Handbook of Catholic

Apologetics

Two Authors

Peter Kreeft

Ronald Tacelli, S.J.

Ronald Tacelli, S.J.

Education• B.A. Boston College (1969)

M.A. University of Toronto (1973)Ph.D. University of Toronto (1980)M.div. Weston School of Theology (1982)

• Ordained Jesuit Priest (1982)• Professor of Philosophy at Boston College

since 1984

Peter Kreeft

Born in 1938

A.B. Calvin College (1959)

Converted to Catholicism

M.A. Fordham University (1961)

Ph.D. Fordham University (1965)

Professor of Philosophy at Boston College since 1965

Author of 64 books thus far.

His ideas draw heavily from – Plato,– Aristotle,– Thomas Aquinas, – G. K. Chesterton,– and C. S. Lewis.

CONVERSION

a visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York when he was twelve years old, "feeling like I was in heaven... and wondering why, if Catholics got everything else wrong, as I had been taught, they got beauty so right. How could falsehood and evil be so beautiful?"

Essentials of Catholic Christianity

God

GODThe existence of God

Is there anyway to know that God exists?

There have been many attempts to prove the existence of God.

If you had to debate an atheist,

what would you say?

Can we prove the existence of God?

Saint Thomas Aquinas

(1225 – 1274)

an Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order

a philosopher and a theologian

He was a proponent of natural theology.

The work for which he is best-known is the Summa Theologica.

One of the 33 “Doctors of the Church”,

he is considered by many to be the Catholic Church's greatest theologian and philosopher.

Based on reason and experience

Quinque viae

The Five Ways

• The argument of the unmoved mover

• The argument of the first cause

• The argument from contingency

• The argument from degree

• The argument from design

“Proofs” for God’s Existence

2. The Argument from Efficient Causality

5. The Design Argument

19. The Common Consent Argument

God the Uncaused Cause

God the Intelligent Designer

Evidence from History

There are two types of reasoning

Deductive

&

Inductive

Deductive Reasoning

- uses arguments to move from premises to a conclusion.

The conclusion must be true if the premises are true and the sequence is valid.

For example:

1. All student athletes have had a physical,

2. John is a student athlete,

3. therefore John must have had a physical.

Deductive reasoning moves from the general

to the particular.

Inductive Reasoning

-the premises of an argument are believed to support a conclusion, but do not guarantee its truth.

Example:1. Every summer for the past eight years I have

traveled to Ireland,

2. every summer for the past eight years I have caught a cold,

3. therefore, whenever I travel to Ireland I will catch a cold.

Inductive reasoning moves from a large number of particular examples to a general rule.

Deductive arguments are about truth,

they are either true or false.

Inductive arguments are about probability,

they are more or less likely.

There are two reasons why a deductive argument could be false:

a false premise

or

an invalid sequence

Deductive

1. Every baseball game has nine innings.

2. Mike played the entire baseball game.

3. Therefore, Mike played for nine innings.

1. All men are mortal.

2. Pat is mortal.

3. Therefore, Pat must be a man.

Not a valid sequence

True or False Why?

false premise

True or FalseWhy?

a man

mortal

Inductive arguments can be weak or strong.

1. My dog is three years old and has lived through at least a dozen thunderstorms,

2. Every time there has been a thunderstorm my dog has run away and hid,

3. therefore, whenever a thunderstorm happens, my dog will hide.

1. Every Thanksgiving for the past six years, I have eaten pecan pie at my grandma’s house,

2. Every year for the past six years I have had an allergic reaction at my grandma’s house,

3. therefore, whenever I eat pecan pie I will have an allergic reaction.

“Proofs” for God’s Existence

Evidence from History

God the Uncaused Cause

God the Intelligent Designer

Are they deductive or inductive?

Deductive

Inductive

The Argument from Efficient Causality

God the Uncaused Cause

1. Everything that exists in time & space has a cause outside of itself.

2. The physical world (the universe) exists in time & space.

3. Therefore, a cause must exist for the physical universe outside of itself.

Everything that exists in time & space has a cause outside of itself.

Examples:

Counter-examples:

Perhaps the universe was caused by a chain of cause & effect,

going all the way back to the “big bang.”

But what caused the “big bang”?

God the Uncaused Cause

1. Something cannot come from nothing,

2. things do exist today,

3. therefore there has to be something that always existed, without a cause.

That is an Uncased Cause.

In other words, if there was a time when nothing existed, then nothing could ever exist.

The Design Argument God the Intelligent Designer

1. Every object with order and design must have had an intelligent designer,

2. The human being & the entire universe has tremendous order and design,

3. therefore the world must have been created by an intelligent designer.

Every object with order and design must have had an intelligent designer.

Perhaps design can happen by random chance.

Can the most intricate designs be created randomly if given enough chance?

Could cars and computers form from an undirected process?

Humans are more complex than cars or computers.

But, you may say

doesn’t evolution explain how everything came to exist?

The age of Earth is believed by many scientists to be: _______________

Given enough time can life evolve from the simplest forms to the most complex?

4.5 billion

Infinite Monkey Theorem

Will a monkey hitting keys at random on a keyboard for long enough amount of time eventually type a complete book like Hamlet by William Shakespeare?

No,A billion monkeys typing nonstop for a billion

years would not produce even one page.

Probability shrinks exponentially,

To get just the first 20 letters in Hamlet correct, the probability is one in

19,928,148,895,209,409,152,340,197,376

Inductive Reasoning

The Common Consent ArgumentEvidence from History

1. Virtually all cultures in all places at all times have believed in the existence of a higher power,

2. universal human beliefs & reason are trustworthy,

3. therefore it is more reasonable to conclude that there is a higher power than that there is not.

All cultures in all places at all times have believed in the existence of a

higher power

Is that true?

Universal human beliefs & reason are trustworthy

Is that true?

Other Arguments for the existence of God

Pascal’s Wager

Miracles

Pascal’s Wager

You have two choices:

there are two possibilities:

belief no belief

God exists

God doesn’t exist

heaven

nothing nothing

hell

Society is better

Society suffers

Blaise Pascal

(1623 – 1662)

a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher.

With faith in God, you have everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

Without faith in God, you have everything to lose, and nothing to gain

Miracles

Do you believe in miracles?

Do you believe they still happen today?

What % of Americans believe in miracles?

Thomas Jefferson

AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

AUTHOR OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Two other notable achievements: 3rd President of the USWrote his own version of the Bible

Thomas Jefferson Bible

also known as

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth

was Thomas Jefferson's effort to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing miracles.

Why?

What is a Miracle?

Dictionary.com - Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary

1. an extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers.

2. such an event considered the work of God.

3. a wonder; marvel.

From the textbook

A striking and religiously significant intervention of God in the system of natural causes.

What is a Miracle?An event that is:• perceptible• surpassing the powers of nature • produced by God

Why do they happen?Intended:• to witness to some truth • to witness to someone's sanctity

CatholicReference.net

Can God do anything?

God can perform miracles but not

contradictions.

example-

Can God make a rock so heavy that even He cannot move it?

Two questions about Miracles

Are miracles possible?

Are miracles actual?

The book focuses on the possibility of miracles.

Does the Catholic Church specifically affirm certain miracles?

Yes,Although Catholics are not obligated to

believe any miracles outside of those in the Bible.

With some exceptions-

Miracle of Lanciano

The miracle of Lanciano is officially recognized by the Catholic Church as an eucharistic miracle.

In the city of Lanciano, Italy, around A.D. 700.

• During Holy Mass the host was changed into live Flesh and the wine was changed into live Blood.

• In 1970-'71 and again in 1981 there took place a scientific investigation by several renowned scientists.

These analyses sustained the following conclusions:

1. The Flesh is real Flesh. The Blood is real Blood.

2. The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.

3. The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart.

4. The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB (Blood-type identical to that which was uncovered in the Shroud of Turin).

5. The preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.

Arguments Against the Existence of God

Arguments Against the Existence of God

Thomas Aquinas could only come up with two arguments against the existence of God:

Science

The Problem of Evil

Science

The ability of science to explain more and more of the world.

Science explains much of the world that people in the past relied upon religion to explain.

Response

As we have discovered more about the physical universe we now have _________questions

not less.

The evidence does not suggest that science

will ever be able to resolve all of the possible questions.

more

Only argument that attempts to disprove the existence of God

to disprove a specific idea of God.

The Problem of Evil

Did God create everything?

Does evil exist?

Did God create evil?

yes

yes

yes

or

no

God

attributes of God: Omni-benevolent

Omniscient

Omnipotent

All-loving

All-knowing

All-powerful

How can evil exist given such a God?

Five possible solutions

1. Atheism

2. Pantheism

3. Naturalism

4. Idealism

5. Biblical theism

There is no God

God is not all good

God is not all powerful

Evil does not exist

There is no contradiction

Solution to the “Problem of Evil”

Evil is not a thing

Evil is a choice

Evil is a choice we make

example- parents & car

JOB

Describe Job at the beginning of the story.

Describe Job at the end.

What happens in between?

Who speaks in the story?

What is the overall message?