Apologetics

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Apologetics
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The Nature of apologetics

• Argue logically and rationally about religion
• We respect scientific order
• Clarity
• Rationality
• Structure

• Assumptions
• Religion is irrational
• To state clearly is to ignore mystery
• Modern Philosophy is neither clear nor profound

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DEFINITIONS

• Reason - To use sound thought or judgement in
  order to systematically develop an argument in
  support of an idea or fact.
• Subjective - Ideas or facts produced by the mind
  or a particular state of mind, or feelings of the
  subject or person thinking rather than the via
  attributes of the object.
• Objective - Ideas or facts determined by and
  emphasizing the features and characteristics of
  the thing being dealt with independent of the
  mind and feelings of the subject or person
  thinking.

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APOLOGETICSThe Notion of Reason

• See our subjective, psychological, human process
  of reasoning as a participant in and reflection
  of an objective rational order, a logos, a Reason

• See reason not as confined to reasoning and
  calculating but rather as including apprehension,
  intellectual intuition, understanding, insight,
  contemplation.

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APOLOGETICS OBJECTIVE versus SUBJECTIVE

• Truth is objective
• The rational and valid truth often meet
• prejudice - passion
• ignorance - misunderstanding
• incomprehension - ideology
• rationalize personal feelings - ignore the
  evidence
• Subjective Truth must be based on Objective Truth

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APOLOGETICSThe hope is that all arguing will
begin and end with seeing and insight. We
begin with defining of terms and end with seeing
objective reality.

• Aristotelian logic (LOGOS)
• The use of (linguistic) terms, to express
  (mental) concepts, which represent (real)
  essences, or natures of things.

• Assumptions
• Either
• Metaphysical realism - essences are real
• or
• Metaphysical nominalism - essences are only human
  labels

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FAITH AND REASON ARE ALLIES

• Faith, Hope and Love hold primacy
• St. Basil The Great
• fides quarens intellectum - Faith seeking
  understanding
• credo ut intelligam - I believe in order that I
  may understand
• When faith comes first understanding follows
• BUT
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Much of what God has revealed can be reasoned to.
• We should be ready to make a defense of our faith.

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REASON AS FRIEND

• Divine authority, which can neither deceive nor
  be deceived
• Faith in this divine authority
• Hope
• Love agape
• Complement to imagery, symbol and myth which
  reveal truth

• Not human authority or fad
• Not naivete
• Not wishful thinking
• Not eros selfish passion
• Not impossible fantasies

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LOGIC (The rules of reality)The inherent
structure of human reason

• Manifests itself in three acts
• Understanding (Concepts)
• Judging
• Reasoning

• These acts are expressed in
• Terms
• (clear or unclear)
• Propositions
• (true or untrue)
• Arguments
• (logically valid or invalid)

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• We write in
• terms, propositions, arguments
• We think in
• concepts, judgements, reasoning
• Because reality includes
• essences, facts, causes
• ARGUMENTS ARE LIKE EYES THEY SEE REALITY

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Arguments can be

• Significant and Converging Clues
• Probable or Reasonable Conclusions
• Psychologically Certain
• certitude a feeling of certainty
• Demonstratively Certain
• Known truth

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THESE ARGUMENTS

• Combined purpose is to demonstrate
• Christian doctrines are true with certitude
• A FEELING OF CERTAINTY
• To disagree the argument must be shown to be
  false
• If the conclusion is true and you can not prove
  otherwise but choose to ignore it.
• You are living a lie!

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WHY DO APOLOGETICS

• The head is like the navigator
• The heart is like the captain
• Obedience to Gods will. Go
• To convince non-believers
• To instruct and build up believers
• Apologetics get at the heart through the head
• Faith for a Christian is faith in a God who is
  himself love, our lover and our beloved
• The more our hearts love someone, the more our
  minds want to no about our beloved.
• Faith naturally leads to reason through the
  agency of love
• One of the few things in life that cannot
  possibly
• do harm, in the end, is the honest pursuit of
  truth