Catholic Apologetics Online

Choose a topic from Vol 1:

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

Dogmatic truth

593. Being tied to dogmas, are you not the least fitted of all men to speak about religion?

No. Other men give their own personal opinions, which are not necessarily any better than the opinions of their fellow men. I am able to give the exact doctrine of Christ, and Christ said, "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." The Catholic Church also says, "My doctrine is not mine, but that of the Christ who sent me." One who has the infallible Catholic Church, as guide to save him from mistakes is the best fitted of all men to speak about religion.

594. Do you honestly give your own opinion, or the opinion of your Church?

In matters of history, I state historical facts, and since they are facts they ere my own belief. On questions of faith and morals, if the Church has given any definite teaching I give that teaching, and since it is true, it is of course my own conviction. Where the Church has given no definite teaching but leaves it a free matter, I give what I consider the most probable explanation.

595. Why not preach charity, instead of speaking always with self-satisfaction of your "only right dogmas"?

With so many conflicting Churches in existence, it is a vital matter to find the truth. If the Catholic Church were self-satisfied, she would be content to have the truth herself and not bother about those without it. As for charity, it is better to exercise charity than talk about it, and there can be no greater charity than to point out the right road to those who have missed the track.

596. What is truth?

Truth is an exact knowledge of things just as they are.

597. Authority bears no relation to truth.

It bears a tremendous relation to truth. The whole system of educating to truth supposes authority in a body of teachers. God is truth itself and the source of all truth. When God speaks, what He says has authority, and the authority of His words is an absolute guarantee of the truth of what He says.

598. Truth is too big a thing for one religion to corner?

Reason should tell you that the God who made both the universe and man must blow the truth about both. It should tell you that if God definitely tells man anything, the information must be sound. It would justify the fact that God has spoken, if you would but examine the credentials of the Catholic Church. And finally, it would show you that the Catholic Church is big enough to contain all the truth revealed by God on the subject of religion.

599. Dogma will not save a single soul.

Alone it will not. But since the Catholic Church is the true Church which Christ commands us to hear, the conscious and deliberate rejection of her dogmas can forfeit salvation.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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MORE FROM VOLUME 1

• About the Author
• Introduction
  - Rev. C M Carty
• Preface
  - Msgr Fulton J Sheen
• Author's Forward
  - Dr Rumble, MSC

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