Apologetics is essentially “defending” something as opposed to say proselytizing (in the example of Christianity). It’s frequently used for indefensible topics like rape apologists (the type to suggest the victim was asking for it or could have tried harder to say no) or Nazi’s (the usual propaganda). Christian apologists tend to hand wave or ignore the atrocities because “god is an absolute “good”” therefore anything he does is by definition “good” and us mere mortals can’t understand the divine plan. Babies dying? God is good. Babies dying and going to hell because they are unable to accept Jesus because they literally are unable to understand the concept? God is good.
I’m sorry that you felt the need to compare those who spread Christian doctrine with rape apologists and Nazis, but there are some things I don’t like about your comment. Chances are you are not interested in hearing them (at least judging from the wording you used), but someone else in this thread might be.
Yes, God is an absolute good. Yes, we cannot understand Him. Most “atrocities”, like you called them, come from men being given free will by God and drifting away from His teachings, thus doing stuff that isn’t good. God is good.
If a baby dies and is baptized they go straight to Heaven. If a baby dies and isn’t baptized we don’t actually know for sure what happens (it is never explained in the Bible), but by interpreting other aspects of Christian dogma we can hope and assume that they too would be saved. On this topic I recommend the following read, by the International Theological Commission
[There are] grounds for hope that unbaptised infants who die will be saved and enjoy the Beatific Vision. We emphasise that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us.
If there are other “atrocities” that you can think of and you’d like to discuss, I’d be happy to.
EDIT: boy did this blow up. I’m sorry for the replies I have left unanswered but I don’t have the time or energy to give any more nuanced answers on the topic. I am also not an all knowing expert of Christian / Catholic theology, I am simply trying to spread some awareness and a different view, on a platform that is evidently mostly Atheistic. If you have further questions the Internet will likely have the answers you seek, expressed better than I could anyway. Cheers.
I mean, I don’t believe it but bible believers do; how about the global flood? Various plagues in Egypt as well as ending the whole party with killing off all first-born sons? Commending genocide (multiple times)? Enabling chattel slavery? Obliterating Sodom and Gomora(sp?). Ooh, on that same point, didn’t he just turn Lot’s wife into salt because he looked at her? All the stuff he did to Job to win a bet? And I think Jesus set a wild bear on a bunch of kids because they were bullying some guy?
Those are off the top of my head, but I know there’s more.
There are some protestants who believe the literal words (usually in the King James Bible) are all literally exactly true, but I think the majority of Christians including Catholics and Orthodox believe that it can be metaphorical or mythical in parts. This is often couched in disclaimers saying it’s true, but the truth is it didn’t have to be literal or something like that
Those who believe everything literally happened have a much harder time defending all the “evil” stuff God did, while those who don’t can at least say we probably just don’t understand that bit.
Everyone believes it to be metaphorical or mythical “in part” the difference is where they draw that line.
Outside of YEC Flat Earthers everyone believes that passage in Exodus where the sun stopped moving to be a metaphor, but most evangelical Christians still take the creation story to be literal.
That is spot on. Contrary to Protestant (and in particular Evangelical) belief, the Catholic Church teaches that there are four senses through which one can read Scripture: one is literal, while the other three are spiritual (allegorical, moral and anagogical) and can help us interpret Christ’s message and how we should or should not behave during our earhthly lives. This is the relevant section from the Catechism.
I am not familiar with Orthodox theology, but I would assume they would have a similar position on the topic.
So which sense do we use to interpret the rules set out on how to get/treat slaves? How is that interpreted? Is it a metaphor? And how do you know which is which?
What it sounds like is you have lots of leeway to account for what you choose to believe is truth or fiction to fit your needs at any given moment. And if you’re not sure what, if any, is literally true, how do you know there’s a god at all? And you’re defending Catholicism, which is in for an even more uphill battle than most because it’s been around longer and has to account for all the beliefs that have had to be updated as knowledge and culture had changed.
1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.”
1739 Freedom and sin. Man’s freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God’s plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom.
If instead you were looking for philosophical evidence for God’s existance, I recommend reading Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways.
The primary issue with Aquinas is that he’s essentially pairing a “god of the gaps” fallacy with philosophical ideas that predate the scientific method we would need in order to functionally claim most of what he’s talking about.
For example, he declares with confidence in his fourth way that because somethings are hotter, colder, etc. that there must also be an ultimate good just like there is ultimate heat. He begins the claim with scientific observation and then immediately rolls it into the field of philosophy and ethics. Now someone from the year 500AD might not consider that an issue since the scientific method didn’t even exist at the time and all natural philosophy was on the same playing field, but modern people wouldn’t consider those two fields to just be overlapping and logically interchangeable in that manner.
In the fifth way he claims that because certain beings have agency (or sapience, like us) and certain objects do not, that all non sapient objects must operate according to a being with said agency. This is patently untrue with modern scientific understanding as well, water flows because of friction and gravity, not because it was caused to do so by a god of some variety. Rocks fall, seasons change, etc. all due to natural processes. Not because there NEEDS to be a being with knowledge that guides it.
It’s interesting because this claim is foundless as he hasn’t proven that all objects operate based on a “plan” of some variety, he merely makes the claim that a plan from a sapient being is required for anything to happen and then begins to assess conclusions based on said claim. Moreso than that, it occurs in contradiction with his attempted understanding at potential and kinetic energy from the first way. He seems to have an idea about potential energy but then throws it out to just claim that objects or animals without knowledge operate on something else’s will.
Thus beginning a long standing religious tradition of using scientific rhetoric where its helpful and attempting to shoehorn philosophy in where it contradicts or fails to uphold.
Ok so first off, thank you for typing out a well thought argument.
I posted a summed up version of the five ways, rather than the full text, and now I realize that probably was a mistake. I just wanted to make sure people would have read it, most would have ignored a wall of text. Instead, I will directly quote the full text in my answers here.
Here is a TL;DR, cause this will be long:
Thus beginning a long standing religious tradition of using scientific rhetoric where its helpful and attempting to shoehorn philosophy in where it contradicts or fails to uphold.
I don’t think he tried to use scientific rethoric at all, nor that any philosophical shoehorning has happened. Rather, it’s entirely philosophy. Doesn’t mean it’s perfect or necessarily correct, but we gotta call it the way it is. I also think you might be trying a bit too hard to interpret it as science, while that’s not really what the Summa was meant to be. Some of your conclusions were drawn from the summary I posted not being accurate (sorry about that, btw) and I adressed them by quoting the full text.
Starting from the fourth way:
Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
You correctly criticized his mistake in using fire as the source of maximum heat and mixing in scientifical evidence with philosophy, but the full text tells a more nuanced story.
Fire here is more of an example, rather than pure scientifical evidence. It’s also not the basis of the point he is adressing here. That would instead be more abstract (and wouldn’t you know it, philosophical) concepts like “good” and “true”. So while your discussion on splitting natural sciences and philosophy makes a lot of sense, I don’t think it applies here.
Onto the fifth way:
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.
In truth, I think this is the most beautiful of the five ways and the one that, to me,makes the most sense from a scientific perspective. I remained of the opinion that Aquinas wasn’t trying to bring in natural sciences into this one, but since you brought up “modern scientifical understanding” I will do my best to make some sense of it, according to modern science.
The message here is not as easy as water flowing because of gravity. It’s also not as easy as “what was before the Big Bang?”, because that would be, like you said, vulnerable to the “God of the gaps” counter argument.
Rather, starting from the universal constants such as the Boltzmann constant which regulates all of thermodinamycs; the speed of light in a vacuum, which regulates all existing radiation or the gravitational constant, which regulates how all matter and time interact; through science we get a very clear picture of how many pieces needed to fall into place for reality as we know it to come together, let alone life to be possible. According to this modern interpretation, the fifth way states that in order for the universe to exist as we know it, defined according to these specific constants, it must have happened through a higher being, a creator.
Here, actually, is the only place where I see a possible mistake, because on a logical level he doesn’t prove definitively that the existence of God is the only solution to the problem, the hypothesis of a coincidence remains on the table. However I personally think, when put in this perspective, the religious hypothesis remains the more believable one.
On your last point, I don’t see how the fifth way would violate what he has established from the first way. The fifth claims that motion of inanimate objects happens naturally and repeatedly because of “some intelligent being […] [whom] we call God”. The first instead says that God was the first who put everything in motion, and that because of that things have been kept in motion ever since the universe began. I think these two point go hand in hand, rather than being opposed:
God first created the universe, by putting things in motion. God also defined the patters according to which things should have moved after his initial “push”. This makes perfect sense to me.
So your original comment asked what are apologists, then you go into typical apologetics arguments? Quite funny really.
Everything before your last sentence presupposes your personal interpretation of your god.
I’m not looking for philosophical evidence. I’m looking for objective evidence. And Aquinas is catastrophically out of his depth with his “5 Ways”. Pretty much every line has some error. Further, even if it were true, to take the end result of each of those individually and then say “Clearly this is the Christian god of the Bible and definitely not any other god humans have believed in or a coincidence or have any rational explanation.” is the height of arrogance.
I know, right? Like I said it was mostly a semantics issue, I wasn’t sure what OP meant. When they kindly clarified their question I gave them my answer, coming from a different perspective from most of the commenters.
Then in you came, and started slandering my religion. Like you might have guessed it didn’t quite sit right with me. Assuming you are an Atheist, it’s like I came at you saying that “Atheists have no morals” or “Atheists are nothing but hedonists”. I don’t think you would have liked it. So I tried my best to provide sensible answers to your remarks. I guess that makes me too an apologist; I don’t really have a problem with that label.
Everything before your last sentence presupposes your personal interpretation of your god.
No, it is the interpretation of the Catholic Church, which is the church followed by most Christians on this planet.
I’m not looking for philosophical evidence […]
Alright, you do you then. It seems to me that you are trying to explain God through science, and I’m not sure whether that is possible. Science, from a Christian perspective, is the study of God’s creation. Inferring knowledge about the creator from His creation seems like an arduous task to me. I think using reasoning and philosophy would be a more reasonable option.
Clearly this is the Christian god of the Bible and definitely not any other god humans have believed in […]
One step at a time. Once we are both on the same page that a higher being exist and the universe and life aren’t just the product of mere coincidence we can discuss why I think the “Christian God”, like you called him, is the right interpretation. But first you would need to accept religion(s) in general.
No, it is the interpretation of the Catholic Church, which is the church followed by most Christians on this planet.
Are you espousing views you don’t believe in? Or is it still your personal interpretation as well?
It seems to me that you are trying to explain God through science, and I’m not sure whether that is possible.
No. Apologists do that. I’m simply correcting the errors in their claims. There is no argument without apologists first trying to claim there is a god.
Science, from a Christian perspective, is the study of God’s creation.
Alright, you do you then. Meanwhile science from a science perspective doesn’t include the supernatural.
Once we are both on the same page that a higher being exist
I’ve heard all the apologists argument and remain unconvinced. If you’re still flogging Aquinas, you clearly have not heard all the rebuttals. Your move.
But first you would need to accept religion(s) in general.
Apologetics is essentially “defending” something as opposed to say proselytizing (in the example of Christianity). It’s frequently used for indefensible topics like rape apologists (the type to suggest the victim was asking for it or could have tried harder to say no) or Nazi’s (the usual propaganda). Christian apologists tend to hand wave or ignore the atrocities because “god is an absolute “good”” therefore anything he does is by definition “good” and us mere mortals can’t understand the divine plan. Babies dying? God is good. Babies dying and going to hell because they are unable to accept Jesus because they literally are unable to understand the concept? God is good.
I’m sorry that you felt the need to compare those who spread Christian doctrine with rape apologists and Nazis, but there are some things I don’t like about your comment. Chances are you are not interested in hearing them (at least judging from the wording you used), but someone else in this thread might be.
Yes, God is an absolute good. Yes, we cannot understand Him. Most “atrocities”, like you called them, come from men being given free will by God and drifting away from His teachings, thus doing stuff that isn’t good. God is good.
If a baby dies and is baptized they go straight to Heaven. If a baby dies and isn’t baptized we don’t actually know for sure what happens (it is never explained in the Bible), but by interpreting other aspects of Christian dogma we can hope and assume that they too would be saved. On this topic I recommend the following read, by the International Theological Commission
If there are other “atrocities” that you can think of and you’d like to discuss, I’d be happy to.
EDIT: boy did this blow up. I’m sorry for the replies I have left unanswered but I don’t have the time or energy to give any more nuanced answers on the topic. I am also not an all knowing expert of Christian / Catholic theology, I am simply trying to spread some awareness and a different view, on a platform that is evidently mostly Atheistic. If you have further questions the Internet will likely have the answers you seek, expressed better than I could anyway. Cheers.
I mean, I don’t believe it but bible believers do; how about the global flood? Various plagues in Egypt as well as ending the whole party with killing off all first-born sons? Commending genocide (multiple times)? Enabling chattel slavery? Obliterating Sodom and Gomora(sp?). Ooh, on that same point, didn’t he just turn Lot’s wife into salt because he looked at her? All the stuff he did to Job to win a bet? And I think Jesus set a wild bear on a bunch of kids because they were bullying some guy?
Those are off the top of my head, but I know there’s more.
There are some protestants who believe the literal words (usually in the King James Bible) are all literally exactly true, but I think the majority of Christians including Catholics and Orthodox believe that it can be metaphorical or mythical in parts. This is often couched in disclaimers saying it’s true, but the truth is it didn’t have to be literal or something like that
Those who believe everything literally happened have a much harder time defending all the “evil” stuff God did, while those who don’t can at least say we probably just don’t understand that bit.
Everyone believes it to be metaphorical or mythical “in part” the difference is where they draw that line.
Outside of YEC Flat Earthers everyone believes that passage in Exodus where the sun stopped moving to be a metaphor, but most evangelical Christians still take the creation story to be literal.
That is spot on. Contrary to Protestant (and in particular Evangelical) belief, the Catholic Church teaches that there are four senses through which one can read Scripture: one is literal, while the other three are spiritual (allegorical, moral and anagogical) and can help us interpret Christ’s message and how we should or should not behave during our earhthly lives. This is the relevant section from the Catechism.
I am not familiar with Orthodox theology, but I would assume they would have a similar position on the topic.
So which sense do we use to interpret the rules set out on how to get/treat slaves? How is that interpreted? Is it a metaphor? And how do you know which is which?
What it sounds like is you have lots of leeway to account for what you choose to believe is truth or fiction to fit your needs at any given moment. And if you’re not sure what, if any, is literally true, how do you know there’s a god at all? And you’re defending Catholicism, which is in for an even more uphill battle than most because it’s been around longer and has to account for all the beliefs that have had to be updated as knowledge and culture had changed.
All of what you just said has zero evidence to support it.
I literally quoted a source. Want more? This is the Cathechism of the Catholic Church on the topic of free will:
1730
1739
If instead you were looking for philosophical evidence for God’s existance, I recommend reading Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways.
The primary issue with Aquinas is that he’s essentially pairing a “god of the gaps” fallacy with philosophical ideas that predate the scientific method we would need in order to functionally claim most of what he’s talking about.
For example, he declares with confidence in his fourth way that because somethings are hotter, colder, etc. that there must also be an ultimate good just like there is ultimate heat. He begins the claim with scientific observation and then immediately rolls it into the field of philosophy and ethics. Now someone from the year 500AD might not consider that an issue since the scientific method didn’t even exist at the time and all natural philosophy was on the same playing field, but modern people wouldn’t consider those two fields to just be overlapping and logically interchangeable in that manner.
In the fifth way he claims that because certain beings have agency (or sapience, like us) and certain objects do not, that all non sapient objects must operate according to a being with said agency. This is patently untrue with modern scientific understanding as well, water flows because of friction and gravity, not because it was caused to do so by a god of some variety. Rocks fall, seasons change, etc. all due to natural processes. Not because there NEEDS to be a being with knowledge that guides it.
It’s interesting because this claim is foundless as he hasn’t proven that all objects operate based on a “plan” of some variety, he merely makes the claim that a plan from a sapient being is required for anything to happen and then begins to assess conclusions based on said claim. Moreso than that, it occurs in contradiction with his attempted understanding at potential and kinetic energy from the first way. He seems to have an idea about potential energy but then throws it out to just claim that objects or animals without knowledge operate on something else’s will.
Thus beginning a long standing religious tradition of using scientific rhetoric where its helpful and attempting to shoehorn philosophy in where it contradicts or fails to uphold.
Ok so first off, thank you for typing out a well thought argument.
I posted a summed up version of the five ways, rather than the full text, and now I realize that probably was a mistake. I just wanted to make sure people would have read it, most would have ignored a wall of text. Instead, I will directly quote the full text in my answers here.
Here is a TL;DR, cause this will be long:
I don’t think he tried to use scientific rethoric at all, nor that any philosophical shoehorning has happened. Rather, it’s entirely philosophy. Doesn’t mean it’s perfect or necessarily correct, but we gotta call it the way it is. I also think you might be trying a bit too hard to interpret it as science, while that’s not really what the Summa was meant to be. Some of your conclusions were drawn from the summary I posted not being accurate (sorry about that, btw) and I adressed them by quoting the full text.
Starting from the fourth way:
You correctly criticized his mistake in using fire as the source of maximum heat and mixing in scientifical evidence with philosophy, but the full text tells a more nuanced story.
Fire here is more of an example, rather than pure scientifical evidence. It’s also not the basis of the point he is adressing here. That would instead be more abstract (and wouldn’t you know it, philosophical) concepts like “good” and “true”. So while your discussion on splitting natural sciences and philosophy makes a lot of sense, I don’t think it applies here.
Onto the fifth way:
In truth, I think this is the most beautiful of the five ways and the one that, to me,makes the most sense from a scientific perspective. I remained of the opinion that Aquinas wasn’t trying to bring in natural sciences into this one, but since you brought up “modern scientifical understanding” I will do my best to make some sense of it, according to modern science.
The message here is not as easy as water flowing because of gravity. It’s also not as easy as “what was before the Big Bang?”, because that would be, like you said, vulnerable to the “God of the gaps” counter argument.
Rather, starting from the universal constants such as the Boltzmann constant which regulates all of thermodinamycs; the speed of light in a vacuum, which regulates all existing radiation or the gravitational constant, which regulates how all matter and time interact; through science we get a very clear picture of how many pieces needed to fall into place for reality as we know it to come together, let alone life to be possible. According to this modern interpretation, the fifth way states that in order for the universe to exist as we know it, defined according to these specific constants, it must have happened through a higher being, a creator. Here, actually, is the only place where I see a possible mistake, because on a logical level he doesn’t prove definitively that the existence of God is the only solution to the problem, the hypothesis of a coincidence remains on the table. However I personally think, when put in this perspective, the religious hypothesis remains the more believable one.
On your last point, I don’t see how the fifth way would violate what he has established from the first way. The fifth claims that motion of inanimate objects happens naturally and repeatedly because of “some intelligent being […] [whom] we call God”. The first instead says that God was the first who put everything in motion, and that because of that things have been kept in motion ever since the universe began. I think these two point go hand in hand, rather than being opposed:
God first created the universe, by putting things in motion. God also defined the patters according to which things should have moved after his initial “push”. This makes perfect sense to me.
So your original comment asked what are apologists, then you go into typical apologetics arguments? Quite funny really.
Everything before your last sentence presupposes your personal interpretation of your god.
I’m not looking for philosophical evidence. I’m looking for objective evidence. And Aquinas is catastrophically out of his depth with his “5 Ways”. Pretty much every line has some error. Further, even if it were true, to take the end result of each of those individually and then say “Clearly this is the Christian god of the Bible and definitely not any other god humans have believed in or a coincidence or have any rational explanation.” is the height of arrogance.
I know, right? Like I said it was mostly a semantics issue, I wasn’t sure what OP meant. When they kindly clarified their question I gave them my answer, coming from a different perspective from most of the commenters.
Then in you came, and started slandering my religion. Like you might have guessed it didn’t quite sit right with me. Assuming you are an Atheist, it’s like I came at you saying that “Atheists have no morals” or “Atheists are nothing but hedonists”. I don’t think you would have liked it. So I tried my best to provide sensible answers to your remarks. I guess that makes me too an apologist; I don’t really have a problem with that label.
No, it is the interpretation of the Catholic Church, which is the church followed by most Christians on this planet.
Alright, you do you then. It seems to me that you are trying to explain God through science, and I’m not sure whether that is possible. Science, from a Christian perspective, is the study of God’s creation. Inferring knowledge about the creator from His creation seems like an arduous task to me. I think using reasoning and philosophy would be a more reasonable option.
One step at a time. Once we are both on the same page that a higher being exist and the universe and life aren’t just the product of mere coincidence we can discuss why I think the “Christian God”, like you called him, is the right interpretation. But first you would need to accept religion(s) in general.
Are you espousing views you don’t believe in? Or is it still your personal interpretation as well?
No. Apologists do that. I’m simply correcting the errors in their claims. There is no argument without apologists first trying to claim there is a god.
Alright, you do you then. Meanwhile science from a science perspective doesn’t include the supernatural.
I’ve heard all the apologists argument and remain unconvinced. If you’re still flogging Aquinas, you clearly have not heard all the rebuttals. Your move.
That needs to be proven for me to accept.