Apologetics to non-believers

[joemccarron]

Hello everyone since I have a philosophy and law background I mostly do apologetics with those who are non-believers.

Unlike arguing with Protestants I have to deal with arguments against the reliability of the Scripture and contradictions. And in speaking with some of the folks on the other side you would think the bible is a small pamphlet that only talks about exterminating the Canaanites, offering daughters to mobs, and human sacrifices being accepted by our God. The reality we face is that these are the types of arguments that are in best selling books.

I find that the reasons people claim for rejecting the bible often revolve around apparent contradictions that really aren’t that important. See for example these sorts of arguments:

bidstrup.com/bible2.htm
or:
skepticsannotatedbible.com/

Ok so I can argue that many of these things are not important. I can argue that inspired in the Christian sense doesn’t necessarily mean it’s dictated by God like Muslim’s view the Koran. However, it seems that the church by its teaching has made it very easy to fall into heresy with this thinking.

So when we consider all the apparent inconsistencies would we be heretics if we suggested something like “Well maybe Luke really did think the first human being was literally named Adam and perhaps he was mistaken. (after all what does it really matter?) Maybe Mathew was mistaken about the reason why Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem. (after all why does it really matter) Perhaps John just misremembered the day Jesus died after all it was a long time after the death that he wrote the Gospel and getting the days mixed up would be quite easy.” (and again after all its not like dying on a Friday and rising on a Sunday is any more or less miraculous than dying on a Thursday and rising on a Saturday.) “Maybe the author of Leviticus mistakenly thought hares do chew the cud.” (after all who cares?)

We can certainly take this position and still maintain Vatican 2’s requirement that we believe:

“…we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.” (emphasis mine)

But what about these other documents:

The Council of the Vatican (1869-1870):
“The books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, … And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without errors, but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for their Author."

and
Pope Leo XIII (1893): His encyclical letter “Providentissimus Deus” said in part:
“For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far is it from being possible that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church…”

How can a Catholic honestly and faithfully comply with the requirement that we “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” If we are honest and faithful then when we are asked why we believe something we should say “We believe it because we must believe it or fall into heresy. We believe it because the infallible church taught it to us and we must be obediant and believe what that church says” I say this not to be cute but based on reading these articles:
sedevacantist.com/believe.html

saint-mike.org/apologetics/qa/Answers/Defending_Faith/p0406120050.html

saint-mike.org/Apologetics/QA/Answers/Faith_Spirituality/f0312230612.html

It seems to me that today we need to believe in so much more than the Nicene creed a faithful Catholic is often stuck with circular or arguments that really only work for other Christians.

Catholic:
“I believe the bible is credible because I must believe what the church tells me and the church tells me I must believe that the bible is inspired - Every word. I am not allowed to doubt certain things or I would be a heretic.”

Non believer:
“Ok why do you believe the church’s teaching?”

Catholic:
“Well the Church is infallible”

Non believer:
“Why do you believe the church is infallible?”

Here we can look to the “proofs of infallibility”:

newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm#II

Here we see that they boil down to two arguments one from scripture (circular) and one from tradition (and why would non believers care what these church fathers assert?)

Ok can we give other arguments? Well we are not allowed to doubt the infallibility of the church so the arguments couldn’t honestly be an “explanation” of our belief. We need to believe because it is our obligation to believe. We are to avoid certain areas of scholarship because it might endanger our faith. Well ok this seems to be the case but then how can we engage the non-believers?
Might we be able to explain why the church has beliefs or interpretations? Sure but the church is not in the business of giving philosophical arguments. In other words the reasons the church provides for its position are going to assume certain things about the bible and God and the Holy Spirit so the premises to the arguments will not be acceptable to a non-believer.

In sum it seems to me that the Church has spoken on so many things that it has left no room for faithful Catholics to do any “reasoning” about the credibility of scripture.

 

[Joe_5859]

In sum it seems to me that the Church has spoken on so many things that it has left no room for faithful Catholics to do any “reasoning” about the credibility of scripture.

I hear what you’re saying. I have asked myself some of the same questions.

I think that, in some cases, there’s simply nothing you can say to convince an unbeliever. Many are so convinced they are right that they will not give a fair hearing to anything you have to say. None of us can debate a person into converting (as much as I would like to! ).

I offer you a few resources to consider that might be of some help.

The first is Yes or No? Straight Answers to Tough Questions on Christianity by Peter Kreeft, a philosopher. The book is written in socratic dialogue as a conversation between a believer and a non-believer. As such, it may help in thinking of new ways to talk to those without any faith as it appeals to reason rather than revelation.

Another good book for this would be the book Kreeft co-wrote with Ronald Tacelli (a non-Catholic Christian): Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Most of the arguments are geared towards non-believers as it is a work of general Christian apologetics rather than specifically Catholic apologetics (which tend to focus on the differences between Catholicism and other forms of Christianity.

Another quick reference guide would be Beginning Apologetics 4: How to Answer Atheists and New Agers. This is a quick, 40 page, big font, easy-to-read guide on some of the major topics that come up in talking to non-believers.

You might also try Answering the New Atheism by Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. Ben Wiker. I haven’t read it yet myself, but I’ve heard great things about it.

And, of course, for the Catholic approach to Scripture, you might try the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Interpretation of the Bible on the Church.

 

[paul_c]

When talking to non-believers, the first thing you need to ascertain is what do they believe.

if they are truly athiests or agnostics, you need to get them to believe in God before you can take them down the path to Christianity because the existence of God is much easier to describe than the specifics of Christianity.

For this, if they are scientifically or logic oriented, you can get them thinking about the fact that movement requires a force and therefore the universe required a prime mover If they believe in the big bang, so much the better. What caused it. That is God. Folllow up with the fact that we all observer laws of nature like Gravity, there has to be a law maker for that to happen. Then discuss the orderliness of the universe, the fact that all matter is made of the same subatomic particles. and explain that order requires intelligence and that order on a universal scale requires unlimited intelligence. If they need ongoing proof, point to nature around them : the order and the detail and reiterate the points.

Once they beleive in God, then the trick is to get them to believe in our version of God. This must be done through the credibility of the entire Christian story. prophesy, eyewitness accounts, etc. the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is a reasonable resource for this part of the discussion. Beyond that you can discuss the ongoing signs of God. Lourdes, Fatima, Padre Pio’s stigmata. the holiness of Mother Teresa…

You can also get into what they beleive in their hearts. Undoubtedly some of it lines up with Catholic doctrine, you need to explain the rest.

As for scripture. Trust in it yourself first. Before you can get anyone to believe scripture, they have to believe in Jesus. once you get past that hurdle, they need to believe in the church that created the scripture and the continuity of teaching. authority. Once there, you will have no problem getting buyin on scripture.

 

[maryj]

I’m just reading a great book by Dr. Scott Hahn called Reason to Believe. The whole first part of the book deals with apologetics to non-believers. Sorry that’s all I’ve got. I just started studying it.

 

[anon5216]

You also have to get beyond the hurdle that to non-Christians, the descriptions of God given in various books of the old testament sound much more like a “fallen angel” misleading corrupt and/or corruptible humans than anything resembling the God described in quotes attributed to Jesus in the new testament books.

You also have to get past the hurdle that non-Christians don’t automatically see the Bible as an integral document. It is seen as a collection of independent writings - each of which can stand or fall on its own merit. And none of which can prove the others. (Actually each verse or sentence call stand or fall on its own merit).

You also have to get past the hurdle that non-Christians see parallel positive evidence in other faiths.

Apologetics to non-Catholic Christians is a much simpler task, given you have a set of somewhat common assumptions about the basic document of the faith (Bible).

(fyi, I’m a non-Christian former Catholic)

 

[Dameedna]

So when we consider all the apparent inconsistencies would we be heretics if we suggested something like “Well maybe Luke really did think the first human being was literally named Adam and perhaps he was mistaken. (after all what does it really matter?) Maybe Mathew was mistaken about the reason why Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem. (after all why does it really matter) Perhaps John just misremembered the day Jesus died after all it was a long time after the death that he wrote the Gospel and getting the days mixed up would be quite easy.” (and again after all its not like dying on a Friday and rising on a Sunday is any more or less miraculous than dying on a Thursday and rising on a Saturday.) “Maybe the author of Leviticus mistakenly thought hares do chew the cud.” (after all who cares?)

If some-one in the bible, wrote something incorrectly, then it does matter to those that will only accept a verifiable truth. If one thing is wrong, then many could be wrong. Certain elements of the bible don’t often meld with the laws of nature and the universe that we now observe.

Simple example, the virgin birth. You do not have a child without having sex. They did not know however, during biblical times that both a female egg and male sperm were required. It was believed only the mans seed was required(He put the baby into the woman). Hence, easy to see how the “male” god, impregnated the “female” human without intercourse.

Either the church was actually right and God was playing fancy free with the laws of nature, breaking them and then expecting us to believe it, or the church is wrong.

This creates some-what of a dilema. If God is going to break the laws of nature, then which “nature law breaking act” do we believe, since it is now believed…that it is possible?

God breaking the laws and REQUIRING us to believe it, leaves us with absolutely nothing to verify the truth and a genuine confusion as to what is real. We have to believe the “right” church and the “right” miracles…or else…we’re gonna be a hurting in the next life.

Okay I got on a tangent there. But , there’s kind of a point.

In sum it seems to me that the Church has spoken on so many things that it has left no room for faithful Catholics to do any “reasoning” about the credibility of scripture.

There is no credibility to scripture for the non-believer.

It’s historically inaccurate, it describes some horrifying things God did(which the church agrees occured), and it is ignorant of the universe, natures laws and…most importantly was written by very failable humans, taught by very failable humans and believed…by very failable humans.

You cannot reach an athiest through the bible(not all non-believers imo, are athiests). It won’t happen.

For me, now agnostic…I had to learn how to seperate the “questions” of existance…the “possibility” of a “something(God)” from RELIGION completely. I still do refer to myself as an athiet, because I understand it so well, but I think a little differently now.

I won’t go into detail(unless you ask) as to why the change but if you want to have any HOPE of even remotely affecting the mind of the non-believer, you have to start with…the concept of God not you claims to truth.

No christianity, No religion, and not a human written book.

In all honesty though, a person who believes what you seem to, will probably have no chance. It is only those that have a healthy does of doubt and do not agree entirely with the church because of their own journey(and have the courage to say so), that end up getting an athiest to think differently. Most believers go no-where really fast.

Cheers

 

[Dameedna]

When talking to non-believers, the first thing you need to ascertain is what do they believe.

if they are truly athiests or agnostics, you need to get them to believe in God before you can take them down the path to Christianity because the existence of God is much easier to describe than the specifics of Christianity.

This is true. You have to seperate the idea of God, from religion.

For this, if they are scientifically or logic oriented, you can get them thinking about the fact that movement requires a force and therefore the universe required a prime mover If they believe in the big bang, so much the better. What caused it. That is God. Folllow up with the fact that we all observer laws of nature like Gravity, there has to be a law maker for that to happen. Then discuss the orderliness of the universe, the fact that all matter is made of the same subatomic particles. and explain that order requires intelligence and that order on a universal scale requires unlimited intelligence. If they need ongoing proof, point to nature around them : the order and the detail and reiterate the points.

I’m not sure how many athiests you’ve been around but it’s a very common argument and is pretty easily refuted these days. It might work with certain non-believers, but a skeptic would not by default draw a “something happened, therefore it’s God” conclusion. They are too honest for that.

Also keep in mind, the big bang, IS just a theory and is being challenged more and more. You can’t use the cosmological argument for many, it just doesn’t work. There are too many questions and God’s of the Gap don’t work with anyone with a genuine submission to truth.

Once they beleive in God, then the trick is to get them to believe in our version of God.

This pretty much defines why most athiests are never “converted”. They realize, they are being tricked into it.

This must be done through the credibility of the entire Christian story. prophesy, eyewitness accounts, etc. the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is a reasonable resource for this part of the discussion. Beyond that you can discuss the ongoing signs of God. Lourdes, Fatima, Padre Pio’s stigmata. the holiness of Mother Teresa…

You can’t do this through credibility of the entire christian story.

Let’s throw a couple of ideas out there.

Statement: The prophesies were made, and Jesus fullfilled them.

Argument: The gospels were written in accordance with the prophecies by those who already knew them and their importance to Jewish culture, not because that was actually Jesus’s life.

Statment: There were many eyewitness accounts to miracles

Argument: A book, cannot prove itself. A book, claiming witnesses is meaningless since any book can claim the same thing.

Statement: But there have been witnesses SINCE Christs time

Argument: Humans, have a massive capacity to decieve themselves. A human making a claim is just that. It is not verifiable.

Statment: Christianity explains the human condition.

Argument: So does evolution.

Statment: Don’t you FEEL a desire for truth and a yearning for Gods love?

Argument: My desire for truth is a result of my biology. I evolved to be a problem solver and tool maker because it enhances my survivability. I have a yearning for Love, because it is these “chemicals” in my brain that make me and other’s feel good and encourages us as a weaker animal species to work together. This enhances our survival.

You are not going to get around this, with a thinking non-believer.

It will only work, with a non-believer who doesn’t really know why they dont believe in the first place and say’s something naive like “But there couldn’t be so much bad stuff in the world if there was a God”.

Pulease…like we don’t bring most of this nonsense on ourselves.

Natural disasters, are harder to address and a human fall from a state of perfection(and resulting current existance) argument falls way short of the mark as well.

Why are you trying to debate with non-believers? I’m willing to give it a gander if you are really trying to understand them.

 

[yola_dawn]

wow
actual atheist/agnostic (sorry about the definition)

i am not willing to challenge at present simply because i dont think this particular thread is the most appropriate place and i dont have the time at present (sounds really bad, i know, but its exam time and i can tell this would take forever)

most people i have met are, as you say, ‘dont believe but dont really know why they dont believe’, whereas you, i can tell you are convicted.

i just ask, (without knowing your full life stroy as such), what made you be a non-believer, since, if i am correct, many people would say they believe in a god of some sort, or even just in something supernatural. what was it that made you so convicted into not accepting anything supernatural, above our own human nature.

i guess, you’ll just say the same to me (what made me a convicted believer) and have ‘heard it all before’ but on my behalf, to be honest, i havnt really heard it from a true, proper non-believer

 

[cpayne]

by the way (sort of off topic, but I thought about it when I read the first post) hares do “chew their cud” in a sense. That is, they re-digest their food by eating their pellets after their first digestion. Gross, I know, but there you have it.

 

[JRKH]

I just skimmed over things here briefly so forgive me if I repeat or am not on the mark. (also have had a loongg day and am finishing my second glass of wine.)

In my view I would say that the non-believers you are encountering are making the same mistake that many “Bible-Believers” do. They are placing too much emphasis on the book called “The Bible” and not enough emphasis on the Living Word of Christ.

Yes we accept the Bible as the True and inspired word of God. WE also accept it as having been recorded by humans under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But more importantly is that we accept it because The Church, Guided by the Holy Spirit Canonized These 73 Books and not others. It is the authority of the Church which declares these books and it is the Authority of The Church which interprets these books.

Now I realize that in discussion with non-believers the authority of The Church will be questioned as well so we’ll take it a bit at a time.

1. The Bible did not fall out of the sky
2. Some Human institution put it together.
3. That institution is the Catholic Church, Guided and protected by the Holy Spirit.
4. The Catholic Church knows what it put in the Bible
5. The Catholic Church, by virtue of nearly 2millenia of study, knows how to interpret this volume.

OK - That doesn’t convince them either and they still come at you with these OT issues that are mainly cultural like offering ones daughters.

Ask them how far back in history we need to go to find, otherwise credible men, writing about how other races are inferior in mental capacity. How far back do we need to go to find women denied the vote? How far back till we find people, in this country, held in slavery. Culture changes and it is folly to try to impose our standards upon an ancient society.

As for the methods God used in the OT, there again it was a different world with different rules. Also people were of a different mental and spiritual capacity and thus different techniques and methods of explaining things were necessary. No one thinks it odd that a 5 year old believe in Santa Claus, but it seems rediculous to a 20 year old. This, in very real terms explains the idea of the creation story. What is really interesting to me (and many others) is how the 6 days of creation mimic fairly accurately the actual series of events in “scientific” creation theory.

Of course as others have said, you cannot overcome a closed mind. You can only knock at the door and see if they open it.

Peace
James

 

[paul_c]

> For this, if they are scientifically or logic oriented, you can get them thinking about the fact that movement requires a force and therefore the universe required a prime mover If they believe in the big bang, so much the better. What caused it. That is God. Folllow up with the fact that we all observer laws of nature like Gravity, there has to be a law maker for that to happen. Then discuss the orderliness of the universe, the fact that all matter is made of the same subatomic particles. and explain that order requires intelligence and that order on a universal scale requires unlimited intelligence. If they need ongoing proof, point to nature around them : the order and the detail and reiterate the points

.

I’m not sure how many athiests you’ve been around but it’s a very common argument and is pretty easily refuted these days. It might work with certain non-believers, but a skeptic would not by default draw a “something happened, therefore it’s God” conclusion. They are too honest for that.

Also keep in mind, the big bang, IS just a theory and is being challenged more and more. You can’t use the cosmological argument for many, it just doesn’t work. There are too many questions and God’s of the Gap don’t work with anyone with a genuine submission to truth.

Okay, what ARE your arguments that demonstrate how order can spontaneously come from disorder and how energy and power were created spontaneously. There are no known examples of these things in science.

Quote:
Once they beleive in God, then the trick is to get them to believe in our version of God

.

This pretty much defines why most athiests are never “converted”. They realize, they are being tricked into it.

P
Okay, tricked into was a poor choice of words, but I think you know that we aren’t trying to trick anyone. We are telling you what we believe to be the truth, simple as that.

Quote:
This must be done through the credibility of the entire Christian story. prophesy, eyewitness accounts, etc. the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is a reasonable resource for this part of the discussion. Beyond that you can discuss the ongoing signs of God. Lourdes, Fatima, Padre Pio’s stigmata. the holiness of Mother Teresa…

You can’t do this through credibility of the entire christian story.

Of course we can, because it is the Truth. lets go through your proofs.

Let’s throw a couple of ideas out there.

Statement: The prophesies were made, and Jesus fullfilled them.

Argument: The gospels were written in accordance with the prophecies by those who already knew them and their importance to Jewish culture, not because that was actually Jesus’s life.

Well, since most Jews were expecting a warrior savior because of their own misperceptions on God’s intent if they were just making it up, the Gospel would look a lot different. The fulfillment of the prophesies only became obvious after the fact after Jesus explained them in the context of God’s love for all people. Furthermore, Jesus life was very public. The gospels were written during the lifetimes of many wittnesses to those events. They couldn’t credibly just make things up. Nor would men be willing to die for things they knew to be lies. And virtually all the New Testament writers were martyred.
.

Statment: There were many eyewitness accounts to miracles

Argument: A book, cannot prove itself. A book, claiming witnesses is meaningless since any book can claim the same thing.

The new testaments discusses eyewitness accounts by many authors, none of which were unreliable by any historic measure. And the biographies of Jesus are far better testified than biographies of any one else of that period. Furthermore, as mentioned above , they were in wide circulation during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses who could have come forward and testified otherwise. In actuality, what few secular accounts exist tend to say that Jesus was regarded as a miracle worker.

Statement: But there have been witnesses SINCE Christs time

Argument: Humans, have a massive capacity to decieve themselves. A human making a claim is just that. It is not verifiable.

There were 70,000 people at Fatima when the Miracle of the Sun happened, including plenty of Athiests. When 70,000 people make a claim, it is quite verifiable.

Statment: Christianity explains the human condition.

Argument: So does evolution.

How does evolution explain the human condition. And just as the Big Bang is a theory, so is evolution. Niether are denied by the Catholic Church, by the way. How did evolution begin ? How did inanimate objects suddenly get the spark of life? How did man develop consciences and reason? Have you been the math of evolution? How long would it take statiscally for all the we experience to be created through mutation and they to become prevalent through natural selection?

Statment: Don’t you FEEL a desire for truth and a yearning for Gods love?

Argument: My desire for truth is a result of my biology. I evolved to be a problem solver and tool maker because it enhances my survivability. I have a yearning for Love, because it is these “chemicals” in my brain that make me and other’s feel good and encourages us as a weaker animal species to work together. This enhances our survival.

Its a convenient theory, but you can’t prove one thing you said above in any scientific way. If you can, go to it. continued.

 

[paul_c]

You are not going to get around this, with a thinking non-believer.

It will only work, with a non-believer who doesn’t really know why they dont believe in the first place and say’s something naive like “But there couldn’t be so much bad stuff in the world if there was a God”.

Pulease…like we don’t bring most of this nonsense on ourselves.

Natural disasters, are harder to address and a human fall from a state of perfection(and resulting current existance) argument falls way short of the mark as well.

.
First of all, there have been plenty of thinking non-believers, who have changed their minds and embraced God and the Catholic Church. Many of them are on this board regularly. You shouldn’t think of believers as ignorant people, that just shows your bias.

As for bad things in life, I believe that life is a test to see whether we will seek God and do his will or whether we reject him, doing what we want instead. We are tested with good things (do we share them) and bad things (do we resent them). Everyone has both kinds of tests constantly in their lives. Ultimate success is doing God’s will (loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself) . God gives you everything you need to be successful, but he also gives you free will and you need to choose your own way. The first step is to have faith in him, the second is to do his will. When you fail to do so, he offers a way to be reconciled through the sacrament of penance, because God wants us all to be saved. We just have to cooperate.

Why are you trying to debate with non-believers? I’m willing to give it a gander if you are really trying to understand them

Well, I don’t overtly seek out non-believers to debate with but it happens in places just like this. We consider it an act of love to teach others the truth and the path to salvation. Some people are open to this and we can help them. Others desire to find their own truths and are unreceptive. In these cases, our only option is to pray that they change their minds at some point and hope that we can be of help then.

 

[survive]

by the way (sort of off topic, but I thought about it when I read the first post) hares do “chew their cud” in a sense. That is, they re-digest their food by eating their pellets after their first digestion. Gross, I know, but there you have it.

It’s actually not off-topic, because it illustrates the issue with a lot of non-believers; they see in the Bible what isn’t there instead of what is because they miss the point of passages. What do cud-chewers that chew real cud, not rabbit cud, share? None are garbage-eaters, so their meat is biologically cleaner, symbolizing respect for the body. So the specific “cloven hoof” clause is there precisely to make it clear that a rabbit isn’t a cud-chewer and isn’t safe like a cud-chewer.
Similarly, what is the point of the passage about Lot’s daughters? That he was trying to do the right thing by protecting guests (who were angels), but instead almost did something terrible. The angels, messengers of God, spoke for God in saying he shouldn’t do it.
As for Adam and Eve, is the point of that passage to place a specific date on our species’ beginning? That’s not how the most prominent Jewish and early Christian writers interpreted it. They took it to matter because it explained that we had wanted something else more than we had wanted to be with God. What difference does it make when? Dates and numbers were used in so many figurative ways in those days that hardly anyone was likely to take it literally as a timeline or to care when this happened. Dates begin to make a difference in the historic books, for the same reason that spelling makes a bigger difference if you’re writing a dictionary than if you’re writing a narrative poem.

 

[joemccarron]

Well thank you all for your responses. I know my post was a bit long and somewhat drifting. Joe thanks for the references especially the one on church teaching about interpretation. I read it and I agree it is obviously required reading for someone who has questions such as I do. I am also going to look into some of the other resources you mention.

I am going to post a more nuanced message addressing the churches position on this but I see there are several other posts that I think can be answered quite quickly so I will respond to those first. I do enjoy engaging non-believers because I think I have an education that can address their views but the purpose of my post was to confirm that I am spreading views that are at least consistent with Catholicism and confirm that I am not believing (let alone spreading) what the Church would consider heresy. I hope those interested will stay tuned though so they can comment on my more in depth post about Catholic interpretation.

Paul I think we think along similar lines. I consider what you say a candidate of a golden rule to apologetics “…the first thing you need to ascertain is what do they believe.” You have to explore what they sincerely believe in order to see what premises they might accept or where you might need to argue etc. I think there is an important corollary to this rule: “never argue with hypothetical positions.” If you want to have a fruitful conversation the person you are talking to must be able to say what you really believe. It’s true that a “hypothetical atheist” might believe all sorts of different things such that you might not be able to give them a reason to believe. If you allow the discussion to go into “what you say doesn’t apply to relativists, or those who believe XYZ” you will spend allot of time chasing ghosts and really accomplishing nothing helpful for that person. However, when you first ascertain what someone really believes and reach an agreement that you are only going to address those beliefs I think you have the possibility to make progress. Once they concede points that logically lead to God and you point it out then perhaps the best candidate for golden rule comes in. Be Charitable. Don’t scream “gotcha!” Don’t win the argument but lose the soul. I think that is one thing that I need to work on in my own posts.

Just while I’m thinking of other general rules I would add. Don’t think you are a failure if the person isn’t announcing their baptism date by the end of the thread. To the extent you can show them that their beliefs were even slightly off, I think its good for the faith. In other words they may walk away learning something from a group that they before hand had disdained as ignorant. They may start to recognize their own views aren’t so clear cut and that the Catholic or Christian views are not so absurd. IMHO this is no small feat to bringing people closer to God.

 

[joemccarron]

It’s actually not off-topic, because it illustrates the issue with a lot of non-believers; they see in the Bible what isn’t there instead of what is because they miss the point of passages. What do cud-chewers that chew real cud, not rabbit cud, share? None are garbage-eaters, so their meat is biologically cleaner, symbolizing respect for the body. So the specific “cloven hoof” clause is there precisely to make it clear that a rabbit isn’t a cud-chewer and isn’t safe like a cud-chewer.
Similarly, what is the point of the passage about Lot’s daughters? That he was trying to do the right thing by protecting guests (who were angels), but instead almost did something terrible. The angels, messengers of God, spoke for God in saying he shouldn’t do it.
As for Adam and Eve, is the point of that passage to place a specific date on our species’ beginning? That’s not how the most prominent Jewish and early Christian writers interpreted it. They took it to matter because it explained that we had wanted something else more than we had wanted to be with God. What difference does it make when? Dates and numbers were used in so many figurative ways in those days that hardly anyone was likely to take it literally as a timeline or to care when this happened. Dates begin to make a difference in the historic books, for the same reason that spelling makes a bigger difference if you’re writing a dictionary than if you’re writing a narrative poem.

Ok the whole eating pellets is one way to go with the rabbit. It’s the route fundamentalists have taken. I tend to think that path likely involves a wrong turn. If you Google something like rabbits chew their cud you will see these sorts of arguments from fundamentalists. I sort of scanned some of them and it appears that even if we can accept the view that the author of Leviticus means something completely different by the word cud than one would think from the context we still have a problem. The rabbits don’t “chew” the pellets. They swallow them whole.

But again I think the whole argument along these lines is mistaken and I think many Catholic sources would tend to agree. (See the section on the fundamentalist approach in the link Joe gave to the Pontifical biblical commission document.) I will address this issue and use this passage as a test case in the more in-depth post I would like to share later.

 

[joemccarron]

You also have to get beyond the hurdle that to non-Christians, the descriptions of God given in various books of the old testament sound much more like a “fallen angel” misleading corrupt and/or corruptible humans than anything resembling the God described in quotes attributed to Jesus in the new testament books.

You also have to get past the hurdle that non-Christians don’t automatically see the Bible as an integral document. It is seen as a collection of independent writings - each of which can stand or fall on its own merit. And none of which can prove the others. (Actually each verse or sentence call stand or fall on its own merit).

You also have to get past the hurdle that non-Christians see parallel positive evidence in other faiths.

Apologetics to non-Catholic Christians is a much simpler task, given you have a set of somewhat common assumptions about the basic document of the faith (Bible).

(fyi, I’m a non-Christian former Catholic)

Yes these are all things that often need to be addressed with non-believers as opposed to Christians. However I’m not sure one job is simpler than another. I have to learn all sorts of different philosophy, but the apologist to other christians should learn all sorts of different religions.

 

[joemccarron]

If some-one in the bible, wrote something incorrectly, then it does matter to those that will only accept a verifiable truth. If one thing is wrong, then many could be wrong. Certain elements of the bible don’t often meld with the laws of nature and the universe that we now observe.

Simple example, the virgin birth. You do not have a child without having sex. They did not know however, during biblical times that both a female egg and male sperm were required. It was believed only the mans seed was required(He put the baby into the woman). Hence, easy to see how the “male” god, impregnated the “female” human without intercourse.

…
Cheers

I don’t think the bald assertion “everything in the bible must be true and the authors could not have made an error” really helps “verify” anything.

As for miracles I think (at least in the New Testament) there are some things that are said which are pretty clearly intended to be understood as miracles. Yes in the Old Testament it’s not so easy to see. But again with Leviticus I don’t think the author was intending to describe miraculous rabbits that do in fact chew their cud unlike all the other rabbits. As a Christian we know from the writings of Paul, John, Luke and others that they clearly mean for us to believe the miraculous actually happened. Its pretty clear from the context of that section of Leviticus the author is not really trying to describe miraculous rabbits. (At least I never heard anyone try to argue that.)

 

[joemccarron]

There is no credibility to scripture for the non-believer.

It’s historically inaccurate, it describes some horrifying things God did(which the church agrees occured), and it is ignorant of the universe, natures laws and…most importantly was written by very failable humans, taught by very failable humans and believed…by very failable humans.

This depends on the non-believer. A non-believer like Bart Ehrman believes there is some historical truth in the bible. He believes for example that there was actually a city called Jerusalem, that it had a temple, and even that there was a person named Jesus who preached a message of love. He believes this based on the same sorts of considerations historians take into account when reading any ancient history. He denies the miracles but that is because his philosophical views. Its not based on the historical criteria he uses to judge the non-miraculous passages or any other historical text.

With respect to the horrible things that God supposedly did and the church apparently “agrees” he did, did he do them? I mean you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you don’t think God exists he couldn’t have done these things. I remember an atheist once told me Moses killed more Jews than Hitler. Since he claimed (as you suggest he would) the bible has “no credibility” I wondered what historical sources he was using to arrive at that conclusion.

 

[joemccarron]

Statment: There were many eyewitness accounts to miracles

Argument: A book, cannot prove itself. A book, claiming witnesses is meaningless since any book can claim the same thing…

Consider this. If are you going to discount books that claims that eyewitness saw things as meaningless (because book authors can claim anything) you are not going to believe much of anything that happened before you were born. Once you realize that most of your historical views are based on what books claim you may want to soften your stance unless you want to admit almost all history is simply “meaningless” claims.

When the historical analysis used to by those looking at ancient texts is applied to the New Testament they hold up quite well. Hence I think one must in the end conclude that the New Testament documents provide at least some evidence for what they claim.

We can argue about whether they provide allot of evidence or a little bit of evidence. But that argument I think would be about as fruitful as arguing whether a mile is long distance or a short distance.
As to whether these books provide sufficient evidence for you to believe what they say also depends on many background beliefs you will have. If for whatever philosophical reason you have decided miracles are impossible you may find the historical evidence insufficient. These issues would need to be explored. The important point is that it be fairly unreasonable to claim that the NT books contain “no evidence” for the truth of Christianity.

 

[joemccarron]

for those interested I continued this thread in the sacred scripture subforum you can find it here:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=4706161#post4706161