Let us turn to some positive reasons why Catholics should engage in apologetics.

Retrieving Apologetics

By Glenn B. Siniscalchi

A number of Catholics, including theologians, think that the Church should not engage in apologetics. These critics claim that Vatican II made apologetics obsolete by calling for the Church to embrace, and no longer turn its back on, the modern world. They say theology is supposed to engage pressing contemporary issues that affect everyone, but apologetics seems to rehash irrelevant topics while undermining fruitful dialogue by provoking division and strife.

Ironically, the documents of Vatican II make the exact opposite claim. They implore the faithful to evangelize the world with apologetics. For decades following Vatican II, a reasoned defense of Christianity became passé due to a widespread crisis of faith. Catholics must overcome their spiritual malaise and misplaced priorities by employing reason to fulfill the Church’s mission to evangelize the world. Reason, says John Paul II, “should be seen as a fundamental and original contribution in service of the new evangelization” (Fides et Ratio, 103).

On the Need for Apologetics

Let us turn to some positive reasons why Catholics should engage in apologetics.

First, Scripture commands it. In Jude 3, Christians are told to “contend for the faith.” Paul saw his own role as that of an apologist. In Phillipians 1:16, he wrote, “I am here for the defense of the Gospel.” The central apologetics passage of the New Testament says (1 Pet. 3:15), “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” Notice that St. Peter says we are to always be ready to give a defense, not just sometimes.

Second, God created human beings with the ability to reason. Catholic theology has never held to the total depravity of the human person, which is more at home in certain Protestant circles. According to Catholic theology, God expects us to use reason. It also helps people to determine what is true, and how to justify one’s beliefs. Without reason, there is no justification for holding to any one set of certain beliefs over and against another set of beliefs.

Third, apologetics helps inculturate the Gospel. Catholics must be able to understand the wider cultural context where they live in order for evangelization to be effective. The intellectual zeitgeist of the modern West can be traced back to the secular philosophies of the Enlightenment. The hallmark of this movement was to free humanity from what it saw as the shackles of organized religion, marked not by reason but by superstition. The upshot of these materialistic philosophies is that faith is considered equivalent to an opinion or personal taste; only that which is observable through the senses and understood through reason is worthy of public discussion and debate. By employing reasoned argument, apologists can “speak a language” that unbelievers can understand. Ironically, it is a hallmark of modernity that reasoning has fallen out of favor. It is the task of the faithful to recover rational discourse in the service of truth.

Fourth, the results of apologetics confirm its effectiveness despite the claims of skeptics. After trying to debunk the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, Frank Morrison became a Catholic after recognizing the historical evidence for the resurrection. C.S. Lewis came to believe in Christ under the influence of apologetics. St. Augustine embraced Catholicism after hearing a thoughtful Catholic debate with a Manichean. The former atheist, Antony Flew, recently became a philosophical theist because of arguments for God’s existence. These and other notable examples confirm that apologetic defenses have accompanied conversions and a change of mind.

................

Read more: www.crisismagazine.com