Radio Replies Vol 1 - Catholic Apologetics Online

That is true, for St James tells us clearly that faith without works is dead. But that does not give any man permission to be unorthodox.

If people do not know the dogmas of the Church to be true, it is not because of any fault in the dogmas, but because of a fault in themselves. They are either inadequately informed, or wrongly informed. Certainly they would never know the dogmas of the Church to be true if she did alter them. Any alteration of them would be at the expense of truth. There is some hope for people as long as the Church keeps her dogmas intact—as she will do, of course.

Rather do you insult reason when you suggest that their truth must change before intelligent men can accept them. If what was true in religion two thousand years ago is not true to-day, it never was true. If I can disbelieve it now, it should have been disbelieved then. Christ taught absolute truth, and His doctrine will remain itself for all eternity. If the dogmas of Christianity changed, every intelligent man should abandon Christianity. Intelligent men are rapidly abandoning Protestantism with its constantly shifting positions. The Catholic Church refuses to change her dogmatic teaching, and she is daily receiving intelligent men into her fold.

The process is this. Catholic dogmas, being the truth, set the mind of man free from human errors on the subject of religion. And I argue that most normally intelligent men wish to be free from error. Again I reason that men of clean lives are well fitted to appreciate the lofty moral standards of Catholicism. The only type of which I despair is the man whose intelligence is shackled by prejudice, or by inability to rise above the crude notions usually taught in the name of a so-called rationalism.

The dogmas of the Catholic Church clearly express the exact teaching of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. If they seem old-fashioned to some men, these men have simply out-grown the truth to their own detriment.

They can, and they do. This accounts for the rationalistic position, with its refusal to believe in any save irreligious notions. But Catholics do not persuade themselves to think their own religious doctrines. They accept them from the Church established and guaranteed by Christ—a matter of hard historical fact.

Hostility towards freedom to do wrong, or express false blasphemies and irreligious doctrines is not a crime. It would be a crime to be indifferent to these things. True religion gives freedom from error, and freedom to love and serve God.

The strangling of reason is left to people who are ready to believe anything they hear about the Catholic Church. But the Church herself asks no man to strangle his reason, and says that it is a heresy to say that it ought to be strangled. Nor must Catholics accept anything, however unlikely. If a thing seems unlikely, they should suspend their judgment until they secure evidence of its truth or falsity, and then decide accordingly.

They are not. Where other men's reasonings are concerned, Catholics should test them for themselves, and if they prove faulty, should reject them. But the Catholic Church says that when God has revealed a truth it is no longer a question of men's reasonings, and that we are not morally free to assert the opposite. We are obliged to accept doctrines revealed by God, because we know that God cannot be mistaken. But of course we make sure that God did say the things we accept on His authority.

Yes. But the context shows that he used those words in the sense in which St. Paul spoke of Christ crucified as being unto the Gentiles foolishness. I. Cor. I., 23. He did not mean that he was prepared to believe things repugnant to principles of right reason. There are mysteries in the natural order, and still more there are and must be mysteries in the supernatural order. If God could do only those things which are possible to men, He would be no God at all. But things which are above reason are not necessarily against reason.

Yes. For knowledge of science, I go to scientists; of history, to historians; of law, to lawyers; of medicine, to doctors; of other religions, to textbooks of other religions; for knowledge of the religion revealed by Christ, to the Catholic Church.

I certainly believe implicitly the official and defined teachings of the Catholic Church since Christ said, \"If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen.\" But I may investigate as much as I wish. The more I find out about the truth taught by the Catholic Church the better the Church is pleased. It is one thing to deny a doctrine; quite another to investigate its full significance. But not all the investigation in the world will ever prove a single dogma of the Catholic Church untrue.

She has never changed a dogma, nor has she changed in any essential Christian truth. She does change in many secondary ways according to the needs of the time, but this occurs chiefly in matters of discipline. She has never modified her methods and teachings in deference to modern thought, very little of which really exists in average society to-day concerning religion—certainly not as much as in the middle ages.

The Church has never added a single teaching of dogmatic value Which was not contained in the original teachings of the Apostles. Where doubts have arisen, she has officially defined the right doctrine, not giving a new doctrine, but clearly expressing the exact significance of the old doctrine. And that is exactly what a teaching Church is for. Meantime the early Christians, by believing in the doctrines of Christ, believed these truths also at least implicitly, though they could quite well have been ignorant of the later terms used to describe them.

To this I reply firstly that there are naturally certain similarities between religions from the mere fact that they are religions. Religion is natural to man, and naturally issues in expressions suitable to man. But similarities do not of themselves argue to derivation. Secondly, Cardinal Newman remarks that in some things Christianity could certainly make use of good elements in paganism. Even paganism has some elements of truth mixed up with its errors. Christianity, in its development, could select those elements of natural truth, remove all pagan and erroneous associations so that they cease to be pagan, and make use of the purified truth to better express Christian notions. Always, however, the motives why these things are observed among Christians are absolutely new and distinct, and cannot be found in pagan rites.

In Greek or any other mythology.

Polytheism teaches several gods. Christianity teaches but one God. The three Divine Persons share the one Divine Nature, and are but one God. The other beings you cite are declared by the Church to be creatures, and cannot be used as an argument for the plurality of gods. If we taught that they are gods, you could rightly accuse us. But if we solidly maintain that they are not gods, it is irrational even for a rationalist to accuse us of ranking them as gods.

No sophistry is likely to deceive all the people all the time. But Catholic Priests do not rely upon sophistry, and your supposition that they are opponents of true science is absurd in view of the fact that they have done as much, if not more than any other body of men in the world to spread science and genuine education. If the Priests are deceiving the people, who are deceiving the thousands of Priests themselves? Or are the Priests not deceived, but an entirely dishonest body of men?

No. Never was scientific study neglected by Catholics before the Reformation. In physical science the invention of instruments—and very many of them by Catholics—has given us much more data than men possessed prior to the Reformation, but this progress would have come in any case, whether the Reformation had occurred or not. It is due to the ordinary development of human thought. The Reformation had no more to do with it than the signing of Magna Charta had to do with the discovery of America. America was discovered after the signing of Magna Charta, not because of it. The invention of a printing press by a Catholic contributed to the more rapid diffusion of other men's findings and promoted study and progress. But even then, a Catholic invented the printing press, not because he was a Catholic, but because he thought of it. Religion is not a factor in such matters. If a Christian became a pagan, and after that invented an excellent remedy for indigestion, you could hardly trace a connection between that and his paranoia.

If some happen to be, it is not because they are scientists of high standing. Hosts of scientists of high standing have been excellent Catholics. Ampere, Fallopio, Galvani, Laennec, Laplace, Magellan, Marconi, Mendel, Pasteur, Lapparent, Volta, and hundreds of others were convinced Catholics.

No. It is because, being perhaps experts in their own line, they consider themselves expert in every line, and condemn the Church on insufficient data. Other scientists, equally expert in their scientific lines, realize that they are not therefore qualified in matters of religion any more than they would be fitted by a knowledge of medicine to speak on economics as an expert. These sensible scientists have studied at least the foundations of their religion, proved its reasonableness, and have never dreamt of abandoning their religion. There is no conflict between science rightly understood and Catholic dogmas rightly understood. Any apparent conflict is due to a misunderstanding either of science or of Catholic dogma.

What is science? It is knowledge proved by strictly logical demonstration from facts or from evident principles. In religion we start from the historical fact of revelation, and from principles guaranteed by God. By strictly logical demonstration we prove exactly what must be believed and what must be done if we desire to fulfill the Will of God. Believe me, there is a most exact science of religion to he found in the Catholic Church.

They no more cramp a man's intelligence than an excellent telescope diminishes his power of sight. They give additional light upon the most important matters. For example, the dogma that there is a hell saves me from the mistake of thinking that there is no hell—surely a vital matter. And the more a man uses his intelligence in the right studies, the more he will find that the credentials of the Catholic Church are quite in order, and that her dogmas contain nothing against reason.

Not where it is a question of the religion revealed by God. To decide what one will believe or not believe for oneself is faith in one's own ability, but not faith in Christ. Christian faith believes what Christ taught and because Christ taught it, without reference to one's own likes or dislikes.

You will not get very far that way. Christ never said, "Blessed is the man who thinks for himself, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." If Christ has done the thinking for you on a given subject, all you have to do is to accept His teaching. How will you find it? He has left an authorized Church. Use your reason in order to discern this Church, and then reasonably be taught by it

She does not dread free inquiry into her truth and authority. At the same time, she knows the great capacity of the human mind for going astray. She dreads, therefore, prejudice, ignorance, and the fantastic conclusions of the illogical and half-educated.

To admit that Christ is God, and then to doubt an exact statement of His teaching is certainly a sin, for that implies a denial either of His knowledge or of His veracity. But we do not need to doubt a thing before we can begin to study it I do not doubt the fact that the earth moves round the sun, yet I am perfectly free to weigh all the evidence for or against that proposition. St. Paul believed in the dogma of the Trinity, yet he could not prove that dogma save by proving that God had revealed it and that it must be accepted on God's authority.

Of course he must judge that Protestantism is false, and Catholicism true. But that judgment is preliminary to faith. Having made that judgment and acted upon it, he becomes a Catholic. From that moment he is guided in what he believes, not by his own human judgment or opinion, but by what Christ has actually revealed as taught to him by the Catholic Church.

It is the name of a system accepted by illogical people who wish to imply by the self-chosen title that they are really guided by reason.

It has not made havoc of Christianity. It is making havoc of Protestantism. But Protestantism is not really Christianity. The Catholic Church alone is the true representative of Christianity, and she is not affected by rationalism. The Bible is as authentic as ever, and humanitarianism has not affected the fires of hell, even as it had nothing to do with their creation. As has been well said, the only way to abolish hell is to abolish one's own by leading a good life, and serving God.

Outside the Catholic Church, yes. The Protestant principle, "Do not be toI3 by the Catholic Church what to think on religion, but be free to think for yourself," is proving fatal to Protestantism. Men have simply asserted their freedom to think Protestantism itself, and indeed all religion, useless. Catholics, who do not accept the principles of free thought are not affected to any great extent

We do not fear rationalism. We do fear lest some individual Catholics be takes in by its sophistries, thinking that, because they themselves do not see the solution of difficulties proposed, there is no solution. Rationalistic writings constitute a danger for shallow and untrained minds, and rather a waste of time for educated men.

But rational men can do so. If you are not a Catholic, it is not sound reasoning that keeps you outside the Church. Defective information, mere want of thought, prejudice, moral cowardice, heredity, environment, and a hundred other factors may conspire to keep men outside the Catholic Church. But sound reason never does. Sound reason is the greatest ally of the Catholic Church in the natural order.

Because he was a man like Joseph McCabe. The Catholic Church keeps no man against his will. McCabe lost the faith as any man can do, and departed from the Church just as the Jews from Christ, saying, "This is a hard saying: who can hear it!" Intellectual pride blended with obstinacy of will could take any man out of the Church.

Yes. McCabe has sought to make money and court popularity by reviling the Church he quitted. He claims to know history, yet quotes as facts things he must know to be untrue—calumnies which Ernest Renan, as good a rationalist as McCabe, had refuted twenty years before McCabe rehashed them. Though he claims to be an unbeliever in Christianity, regarding that religion as a complete fraud, the whole of his distorted book, "Twelve Years in a Monastery" panders to Protestant sentiment!

It is not strange. Intellectual attainments have really little to do with it, in the ultimate analysis. Brains alone cannot bring a man to Christian truth, and brains alone will not keep him in it. Christ did not say, "Come to Me, all ye intellectual people, and I will refresh you." If knowledge of religious truth and faith in it depended upon brains, heaven would be filled with the intellectual, and hell with the dull-witted. Goodness and brains do not always go together. You can have intellectual and cultured scoundrels. Christ appealed to men of good will. He demanded humility of all the human children who wished to be children of God. "God resists the proud and gives His grace to the humble." Where is human wisdom before God's infinite knowledge? Where is old age before His eternity? Or human strength before His omnipotence? God rightly demands that we acknowledge our true position. McCabe forgot it. He forfeited God's grace, left the Church, and in doing so left the Christ who established it Meantime, McCabe left the Church after twelve years in a monastery; I joined the Church, and have been twenty years in a monastery. I became a Catholic with nothing to gain from this world's point of view, entered Religious Life, and took the same three vows which McCabe renounced. The odds are against insincerity when a step is costly to human nature. But not when a man leaves the Church for an obviously lower standard of living.

The fact that McCabe and myself disagree means simply that you must not reject the Catholic Church because McCabe rejects it, nor accept it because I accept it McCabe's rejection of it does not make it false; my acceptance of it does not make it true. It is either false or true independently of McCabe and myself. A man with ordinary elementary education can arrive at as sound a judgment as any other, provided he has a sincere desire to know the truth, to love and serve God, and prays earnestly for God's guidance. Any ordinary man can easily ask a Priest to explain Catholic doctrine to him. If he be sincere in his inquiry, he will notice how it rings true of its very nature. God's grace will enlighten him, and he will experience a distinct interior sense of obligation to accept the doctrine of Christ as taught by the Catholic Church. In other words, God will offer him the gift of faith—to be accepted or rejected. If he accepts, he becomes a Catholic, and all later reading of history, philosophy, and Scripture will but confirm the choice he made under the influence of God's grace. A Cardinal Newman and a bricklayer can equally become Catholic—a Joseph McCabe and a chimney sweep can equally lose the gift of faith. Thus the Catholic Church, in her various phases, can appeal equally to the highest intelligence and to the simplest of men—which is as it should be with a Church established by Christ for the salvation of all men. And all men remain free to accept or reject the Church even as they were free to accept or reject Christ in the days of His life upon earth. Each man has the responsibility of saving his own soul.

Catholic dogma concerning the existence and nature of God is in perfect harmony with the conclusions of sane philosophy, which have already been discussed.

No contradiction is involved in the doctrine of the Trinity. The reason why we believe it is because God says that it is true, using terms which express it as nearly as possible in human language. As God ought to know His own intimate nature, His describing it is the best of possible reasons for believing in it.

No. Christ taught us this doctrine both implicitly and explicitly in giving us His revelation. And He definitely ordered His Apostles to baptize in the one Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost

It did not. In the Vedic philosophy there are traces of a trinity, but not of the Trinity. The idea of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is not to be found in it. That philosophy taught a pantheistic notion, all things being a kind of emanation from God to be reabsorbed into Him. It has no distinction such as ours between the Creator and the creature, and Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva bear no real resemblance whatever to the Christian doctrine of three divine and equal personalities sharing the one divine nature. The Indian notion no more resembles the Christian doctrine than does the hegelian Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. You might just as well try to account for the notion of the Trinity from any notion of triplicity wherever it occurs.

Your only reason for attempting to derive the doctrine from Egyptian mythology is that you do not wish to admit that it is from God. The Egyptians derived their religious notions from their own every-day life. They had a multiplicity of gods, a god for every locality, each associated with some animal as a symbol Later the idea grew that the gods resided in statues combining human figures with animal heads. Legend made the gods marry, sometimes two goddesses to one male god, thus forming a triad. Or again, the number three was derived from the family unit of father, mother, and child. The mother was the counterpart of the father, and that father lived again in his child. Religious idealization attributed these notions to a supreme god, and the Egyptians spoke of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, father, mother and child. But Isis and Horus were both inferior to Osiris, and all three mere myths. Nor does even the mythical notion imply a tri-unity or trinity in anything like the Christian sense of the word, nor any true divinity of infinite perfection.The Oracle of Serapis certainly never used the words you quote. The books of Trismegistus Hermes, or the Hermetic Books, which are the great source of Egyptian mythology are full of Neo-Platonic and post-Christian interpolations and additions, and are unreliable. The attributing of the expressions "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" to the Oracle of Serapis is but a subterfuge of enemies of Christianity who wish to suggest that the doctrine was never revealed by God. Anyone Can attribute anything to anybody. It is a different matter if you ask for proof of authenticity. Men who will not believe in the doctrines of Christianity with evidence, will swallow oceans of oracles without evidence. Their eagerness not to be credulous when the historical Christ speaks is absurd in the light of their immense credulity when anybody merely mentions the magic words Oracle of Serapis. Their dislike of Christianity at once makes possible any anti-Christian assertion. But this is not rational.

No man on earth can explain fully the Trinity. The finite mind cannot fully comprehend an infinite being. Even did God condescend to explain the doctrine fully to you, you would lack the capacity necessary in order to comprehend it. It is a revealed mystery to be accepted as true merely because God teaches it. However, we can explain the doctrine which Christians must believe. There are three divine Personalities in one divine Nature—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three Persons are equal in all things; equally God, equally eternal, powerful, etc. God is an infinitely perfect and purely spiritual Being, active in His knowledge and love. The knowledge God has of Himself is a living Personality called the Son. The idea of intellectual generation is not foreign to us, for we ourselves speak of our own thoughts as concepts and as the offspring of our intelligence. The mutual and reciprocal love between Father and Son is also a living personality—the Holy Spirit. There is no contradiction in this doctrine. We do not speak of one divine nature, yet three divine natures; nor of three divine persons, yet one divine person. We speak of one Divine Nature, yet of three Divine Persons, nature, and personality being quite different aspects of our consideration. It is as if, when dealing with the Persons, we viewed numerical distinction, as in the addition of 1 + 1 + 1 into 3, yet when dealing with the Nature in which all three Persona share, that fusion which results in unity by multiplication of the same three figures— 1X1X1 equals 1. Yet whilst the absence of contradiction is clear, the full significance of the triune nature of God is beyond the limited capacity of the human mind. We know the fact by revelation, and believe it implicitly because God has revealed it.

Christ is the name given to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in His assumed human nature. As the Christ, therefore, He was not eternal, but began in time. But before the Second Person appeared on earth in this human form, he existed as the Eternal Son of God, equal with the Father in all things. But in His divine nature, if He be a son, how can He be as old as His Father? I'm afraid it is impossible to express an eternal fact in terms of time. Time is successive duration. We speak of growing old as time goes by. But in eternity there is no succession of time, and there can be no such thing as age when we speak of God. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost always exist, not existed; and they exist not for a long time, but without time. What we call now is only the indivisible instant which is the last moment of the past and the first moment of the future simultaneously. Our time is based upon the coming and going of movement. But there is no such thing in God. Yet the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is truly a son. A son is a being or person who derives from his father the same human nature possessed by the father. In the one God, the Second Person shares through the First Person exactly the same Divine Nature. And from that point of view He is the Son. But He differs from earthly sons in that He does not receive a numerically distinct nature, nor does He exist subsequently to the Father. He eternally participates in the Divine Nature through the Father. The word son in human language is the nearest inadequate approximation we can find to express the truth by analogy. To say that it completely expressed the reality would be to fall into that anthropomorphism which you would be the first to ridicule. You cannot object to the treating of God as if He were merely a kind of glorified created human being, and then refuse to believe on the score that Catholic theology does not explain Him in terms which would reduce Him to the same level as ourselves,

It means Holy Spirit. "Ghost" is Anglo-Saxon for spirit, "spiritus" in Latin meaning a breath. Thus the word spirit is associated with human breathing as a kind of intangible impulse. Christ used the term to bring home to us that the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is the impulse of love invisible and intangible between Father and Son. Since love tends to union, and union with and in God is holiness, the Third Person is termed the Holy Spirit.

The eternal Son of God, in becoming man, took a human nature from the Virgin Mary. Thus was born a being who was both God and man. As God, this Second Person of the Holy Trinity always existed, and from Him in eternity the Holy Ghost always proceeds, as from the Father also. In this sense the Holy Ghost does not give being to the Son. But the human nature, which began in time, was due to the operation of the Holy Ghost, and was assumed by the Son. There is no inconsistency in this doctrine.

Creation is not a theory. It is a fact revealed by God. Evolution is a fact within certain restricted spheres, but a mere theory when made of universal application. We have to admit evolution in knowledge, or in growth from babyhood to manhood. As a universal theory, however, evolution from nothing is absurd. Yet granted that God created something, it is quite possible that God endowed His original creation with power to evolve. Did he create vegetables, and animals separately, or did He create a vast rotating nebula and give it the power to evolve into various forms of being and life? The latter idea has never been proved. It is a matter of speculation, with no certainty attached to it, save that science quite discredits spontaneous generation of life. Did man himself evolve from lower living beings? It is absolutely certain that his soul did not. The soul is an intelligent spirit, and an intelligent spirit cannot evolve from matter. Moreover, God has revealed that the soul is created immediately by Himself. Did man's body evolve from lower animals, God creating the rational soul when some lower animal had sufficiently evolved towards manhood? Despite conjectures in favor of this notion, the evidence is against it. The missing link is still missing, and reason discounts the probability that a purely animal soul could develop an animal body beyond its own powers, lifting it to the higher stage needed for a rational soul.

Yes, according to the right interpretation of that expression. God says that that is how things began, and He must know. Thus we read, "My son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them, and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also." II. Mach. VII., 28.

Yes. Granted absolutely nothing, nothing could ever be at all. Nothing could never become something. Nothing has nothing to work upon, and no faculties with which to operate. We are therefore forced to admit an eternal God.

That phrase must be correctly interpreted. God did not make the universe out of nothing as carpenters make tables out of wood. He did not make nothing into a universe. The sense is this: God made the universe, but did not make it out of any pre-existing thing. Apart from God, before creation, there was nothing. God willed, and there was something. Thus created beings began. God does not need any previous being to work upon. He simply wills a thing to be, and it is.

That would not be creation, but mutation of existent being. But God could not become what He was not before. Finite being cannot be made out of infinite being any more than infinite being can be made out of finite being.

Yes. But that does not mean that things are made out of God. It means that all things derive their beings from God's activity, are preserved by His continued providence, and exist always in His immense omnipresence.

Reason in no way discredits the account in Genesis. I am speaking of genuine and enlightened reason, not of the notions of people who think their own opinions always reasonable, whether they are so or not It is possible to interpret the Hebrew word for day as meaning a period of indefinite length. But there is no need to adopt this interpretation, and we can admit that Moses had in mind days as we know them, of twenty-four hours each. Did God, then, create and establish all things as they are within a period of six ordinary days? No. To arrest the attention and assist the memories of those for whom he wrote, Moses used the analogy of days, with mornings and evenings, as the people living at the time he wrote knew them. He used these days to typify the objective reality of God's creative work during long periods of time. This is a purely literary device quite compatible with inspiration, and above all, when we remember that the main purpose of the author was to show that God is the Author and Lord of all things. In its religious significance, the account makes use of the seven ordinary sections of the week, bidding men worship God and rest upon the seventh. Scientifically, each day applies to a long correlative objective period, required for the slow astronomical and geological formation. In other words, Moses dedicated seven consecutive days in honor of God's work, considered as having occurred in seven consecutive periods. And as, after the sixth day, God is described as having abstained from further labor, so after six days of labor man was to abstain on the seventh. Thus Moses impressed upon the people that the week must end in a day devoted to religious duties.

Moses had no intention of giving the exact order in which things were produced. It is obvious that he intended to re-arrange the order to suit himself. His order is logical, not chronological. He describes eight divine operations in general, confining them descriptively to six days, allotting two operations to the third day, and two to the sixth day. It is clearly an intentionally artificial arrangement. When a book has no intention of giving a scientific account, nor of recording the chronological order of events, it is absurd to quarrel with it because it does not. I could write the life of a man according to the chronological sequence of years, or with an arbitrary arrangement of time, dealing with him, say, as lawyer, writer, philanthropist, politician, etc.—the sections chronologically overlapping, or being subject to inversion. That would not interfere with the historical value of my work. Science has nothing to say about an arrangement of matter which abstracts from science, and follows the legitimate canons of literary structure.

It will take science all its time to clarify its own conclusions. But apart from that, no proven scientific conclusion will ever necessitate the rejection of a single jot or tittle of Scripture. Truth can never contradict truth, and the Biblical account is absolutely true in its own order. It does not profess to give a technically scientific account, but it does give the truth in a popular style adapted to the Hebrew mentality of the times when it was written.

I have never made that concession. We have to believe the Bible absolutely, but according to the exact sense intended by the Bible. If you think that we do not believe it absolutely because we do not subscribe to what you think ought to be the sense, that is no fault of ours. Nor is such an attitude of mind rational.

Genesis does not say that. It is impossible to calculate the age of the earth from the Book of Genesis. It could be millions of years old, without the Mosaic account being affected.

There is no evidence as to whether he knew or not. If he did know, he said nothing about it in his writings. Not intending to write a scientific text-book, he did not think fit to touch upon the subject.

I could not possibly tell you. God has not told us, and He alone was there when creation began. The earth probably existed some millions of years before it became habitable by man. It is possible that the first man appeared ten, twenty or a hundred thousand years ago. In this matter we have nothing very reliable. We have but the ever-changing opinions or conjectures of scientists to go upon.

It is probably as new as the evidence the sciences of astronomy and geology have been able to provide. Before the evidence of geological stratification was available men could but conjecture. Some were erroneously of the opinion that they could calculate the age of creation from the Bible, but the Church has never embodied anything dogmatic in her teaching on that question. It is a purely scientific question, not one of faith or morals.

It is not a matter of convenience. It is a question of the will of Christ, who gave as much jurisdiction as He thought fit.

Yes. Scripture often speaks of the angels. Christ Himself taught their existence. Human experience of their influence leaves no doubt on the subject. And it is reasonable that God should have completed the hierarchy of created beings by producing purely spiritual creatures in addition to merely material and semi-material beings. Not all evidence depends upon sense-experience. I have never seen an angel. I am not now in a normal condition to see one, and do not expect to do so until I reach heaven. I still belong to the material world. But I believe the word of God, who should know whether or not angels exist.

In that case, of course, you are purely a materialist. Nor only that You are an atheist, for such an assertion denies the very existence of God. God is a pure spirit, and can certainly create beings of a purely spiritual nature.

That is but a concession to an unbelieving rationalism. And it is quite against the Word of God. Scripture insists that they are personal beings. Christ said, "Their angels always see the face of my Father, who is in heaven." Matt. XVIII., 10. Messages and influences are not permanent, and don't see. St. Peter says, "God spared not the angels who sinned." II. Pet. II., 4. Impersonal influences do not sin.

We cannot speak of the form or shape of purely spiritual beings. God has no form or shape. Shape supposes dimensional arrangement, and dimensions suppose quantity of matter. Angels can exert spiritual force, and even will the action of natural physical forces with God's permission. If at times they have appeared to men in bodily forms, they have but assumed appearances not proper to them, and most probably formed from the material atmospheric elements in order to manifest their presence in a way in keeping with man's lower level.

No. God told the Jews to carve angels, with wings spread, to represent to men those swift spiritual beings to whom distance is as nothing. Exod. XXV., 18. But God did not say that they were exact representations of angels.

Angels are purely spiritual beings. A brick is a purely material being. Man, with body and soul, is partly material and partly spiritual. God has no material body, and is purely spiritual. To complete the external manifestations of His perfections, He created beings of a purely spiritual nature—angels. The angels, then, are definite beings which have the qualities belonging to our souls, but not those of our bodies. Now our souls have two chief faculties—intelligence and will, and these are possessed by angels. But since they are purely spiritual they cannot be seen by our eyes any more than can God Himself.

Yes. Christ took an ordinary little child and said, "Despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father." Matt. XVIII., 10. There is no reason why one child should have an angel appointed to guard it rather than any other, and no reason why an angel, once appointed, should desert its charge during life. In fact, the farther a child wanders from God as it grows up, the more the need of a guardian angel's care and protection.

No. Angels are not supposed to stop earthquakes. They co-operate in the work of our salvation, inspiring good thoughts, and making us uneasy when temptations suggest themselves. I do not disbelieve in angels because they do not do what they are not supposed to do. A guardian angel could, were it God's will, prevent temporal calamities, but that is not ordinary, and is not ordinarily to be expected. Temporal and natural events depend upon temporal and natural causes. Nor do temporal calamities really matter. It is the supernatural life of the soul that really counts. It is enough to remark that God has appointed certain supernatural means for our supernatural safety, and amongst those means are guardian angels.

All who are Christians have to admit that God has done much for men by the ministry of angels. The body of a Christian is holy. It has been consecrated by Baptism, and will one day rise again glorious and immortal. The Church speaks in a human way, and confides the body, which the relatives cannot keep to the custody of God's angels. It is a very beautiful thought. But when you speak of an angel by every grave you evolve a difficulty from your imagination. An angel is not a creature subject to the laws of space. If you picture some diminutive winged animal sitting perpetually upon a tombstone, you are entertaining a ludicrous thought. But such a picture in no way corresponds with reality, and there is not a Christian who would not laugh at your simplicity. An angel is a spirit whose being is not commensurate with space, and whose powers are of the intellectual and volitional orders.An angel could operate in London and New York at one and the same time, yet ever remaining in heaven. And when the Church commits a grave to the care of an angel she asks that that angel may intercede for the soul which inhabited the body we bury with so much sorrow, and commits the body to its care also since it will co-operate in the resurrection of that body as God's ministering spirit in due time.

No. He is a natural angelic being, in a state deprived of supernatural grace.

He is quite content to seem a mythical being. He has no desire to be detected in his operations, and is not likely to inform you that evil suggestions are from him.

The word Satan in Hebrew means one who is adverse, and it can refer to any adversary. In that sense Christ said on one occasion to Peter, "Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto me." Matt XVI., 23. Satan therefore does not always refer to the devil. But since the devil, once Lucifer or the angel of light, is the greatest of all enemies to God and mankind, the word Satan has been applied in a special way to him. Of all adversaries, he is the adversary.

God endowed him with an imperishable personality. He is a person who influences. A person is an intellectual being who is master of his own freely chosen activities. It does not matter whether he be of a spiritual nature, as God or the angels, or of a semi-spiritual nature, as man. The devil has intelligence and freewill. He can exert a spiritual influence suggestive of evil. Many people say that they do not believe in the devil. That is quite in keeping with his wishes. But Christ definitely warns us against the evil influence of Satan.

Christ, being God, knew all things. Your minister lacked either knowledge of Scripture, or any real belief in the divinity of Christ.

Indirectly, yes, for he caused the fall of our first parents. Directly, no. Scripture tells us that the three great enemies of man's soul are the world, the flesh, and the devil. Men sin for mere worldly prosperity, or induced by sensual passion. At times, however, Satan directly tempts them. But Satan can do no more than suggest evil to our will; he cannot compel our assent. Man can always refuse consent to evil by the help of God's grace. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able." I. Cor. X., 13.

I certainly cannot. But then, God did not create the devil. Let me explain. God did not create the devil as a devil. In other words, God did not create any evil spiritual being as evil. The angels, as created by God, were good beings of a spiritual nature, endowed with intelligence and freewill. Goodness alone is the terminus of God's creative action. But some angels misused their freedom of will and rendered themselves evil by their opposition to the God who is goodness itself.

Yes. St. John tells us that Satan was cast out of heaven, and that his angels were thrown down with him. Rev. XII., 9. The devils besought Christ, "If thou cast us out," Matt. VIII., 31, and said that they were legion. Mk. V., 9.

Out of the past what? Man has evolved in many things. God meant him to do so. But he did not evolve out of nothing. Evolution supposes something evolving. We are forced to admit a Creator. If you will not admit that, you will have nothing turning its non-existent self into something.

Creative evolution is a contradiction in terms. Evolution supposes an existent something progressively improving itself. Creation supposes the production of being where previously there was no being. No Catholic, therefore, can believe in creative evolution as if there were no need of a Creator. Many Catholics believe in a created evolution as a possible hypothesis in a limited degree.

That so many have accepted the evolutionary theory does not make it true. If it were against God's revelation the Catholic Church would condemn it no matter how many held it. The number who hold an error could never influence the Catholic Church; nor does she mind whether her decision be popular or not. She is concerned with what God teaches, not with what men think. However, one can hold the evolutionary theory to a certain extent. Nobody holds it in full, for all evolutionists are very hazy about origins.

It says that his soul is certainly not the result of evolution, but that it is immediately created by God. There is no dogma concerning the precise mode of formation in regard to his body. But the Church stands to the ordinary teaching that his body has not evolved from lower beings, but that it also was produced by the special intervention of God. The idea that the body of man has evolved from lower animals is scientifically and philosophically highly improbable, and it cannot be held with either safety or prudence. Science has proved nothing concerning the origin of man's body, and is merely in the conjectural stage. And in view of the mind of the Church, no Catholic would be justified in denying the literal Biblical account. If he may not deny it, must he therefore believe it? He must accept it as more probable than the evolutionary hypothesis. Presumption stands for the literal sense until the contrary has been demonstrated.

Anthropology does not show that. That is part of the evolutionary guess. There is no scientific evidence whatever as to what degree of culture the first man possessed. Meantime it is certain that Adam had all the knowledge necessary and fitting for his circumstances. Genesis shows us that he knew the nature and diversity of animals, whilst Ecclesiasticus XVII., 5-6, tells us that God filled him with knowledge and understanding, and created in our first parents science and wisdom. The fact of their knowledge must be admitted. Its degree is open to speculation, but in no way can we admit that our first parents were demi-witted, nor can science possibly demonstrate such a deficiency.

We are bound to believe that Eve was formed from Adam. It is revealed doctrine that "God hath made of one all mankind." Acts XVII., 26. "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." I. Cor. XL, 8. Nor has reason anything to say to the contrary. It is as easy for God to make a woman that way as to make Adam from the earth or the earth from nothing.

Your knowledge is inadequate. Had you read on, you would have seen in the fifth chapter of Genesis that Adam begot Seth, and after that lived on for some 800 years, begetting sons and daughters. Cain very probably married a sister. He could even have married a niece! But that would involve the marriage of a brother and sister at some stage, or indeed of several brothers and sisters. With the cessation of necessity, such close inter-relationship was forbidden. But special conditions naturally prevailed in such special circumstances as the starting of the human race. God exercised a special providence to safeguard the earliest human beings from the evils usually associated with close inter-marriage. And after all, a sister would not be so closely related to Cain as Eve was to Adam. Cain's wife was not made out of his own rib! Whom Cain married precisely is not mentioned, as not being very important. One book cannot give all the names that have occurred in history, and the Bible gives but a summary outline of chief events.

Science has nothing very definite to say on the subject, and in any case, the age of the human race cannot be calculated from the Bible. I certainly believe the Bible account in its own proper sense. As far as that account is concerned, man could have been on the earth a hundred thousand years. No one can say with certainty exactly how long.

A material world cannot be a spiritual world, nor can a spiritual world be a material world. But the two can exist simultaneously, even as in one man's head we have material brains and spiritual thoughts. We cannot say that a man's material brains so fill a man's head that they leave no room for thought. Even in purely physical things you can have material copper and electric force occupying the same wire. They are in different orders of being.

Yes. Revelation confirms the conclusions of reason which I have explained already. The account in Genesis of man's formation proves it. God is immortal, and cannot die. He made man in His own image and likeness. But our bodies are nothing like God in appearance, and are mortal. Therefore the real image of God is in our soul, and it resembles God by immortality. Both Old and New Testaments insist upon the immortality of the soul.

That does not deny the distinction between body and soul in man. If God breathed a living soul into man's body, then man's body is a distinct thing, and man is rightly said to possess both a body and a soul. To say that a man is a living soul is but to use a figure of speech, alluding to the complete thing by the name of its principal part. A man's saying that he intends to take sail for Europe does not prove that the boat is a sail and that it has not got a sail. The immortality of the soul and its distinction from the body are obvious in Scripture. Thus we read, "The souls of the just are in the hand of God. The torment of death shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die." Wisd. III., 1-2. Christ said, "Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul." Matt., X., 28. If body and soul were not separate things one could not be killed without the other. St. Paul remarks, "While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord." II. Cor. V., 6. When he was out of the body he expected to be present to the Lord. But if the soul is dead it is present to no one. Again, he desired that the union of body and soul should be dissolved in order that he might be with Christ—a thing he declared to be far better. Philip. I., 23. Or again, in Heb. IX., 27, "It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment." Judgment follows death, and the dead body not being able to give an account of itself then, it is the living soul, which experiences judgment

The immortality of the soul was well known to the Jews. The Sadducees were a small minority who were remarkable among the Jews precisely because they denied it. The majority of the Jews, therefore, held it. They were well aware of the apparition of the soul of Samuel to Saul in I. Sam. (Kgs.), XXVIIL, 15. Our Lord quoted the Pentateuch against the Sadducees, proving immortality from Exod. III., 6. "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And He said, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In other words, He is, not was, their God.

The verse means that no man can avoid death and free his soul from the necessity of being separated from the body.

When man's soul departs from his body, that body returns to dust, and all his thoughts and schemes for this earthly life are over.

Human experience does show us that man can no more escape death than the beasts. But man's condition is not the same, for his soul lives on, still capable of knowledge and love, happiness or misery. Thus the same Book, in XII., 7, tells us that "the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." The fate of the soul differs from that of the body.

Those last words obviously show that it is useless to depend upon a reward as far as recognition by fellow men is concerned. The writer is speaking from the point of view of people still living in this world. To all practical purposes as far as this world is concerned the dead are removed from this world and know not anything as far as the evidence of our own senses goes. But that the soul has passed beyond the conditions of life as we know them does not prove that the souls of the departed are not quite conscious in other conditions. In I. Pet. III., 19, we are told that Christ preached to the souls of the departed. Such a proceeding implies that they were conscious of His doctrine.

The word soul here does not refer exclusively to the immortal part of man's nature. Ezechiel is pointing out that not only the sins of our parents, but also each man's own personal and individual sins deserve punishment. In verse 24 he says that, if the just man turn from his righteousness and do evil, he shall die, and all his righteousness shall not be remembered. But his prevarications will be remembered, a thing which will matter nothing to a soul if it merely ceases to exist, but very much indeed if it be still living.

Christ meant that we should fear God rather than men. Men have no influence in one's final judgment, whatever they may do to the body. But God cannot only destroy the body; He can condemn the soul to an eternal existence, which is destruction indeed—the wreckage of all one's hopes and desires. It is simply a living death forever.

All, whether good or bad, perish as far as this earthly life is concerned, by natural death. But the cross is folly to those who are spiritually dead in sin. When a man commits serious sin he drives God's grace out of his soul. His soul is then dead to a spiritual and supernatural life until he recovers God's grace by repentance.

He means that through Christ alone can man attain to everlasting happiness. That he intends, not immortality as such, but a happy immortality is clear from his immediate addition of the words, "dwelling in the light," as opposed to the unending darkness of eternal misery.

It does not. It refers to the resurrection of the body. If the individual soul ceases to exist, there could be no resurrection of the same personality. The material body could be recalled, but another soul would have to be created. This would mean two successive personalities, of which the second would not be the first. Deny the immortality of the soul, and you deny any possibility that you yourself will rise again.

It would be still more comforting to think that they did not persist in sin. However comfort or discomfort has little to do with it. There are a thousand things we would like to be true, but that does not make them true.

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Faith

A Definite Christian Faith

The Failure of Protestantism

The Truth of Catholicism

The Catholic Church and the Bible

The Church and Her Dogmas

The Church in Her Moral Teachings

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

Catholic Apologetics in Question & Answer Form

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Faith

A Definite Christian Faith

The Failure of Protestantism

The Truth of Catholicism

The Catholic Church and the Bible

The Church and Her Dogmas

The Church in Her Moral Teachings

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

QUESTIONS IN VOLUME 1

600. A man could be orthodox on every question, yet be lost.

601. People will never know the dogmas of the Church to be true unless she changes them.

602. Your unchanging dogmas are an insult to man\'s evolving intelligence!

603. By what process of reasoning do you hope to win men of dean lives and unshackled intelligence to your dogmas?

604. Do you think that your old-fashioned dogmas have any appeal?

605. Cannot men persuade themselves to accept any so-called truth in matters of religion?

606. Your dogmas are a crime of hostility to freedom of thought and expression.

607. So Catholics must strangle their reason and swallow anything the Church teaches, however unlikely?

608. But by the mere fact of accepting the teachings of the Church, Catholics are accepting other men's reasonings.

609. Did not Tertullian say, "I believe because it is impossible"?

610. Will you receive understanding from any source other than your Church?

611. At least concerning Christian doctrine, you believe what the Church teaches, and consider further investigation sinful.

612. Yet has not the Church changed quite a lot of her dogmatic teaching in deference to modern thought?

613. Has not the Catholic Church added dogma after dogma, of which the early Christians knew nothing?

614. Did not Christianity borrow many doctrines from Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and other mythologies? Cardinal Newman at least admits that Catholicism is a mixture of paganism and Christianity.

615. If there is anything more polytheistic than Christianity in Greek or any other mythology, where is it?

616. You have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, Mary the Mother of God, Satan the God of Evil, invisible Angels and Saints, etc.

617. Will priestly sophistry deceive all the people all the time, with the spread of science?

618. Why did scientific study advance so rapidly after the Reformation? Was it not because the Catholic Church forbade it?

619. Why are scientists of standing so opposed to the Catholic Church?

620. Is it not because non-Catholic scientists have superior intellects and better data?

621. Statements of dogma cannot be an exact science!

622. Your dogmas must cramp the free play of a man’s intelligence.

623. Should not a man be ruled by his own opinions?

624. I use my reason to think for myself in these matters.

625. Is it consciousness of weakness that makes the Catholic Church dread free inquiry?

626. If it be a sin to doubt Catholic dogma, how can you weigh evidence for and against? St. Paul tells us to prove all things.

627. If a man changes from Protestantism to Catholicism, does he not do so by his own judgment?

628. What is your opinion of rationalism?

629. Has not rationalism made havoc of Christianity, reducing the Bible to a myth, and quenching the fires of hell by humanitarian principles?

630. Is not rationalism on the increase, people becoming indifferent to your Christianity?

631. If you do not fear rationalism, why do you forbid Catholics to read rationalistic writings?

632. We rationalists can never become Catholics.

633. Why could not the Catholic Church keep a man like Joseph McCabef

634. Would you question his honesty of purpose?

635. It is strange that two highly intellectual men should be affected so differently, you being attracted to join the Catholic Church, McCabe impelled to leave it.

636. But when two intellectual men disagree, how can the ordinary man hope to decide?

637. But there are many individual dogmas of the Church which my reason could never accept. Take, for example, your dogma of God.

638. I am referring to the doctrine of the Trinity. You have no sufficient reason for believing in that contradictory doctrine.

639. Has not the Christian doctrine of the Trinity a mythological origin?

640. But Indian philosophy taught this Trinitarian doctrine long before Christianity.

641. The idea of the Trinity was derived from ancient Egyptian mythology. The Oracle of Serapis used to reply, "First God, Oxen the Word, and with them the Holy Spirit. All these are of the same nature and make but one whole, of which the power is eternal."

642. Explain fully to us the Trinity, in the Christian sense of the word.

643. If Christ be the Son of God, there must have been a time when Be did not exist, for no son can be as old as his father.

644. What does the term Holy Ghost mean?

645. You teach that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, yet is responsible for the birth of that Son.

646. Let us leave these mysterious inner activities of God, and turn to external creatures. How do you view the theories of creation and evolution?

647. Your creation supposes that God made all things out of nothing?

648. Does not the axiom hold, "Out of nothing, nothing can come”?

649. Do you mean that God made beings out of nothing?

650. All things are created out of spirit, i.e., out of God.

651. Does not Scripture say, "Of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things"?