a kind of hip apologetics. The makers of the video have respect for couples who like to couple, for guys worried about libidos, etc. As Jean pointed out, their apologetics actually had very little to do with grounding of NFP in church teaching regarding openness to life. Thus, the claims of the comercial are, to an extent, novel ways of getting others to think well of NFP. (To be honest, I couldn’t stand the arguments of the video, but I respect the effort).
If one wanted to do an apology for opposition to abortion, one might start by recognizing shared convictions; namely, concern about devalued lives, a commitment to poverty reduction, a sense that such poverty reduction is not possible in a highly commodified world, the need to create supportive networks for all families, before and after the birth of children. An apologist would value these convictions in others, begin with them, and try to show how the Catholic position is the best way to affirm these shared values. The apologist would not just go straight to the “when a human person is present” question. Nor would the apologist argue that all who disagree are minions of the culture of death.
I think Kathy’s right to worry about imputing motives to people.
But I have to say that I find “professional Catholics,” who make their money going around talking up Catholicism in the media, on blogs, through books and on the speaking circuit, off-putting
It has unhappy associations in my mind with televangelism, performance, insincerity, egotism, legalism. That’s not an accusation, more an admission of my own prejudices.
Raber disagrees, believes Catholic radio can help people stay connected to the faith, and he’s a far better Catholic than I am.
Jean,
You wrote, “But I have to say that I find “professional Catholics,” who make their money going around talking up Catholicism in the media, on blogs, through books and on the speaking circuit, off-putting”
Then what is Commonweal, its authors, editors, and its blog about? I have news for you guys, you’re all “professional Catholics.” I’m being playful here, but there’s a “pot, meet kettle” irony in your comment that I think you might want to reckon with.
God Bless,
Greg
Commercials and lawyers arguing cases are not generally (or at least not necessarily) trying to convince people of the truth. They are trying to manipulate people into accepting a certain position. Much as I love the Mac and PC commercials, they are not always truthful. (I own both a Mac and a PC, and I use a Mac at work, so I speak from experience.)
In the NFP “commercial,” they used one of the same techniques as the Mac/PC commercials–using the more appealing guy (taller, better looking) to play NFP and the less appealing guy (shorter, wearing glasses) to play Contraception. That is a technique to “sell a product” rather than convince people of the truth. Of course, if you are convinced you HAVE the truth, then you may also be convinced you can use underhanded techniques to convince people you are right. But if people realize they are being manipulated, the approach may backfire.
I think the same is true of all apologetics. If it’s going to succeed with me, it must be scrupulously honest and devoid of manipulation.
This makes me think of Tom Lehrer’s introduction to his foray into writing liturgical music: “Another big news story of the year concerned the ecumenical council in Rome, known as Vatican II. Among the things they did, in an attempt to make the church more… commercial, was to introduce the vernacular into portions of the Mass to replace Latin, and to widen somewhat the range of music permissible in the liturgy. But I feel that if they really want to sell the product in this secular age, what they ought to do is to redo some of the liturgical music in popular song forms. I have a modest example here; it’s called The Vatican Rag!”
David Nickol: I agree 100 percent regarding manipulation. Still, that becomes a matter of good apologetics vs. bad apologetics, not an indictment of apologetics as such.
“The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them.”
That would be pretty wonderful to relate, no?
Greg, good point.
I see Comonweal and other Catholic publications as more descriptive/reportorial–how different Catholics view different topics, with no particular agenda on getting people to be more orthodox, faithful (though I realize there are those who think Commonweal has an agenda to make people more liberal).
Catholic radio and some of the Catholic blogs are more prescriptive, telling people how a “good” Catholic would respond to a book, movie, what a “good Catholic marriage” looks like, etc.
Those prescriptive media are helpful for many people. I live with one of them.
Blessings back,
Jean
The classic modern apologetics (roughly late 17th-century to mid 20th) borrowed more from Enlightenment standards of “proof” than it seemed to recognize. It was thought to demonstrate 1) the possibility of a revelation on God’s part and on ours; 2) the fact of a revelation’s having taken place in Jesus Christ; 3) the credibility of Jesus as a divijne “legate” (credentialed ambassador) of God, this shown through his fulfilment of prophecies and the miracles he worked; 4) the consequent obligation on the part of anyone who has followed this demonstration down to this point: Jesus is credible, ought to be believed; I ought to believe whst he has revealed.. The reasoning was extrinsic: the external reasons that show Christ to be credible; the argyument had nothing to do with him as a person or with the content of what he revealed. It was enough to establish his formal authority.
Actual believing, of course, is an act of the will, for which, the theology said, divine grace is necessary. Up until that point, however, the argument proceeded as if my inevitable syllogistic logic.
St. Thomas Aquinas, talking about the causes of faith, notes that it is not the persuasiveness of an argument or some external sign that is the primary cause of faith. He noted that many of the people who heard Jesus and witnessed the wonders he performed did not come to believe. This indicated that the primary cause of a person’s believing is “the inner instinct of the Holy Spirit.” Something to keep in mind when assessing one’s own arguments, as well as those of others.
To answer Cathy’s question: By the time I was doing theology in Rome between 1960 and 1964, the foundational courses we took in our first year did explore revelation and the Church, but the course on revelation was more theological than apologetical, and on that topice we had also a course in which a Jesuit offered a somewhat labored argument for the phenomenological perfection of the Christian religion. As for the Church, there was material trying to establsih that Jesus intended a Church and what kind of Church he intended, but here too there was more theology than in the classic apologetical treatise.
Fr. Komonchak
For “the inner instinct of the Holy Spirit.” why not “inner prompting of the Holy Spirit”? That sense of “instinctus” is old enought to have a place in the Oxford Latin Didtionary.
In 1950-51 I was a senior in a Catholic High School. The Brother (FSC) who was our home room teacher was also supposed to be our religion teacher. The religion courses so far had been rather uninspiring, This Brother offered to do a course in Apologetics if we would prefer. We did, without having much sense of what that entailed. It was actually rather stimulating, but in retrospect it sounds like the classical apologetics you describe. It was very much a case of preaching to the converted.
Here’s a question or topic for you apologetics fans:
in the old apologetics, indulgences was a biggie -degending the Church’s practice against those awful Reformers.
Take a lok at today’s Times article on what BXVI is offering.
Does that piece require refutation?
Bob,
What Times article are you referring to?
See Wednesday, December 5 on Benedict XVI and Indulgences, Two ways: Easy and Hard