Apologetics

Karl Keating’s latest e-letter has an interesting apologetical tidbit in that in the previous centuries here in the United States that many Protestant clergy were addressed by Father and Mother and at the time Catholic priests were addressed by Mr. His gives the historical background here.

Jimmy Akin’s interview with Jack Chick in this months This Rock is now online here.

In the world of economics there is a theory called zero sum economics. This theory is mainly practiced in the Congress by liberals and it holds that there is an x amount of money available and if someone earns a dollar than someone out there is losing a dollar. This theory sounds correct only at a casual glance, yet when you compare it to economic realities you see that it is woefully short in explaining the truth of economic translations.

I sometimes run into comments or posts where a person asserts some kind of Zero Sum Christianity. That if you pray to Mary and/or the Saints that you are taking away from Jesus. Going strait to Jesus is often the term used and the verse from 1st Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” is normally used to defend this position. This theory also at casual glance appears to be correct, but if you look just a few verses before to 1st Timothy 2:1 “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men,” you find that we are asked to pray for others. Does this contradict the unique mediatorship of Christ? No, since our own mediations can happen only because of Christ. As parts of the Mystical Body all of us including those who have died and are in Purgatory or enjoy the Beatific Vision pray with our final end in Christ. Of ourselves our prayers would avail nothing. Jesus also said “God said to him, `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.” Even those who have died are living and part of the economy of grace.

I also find the idea that praying to Mary will detract from worship of God is something that does not match reality. Is someone really going to assert that the Marian devotion of St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Therese, etc kept them from being head over heals in love with Christ? If their devotion ended in distraction from Christ, then please heap on me this distraction. At first I also had difficulty with praying to Mary and the Saints. I would pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit mainly. After I started to know Jesus more I finally decided that I needed to meet some of his “sons by adoption.” Meeting his Mother and other relatives was a boon to my prayer life and not something that hindered it. Seeing Mary I saw what Christ originally intended us to be before Original Sin marred us. Seeing the saints I saw what was possible for all of us who suffer from Original Sin and the concupiscence of flesh. Their merits were totally from grace. If we admire what God has done with one of his creatures we do not take away from the fact that it was God’s grace that did it. Admiring a beautiful painting does not insult it’s creator. I still pray strait to Jesus and knowing what he had done for his family helps me to love him all the more.

Yesterday Mark Shea posted:

conundrum

Periodically I meet Christians who tell me that they believe in Once Saved Always Saved and that if you ask Jesus to be your personal Lord and savior then you can’t lose your salvation. They warn me darkly that the Catholic Church is a sinister system of works salvation and so forth.

My response is typically, “Okay. I’ll do what you say right now.” Then I stop, and pray (with all seriousness) for Jesus to be my personal Lord and savior. It is, after all, what I want. Then I go on my way to Mass. After all, if I can’t lose my salvation, then why should it matter if I do?

This is a question I have pondered and asked before. While I have a pretty limited experience with apologetics with non-Catholics I have talked to some who have come to my door. It is rather strange that in my 40 years as a non-theist, I never had anybody come to my door to pass out materials or to promote their church. It was only within the last six years that this has happened. I have had mainly Baptists and a Jehovah’s Witness or two, but so far no Mormons. I figure that since I spent the first five years of my life in Salt Lake City, Utah; I have some kind of Mormon patina that protects me from their missionaries.

I greatly respect those who put their time and effort into door-to-door evangelization to try to preach the Gospel. Normally someone will knock and then hand you materials for their Church. I will then tell them that I believe in Christ and that I already go to church. Then they will ask “What church do you go to?” When I respond “Immaculate Conception”, I always notice their expression that seems to be part sorrow and part trying to be patient with someone who is so lost. I get this feeling that if I said “I go down to the stone pillars in the park and engage in pagan sacrifices” that I would get exactly the same look.

When I get the ‘If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” I reply that I have already done that. If I get the Catholic Church believes in salvation by works or in Mary Worship. I will try to tell them where they are mistaken about Catholic beliefs and practices and recommend that they get a Catechism so that they correctly know the doctrines they are critiquing. Then I will ask “If I am already saved since I already confess with my mouth and believe in my heart the Jesus is Lord, then why does it matter what church I go to.”

If I am asked to pray the Sinners Prayer with them I will grab my Bible and say “I am unfamiliar with that prayer, exactly what chapter/verse is it in?” The same thing goes to the phrase “Personal Lord and Savior”, it is amazing home many non-Biblical expression are used by those believing in Sola Scriptura. Normally after this they leave, if not I will ask them “Without using tradition tell me how we know which books belong in the Bible.” I have never got any farther than that with anyone.

Kathy the Carmelite of Gospel
M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D* has a post
on a Protestant pastor using Eph 5:24 "As
the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything
to their husbands" on her.

Coincidentally I was just thinking of this and other associated
scriptures today. I remember hearing this verse even when I was an atheist and
thinking just how unenlightened this was. Not surprisingly, I never heard the
following set of verses:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and
gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by
the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself
in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy
and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but
nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members
of his body. Eph: 5:25-30.

I remember the first time I read these powerful verses. Love your
wife as Christ loves the church is such a seemingly overwhelming and difficult
task. Presenting without "spot and wrinkle", I know with my selfishness
I need plenty of spot remover and wrinkle cream to be able to remove my treatment and to present her. The
requirements of this sacrificial self giving seems impossible considering Christ’s
sacrifice for the Church. The Office of Readings today from the Liturgy of the
Hours were from St. Augustine’s Confessions where he talked about the "spot
and wrinkle" verse in relationship to himself and Christ. It finally dawned
on me that our souls in relationship to Christ are the bride and that his grace
will help to bring us to heaven without spot or wrinkle. I had been looking
at this giving of self without looking at Christ in the context of providing
those needed graces through the sacrament of marriage.

Paragraph 2201 in the Catechism says "Marriage and the family
are ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education
of children." I would think this good as being ordered towards spouses
and children going to heaven. I have heard it explained that the verse about
"wives being submissive to their husbands" that the word submission
is from being subservient to the the same mission – going to heaven. I don’t
know how valid this exegesis is but I personally like this interpretation.

I received an unsolicited email from a Jack Hook about "Babylon
the great is falling." I didn’t have to read it to know what it was about,
his site on the web which includes this Enemy
Chart. While I was glad that he didn’t put Catholics in the denial of the
divinity of Jesus column, the Vatican and the Pope were in the Papacy-religious
beast column.

I blogged before about My
debt to Protestant Radio but the type of Protestantism where they say Mother
Teresa is going to hell and that the Pope is the antichrist gets no sympathy
from me. I guess iconbusters has put me on some kind of anti-Catholic mailing
list. When it comes to email I am firmly in the Sola Subscriber camp. I believe
that you should subscribe alone and that nobody can subscribe for you. Now don’t
think that you can merit subscription in and of yourself but by cooperating
with the list server you can subscribe. This is very biblical, Jesus talked
about subscribers all through the Gospels.

"Woe to you, subscribers and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness." Matt 23:27

Since I made some comments about the anti-Catholic site iconbusters.com some
time ago they have placed me on their mailing list. They must have googled my
site found my email and decided that I was much in need of being on their mailing list.

It is a great sadness the lack of unity in Christianity and I understand that
the people that run this site think they are helping to do the Lord’s work by
converting us heathen Catholics. I might poke fun at the methods this group
uses, but I have also kept them in my prayers.

Anyway they have announced their latest Flash animation in their Hypocrites
on Parade section titled The
Church of Signs & Lying Wonders: Eucharist Miracles. It is quite amusing
to watch this multimedia Chick Tract style presentation and I would encourage
you to do so. The Onion could hardly have come up with a better parody of fundamentalist attitudes.
I just wish that if they don’t believe in the Eucharist they could at least
attack the true Catholic belief in the Eucharist and not to pervert what we
believe. They talk about not seeing the transubstantiation (though they didn’t
use the technical term) as proof of it’s falseness. If they could have put Jesus
under the microscope they also would not have been able to detect the Incarnation.
They also make the claim that we eat our creator and then then later flush him
down the toilet. Any check of Catholic Theology would reveal:

In the Church’s traditional theological language, in
the act of consecration during the Eucharist the “substance” of the bread and
wine is changed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the “substance” of the
Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

and that the Church does not believe that the real presence exists only as
long as the accidents exist and such would not make it through our digestive
track. I have normally heard the time frame as being around 15 minutes before
the accidents would have dissolved. My theological language isn’t very precise,
but the point I am trying to make is that they are attacking something we don’t
believe.

Update: A Saintly Salmagundi received the same email I did.

Americans seeking divine inspiration in the latest step
of their quest for health, fitness and beauty are fuelling a growing demand for
faith-based food – recipes based on what Jesus might eat if he were alive today.

An Ohio-based group called the Christian Vegetarian Association has published
a collection of recipes featuring what it claims would be on Jesus’s dinner-plate
and insisting that meat would not form part of his diet.

…’Although some are certain that Jesus was a vegetarian,
I am not convinced. The Bible is not clear. But I am certain that, if he were
alive today, he would be. There are just so many tasty options today that don’t
involve animals.’

The CVA also has the support of the Rev Dr Andrew Linzey,
head of the theology studies centre at the University of Essex and respected
author of a number of books on Christianity and animal welfare. His essay, ‘A
Peaceable Kingdom’, in which animals and humans are reconciled with Christ is
an integral part of the CVA’s website. [Full
Story]

This idea of Jesus as a vegetarian I just don’t understand at all and especially
the idea that the Bible infers in any way that Jesus was a vegetarian. Don’t
they understand at all what the Jewish Passover meal was? That at the last supper
they would have had a meal of lamb that everyone was required to eat. At the
original Passover all were required to eat of the lamb or they would die, no
exceptions for vegetarians like a tofu lamb was acceptable (I think that line
came from Scott Hahn). After the fall of Adam and Eve the first act of God was
slaughtering animals to cover them and then later during the Exodus they were
required to slaughter for sacrifice the very animals they had been worshiping
in Egypt. Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes to feed the crowd. After
the resurrection Jesus ate fish with the Apostles. If God was trying to teach
people to be vegetarians he certainly sent out some very mixed messages. John
the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God not the Lima Bean of God.

I enjoyed this line from their site:

We don�t judge those who may have eaten meat, owned slaves,
or done other things that we believe are not God�s highest ideals for humankind.

Oh yeah they aren’t judging and it is just a coincidence that after the words
eaten meat, comes owned slaves. If people want to be a vegetarian fine, more
power to them. But I dislike the condescending idea that by eating meat I am
falling from the ideals God wants me to follow. The argument that he might have
eaten meat before but wouldn’t now I also find mistaken. Jesus never sinned
in any way he always did what the Father wanted him to do and to imply just
because he didn’t have tasty vegetable recipes available before he sunk to going ahead and eating meat.

A BBC documentary to be screened this Christmas will
question the beliefs of billions of Christians by suggesting that Mary was not a
virgin when she conceived Jesus.

The Virgin Mary, which is to be aired on Dec 22,
investigates three explanations, other than the immaculate conception, for
Mary’s pregnancy.

Firstly it looks at the possibility that she slept with
Joseph while she was engaged to be married to him, secondly that she was raped
by a Roman soldier and thirdly that she fell pregnant to an unidentified man
before marrying Joseph. It concludes that Mary was most likely to have concieved
Jesus with Joseph before their marriage as Joseph stood by her; an unmarried
pregnant woman at that time in Palestine would have been cast out from the
community or may even have been stoned to death.

Alan Bookbinder, the BBC’s head of religion and the
executive producer of The Virgin Mary said: “I hope the churches see that the
Mary of faith and miracles is well represented and given a lot of prominence in
the programme. The church view is given a lot of attention.

“But I hope the churches understand that for
non-believers the human Mary � the mother who saw her son get into difficulty
and then die � is someone with whom they can identify and nonbelievers will have
a lot of sympathy for her.”
[Full Secular Propaganda Crap Article]

If I ever needed proof (other than the authority of the Catholic Church) of
the perpetual virginity of Mary, this would be it. The BBC has the the charism
of imbecility, that does not mean that they will we always say something stupid;
but when it comes to faith and morals they are guaranteed by the spirit of the
world to always get it wrong. Last week I wandered onto a venomous blog
attacking Mary with ideas garnered from the dunghill of the incoherent
scribblings of Dave Hunt. I was surprised at the depth of my reaction. I felt
like someone had slapped my mother, then I realized someone had slapped my
mother.

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple
whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” — John
19:26-27

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me
blessed — Luke 1:48

All I know is that “all generations” have a very strange way of calling Mary
blessed. What irony that some woefully misled people have to rely on the very
Church that they attack to fulfill bible prophesy. I remember in the days when
we were fortunate to have the wit of Father Bryce Sibley and his posts on
anti-Catholics and anti-popes that he once linked to a site called iconbusters.com. This site is both anti-Catholic and anti any
Protestants that doesn’t attack the Catholic Church. They have a section called
hypocrites on parades which uses Flash animation to give slideshows of various
bizarre rantings. This was some of the unintentionally funniest things that I
have ever seen. I reveled in the irony of a site called iconbusters using
graphics as a way to convey meaning. So all that I will say to the BBC and those
who attack the Blessed Mother.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with
you.
Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your
womb.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of
our death.

“The Great Debate: Atheism vs. Christianity”
was broadcast via satellite to hundred of thousands in 1,500 churches across
the United States and Canada. The debate was by turns impassioned and low-key,
courteous and contentious.

Newdow, who apologized at the outset for his lack of knowledge in areas like
philosophy and theology, took an unswerving scientific approach, repeatedly
stating that the burden was on Knechtle to prove the existence of God, rather
than on Newdow to prove the nonexistence.

…”Why doesn’t God appear?” he
said. “If God is good, why do we have famine? Why are there 20,000 murders per
year in the U.S.? Why is Conan O’Brien on late night TV?” he said, to chuckles
from the audience.

Actually I don’t think that “The problem of Conan O’Brien”
was addressed by St. Aquinas or C.S. Lewis. Why does a good and all powerful
God allow Conan O’Brien? This is a mystery of a free market economy.

If the burden of proof is by scientific fact, what is the scientific evidence
of nothing becoming the universe? What experiment has been perfomed to prove
the possibility of this? If you have to rely on the belief that one day with
enough knowledge that scientists will be able to prove this as true, than you
rely on scientific faith.

I appreciate the fact that Mr. Newdow is trying to debate
the issue. Serious courteous debate that doesn’t fall into attacks is definitely
something to be applauded. It is much better to be an atheist striving towards
the truth than an agnostic that doesn’t think there are any arguments either
way.