Catholic Apologetics 

Contents

INTRODUCTION

The word apologetics is derived from the Greek, apologia, which means "to defend." Apologetics, as a branch of Catholic theology, is therefore aimed at establishing and defending the reasonableness of the Catholic Faith. Specifically, it has a threefold aim: (i) To strengthen the faith of believers by illustrating that the articles of the Catholic Faith are in full harmony with reason; (ii) To persuade unbelievers, inquirers and those in good faith that the articles of the Catholic Faith are in full harmony with reason; (iii) To refute the arguments and objections of those who reject the Catholic Faith.

An apologist is strictly speaking a theologian. In defending the Catholic Faith he draws his arguments principally from Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition. Nevertheless, the apologist is free to utilize and develop arguments from philosophy and history. Divine Revelation and natural reason are consequently combined to prove that God exists, that He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, that Christ established a visible Church on earth to teach infallible truths, and that this Church is the Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Apologetics has been an integral part of the life of the Church since Apostolic times. Our Lord Himself was the first apologist, when after His resurrection He instructed the two disciples on the way to Emmaus: "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures" (St. Luke 24, 27). St. Luke in writing his Gospel did so with an apologetical purpose: "I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed" (St. Luke 1, 3-4). In fact, it can be argued that all four Gospels are apologetical in nature, having been written to show the faithful that their belief in Jesus Christ was well grounded, and to lead Jews and Pagans to belief in Christ.

St. Paul was no less of an apologist. St. Luke records that when in Rome "they came to him at his lodgings in great numbers. From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets" (Acts 28, 23).

During the first centuries of the Church’s history, the Christian religion was outlawed by the civil authorities of Rome and attacked by pagan apologists as atheistic, cannibalistic and sexually promiscuous. Christian apologists such as Aristides, St. Justin Martyr and Athenagoras responded by showing that these accusations were no more than calumnies and that Rome had nothing to fear from toleration of the Christian religion.

The apologetical struggle against Paganism was taken up in the late second and early third centuries A. D. by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian. They aimed their energies at exposing and refuting the plethora of mystery cults, Greek mythology and Gnostic heresies prevalent at the time. The middle of the third century was dominated by the character and works of Origen, who produced a monumental work against the teachings of Celsus, a pagan philosopher who attacked the supernatural nature of Christianity, the miracles of Christ and the reliability of the Gospels.

The three figures which stood out as the defenders of Christianity in the period after its toleration by Constantine were Lactantius, Eusebius of Caesarea and St. Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine, in particular, was continually engaged in apologetical contest against pagans and heretics. His greatest work, The City of God Against the Pagans, took thirteen years to complete and was aimed at refuting allegations that the calamities befalling the Roman Empire at the time, such as the sack of Rome in 410 A.D., were due to the abandonment of the pagan gods. Breaking new ground, St. Augustine went on to provide a Christian understanding of human history, as well as an outline of authentic civilization based on the teachings of Christ.

With the rise of Islam a new apologetical opponent entered the arena. Its challenge was met early on by St. John Damascene in the eighth century and systematically dealt with by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century in his Summa Contra Gentiles, where the errors of the Muslim philosopher Averroes were given particular treatment. St. Thomas was also active apologetically in meeting the resurgent challenge of Gnosticism as manifested in the Albigensian heresy.

The outbreak of the Protestant Revolt in the sixteenth century gave rise to a new dimension in Catholic apologetics. St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More engaged themselves early in dispute against the Lutherans and other English heretics. The newly-formed Jesuits became active in apologetical work throughout most of Europe, led by the example of St. Peter Canisius. By the end of the sixteenth century, another Jesuit, St. Robert Bellarmine, provided the Church with an arsenal to combat all the main Protestant heresies with his Dictates Against the Heretics of Our Times. St. Francis de Sales, through great courage and charity, would challenge the Calvinists in their very heartland of Switzerland and convert tens of thousands of them through his apologetical pamphlets and writings.

The rising tide of rationalism soon came to dominate intellectual life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Led by anti-Christian philosophers such as Rousseau, Voltaire and Kant, it asserted that there was no divine Revelation, and that all that we know or need to know can be gauged from human reason, rightly used. Hence, the teaching and sanctifying mission of Jesus Christ and the Church has no relevance. In opposition to such, the First Vatican Council declared that the learning of all religious and moral truths necessary for the right ordering of human life is derived both from natural reason and divine Revelation, and that no effective moral life can be led without the grace of God.

The history of Catholic apologetics in the twentieth century is a checkered one. The first half of this century witnessed the creation and work of the Catholic Evidence Guild. Begun in England by Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward, it was to bear fruit on behalf of the Catholic Church throughout the English-speaking world for many decades. Unfortunately, since the Second Vatican Council, the word and idea of apologetics has gone the way of the dinosaurs for many, particularly those embued with modernist and progressive notions of ecclesiology and universal salvation. Nevertheless, faint calls for its revival have been heard, including one from a 1981 edition of L’Osservatore Romano under the headline "Apologia for Apologetics." Further, since the mid-1980’s a series of astonishing conversions of Fundamentalist ministers and clergy to the Catholic Church in the United States has led to a dramatic revival of interest in apologetics, leading to the establishment of a number of strong and committed new organizations specializing in counter-acting the aggressive work of the modern-day anti-Catholic.

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THE BLESSED TRINITY

The Blessed Trinity is three divine Persons in one undivided God. It was Jesus Christ Himself who revealed the Blessed Trinity. Sacred Scripture clearly testifies to the existence of three distinct Persons in the one God:

"Then God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him..." (Gen. 1, 26-27);

"Then the Lord God said, See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil..." (Gen. 3, 22);

"...Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there..." (Gen. 11, 7);

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (St. Matt. 28, 19-20);

"And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased" (St. Mark 1, 10-11).

This last verse most clearly reveals the First and Second Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Jesus Christ coming out of the water and His Father’s voice from heaven. The Holy Spirit, the Third Person, is revealed as a dove, descending from heaven onto Christ.

Jesus Christ as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is equal to the Father:

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means, God with us..." (St. Matt. 1, 23);

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

St. John 1, 1).

The Word was with God in the beginning, and the Word was God. Two divine Persons, yet only one undivided God.

"The Father and I are one" (St. John 10, 30);

"...the Father is in me and I am in the Father" (St. John 10, 38);

"...Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (St. John 14, 9).

The Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son as the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, will be a living teacher of truth:

"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (Holy Spirit)..." (St. John 14, 16);

"...the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything..." (St. John 14, 26);

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come" (St. John 16, 13).

To sin against the Holy Spirit is to sin against God:

"...why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?...You did not lie to us but to God!" (Acts 5, 3-4).

Finally:

"And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one" (1 John 5, 7 [Douai]).

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (C. 180 A.D.):

Since nowhere is a too curious inquiry more dangerous, or error more fatal, than in the knowledge and exposition of this, the most profound and difficult of mysteries...

But these truths which should not be made the subject of too subtle investigation, when we recollect that he who is a searcher of majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory. We should be satisfied with the assurance and certitude which faith gives us that we have been taught these truths by God Himself, to doubt whose word is the extreme of folly and misery. He has said: Teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and again, there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.

No. 234: The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them...

No. 237: The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God. To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

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THE DIVINITY
OF
JESUS CHRIST

Many who claim the name of Christian (e.g.,the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians etc.) state that Christ was the most perfect of all creatures, but only a creature; that once He did not exist, and that He is not the same substance and nature as the Eternal Father, and therefore not properly God. Yet, Sacred Scripture in numerous places clearly asserts to the contrary:

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, His name shall be called Emmanuel (i.e., God with us)" (Is. 7, 14 [Douai]);

"For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Is. 9, 6);

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" (St. John 1, 1-14);

(The Jews)"For we stone you for no good work but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God" (St. John 10, 33);

(St. Thomas)"My Lord and my God" (St. John 20, 28);

"...to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen" (Rom. 9, 5);

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited" (Phil. 2, 5-6);

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1, 15-17);

"For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col. 2, 9);

"But of the Son he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom" (Heb. 1, 8).

Our Lord constantly applied to Himself the supreme title of "Son of God," and accepted it from His followers without question:

(St. Peter) "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (St. Matt. 16, 16);

(The High Priest) "Then the high priest said to him, I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, You have said so" (St. Matt. 26, 63-64);

(St. John the Baptist) "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!...And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God" (St. John 1, 29-34);

(The Blind Man) "...Dost thou believe in the Son of God? He answered, and said: Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him: Thou hast both seen him; and it is he who talketh with thee. And He said: I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored Him" (St. John 9, 35-38 [Douai]);

(St. Martha) "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world" (St. John 11, 27).

Our Lord not only accepted the title Son of God but congratulated and rewarded those who gave it to him, and took it before the rulers and tribunals.

By claiming to be Son of God, the meek, humble and holy Christ placed Himself above all creatures in heaven and earth: above Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, St. John the Baptist, and the angels; and He affirms His eternal existence, before all creation : "Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am" (St. John 8, 58).

Not only did Our Lord take the title of Son of God, but He assumed all the functions, acts, and the necessary and supreme attributes of God:

"The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands" (St. John 3, 35);

"...whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise" (St. John 5, 19);

"The Father and I are one" (St. John 10, 30);

"If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father" (St. John 10, 37-38);

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me" (St. John 14, 1);

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied. Jesus said to him, Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father...Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" (St. John 14, 6-10);

If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it" (St. John 14, 13-14);

"Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (St. John 14, 23);

"All that the Father has is mine" (St. John 16, 15).

In the Old Testament Yahweh was called "the God of glory" (Ps. 29 [28], 3). In the New, the resurrected Christ is "Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2, 8). The Lord’s thoughts cannot be directed (Is. 40, 13), so to, no one can instruct the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2, 16). The Lord God owns earth and all its fullness (Ps. 24 [23], 1), likewise does the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 10, 26).

While others worked miracles in the name of God, Christ gave His commands as Supreme Master:

"Little girl, I say to you, arise" (St. Mark 5, 41);

"Young man, I say to you, rise" (St. Luke 7, 14);

"Lazarus, come out" (St. John 11, 43).

As God, He forgives sins:

"But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...Stand up, take your bed and go to your home" (St. Matt. 9, 6).

And in the case of St. Mary Magdalene, He forgives her all her sins against God, as a debt contracted towards Himself.

Christ also declared that He would rise again by His own power:

"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (St. John 2, 19);

"No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again" (St. John 10, 18).

It is true that certain passages of Scripture seem to suggest that the Son of God is inferior to the Father - eg., "the Father is greater than I" (St. John 14, 28) - but it must be remembered that Our Lord has two natures: Jesus Christ is inferior to the Father according to His humanity, but equal to Him according to His divinity.

St. Athanasius, Letter Concerning the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea (C. 350-351 A.D.):

"The generation of the Son from the Father is otherwise than that which accords with the nature of men; and He is not only like, but is in fact inseparable from the substance of the Father. He and the Father are indeed one, as He did say Himself; and the Word is ever in the Father and the Father in the Word, as is the way of radiance in relation to light. The term itself indicates this; and the Council, so understanding the matter, did well, therefore, when it wrote homoousios, so that it might defeat the perverseness of the heretics, while proclaiming that the Word is other than created things."

"Our Lord"...this name applies to both natures, rightly is He to be called our Lord. For as He, as well as the Father, is the eternal God, so is He Lord of all things equally with the Father; and as He and the Father are not the one, one God, and the other, another God, but one and the same God, so likewise He and the Father are not the one, one Lord, and the other, another Lord.

No. 464: The unique and all together singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.

No. 469: The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:

"What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed," sings the Roman Liturgy. And the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!" (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Troparion "O monogenes.")

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Original Sin is the consequence of the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve. This sin involved their disobedience through pride in eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil located in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3, 6).

Our first parents, Adam and Eve were endowed with various supernatural and preternatural gifts. By definition, a gift is something freely given that is not owed. The supernatural gifts were given by God to raise man above his nature so as to share in the divine life, to know and serve God far beyond his natural capacities, and to behold God in the Beatific Vision in the next world. They included sanctifying grace, the supernatural theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, the supernatural infused moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Concomitant with sanctifying grace is Uncreated Grace, or the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity (St. John 14, 23). The preternatural gifts were given by God to perfect man as man, not actually to elevate him above his nature. These gifts included immortality, impassability, integrity and infused knowledge. Through natural generation, all these gifts were to be transmitted to the whole human race. By their disobedience, Adam and Eve lost them for themselves and hence for all future generations.

The loss of sanctifying grace is the greatest consequence of Original Sin. It carried with it the privation of the supernatural destiny God willed for humanity, that is, heaven, as well as concupiscence, or the rebellion of the lower appetites against reason and will. Man was also expelled from the Garden of Eden and became subject to sickness, suffering and death. Pain and sorrow in childbirth, together with subjection to the lust of men, were to be the special lot of women. The natural elements, plants and animals, were no longer subject to man, and a curse came upon the earth, hence, the necessity for sweat and hard labor (Gen. 3, 16-24).

Nevertheless, the loss of sanctifying grace did not so corrupt our natural powers as to leave them incapable of natural virtues. Nor does it consist, as Luther and Calvin mistakenly believed, in such a decadence of our nature as to leave it totally depraved, our reason incapable of understanding and our will without freedom. Rather, our natural powers were "wounded" - ignorance in the intellect, malice in the will, concupiscence in the concupiscible appetite, and debility in the irascible appetite.

During the period of the Protestant Revolt, the Council of Trent felt obliged to restate the Church’s traditional teaching on Original Sin:

"If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offense of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and together with death captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say the Devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offense of prevarication, was changed in body and soul for the worst: let him be anathema.

"If anyone asserts that the sin of Adam - which in its origin is one, and be transfused into all by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own - is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of one mediator, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath reconciled us to God in His own blood, made unto us justice, sanctification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the Sacrament of Baptism rightly administered in the form of the Church; let him be anathema" (Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin, 1546).

Many passages of Sacred Scripture testify to the truth of Original Sin:

"For behold I was conceived in iniquity; and in sins did my mother conceive me" (Ps. 51 [50], 5);

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned...But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5, 12; 15-19);

"For as by a man came death, and by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15, 21-22);

"All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else" (Eph. 2, 3).

Our condition, therefore, is entirely different from what his and that of his posterity would have been, had Adam listened to the voice of God. All things have been thrown into disorder, and have been changed sadly for the worse...The dreadful sentence pronounced against us in the beginning remains.

No. 402: All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: "By one man’s disobedience many (that is all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned..." The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men."

No. 403: Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination toward evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born and afflicted, a sin which is the "death of a soul."

No. 404: How did the sin of Adam become the sin of his descendants? It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

No. 406: The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example...

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