Christian apologetics

“ But even this new attitude of mind is not very favourable to us. For, even when the need of the existence of a supernatural and Divine world, and of getting into personal communion with it, is felt, all the other questions of the religious problem must be solved by means of historical and psychological research, the method of which remains hitherto unknown to our apologetic. It is on this account that that apologetic no longer satisfies men's souls, and has lost the power of revealing to them the attraction of the Christian life. ”

“ The thought may be shallow and poor in itself, but in such cases it comes not out of the shallows but out of the depths of a mind torn by distracting doubts in the face of the dreadful problems of life.
Out of the same depth of spiritual experience and trenchant moral analysis comes all that is true and valuable in his so-called ‘Apology.’ That the ‘Pensées’ were more or less designed to form such an Apology—to be woven into the plan of a treatise in defence of the Christian religion—seems beyond doubt. ”

“ And to confirm the truth of these words, apologists have had only to show the religious state in the course of Christian ages, and even at the present day, forming the fairest ornament, as well as the greatest strength, of the Church ; giving to God the glory which so many men refuse him ”

“ The vices of the Atheist they ascribe to his creed. The vices of the Christian to anything but his creed. Let professors of Christianity be convicted of gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not Christians. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of Christianity coolly assures us such conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion—moss which grows on the stock of his piety. ”

“ Every apology for Christianity must henceforth make great account of the intrinsic proofs of religion, without which people of the world would be more and more drawn to see the church only on her human side. ”

“ Christian apology has its own sphere, no less than science; and the evidence which the one desiderates is not the supreme life and power of the other. It may not on this account be the less satisfactory or the less rational when the whole life of humanity is looked at.
If we ask ourselves, in conclusion, what is the chief charm of the ‘Pensées,’ we feel inclined to answer,—their touching reality. They are the utterances of one who thought not only deeply but passionately. ”

“ And here We cannot but deplore once more, and grievously, that there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order - and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, order - and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists. ”

“ Scorn is hurled in our faces and the reputation accorded us is that of deceivers. The Christian must not only be unknown, friendless and a stranger, but men will also be ashamed of him—even his best friends—in consequence of the reproach and evil report under which he lies in the eyes of the great, the wealthy, the wise and the powerful of the world. ”

“ The moral impossibility of the assumptions of these apologies is seen by all who have eyes for seeing things as they are in the fact that if God is credited with the good He must also be debited with the evil. ”

“ Concerning the mysterious judgments and ways of God the Apology says: "At the same time we do not deny that God does not work alike in all men, enlightening all,—for neither does He give His Word to all,—and that nevertheless He is and remains both just and merciful, and that nobody can justly accuse Him of any unfaithfulness, envy, or tyranny, although He does not, as said, give His Word to all and enlighten them. ”

“ Every Christian is bound to judge them unfit for communion and familiar converse. They are to be punished, by having this mark of disgrace put upon them, that they may be shamed, and, if possible, reclaimed thereby: and the more because the sins of such much more dishonour God than the sins of the openly wicked and profane can do. ”

“ The apostle explains what he means by being dead to sin, and ceasing from sin, both negatively and positively. Negatively, a Christian ought no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the sinful lusts and corrupt desires of carnal wicked men; but, positively, he ought to conform himself to the revealed will of the holy God. Learn, 1. The lusts of men are the springs of all their wickedness, Jam. i. 13, 14. Let occasional temptations be what they will, they could not prevail, were it not for men's own corruptions. ”

“ And why should not such denunciations fall on idolaters under the Papacy as well as on others? Is it not true that there is as real idolatry there as in the heathen world? Is not the idolatry as gross and debasing? Is it not attended with as real corruption in the heart and the life? Is it not encompassed with as many things to inflame the passions, corrupt the morals, and alienate the soul from God? And is it not all the worse for being a perversion of Christianity, and practised under the forms of the religion of the Saviour? ”

“ As early as the time of Justin Martyr, the Christian apologist could boast that 'there is no race of men, whether of Barbarians or of Greeks, or bearing any other name, either because they live in wagons without fixed habitation, or in tents leading a pastoral life, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Maker of the universe, through the name of the crucified Jesus.' But in the year 400 it needed not that an apologist should direct attention to the fact. ”

“ Now for this necessary width of the full confirmatory evidence of religion, it is impossible for the religious man, with the utmost desire to make every allowance and apology that is possible, to offer any apology at all. ”

“ Others take a milder view—that the circumstance of ingratitude aggravates the sin to which it is attached, only venially. For this ingratitude attaches itself to all sin. Theologians teach that it is especially to be discerned and taken account of in four kinds of sins; namely, hatred, apostasy, obstinacy and impenitence. For these four are directly repugnant to the very essence of the remission of sins; that is to say, either to faith, or charity, or repentance. ”

“ Probably no book since the beginning of Christianity has ever been so useful to the church as Butler's Analogy, in solving the doubts of believers or causing them to ignore exceptions, as well as in silencing unbelievers. The office of apologetic is to defend the church, not to build it up. Argument is not the life of the church. ”

“ But the cause is growing still more desperate. For, are the Christian Apologists to be charged with this evil principle [73] ? and that only for maintaining, in their occasional disputes with the heathens; what the ablest Divines have ever done, and still continue to maintain, the insufficiency of miracles alone, and if taken by themselves, to establish the divinity of any revelation? an opinion founded, as it should seem, on the express testimony of Jesus Christ [74] ”

“ No man, said Christus, could be forgiven sins by him, except he had ‘faith;’ and in the same way his followers maintain that without ‘faith,’ it is impossible to obtain the forgiveness of sins, but by faith the worst of sinners can be forgiven. ”

“ Instead of seeking their pardon from a poor and miserable sinner, weak and tempted as they are, let them go to Christ, the only strong and perfect man, the only hope and salvation of the world.
O poor deluded Catholic woman! listen no longer to the deceiving words of the Church of Rome, who has no pardon, no peace for you, but only snares; who offers you thraldom and shame in return for the confession of your sins! But listen rather to the invitations of your Saviour, who has died on the cross that you might be saved, and who alone can give rest to your weary souls. ”

“ Those that think to excuse themselves in unchristian practices with the Christian name, and sin the more boldly and securely because there is a sin-offering provided, do, in effect, make God's house of prayer a den of thieves, as the priests in Christ's time, Matt. xxi. 13. But could they thus impose upon God? No: Behold, I have seen it, saith the Lord, have seen the real iniquity through the counterfeit and dissembled piety. Note, Though men may deceive one another with the appearances of devotion, yet they cannot deceive God. ”

“ Nay, let him proclaim it boldly and defend it bravely, like a knight-banneret in the army of the Lord of hosts; and, whatever the cost, let him urge its claims with becoming zeal upon all whom his voice can reach. To neglect this is not charity, but apathy; not humility, but lukewarmness; not liberality of opinion, but infidelity to Christ. "The Lord hath spoken; who can but prophesy?" Christ hath commanded us to proselyte all nations; shall we be recreant to our responsibility? What value do we set upon the faith which we are not willing to defend—which we attempt not to teach to the world? ”

“ It is supposed that, by force of sympathy, every disciple of Christus has a power of raising up men beneath him in goodness, whom they call sinners. This ‘sympathy’ they call bearing the sins of others, and the result of it is forgiveness; and Christus is said by them to have brought this power into the world and to have bequeathed it to his disciples. It differs, they say, from our ‘forgiveness,’ in that it means not the mere remission of punishment, but the putting away of sin itself. ”

“ We have tried to do our best, and no one can do more. If any expressions have escaped us that may appear offensive, we are ready to make the most ample apology, but not at the sacrifice of a particle of truth. If, through ignorance or inadvertence, errors have been committed, we hold ourselves ready to retract them; and retract, beforehand, anything that may, in the slightest degree, be injurious, not to say contrary, to Catholic doctrine, and submit ourselves unreservedly in this point to the judgment of ecclesiastical authority. ”

“ And although, as is the custom of the world it cannot be but that offenses have occurred in this schism through malice and by imprudent people; for the devil causes such offenses, to disgrace the Gospel, yet all this is of no account in view of the great comfort which this teaching has brought men, that for Christ's sake, without our merit, we have forgiveness of sins and a gracious God. ”

“ And the apostle tells us expresly, the ungodly: He, that is, God, justifieth the ungodly: the ungodly of every kind and degree, and none but the ungodly. As they that are righteous need no repentance, so they need no forgiveness. It is only sinners that have any occasion for pardon: it is sin alone which admits of being forgiven. ”

“ He rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ as indignantly as a Christian would the divinity of the pagan deities—often expressed his surprise that any enlightened man could be brought to believe in the doctrine of the atonement—and regarded the belief in the reality of a supernatural influence over the human mind, as one of the corruptions of Christianity, which exposed it to the ridicule and contempt of infidels. ”

“ Is he not, by way of eminence, the apostle of infidelity, who, as a minister of the gospel or a professor of sacred literature, exerts himself, with whatever arts of ingenuity or show of piety, to exalt the Bible at the expense of reason? Let such arts succeed and such piety prevail, and Jesus Christ is "crucified afresh and put to an open shame." ”

“ This revived belief in the inspiration of the individual has immensely strengthened the position of Christian apologists, who find their old fortifications no longer tenable against the assaults of natural science and historical criticism. It has given to faith a new independence, and has vindicated for the spiritual life the right to stand on its own feet and rest on its own evidence. Spiritual things, we now realise, are spiritually discerned. ”

“ In the Apology, after contrasting the judicial treatment of Christians with that of other accused persons, he refutes the accusations brought against the Christians of atheism, eating human flesh and licentiousness, and in doing so takes occasion to make a vigorous and skilful attack on pagan polytheism and mythology. The discourse on the resurrection answers objections to the doctrine, and attempts to prove its truth from considerations of God’s purpose in the creation of man, His justice and the nature of man himself. ”

“ True charity forbids us to despise those who are in error; on the contrary, it teaches us to pity and to love them. But there is a great difference between loving those in error, and loving the error itself; there is a vast difference between loving the sinner and loving his sins.
It is not our business to say whether this or that one who was not received into the Church before his death is damned. What we condemn is the Protestant and the heathen system of religion, because they are utterly false; but we do not condemn any person—God alone is the judge of all. ”

“ Catholics lose their faith by their sins, and chiefly by the sin of pride. All heretics and apostates show this in their conduct and in their words. They adhere to their own opinions and refuse to submit to the divine teaching of the church. O dear brethren! let us fear this sin of pride more than all other sin—a temptation, too, that is very apt to come up when we are ridiculed by unbelievers for our faith. Then is the time to confess the truth boldly, for if we deny our Lord before men he will deny us before the face of his Father in heaven. ”