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T.J. WalsheApologeticsChapter 1

Catholic Apologetics

Chapter I: Catholic Apologetics

The word “Apologetic” is derived from the Greek apologia, which means “defence.” Hence the expression “Catholic Apologetics” implies the defence of Catholic belief. An apologetical treatise may confine itself to setting forth the rational grounds which are the bases of Christianity — such as the witness of reason to the existence of God, to the endowments of man, and to the relations between God and man — concluding with a general defence of Divine Revelation. In the development of such an Apologetic, an opportunity is given whereby the assured conclusions of the various sciences which bear upon the origin of man and upon the history of the earth which he inhabits receive especial attention. But an Apologetic which proposes for its specific object the defence of Revelation continues to make use of reason, but reason sub directione fidei — under the direction of faith — as its main instrument. It presupposes the truths of Natural Religion already established, and proceeds to the detailed and philosophical exposition of the nature, possibility, necessity, and cognoscibility of Divine Revelation as set forth by the Catholic Church, the “pillar and ground of truth.”

Thus the formal object, or aim, of a treatise on Catholic Apologetics is the philosophical defence of Divine and Supernatural Revelation, and is the logical sequel to a treatise on the Principles of Christian Apologetics generally. The relation of such a treatise to the science of Theology may be briefly stated. The subject matter of Theology — its formal object — is God as supernaturally revealed; and as the treatise in question defends by reason the nature, possibility, necessity, and cognoscibility of the supernatural knowledge thus revealed, it is clear that Catholic Apologetics forms a fundamental and integral portion of Sacred Theology. But the development of the subject does not cover the whole field of Fundamental Theology, which comprises two divisions: the defence of Divine Revelation, which is Catholic Apologetics properly so called; and the sources of Divine Revelation — that is, the theological loci, or places from which theological argument is drawn.

These theological loci fall into two classes. The internal locus is reason itself, arguing apodeictically. The external loci are of two kinds: the certain sources — Sacred Scripture, Divine Tradition, the authority of the Church, of General Councils, and of the Roman Pontiff — and the merely probable sources — the authority of the Fathers and of theologians, together with the corroborative, though not strictly theological, evidence of philosophy and history.

From these divisions it is clear that Fundamental Theology is a science — “the knowledge of things through their causes” — of wide extent, entailing varied and accurate scholarship.

“Catholic Apologetics” may be simply defined as the rational defence of Divine Revelation. This defence is made by reason “under the direction of Divine Faith.” Not that a Catholic apologist may use Faith to enforce reason, and reason to establish Faith; rather, he chooses, under the direction of Faith, the special rational arguments put forward to defend Revelation, and develops their probative force wholly by means of the light of reason. As to the necessity of such a treatise: since the fact of Revelation is not immediately evident to us, we need the establishment of its truths, both because of their intrinsic value and because of the momentous consequences for time and eternity which follow from them.

The division of the subject matter usually followed by Catholic Apologists is as follows:

I. The Theoretical Part (directed against Philosophical Rationalism): (a) the possibility of Revelation; (b) the congruity and necessity of Revelation; (c) the cognoscibility of Revelation from certain signs.

II. The Positive Part (directed against Biblical Rationalism): (a) the historical testimony of Christ regarding His divine mission and regarding the institution of the Church; (b) the confirmation of this testimony, drawn from (1) the satisfaction of human aspirations afforded by the teaching of Divine Revelation, (2) the sublimity of the doctrine revealed, and (3) the marvellous life of the Church; (c) the confirmation of this testimony by miracles and prophecy; (d) the comparison of Christianity with Mosaic and other religions; (e) the consequent obligation of accepting Divine Revelation.

This enumeration shows that Catholic Apologetics is not a subject specifically distinct from Theology. As Père Gardeil reminds us, just as Metaphysics has its epistemology, or criteriology, whereby the objective character of knowledge is established, so Theology has its supernatural epistemology — Apologetics — demonstrating the truth of Divine Revelation. In its relation to other sciences, Apologetics presupposes the truths of Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Psychology, and Cosmology, and also the truth of the history and exegesis of Holy Scripture, though not, of course, the Bible’s character as a divinely inspired work — for the inspiration of the Bible can be proved only by the decision of an infallible authority.

The division of subject matter followed here is suggested by the Constitution De Fide Catholica of the Vatican Council. Where the decisions of Councils are quoted, they are cited as authoritative declarations of Catholic doctrine; needless to say, in a treatise which appeals to reason alone, such conciliar definitions, though infallible from another point of view, lie outside the strictly argumentative scope of this work. Under the headings “Revelation” and “Faith,” the Vatican Council suggests this same division: first, the possibility of Revelation and its congruity (Denzinger 1806, 1807); second, the cognoscibility of the fact of Revelation — that is, the credibility of the mysteries of Faith and the validity of the motives of credibility (Denzinger 1811, 1812); third, the freedom of the act of Faith and its irrevocability once made (Denzinger 1815, 1816). That the existence of God can be proved historically from miracles duly attested is an instance of what is meant by cognoscibility.

The order followed in this treatise thus follows the outline suggested by the Vatican Council: first, the credibility and existence of Revelation are established; and in the course of this, two erroneous methods are confuted — philosophical rationalism, which denies the very possibility of Revelation, and biblical rationalism, which explains away the miracles of the Gospel. The Church does not content herself with indicating the true method, but condemns the erroneous ones by name:

  1. the method of the early Protestants, who, while accepting a Revelation confirmed by miracles, denied the infallibility of the Church;
  2. the method of Liberal Protestantism, which accepts only such truths as are conformable to the aspirations of the religious sense;
  3. the method of Modernism.

Pius X, in his Encyclical Pascendi, condemns: (1) the foundation of the Modernist method, namely Agnosticism and the doctrine of Immanence; (2) the method of historical interpretation which Agnostics affect; and (3) the method of Immanence itself.

The cardinal doctrine of Agnosticism is that human knowledge is knowledge only of phenomena. The law of causality is resolved into a mere succession of antecedent and consequent, so that the existence of God, which depends upon that law, can never be established.

The Modernists, for their part, claim that there is a mysterious, hidden element in Christianity which constitutes the object of Faith — that is to say, of religious experience. Dogmatic teaching, on this view, should be subject to continual correction, because the truths and logic of life differ from the truths and logic of reason. According to Hegel, even the principle of contradiction is only a law of logic, and not a law of reality.

The method of Immanence, which presupposes in human nature an inherent exigency for the Supernatural, is likewise condemned. Its advocates make two claims: the mutability of dogmatic teaching, and the subjection of Faith to Science. As an instance of the supposed change in dogmatic teaching, the two concepts of God as Judge and as Father are cited; as an instance of change due to the advance of science, Modernists assert that the original conception of the personality of Christ was that of “a rational substance consubstantial with the Father,” whereas psychologists now place the essence of personality in self-consciousness — so that the vivid consciousness which Christ possessed of His dependence on the Father is said to have constituted His sonship and divinity.

Having indicated the method of procedure to be followed, it will be instructive to ask whether that method is truly “scientific.” The logical processes of induction and deduction are both necessary in the pursuit of truth. Advance from the complex to the simple is accomplished by induction, or analysis: water is by analysis resolved into its simpler constituents, hydrogen and oxygen; while hydrogen and oxygen unite, conversely, in definite proportions to form water — illustrating synthesis. So too Sir Isaac Newton recognised in the fall of an apple one instance among many of a single class of phenomena, and by studying numerous such instances arrived at the simple law of gravitation, which links together innumerable particular cases under one natural tendency, however mysterious that tendency remains in itself. Induction and analysis are thus cognate processes, as are deduction and synthesis. Perhaps the best illustration of the combination of the two in scientific discovery is the history of the observations of the planet Mars. From a limited number of observed positions, a hypothetical orbit was assumed — the inductive advance from the complex to the simple. From that hypothesis the future position of Mars was then calculated and predicted — a striking instance of deduction. Had the prediction agreed with observation, the hypothesis would have been strongly confirmed; but since a divergence was in fact found, the astronomer undertook a new and more extensive set of observations, and formed a second, better-founded hypothesis. In this way, after many attempts, the orbit of Mars was discovered to be not circular but elliptical.

The science of Catholic Apologetics is built upon this same scientific method. It begins with a searching analysis of: (1) the true notion of Mystery and Revelation; (2) the exact idea of Credibility; and (3) the validity of the motives of Credibility. The necessity of this analysis appears clearly if the findings of Catholic theologians are set beside those of the Modernist school:

Catholic TeachingModernist Teaching
The mysteries of Faith are supernatural.The mysteries of Faith are not supernatural.
Divine Revelation is external.Divine Revelation is immanent.
The motive of Faith is the authority of God.The motive of Faith is the religious sense.
Mysteries are to be believed because revealed by God.Mysteries are to be believed because they answer to human aspirations.
The motives of credibility are chiefly external.The motives of credibility are chiefly internal.
Religion is divine and supernatural.Religion is human and natural.

The greatness of this divergence of opinion is perhaps not an unmixed evil, for error is more dangerous the more of truth it borrows to commend itself; and the idealistic rationalism of Kant and Hegel is, for this reason, more insidious than plain materialism.

The synthetic part of Apologetics, taking its start from the fact of a Divine Revelation proposed by Christ and by the Church, shows that this Revelation exhibits the true notion of mystery, has legitimate claims on human credence, and is supported by valid rational motives, so that it is proposed for belief not merely reasonably, but with an evidence beyond what reason unaided could supply. The general method of proof followed by approved Catholic apologists is thus analytico-synthetic, corresponding, so far as the difference of subject matter allows, to the method that has proved so fruitful in the advancement of the physical sciences.

In physical science, experience is the supreme test — the supreme “motive of credibility.” It is essential both for the enumeration of instances and for the verification of results deduced from hypothesis. In Apologetics likewise the motives of credibility are both external and internal, and experience is necessary here too, whether the experience of the senses or the inward experience of the various movements of conscience and desire. The motives of credibility may be tabulated as follows:

The probative force of these motives, singly and in combination, will be considered in what follows. For the present it will be enough to observe how consistently the appeal to these same motives has been made, from the time of Moses down to our own day.