"Intellectual combat is bad, and not just bad, ineffective."

That far-too-common notion is addressed by David Mills in his newest piece over at First Things:

The claim is that argument only begets argument, and never changes anyone’s minds. Those of us who write apologetically (I write a column for our diocesan newspaper) can tell you how often some sophisticated Christian will explain how pointless and naïve is the exercise, because of course argument just begets arguments and . . . . It’s very trying.

Responding to last week’s column on the limits of apologetic writing, “The Atheist Gives Us Nothing,” a friend wrote that the argument reminded him of a book he’d just been reading, Father George Calciu: Interviews, Homilies, and Talks. Fr. Calciu was a Romanian Orthodox priest who suffered for 21 years in Ceausescu’s gulag. He was released in 1985 and deported to the United States. He died in 2006. My friend—who is not one of those trying people I just mentioned—explained that Fr. George

says that one should never put much work into making rational arguments for the faith, because few people are ever converted by mere reasoning. It’s far more important to assert faith in Christ, and in the Resurrection, and to live out that truth in concrete ways, especially by showing love to all, most of all to our enemies. He said that he found in prison, nobody was convinced by his constructing arguments for Christianity, but he saw people actually converted by him doing things like refusing anger, by his fidelity to saying the Liturgy, and praying.

”Having finished this book,” continued my friend, “I think I’m starting to understand why, in ‘The Grand Inquisitor,’ the only response Christ gives to the Inquisitor is to kiss him. The idea here is that true conversion is conversion of the heart, not the mind—and that hearts are only really converted by love, not by reasoning.”

This is obviously true, but not, I think, the whole truth. John Henry Newman argued something like this, which was part of the significance of his famous motto “heart speaks to heart” (not, though he was a theologian, “mind speaks to mind”), partly by reflecting on how people came to believe what they believed and how they could feel so certain about matters, like Christian dogmas, they could not prove in the usual way.

But he also saw that a love of truth and therefore of argument was part of what characterized and formed the heart. The heart, let me emphasize, that speaks to other hearts. The man who loves something wants to know about it. He wants, as far as the subject allows, to think about it, to analyze it, to understand it deeply. He will use that knowledge to come to its defense when it is misunderstood or misinterpreted or publicly derided or denied. This is even truer when he loves someone. If he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t truly love.

That is where the new anti-apologists go wrong. They are right that argument mostly begets argument, and that arguments by themselves rarely change anyone’s mind. But they are wrong to dismiss apologetics for that reason. They’re not thinking clearly about what people who believe do, and how people come to believe. People want answers, and for some, as far as we mortals can tell, the answers make or break the sale.

Read the entire column, "The Reason the Heart Wants".

Having been involved in apologetics for many years now, I've come to the startling (ahem!) conclusion that some people—including a few well-meaning apologists-in-the-rough—are fairly clueless about what apologetics are; some people dislike apologetics for what they (mistakenly) think apologetics are; and a few people do indeed dislike apologetics because they involve a combination of argument, logic, debate, and so forth. I've discovered that there is a huge swath of Catholics who feel that offering up any arguments or defense in favor of Catholicism smacks of triumphalism and arrogance; such folks, when pressed, usually hold to a vaguely indifferent form of "faith" that is heavily reliant on secularized understandings of "tolerance" and "equality". Many will argue that arguing is bad, and will do so without any recognition of the contradiction between their actions and their worlds. Granted, some apologists can be combative and even obnoxious, but that hardly does away with the need for apologetics.

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., and talking to him about the new edition of his important book, A History of Apologetics, published in 2005 by Ignatius Press. Here is some of that interview:

IgnatiusInsight.com: What have been the most common misunderstandings of apologetics, both in the past and today?

Cardinal Dulles: Some have imagined that the way to win converts is to minimize the element of mystery and thereby make Christianity appear more accessible to reason. But if God speaks, he might be expected to say things that would be far beyond the capacity of the human mind to discover by itself. Preserving the mystery of the divine, apologetics does not seek to prove the contents of revelation, except to show that they cannot be disproved. It does aim to show that Christianity brings blessings on the world, that we may reasonably believe it to have been revealed, and that for those who see the grounds of credibility, it is unreasonable to withhold assent.

IgnatiusInsight.com: What is the proper place of apologetics in the realm of theology?

Cardinal Dulles: Apologetics depends on theology for an accurate delineation of its own object, Christian revelation, and to show how God’s grace makes use of human reason in bringing about the assent of faith. Apologists who are not theologians sometimes try to defend propositions that do not really belong to the Christian faith or else fail to defend what is truly essential. Others are confused about the respective roles of nature and grace, faith and reason. Apologetics must therefore have a solid basis in theology.

IgnatiusInsight.com: What have been the most important developments within apologetics throughout the Church’s history?

Cardinal Dulles: Because its situation is continually changing, apologetics has not progressed along a straight line, but along a jagged trail as it goes out to meet new adversaries. On some points writers of the early centuries speak more clearly to our problems than writers of the recent past.

The earliest apologists pleaded for civil tolerance on the ground that Christians were being unjustly accused of criminal acts. In the Golden Age of patristic theology, apologists exposed the absurdities in Greco-Roman mythology and claimed that the valid aspirations of neo-Platonic philosophy were surpassingly fulfilled in Christianity. During the Middle Ages apologists tried to demonstrate to Jews that Jesus fulfilled the messianic promises of the Old Testament, and to Muslims that Jesus was marked by signs of divine approval that were not given to Muhammad. In early modern times apologetics had to respond to skepticism, which denied the knowability of God, and to rationalism, which contended that revelation could disclose no more than reason could prove without it.

Then in the nineteenth century apologetics had to address an overconfident scientism that exalted empirical scientific method as the sole norm of truth. In the twentieth century apologetics had to face the assaults of religious relativism, carried to an extreme in postmodern subjectivism. Thus the work of apologetics is never finished. It can learn from the past, but it also has to be creative.

IgnatiusInsight.com: How have perceptions and attitudes toward apologetics changed in the United States since you wrote your first edition in 1971?

Cardinal Dulles: In 1971 apologists were under a cloud. Theologians shrank from even using the word "apologetics" because it seemed to imply an aggressive and opportunistic kind of proselytism. But today apologists are more conscious of the limitations of their discipline. They want to face the real problems as honestly as possible. They acknowledge that they cannot argue people into faith, which has to be a gift of God. On the other hand, Christians of our day have come to see that faith cannot be confidently professed unless people see good reasons for holding that it is true. Hence there is more openness toward apologetics as a study of the rational grounds for faith.

IgnatiusInsight.com: Apologetics has changed over the centuries, but what qualities are consistently found in the best apologetics?

Cardinal Dulles: The best apologetics in my opinion has always directed attention to the figure of Jesus Christ, with his challenging message, his powerful deeds, his loving self-sacrifice, and his glorious vindication by the Father. He is the great witness of God, and the Church bears witness to him. Where the story of Jesus Christ becomes clouded over with secondary questions, apologetics loses itself in fruitless and inconclusive debates.

IgnatiusInsight.com: The practice of apologetics has often been criticized, both in the past and in the present day. What are some of the criticisms and how valid are they?

Cardinal Dulles: Apologists are prone to commit certain mistakes. In trying to win arguments with particular opponents, they sometimes mistakenly take over the assumptions of their adversaries. Exaggerating the powers of reason, some try in vain to demonstrate mysteries of faith such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Others, as I have mentioned, make Christianity uninteresting by minimizing the element of mystery. I am convinced that it is best not to conceal the offense--the scandal, if you like--of the God who died on the Cross.

Authors such as Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, in their critique of apologetics, helped apologists to avoid the pitfalls to which their profession exposes them and thereby rise to their true vocation.

Read the entire interview. Also see:

• Foreword to A History of Apologetics | Dr. Timothy George
• "Be a Catholic Apologist Without Apology" | Carl E. Olson
• "Love Alone is Believable: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Apologetics" | by Fr. John R. Cihak
• "Kreeft On Apologetics" | An interview with Peter Kreeft

Comments

[Lisa Graas]

My name is Lisa Graas and I approve this blog post. ;-)

[Ed Peters]

Well, alls I know is, I’m going to go on arguing (not quarrelling, arguing, as GKC would say) until someone convinces me otherwise.

[Dan]

All conversions result from grace, which God delivers in countless ways. I personally have never seen it delivered through intellectual discourse but I've heard that it has happened. More typically the manner in which grace is received involves suffering.

[LJ]

Someone like Marcus Grodi would and has testified that the reasons for a Catholic going Protestant, usually Evangelical, for the most part are centered in the emotions and a particular kind of spirituality, but are rarely intellectual.

However, the reverse is also true, that coming the other way to the Catholic Church, whether convert or revert, much of it is centered in the intellect, in the search for knowledge, and in the historical record of the early fathers.

In my own case, Catholic apologetics was crucial, and giving credit where it is due I have to say Catholic Answers was a great resource. Kudos to those guys, and to Marcus Grodi.

[Randy]

The key is to find a person they respect that accepts at least part of the argument you are trying to make. Just any atheist would not do. Just any protestant would not do. You have to know your audience. People quote Hans Kung to me and expect me to be impressed because he is a Catholic. It can be funny. But we do the same thing to atheists. It is a lot of work and it can miss the mark badly.

[champd]

Thanks for the helpful article- I think you point out a key fact- that while of course Christian witness and charity speaks volumes, we should not make a dichotomy between that and arguing intellectually for the faith. In their shortsightedness people always 'feel' they need to choose sides. This is one of the problems with the revolution in apologetics/fundamental theology after VII- the new academics at the Pontifical Universities launched a serious counterattack against the 'old apologetic' for several reasons. They felt the old apologetic was too negative, starting with a polemic against their opponents (Protestants and Modernists)- how the new school didn't realize that they were also starting very negatively by trying to tear down the entire history of what had gone on before is mind-boggling! They critique the starting point of the old apologetic, yet they themselves start in the same exact place, except this time the attack is launched against their own church! There are several other problems too many to go into here with the new trends in fundamental theology...
Making intellectual distinctions for the purposes of arguing for the faith or against a false position does not damage the unity of the Faith, but rather takes men seriously- as intellectually capable. Thanks and God Bless.

[Will Peaden]

One thing that can be a problem is one's metaphysics. Everyone has an idea of 'how the world is', and so argument can be useful in helping to show where these differences lie. It is important to get first principles correct. So Dulles is very insightful when he says that apologetics can be a set of useless reasoning, like building a house on sand. I think the part of the problem today is that most people worship reason, and as the Cardinal says, we mustn't be afraid of the mystery of Catholicism.

[Ed Peters]

Seriously, I think one problem is that good folks don't know how to "win" an argument, by which I mean, they don't have the humility to let the other side reach conclusions as a discovery of their own. We all think winning an argument looks like Perry Mason crushing a witness into confession in the box. It don't work that way. Truth is a discovery, that one helps another to achieve.

[Kim]

I just entered the Church on August 22, 2010. For several years my conversion process was mostly an intellectual search for Truth. My heart was converted only after my mind was convinced that the Faith made sense, and that Christ's Church is the Way to the Truth. This is the way God chose to convert me, and judging from the people I have met in RCIA, I am not alone on this path.