May 2013 - To Give a Defense

James White Agonistes; or, How I played the apologist easier than a pipe.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 22, 2013 • Apologetics

The Dividing Line of May 21, 2013 is all the evidence I need that Dr.* James White is so predisposed to see lack of intelligence, seriousness, credibility (fill in your noun of choice) in Catholic apologists, that he will let himself be played on like a pipe. No need for Catholic apologists who engage the good Dr.* White to wait for him to invent straw men. You can hand him one of your own making: He will grab it, tear it to shreds, stomp upon it, and cackle in triumph. Meanwhile, you can proceed with your serious apologetic, and he won’t bother to touch it.

A primer on moral law, with reference to same-sex marriage.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 20, 2013 • LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

Not even Christopher Hitchens believed in moral relativity. Those who claim to believe in it probably mean instead, “I don’t want to be bothered with what you Christians tell me I ought or ought not do.” But that’s different. Behind every claim to moral relativity is someone making an excuse, either for himself or for someone else. He knows the behavior in question is wrong, but is attached to it, or perhaps does not wish to make the necessary effort to correct it. Perhaps he feels it would require too much effort. Or perhaps he doesn’t wish to give offense.

Pentecost: To woo back a world’s desire.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 19, 2013 • Liturgical Year

The more I look at the world I find myself in today, the more I am convinced that the twenty-first-century Church must become the first-century Church. We must allow our hearts, our spirits, our lives to be a cenacle in which the fire of the Holy Spirit can ignite and prompt us, if necessary, to shame and to martyrdom. For today the Church is confronted with the very same evil it was confronted with in the first century: paganism. The only difference today is that it is a secular, and often a statist, paganism. But it is no less hostile to truth.

A counterblast to Dr.* James White and his blithe denial of 48,509 Protestant sects.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 17, 2013 • Apologetics

Accepting as given the figure of ca. 33,000 for 2001, I have searched, for some time now, for a scientifically accurate formula for determining the exact number of Protestant sects on any given day in history from 1517 forward. The Encyclopedia—any encyclopedia — can only give estimates; but what the Catholic apologist should desire is precision. That way, when confronted by a rabid Protestant, he can be dealing in scientific fact, not disputable conjecture. I gave the beginnings of such a model in my previous article. How do my estimates fare in comparison to others?

Ephesians chapter four: Only one Church.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 14, 2013 • Apologetics

Reformed Christians have a very high doctrine of the Gospel, but not a very high doctrine of the Church. The reason that is troubling is because Paul claims no less an exclusivity for the Church than he does for the Gospel. I am used to hearing Protestant apologists take a page out of Plato and say things like, “There is an invisible Church which is manifest in local bodies.” But St. Paul doesn’t use the plural, he uses the singular: body. I never hear Protestants say things like, “There is an invisible Gospel which is manifest in local books.”

A primer on rights, with reference to same-sex marriage.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 13, 2013 • LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

Of things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes.” That is the opening of Book II of Aristotle’s Physics, and is the beginning of all correct reason. A tree exists by nature, but a park is made by man. For Aristotle’s “nature,” the Christian will substitute God; Aquinas improves on Aristotle. Thus of things that exist, some are created by God and some by man. And since they are, in fact, created, it follows that they are created for a purpose. It follows, too, that their purpose is defined by the maker alone. With that in mind, we can turn to Jefferson.

Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams lectures the Church on same-sex marriage.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 11, 2013 • LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

First we’re going to talk about language. It behooves any who be honest to get the expression “marriage equality” out of his head. No one believes in any such thing. I doubt very much that Mary Elizabeth Williams believes in it. I would be stupefied into a coma if she told me she thought it was all good and well if I were to marry two women; or two men; or one woman and one man; or my cat; or a three-year-old child; or six cows; or the exhumed body of King Tut. The reason she does not believe I may do these things is because she does not believe in marriage equality.

Of course you have religious freedom. Except when the State says you don’t. Deconstructing the absolute statism of combox junkie Doug Indeap (if that is his name).

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 2, 2013 • Politics

If you go to the search engines and look for “Doug Indeap,” you might have a hard time figuring out where or what his practice is. I don’t doubt that he has one. (David Ivester is an environmental, not a Constitutional, lawyer.) But if the pages and pages of returns from Google are any indication, his alter ego Doug Indeap spends a profuse volume of time trolling Catholic and conservative blogs and using the comboxes to instruct us all in his own firm belief in statism and, in particular, a squeezingly cramped and claustrophobic interpretation of first amendment religious freedom.