Contending For The Faith---Part 2

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

Campaign Slogans Against God

In 1992, the detestable Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States using  the slogan, "It's the economy, stupid." The economic boom of the Reagan era was over, and sitting President George H. W. Bush was taking the flak. Bush was continuing to talk about abortion and the role of religion in public life, while Clinton was basically saying: "Jobs and prices are all that really matter." The catchphrase (and the message it represented) worked; Clinton defeated Bush in November. 

Here in New York City ("The Woke Capital of the World"), it's fashionable to be atheistic, agnostic, or even indifferent about religious belief because "all beliefs are more or less good and lead to God." Many times I make acquaintance with one of these people and all they really have to offer is a bumper sticker slogan, much like Clinton in 1992. Many people don't know how to respond, and the foe of God appears to win with his "intellectual zinger."  Had I been running against Bill Clinton, I would have had a bumper sticker with a picture of an aborted child in the third trimester with the slogan, "It's a baby, stupid." 

The thrust of Clinton's message was "a robust economy is of more importance than abortion." However, if abortion is murder, you're claiming that killing innocent babies is "no big deal" compared to inflation. The implicit premise is that abortion is not murder, so the economy is what really matters. Juxtapose a picture of Hitler with people being taken to Dachau, and have have the Fuhrer say, "We need to concentrate on what's really important, the economy, dummkopf!" Just like that the wind gets taken out of the sails in Slick Willie's slogan, and the debate shifts to where it belongs--the humanity of the unborn.

In this post, I will present three such anti-God slogans, and how to respond.

"If God Existed, His Presence Would Be Obvious"

This is commonly called the argument of the "hiddenness of God." If God existed, He would make Himself known like things we see around us everyday. Skipping the complex philosophical arguments, the common-talking person will say, "Religious people keep trying to prove that God exists. No one tries to prove the Earth exists, or that trees exist. Surely, God should be as obvious as that! So where is God hiding?" 

Four points may be made:

• When you look at the Pieta, where is Michelangelo hidden? He is not inside the statue or a part of it, yet the existence of the statue itself points towards a creator. God is not just another piece of the universe like the Earth or a tree, so we cannot expect to perceive Him the same way. The universe cries out that there is a Creator. 

• If God made Himself more obvious, people would not necessarily follow Him. People know they should eat right, exercise, not smoke, not drink to excess, etc., yet many people do it anyway. People who kept God's Laws would do it more from fear than love, stopping growth in character. It's akin to someone donating to charity whose sole motivation is to impress other people.

• The Fall of our First Parents contributed to hiddenness. A more intimate experience of God was given-up as a consequence of Original Sin and living in a fallen world.

• God is not the same as us and we cannot apply human expectations to Him; He has His own reasons. Isaiah 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. Romans 11:33-34, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?

"Religion is the cause of wars and violence. If God existed, He wouldn't have a religion."

This is not a direct attack on God's existence, but is an indirect attempt to show that religion is not good and cannot come from God if He did exist. This line is usually taken by the "I'm spiritual but not religious" crowd. Be prepared to hear the person mention the Inquisition, witch hunts, the Crusades, 9/11 terrorist attacks, etc. I suggest you do not get drawn into arguing about specific events (e.g., the Inquisition). Instead, attack the basic premise of this assertion because it is demonstrably false.

• Just because people misuse religion to fight wars or incite violence, does not make the religion false. Christ did not want people unnecessarily fighting wars or doing acts of violence. There is the Just War principle. However, all of this can be misused. You can use a knife to cut your steak or stab your dinner guest to death. It's the misuse of the steak knife to kill someone that is wrong/evil, not the steak knife itself which was not intended for that purpose. 

• There have been more wars and acts of violence from atheism. The Soviet Union under Stalin, Communist China, the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror, Hitler's Nazi Germany all had wars/acts of violence without religious causes. 

• According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, (2004), by Phillips and Axelrod, only 123 out of 1,763 wars were motivated by religion. That's only about 7%. Hardly a majority. 

"You Believe in Christ because you live in the United States and had Christian parents. If you lived in Saudi Arabia, you'd believe in Mohammed and Islam"

I've heard this one many times. What's the unspoken premise? That geography and your surroundings growing up determine your beliefs. Hence, if you're born in India, you must be a Hindu; if you're born in Israel, you must be Jewish. While it's true that upbringing and culture have a strong influence on beliefs and behavior, they cannot be determinative unless you deny free will. Moreover, there is ample evidence that beliefs are not unalterably determined by circumstances. 

Consider the following three assertions:

1. Most people inherit their religious beliefs.

2. There are very few who believe in Christ living in Saudi Arabia, and many such believers in the United States.

3. Christ is True God and True Man.

There is nothing that prevents all three statements from being simultaneously true. Ask the person who says this bumper sticker statement, "Do you believe that women should have equal rights with men?" Of course, he will respond "Yes." (If they start with the "What about trans-women" nonsense, change the question to "Do you believe in equal rights for LGTBQIA+ people?") Then say, "Well you only believe in that because you live in America. If you were living in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a Moslem and would be against equal rights for women and homosexuals, right?" They will protest that they believe in equal rights  not only because of where they live and how they were raised, but because they studied the issue and came to this conclusion. Then flip it on them: "Well that could also be equally true in matters of religion."

This anti-religious statement claiming that circumstances determine religion is based on what is called the genetic fallacy in logic. The fallacy says that a proposition is wrong (or correct) based on where the idea originated. A claim is ignored in favor of attacking or exalting its source. 2+2=4 is true and doesn't become false because Stalin said it. 2+2=5 is wrong, even if St. Francis of Assisi said it. 

Conclusion

We live in an age of soundbites and memes. People repeat short and seemingly sagacious one or two line statements without bothering to think about what those sayings really imply. To defend against such attacks on God and His One True Church, always think about what this "witty person" is really spewing. When you can see the underlying contention, you can expose both the claim and the person making it to be--to paraphrase Shakespeare-- "shadows without substance."