I Did Once Say That to Me Art and the Saints Are the Greatest Apologetics for Our Faith

THE URGENCY OF A NEW APOLOGETICS
 FOR THE Church IN THE 21^ST CENTURY

Key William Levada
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

April 29, 2010

I am grateful to Fr. Pedro Barrajon, L.C., for inviting me to participate in the International Congress "A New Apologetics for a New Millennium" with these remarks about the urgency of a new apologetics at the beginning of the 21^st century. In my view, the proposal for a new apologetics is tied intimately with the phone call to a new evangelization which the Servant of God Pope John Paul II set before the Church equally the chief chore of her mission at the beginning of the third millennium of Christianity.

I retrieve very well the privilege of accompanying our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to the U.s. and the United Nations in 2008. In Washington after he spoke to the American Bishops he engaged in a dialogue with them. He was asked "to requite his assessment of the challenge of increasing secularism in public life and relativism in intellectual life and his advice on how to face these challenges pastorally and evangelize more than effectively." During his response the Pope stated, "In a gild that rightly values personal liberty, the church needs to promote at every level of her teaching – in catechesis, preaching, seminary and university instruction – an apologetics aimed at affirming the truth of Christian revelation, the harmony of faith and reason, and a audio understanding of freedom, seen in positive terms every bit a liberation both from the limitations of sin and for an accurate and fulfilling life."

Some Preliminary Considerations

We tin already infer from the brief remarks of Pope Benedict that apologetics has a double identify in theology: it finds its identify in fundamental theology, where the praeambula fidei contribute to the foundations of theological inquiry, and in pastoral theology, where theology is "inculturated" (to use a popular post-conciliar term) in preaching, catechesis and evangelization. In both of these areas apologetics has all but disappeared, but the need for information technology is perennial, as a look at the history of Christian thought shows. Hence, in my view, a "new" apologetics is non only timely but urgent from both the scientific and the pastoral point of view.

In the New Attestation, the First Letter of Peter (3:fifteen) provides the classic starting point for the project of apologetics: "Ever exist ready to give an explanation (or defence force) to anyone who asks you for a reason for your promise. But do so with courtesy and respect." The Greek word "apologia" means defense; in some recent English translation "explanation" is used. If apologetics was criticized and largely abased in the wake of the Second Vatican Council for being too defensive or as well ambitious, information technology is peradventure because the admonition to proceed with "courtesy and respect" had likewise often been ignored. But the projection of defending one's organized religion, of explaining the reasons for belief, is a perennial 1.

In his introduction to A History of Apologetics (1971), Fr. Avery Dulles, S.J., said he did non intend to write "an amends for Christianity, still less an amends for apologetics" (xvi). In this volume Dulles examines the legacy of Christian apologists through the centuries: writers like the second-century Justin "the Apologist", "Clement and Origen, Eusebius and Augustine, Aquinas and Ficino, Pascal and Butler, Newman and Blondel" (xv). In his preface Dulles writes:

"The goals and methods of apologetics have frequently shifted. The earliest apologists were primarily concerned with obtaining civil toleration for the Christian community – to prove that Christians were not malefactors deserving the death penalty. Gradually through the early centuries the apologies for Christianity became less defensive. Assuming the counteroffensive, they aimed to win converts from other groups. Some were addressed to pagans, others to Jews. Subsequently apologetics turned its attending to Moslems, then to atheists, agnostics, and religious indifferentists. Finally apologists came to recognize that every Christian harbors within himself a secret pagan. At this point apologetics became, to some extent, a dialogue between the believer and the unbeliever in the heart of the Christian himself. In speaking to his unregenerate self the apologist assumed – quite correctly – that he would best be able to reach others similarly situated" (xvi).

One of the classic masters of apologetics in England in the offset half of the twentieth century, Msgr. Ronald Knox, a convert from Anglicanism, besides embraced this double purpose in his life's pursuit of apologetical writing: "This includes not just books in which he presents a rationale for the Catholic faith to those who practise non concord it, merely too many of his conferences and sermons addressed to Catholics, in which he seeks to assist them better understand the faith they do agree" [M. Walsh, Ronald Knox as Apologist, pp. 12-13]. In his contempo book The Difference God Makes, Fundamental Francis George makes this point again: "Apologetics is important beginning of all within the Church herself. We need to give reasons for the faith not only to enlighten those who do not share it but also to strengthen those within the household of the faith" [p. 65].

Classical apologetics and the "preambula fidei"

To begin this section of my presentation, I want to entreatment once again to the master apologist Knox, who outlined the five basic questions of apologetics for his fourth dimension every bit follows: "The existence of God, the Former Attestation as prophecy, the Person of Christ, the New Testament as a reliable record, and the Church as authorized teacher" (Walsh, op.cit. p. 111).

It is not hard to run across how these basic questions presuppose and rely upon the preambles of religion, which have provided a necessary introduction to and foundation for theology at least since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, who dealt with them at length in his Summa contra gentiles. These philosophical conclusions – about the human power to know objective truth, nearly the existence and spiritual nature of the soul, about the existence of a personal God, and about the necessity of faith – were the necessary preparation both for theology and for practical apologetics.

My own preconciliar (Vatican 2, that is) theology grade "De Revelatione," taught for his last time by Fr. Sebastian Tromp, S.J., in 1958, began with an introduction "de theologia fundamentali apologetica," and proceeded along the classic lines to discuss the possibility and fact of revelation, and the testimony of Christ – his miracles and the fulfillment of Onetime Testament prophecies – that grounded the credibility of Christian revelation. I was ordained in 1961 and returned to Los Angeles to work in a parish and teach faith, including apologetics, to high school seniors. When I returned for my doctorate after the Council, I took a course on revelation from Tromp's successor Fr. Rene Latourelle, S.J. In the span of those few years (from earlier to afterwards Vatican II), the shape of the theology of revelation taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University had changed drastically, to the point where I retrieve it is fair to say that apologetics no longer made an appearance in the theological curriculum. It is true, of grade, that the directives for priestly formation continued to emphasize philosophy every bit a requirement for candidates for priesthood, and the praeambula fidei, specially as emphasized in Dei Filius of Vatican I, would normally exist presented there.

The transformation of apologetics into primal theology was nether discussion throughout the period before the Council. The late Professor Ralph McInerny's volume Praeambula Fidei illustrates the interesting development of this transformation amidst Aquinas' spiritual and intellectual "sons" in the Dominican theological faculties. Moreover, at the Gregorian Fr. Latourelle preferred to speak of a "new image" of fundamental theology, since the basic problems of revelation and brownie remain part of the discipline. In a 1980 commodity he listed the following developments in theology that contributed to the changed condition of apologetics: "renewal in biblical and patristic studies that plant a much richer reality in revelation and organized religion," and a "renewed ecumenical impulse that changed the oft aggressive and polemical mental attitude of the former apologetics into an openness for dialogue" [cf. R. Latourelle, "Nuova Immagine della Fondamentale," in: Problemi e prospettive di teologia fondamentale, Latourelle – O'Collins, eds. Queriniana, Brescia, 1980].

The "richer reality" contained in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum (chap. 1) has been illustrated in comparisons between this conciliar text and the previous capacity of Dei Filius promulgated at Vatican I almost 100 years before. For our purposes I will offer this example, illustrated by excerpts from then-Prof. Joseph Ratzinger'southward commentary on Dei Verbum written before long after the Quango (cf. the v-volume Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, edited past A. Grillmeier and published in 1969).

Dei Verbum vi explicitly cites Dei Filius, albeit in abridged class, with regard to the ability to know God by human being reason: "The holy synod professes that 'God, the beginning principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world, by the natural lite of man reason (encounter Romans ane:20)." Ratzinger's comments are pertinent to our question of a transition away from "classical" apologetics: "In 1870 people had started with the natural cognition of God and had moved on from this to 'supernatural' revelation. Vatican II has non only avoided the technical term supernaturalis, which belongs likewise much to the world of concrete thinking (still indispensable the term may be for the time being), but followed the opposite procedure. It develops revelation from its Christological middle, in club then to present the inescapable responsibleness of human reason as 1 dimension of the whole. This shows that the human relation to God does not consist of ii more or less contained parts, but is indivisibly one; there is no such affair as a natural faith in itself, merely each religion is 'positive', though because of its very positivity it does not exclude the responsibility of thought, just includes it. Vatican 2 had no reason to suppress this bones thought developed with such care by Vatican I; on the contrary, in dealing with the onslaughts of atheism it will take increasing importance" (vol. 3, pp. 179-80).

How prophetic those words are, when we see the likes of Richard Dawkins and his fellow apostles of the and then-chosen "new" atheism addressing thousands on college campuses, with books caricaturing the doctrines and philosophy of the Christian tradition on the best seller lists. How ripe the times are for a new apologetics!

Well-nigh a decade ago, when I was Archbishop of San Francisco, I was invited to give a lecture at the Jesuit University of San Francisco; I chose every bit my topic "Toward a New Apologetics." When I was preparing for the talk, I called Cardinal Avery Dulles to ask if he had e'er fulfilled his desire to follow up his volume on the history of apologetics with a companion slice on the theory of apologetics, which would nowadays the tasks, methods and prospects of apologetics in the light of the needs of the contemporary church. He said regretfully that he had not. Now that he has been called home to God, he has left that projection to others. Only the usefulness of such a work for a renewed apologetics seems undeniable.

The shape of a new apologetics

What would a new apologetics look like? From the above, I hope I can take for granted that it volition have its scientific basis in a renewed fundamental theology, where faith and reason, brownie and truth, are explored as necessary foundations of the Catholic Christian organized religion. Only the faith must ever be newly thought through when it has to appoint new situations, new generations, new cultures. Here are a few suggestions that can provide some points for reflection well-nigh the "new" apologetics ever more urgently needed in our times.

In October of 1999, Pope John Paul II addressed his brother bishops making their advertizement limina visit from western Canada, inviting them to engage people of today in a dialogue which embodies iv indispensable qualities – clarity, humanity, conviction and prudence. He suggested that these should mark the project of a "new atoning".

Pope Bridegroom, in his 2008 meeting with the clergy of the Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone, said that for him "art and the Saints are the greatest apologetic for our faith." He calls the Saints a "great luminous trail on which God passed through history." Nearly Christian art and music, he suggests that "in a certain way they are proof of the truth of Christianity: center and reason encounter one another, beauty and truth converge …"

In improver to these thoughtful observations almost a new apologetics provided by Popes John Paul and Bridegroom, it seems correct to mention such American pioneers of the new apologetics as Scott Hahn and Frank Keating; I want to cite in particular Cardinal Francis George's long-continuing involvement in contributions to the subject field: he writes (again in The Difference God Makes), "During the Synod for America [1997], I suggested that an integral part of the new evangelization must be a new apologetics – a loving and nondefensive but nevertheless articulate response to the arguments against the Catholic faith. These include arguments raised on the one hand by those who misrepresent God's Give-and-take past reading the Bible as a code, and on the other hand claims by others that all religions, simply especially Catholicism, are an illusion that destroys personal happiness and critical scientific intelligence" (p. 65). He goes on to detect, "In the face of triumphant human reason at the stop of the nineteenth century, the First Vatican Council taught that faith is non irrational. Ironically, at the finish of the twentieth century, the Church is saying [due east.g. Pope John Paul 2's Encyclical Alphabetic character Fides et Ratio] that faith must rescue reason from its own self-inflicted wound of skepticism. … A new apologetics must therefore be grounded in a philosophy that grants the sciences their rightful autonomy but non a hegemony; it must make utilise of a philosophy that is open to contemporary concepts, especially those that promote an appreciation for human subjectivity and for the centrality of human freedom in our feel. In an effective apologetics, reason finds itself strengthened in its dialogue with faith, and vice versa" (p. 71).

To the higher up I would just add together these reflections of my own, conscious that today's chore requires an always greater coherence between faith and life past the ane who "gives an explanation or defence" of his belief and hope in Christ.

A new apologetics for the new millennium should focus on the beauty of God'southward cosmos. For this apologetic to be credible, we must pay greater attention to the mystery and the beauty of Catholic worship, of a sacramental vision of the world that lets us recognize and value the beauty of creation as a foreshadowing of the new heavens and the new globe envisioned in two Peter and the Volume of Revelation. We must non hesitate to bow to the ground in reverence and take off our shoes when we stand on holy ground.

The witness of our lives as believers who put our religion into do by piece of work for justice and charity as followers who imitate Jesus, our Main, is an important dimension of our credibility as dialogue partners in a time of a new apologetics. Our solidarity with our swain citizens, whose sense of responsibleness may be partial but real – expressed in causes for the environment, for the poor, for economic justice – is important. At the same time, our power to articulate the total vision of truth, justice and charity is essential to ensure that such witness and activity is not only a passing phase, but can make a lasting contribution to the cosmos of culture of beloved.

A dialogue about the meaning and purpose of human freedom is essential in today's civilization. If freedom is directed toward reinforcing the individualism of a "me-showtime" culture, it will never realize the potential offered by the One who made us in his own paradigm and likeness equally complimentary to answer to the great gift of divine honey.

Nosotros need to pursue the dialogue with scientific discipline and technology. Many scientists speak of their personal faith; all the same the public confront of science is resolutely agnostic. Here is a fertile and necessary field for dialogue. Teilhard de Chardin attempted an apologetics for the world of science with great imagination, though not entirely successfully. Surely the new millennium will offer new opportunities to expand this central dimension of the dialogue between faith and reason. And among the questions that nearly need attention today is that of development in relation to the doctrine of creation.

A new apologetics can besides learn from the "old" apologetics. I recently reread C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, a staple on university campuses (at to the lowest degree in the English language-speaking globe) since I was in school. This archetype apologetics began every bit a series of radio lectures circulate during Earth War II. I asked myself why the BBC had called to offer such broadcasts, when they brand no mention of the war. My reply – I know non whether information technology is correct – is that people in those desperate years yearned to make sense of the death-dealing guns and bombs, the shortages and the sacrifices. They needed the reverse of "desperation" – they needed hope!

I constitute interesting the principal theme of Lewis' argument for God and Christianity: the innate sense of right and wrong, of good and evil, as proof of a divine writer. Here again is a primal theme for apologetics: the longing for the good, and its related themes of a natural moral police force and of the validity of human reason common to all humanity. For Lewis, as for today's apologetics, an important sub-theme was a correct understanding of man sexuality.

Finally, a new apologetics must take into account the ecumenical and interfaith context of any dialogue nigh religious faith in a secular earth. I practise not agree with those who suggest that the time for a specific Catholic apologetics has passed. But questions of spirit and faith engage all the great religious traditions and must be addressed with an openness to interfaith dialogue. Similarly, our ecumenical progress has shown united states the many gifts we share in common with fellow Christians: the Anglican C.S. Lewis is just 1, even if outstanding, instance. Our apologetics will only be strengthened by common witness and testimony with our fellow Christians about the purpose of God's revelation in Christ, for our own lives and for the globe in which we live.

As I attain my conclusion, I turn in one case again to Fundamental Dulles. In preparation for a new publication of his Testimony to Grace, the story of his conversion to Catholicism, Dulles drafted a new Afterword called "Reflections on a Theological Journey". I department of this reflection seems especially concerning here.

Dulles wrote, "Many Catholic theologians, unclear about the importance of the faith that comes through hearing, have been reluctant to align themselves with the telephone call to proclaim the Gospel. Bourgeois protestant groups, although they have a formulation of the Gospel that I would regard as very inadequate, are far more than committed to the task of evangelization. Having drifted away from the missionary commitments of their forebears, Catholics are simply beginning to catch upward with Pentecostal and Biblicist Protestants. Nonetheless the Catholic Church, with its rich intellectual and cultural heritage, has resources for evangelization that are bachelor to no other group. Nosotros demand a more outgoing, dynamic church, less distracted by internal controversy, more focused on the Lordship of Jesus Christ, more responsive to the Spirit and more capable of united action" (p. 139).

How we might hope and pray with Cardinal Dulles that as nosotros imitate the zeal of some of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters in proclaiming Christ, we might be able to share with them the riches of the Catholic and universal tradition of faith in Jesus Christ. This seems especially important to enable Catholics to counter an often over-simplified appeal made by then-called "sects".

The call for a new apologetics for the 21^st century does not, in my view, amount to a "mission impossible". The spirit of gimmicky society is skeptical of truth, of the claims to know the truth, even – or specially – of truth revealed by God. The relativization of truth is non the necessary precondition of real dialogue; the desire to know the other in the fullness of his or her humanity is. Thus information technology should exist possible after all to find the truth of the mind and of the heart in just such a dialogue where at that place emerges what Christians have learned to exist the mind and strength and heart and soul of the Gospel revealed in Jesus: that God is dear, and that our creation in God'due south image and likeness makes all humanity able to love God above all things and beloved our neighbor as ourselves. For this is the challenge given to apologists throughout the history of the Church: to let people know the reason for our Christian organized religion and hope with all courtesy and respect (cf. ane Peter 3:15).

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Source: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20100429_levada-new-apologetics_en.html

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