A defense of defense: On the necessity of apologetics.

ver on Mr. David Grif­fey’s blog, the apt­ly-named Daf­fey Thoughts, some­one who calls him­self “Anony­mous” (it could be “her­self,” for all I know) demands answers. “Who nom­i­nat­ed Scott Eric Alt as an ‘Apol­o­gist’ any­way?” he or she growls. In reply, Grif­fey spends a weird sen­tence or two com­par­ing me to San­cho Pan­za before decid­ing that the “Inter­net Age” did it. Blame the Inter­net Age for Alt’s nom­i­na­tion! Mr. Grif­fey does­n’t men­tion that the same “Inter­net Age” per­mits him to declaim from his blog with no edi­tor or peer review, and the same “Inter­net Age” per­mits thou­sands upon thou­sands of self-described con­ser­v­a­tives to dis­pense med­ical advice with­out a license.

But I did­n’t come here to talk about all of that. Instead, I want to talk about who nom­i­nat­ed all Chris­tians to be apol­o­gists.

• Jesus Christ did.

Appar­ent­ly Mr. Grif­fey and Anony­mous (of inde­ter­mi­nate gen­der) have for­got­ten about the Great Com­mis­sion. But Christ spoke to all his fol­low­ers in Matt. 28:18–20: “All pow­er is giv­en unto me in heav­en and in earth. Go ye there­fore, and teach all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teach­ing them to observe all things what­so­ev­er I have com­mand­ed you.”

• St. Peter, the first pope, did.

In his first epis­tle, he address­es “God’s elect … who have been cho­sen accord­ing to the fore­knowl­edge of God the Father.” That’s all Chris­tians. In 1 Peter 3:15 he tells them: “Be ready always to give a defense to every­one who asks a rea­son for the hope that is with­in you. Yet do it with gen­tle­ness and rev­er­ence.”

Okay, I’ve failed at the gen­tle­ness and rev­er­ence. We all have.

• Pope St. John Paul II did.

In Redemp­toris Mis­sio 3 he writes:

God is open­ing before the Church the hori­zons of a human­i­ty more ful­ly pre­pared for the sow­ing of the Gospel. I sense that the moment has come to com­mit all of the Church’s ener­gies to a new evan­ge­liza­tion and to the mis­sion ad gentes. No believ­er in Christ, no insti­tu­tion of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to pro­claim Christ to all peo­ples.

• The 2012 Syn­od of Bish­ops did.

In their doc­u­ment Instru­men­tum Laboris (§119), they write:

Every Chris­t­ian needs to feel the call to engage in this task, which comes from one’s bap­tismal iden­ti­ty. Every Chris­t­ian must seek to be guid­ed by the Holy Spir­it, who pro­vides the strength and means to respond to it, each accord­ing to one’s prop­er voca­tion. These times, in which choos­ing the faith and fol­low­ing Christ is not easy and is lit­tle under­stood by the world—if not out­right­ly resist­ed and opposed—make it more com­pelling for com­mu­ni­ties and indi­vid­ual Chris­tians to be coura­geous wit­ness­es of the Gospel. The rea­sons under­ly­ing such actions come from St. Peter the Apos­tle, when he asks us to give an account and respond to any­one who asks us the rea­son for the hope which is in us.

• Pope Bene­dict XVI did.

In his apos­tolic exhor­ta­tion Ver­bum Domi­ni [§113], he said that the Inter­net Age—much derid­ed by Mr. Griffey—has an impor­tant val­ue in “giv­ing a defense.”

Dis­cov­er­ing new meth­ods of trans­mit­ting the Gospel mes­sage is part of the con­tin­u­ing evan­ge­liz­ing out­reach of those who believe. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions today take place through a world­wide net­work, and thus give new mean­ing to Christ’s words: “What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whis­pered, pro­claim upon the house­tops” (Mt 10:27). God’s word should resound not only in the print media, but in oth­er forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as well. For this rea­son, togeth­er with the Syn­od Fathers, I express grat­i­tude to those Catholics who are mak­ing seri­ous efforts to pro­mote a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence in the world of the media, and I ask for an ever wider and more qual­i­fied com­mit­ment in this regard.

Among the new forms of mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion, nowa­days we need to rec­og­nize the increased role of the inter­net, which rep­re­sents a new forum for mak­ing the Gospel heard.

•••

That’s my defense of defense: Since Jesus Christ him­self first did so, the Church has always asked all Chris­tians to be apol­o­gists.

But Alt! You’re con­flat­ing apolo­get­ics and evan­ge­liza­tion.

I say that’s a dis­tinc­tion with­out a dif­fer­ence; it’s like com­plain­ing I’m con­flat­ing socks and clothes. Some peo­ple tend to reduce apolo­get­ics even fur­ther: to exer­cis­es like prov­ing that Catholics don’t wor­ship Mary, or that sola scrip­tura is false, or that Peter was the first pope. Apolo­get­ics can include these things, and it often is nec­es­sary if they are stum­bling blocks to some­one becom­ing Catholic. Not every­one is drawn to this. But apolo­get­ics is larg­er. Apolo­get­ics is a defense of the faith itself, from rea­son. That’s a nec­es­sary species of evan­ge­liza­tion. “Come, let us rea­son togeth­er, saith the Lord” (Isa­iah 1:18).

•••

But I don’t need an offi­cial com­mis­sion to do this, because the com­mis­sion has already come from Jesus Christ, and it has come to all. “Alt’s not an apol­o­gist!” Karl Keat­ing, the Pooh-bah Emer­i­tus, once cried, as though he has a veto. (Maybe Keat­ing’s the growl­ing Anony­mous. Who’d know?)

Some do it bet­ter than oth­ers; only a very few do it pro­fes­sion­al­ly. Every­one who does it does it their own way. And every­one does it bad­ly at times. God knows I have.

But if every Catholic is called to give a defense, it fol­lows that every one is called to edu­cat­ed them­selves, to know the Catholic faith well, just as they are oblig­at­ed to form their con­sciences right­ly. Know­ing the truth is not option­al, nor is speak­ing the truth—especially the ulti­mate truth, Jesus Christ.

There are, to be sure, ways not to do apolo­get­ics and times not to do apolo­get­ics. I have writ­ten about that before, here and here and here. The right way to do apolo­get­ics is always to pro­pose, and nev­er to impose. That is why Pope Pius XII, in Mys­ti­ci Cor­poris Christi (§104), says that con­ver­sion “must be done of [one’s] own free will; for no one believes unless he wills to believe.”

Still, apolo­get­ics is nec­es­sary because truth is nec­es­sary. Truth is a person—a per­son who cre­at­ed you and sus­tains you and frees you. If ever apolo­get­ics los­es sight of that per­son, then it is lost.