Catholic Apologetics Greatest Weaknesses

[DD2007]

Oh, well THAT changes everything

Hey, if you guys don’t want criticism don’t start a thread asking us to criticize you.

I’m comfortable with my level of experience in this area. I gave you my opinion. That is what I have noticed as a weakness in Catholic Apologetics.

It is obvious to many that look from the outside in that the Catholic Apologist burns many an hour coming up with apologies that attempt to defend activities within his Church that raise the eyebrows of people, thus there is a need for them to spend the time defending to justify their actions to themselves and others.

Christian apologetics is better when used to defend Christ and bring the lost to Him.

 

[joemccarron]

1)I recognize that one has to be careful in interpreting the OT but even if we accepted that the story of Joshua and the Midianites is not historically accurate, we nonetheless need to deal with it. If they didn’t slaughter their enemies why did they claim to have do so and why is that story included in the Bible?
I think this comes closer to the proper response but I don’t think it goes deep enough…
Ender

First if the passage is non-literal then what is the message?
I take away the message that although God is loving he is not soft and some fear of him is important. The consequences of our actions are huge and can be tragic. With respect to the children being killed I think the message is that our actions can have tragic impacts on our children. We need to raise them right for their own sake and this is important.

I personally do not think that the message is that the children were wicked. I think the church has rejected that idea at least for children under the age of 7 (or so) with the concept of an age of reason.

Ok if we are to say its literal then what to make of God’s actions?
As for my explanation of God creating us and giving us life, I am curious why that does not satisfy you. What did you think of my analogy?

Thanks for your comments.

 

[CentralFLJames]

We are discussing apologetics and what is believed to be the greatest weakness in the Catholic Church’s apologetics.

I think you might assume that the catholic apologist’s greatest weakness has something to do with defending the faith against Protestants. I and others in this thread are simply disagreeing with your assumption. I think the bigger challenges clearly come from defending the faith against the Orthodox religion and from atheism or agnosticism. I might suggest you are so focused on issues with Protestants that you fail to recognize “apologetics” means much more than that rather narrow interest.

Thanks

Joe

No Joe you are not discussing Apologetics - you are entering into detailed discussion of OT scriptures and attempting to explain it . That is clearly off topic and will result in this thread being closed.

Now you are taking my reasonable request to move it to another thread as an opportunity to attack and criticize me personally? That is a sort of immature defensiveness I might expect to get from an anti-Catholic - not a fellow Catholic (are you really one?).

You are a junior member here at CAF Joe and really should yield to polite requests from senior members.

So please be honest with yourself - you and a few others (2 I think) in this thread have a completely unrelated OT discussion and debate running concurrent to this OP that has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic.

TAKE IT ELSEWHERE PLEASE. NOW.

James

 

[DD2007]

No Joe you are not discussing Apologetics - you are entering into detailed discussion of OT scriptures and attempting to explain it . That is clearly off topic and will result in this thread being closed.

Now you are taking my reasonable request to move it to another thread as an opportunity to attack and criticize me personally? That is a sort of immature defensiveness I might expect to get from an anti-Catholic - not a fellow Catholic (are you really one?).

You are a junior member here at CAF Joe and really should yield ot polite requests from senior members.

So please be honest with yourself - you and a few others (2 I think) in this thread have a completely unrelated OT discussion and debate running concurrent to this OP that has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic.

TAKE IT ELESEWHERE PLEASE. NOW.

James
James

:ehh:

If your apologetics were Christ centered in the first place as Joe is suggesting they should be you wouldn’t be angry right now.

 

[Teflon93]

:ehh:

If your apologetics were Christ centered in the first place as Joe is suggesting they should be you wouldn’t be angry right now.

You’ll have to diagram this sentence for us.

What precisely does it mean?

Argument form please.

 

[DD2007]

You’ll have to diagram this sentence for us.

What precisely does it mean?

Argument form please.

Nevermind. I can see where this is headed. Please continue with your total rejection of any constructive criticism of Catholic Apologetics as it exists today.

I’ll watch.

 

[CentralFLJames]

:ehh:

If your apologetics were Christ centered in the first place as Joe is suggesting they should be you wouldn’t be angry right now.

Thank you for your opinion Brother DD2007. But please don’t confuse disappointment with the severe topic drift with anger nor be angry yourself should this thread be suddenly closed for failure to self impose the discipline to keep it on OP.

And at the risk of falling into topic drift myself let me just very briefly correct you without entering into debate your erroneous notion that just anger is not Christlike.
Examples of Jesus Being Justly Angry:

I borrow this substantially from a convenient online source here.

Jesus cleared the temple of the moneychangers and animal-sellers, He showed great emotion and anger (Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; John 2:13-22) and it is even described as “zeal” for God’s house (John 2:17). His anger was pure and completely justified because at its root was concern for God’s holiness and proper worship.

Another time was when the Pharisees refused to answer Jesus’ questions, “He . . . looked round about them with anger” (Mark 3:5). This verse goes on to give the reason for His anger: “the hardness of their hearts.”

Many times, we think of anger as a selfish, destructive emotion that we should eradicate from our lives altogether. However, the fact that Jesus did sometimes become angry indicates that anger itself is not sinful - only destructive anger as a raw naked emotion that is self centered is wrong.

The apostles tell us in Ephesians 4:26 “in our anger, do not sin” and not to let the sun go down on our anger. The command is not to “avoid anger” (or suppress it or ignore it) but to deal with it properly, in a timely manner.

Anger can thus be quite good and motivate us to change things in resolving the source of that anger - especially if it is zeal for the Lord. A thing that often compels Catholic Apologetics.

So if you know Jesus “the man” then you know that anger is part of that man and there are cases where anger is completely appropriate:

1. His anger had the proper motivation. In other words, He was angry for the right reasons. Jesus’ anger did not arise from petty arguments or personal slights against Him. There was no selfishness involved.
2. His anger had the proper focus. He was not angry at God or at the “weaknesses” of others. His anger targeted sinful behavior and true injustice.
3. His anger had the proper supplement. Mark 3:5 says that His anger was attended by grief over the Pharisees’ lack of faith. Jesus’ anger stemmed from love for the Pharisees and concern for their spiritual condition. It had nothing to do with hatred or ill will.
4. His anger had the proper control. Jesus was never “out of control,” even in His wrath. The temple leaders did not like His cleansing of the temple (Luke 19:47), but He had done nothing amiss. He controlled His emotions; His emotions did not control Him.
5. His anger had the proper duration. He did not allow His anger to turn into bitterness; He did not hold grudges. He dealt with each situation properly, and He handled anger in good time.
6. His anger had the proper result. Jesus’ anger had the inevitable consequence of godly action. Jesus’ anger, as with all His emotions, was held in check by the Word of God; thus, Jesus’ response was always to accomplish God’s will.

When we get angry, too often we have improper control or an improper focus. We fail in one or more of the above points. This is the “wrath of man,” which “worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Jesus did not exhibit the “wrath of man” but the wrath of God.

Bottom line - any anger (annoyance is closer to the sentiment) you picked up on here was “Christ like” in that I wanted to instill the discipline to keep us focused on the OP for the furtherance of promulgating the faith and to prevent the discussion from being shut down or wandering out into the never-never-land that all hijacked threads end up in.

Comprehende?

James

 

[Teflon93]

Nevermind. I can see where this is headed. Please continue with your total rejection of any constructive criticism of Catholic Apologetics as it exists today.

I’ll watch.

lol—you’ll have to define “constructive criticism” while you’re at it. In the words of Inigo Montoya, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

But you wouldn’t be so petulant if your “constructive criticism” were Christ-centered, surely.

 

[Teflon93]

And again, I’d say one big difficulty with Catholic apologetics is non-Catholics who a) do not understand argumentation, logic, or reason and b) are not open to reason.

Apologetics is an appeal to reason, not emotion. Those whose faith consists largely of emotional responses to either entertainment or propagandizing sermons will be very rocky ground for apologetics.

 

[joemccarron]

Teflon93;4697072:

My, what unfamiliarity with argumentation, logic, and reasoning QUOTE]

Just a personal observation. From my experience with Catholic apologetics, the basics of the gospel, who Christ is, what he did, why that is important, how to be saved from eternal damnation etc, are simply missing. Instead you get detailed apologies for things that simply don’t matter like devotions to Mary and the Saints, Indulgences, the Pope, why their communion is supposed to be better thatn the rest of Christianity, etc.

Catholics spend more time trying to convert other Christians to Catholicism than they do trying to convert the lost to Christianity!

So, what “Catholic” apologetics is missing is “Christian” evangelization in the vast majority of their topics.

You guys asked for weaknesses in it, that is where I see the weakness. If that bothers you then change it.

:ehh:

I tend to agree with you that it seems Catholic apologists seem to focus in on other Christians than they do non-Christians. I suspect this is because they may not see an important connection. To the extent people don’t really believe in Jesus or God they are not going to be overly concerned what church they belong to. To the extent they doubt Jesus and God exists they are not going to be concerned about church teaching on divorce or contraception or even abortion or any other moral teaching. This will lead to them saying “oh well that’s fine to be this or that denomination.” So although it may be the case that the Catholic Church loses more to protestant churches than it does to straight atheism (I have no idea if this is true) I think a failure to address these underlying concerns naturally leads to a liaise faire attitude about religion in general - which then leads Catholics to say “oh well I can get married in this other church - no biggy” I recognize this line of thinking assumes that the Catholic religion is more strict than other Christian denominations but I think this is in fact true.

As for the lack of focus on certain doctrines such as who Christ was and what he did, I’m not sure we would even interpret what you said the same way. (I’m assuming you mean when talking to non-Christians.) I have a hunch that many Protestants would interpret what you say about “what Christ did” as meaning “he died on the cross for our sins.” They would then focus on this almost exclusively. (Again I’m not saying all Protestants I’m just giving my impression based on my anecdotal experience) Catholics I think would also agree that is important but also say it’s important to understand he said to follow the ten commandments, he commanded us to love each other etc. I do think this is a difference between Catholic and Protestant outlook but again I am to some extent speculating on what you have in mind.

I’m not sure that the doctrines regarding Mary indulgences etc come up other than with Protestants. So I think to the extent that is written about too much I think protestants are equally to “blame” It takes two to tango and its not the atheists or orthodox who argue about Mary so much. Yeah on indulgences and the pope we do have to argue with the world there so, much to my chagrin I can’t blame Protestants for that.

Thanks for the post. I agree with the general spirit of your post.

 

[Teflon93]

And since Truthstalker wants ammunition against Catholics, I’d say that another weakness is Catholic timidity. Part of this stems from a very good and noble love of charity and humility, but too many simply shy from conflict for the sake of doing so.

Can you imagine Jesus Christ standing idly by while Mary was slandered, as anti-Catholic Protestants do?

I cannot. The image of the Lord driving out the moneychangers is too vivid.

I attribute some of this as well to another Catholic virtue—taking the long view. The Catholic Church isn’t about “butts in pews” or “bucks in buckets”. She’s about the daily embrace of the divine. We see this most clearly I think in the lives of the monastics—lives of reflection, devotion, and constant prayer, where time itself winds down. The television shouters are simply too far removed from it.

For his part, when Christ wanted to encounter the Father, he trod the path of prophets out into the wilderness. He didn’t seek out mobs of people nor gala entertainments. God isn’t in those things.

Catholics, realizing this, tend to shy from the apologetics battlefield, which involves a lot of tumult. Thus our greatest apologists tend to be the living saints among us, saints like Blessed Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul the Great. A disadvantage from a narrow perspective, but a narrow perspective’s all that’s possible for the anti-Catholic.

 

[Teflon93]

Might want to edit your QUOTE tags lest somebody think you were agreeing with ME, Joe.

 

[DD2007]

Bottom line - any anger (annoyance is closer to the sentiment) you picked up on here was “Christ like” in that I wanted to instill the discipline to keep us focused on the OP for the furtherance of promulgating the faith and to prevent the discussion from being shut down or wandering out into the never-never-land that all hijacked threads end up in.

Comprehende?

James

Hi James

I didn’t mean anger itself being un Christlike. I meant that if the focus of Catholic Apologetics was more Christ centered then you would’t have been angry since there wouldn’t have been any reason for you to have the need to defend misguided apologetics.

David

 

[DD2007]

lol—you’ll have to define “constructive criticism”:

My main point is that if you guys were to focus your enormous recources on evangelizing Christ instead of evangelizing the Roman Catholic denomination then we Protestants could assist you in that goal. Then there would be a great number of people lead to Christ.

Instead the lost see arguments over which Church is better most of the time.

That’s all.

That’s what I mean by constructive criticism.

 

[Randy_Carson]

My main point is that if you guys were to focus your enormous recources on evangelizing Christ instead of evangelizing the Roman Catholic denomination then we Protestants could assist you in that goal. Then there would be a great number of people lead to Christ.

Instead the lost see arguments over which Church is better most of the time.

That’s all.

That’s what I mean by constructive criticism.

Actually, the real problem is that your separation from the one true Church is a scandal in the eyes of the world, and the Word of God declares this to be true:

John 17:20-23
20"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus prays for unity so that “the world may know” that He was sent from the Father.

If you are really concerned about your witness to Christ and the conversion of lost souls, then you should do everything in your power to end the Protestant rebellion quickly and to be reunited with the Catholic Church.

 

[joemccarron]

No Joe you are not discussing Apologetics - you are entering into detailed discussion of OT scriptures and attempting to explain it . That is clearly off topic and will result in this thread being closed.

Now you are taking my reasonable request to move it to another thread as an opportunity to attack and criticize me personally? That is a sort of immature defensiveness I might expect to get from an anti-Catholic - not a fellow Catholic (are you really one?).

You are a junior member here at CAF Joe and really should yield to polite requests from senior members.

So please be honest with yourself - you and a few others (2 I think) in this thread have a completely unrelated OT discussion and debate running concurrent to this OP that has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic.

TAKE IT ELSEWHERE PLEASE. NOW.

James

Your response seems a bit odd. I’m not sure what you mean by “attack you personally.” You say discussing passages out of the OT that people find problematic for accepting the faith is not “about apologetics.” I am simply informing you it is. What I say should not even be controversial let alone taken as a personal attack.

Ill ignore the motivations for your questioning my faith even if it is off topic and answer you: Yes I am a Catholic.

Believe it or not many people see passages in the Old Testament as a big weakness for those trying to reasonably defend Catholicism. This has been expressed by a few in this thread as the biggest weakness for Catholic apologetics and we are discussing that.

If you want to say this thread can only be a list of what people believe are weakness and no one can further discuss those perceived weaknesses that’s fine. But few in this thread are doing that, you included.

I have no major beef with starting a new thread but I am not in favor of it for 2 reasons: 1) It is sort of a pain to do all the copy and pasting and 2) If we want to exclude certain weaknesses then a new thread should start with that limitation being clear. Such as “Catholics greatest weakness in defending the faith against Protestants,” or “Catholic’s greatest weakness in defending the faith other than XYZ.” If we don’t do this we may get the false impression that almost everyone thinks this or that issue about Protestantism is the biggest weakness for Catholic apologetics.

Before you start typing in all caps, maybe take a deep breath.

I’m not sure how one becomes a senior member so it’s hard to address your point there. This is a public forum and I feel I have just as much right to express my opinion as you do. To the extent you think those who are senior members have some say so over others you might consider that I am discussing these issues with other senior members. BTW I do not like post about squabbles like we are now having. If you think objections to Catholicism based on passages of the old testament are not apologetics go ahead and have a mod weigh in on this. But otherwise please don’t further litter this thread with your views about me.

 

[joemccarron]

Might want to edit your QUOTE tags lest somebody think you were agreeing with ME, Joe.

Oops it seems I missed the time to edit. But thank you. I was addressing DD’s post not your comment.

 

[Michael_Francis]

*Thread departed from topic and closed.
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