Catholic Apologetics Online

Questions and answers on Catholicism and Protestantism

Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia

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Development of dogma

612. Yet has not the Church changed quite a lot of her dogmatic teaching in deference to modern thought?

She has never changed a dogma, nor has she changed in any essential Christian truth. She does change in many secondary ways according to the needs of the time, but this occurs chiefly in matters of discipline. She has never modified her methods and teachings in deference to modern thought, very little of which really exists in average society to-day concerning religion—certainly not as much as in the middle ages.

613. Has not the Catholic Church added dogma after dogma, of which the early Christians knew nothing?

The Church has never added a single teaching of dogmatic value Which was not contained in the original teachings of the Apostles. Where doubts have arisen, she has officially defined the right doctrine, not giving a new doctrine, but clearly expressing the exact significance of the old doctrine. And that is exactly what a teaching Church is for. Meantime the early Christians, by believing in the doctrines of Christ, believed these truths also at least implicitly, though they could quite well have been ignorant of the later terms used to describe them.

614. Did not Christianity borrow many doctrines from Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and other mythologies? Cardinal Newman at least admits that Catholicism is a mixture of paganism and Christianity.

To this I reply firstly that there are naturally certain similarities between religions from the mere fact that they are religions. Religion is natural to man, and naturally issues in expressions suitable to man. But similarities do not of themselves argue to derivation. Secondly, Cardinal Newman remarks that in some things Christianity could certainly make use of good elements in paganism. Even paganism has some elements of truth mixed up with its errors. Christianity, in its development, could select those elements of natural truth, remove all pagan and erroneous associations so that they cease to be pagan, and make use of the purified truth to better express Christian notions. Always, however, the motives why these things are observed among Christians are absolutely new and distinct, and cannot be found in pagan rites.

615. If there is anything more polytheistic than Christianity in Greek or any other mythology, where is it?

In Greek or any other mythology.

616. You have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, Mary the Mother of God, Satan the God of Evil, invisible Angels and Saints, etc.

Polytheism teaches several gods. Christianity teaches but one God. The three Divine Persons share the one Divine Nature, and are but one God. The other beings you cite are declared by the Church to be creatures, and cannot be used as an argument for the plurality of gods. If we taught that they are gods, you could rightly accuse us. But if we solidly maintain that they are not gods, it is irrational even for a rationalist to accuse us of ranking them as gods.

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Questions and answers on Catholicism and Protestantism

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