Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

Before undertaking a treatment of apologetic theology in particular, it will be useful first to outline its definition, object, importance, and history.

Sacred theology draws its knowledge from revelation and considers all truths in the light of revelation. Only that is theologically true which has been divinely revealed or is inferred from divinely revealed truths. Revelation, therefore, is the supreme principle and the deepest foundation of all theology.

That revelation exists is established neither of itself—since it is not an intrinsically evident thing—nor has it yet been proved from elsewhere, since philosophy only points to natural religion.¹

Between philosophy and theology, therefore, an intermediate science is required, whose office is to establish the supernatural, that is, revealed religion. This science is rightly called apologetics or fundamental theology.

Apologetics (ἀπολογητική, sc. ἐπιστήμη, τέχνη) by the force of the word simply designates the "science of defense" of anything whatsoever. Yet by force of usage that science is especially called apologetics which defends the Christian-Catholic religion as revealed by God.

This science is called fundamental theology because it lays down the foundation or principle on which all theology rests, namely the supernatural revelation given by Christ and preached by the Church of Christ.

If we join both names, the real definition of this discipline is clear: Apologetics, or fundamental theology, is that science which establishes the principles of all theology by showing that the Christian-Catholic religion has been revealed by God.

From this definition it is clear:

a) Material object. According to its definition, apologetics is wholly occupied with proving that the Christian-Catholic religion was revealed by God. For Christ, while He dwelt on earth, completing and enlarging the revelation of the Old Testament, founded that religion which we ourselves call Christian. And upon returning to heaven, He established for the custody of this His religion at all times and for its administration among all men that ecclesiastical society which we call Catholic. The revelation made by Christ is accordingly the constitutive principle, the Church founded by Christ the regulative principle, of faith and theology.

Yet the fact that we rightly hold this view of the origin and office of the Christian religion and of the Catholic Church must not be presupposed, but proven, by a twofold apologetic demonstration.

The Christian demonstration argues that the religion of this name is revealed by showing that Jesus Christ, its author, is the legate and Son of God.

The Catholic demonstration proves that the Christian religion is to be found in the Catholic Church alone by showing that this Church was founded by Christ as the custodian and dispenser of revealed truth.

b) Formal object. It is evident and clear that apologetics, lest it fall into a vicious circle, does not consider its materials in the light of revelation, but investigates them by the aid of pure reason. The arguments, therefore, which it employs are drawn partly from philosophy, partly from history. It also makes use of Sacred Scripture not as an inspired book, but as a merely historical one; likewise it does not yet regard Tradition as a divine source of revelation, but as a merely human source of historical truth.

Nevertheless, step by step apologetics solves certain questions by also employing revealed truths. E.g., once it has first been proven by rational arguments that the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is a revealed truth, we shall further use this very authority of the Roman Pontiffs to establish other revealed truths. This manner of arguing and concluding in no way contradicts the rational method. For reason itself teaches us to derive other conclusions logically from those things which have been scientifically proven.

Nor does the fact that we very often add dogmatic definitions and censures of the Church to our philosophical-historical arguments, even before the authority of the Church herself in matters of faith has been proven, stand in the way of this rational method. For such ecclesiastical definitions and censures are adduced not for the sake of proof, but for the sake of complement. And rightly so. For all, or nearly all, of the things that are scientifically treated in apologetics are also objects of faith. Therefore, lest they have to be treated twice, first apologetically and afterwards dogmatically, it will be said at once in apologetics what the Church thinks about these questions. This manner of proceeding befits us Catholic apologists especially, because we already hold the revelation by faith, which we deliberately defend against unbelievers by rational arguments.

c) Corollaries. Having weighed the material and formal object of apologetics, these corollaries are easily understood:

1°. Apologetics is distinguished from apology (apologia). Both indeed defend religion by using rational arguments. They differ, however, in material object. Apologetics systematically defends religion with respect to its total object, that is, with respect to the principles and foundations of the whole religion, vindicating its divine origin. Apology, on the other hand, defends religion with respect to certain partial objects, that is, with respect to individual dogmatic, moral, historical, etc. truths, according to that saying of St. Peter: "Always ready to give satisfaction (πρὸς ἀπολογίαν) to every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you."¹

This difference is already sufficiently suggested by the words "apology" and "apologetics": for ἀπολογία signifies defense simply, ἀπολογητική the science of defense. Apologetics, therefore, is the science of apology, just as catechetics is the science of catechesis.

2°. Apologetics also differs greatly from dogmatics (dogmatic theology). The material object of apologetics is the fact of revelation (the foundations and principles of faith and theology); the material object of dogmatics, however, is the content of revelation (the individual truths of faith and theology). Likewise, the formal object of apologetics is natural reason; the formal object of dogmatics, however, is supernatural revelation, or reason enlightened by faith. In apologetics reason precedes faith (through understanding to faith); in dogmatics faith precedes reason (through faith to understanding). Of the former it holds: "I understand that I may believe"; of the latter: "I believe that I may understand."

3°. Apologetics differs from theodicy, or natural theology. Both indeed investigate divine things by the same light of reason, but in such a way, however, that they are concerned with distinct material objects. For theodicy demonstrates natural religion, treating of the existence and nature of God and of the worship to be rendered to Him; apologetics, on the other hand, presupposing natural religion, establishes supernatural revelation. Grasping philosophy with the left hand and reaching forth theology with the right, it joins both harmoniously and organically. Nevertheless, in schools in which the serious study of philosophy does not precede apologetics, the apologists themselves are compelled to preface the demonstration of natural religion to the demonstration of the Christian revelation and of the Catholic Church.

4°. Apologetics is a science of its own kind, distinct from all disciplines, both profane and theological. For it is distinguished from philosophy and the other profane sciences by its material object; from theology, however, by its material object already and then by its formal one. Since, nevertheless, nearly all of the material objects of apologetics are, under a different respect, also materials of theology; and since the whole of theology is built upon the apologetic foundation, apologetics itself is likewise commonly numbered among the theological disciplines. This is so with about the same right by which a foundation can be called a part of a building, indeed its principal part, although otherwise it is far different from the building.

From what has been said thus far it is clear that apologetics is of great importance objectively for the true religion. Hence it is also concluded that apologetics is of remarkable value subjectively for those who either seek or cultivate the true faith and religion.

a) For infidels seeking religion, it paves the way to faith. Indeed, no one can believe unless he has first certainly known the fact of revelation. Innocent XI condemned the thesis: "The supernatural assent of faith, which is useful for salvation, is compatible with a merely probable knowledge of the revelation, and even with the fear by which one fears that God has not spoken."¹

Reasonably, therefore, no one can embrace the faith unless he is persuaded that the Christian-Catholic revelation is given by God.

On the contrary, no one who is persuaded of this foundation of the true religion can reasonably repel the faith. For if it stands by irrefutable arguments that God is the author of the revelation, it also stands that this revelation is reasonably credible. Accordingly, in proving the fact of revelation the apologist leads the infidel by the hand as far as the very gates of faith.

Nevertheless, he cannot compel the unwilling to enter, nor can he bring the willing into the temple of faith. He cannot compel the unwilling to believe. For reason alone is compelled to assent by the evidence of the thing. The fact of revelation, however, is proved in apologetics as certain indeed, but not evident. He cannot endow the willing with faith. For apologetics alone sets forth rational motives, supported by which the intellect forms the natural judgment of the credibility of the faith. Faith itself, however, is the assent given to revelation from a supernatural motive, that is, on account of the authority of God revealing. Hence, to produce the act of faith, grace must concur with human reason.

Human reasoning about credibility is a condition sine qua non of faith;² divine aid, however, is the cause that causes faith.³

The infidel, therefore, should indeed devote himself to study, but let him pray much more earnestly that he may obtain the gift of faith from God.⁴

b) The faithful also profit much from apologetic study. Indeed, the apologetic arguments do not directly and intrinsically increase the power and firmness of faith. For its supernatural certainty infinitely exceeds every certainty acquired by mere reason. Indirectly, however, and extrinsically, faith is greatly aided by the apologetic motives of credibility. These motives remove the obstacles to faith heaped up by adversaries; they build bulwarks around the citadel of faith; they show the excellence, sublimity, and beauty of faith, and thereby fill the minds of the faithful with reverence, love, gratitude, and alacrity for performing those things that belong to faith.

The faithful need this apologetic aid the more, the more they advance in profane sciences. Indeed, the unlearned and those who are ignorant of the subtleties of unbelieving science do not require a learned foundation of faith. By the testimony of parents and by common religious discipline they are fully convinced of the credibility of the faith. But the higher scientific erudition, the deeper also the motives of credibility reason requires, and the more frequent the communion with learned infidels, the more that saying of St. Peter urges: "Let us be always ready to give satisfaction (πρὸς ἀπολογίαν) to every one that asketh us a reason of that hope which is in us."⁵

Above all, however, of all men the theologian ought to be perfect in apologetics. This is evident both from the nature of theology and from the circumstances of our time.

For theology is the science of divine things drawn from revelation. Revelation is the principle and source of all theological truth. But since only apologetics proves the scientific certainty of revelation, theology without apologetics lacks a source, lacks a principle, lacks a foundation, lacks the character of a true science.

The circumstances of our time still further increase the necessity of the study of fundamental theology. Nearly all the enemies of the true religion today do not so much attack the individual dogmas of the faith as rather the very foundation of the faith. Modern men no longer call into doubt the individual truths which Christ preached and which the Church of Christ proposes; rather, they deny the very authority and infallibility of the Church, they deny the very divine legation and nature of Christ, they deny the very fact of revelation, not to say natural religion itself. Accordingly, we likewise must be wholly engaged in so establishing and defending these foundations of our faith on every side.

Apologetics as a special discipline, such as we have described it, is of recent origin. Arising at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it entered the theological schools only gradually. Before that, either mere apologiae flourished, or only certain questions of fundamental theology were treated, as the difficulties of the times and the progress of theology demanded.

1. In the first centuries the Christian religion was attacked by the Jews and the pagans. The Jews, indeed, not only denied that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, but also pursued both him himself and his disciples with calumnies. The pagans, adding other calumnies to these, accused the Christians of being atheists, haters of the human race, enemies of the state, and devotees of every error and crime.

These objections were refuted in the second century by those fathers of the Church who are significantly called apologists: Quadratus,¹ Aristides of Athens, Justin Martyr (First and Second Apology; Dialogue with Trypho the Jew), Tatian (Address to the Greeks), Athenagoras (Supplication for the Christians), Theophilus of Antioch (Three Books to Autolycus), the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus, Minucius Felix (Octavius), Hermias (The Ridicule of the Gentile Philosophers), Tertullian (Apologeticum; Ad nationes).

2. With the Christian religion by now widely spread, the pagans no longer dared to put forward those absurd calumnies. All the more, however, did they strive by philosophical arguments to attack the teaching, the miracles, and the books of the Christians and to whitewash the pagan institutions, above all Celsus, Hierocles, Porphyry, and Julian the Apostate.

Accordingly, from the third to the fifth century very many distinguished men defended the Christian cause with the pen, whether negatively, by refuting those polemical writings and ridiculing the superstitions of the pagans, or positively, by expounding the revealed religion and proving its divine origin. The foremost of these apologists are: in the East, those three Alexandrians, Clement (Exhortation to the Greeks; The Instructor; Stromata), Origen (Against Celsus), and Cyril (Against Julian), as well as Eusebius of Caesarea (Preparation for the Gospel; Demonstration of the Gospel) and Athanasius (Against the Heathen); in the West, Cyprian (To Donatus; On the Vanity of Idols), Arnobius (Against the Pagans), Lactantius (Divine Institutes; On the Deaths of the Persecutors), and Augustine (The City of God).

3. From the seventh to the twelfth century rabbinic Jews revived and Arab philosophers attacked the Christian religion. The Jews did not cease to assail the messiahship, the life, and the teaching of Christ in talmudic schools and writings; the Arabs, above all the expositors and corrupters of Aristotle, Avicenna (1037) and Averroës (1198), not only spurned the Christian revelation, but also professed grave errors against the natural religion.

The Jews were refuted from the Old Testament and from the Talmud itself by Isidore of Seville († 636), Rabanus Maurus († 856), Peter Damian († 1072), and Jerome of the Holy Faith, a Jew converted to the faith of Christ, afterwards surnamed Hebraeomastix.

The Muslim Arabs were refuted by John of Damascus († 754), Peter the Venerable († 1156), Peter of Blois († 1200), and St. Thomas Aquinas († 1274). Against both — namely, Jews and Arabs — there fought Raymond Martin O.P. (Pugio fidei against the Moors and the Jews) and Alphonsus de Spina O.M. (Fortalitium fidei against the Jews, Saracens, and others).

The most celebrated of these works is St. Thomas's Summa contra Gentiles, which confounds not only the errors of the Arabs, but also those of other philosophers of that time. It presupposes the truths conceded by them, above all the fundamental ones, and defends those not conceded or ill understood. From this it is clear that this Summa too constitutes an apologia rather than an apologetics.

4. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in the time of humanism and of the rebirth of letters and of the liberal arts, many, stirred by love of the pagan Greeks and Romans, blushed at the Christian religion; some even attacked it, e.g. Giordano Bruno, Pomponazzi, Marsilius of Padua, Ockham, Wyclif, Hus, and others, the forerunners of the pseudo-Reformation.²

Others, however, strove to defend the revealed truths fervently. And indeed, in order to wrest the weapons from their adversaries, they themselves very often also appealed to the philosophy and literature of the classical authors. Whence at times the champions of divine truth went astray in the same way as their adversaries. The more distinguished apologists of this time are: St. Bernardine of Siena O.M. († 1444; De religione christiana), Pico della Mirandola († 1494; Heptaplus), Savonarola O.P. († 1498; Triumphus crucis, or On the Truth of the Faith), Marsilio Ficino († 1499; De religione christiana et fidei pietate).

5. From the sixteenth century heretics gradually strove to undermine all the foundations of the divine religion. The pseudo-Reformers attacked above all the authority of the supreme pontiff, of the councils, and of sacred Tradition, and finally the whole doctrine concerning the Church of Christ and the truths that flow from it. Hence was first born that part of apologetics which is called the demonstratio catholica. And indeed, since the Protestants rejected both the rational and the ecclesiastical arguments, the Catholics defended the Church almost solely from the biblical books and the historical documents.

From then on, in the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, very many polemico-apologetic works appeared from the pens of Cochlaeus, Eck, Hosius, the brothers Adrian and Peter van Walenburch, and others. Among them all there stand out Baronius (Annales ecclesiastici), who defended the Church by means of history, Melchior Cano O.P., who wrote the celebrated work "De locis theologicis", and Bellarmine S.I., who published the "Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei".

6. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries most Protestant theologians, as well as the unbelieving philosophers, progressed from the denial of the Church to the denial of revelation. Monistic, deistic, and rationalistic naturalism (see below, p. 25) called the fact of Christian revelation into doubt (seventeenth century) and finally simply rejected its knowability, usefulness, and possibility (eighteenth century). From this both orthodox Protestants and Catholics were compelled to devote themselves also to that part of apologetics which is entitled the demonstratio christiana.

For the defense of the Christian religion there labored, among the Protestants, Hugo Grotius, Leibniz, Mosheim, Haller, Less, Lilienthal, and Jerusalem; among the Catholics, Bossuet (Discours sur l'histoire universelle), Daniel Huet (Demonstratio evangelica; he favors fideism), Pascal (Les pensées; he favors apologetic voluntarism and sentimentalism), Bergier (Traité historique et dogmatique de la vraie religion), Chateaubriand (Le génie du christianisme), Paolo Segneri (L'incredulo senza scusa), and St. Alphonsus de Liguori (Verità della fede).

Yet even at this time, for the most part, either the whole apologetic object was not treated, or it was not treated systematically. The first to cultivate fundamental theology in the sense defined by us were Vitus Pichler S.I. (Theologia polemica 1713), Martin Gerbert O.S.B. (Demonstratio verae religionis veraeque ecclesiae 1760), Sardagna S.I. (1770), Kilber S.I. (1771), Mayer S.I. (1772), Stättler S.I. (1775), Gazzaniga O.P., Wiest O.Cist., and Beda Mayr O.S.B.

7. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the discipline of apologetics obtained its greatest importance and growth in the theological schools. To the old enemies of Christian revelation and of the Catholic Church there were added new ones, namely philosophical and biblical neo-rationalism, positivism, agnosticism, socialism, Old Catholicism, and finally modernism, the refuge and receptacle of all recent errors. Their efforts were curbed by apologetics, intimately joined to the "perennial philosophy" and to biblical science, in almost innumerable books. Passing over very many, let us mention only those which even today are either in use in the schools or at least can be usefully consulted by theologians.³

Those who treat apologetics systematically: Liebermann (Institutiones theol. 1831); Berlage (Apologetik der Kirche 1834), Drey (Apologetik 1838/47), Perrone S.I. (De vera religione; De locis theologicis 1835/42), Schwetz (Theol. generalis 1850), Albertus (Knoll) a Bulsano O.M.C. (Institutiones theol. dogm. generalis 1852), Murray (De ecclesia 1860/66), Reinerding (Theol. fundamentalis 1864), Jungmann (De vera religione 1874), Hacke (Handbuch der allgemeinen Religionswissenschaft 1875), Hurter S.I. (Theol. generalis 1876), Sprinzl (Fundamentaltheologie 1876), Palmieri (De romano pontifice 1877), Hettinger (Fundamentaltheologie 1879), Mazzella (De religione et ecclesia 1880), Zigliara O.P. (De ordine supernaturali 1884), Bautz (Apologetik 1887), Franzelin S.I. (Theses de ecclesia Christi 1885; De divina Traditione et Scriptura, 3. ed., 1882), Gutberlet (Apologetik 1888), Lambrecht (Theologiae fund. lib. I, 1889; Demonstratio cath. 1890; De locis theologicis 1890), De Groot (De ecclesia 1890), Norbertus (Stock) a Tux O.M.C. (Theol. fund. 1891), Egger (Enchiridion theol. dogm. generalis 1893), Dalponte (Theol. fund. 1894), Chr. Pesch S.I. (Instit. propaedeuticae ad s. theol. 1894), Schill (Theol. Prinzipienlehre 1895), Stöckl (Apologetik 1895), Tanquerey (Synopsis theol. dogm. fund. 1896), Wilmers S.I. (De relig. revelata; De Christi ecclesia 1897/98), Ottiger S.I. (Theol. fund. I/II 1897. 1911), Schmid (Apologetik 1900), Michelitsch (Elementa apologeticae 1901/4), Minges O.M. (Compendium theol. dogm. generalis 1902), Billot S.I. (De ecclesia Christi 1903), Reinhold (Praelectiones de theol. fund. 1905), De San (Tractatus de ecclesia et romano pontifice 1906), Van Noort (De vera rel.; De eccles. Christi; De fontibus revelationis 1907), Weber (Christliche Apologetik 1907), Angelus Stummer O.M.C. (Theol. fund. 1907), Kneib (Apologetik 1912), Specht (Apologetik 1912), Straub (De Ecclesia Christi, 2 vol., 1912), Garrigou-Lagrange (De revelatione per ecclesiam catholicam proposita, 2 vol., 1918), Virgilius Wass O.M.C. (Repetitorium theol. fund. 1921).

Others cultivate an apologia more than an apologetics, many other distinguished men and books being passed over: In English: Wiseman, Twelve lectures on the connection between science and revealed religion 1838; Manning, The grounds of faith 1852; Newman, Grammar of assent 1870.

In French: Nicolas, Etudes philosophiques sur le christianisme 1842; L'art de croire 1866; Migne, Démonstrations évangéliques, 20 vol., 1843—1853; Dechamps, Entretiens sur la démonstration catholique de la révélation 1857; Bougaud, Le christianisme et les temps présents 1884; Jaugey, Dictionnaire apologétique 1889; A. D'Alès, Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, 1909 ff.; Cardinal Dechamps, Œuvres, Malines t. I, III, IV, XVI;⁴ Lacordaire, Conférences;⁵ Lepin, Jésus Messie et Fils de Dieu 1906; Sertillanges O.P., L'Eglise, 2 vol., 1916.

In German: Denzinger, Vier Bücher von der rel. Erkenntnis 1857; Vosen, Das Christentum 1861; Der Katholizismus 1866; Hettinger, Apologie des Christentums, 5 vol., 1863—1867; Weiß O.P., Apologie des Christentums, 5 vol., 1878—1889; Hammerstein S.I., Begründung des Glaubens 1891—1894; Schanz, Apologie des Christentums, 3 vol., 1895—1898; Schell, Apologie des Christentums, 2 vol., 1901/05; Seitz, Das Evangelium vom Gottessohn 1908; Reinhold, Der alte und der neue Glaube 1908; Klug, Gottes Wort und Gottes Sohn 1909; Straubinger, Grundprobleme der christlichen Weltanschauung 1911; Sawicki, Wahrheit des Christentums 1911; Esser-Mausbach, Religion, Christentum und Kirche, 3 vol., 1911—1913; H. Felder O.M.C., Jesus Christus, eine Apologie seiner Messianität und Gottheit, 2 vol., 2. ed. 1920—1921.

Particular apologetic questions are almost always treated individually by different authors in monographic books or in various periodicals and apologetic dictionaries. Some of these authors will be indicated in their places and chapters in the course of the present treatment, though few of them, as the character of a compendium requires. The names of non-Catholics are marked with an asterisk.