Fr. Pat on Apologetics

This quote from Fr. Pat's Pastoral Ponderings on "Apologetics" was particularly insightful. Please enjoy!

The discipline of apologetics allows considerable flexibility and even room for innovation, because its effective use is necessarily determined, in some measure, by the presuppositions of those to whom it is addressed. Indeed, the process can hardly begin unless the apologist shares at least some of those presuppositions.

The latter may be of various kinds:

• The Christian arguing with the Jew, for instance, shares a massive theological presupposition: the canonical authority of the Hebrew Bible. Thus, the Apostles, when they argued in the synagogue, invariably commenced with the Old Testament. We find the identical pattern in Justin Martyr's Dialogue With Trypho the Jew.

• When arguing with pagans, on the other hand, Christian apologists often begin with a shared philosophical perspective. The earliest example of this approach may be St. Paul's speech to the philosophers on Mars' Hill in Acts 17. Again, Justin Martyr, who began the First Apology by recounting his youthful studies in philosophy, borrowed extensively from Stoicism in the course of his defense of the faith. He was addressing his work, after all, to the Antonine emperors, one of whom, he knew — Marcus Aurelius — was a Stoic.

In addition to theological and philosophical presuppositions, zealous apologetics does not hesitate to examine literature and other cultural expressions to find some common ground on which to engage unbelievers. Tertullian, for instance, when he mentioned the bravery, sobriety, and self-control encouraged by the Christian faith, knew very well that these virtues were central to Rome’s ascetical tradition and military culture. Clement and Origen, arguing for the Gospel in Alexandria, strove to express it in terms the local Neo-Platonists might find attractive. Augustine, in undertaking that vast historical apologia known as The City of God, demonstrated to contemporary pagans his ability to cite — and, more important, to appreciate — his Vergil and Varro with the best of them.

I speak of the necessary function of apologetics, however, as the preamble to a word of caution. Although it is an essential component of the Church's kerygmatic mission, apologetics is sometimes troublesome — or worse — to theology. Indeed, as I reflect on the matter, I am not sure I can name a single heresy in Christian history that did not have some apologetic concern near its root.

Apologetics is burdened with a very difficult task: To discover theological, philosophical, literary, and cultural windows through which to cast the light of the Gospel into the darkened minds of unbelievers. And yet the apologist is not entirely free to choose the size, shape, and position of those windows. Those choices are necessarily limited by the sympathies of those to whom the Gospel is preached. That is to say, the pagan largely governs the very terms of the discourse, and he is free, at any time, to close down the conversation.

Hence, it may happen that the Gospel, when it is defended to the pagan inquirer, is intellectually compressed to fit a mere slit of a window, or its constitutive outline is adjusted to accommodate an incompatible cultural shape. Without the guidance of sound dogmatics, the incautious apologist may be unaware that he is crafting a heresy.

A Postmodern Conundrum

Attached as her e-mail signature, one of my students quotes from the Ravi Zacharias book, Jesus Among Other Gods:

Truth cannot be sacrificed at the altar of a pretended tolerance.

May I briefly draw your attention to the implications of this quote for Christian living within a postmodern culture?

According to Aleksandar S. Santrac in his article "Reaching the Postmodern Mind" (Ministry, September 2007), "In postmodern culture, love is always tolerance. However, this tolerance is a theory that basically says that no one has a right to maintain belief in objective truth.

Can Christians, who maintain belief in Jesus Christ, Who is the Truth--personal, subjective, and objective--expect love or tolerance from the postmodernist, who according to their philosophy cannot love or tolerate anyone who believes in objective truth--much less the self-proclaimed Way and Truth? By dogmatic necessity, won't the postmodernist eventually declare Christians (and all dogmatic beliefs, e.g. Islam) intolerable and, thus, unlovable?

Notice how the postmodernist philosophy creates a conundrum. When they assert that "no one has a right to maintain belief in objective truth," have they not maintained belief in an objective truth? And, since they maintain belief in the objective truth that no one has a right to maintain belief in objective truth, how can the postmodernist love himself, and how can the postmodernist tolerate herself. In the words of postmodernist philosopher Foucalt, even the postmodernist "act of knowing (the truth) is . . . an act of violence." Postmodern philosophy inherently promotes sadism, masochism, and suicide.

Thus, the postmodernist has a "pretended tolerance." They really cannot tolerate; they really cannot love very well at all, can they? Therefore,should we not prepare to respond to the postmodernist according to Christ's instructions, "Love your enemy?"