Choose a topic from Vol 3:

God

Reason proves God's existence
Primitive monotheism
Mystery of God's inner nature
Personality of God
Providence of God and the problem of evil

Man

Immortal destiny of man
Can earth give true happiness?
Do human souls evolve?
Is transmigration possible?
Animal souls
Fatalism
Freedom of will
Free will and faith

Religion

Religion and God
The duty of prayer
The mysteries of religion
Can we believe in miracles?

The Religion of the Bible

Historical character of the Gospels
Canonical Books of the Bible
Original Manuscripts
Copyists' errors
Truth of the Bible
New Testament "contradictions"

The Christian Religion

Christianity alone true
Not the product of religious experience
Compared with Buddhism, Confucianism, Mahometanism, Bahaism, etc.,
Rejected by modern Jews
The demand for miracles
The necessity of faith
Difficulties not doubts
Proofs available
Dispositions of unbelievers

A Definite Christian Faith

One religion not as good as another
Changing one's religion
Catholic convictions and zeal
Religious controversy
The curse of bigotry
Towards a solution

The Problem of Reunion

Efforts at the reunion of the Churches
The Church of England as a "Bridge-Church"
Anglicans and the Greek Orthodox Church
The "Old Catholics" of Holland
Reunion Conferences
Catholic Unity
The Papacy as reunion center
Protestant hostility to Catholicism
The demands of charity

The Truth of Catholicism

Necessity of the Church
The true Church
Catholic claim absolute
A clerical hierarchy
Papal Supremacy
Temporal Power
Infallibility
Unity of the Church
Holiness of the Church
Catholicity of the Church
Catholic attitude to converts
Indefectible Apostolicity
Necessity of becoming a Catholic

The Church and the Bible

Catholic belief in the Bible
Bible-reading and private interpretation
Value of Tradition and the "Fathers"
Guidance of the Church necessary

The Dogmas of the Catholic Church

Dogmatic certainty
Credal statements
Faith and reason
The voice of science
Fate of rationalists
The dogma of the Trinity
Creation and evolution
The existence of angels
Evil spirits or devils
Man's eternal destiny
The fact of sin
Nature and work of Christ
Mary, the mother of God
Grace and salvation
The sacraments
Baptism
Confession
Holy Eucharist
The Sacrifice of the Mass
Holy Communion
Marriage and divorce
Extreme Unction
Man's death and judgment
Hell
Purgatory
Indulgences
Heaven
Resurrection of the body
End of the World

Moral Teachings of the Catholic Church

Conscience
Justice
Truth
Charity
Catholic intolerance
Persecution
The Spanish Inquisition
Prohibition of Books
Liberty of worship
Forbidden Socieities
Cremation
Church attendance
The New Psychology
Psychoanalysis
Deterministic philosophy
Sterilization
Marriage Legislation
Birth Prevention
Celibacy
Monastic Life
Convent Life
Euthanasia
Vivisection
Legal defense of murderers
Laywers and divorce proceedings
Judges in Divorce
Professional secrecy

The Church in Her Worship

Why build churches?
Glamor of ritual
The "Lord's Prayer"
Pagan derivations
Liturgical symbolism
Use of Latin
Intercession of Mary and the Saints

The Church and Social Welfare

The Church and Education
The Social Problem
Social Duty of the Church
Catholicism and Capitalism

Fatalism

57. How would you answer the assertion that what has to be, has to be?

By granting it. If a thing has to be, it has to be. But I deny that everything has to be.

58. If a man riding a bicycle is run down by a car and killed accidentally, did that have to be?

If such a thing happens, then it happens. And it could not "happen" yet "not happen" simultaneously. At the same time, granted that it does happen, it does not happen by any absolute necessity. The man need not have chosen to go for a ride on that particular day. The car driver was under no compulsion to be on the road at the time. So we cannot say that the accident was foreordained by God and inevitable. There was no determining force outside and independent of those two men compelling them to come into collision, with fatal consequences for the rider of the bicycle.

59. Is the hour of one's death appointed by God at the moment of one's birth?

No; for a man is physically free even where his own life is concerned. Keep in mind this principle. Although God's providence extends to all things from a universal or general point of view, that same providence has willed that within the universe there should be a vast series of secondary causes affecting each other immediately. Now amongst these secondary causes is man, a free agent. The moment of a suicide's death is obviously not determined by God, for God forbids suicide; and if the suicide had obeyed God's law he would have lived longer. The same thing is true of murder, where a man's life is terminated by the rebellion of another man's will against the will of God.

NEXT TOPIC »

MORE FROM VOLUME 3

Prefer a PRINT version?