Death of Apologetics: What is faith?

[NemoSum]

The task of apologetics seems to destroy faith. Every question can be answered, and yet, it still requires a large leap to get the “faith.” Is faith merely about belief? Is faith simply to believe everything the church teaches? When our Lord praises the “faith” of those whom he encounters in the scriptures, does he mean belief?

We seem to think that people reason their way into the “faith.” This makes the task of apologetics very important.

Presenting the Christian faith to this world is a very delicate task. This task is further complicated when the lines between apologetics and evangelization are blurred. Apologetics, by its very nature, is the defense of the inner logic found within the narrative of belief. Evangelization is the proclamation of that narrative. Any attempt to evangelize the world through making an appeal to some pure, autonomous reason which stands outside of that narrative to give it legitimatization, is flawed. Faith is related to reason, but faith still remains faith. The proper role of reason in evangelization is to show that the faith which is publicly proclaimed and celebrated is reasonable to hold. Any attempt to take the tenants of faith and present them as if they were the most reasonable explanation is an error. If faith were the most reasonable response, it would no longer be faith, but rationality.

Don’t you think our apologetical enterprise is doomed by the paradigms we have established by defining faith the way we have?

 

[Touchstone]

The task of apologetics seems to destroy faith. Every question can be answered, and yet, it still requires a large leap to get the “faith.” Is faith merely about belief? Is faith simply to believe everything the church teaches? When our Lord praises the “faith” of those whom he encounters in the scriptures, does he mean belief?

We seem to think that people reason their way into the “faith.” This makes the task of apologetics very important.

Presenting the Christian faith to this world is a very delicate task. This task is further complicated when the lines between apologetics and evangelization are blurred. Apologetics, by its very nature, is the defense of the inner logic found within the narrative of belief. Evangelization is the proclamation of that narrative. Any attempt to evangelize the world through making an appeal to some pure, autonomous reason which stands outside of that narrative to give it legitimatization, is flawed. Faith is related to reason, but faith still remains faith. The proper role of reason in evangelization is to show that the faith which is publicly proclaimed and celebrated is reasonable to hold. Any attempt to take the tenants of faith and present them as if they were the most reasonable explanation is an error. If faith were the most reasonable response, it would no longer be faith, but rationality.

Don’t you think our apologetical enterprise is doomed by the paradigms we have established by defining faith the way we have?

No, because I think you have misunderstood the charter of apologetics, here. It’s not down-the-line philosophy or science. It’s polemic and rhetorical in nature, more a “defense” than an inquiry.

In that role, then, Christian apologetics doesn’t attempt to connect the dots the way the unbelievers do and end up at God. Rather, Christian apologetics is about advocacy for, to use your term, the “inner logic” of religious credulity, over and against rational/empirical paradigms.

Science has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of knowledge and utility in the past few centuries, so apologetics has gotten much more challenging as that has developed; on the one hand the Christian has to assault the “outer logic”, the objective analysis of the evidence and promote what is advertised (here) has “inner logic”, which is a term I understand to be simply a euphemism for uncritical intuition.

That’s hard, right there.

On the other had, though, scientific thinking, and it cohorts (various flavors of rationalism and empricism, etc.) have garnered such enormous cultural capital, that most Christian apologists feel compelled to simultaneously assault it and demonstrate how God exists as a the conclusion of disciplined, rational thinking.

Secular epistemologies and philosophical paradigms have become so popular and established that apologists often feel they must acquit Christianity in those terms, as if Christianity could be arrived at via those heuristics.

And that, you are right, is a dissonance of the first order for apologists.

It’s the rare apologist, though, who is brave enough to throw down against secular, modern paradigms. The only people I can think of how do this in a robust way are the Calvinists who engage in this nasty enterprise they call “presuppositional apologetics”. That is a straight assault on rational/empirical paradigms and a naked appeal to the magic of God’s election for acquiring truth.

That’s pretty obnoxious thing for thoughtful people to run into, but it does avoid the dissonance you are talking about, and doesn’t pretend to “prove God”, and embrace modern/secular forms of thinking which naturally urge the inquirer to doubt and unbelief.

-TS

 

[tonyrey]

The task of apologetics seems to destroy faith. Every question can be answered, and yet, it still requires a large leap to get the “faith.”

 

[Julian0404]

The task of apologetics seems to destroy faith.The task of apologetics is to simply explain “why” you chose to believe. It is not to convince another to do likewise, that is the task of the Holy Spirit.

Every question can be answered, and yet, it still requires a large leap to get the “faith.” Is faith merely about belief? Is faith simply to believe everything the church teaches? When our Lord praises the “faith” of those whom he encounters in the scriptures, does he mean belief?

We seem to think that people reason their way into the “faith.” The HOLY SPIRIT leads people to the faith in the ways chosen by the Holy Spriit. Yes, some are convinced through “reason” and some through “love” and some through “sacrifice” and some in seeing others. The founder of the BBC in London, an avode athiets for his entire life, came into the Catholic Church after witnessing Mothers Theresa’s religious order serve the needs of the dieing poor in Calcutta - that was not reason.

This makes the task of apologetics very important. The actual importance is found in scripture where St. Paul advised us, to “…be ready to give a defense of the faith you profess…” - paraphrase.

Presenting the Christian faith to this world is a very delicate task. This task is further complicated when the lines between apologetics and evangelization are blurred. Apologetics, by its very nature, is the defense of the inner logic found within the narrative of belief. Evangelization is the proclamation of that narrative. Any attempt to evangelize the world through making an appeal to some pure, autonomous reason which stands outside of that narrative to give it legitimatization, is flawed.

Faith is related to reason, but faith still remains faith. Faith IS NOT related to reason. They are separate and distinct. Faith is hope in things unseen and comes from the heart. Reason is not hope, it is a rational knowing and comes through the intellect. You can have faith without a reasonable knowing, and to the atheists position, you can have reason, but without the hope of faith. Yes, the two can come together but the connection is primarily through the “hope” of faith and not through the “knowing” of reason. WE WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY LIGHT.

The proper role of reason in evangelization is to show that the faith which is publicly proclaimed and celebrated is reasonable to hold. Any attempt to take the tenants of faith and present them as if they were the most reasonable explanation is an error. If faith were the most reasonable response, it would no longer be faith, but rationality.

Don’t you think our apologetical enterprise is doomed by the paradigms we have established by defining faith the way we have?Your putting way to much thought into a very simple need. Why do you believe? That is the question and corner stone of apologetics. If you think your answer to that question “…is doomed…” than your faith is “…doomed…”.

 

[Julian0404]

No, because I think you have misunderstood the charter of apologetics, here. It’s not down-the-line philosophy or science. It’s polemic and rhetorical in nature, more a “defense” than an inquiry.

In that role, then, Christian apologetics doesn’t attempt to connect the dots the way the unbelievers do and end up at God. Rather, Christian apologetics is about advocacy for, to use your term, the “inner logic” of religious credulity, over and against rational/empirical paradigms.

Science has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of knowledge and utility in the past few centuries, so apologetics has gotten much more challenging as that has developed; on the one hand the Christian has to assault the “outer logic”, the objective analysis of the evidence and promote what is advertised (here) has “inner logic”, which is a term I understand to be simply a euphemism for uncritical intuition.

That’s hard, right there.

On the other had, though, scientific thinking, and it cohorts (various flavors of rationalism and empricism, etc.) have garnered such enormous cultural capital, that most Christian apologists feel compelled to simultaneously assault it and demonstrate how God exists as a the conclusion of disciplined, rational thinking.

Secular epistemologies and philosophical paradigms have become so popular and established that apologists often feel they must acquit Christianity in those terms, as if Christianity could be arrived at via those heuristics.

And that, you are right, is a dissonance of the first order for apologists.

It’s the rare apologist, though, who is brave enough to throw down against secular, modern paradigms.Could you share with us some of these paradigms?

The only people I can think of how do this in a robust way are the Calvinists who engage in this nasty enterprise they call “presuppositional apologetics”. That is a straight assault on rational/empirical paradigms and a naked appeal to the magic of God’s election for acquiring truth.

That’s pretty obnoxious thing for thoughtful people to run into, but it does avoid the dissonance you are talking about, and doesn’t pretend to “prove God”, and embrace modern/secular forms of thinking which naturally urge the inquirer to doubt and unbelief.

-TS

 

[James_S_Saint]

Faith comes from the reasoning and evidence within the “heart”. The conscious mind attempts to resolve logical disparity between what it “feels is right” and what it “thinks is right”. In that attempt, it often presumes and sins. Sometimes the heart wasn’t right and the logic was. Sometimes the heart was right and the logic was flawed. On rare occasion, they are both right. Harmony is a good thing.

The task of the apologist, as far as I can tell, is to merely clarify misunderstandings that spring up just as the purpose of Science is to ***verify ***presumptions that spring up.

 

[NemoSum]

Then we all seem to agree. The task of apologetics is not active, but necessarily passive. It is a defense of what is believed.

"Christian apologetics is about advocacy for, to use your term, the “inner logic” of religious credulity, over and against rational/empirical paradigms.

Science has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of knowledge and utility in the past few centuries, so apologetics has gotten much more challenging as that has developed; on the one hand the Christian has to assault the “outer logic”, the objective analysis of the evidence and promote what is advertised (here) has “inner logic”, which is a term I understand to be simply a euphemism for uncritical intuition."

When I use the phrase “inner logic” I do not mean something which is divorced from criticism. It seems well established that the goal of the apologist is to show that their view of reality can account for more of the human experience. They defend against the attacks of those who stand outside of their narrative. Are certain topics off limits to criticism? Certainly so. That is just as true for the Catholic as it is for the (radical) empiricist. Both are ways of viewing the world and both interpret the data of human life through those lens. Both cannot answer criticisms leveled at their base. A Catholic cannot prove the faith and a (radical) empiricist cannot empirically prove his empiricism. Both are worldviews and both have apologists. Apologists work inside those worldviews and so all they can do is attempt to defend the logic which is found within that particular system.

Although faith involves reason, it is not rationality. Faith is ultimately bound to a culture and a way of seeing the world. Faith is not irrational, but could be classified as supra-rational. Faith is very much a love affair between God and the soul. Just as a woman who falls in love can be accused of being irrational, so too can the man of faith. No one would demand mathematical certainty from the lover. Although many may tell the woman that she is being “blind,” in her reality, all the others are blind, because her eyes are open to see a side of him that no one sees. One cannot define her as irrational, but rather operating outside the domain of rationality, i.e. supra-rational.

Faith is a love affair which affects the totality of each human person, and love is a mystery that is not confined merely to the mind. It is not just the acceptance of various propositions concerning their character. The mystery of faith is no different. Faith is shared, not by appealing outside of that mystery, but by inviting others to enter into it. Evangelization is the way in which we share the original story of Christianity. Apologetics, on the other hand, is always defensive. As scripture says, “be ready to defend the hope found within you.” The proper role of Apologetics is to defend the inner logic of the narrative that is proclaimed in Evangelization. Any appeal to a God’s-eye view of reality is not just misguided, it is blasphemy. To claim that faith is the most reasonable explanation of reality, is to reduce the romance of faith to nothing but rationality.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

The task of apologetics seems to destroy faith. Every question can be answered, and yet, it still requires a large leap to get the “faith.” Is faith merely about belief? Is faith simply to believe everything the church teaches? When our Lord praises the “faith” of those whom he encounters in the scriptures, does he mean belief?

We seem to think that people reason their way into the “faith.” This makes the task of apologetics very important.

Presenting the Christian faith to this world is a very delicate task. This task is further complicated when the lines between apologetics and evangelization are blurred. Apologetics, by its very nature, is the defense of the inner logic found within the narrative of belief. Evangelization is the proclamation of that narrative. Any attempt to evangelize the world through making an appeal to some pure, autonomous reason which stands outside of that narrative to give it legitimatization, is flawed. Faith is related to reason, but faith still remains faith. The proper role of reason in evangelization is to show that the faith which is publicly proclaimed and celebrated is reasonable to hold. Any attempt to take the tenants of faith and present them as if they were the most reasonable explanation is an error. If faith were the most reasonable response, it would no longer be faith, but rationality.

Don’t you think our apologetical enterprise is doomed by the paradigms we have established by defining faith the way we have?

i dont think so, but for me “faith” isnt about belief in the existence of G-d, its about believing that G-d loves you and is acting in your best interests.

dont be discouraged. some disbelief is held with another motivation than rationality. so it doesnt matter what you say or show those people. they want to hold those opinions for a reason and giving a rational response doesnt really matter to them.

so why apologize?

because there are alot of people who really dont know why we believe what we believe, and those people see your apologetics also. but you will never know it.

remember, with every line you write, you may save a life. you store up the true treasure in heaven. and maybe when we are welcomed home G-d will say to you.

“well done, my good and faithful servant”

so take heart. you may get discouraged, but you cannot lose.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

In that role, then, Christian apologetics doesn’t attempt to connect the dots the way the unbelievers do and end up at God. Rather, Christian apologetics is about advocacy for, to use your term, the “inner logic” of religious credulity, over and against rational/empirical paradigms.

not at all, the part of apologetics called metaphysics handles that, connecting the dots. we are all for rationality, but you are conflating rationality and empiricism they are not the same thing.

Science has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of knowledge and utility in the past few centuries, so apologetics has gotten much more challenging as that has developed; on the one hand the Christian has to assault the “outer logic”, the objective analysis of the evidence and promote what is advertised (here) has “inner logic”, which is a term I understand to be simply a euphemism for uncritical intuition.

That’s hard, right there.

an objective analysis of the evidence goes in our favor.

On the other had, though, scientific thinking, and it cohorts (various flavors of rationalism and empricism, etc.) have garnered such enormous cultural capital, that most Christian apologists feel compelled to simultaneously assault it and demonstrate how God exists as a the conclusion of disciplined, rational thinking.

whats to assault? science, and the rational exposition of G-d are 2 different things.

Secular epistemologies and philosophical paradigms have become so popular and established that apologists often feel they must acquit Christianity in those terms, as if Christianity could be arrived at via those heuristics.

And that, you are right, is a dissonance of the first order for apologists.

which would those be?

It’s the rare apologist, though, who is brave enough to throw down against secular, modern paradigms. The only people I can think of how do this in a robust way are the Calvinists who engage in this nasty enterprise they call “presuppositional apologetics”. That is a straight assault on rational/empirical paradigms and a naked appeal to the magic of God’s election for acquiring truth.

That’s pretty obnoxious thing for thoughtful people to run into, but it does avoid the dissonance you are talking about, and doesn’t pretend to “prove God”, and embrace modern/secular forms of thinking which naturally urge the inquirer to doubt and unbelief.

we throw dowen on secular issues all the time. you know me. any time, anywhere. go ahead and try to back that up.

as to the calvinists, they just expose the epistomological double standard of evidence that is commonly used. the default state is and should be that Christianity is true. thousands have witnessed G-d over thousands of years. you have no evidence that these thousands of people and the dozens of books that resulted, which we call Scripture, are false.

the only way to deny Scripture, and not other historical events that you did not witness, i.e. the moonlanding, the magna carta, or the American revolution, is to have a double standard of evidence, or to commit a logical fallacy. from your side, i can see how that would seem a “obnoxious” thing. rationalism is a knife that cuts both ways.

 

[Touchstone]

Then we all seem to agree. The task of apologetics is not active, but necessarily passive. It is a defense of what is believed.

OK.

When I use the phrase “inner logic” I do not mean something which is divorced from criticism.

Hmmm. I think that the qualifier “inner” establishes precisely that – insulated from criticism and objective review.

It seems well established that the goal of the apologist is to show that their view of reality can account for more of the human experience.

Indeed. But these “accounts” are the flimsiest of euphemisms for actual accounts. “God” makes for a convenient narrative, fer sher, but it’s completely accountable to criticism and falsification, or even outside validation. That is, the “accounting” for various parts of the human experience by the Christian apologist is compatible with “making things up wholesale”, or otherwise indulging fantasy, legend, and myth (all of which have their place, but deserve to be identified as such).

They defend against the attacks of those who stand outside of their narrative. Are certain topics off limits to criticism? Certainly so. That is just as true for the Catholic as it is for the (radical) empiricist.

I don’t think so. An empiricist places “unquestioned” faith in the reality of reality, but this is not an faith humans are are free to reject, even if they should so choose. Maybe I misunderstand, but if so, perhaps you can identify empirical “dogma” that would set it at parity with the Catholic in terms of protecting key assumptions from criticism. Empiricists, for example, don’t have to assert that empiricism is truth, or even reveals truth, or works at all in some final, metaphysical sense. It may not work out, empirically. It can falsify itself, by failing to make progress on successful, predictive, performative models of the world around us.

Given that, I think the “off limits” aspect here is not “just as true” for empiricists as it is for Catholics, not nearly.

Both are ways of viewing the world and both interpret the data of human life through those lens. Both cannot answer criticisms leveled at their base.

Yes, but these are not interesting comparisons. Humans cannot justify their faith in the reality of reality as empiricists, or their reliance on induction – these are cognitive patterns that are “hardwired” into the human brain and which we cannot renounce or avoid any more than we can renounce the nose on our faces.

That is not the case with Catholic dogmata. They can be, and often are, renounce and rejected, and to good ends.

What a empiricist does not do (by definition) is assert beyond the evidence. She may not be able provide epistemic warrant for her empiricism (beyond the excellent retort that humans are wired towards that disposition physiologically!), but she does not wander past the evidence into left field, into claims that are impossible to distinguish from delusion and fantasy. This is something that the Catholic apologist must do to represent his faith. An empiricist can just shrug and say “we don’t know; it’s an unkown”. A Catholic apologist must invoke fabulous, unsupportable claims about the universe.

This is a profound distinction.

A Catholic cannot prove the faith and a (radical) empiricist cannot empirically prove his empiricism.

Yes, but see above – that’s a red herring. An empiricist (and we are all empiricists) cannot renounce empiricism, lest he die. A Catholic can, and I think should, on examination, the foundationalist predicates of the faith. No such warrant is needed for trusting in the ‘reality of reality’ as is needed in accepting Catholic dogma, as we are not free to avoid or reject the reality of reality even if we want to.

Both are worldviews and both have apologists. Apologists work inside those worldviews and so all they can do is attempt to defend the logic which is found within that particular system.

Agreed. But it’s a little more complex than that, for Christian apologists, anyway, as they currently need to traffic in stolen concepts, to frame and and deliver their credulous superstitions in the language of secular worldviews, because those external terms and values are compelling, where the historical superstitious basis of Christianity looks quaint and simplistic if rendered in its own terms.

Christian belief has to presented as “logical”, “reasonable” and “warranted” in secular terms to satisfy the faithful, to keep them assuaged. This is similar to the way young earth creationists need to discuss their anti-science in terms of “creation science” – the faithful are only kept in the pen if they are satisfied that young earth creationism really is scientific – wink, wink.

Christianity is a case of the same dynamic writ large.

-TS

(con’t)

 

[Touchstone]

NemoSum:

Although faith involves reason, it is not rationality. Faith is ultimately bound to a culture and a way of seeing the world. Faith is not irrational, but could be classified as supra-rational.

Err. Even if you mean directly what “super” implies – something like “superset” to “set”, that does make it irrational even so. Rationality obtains in the application of rule, as a coherent heuristic. Adding something “super” – anything at all – invalidates it. Imagine that we had “supergeometry” rules for Euclidean geometry. Perhaps parallel lines do cross, if it’s Tuesday, in that case (or insert your own subordinating feature here). Now what? If that happens, none of Euclidean geometry is useful at all. It’s only useful because there are no “supers” involved.

Same thing with rationality. “Super” renders rationality null and void.

Faith is very much a love affair between God and the soul.

What do you mean by ‘soul’, here? Be precise, please.

Just as a woman who falls in love can be accused of being irrational, so too can the man of faith. No one would demand mathematical certainty from the lover.

Perhaps not. But it would be just as foolish to contend that that irrationality (assuming it was irrationality) was somehow rational, as matter of honest analysis.

Although many may tell the woman that she is being “blind,” in her reality, all the others are blind, because her eyes are open to see a side of him that no one sees. One cannot define her as irrational, but rather operating outside the domain of rationality, i.e. supra-rational.

“Outside of rational” is as irrational as you can get. See above. “Super-rational” signals a basic misunderstanding of what rational thinking entails and needs.

Faith is a love affair which affects the totality of each human person, and love is a mystery that is not confined merely to the mind. It is not just the acceptance of various propositions concerning their character. The mystery of faith is no different. Faith is shared, not by appealing outside of that mystery, but by inviting others to enter into it. Evangelization is the way in which we share the original story of Christianity.

I think this really just shows that apologetics is the practice of engaging in promiscously dramatic-yet-meaningless language. What is “the totality of each human person”? Thinking about that for a minute or two, this seems a nice example of a term with a dramatic veneer, but yet perfectly meaningless as a working concept. I could go on to other examples in this paragraph, but that should give you the idea of what I’m driving at, here.

This paragraph you have here is not serious, meaningful discourse. It’s vacuous fluff.

Apologetics, on the other hand, is always defensive. As scripture says, “be ready to defend the hope found within you.” The proper role of Apologetics is to defend the inner logic of the narrative that is proclaimed in Evangelization. Any appeal to a God’s-eye view of reality is not just misguided, it is blasphemy. To claim that faith is the most reasonable explanation of reality, is to reduce the romance of faith to nothing but rationality.

I don’t mind at all the apologist who appeals to romance as the basis for belief, not to be confused with disciplined and careful thinking. It’s the rare apologist who does that, because it ends up producing fluffy, empty rhetoric which falls over with a nudge from a thoughtful skeptic, and which looks pretty silly to many of the faithful witnessing that, and who were otherwise hoping to be encouraged by the apologetics.

At that point it does bleed right into evangelism, apologetics that honestly avoids posing as counterfeit reasoning. But more power to 'em, the distinctions aren’t important at that point, I say. What does merit criticism and objection is the counterfeiting part, which seeks to soothe the dissonance of the faithful by passing off Catholicism (or whatever religious belief) as “reasoned”, resting on the epistemic and process foundations of science and real world knowledge.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

not at all, the part of apologetics called metaphysics handles that, connecting the dots. we are all for rationality, but you are conflating rationality and empiricism they are not the same thing.

I don’t think I’m confusing the two, and haven’t done so, here. Empricism validates rationality vice versa, but neither should be confused with the other.

I think, on the other hand, that Catholics (and other theists) tend to conflate intuition with knowledge, and accept that if their intuition inclines them toward “X” (“ZOMG abiogenesis is WAY too improbable to have happened!”), that must be knowledge, and of course, knowledge proceeding from reason… somehow, don’t ask how – it’s God-given.

an objective analysis of the evidence goes in our favor.

Oh, come on. I and we reading deserve more consideration than declarations like that!

I do note, however, that this is a good example of the bait-and-switch kind of apologetics I was discussing with NemoSum; here you are asserting your case on the unbelieving, secularists ground – objective analysis. This is precisely where Christianity fails and fails most spectacularly. I realize it’s important and valuable to make such assertions – you are thereby elevating your faith to partake in the credibility of science, which is an epistemology predicated on objective analysis.

But the claim doesn’t hold up, or even get off the ground. Using the methods of objective analysis, Catholicism fails spectacularly, which is one reason why apologists, the ones who want to be taken seriously, anyway, talking about “inner logic” and the like, as NemoSum does.

whats to assault? science, and the rational exposition of G-d are 2 different things.

Well, objective analysis, for one thing. This is a tool that discredits Christianity.

Consider trying to go into a court of law and make an appeal in court that “God did it”, or even “the devil tempted me”, or anything along the lines of these superstitions. You can expect to fail, and fail badly, every time you try, because the courts, which operate on the principle of analysis of evidence in an objective, dispassionate way, can’t find anything credible on those terms to admit into evidence.

That’s not the only test, of course, but that should give you a frame of reference for how Christianity would be an epic fail if it were only to be judged on the basis of objective analysis of the evidence.

which would those be?

What are you referring to by “those”?

we throw dowen on secular issues all the time. you know me. any time, anywhere. go ahead and try to back that up.

Oh, I wasn’t claiming otherwise. You’ve claimed Christianity prevails on an objective analysis, right in this post, which is about as over-the-top as it gets, apologetically. But that just isn’t a serious contribution to the discourse, and you don’t find many serious apologists who would go near that kind of claim. The argument gets offered in terms much more like what NemoSum has replied with in this thread, moving away from “outside” criteria to “inside” criteria, wrapped in language of romance, holism, and mystery. This may be a winning argument, but it is manifestly NOT the stuff of objective analysis.

as to the calvinists, they just expose the epistomological double standard of evidence that is commonly used. the default state is and should be that Christianity is true.

I think it’s interesting and telling that you suppose that Christianity should be the “default state”, but why do you think that should be that way? Is this because you “just know” it’s true, or that God is “self-evident”? Before you nod to those questions, remember that those are code words for capitulating to intuition, and conflating intuition with knowledge.

thousands have witnessed G-d over thousands of years. you have no evidence that these thousands of people and the dozens of books that resulted, which we call Scripture, are false.

Such claims are not falsifiable, by design. Think of a case where this “witnessing” is amenable to objective analysis, for example. Can you think of one? If so, I am quite serious that you can be world famous by Friday if you’ve got just one. Daring someone to try and falsify such claims is sending them on a fool’s errand.

Instead, we look for explanations that perform best in terms of economy, coherence and parsimony. And on those grounds, “imagination” does very well in explaining these claims, much, much better than “God must be real!”.

the only way to deny Scripture, and not other historical events that you did not witness, i.e. the moonlanding, the magna carta, or the American revolution, is to have a double standard of evidence, or to commit a logical fallacy.

No, all those events you mentioned are eminently plausible and perfectly non-miraculous, needing no mangling or suspension of the laws of nature and all of physics. The claims of the Bible demands this in the extreme, and at dozens if not hundreds of points in the narrative. This means that the reasonable mind can and should except all the historical events you mention while rejecting the fabulous claims of the Bible.

There is no contradiction in this.

from your side, i can see how that would seem a “obnoxious” thing. rationalism is a knife that cuts both ways.

Didn’t get that part, but the obnoxious part of presuppositional apologetics is its proudly intense circularity – it begins and ends by assuming its final conclusions, and that’s the end of the matter! Makes for interesting discussions, huh? Great fun at parties, those presuppositional apologetics types!

-TS

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I don’t think I’m confusing the two, and haven’t done so, here. Empricism validates rationality vice versa, but neither should be confused with the other.

empiricism validates the part of rationality that is applicable to the physically observable. obviously a huge defect in metaphysics.

I think, on the other hand, that Catholics (and other theists) tend to conflate intuition with knowledge, and accept that if their intuition inclines them toward “X” (“ZOMG abiogenesis is WAY too improbable to have happened!”), that must be knowledge, and of course, knowledge proceeding from reason… somehow, don’t ask how – it’s God-given.

i hear that, but i dont know anyone with more than a passing interest in the subject that does that. abiogenesis is improbable, there is no problem in admitting the odds, but thats not the same thing as saying it could not happen.

Oh, come on. I and we reading deserve more consideration than declarations like that!

we do it nearly every day here.

I do note, however, that this is a good example of the bait-and-switch kind of apologetics I was discussing with NemoSum; here you are asserting your case on the unbelieving, secularists ground – objective analysis.This is precisely where Christianity fails and fails most spectacularly. I realize it’s important and valuable to make such assertions – you are thereby elevating your faith to partake in the credibility of science, which is an epistemology predicated on objective analysis.

i dont see how the grounds of “objective analysis” are secular. its quite an assertion to say that. what evidence can you offer that “objective analysis” only belongs to secularists or the scientific method?

no, because thats not true.

But the claim doesn’t hold up, or even get off the ground. Using the methods of objective analysis, Catholicism fails spectacularly, which is one reason why apologists, the ones who want to be taken seriously, anyway, talking about “inner logic” and the like, as NemoSum does.

considering that Catholicism is based on the “objective analysis” of the Apostles, and other thousands of witnesses to G-d. id say its about as empirical as one can get.

Well, objective analysis, for one thing. This is a tool that discredits Christianity.

how so specifically? because ive never seen it.

Consider trying to go into a court of law and make an appeal in court that “God did it”, or even “the devil tempted me”, or anything along the lines of these superstitions. You can expect to fail, and fail badly, every time you try, because the courts, which operate on the principle of analysis of evidence in an objective, dispassionate way, can’t find anything credible on those terms to admit into evidence.

That’s not the only test, of course, but that should give you a frame of reference for how Christianity would be an epic fail if it were only to be judged on the basis of objective analysis of the evidence.

total strawman.

if the court were in the times of David, where all the witnesses to G-d are currently living, i wouldnt expect to fail. those would be actual defenses.

What are you referring to by “those”?

“Secular epistemologies and philosophical paradigms” im waiting to see which ones you will claim only belong to secularists

Oh, I wasn’t claiming otherwise. You’ve claimed Christianity prevails on an objective analysis, right in this post, which is about as over-the-top as it gets, apologetically.

thats another assertion without a bearing in reality. how is that over the top? you seem to have an idea that “objective analysis” is the same thing as the scientific method.

But that just isn’t a serious contribution to the discourse, and you don’t find many serious apologists who would go near that kind of claim.

where is this at? there are dozens on this site alone. im just one.

The argument gets offered in terms much more like what NemoSum has replied with in this thread, moving away from “outside” criteria to “inside” criteria, wrapped in language of romance, holism, and mystery. This may be a winning argument, but it is manifestly NOT the stuff of objective analysis.

your confusing apologies for Catholicism, with the apologies for the existence of G-d.

continued. but ill try to shorten the next exchanges if possible.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I think it’s interesting and telling that you suppose that Christianity should be the “default state”, but why do you think that should be that way? Is this because you “just know” it’s true, or that God is “self-evident”? Before you nod to those questions, remember that those are code words for capitulating to intuition, and conflating intuition with knowledge.

not at all. Christianity should be the default because it is an empirical faith. we witnessed it. youre just awful quick to make up reasons why we believe. but they arent anywhere near the reality. you have a strange view of what you think we believe.

and yes, G-d is self evident, Thomism, metaphysics, and all.

Such claims are not falsifiable, by design.Think of a case where this “witnessing” is amenable to objective analysis, for example. Can you think of one? If so, I am quite serious that you can be world famous by Friday if you’ve got just one. Daring someone to try and falsify such claims is sending them on a fool’s errand.

Instead, we look for explanations that perform best in terms of economy, coherence and parsimony. And on those grounds, “imagination” does very well in explaining these claims, much, much better than “God must be real!”.

first. do you have any evidence that such a situation is by design? are you imply that Christianity is a conspiracy? do you have evidence for that or is this another unsupported assertion?

second, what makes you think they arent falsifiable? if an alien technology was demonstrated that performed the same miracles., without that technology, you couldnt falsify that either. would that mean it didnt happen? of course not.

your implying that if you dont understand how something was done, it cant be done. that isnt rational.

No, all those events you mentioned are eminently plausible and perfectly non-miraculous, needing no mangling or suspension of the laws of nature and all of physics. The claims of the Bible demands this in the extreme, and at dozens if not hundreds of points in the narrative. This means that the reasonable mind can and should except all the historical events you mention while rejecting the fabulous claims of the Bible.

There is no contradiction in this.

this is the exact logical fallacy that i was talking about. the argument from incredulity. see what i mean now? you dont know how it can be done, therefore it didnt happen. from the advances of science, as you say, we know that isnt a rational defense.

Didn’t get that part, but the obnoxious part of presuppositional apologetics is its proudly intense circularity – it begins and ends by assuming its final conclusions, and that’s the end of the matter! Makes for interesting discussions, huh? Great fun at parties, those presuppositional apologetics types!

ok. never partied with a presuppositionalist. protestants mostly dont drink.

 

[mercygate]

I think we confuse the the different ways in which we use the word “faith.”

My personal, subjective, “faith” – the rubber-meets-the-road consequence of my engagement with a personal God – is a different aspect of faith from “the” faith as articulated in doctrine. The latter results from how our experience of God relates to the world and the challenges it poses.

The OP is correct: approaching faith questions as if they were assaults (even when they are) disembowels the faith we know and profess.

 

[KindredSoul]

I agree with the OP insofar as Apologetics should not (and, due to the necessity of Faith, I fathom it cannot) be used as a tool to “trap” an unbeliever into seeing that Catholicism is definitely, irrefutably true. In a religion in which faith is a virtue, this would be counterproductive anyway, and it plays right into the hands of the [radical] empiricists insofar as it implies that it is only justifiable to believe in what is proven, and that therefore if we believe in Catholicism we must be able to “prove it.” If (and I hope any unbelievers will have the open mind enough to consider that “if” for the sake of discussion) a God exists who promotes and desires that we have Faith, after all, would He have put us currently in an environment where belief in Him and the True Religion was as natural and irrefutable as, say, belief that there’s a huge ball of light out there that gives us light and warmth? Empiricists are often quick to demand such irrefutable proof, ignoring the fact that if such a faith-requiring deity exists (recall the open mind for the sake of discussion), the absence of such proof is to be expected. Does this seem a little too convenient for the believer, who can truly say that the absence of irrefutable proof fits right into his truth-claims? Perhaps. Do other beliefs with similar convenient but competing claims exist? Perhaps. But convenience or the existence of competing explanations in no way whatsoever translates into falsehood.

Anyway, I believe Apologetics is instead to be used as a reminder that our Faith is not self-evidently false as unbelievers and especially strict empiricists are so quick to believe. Some people, those who are more easily convinced than myself, might look at an Apologist’s argument and think “This absolutely proves Catholicism!” I’m rather happy for those people (although they are, in a sense, deprived as Thomas was, of being able to “believe without seeing”), but I am often not one of them, much to my emotional dissatisfaction. I am all too inclined to see an argumentative possibility (though, strictly by faith and love for God, I willingly forego looking at it as a real possibility, but I admit this is an act of faith) that my beliefs could be false. In fact, I suspect that the greater this inclination is, the more one’s faith is worth in God’s eyes, as one chose Him rather than being forced to believe by the compulsion of one’s Intellect. Therefore, I would be lying if I said I thought it was possible or even proper for Apologetics to be treated like a Court Case in which we were to prove Catholicism to the satisfaction of some “jury” of unbelievers.

However, I also realize that it takes a closed mind, a bias on par with any presuppositionalist, or a fundamental flaw of reasoning in order for a person to say “Catholicism is certainly or almost certainly false, and any rational examination proves this.” That dis-proving simply has not occurred in any objectively observable way; an unbeliever may still persist in unbelief, as absence of dis-proof is not the same as proof, and the unbeliever may well believe that Catholicism as a religion was simply conveniently tailored to avoid being dis-proven. However, he crosses the boundary into intellectual dishonesty when he claims some empirical certainty of this falsehood, or claims that empirical data would/should lead any unbiased person to disbelieve in Catholicism. The realm of apologetics exists, therefore, not to prove our religion (and deprive people of the ability to have faith in the process) but to explain that believing in our Faith, while not 100% dependent upon proof, is not “irrational” in the oft-used (if inaccurate) sense of “contradicting reason”, such that no reasonable person could believe in it. Nor is it “irrational” in the sense of “belief without a reason”, as this implies that each individual believer pulls the belief out of thin air and has no basis by which he finds this religion reasonable to believe; for this to be true of our religion, for instance, all the circumstances surrounding the Historical Jesus and His Resurrection claims would have to be non-existent, since even if He didn’t rise from the dead something unusual certainly happened to constitute a reason that a person, without being unreasonable, might believe He did or at the very least believe He really might have and be willing to take a leap of faith for that. Nor is our Faith irrational in the (again oft-used if inaccurate) sense of “denial of the facts”, as I have yet to see the irrefutable evidence that has established the falsehood (or even the “probable falsehood”) of my religion as an objective “fact” that I am somehow “denying”. In fact, the latter accusation is a type of “presuppositionalism” in itself, presupposing that it is a fact that the most atheistic explanation of any given belief is the true one, and that therefore anyone who believes the religious explanation is avoiding/denying the “facts”.

So when it comes to interacting with other beliefs as opposed to addressing internal consistency to those who already believe (a whole other realm of Apologetics), Apologetics is about pointing out reasons why such assaults against our Faith as previously mentioned are in fact presuppositional or otherwise flawed and are not the undeniable, self-evident or irrefutable truths that unbelievers might think they are. Even then, apologetics is hardly for those hoping to see visible fruits of their labors: For apologetics to get an opponent to even recant such accusations as above, much less gain faith, seems exceedingly rare, and apologetics often feels worthwhile only insofar as one hopes some unparticipating onlooker is benefitting from his work.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[greylorn]

The task of apologetics seems to destroy faith. Every question can be answered, and yet, it still requires a large leap to get the “faith.” Is faith merely about belief? Is faith simply to believe everything the church teaches? When our Lord praises the “faith” of those whom he encounters in the scriptures, does he mean belief?

We seem to think that people reason their way into the “faith.” This makes the task of apologetics very important.

Presenting the Christian faith to this world is a very delicate task. This task is further complicated when the lines between apologetics and evangelization are blurred. Apologetics, by its very nature, is the defense of the inner logic found within the narrative of belief. Evangelization is the proclamation of that narrative. Any attempt to evangelize the world through making an appeal to some pure, autonomous reason which stands outside of that narrative to give it legitimatization, is flawed. Faith is related to reason, but faith still remains faith. The proper role of reason in evangelization is to show that the faith which is publicly proclaimed and celebrated is reasonable to hold. Any attempt to take the tenants of faith and present them as if they were the most reasonable explanation is an error. If faith were the most reasonable response, it would no longer be faith, but rationality.

Don’t you think our apologetical enterprise is doomed by the paradigms we have established by defining faith the way we have?

NemoSum,

Apologetics is barely relevant to faith. True believers will remain believers so long as they eschew critical thinking. This is especially true for the current generation, educated in atheism and Darwinism, who are as dogmatic as the most rabid Muslim.

As best I can tell, apologetics is an exercise in futility. It might be designed to keep questioning Christians within the fold, but fails, because the apologists themselves lack the requisite education (physics, math, engineering, microbiology, astronomy, etc.). They also lack the “edge,” or enthusiasm necessary to engage an enemy. There are no Reggie White’s or Jared Allen’s in apologetics— just a few softies hollering from the sidelines.

Apologetics was doomed long ago, I think around the Galileo crisis, 1630-1640 or thereabouts. Galileo, the grandfather of modern physics, was a devout Catholic. Pope Urban VI and he had been close friends when younger, which may explain why he spent his dotage under house arrest instead of in Inquisitorial dungeons.

Galileo realized that his discoveries impinged upon Church teachings. He urged the high church mucky-mucks, many of whom he knew socially or personally, to consider the long term implications— that his discoveries and those sure to follow affected Church dogma.

Since the Church had long ago adopted the notion that its religious dogma determined the truth or falsity of ideas about the real world (the sort of concepts that we now label, “physics”) and Galileo had already demonstrated that the Church’s belief in an earth-centered universe was false, he extrapolated into the future.

In Galileo;'s future, the Church would recognize that the written Bible it had been following were the words of men, but that the physical universe was the absolutely true and certain Word of God---- a level of Word which could never be falsified---- a level of Word which was absolutely true no matter what pinheaded humans believed.

After all, humans wrote the Bible. Humans declared the Bible to be the Word of God. But only God could have written The Universe.

When the officials running the Church rejected Galileo’s verifiable ideas in favor of their own invented, unverifiable dogma, the rift between religion and science was born. Galileo’s papers were smuggled out of Italy into England, where Newton read them. Science moved one way, while the Church dug in its heels.

Apologetics was born within this rift, and doomed to failure, like any entrenched defensive posture. (E.g: the castles of medieval Europe, or the pre-WWII French Maginot Line.) Science keeps learning, growing, and developing its atheistic ideas. The Church chooses to ignore this information.

For example, I’ve addressed four questions to the official CAF apologists and received no reply whatsoever. These were serious, well considered questions. All ignored. I don’t take the blow-offs personally, for I’d already guessed that none of these official apologists were qualified to address my questions.

They were not atheistic questions, which are the kinds of questions that a serious apologist should delight in tackling, because I am not an atheist.

Its it not curious that the word, “apologetics,” has been excluded from the CAF’s rigorous spell checker? This is not because it is an obscure or arcane word. The only words I’ve used which are in my copy of Webster’s Collegiate, copyright 1991, which this spell checker has flagged, are politically incorrect or socially inappropriate words.

 

[greylorn]

No, because I think you have misunderstood the charter of apologetics, here. It’s not down-the-line philosophy or science. It’s polemic and rhetorical in nature, more a “defense” than an inquiry.

In that role, then, Christian apologetics doesn’t attempt to connect the dots the way the unbelievers do and end up at God. Rather, Christian apologetics is about advocacy for, to use your term, the “inner logic” of religious credulity, over and against rational/empirical paradigms.

Science has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of knowledge and utility in the past few centuries, so apologetics has gotten much more challenging as that has developed; on the one hand the Christian has to assault the “outer logic”, the objective analysis of the evidence and promote what is advertised (here) has “inner logic”, which is a term I understand to be simply a euphemism for uncritical intuition.

That’s hard, right there.

On the other had, though, scientific thinking, and it cohorts (various flavors of rationalism and empricism, etc.) have garnered such enormous cultural capital, that most Christian apologists feel compelled to simultaneously assault it and demonstrate how God exists as a the conclusion of disciplined, rational thinking.

Secular epistemologies and philosophical paradigms have become so popular and established that apologists often feel they must acquit Christianity in those terms, as if Christianity could be arrived at via those heuristics.

And that, you are right, is a dissonance of the first order for apologists.

It’s the rare apologist, though, who is brave enough to throw down against secular, modern paradigms. The only people I can think of how do this in a robust way are the Calvinists who engage in this nasty enterprise they call “presuppositional apologetics”. That is a straight assault on rational/empirical paradigms and a naked appeal to the magic of God’s election for acquiring truth.

That’s pretty obnoxious thing for thoughtful people to run into, but it does avoid the dissonance you are talking about, and doesn’t pretend to “prove God”, and embrace modern/secular forms of thinking which naturally urge the inquirer to doubt and unbelief.

-TS

TS,
I wish you’d say something I could argue with.

 

[greylorn]

Tonyrey:

There are many questions that cannot be answered! For example, we cannot hope to understand how God exists

That is only your opinion. It is incorrect. My theories explain how God came into being, and why He chose to create the universe as well.

You’ve been indoctrinated to believe that such knowledge is unavailable to man, and because you chose to believe that, such knowledge has been unavailable to you.

I was taught the same thing, but rejected those teachings on the grounds that God, if He exists, is an empowerer rather than a sheepherder.

Tonyrey:

Individual doctrines may seem unreasonable to the non-believer because they are taken out of their context. The Resurrection is rejected by people who do not believe Jesus is the Son of God. The Incarnation is rejected by people who do not believe in God or do not understand the reason why Jesus came into the world.

Actually, unreasonableness runs deeper than that. I believe in God, and I understand the reason why, according to the Church, that Jesus came into the world.

If you’ll recall your dogmas, the whole Messiah concept which led to the belief in an incarnation of God in the form of a man had deep roots. Adam failed to follow an order, and for some bizarre reason, God laid the penance for Adam’s failure upon all mankind. Adam and Eve, and their progeny had been originally destined to spend a few years on earth, living an easy life in Paradise, and eventually die and live forever in heaven? (Did you ever ask why?)

Adam screwed up, so God, in His Omnipotent and Just Mercy, condemned humans yet unborn to a miserable life, struggling for survival on a poorly engineered planet, and for their pains---- nothing! No heaven. Just, nothing. There was this “heaven” all set up and waiting for them, but because the first thing their ignorant ancestors did after falling out of their trees was to eat an apple, they don’t get to go to heaven.

Jesus Christ, according to that theory, came to earth to fix that. He had to die to open heaven to mankind. Duh? Why, exactly? Might not a rational God have simply decided that making the tree which bore the fruit of all knowlege and putting it where a couple of nitwits could get at it was a dumb idea from the get-go, and that there was no point in making lots of people suffer for his pointless choice?

Ooops! That would imply that God kicks cats because He’s having a bad day. Can’t have that. And drat, it would also imply that God makes mistakes. Can’t have that. Instead, our ancestors invented a story which would not pass muster for a tv soap opera plot, but has managed to suck in a few billion people whose maids do their windows as well as any critical thinking.

Now, remember that God, being omniscient, knew that all this was going to happen before He put the first DNA molecule to work on planet earth. He did it anyway. Imagine the Toyota engineers deciding, “We’re going to make a defective accelerator assembly. Yep, it’s going to kill a bunch of pinheads who aren’t smart enough to put their car into neutral when the engine over-revs. Yep, it’s going to cost the company a billion dollars, long term, and it might even cost us our jobs. We’re doing it anyway. We want to help lawyers get rich.”

The entire Messiah concept was derived from God’s choice to make defective human beings and blame their offspring for the errors of their ancestors. I reject that belief because I refuse to believe that God is an irrational pinhead. To hold such a belief would be, for me, an insult to God’s intelligence and integrity.

I choose to believe in God, but reject the opinions of Christians and derivative believers who find it perfectly acceptable to believe that God is a nitwit and a hypocrite who makes irrational choices for which he makes humans suffer. Makes no sense to me. .

Consider the possibility that there is a God, but that humans have gotten the wrong idea about his nature and properties. What if there is a God who does not behave like the Zeus of Greek lore or a TV soap opera buffoon, who does not make dumb mistakes which need to be corrected by ritualistic blood appeasements? What if?

Tonyrey:

No, because faith has to be based on reason even though the scope of reason is limited. We do not believe because Christianity is absurd. We believe because it makes sense of life. It is the only religion which comes to terms with the reality of evil and teaches us how to overcome it - with the power of love…

Nonsense. Faith is based solely upon authority and agreement. If you were born in a society of Muslims, you’d be a Muslim, because that’s what your friends and teachers are.

If you were born in an atheist conclave in Berkely, you’d be an atheist, because your parents, teachers, friends, and all the intelligent people you know are atheists. You’d not have the courage to dissent.

In China, you’d not be an ordinary follower, just one of a billion communists. You’d be a communist party official in charge of policing the internet against subtle, intellectual threats to communism. (That’s my guess, of course.)

You do not engage in critical thinking. You use your excellent mind to defend that which your brain has been programmed to believe. You never question your beliefs, and never will. That’s not bad or wrong, or right— it’s just how your brain is programmed to run you.

 

[tonyrey]

That is only your opinion. It is incorrect.** My** theories explain how God came into being, and why He chose to create the universe as well.

Why should **your **theories be superior to others?

If you’ll recall your dogmas, the whole Messiah concept which led to the belief in an incarnation of God in the form of a man had deep roots. Adam failed to follow an order, and for some bizarre reason, God laid the penance for Adam’s failure upon all mankind.

A simplistic interpretation of Genesis! Human beings have chosen evil, isolated themselves from God and defiled the world…

Adam screwed up, so God, in His Omnipotent and Just Mercy, condemned humans yet unborn to a miserable life, struggling for survival on a poorly engineered planet, and for their pains---- nothing!

Another simplistic interpretation! Can you provide a blueprint of a world superior to this “poorly engineered planet”? We are waiting…

Jesus Christ, according to that theory, came to earth to fix that. He had to die to open heaven to mankind. Duh? Why, exactly? Might not a rational God have simply decided that making the tree which bore the fruit of all knowledge and putting it where a couple of nitwits could get at it was a dumb idea from the get-go, and that there was no point in making lots of people suffer for his pointless choice?

How simplistic can you get! You equate Christianity with a crude, literal interpretation of Genesis…

Instead, our ancestors invented a story which would not pass muster for a tv soap opera plot, but has managed to suck in a few billion people whose maids do their windows as well as any critical thinking.

Your caricature of Christianity underestimates the intelligence and common sense of humanity… Your implicit rejection of love is the most significant aspect of your irrational onslaught on Christianity:
Christianity is the only religion which comes to terms with the reality of evil and teaches us how to overcome it - with the power of love… as Jesus did…
.

Faith is based solely upon authority and agreement. If you were born in a society of Muslims, you’d be a Muslim, because that’s what your friends and teachers are.

You are quite wrong. I chose to become a Catholic…
If you were born in an atheist conclave in Berkely, you’d be an atheist… In China, you’d not be an ordinary follower, just one of a billion communists. You’d be a communist party official in charge of policing the internet against subtle, intellectual threats to communism…

You do not engage in critical thinking. You use your excellent mind to defend that which your brain has been programmed to believe. You never question your beliefs, and never will. That’s not bad or wrong, or right— it’s just how your brain is programmed to run you.

All this nonsense could with equal facility be attributed to your own beliefs. What makes you think you are endowed with privileged insight into the nature of reality? Could it not be the result of hubris? Or that your brain has been programmed to run you into a condescending state of scorn for everyone else’s ideas and make you convinced you are a modern Messiah whose mission is to enlighten the benighted human race?

(I don’t usually write in this fashion but Christianity does not entail tolerating sarcasm, abuse, injustice and self-righteousness reminiscent of the Pharisees. Jesus did not mince His words when denouncing “the brood of vipers” inflated with scorn for the poor widow who was in fact far closer to God. Your view of humanity reveals more about you than anything else… )