The End of Pop-Apologetics

The 1990s and early 2000s was the golden age of professional Catholic apologetics. If you wanted to get schooled about apologetics, you tuned into the Catholic Answers Live every afternoon. You read the tracts of Mark Shea, Karl Keating, and Jimmy Akin. You listened to the Al Kresta Show syndicated through Ave Maria Radio. You watched Fr. Mitch Pacwa on EWTN and owned sets of Fr. John Corapi's lectures on cassette. You probably owned several books and VHS tapes by Dr. Scott Hahn. These professional defenders of Catholic truth were the resources to turn to when you wanted to learn how to respond to objections to the faith, especially those leveled by evangelical Protestants.

If I had to bookend the period, I would say it began around 1988 with the publication of Karl Keating's perennial classic Catholicism and Fundamentalism, and went into decline around 2004-2006, the years the internet moved into "Web 2.0", the iteration of the Internet that generated masses of users participating in content creation on social networks, blogs, wikis, and media sharing sites. At the beginning of the era, Keating's book demonstrated the need for quality Catholic apologetics done professionally; on the other end, the rise of independent content creators in the wake of Web 2.0 empowered regular folks to publish their own apologetical materials and post it directly to the internet, bypassing the professional apologetics institutions like Catholic Answers. So we are talking about roughly an 18 year reign of the professional apologist.

This period and these people served us well for the time. When I was first returning to the faith after a youth of irreligion and a few years dabbling in Protestant Pentecostalism, it was the resources of Catholic Answers and its affiliated apologists that provided me with the foundations I needed to build my faith upon. And, as I have mentioned many time on this blog, I owe my return to the Church in a very immediate way to the lectures of Dr. Hahn, whom I will always consider to be one of my fathers in Christ. The role of these institutions and cadre of writers and speakers was important, especially during the 1990s when internet access was radically less than today and so many Catholics relied on print material and physical media to educate themselves. Had Catholic Answers not been there⁠—had this group of apologists not been active—the English speaking Church would have been much the poorer.

However, it is undeniable that the heyday of this kind of institutional apologetics has come and gone. Certainly there will always be a place for skilled, professional apologists—I just emceed an event this summer with Tim Staples and he was sharp as ever. These sorts of folks will always find open ears. I am talking rather about institutional, professional apologetics as a model for the delivery of apologetical content. That model has been shattered by the rise of independent content creators, just like Spotify disrupted the studio model of delivering music and Netflix destroyed the cinema model for distributing film. Today Catholics are much more likely today to seek apologetical content from independent content creators like myself or other bloggers than by turning to institutional channels. The professional apologist and their institutions are no longer the gatekeepers of apologetical content.

In order to survive in this new environment, the professional apologists began expanding their output to include other forms of content creation: blogging, podcasts, and social media. Some managed to handle this transition very well; Dr. Scott Hahn, for example, has maintained the same level of professionalism, humor, and humility he has always demonstrated. Others, well, it got...interesting. Once unleashed on social media, a fair number of these apologists—loosed from the oversight of professional editors or accountability to larger institutions—went down some rather unsavory paths. Some could not resist the temptation to wed politics to faith, devolving into obnoxious Catholic political pundits, while others became proponents of bizarre conspiracy theories; still others outed themselves as committed leftists, alienating themselves from the largely conservative fanbase that consumes apologetical content. And then there are those who revealed themselves to be completely unhinged: ranting, insulting, belittling, and attacking others on social media with a vitriol on par with the blue checkmarks on Twitter. 

Those who have gone down this path—and admittedly, it is not all, but still a fair amount—have fallen in the same pit that many have today, which is to assume one's positions are so secure, so unassailable, so self-evident, that those who disagree with you are not simply mistaken, but are morally bad. As someone who formerly admired and learned from these people, it has been extraordinarily disappointing to see them behaving like the worst of the blue checkmarks. I'm not calling anybody out by name, but we have all seen them lurking around in comboxes and Twitter feeds and Facebook threads, spitefully belittling people whose only offense has been to disagree.

Is this behavior a pathetic attempt to "stay relevant" by imitating their endlessly irritating secular counterparts, the "talking head" media class? Is it fueled by bitterness at having lost the exclusive "gatekeeper" role they once enjoyed? Is it resentment that their own ecclesial visions, which they once argued eloquently before rapt audiences and in the pages of Catholic periodicals, seems less and less persuasive? Is it simply that they were always mean people whose lack of charity was kept in check by editorial teams and publishers? It's hard to say, but it's been illuminating to watch.

Whatever it's cause, it is clear that the age of pop-apologetics is over.

Nimrod: A Mighty Hunter "Before the Lord"

Last week I received an inquiry from a young man of Protestant background who is contemplating the claims of the Catholic Church. He had been listening to the Fr. Mike Schmitz through the Bible, in the course of which he encountered a difficulty understanding the figures of speech used in the Scriptures. This gentleman posed a question about consistent interpretation, using an example from Genesis 10:9-10. He wrote:

Way back in the beginning there was Nimrod, who was "a mighty hunter before God". It is explained [in the podcast] that "before God" is thought to mean "in opposition to God", which is kinda counterintuitive. Maybe five podcasts later, after blessing Abraham, God says to him "go before me". I doubt He is telling Abraham to oppose Him; he's actually telling him to be faithful to God. Why is "before God" in Genesis 10 taken to mean "in opposition to God" while the same concept in Genesis 17 taken to mean "be faithful to God"? One of the problems I have with modern religion is accuracy after multiple translations. Do you see now why I have reservations?

Here we have a classic problem of two similar biblical phrases being taken to mean different things. Such situations can raise questions about the integrity of a translation in particular, or the very plausibility of written divine revelation in general. Let's dig in to this question.

The phrase "before the Lord" in Hebrew is  ḡibbōr-ṣayiḏ lip̄nê Yahweh. This literally means something like "in the face of the Lord", according to my Hebrew concordance. The phrase can mean multiple things, just like in English. For example, a man who wants to say something important to someone he cares about might wait to "say it to their face" as a sign of respect. But the same phrase can denote insult or antagonism, like when a man says "I dare you to say that to my face!" The meaning has to be determined by the context and other cues other than the exact vocabulary. 

Elsewhere in Bible we see the same variation of usage. In Galatians 2:11, St. Paul says "When Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face because he stood condemned", where the idea of acting "in the face of" denotes bold opposition. But elsewhere it can signify familiarity, as when St. Paul says "show to them the proof of your love and of our boasting about you in the face of the churches" (2 Cor. 8:24). Here, "in the face of" means "in the midst of" or "in the sight of" and is used as to communicate intimacy.

This really isn't problem with the accuracy of biblical translation; it's just how language is. Words have lots of meanings that require context to sort out. Heck, the English word "set" has 432 different meanings. The Bible, being written by men and utilizing regular human speech, requires the same sort of contextual approach to understand. The fact that various phrases mean different things in different contexts is what we would expect any time human language is being used normally.

In the verses cited, Nimrod's life "before the Lord" or "in the face of the Lord" is taken to mean he was brazenly bold in his opposition to God. The context is derived not from the text directly, but from a longstanding Jewish interpretive tradition, going back to the Midrash, Philo, Pseudo-Philo, the Book of Jubilees, Josephus, etc. who all assert Nimrod was a villain. It's not necessarily discernible from the text, but it is a reasonable interpretation of the it. The pre-Christian tradition is unanimous that Nimrod is a villain, and thus we read the phrase ḡibbōr-ṣayiḏ lip̄nê Yahweh to mean "in affront to the Lord" or "in opposition to the Lord." The Vulgate, too, followed this tradition, calling Nimrod robustus, that is, stout, bold, or haughty. The fact this young man finds such an interpretation "counterintuitive" in its English rendering is neither here nor there. Rather, it's an example of why you need tradition to help you interpret Scripture.

Context is also key in Genesis 17, the passage the interlocutor referenced about Abraham walking before the Lord. Abraham is unanimously portrayed as a faithful man and hero of faith in both Testaments and in Jewish and Christian tradition. Therefore the the phrase "before the Lord" with reference to Abraham gets a more benign reading, which makes perfect sense. The context, either textually or in terms of extra-textual of tradition, helps  establish the meaning.

Incidentally, the Vulgate preserves this contextual approach perfectly. It translates "before the Lord" as in coram Domino, which means "in the presence of the Lord." In coram is a neat little phrase that means "in the presence of", "in the midst of", or "before", as in the sense of "to stand before." As with the English phrase "in the face of" and the Hebrew ḡibbōr-ṣayiḏ lip̄nê, in coram can denote intimacy as well as opposition. In ancient Rome, a man marrying a woman in the presence of the family is said to be marrying her cum manu in coram gente, whereas a man found guilty of a crime before an assembly was said to be condemned in coram populo. In the former case in coram denoted intimacy and fidelity, whereas in the latter it signified opposition and antagonism.

Ultimately, there's really no reason to have reservations about the meaning of these texts anymore than there would be to have reservations about the way any regular human being uses language. I have previously recommended The Book of Non-Contradiction: Harmonizing the Scriptures as a handy guide to sorting out a lot of these textual questions. Anyone interesting in learning more about reconciling biblical passages with each other should check it out.

The Battle Lines Have Changed

Gather around, little kiddies, and Uncle Boniface will explain to you why popular Catholic apologists can no longer continue to function as if it is still the 1990s and the golden age of Catholic Answers--and why the battle lines of inter-Christian squabbling have fundamentally changed.

In the previous generation (meaning 1980s-2000s), Catholic apologetics was largely defined by disputes about the content of various Christian creeds; i.e., "Lutherans believe this, but Catholics believe that. Let's dispute about who is right." In that sort of climate, it was easy for confessions to dispute with one another. Persons professing some sort of formulaic creed can argue with others who profess a different creed because they had the common ground of both professing some creed.  It was in this atmosphere that Catholic apologetics contra Protestantism could flourish. It was in this sort of climate that apostolates like Catholic Answers thrived and books like Catholicism and Fundamentalism were of essential importance.

You see, in this older situation, we evaluated other Christian confessions on to what degree the content of their creed approximated Catholic tradition. Christians who had more in common with the Catholic faith were considered "closer" to us, those who shared less were "further." Let's visualize it this way:

This view is certainly accurate, considered from a doctrinal standpoint. But I submit that this mental paradigm is no longer helpful—the main reason for this being that the essential divisions within Christianity are no longer confessional. It used to be that Christianity was divided up into several confessions and that the members of each confession were presumed to be faithful at least to the tenets of their own confession. A man was a Baptist because he affirmed the Baptist confession and denied those that were at odds with his. And of course a Catholic was a Catholic because he affirmed the teachings of the Catholic faith. To be sure, the Baptist or the Catholic may have been born into these communities, but did not detract from the expectation that one who belonged to a certain confession actually professed it.

But the situation has changed drastically. The contemporary division within global Christianity is not creed vs. creed, but people who profess a creed vs. people who have no creed—those whose faith has a doctrinal skeleton and those whose faith has no structure at all, but is rather a kind of gelatinous mass molded and vivified by nothing beyond the opinions of the masses. This division transcends all forms of Christianity. Across the Catholic Church, the world of the Orthodox, and the Protestant confessions there is a profound de facto schism between those who believe Christianity has an objective, definable form whose boundaries are delineated by particular doctrines and, on the other hand, those who believe Christianity to be essentially whatever its adherents wish it to be at any given time—which is inevitably going to be defined by popular opinion, fad, etc.

In this atmosphere, creed vs. creed apologetics no longer has the weight it once did when most sincere Christians of any stripe are fighting bitterly simply to affirm the existence of any creed within their respective communities.

The current battle lines are drawn more or less like this, with the current "alliance" being not so much drawn horizontally on the spectrum based on doctrine but vertically, centered on the concept of tradition:

Some Traditionalists will immediately object that it is totally errant to align a traditional Catholic with, say, a traditional Baptist or a traditional Anglican because (a) the content of these other creeds' tradition is different and defective in light of Catholic truth, and (b) the "traditions" of Lutheranism or "The Wellspring" megachurch down the road are themselves forms of liberalism that are ultimately responsible for the destruction of western civilization.

Considered doctrinally, these critiques would certainly be correct. But I want to urge such critics to stop thinking of tradition here only in terms of its content. The question here isn't whose traditions are right. Consider tradition more anthropologically—tradition as existing whenever a group is being faithful to its own customs, founding principles, and internal telos. Thus, a "traditional" Calvinist is going to be a Calvinist who is faithful to the founding principles of Calvinism. A traditional Methodist is one who is faithful to the principal tenets of historical Methodism.

And it is this which is under attack everywhere across the Christian world. It is an attack against any form of Christianity that maintains some form of definable structure based on some external authority—be it Sacred Tradition, the Scriptures, historical confessions, or whatever. The ultimate goal is to transform global Christianity from something that has objective structure into something that is entirely subjectivized, something which takes its form entirely from the mood of the contemporary rabble. Something that is purely based on the ever-shifting emotional cravings of the plebs of [CURRENT YEAR]. It is not only the particular contents of Christianity's skeleton that are under attack, but the very existence of a doctrinal skeleton at all, regardless of its content. The architects of the current zetigeist want to ensure that Christianity will henceforth forever bow its head and alter its position whenever the powers-that-be tell us we are now at war with East Asia and no longer at war with Eurasia.

Catholics should never defend error; we should not defend traditional Calvinism just because we see it is under attack just as we are. We should, however, recognize how the battle is being waged, where the lines are being drawn, and that the locus of our defense of the faith should be on the existence of an objective, definable structure to the Christian religion. This takes precedence over older style apologetical works which focus on the content of our religion. These will always have a place, to be sure, but this is no longer where the greatest attack comes from and hasn't been for a long time. The attacks on Christianity are no longer so much about the content of our creeds as much as Christians' stubborn insistence on having a creed.

The Future of Contra Protestant Apologetics

Recently on social media I saw a certain Catholic apologist trying to sell off some of his books online in a special sale. He was offering significant discounts, offering multiple books at cuts of 50% or more. Most of the books had to do with contra Protestant apologetics, the sorta stuff that made Catholic Answers famous back in the 1990s.  In order to offer books at that kind of rate, he must have either been hurting for money, or simply wanting to offload titles that weren't selling anymore.

I'm betting it was the latter, because judging from the responses on the thread, there was not a lot of traction on the sale. But what was really interesting were several comments people made about the content of such works. More than one person said, "Apologetics to Protestants is not my area of focus right now", or "I'm not interested in that currently"; others echoed the sentiment. It was a kind of "we've got bigger fish to fry" sort of response.

I am not going to mention the apologist. This isn't really about him anyway; plus he has a Beetlejuice-sort of way of showing up whenever his name is mentioned. And I of all people know what it's like to be an author wanting to offload books. What I am really interested in is the attitude of the people on the thread who essentially said that Catholic apologetics to Protestants was simply not on their radar at the moment.

Earlier this year I wrote a piece entitled "Bad Liturgies Cripple Evangelism" (USC, July 2018). The premise of that article was that the poor quality of the liturgy in most Catholic parishes offers nothing to pique the interest of non-Catholics into wanting to learn about the faith. We could posit a corollary principle: if bad liturgy cripples the evangelical effect of the Mass, the Church herself being in a state of chaos diminishes the impulse Catholics experience for bringing others into it. 

I do not believe this is because such Catholics are ashamed of the Church or do not desire the salvation of others or anything like that; rather, I think it has to do with the fact that their energies and attention are taken up by what is going on inside the Church. In other words, Catholics' natural impulse is to put the fire out inside their own home before they invite others inside.

What will the future of contra Protestant apologetics be? My hunch is it is diminishing, and apologists who have made their careers debunking Protestantism will find themselves more and more irrelevant. 

The main reason for this is simply that the essential divisions within Christianity are no longer confessional. It used to be that Christianity was divided up into several confessions and that the members of each confession were presumed to be faithful at least to the tenets of their own confession. A man was a Baptist because he affirmed the Baptist confession and denied those that were at odds with his. And of course a Catholic was a Catholic because he affirmed the teachings of the Catholic faith. To be sure, the Baptist or the Catholic may have been born into these communities, but did not detract from the expectation that one who belonged to a certain confession actually professed it.

In that sort of climate, it was easy for confessions to dispute with one another. Persons professing some sort of formulaic creed can argue with others who profess a different creed because they had the common ground of both professing some creed. "Look here, you and I both acknowledge Christians live by a creed. Your creed is different than mine. Let's argue about whose is correct." It was in this atmosphere that Catholic apologetics contra Protestantism could flourish. 

But the situation has changed drastically. The contemporary division within global Christianity is not creed vs. creed, but people who profess a creed vs. people who have no creed—those whose faith has a doctrinal skeleton and those whose faith has no structure at all, but is a kind of gelatinous mass. This division transcends all forms of Christianity. Across the Catholic Church, the world of the Orthodox, and the Protestant confessions there is a profound de facto schism between those who believe Christianity has an objective, definable form whose boundaries are delineated by particular doctrines and, on the other hand, those who believe Christianity to be essentially whatever its adherents wish it to be at any given time.

In this atmosphere, creed vs. creed apologetics no longer has the weight it once did when most sincere Christians of any stripe are fighting bitterly simply to affirm the existence of any creed within their respective communities.

This is not to say contra Protestant apologetics will go away. It will always have a place, but it will probably give ground to other forms of apologetics which are not textual and doctrinal but rather more about defending an entire way of viewing religious belief in general. It will be about conflicting worldviews, not about the right interpretation of biblical texts. At least in the near future.

It is possible, of course, as Christians who are faithful to their own confessions fight the doctrinal devolution that is dissolving the creeds of Christendom, that Catholics and Protestants may find themselves arguing more or less along the same lines. The Protestant apologist arguing for the existence of revealed truth is going to be making more or less a similar argument to the Catholic apologist who does the same—the content of that revealed truth and how it is transmitted are a different matter, of course. But it is possible that in making arguing for the existence of confessional religion, Catholics and Protestants unwittingly become allies and many of the latter return home to the former. 

This is similar to how the Anglicans of the 19th century British Oxford Movement, in arguing against low church Anglicanism, actually argued themselves back into the Catholic Church because they realized the arguments they made against low church Anglicanism also undermined Anglicanism itself. Thus, contemporary Protestants compelled to argue for confessional Christianity may find their arguments undermine the existence of their own confessions and end up returning to the Catholic Church as a result.

Regardless of what may come, one thing is certain: it is not the 1980s and 1990s anymore. The days of the supremacy of Catholicism and Fundamentalism,  Surprised by Truth and similar such works is rapidly fading. The average Catholic, if he is faithful, is much more concerned with the corruption in the episcopate, the homosexual clerical scandals, the erosion of the liturgy. and the auto-demolition of the Church coming from the Vatican than he is about convincing a Protestant about the canonicity of the Book of Tobit. What logical reason does he have to argue with a Protestant about the Church's doctrines just to bring said Protestant into a Church whose leaders are overthrowing the very doctrines the apologist argued in favor of?

Please understand I am not saying the Great Commission is no longer valid or that we ought not to witness to Protestants; I am saying that the current situation it makes it difficult to prioritize such apologetics. This is why, I think, this apologist attempting to sell contra Protestant books found that astute Catholics were simply not interested in that right now, nor will they be until the fire in our own house has been extinguished.

"It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God." ~1 Peter 4:17

Follow this blog on Facebook!

On Christians Offending People

I know is one week late, but I wanted to offer a reflection on the epistle readings from last week's liturgy, the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Novus Ordo. The epistle reading was taken from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 10. St. Paul writes:

...whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Avoid giving offense, whether to the Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Cor. 10:31-11:1)

The Douay-Rheims has it this way:

...whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God. Be without offence to the Jews, and to the Gentiles, and to the church of God: As I also in all things please all men, not seeking that which is profitable to myself, but to many, that may be saved. Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ. 

What does St. Paul mean when he says "avoid giving offense", and that he tries "to please everyone in every way"? He wants to "be without offence" and hence strive "in all things to please all men."

A cursory reading of this passage might suggest that he means we should avoid doing anything a person might find offensive. That, if a person is subjectively offended by something we are doing or saying, we have an obligation to cease that offensive behavior. Now, since there are all manner of things people could be offended by, this would include a very broad spectrum of human behavior and would necessitate a very intimate knowledge of the attitudes and preferences of the people one comes in contact with. It's mind-boggling to think of the degree of egg-shell-walking we would have to perform to keep St. Paul's command understood this way.

In the minds of our progressive friends, this passage would mean we ought not to speak about the truths of the faith to somebody who might be offended by some aspect of them. These days, speaking about Catholicism to someone who is in disagreement with it is often considered inherently offensive.  For example, speaking to a Muslim about Jesus Christ. Understood this way, the passage "avoid giving offense" is utilized in the same sense as "judge not" and "do not do your works before men" - that is, as objections to any vocalization of the faith which may be even remotely confrontational.

However, St. Paul does not mean "avoid giving offence" in this sense. Let us look at three relevant Scripture passages. I think there are probably more, but three should be sufficient to make our case.

First, if St. Paul meant that Christians are forbidden from ever subjectively offending anybody, it would be ridiculous for St. Paul to  write in Romans 9:33 (citing Isaiah) that Christ is "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." If it is always wrong to give offence, then in what sense can Christ Himself be a "rock of offence"?

Second, if the sense of Paul's words is that we ought to always make sure we are pleasing to men, how can he say in the Epistle to the Galatians, "do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10). Clearly St. Paul does not believe we are to always make certain we never offend anyone if he identifies a disposition of man-pleasing contrary to the servanthood Christ requires.

Furthermore, when delivering the Sermon on the Mount, Christ says, "Blessed is he who takes no offense at me" (Matt. 11:6). Now, how can Christ admonish His listeners not to be offended by Him if, according to our progressive friends, it would be the responsibility of the speaker to make sure his hearers are not offended? This passage would make no sense; Christ acknowledges no responsibility on His own part to make sure His hearers are not offended by Him. Rather, He simply speaks the truth and tells His hearers it is their responsibility to not be offended by it.

Given all this, how can St. Paul say "avoid giving offense"? Of course, the answer is that when St. Paul admonishes us to "avoid giving offence", he means we should avoid doing actions which are objectively worthy of offence. He does not mean that it is always our problem if somebody is subjectively offended by our words or deeds.

Moderns forget that offense is not a totally subjective thing, even if they want to treat it as such. There are some things one is right to be offended about, other things one is wrong to be offended about. The objective cause of offense matters. One who is offended because of evil is rightly offended and has a kind of just anger; one who is offended because of the truth is in error, of which their offense constitutes a sort of evidence of their blindness. When St. Paul says we must avoid giving offense, he is essentially saying, "Do not commit evil deeds that people are rightly offended by."  He is not saying, "It is your job to make sure no person you interact with is ever offended by you in any respect." That would be unworkable practically and contrary to the meaning of other scriptural passages that mention offense.

This is related to St. Thomas' distinction between various types of scandal. We have an obligation to avoid scandalizing individuals through our sinful behavior, but it is not our concern if people are scandalized by righteous behavior, as the Pharisees were scandalized by the healings of Christ. In that case, such persons are actually guilty of their own scandal due to hardness of heart.

Incidentally - and time for a little crass self-promotion - I have two chapters in my work Book of Non-Contradiction on similar arguments where progressives take passages and try to interpret them in ways to suggest Christians should keep their faith quiet or keep their opinions to themselves.

Guest Post: The Changing Face of Apologetics

Today we again present a guest post by my friend, Kevin Tierney. Kevin most recently posted here on prejudices relating to the Traditional Latin Mass; I have also featured his Catholic Lane articles on the Propers of the Latin Mass on our Facebook page. Today, Kevin writes about the current state of things in mainstream American Catholic apologetics and in what sense the landscape desperately needs to change.

By the way, for some additional background on this post, see this article from the latest addition to the Patheos crowd.

*  *  *  * 

I have frequently said that the way apologetics is conducted in contemporary Catholicism needs to change. In light of recent events, I'll try to offer a explanation here.

Before I get too far, I don't hate apologetics, and I don't hate apologists. Nor do I "attack" apologetics as a discipline within the Church. Rather, I attack a certain subculture of apologetics that is prevelant today within American Catholicism.

One of the big problems with that mainstream subculture is that it tends to define apologetics mostly in terms of debate. Every article is "against so-and-so", the issues having long since subsided from relevance, giving way to a focus on personality. This isn't new. For a good decade or so from the 90's to the aughts, Catholic apologetics was centered around who was fighting James R. White, Eric Svendsen, William Webster, etc. These men certainly needed correction, but Catholic apologists took it far too personally and made the issue the people involved, not the false beliefs they had. (For example, see the Patti Bonds saga, the sister of James White, whose conversion to Catholicism was used as a club to personally embarrass White). We need a stronger emphasis on the issues, and less on the personalities involved.

This also requires a fresh look at the issues. Just because we have the fullness of truth does not mean there's nothing additional we can do. A lot of what passes for apologetics today is essentially stuck in a time-warp of the mid 1990's and earlier. Most Protestants are typecast as James White or Jack Chick. "30,000 denominations" is still a popular argument, no matter how many times it's been debunked. It is presupposed that those outside the Church still speak a common Christian langauge we can comprehend, or that the "institutional collapse" of American Catholicism hasn't happened. All of these realities should influence the way we cover apologetics.

For example, in Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis wants a presentation of the papacy that takes into account a decentralized exercising of authority, and to "demystify" the papacy, as he has also said elsewhere. From an apologetical standpoint, this might be a good idea. A lot of our popular apologetics still presents the Bishop of Rome as an irresistible monarch, free to do as he pleases, and is the single most important part of Catholicism for the average Catholic. On issues like justification, very little is spent talking about mercy or how the soul is transformed by God's grace and mercy, instead simply talking about the role of works in justification and endless parsing over James 2. James 2 is important, but we need to present a whole picture, one that is actually answering the concerns of people, not just checking off a list of Biblical arguments.

A final way in which a lot (but not all!) of apologetics is out of touch is they adopt mentalities and approaches the Holy See has long abandoned. In their polemics, they still act as if a war is being waged with the SSPX for example. The SSPX are "outside the Church", "schismatic or a schismatic mentality", etc. The Church has instead lifted the excommunications and under Pope Francis has accelerated their integration back into full communion at a pretty astonishing pace. Gone is the hostile language of separation. The war is over; it's now time for the terms of the peace to be offered. How many of the big apologists operate according to this mentality? How many hyphenated names are some of them still using to describe brothers the Pope wishes to reconcile? Under their guise of "defending the Church" and defending the Pope, they are acting contrary to his wishes. Apologists should instead be seeking to remove barriers from our wayward brothers, not erecting more.

There's a lot else that needs changing. Some of it apologists have picked up on and are changing, and there's still a long way to go. But change is coming, be certain of that.

Jesus' words at the meeting with Caiaphas

A month ago, I did a post on the website on contradictions in the Bible (here) which scrutinized the so-called "inconsistencies" in the Bible that are constantly put forward by skeptics as proof that the Bible is not inspired. Thanks be to God, this post has been viewed more than any other article I have ever written and I have received several notes of thanks from individuals seeking to convert their atheist friends as well as from Christians wavering in their face under the withering assault of the new atheists who found my rebuttal to the claims of the skeptics vivifying to their faith.

I am currently putting together part 2 in this series, looking at another alleged 65 contradictions in the New Testament. The thing that strikes me as I go through these is that the vast majority of the "inconsistencies" simply are the result of ignorance and unwillingness to do a little digging. As an example of the sorts of things that are being thrown out there as 'contradictions', look at these two verses from the trial of Jesus, in which Christ's response to Caiaphaas in John is juztaposed with his response in the synoptics and an alleged contradiction is asserted:

       Jesus answers to the effect of “You said it, not me”. Mt.26:64; Lk.22:70.
       Jesus answers definitely, “I am”. Mk.14:62.

The difference in wording here no doubt has do with the fact that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic and preserved Aramaic idioms while Mark wrote in Greek for a Gentile audience and reported the exact meaning of Jesus' idiomatic phrase rather than the wording. Let's look at this for a moment.

What Jesus said in response to the question of the high priest was an Aramaic idiomatic expression that is commonly translated as "You have said it!" Modern translators have had a hard time with this phrase (almost every translation renders it differently), as idioms are steeped in the context of a particular culture and don't always translate well, especially over millennia. Idioms are the hardest thing to translate, because they introduce a dilemma or reproducing either the exact wording or the meaning, but usually not both.

For example, suppose you ask me how I like your cooking, respond with the common American idiom, "It's the cat's ass!", meaning, "I like it a lot." How would we meaningfully translate "It's the cat's ass" into another language while accurately conveying the meaning? If we translate it as "I like it a lot", then we lose the idiom. If we translate it word for word, the meaning will be lost in cultures who do not use that particular idiom.

Furthermore, what would people 2,000 years from now assume when they read that someone referred to a dinner as "the cat's ass"? If there was no knowledge of English idioms, one could actually get the opposite meaning from the phrase (i.e., that I thought the food was so horrid that I referred to it as feline anus).

We have the same problem here. Matthew, who did his Gospel in Aramaic, uses the actual Aramaic idiom, which translates as "You say so" or "You have said it," which is similar to the English response "You got it!" or "You said it!", and ultimately means, "Yes." St. Mark, as the secretary of St. Peter, was writing for a Gentile audience who would have no knowledge of the Hebrew idiom. He thus translates this difficult idiom as "I am", which preserves the actual meaning of Jesus' words in a way the Gentile audience could understand.

That's just a taste of the sort of things I'm working through. Please say a prayer for all those whose faith is troubled or shaken by these sorts of spurious, ignorant argument.

Two Accounts of Saul's Death

Among those who take glee is attempting to point out real contradictions in the Sacred Scripture, the passages narrating the death of King Saul have become proof-texts for alleged biblical contradiction. The death of King Saul is narrated in two places, 1 Samuel 31:1-6, the story of the Battle of Gilboa, and also in 2 Samuel 1:1-16, when David hears the battle narrated second hand from an Amalekite who claims to have witnessed Saul's death. In the first and probably most well known passage, Saul, upon seeing the battle against the Philistines going poorly and being wounded by Philistine archers, falls upon his own sword and kills himself. In the second passage, however, the Amalekite finds Saul wounded on the ground and Saul begs him to thrust a sword through him. The Amalekite obliges and dispatches Saul upon the latter's request.

It seems we have a cut and dry instance of a biblical contradiction. 1 Samuel says Saul committed suicide; 2 Samuel says he was slain in a mercy-killing by an Amalekite.

Before looking at these passages and attempting to reconcile them, let us remind ourselves of a few points: First, according to commonly accepted logical principles, a contradiction is defined as occurring when two statements are in relation to each other in such a way that if one is true, the other must be false; they cannot both be true and both be false at the same time. "All men have beards" and "Some men do not have beards" are contradictory statements. If all men have beards, then it cannot be true that some men do not have them; similarly, if it is true that some men do not have beards, then it cannot be true that all men have them. The truth of one necessitates the falsity of the other. This means that the essence of contradiction is that there is no way to reconcile the two statements. The truth of one means the other is false and there is no possibility or way around it. Sometimes the word "contradiction" is applied too loosely in biblical scholarship to refer to passages that are merely problematic or confusing. But to say the two accounts of Saul's death are problematic is a far cry from saying their are contradictions in the logical sense.

Second point: if the Scriptures are inspired by God, there can never be a true contradiction in the logical sense. All saints and orthodox theologians freely affirm this. So there must always be a manner of reconciling the two texts. Problematic texts, or confusing texts, can be reconciled with one another if they are not truly contradictory. One could always object that an infallible and all-knowing God ought not to give mankind revelations that are "problematic","difficult" or in need of "reconciliation", but now one is not objecting against alleged contradictions per se as much as against the manner God has chosen to reveal, which is a tremendously arrogant statement and one that cannot be answered at any rate, since human beings have no way to answer questions relating to why God chose to create or act in one way and not another.

Now, let's examine the texts in question. First, the famous account of Saul's suicide from 2 Samuel 31:1-6:

"And the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines fell upon Saul, and upon his sons, and they slew Jonathan, and Abinadab and Melchisua the sons of Saul. And the whole weight of the battle was turned upon Saul: and the archers overtook him, and he was grievously wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armorbearer: "Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me." And his armorbearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. And when his armorbearer saw this, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men that same day together."

So, a few things to point out here:

Note that Saul was grievously wounded by arrows. An arrow wound in the ancient world was a terrible thing; most likely Saul was hit randomly, as most archers in ancient armies fired random volleys, not unlike the famous English longbowmen of later ages. It would be a very painful wound, probably not severe enough to kill him outright, but enough to incapacitate him from the battle and kill him slowly by infection, if he were to escape the battle.

Yet, seeing the battle pressed hot around him and no chance of escape and his kin all slain, Saul opts for death, but note that he does not at first try to kill himself. Rather, he begs his armor bearer to run him through. It is only when the armor bearer refuses that Saul falls on his own sword in an attempt to take his own life.

Now let's look at the second account, from 2 Samuel. In this passage, David is king, and he is anxiously waiting for some word about how the battle has gone, for he is very concerned for the welfare of his companion (and not gay lover), Jonathan. Here is how the Scripture tells it:

Now it came to pass, after Saul was dead, that David returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and abode two days in Ziklag. And on the third day, there appeared a man who came out of Saul's camp, with his garments rent, and dust strewed on his head: and when he came to David, he fell upon his face, and adored. And David said to him: From whence comest thou? And he said to him: "I am fled out of the camp of Israel." And David said unto him: "What is the matter that is come to pass? Tell me." He said: "The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people are fallen and dead: moreover Saul and Jonathan his son are slain." And David said to the young man that told him: "How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son, are dead?" And the young man that told him, said: I came by chance upon mount Gilboa, and Saul leaned upon his spear: and the chariots and horsemen drew nigh unto him, And looking behind him, and seeing me, he called me. And I answered, "Here am I." And he said to me: "Who art thou?" And I said to him: "I am an Amalekite." And he said to me: "Stand over me, and kill me: for anguish is come upon me, and as yet my whole life is in me." So standing over him, I killed him: for I knew that he could not live after the fall: and I took the diadem that was on his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm and have brought them hither to thee, my lord." Then David took hold of his garments and rent them, and likewise all the men that were with him. And they mourned, and wept, and fasted until evening for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword. (2 Samuel 1:1-12)

As in the first passage, Saul is presented as being wounded in the battle. Seeing no hope of recovery, Saul asks the Amalekite to thrust him through, which the Amalekite does.

The pivotal question is this: Does the account in 2 Samuel contradict, in a logical sense, the account in 1 Samuel? That is, if one is true, must the other be false?

The obvious answer is no. The account of 2 Samuel can be reconciled with that in 1 Samuel is we presume that Saul's attempt to kill himself in 1 Samuel was unsuccessful. This would mean that when the Amalekite came upon him, not only was Saul wounded by arrows, but he had also tried to fall on his sword and yet had life in him.

From a common sense standpoint, this makes sense. It is a very difficult and challenging thing to take one's own life even in regular circumstances, let alone when laying on a battlefield riddled with arrows. According to a report released by the American Association of Suicidology, there are 25 attempts at suicide for every one success; in young people, the odds are actually close to 200:1 that the suicide attempt fails [1]. In a 2008 study done by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, it was reported that 1.1 million people actually attempted suicide in the United States that year, but only just over 33,000 succeeded [2]. And this is in the age of powerful firearms and lethal drugs. What must have been the chance of success when one was relying on driving a sharp piece of metal into one's abdomen?

So, from the standpoint of common experience, rather than ask "What justification do you have for presuming Saul's attempt to fall on his sword failed", we should ask rather, "Why should we automatically presume it succeeded?" Statistically, Saul was way more likely to fail than to succeed. Couple this with the fact that Saul failed at most other things he tried, and we do have a strong circumstantial case that he totally biffed his attempt to fall on his sword and just ended up hurting himself worse.

But in addition to this, we can look at the textual evidence presented in 2 Samuel 1. Note that in 1 Samuel, Saul's decision to kill himself is more motivated by despair that his sons have been killed and he does not want to be mocked by the Philistines. Yet in 2 Samuel, his case is presented as more desperate - he seems to want to die in order to end his pain, which would make sense if he had tried unsuccessfully to stab himself. Look at his language to the Amalekite and the Amalekite's response:

"Stand over me, and kill me: for anguish is come upon me, and as yet my whole life is in me." So standing over him, I killed him: for I knew that he could not live after the fall."

Saul laments that he is in great pain and points out that his "whole life" is still in him. In other words, he is in severe pain and can't believe that he is still living after the wounds he has received. The Amalekite clearly sees this and realizes that, though Saul is living, he cannot live long. Thus he slays him.

Compare this with Saul's words in 2 Samuel 31:

"Saul said to his armorbearer: "Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me."

This is quite a different motivation! Here his concern is much different. Ultimately, what the textual evidence reveals is that the nature of his wounds in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1 are different; in the former, he is wounded but still viable; his decision to take his own life is motivated by fear of being dishonored and knowledge that tactically speaking there is no escape. But in 2 Samuel he is not only wounded but terribly wounded, such that his motivation for wishing for death is to end his physical pain, for, as he says, "anguish is come upon me, and as yet my whole life is in me." The difference in the nature of these two statements only makes sense if his suicide attempt in 1 Samuel 31 did not kill him but only further wounded him and placed him in even greater pain, such that he was willing to ask to first person who walked by to thrust him through and put him out of his misery.

So then, here is how it went down:

While fighting on Mount Gilboa, Saul witnessed all his sons fall in battle around him. The battle pressed hot, and Saul was struck by enemy arrows - maybe in the legs, maybe shoulders, who knows - wounded in such a way that he was still alive and could have survived, but he saw no tactical way to get out of the battle. Seeing this, and seeing his house destroyed, he asked his armor bearer to kill him so he could save himself from being mocked and tormented by the Philistines, as they had done to Samson. This would preserve his dignity. Yet the armor bearer refused, and so Saul attempted to fall on his own sword. The armor bearer saw this and killed himself as a consequence, apparently with better effect than Saul, because after falling on his sword, the king realized that he had botched his suicide attempt and was now in even greater pain and in even more danger of being taken alive. Not long after, the Amalekite wandered by and Saul begged him to end his misery, seeing that despite all the wounds he had endured from the Philistines and by his own hand, "my whole life is yet in me." The Amalekite, seeing Saul riddled with arrows and suffering terribly from the botched suicide attempt, knew it was futile to try to save him and thus acceded to his request, thrusting him through and finally ending the king's life.

Note that this explanation does not do any damage to the text, for it is not only in keeping with what the Scriptures narrate but actually is the only explanation that really addresses the nuances in Saul's language satisfactorily. It also makes sense from an experiential viewpoint, since the research supports that most suicide attempts are unsuccessful. Furthermore, this explanation is the one that has traditionally been offered when scholars and theologians have attempted to explain these passages. Thus we can certainly not say there is a contradiction here, since asserted one does not make the other impossible. In fact, they are complimentary and give us two pieces of the story that fit together.

As in other cases (Deuteronomy vs. Leviticus, Seeking and Finding, Praying in Public, Oprah's ignorance about God's "jealousy", Resurrection chronologies, etc) there is no real contradiction, just people not willing to exert the mental effort to examine the texts critically or the faith to presume that a satisfactory resolution actually exists.


Notes

[1] USA suicide 2006 Official final data: JL McIntosh for the American Association of Suicidology 2009. Many figures there taken from Reducing suicide: a national imperative, Goldsmith SK, Pellmar TC, Kleinman AM, Bunney WE, editors.

[2] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2009). Results from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings (Office of Applied Studies, NSDUH Series H-36, HHS Publication No. SMA 09-4434). Rockville, MD. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k9/165/Suicide.htm and http://oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k8nsduh/2k8Results.cfm.

Within the Great Stream of Tradition

This week I had a follow up meeting with my Protestant acquaintances that I blogged about last time. We spent several hours at the local Big Boy drinking shakes, eating seasoned fries and talking about different issues in theology. As last time, we wandered in a disorderly manner over many topics, starting with the atonement and moving on to the concept of tradition and finally ending with Nominalism and the influence of Occam and the Nominalists upon the proto-Reformers like Wycliffe.

In speaking about Tradition and the break with Catholic Tradition that came out of the Protestant Revolt, one of my companions asked a very decent question. He said, "You speak of different dogmas developing over the centuries; not everything the Catholic Church teaches is found explicitly in the apostolic age" (which is true)...he continued, "so, if you can admit a development of dogma in the Church, why can't it be said that the theological doctrines that came out of the Reformation were themselves developments of Christian dogma?"

The question was raised in the context of Lutheran-Calvinist soteriology. Since there had been much disagreement before as to how the atonement actually works (the Fathers favored the Ransom Theory, Anselm had his Satisfaction Theory, St. Thomas the modified Satisfactory Punishment Theory, etc), why could the historic Christian traditio accommodate all of these diverse theories but find no place for Penal Substitution as a legitimate development? Could it not just be seen as the next step in Christian soteriological development, a development that had already been going on since the days of the Fathers?

The late Fundamentalist Bible teacher J. Vernon McGee (d. 1988)  made a similar point when speaking of eschatology. When it was pointed out to this proponent of the novel Rapture doctrine that the concept of the Rapture was not held by the historic Church, he countered by arguing that, just as the great Christological disputes of theology were worked out in the fifth century, so the Church's eschatological disputes were being worked out in the 20th. Therefore, the "emergence" of the Rapture doctrine so late in the history of Christianity is just the latest step in the development of dogma; Christians ought to be no more wary of the emergence of the Rapture doctrine in the 19th century than of the Trinity in the 4th, the Hypostatic Union in the 5th or any other development.

This does of course beg the question of what is a legitimate development and what isn't. No doubt Dr. McGee would not sanction the devotion to Mary or the saints that grew out of the patristic period or the Scholastic teaching on the nature and efficacy of the Sacraments to be legitimate developments of doctrine but rather deviations. In other words, Dr. McGee would sanction only those developments, like the Rapture, that already conformed to his theology.

But couldn't a Protestant jump back and make the same accusation? The Church only rejects Calvinist soteriology because it is contrary to its teaching while accepting Aquinas' because his conforms. Isn't this the same argument?

Yes. As a matter of fact it is. The only difference is the Catholic has a right to make the argument while the Protestant does not.

Of course the reason why an innovation like the Rapture or Penal Substitution would be rejected as not in keeping with the Tradition for the very reason that they contradict Church teaching, because Church teaching is nothing other than the Tradition. That which is in the stream of Tradition is part of the Church's teaching and that which is not is not proposed by the Church for belief. The Church, the Magisterium in particular, is the custodian of Tradition and is responsible for handing that Tradition on intact to each subsequent generation - this is done by explaining the True Faith, but also by excluding and condemning propositions that are against the Faith. This what the Church does and what it has always done. If the Church is a credal, confessing, historic Church (i.e., One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic) then such a conclusion is self-evident and entirely in keeping with the nature of the Church and Christian dogma as understood by Catholicism.

But, if one rejects this ecclesiological concept of a credal, historic Church, as Dr. McGee does, then by what right does one accept one dogma and reject another, especially if adherents of both sides use the Bible to justify themselves? We know that Protestant sects can argue from the Bible all day long and get nowhere; this is one of the inherent flaws in Protestantism - a lack of a Magisterium to authoritatively resolve conflicts.  The whole Protestant movement was based on the premise that the Church could, and indeed had, erred on several fundamental points of doctrine for several centuries. If Protestants accept Luther's premise that Catholicism had erred in its teachings on justification, the Eucharist, devotion to the saints, etc., then why can't any other Protestant teacher make the similar assertion that Protestantism has erred in its teaching on anything from soteriology to eschatology to the eternality of hell? There is no reason why not, unless you appeal to a universal Tradition.

But if we appeal to that Tradition, we cannot do so haphazardly. That is, if we use the Tradition to support belief in, say, the Trinity or the divinity of Christ, we cannot reject it when it tells us that Mary is sinless or the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. A Protestant might respond that we can only accept those aspects of Tradition that are in keeping with the Bible, but if we say that we are arguing in a circle - we use the Tradition to interpret arguments about the meaning of Scripture but deferring to the "plain meaning of Scripture" when interpreting the Tradition. Either the Tradition is authoritative or it is not; if it is, then the Catholic Church is the Church of Christ; if it is not, then there can be no appeal to Tradition to solve any theological dilemma. We are left solely with every man to his own sect and each sect its own interpretation and the Baptists and the Presbyterians are no more right or wrong than the Adventists or the Unitarians.

But to go back to the original question of why every development can't be accepted within the larger stream of Tradition - the answer is that Tradition is not to be understood as simply "whatever happens", in such a way that each and every thing that crops up is said to be part of the Tradition just by virtue of existing. Tradition means "that which was handed on", and something within the stream of Tradition must have evidence of being handed on in some way. In other words, that which is truly in the "stream" of Tradition must go "with the stream" and not against it; it must be clearly deducible from principles which came before and one must be able to discern the later development from the seeds of earlier teaching. This is one of the principles Cardinal Newman lays down in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

Let's use two examples: Mary's Immaculate Conception and the Protestant assertion that the Eucharist is not the real Body and Blood of Christ. First, the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception, formally defined in 1854, is according to one of my Protestant friends, the prime example of a doctrine "invented out of thin air." But if we look at the Tradition, we can see that it is not the case.

• First of all, the data of Scripture itself that calls Mary "full of grace" can be said to at least suggest the concept of sinlessness, since to be full of grace is to be without sin, depending on how we understand grace.
  
  
• In St. Irenaeus' writings (c. 180), Mary is described as "undoing the knot of Eve's disobedience" through her own obedience, so Mary is contrasted with Eve and her fiat is given an important place in the Redemption of Man.
  
• Fathers of the third century continue to contrast Mary with Eve, using Mary as an antitype, contrasting not only Eve's disobedience with Mary's obedience, but Eve's sinfulness with Mary's purity.
  
• By the fourth century, this has crystallized into a language of Mary being "all holy" and "without stain of sin." This is found in the writers of the west, like St. Ambrose, as well as in the east, like in the case of St. Ephrem the Syrian, who wrote poems in honor of Mary's purity. As the devotion to the saints and martyrs evolved, devotion to Mary uniquely as the first and holiest of the saints (hyperdulia) emerged.
  
  
• In the early fifth century, St. Jerome and St. Augustine treat Mary's sinlessness as a given, something all Christians assume rather than argue about. Liturgical feasts also are first recorded here honoring things like Mary's Dormition and her Immaculate Conception, though that language is not yet used. Mary's sinlessness is assumed by all Christians; the Council of Ephesus in 431 declares Mary theotokos.
  
• Marian devotion in general spreads throughout the early Middle Ages and all Christians agree that Mary is sinless. Bernard of Clairvaux composes hymns and orations on her purity. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Scholastics ruminate on how exactly Mary is sinless; since actual sin proceeds from original sin, if Mary was free of actual sin or from any stain of sin, it means she was free from original sin. But since original sin is part of human nature, she must have been rendered free from it at her very conception. There are arguments over how this happened, when a human is really "conceived" and so forth, but there is a general agreement that Mary is not only free of actual sin, but free of original sin, and this from her conception. This is the natural conclusion that flows from the patristic consensus on her sinlessness.
  
• Marian devotion continues to spread with the promulgation of the Rosary devotion by the Dominicans and the rise of humanistic Christian devotion in the late medieval period that focuses more on the humanity of Christ, in which the Virgin finds a prominent place as an object of veneration, as well as the art of the Renaissance. Liturgical feasts celebrating the Immaculate Conception are celebrated all over Christendom.

Okay, pause. So, we have a clear linear development of Marian theology from the apostolic age to the Renaissance, both in the special place Mary is accorded in the devotional life of the Church, and in the doctrine of her sinlessness and Immaculate Conception, which is either clearly taught by the Fathers or easily deduced by principles the Fathers espoused. There is a solid and unambiguous line connecting the Fathers with the Scholastics and the later medievals, creating a clear line of development. Thus, when Pius IX proclaims the Immaculate Conception ex catherda in 1854, it is evidently clear that this dogma stands firmly within the stream of Tradition. It is clearly handed on, there is a historical continuity of Marian devotion, and the 1854 dogma stands "in the stream" or in the same line of thinking as that of earlier ages. We can, in a sense, anticipate the Immaculate Conception definition from the teachings that came before. This teaching is a legitimate development of Tradition.

Now compare this with the denial of Transubstantiation by the Reformers. Let's look at the Eucharistic Tradition up to the time of the Protestant Revolt:

• Scripture has Christ refer to the sacrament as His "Body and Blood", there are string Eucharistic allusions in John 6 suggesting that eating and drinking the flesh of the Son of God is somehow necessary in order to be incorporated into Him; St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 states that he who profanes the Lord's supper will be judged for "not discerning the Body of the Lord."
  
• References from the apostolic Fathers and the sub-Apostolic Fathers consistently refer to Holy Communion as the Body of Christ. St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110) calls it the "medicine of immortality" and "the flesh of Jesus Christ", a strange phrase to use about a symbol. St. Justin Martyr calls it "the flesh and blood of Jesus who became flesh."
  
• Fathers like Tertullian and St. Cyprian make very clear references to belief in Christ's real presence; Cyprian tells stories of curses that have fallen on apostates for receiving the Body of Christ unworthily. The doctrine is firmly established and undeniable by 250 and will only be further confirmed by the writings of fathers like Augustine, Jerome and Ambrose.
  
• In the early medieval period (Gregory the Great on), liturgical praxis develops around the assumption that the Eucharist was the true Body and Blood of Christ. Reception on the tongue was prescribed to prevent possible sacrilege; later, the Minor Elevation was added. Belief in Transubstantiation is evidenced by certain Eucharistic miracles that occur throughout the period, like the famous one of Lanciano, c. 700. Note that, even if specific Eucharistic miracle tales can be written off as legendary or of questionable historicity, the fact that such tales were being circulated at the time is proof that the people of the age believed unquestioningly in the Real Presence. Paschasius Radbertus writes an influential treatise affirming Transubstantiation.
  
• In the 11th century, the heresiarch Berengarius becomes the first person on record to doubt Trasubstantiation officially. He is controverted by Lanfranc, the most eminent ecclesiastic of his day, as well as the Holy See and several local synods; the Church universally condemns his teaching.
  
  
• In the 13th century, the doctrine of the form and matter of the sacraments is more perfectly worked out and Transubstantiation is defined formally at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Eucharistic devotion spreads with the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi and the rise in the practice of Eucharistic Adoration. This continues throughout the medieval period.

Okay, so again, we have a clear line of development in the direction of affirming the real, true and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Now insert the Protestant doctrine that the Body and Blood of Christ is not truly present but is merely a symbol. Given the brief history we just sketched, how can this teaching be said to be a development from anything that came before? It does not flow with the stream of Tradition but adamantly opposes it, holds the former popes and saints to be in error, and posits a teaching that the Fathers and Scholastics would not have recognized; a teaching which, in fact, many condemned. Are we supposed to believe that the 16th century Reformers' denial of everything that came before is somehow also a development of what came before? So contradictions can become developments? This is in the same vein as the Protestant idea of "unity in disunity" as an explanation for why Protestant communions still have "unity" despite being fractured into 20,000+ denominations.

There fact is there is no unambiguous line connecting denial of Transubstantiation with anything that came before, no historical continuity, and no one reading the statements of Augustine or Ignatius or Aquinas would anticipate a denial of the Real Presence as a logical development of earlier ideas. The Protestant concept of the Eucharist is not in the same stream as that of the earlier ages, neither in teaching nor liturgy. Therefore, this is not a legitimate development of doctrine but rather a deviation from it. And the same can be said of every major teaching that came out of the Protestant Revolt or subsequent Protestant sects.

The theory that the developments that came out of the Reformation are legitimate developments of doctrine within the stream of historic Christian Tradition is ultimately an attempt to have your cake and eat it too; to maintain professing a single, uninterrupted Christian traditio that has survived intact throughout the ages, but yet a traditio that can also encompass teachings that are in direct contradiction to the direction of the rest of the Tradition. It is a way to maintain the Protestant dissent from Catholic dogma while affirming the appealing Catholic concept of a single Christian Tradition. It is nothing other than the Via Media that enticed Newman for a time until he came to see that it is a contradiction to claim that things directly contrary to the traditio can themselves be part of that traditio. As Newman discovered so many years ago when he came from Anglicanism into the Catholic Church, there is no way to assert the claims of Catholic Tradition with the right hand while insisting one is independent of it with the left.

Let us stand firm with the stream of Tradition, or let us stand alone to the side, casting rocks at the Tradition like Shimei did to King David and accuse the Tradition of being entirely corrupt; but to try to affirm a Tradition while placing things contrary to that Tradition within the stream of the same Tradition is not possible and conflates the concepts of "development" and "change" as if they were the same thing. That kind of broad accommodation is not possible; either Catholicism is totally right, or it is really, really wrong. If you are with the Tradition, you must be within it.

Epitaphs of the Catacombs

The book is currently available for purchase through my Lulu page here, but in a week when the new site is up it will be offered for sale via PayPal in the store on the new website. The eBook version is also available for $7.00 also through Lulu. Also note that, despite the fact that the video says the book is $14.50, for some reason Lulu has the price set at $13.59 and for some reason I cannot alter it at the moment. Oh well. Call it a sale.

By the way, if you have any self-published material you are interested in promoting through the new website, please let me know. Message me in the combox with your email and I will follow up with you. Nothing Sedevacantist please.

My evening with some Protestants

I walked into the coffee shop at 6:30 sharp, Bible in hand, and greeted my two companions: one, a non-denominational Protestant I have known since middle school, the other a Calvinist student of divinity from a baptist college in Virginia I had never met before. I had been invited to this gathering because, in the words of my non-denominational friend, the Calvinist had "never met an educated Catholic before" and simply wanted to see what talking to one was like - he had heard of this mysterious species known as "educated Catholic" and wanted to see it in person.

I was not sure what to expect, and after some niceties the conversation shortly drifted to the question, put to me by the Calvinist of why, given all the other forms of Christianity out there, would I choose to be Catholic?

There are many ways this could have been answered, but I answered based on the argument that had first led me back to the Church a decade ago: If the Catholic Church was not the true Church, but a corruption of the true Faith that had perverted the teachings of Christ, then it bothered me intensely that God would abandon the Church to perversion and superstition for over 1,200 years between Constantine and Luther, especially after promising to be with it forever and lead it into all Truth. Thus, it was a problem of reconciling actual history with Christ's promises.

After that I was somewhat disappointed with the direction of the discussion - they wanted to talk about the typical Protestant issues. I was expecting something other than the typical Protestant canards. The Immaculate Conception came first, then a discussion on the Deuterocanonicals, then Justification, finally Purgatory (which I did rather well on and got one of them to basically admit was a reality and a necessity). But overall, when debating these things with Protestants the discussion is rather fruitless because all questions hinge on other, broader questions - understanding the Immaculate Conception necessitates a discussion about the concept of grace and how it interacts with nature; Purgatory presupposes a discussion on the concept of sin, its effects and consequences. In most cases, it is hard to have a real meaningful discussion with a Protestant about these "hot button" issues like the Immaculate Conception without backing up and settling broader questions first.

I think they sensed this as we went round and round on various issues. Eventually the kid working the coffee shop came up and told us we had to leave because they were closing. But we weren't ready, so we took our things out into the night and went and sat on the steps of our historic courthouse underneath the harsh white glow of the buzzing lights and continued our discussion. Here we came to the crux of the issue - what was it that really separated Catholics and Protestants?

I stated that the issue was one of authority. If the Church has the authority that it claims, then every other objections to Catholicism melts away. We talked a lot about the question of the Unity of the Church, and I asked them whether 22,000 denominations, all in disagreement on everything, was God's will. The response was interesting. They stated that there was a general agreement on essentials, and that with regards to the things that were disagreed upon, it was possible for there to be a "disunity in unity," to use a quote from the Calvinist.

This Unity point is worth discussing, because like the issue of authority, the whole edifice of Protestantism is bound up with it. First, the concept of agreeing on "essentials" is a fable. I have written about this before; it is not as if Protestants are united on some core fundamentals and disagree only on ephemeral issues; they disagree on everything. Every conceivable doctrine has served as an occasion for division: justification, baptism, communion, marriage and divorce, women in ministry, gay marriage, the nature of the Holy Spirit, the divinity of Christ, the reality of hell, the permissibility of drinking and dancing, speaking in tongues and miracles, ecshatological considerations, what day to worship on, predestination and much more. There is no core essentials that are agreed upon; the only "essential" that Protestants really agree on is that the Catholic Church is not the true Church of Christ.

When a dispute does come up that shakes the Protestant world, they have no real way to counter it, because everybody already is in disagreement about everything and all they can do is point at each other and say, "You are taking the Bible out of context...no YOU are taking the Bible out of context."

Second, this quote about "disunity in unity" was very interesting. Certainly nobody will agree on everything, and even within the Catholic Church there is room for discussion on many issues. Many Catholics disagree on accidental or prudential matters and still remain in the unity of the Church, because as long as we can all agree on the dogmas of the faith and remain in communion with Rome, then it can be said that we have unity.

But it must be recalled - and I recalled it to these Protestants - that the Unity that the Church is supposed to have is not just some sort of incidental human unity, but a metaphysical, spiritual unity that is nothing other than a participation of the Unity the Father shares with the Son. Let us recall the sacred words our Our Lord:

"And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them: that, they may be one, as we also are one. I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me. Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me: that they may see my glory which thou hast given me, because thou hast loved me before the creation of the world" (John 17:19-24).

This is a Unity that is much more substantial than a vague "disunity in unity." The oneness that Christ prays for His Church is nothing other than the oneness of the Trinity itself. It is the oneness of the Father with the Son in the Spirit, a oneness that the world cannot give and that cannot be found in any sort of vague consensus on non-existing "essentials." Our Lord also says that this oneness is the ground upon which the world will believe in Him. The Calvinist, when I brought this up, said, "Yes, but your argument against there being 22,000 denominations is the same argument atheists bring up to deny the truth of Christianity." I said that the atheist had a great point. It is in fact a scandal that, when our Lord prayed that the Church should be one, that there are over 22,000 denominations. And it proves Jesus' point - the credibility of the message is bound up with the oneness of the Church. Atheism only cropped up in the west after the Protestant revolt.

The night wore on and we grew tired. I think I left for home at 10:30 after four hours of discussion. All in all I represented the Church pretty decently...at some points I felt like I absolutely schooled them. They asked me once if God could create Mary Immaculate why He didn't just do that for everybody - I said why doesn't He appear in person and convert everybody like He did to Paul on the road to Damascus, or take everybody alive into heaven like He did to Elijah, or heal all the blind like our Lord did to the man outside Jericho, to which they had no answer. There were many other times when they had no answer as well. I think the climax of the evening, for me, was when my non-denominational friend was saying that he valued the testimony of the Fathers because he wanted to find that essential, primitive core of Early Church belief. Being a disciple of Newman, I was able to respond, "They are ever hunting for a fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fullness."

We hugged and parted ways. The dialogue was cordial, charitable an never got heated, but it was a true argument in the Scholastic manner, two sides disputing. It was very fruitful - and I might add, fruitful because we actually had a real argument and did not just focus on what we share in common. It was dialogue the way dialogue was meant to be: a search for the truth that does not seek to minimize difference but to draw them out and throw them into relief.

Special thanks to my bro St. Robert Bellarmine, whom I prayed to yesterday on his feast day before engaging in the discussion.

Comparing Trad and Liberal "Dissent"

In the May-June 2012 issue of Catholic Answers Magazine (formerly This Rock), there is an interesting article by Kenneth Whitehead entitled "Dissent of a Traditionalist Stripe: How Vatican II Resulted in Revolt from the Right as Well as the Left." The article is the second in a two-part series on errant interpretations of Vatican II, this one obviously dealing with dissent "from the right."

The article is emblematic of how the traditionalist issue is typically misunderstood by many in the mainstream Church who consider themselves orthodox but would not necessarily call themselves traditionalists.

In the first place, condemnations of traditionalist "dissent" are straw men arguments here because of the ambiguous way in which the term "traditionalist" is used. The title of the article accuses "traditionalists" of dissent. So now what is a traditionalist? Whitehead identifies traditionalists primarily with the SSPX. He states:

"The radical traditionalist position...held that nothing in the Church's tradition was subject to change. The most prominent of this latter position is the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), an organization founded in Switzerland in 1969 by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in reaction to what he considered to be the "errors" of Vatican II. There are a few other radical splinter groups that also reject the Council, but the SSPX is the principal and best organized of them " (pg. 34).

Notice what the author has done here. The title of the article claims to be about "dissent of a traditionalist stripe." He then will change this statement to "radical traditionalists." Later in the article, the followers of Lefebvre are simply referred to as "traditionalists" (pg. 35).

But since "traditionalist dissent" is the focus of the article, are we to assume that traditionalists and radical traditionalists are the same thing? The straw man argument comes in when traditionalists are basically lumped together under the phrase "SSPX" along with "other radical splinter groups that also reject the Council." Apparently, all, or at least most, traditionalists are SSPX, or those whose one common belief is rejection of the Council. While purporting to answer "traditionalism", the article makes the equivocation Traditionalist = SSPX and then goes on to deal exclusively with the SSPX. Patrick Madrid, one of my favorite mainstream apologists, regrettably does the same thing in his book More Catholic Than the Pope. In either case, there seems to be no thought of answering the objections of traditionalists who accept the Council, are in union with the Church, and are not part of the SSPX. The ambiguous way in which the article uses the term "traditionalist", the straw man tactic of associating all trads with SSPX, takes quite a bit of precision out of Whitehead's argument.

Another difficulty is that the position of the Church with reference to the two "extremes" of liberalism and traditionalism (whatever the latter term means) is misrepresented. Whitehead mentions liberalism and traditionalism as "two post-conciliar trends from opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum" (pg. 33), as if there were these two extreme fringe groups on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum with the mainline Church sitting comfortable and immovably in the center, condemning each from an equidistant position. If we were to depict this visually, it would look something like this (I put a question mark after Trads because of the ambiguity in the term, as explained above):

(Click to enlarge these pictures if they are too small)

The mainline Church is presented as a solid center, equidistant from two equally dangerous extremes, liberal "spirit of Vatican II" Catholicism on the left radical Traditionalism on the right. The mainline Church maintains the balance between these two extremes.

However, there are two major problems with this paradigm (1) the equidistance the mainline Church is assumed to have between the two extremes and (2) the real "threat" of each extreme position relative to the mainline Church.

Remember, Whitehead's opinion assumes that liberalism and extreme traditionalism are "two post conciliar trends at opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum." This statement tells us only that the two extremes are opposites of one another, but it tells us nothing about the position of the mainline Church relative to them. Without further clarification, the assumption of such a statement is that the mainline Church is situated centrally between the two positions, condemning the errors of liberalism from the same comfortable distance from which it rebukes the errors of the radical traditionalists.

This is not accurate, I think, because radical traditionalism (as represented by the SSPX, per the article) and liberalism are two different sorts of things. The SSPX is an organization that exists within a canonical framework and with whom the Church can reach out to, negotiate, dialogue with, make concessions to, demand concessions from, and ultimately reconcile with. It is more easy identify; they are not in union with the Church in a formal manner, and because of that, they can be formally approached and reconciled with. The Church considers them an external problem.

Liberalism, on the other hand, is not something that is related to the Church in any canonical way, either for good or for ill. Whereas the SSPX are something we can identify as distinct from the mainline Church, liberalism is a philosophy that infects large segments of the Church itself. It is not distinct from the Church in the sense that we can dialogue with it, negotiate, or make or demand concessions. It is something like a cancer that has rendered large parts of the body unwholesome. Because of this, it is not something the Church can "stand off" from and approach strategically. The Church cannot approach liberalism from the same distance that it approaches the SSPX from because liberalism is something the Church struggles with internally whereas the SSPX are an external issue.

In addition to this, we must note the overlap between liberalism and the Church. Some of the biggest and most problematic liberals in the Church are members of her hierarchy in good canonical standing. The SSPX bishops, by contrast, were excommunicates until recently. Some of the liberal bastions within the Church are legitimately established dioceses. In many parts of the world, the liberals are the Church. The Church does not stand off distantly and condemn liberalism from a central position because liberalism is in the very heart of the Church. This cannot realistically be said about groups such as the SSPX, who are organizations canonically distinct from the Church.

Furthermore, the "threat" posed to the Catholic Church from these two extremes is far from equal. While Whitehead's article states that "Vatican II resulted in revolt from the right as well as the left," the revolt from the "right" pales in comparison to that posed by the left. For example, the SSPX, our stereotypical "radical traditionalists", number only around 600,000 world wide. That is miniscule. To put it in perspective, there are 1.4 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Detroit alone. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has 4.3 million. With the average Catholic diocese having Catholic populations at least in the hundreds of thousands, and with entire dioceses, and even the hierarchies of entire countries being mired in modernism (United Kingdom, Switzerland), is it really realistic to portray a sect of 600,000 worldwide as an equal threat to the liberal scourge that claims millions and millions of adherents? According to polls, 85% of Catholics deny the Real Presence and a similar amount use contraception. Given the massively destructive influence of liberalism which are behind these stats, is it really legitimate to speak of radical traditionalism as an "equal" threat to the Church?

Earlier in this post I presented a graph that depicted what I think is the incorrect assessment I have just critiqued. If I were to present the real situation graphically as well, it would look like this:

In this depiction, the threats of liberalism and extreme traditionalism are portrayed more accurately, the extreme trads representing an infinitesimally small amount of individuals while the liberal circle is composed of millions upon millions worldwide. Perhaps I am being pessimistic, but in my depiction, the mass of liberal Catholics is three times larger than orthodox mainline Catholics. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, the "overlap" between the the mainline Church and the canker of liberalism. The canonical "distance" between the institutional Church and the SSPX is also depicted.

All disunity, whether canonical or ideological, is bad. But to present the existence of an extremely small minority who are in an irregular canonical situation as an equally grave threat as the ubiquitous presence of liberalism in almost every corner of the Church, even in the hierarchy, is just not accurate. Ironically, the Whitehead article will go on to imply that Benedict XVI is wasting his time in dialoguing with the SSPX. Commenting on the historic motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Whitehead remarks that "the pope was obviously listening to the traditionalist complaints," (pg. 36) as if the pope's motivation in the motu proprio had nothing to do with wanting to restore liturgical sanity in the Church and was simply to appease some rad trads. Regarding other efforts to reconcile with the SSPX, he says, "Pope Benedict paid a steep price for trying to bring the SSPX back into the Church" (pg. 37) and downplays the negotiations up until now as "quibbles" (ibid).

Whitehead seems to think these talks are fruitless and that the pope is wasting his time with them. I say this is ironic because, since this magazine went to print, it has come to light that the SSPX-Vatican discussions have intensified in recent weeks, that all signs are encouraging, and that there may be a real reconciliation. The pope is expected to issue a judgment in May, according to Rorate.

Liberalism and expressions of traditionalism that deny the validity of the Second Vatican Council are both errors. But they are not errors of an equal sort, nor does the Church stand with equal distance from each, nor are the threats from each equivalent, nor can all traditionalists be lumped together as SSPX. It's these same of canards that have kept traditionalists in the margins for too long.