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Number two will BLOW YOUR MIND! Popular Catholic Apologist Trent Horn, the author of Why We’re Catholic, reflects on the three big errors all apologists should avoid.
Cy Kellett:
What are the big mistakes apologists make? Trent Horn is next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith.
Cy Kellett:
I’m Cy Kellett, your host. One of the great defenders of the Catholic faith and one of the great defenders of life in the world today is our young friend, young Trent Horn. And he has a great following because of that, because he’s really, really, good at what he does. So we thought we’d ask him, what are some mistakes people make, who try to do what you do, Trent? And here’s what Trent had to say.
Cy Kellett:
Hi, Trent Horn. Thanks for being with us.
Trent Horn:
Hello, Mr Cy Kellett.
Cy Kellett:
When we asked you if you would do a countdown or a numbered episode with us of the biggest errors that one might make in apologetics, I was a little surprised at your answers, but very pleasantly surprised. I wouldn’t have thought of the way you went, and it looks exciting and interesting to me. I just want to let people know, right from the beginning, Number Two will blow your mind.
Trent Horn:
As with any list, that’s something you should always promise. I do also want to make a caveat that I personally have never made any of these mistakes, actually. I think the only mistake I’ve ever made as an apologist is being too humble, actually, and not letting enough people know about what I do.
Cy Kellett:
I’ve noticed that. I’ve noticed that. Well, I’m glad to hear you say that because I think the only way that people can trust another person is if he tells them that he’s the best at what he does. So, good for you.
Trent Horn:
Or, another way you can trust someone is if they tell you, “Yes, I have been down this road before. I have learned these lessons, sometimes in a difficult way. I have multiple degrees from the School of Hard Knocks.” If you feel like, “Ah, I did that, too, don’t worry. I have been there for all three of these mistakes, actually. And I’ve often told people that it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s just not okay to refuse to learn from them.
Cy Kellett:
There you go.
Trent Horn:
That’s the key. If you’re going to try something-
Cy Kellett:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Trent Horn:
… and you want to grow own a specific area, you are going to make mistakes. That’s fine. That’s expected. It’s not okay, though, to refuse to learn from mistakes. That’s when you become stubborn and proud, and, ironically, you make more mistakes when you do that.
Cy Kellett:
Two things, then, before we get to the list of the top three errors that an apologist might make.
Cy Kellett:
Did you ever have the experience in your career as an apologist, whether in defending human life or defending the Catholic faith, where there’s something that you said quite a few times, and then you found out later, “That’s not true at all, what I’ve been saying.” I know that’s not on this list, but have you ever had that happen?
Trent Horn:
Yes. And I’ll cover a few of those things, examples of that, when I’ll go through different areas, here, especially repeating quotations that were never actually said either by people for or against the Catholic faith.
Cy Kellett:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Trent Horn:
That’s what motivated me to write my best selling book, What the Saints Never Said. Actually, one of the motivating things, there.
Cy Kellett:
It is, actually, the best selling book on things that saints didn’t say. There is not a better selling book than that one, in that category.
Trent Horn:
It is true. There is not a better selling one. There is not a worse selling one. It reminds me of one time, Cy, I went to a high school graduation for a very small homeschool high school co-op. And. For that graduation, there was only one person in the senior class. So, he was valedictorian, homecoming king, student body president, and last in his class.
Cy Kellett:
He was first in his class and last in class.
Trent Horn:
But there are other ways that I’ve approached issues, or maybe I’ll cite particular things. I think, for a while, I probably said, at one point as I was beginning in apologetics, I said that, “In comparison to Protestantism, Catholicism is really good. Look what sola scriptura has done. It’s created 33,000 different Protestant denominations.” I think I had said that for several years before I decided to look into that statistic, personally, to see that that statistic is not true. It comes from a source that claims there are 20 different Catholic Churches. It miscounts the rites within the Church, as if they were completely separate from the Catholic Church, itself. So, there might be one example that pops into my head.
Cy Kellett:
The other question is, it strikes me, reading into your list, here, I thought, “Trent thinks,” and I want to see if I’m right in this, “that the person doing the apologetics is as important as the answers, that who you are is actually really important in doing apologetics for the Christian faith.”
Trent Horn:
Absolutely. People are not robots. They don’t just take in data, or data, however you want to pronounce it. They really interact with other people. And so, it’s not just I who makes this point. St Paul makes this very clearly in first Corinthians 13. He says, I could have all the knowledge of the world and be puffed up, but if I am without love, I am like a resounding gong that they won’t care if you have the right answers or the truth. They’ll let it go in one ear and out the other because they don’t consider you a reliable human being. They don’t consider you someone who cares about the welfare of others. So, they are going to treat what you say as being suspect. And that why, actually, two out of the three things I want to talk about today, the big mistakes apologist make, really deals more with one’s dispositions than your knowledge. Making apologetics all about knowledge, while at is a necessary condition for being good at apologetics, it is not a sufficient one. And if it boils down to it, you can have disaster.
Cy Kellett:
All right. We’ll start with Number Three in our list of top three errors of an apologist. Number Three, you write, lack of rigor. What does that mean?
Trent Horn:
Lack of rigor would just be, when you read into particular issues and look at arguments for and against, but you don’t go deep enough into the issue in comparison to what you claim to be speaking about. So, if you are trying to say, “Oh. Well, I’m going to prove God exists with the cosmological argument,” or a certain cosmological argument. Let’s say the Kalam cosmological argument, but you’ve only read very popular, short, treatments of it, or you haven’t read anything, at all.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Trent Horn:
You’ve only watched some William Lane Craig videos on the subject, and have gotten your data from there, and you haven’t read or watched very rigorous critiques from the other side, you can be in for a world of hurt, in that you’re not prepared, you’re not rigorous enough.
Trent Horn:
Now, not everybody should be expected to be an expert in everything. So, I’m qualifying that a bit here. A lack of rigor in comparison to what you’re claiming. Now, for some subjects, I might say, “This is what I have heard about this particular subject. This is what I would say to others.” If you’re saying I’m sharing what brief cursory knowledge I have on something, then that’s fine. You could say, “Well, if other things come up, I’ll go and look into that.” But overstating your knowledge, or not necessarily overstating it, but overestimating your own knowledge in a certain area, and then going out and doing apologetics, if you’ve only read the popular level treatment. So, that’s something that I’ve seen. I’ll read or I’ll watch other people. And sometimes, I’ve read apologists. I’ve read full-fledged books on apologetics. And my favorite thing, Cy, in a book is to go to the footnotes. That’s my favorite thing. I’ve actually declined to endorse books on apologetics because they didn’t have footnotes.
Trent Horn:
Now, that’s fine. If it’s a memoir, that’s fine. But if it’s supposed to be research and scholars, supposed to get into an argument, if you haven’t done the research, I’m concerned you’re not going to go deep enough into the argument.
Trent Horn:
And others I’ve read where there are footnotes, it’s only popular level works. So, it’s just other similar, popular apologists. People who have just read the introductory treatment to an issue. And they don’t go into the deeper waters to really understand it, which sometimes that doesn’t catch up to you. If you just do a generic video or a talk, usually you might be okay, though you might say something in a video that other people will rightly criticize, saying you don’t actually know the fullness of this particular issue. If you get into a debate or a public dialogue with someone who’s well versed in the issue, then you might really be exposed through your lack of knowledge on the particular issue.
Trent Horn:
So, that’s my concern. And I think it’s great for people to get involved in apologetics. They should. I don’t want to scare people to think like, “Oh. I can’t defend the faith if I don’t know everything.” No, you don’t have to do that. But I’m just saying, if you’re putting yourself out there as an apologist, especially. You do a blog, videos, be humble and be careful not to overextend your claims or your knowledge in certain areas. That’s what I would focus on, especially in that point about lack of rigor.
Cy Kellett:
For yourself, how do you overcome this? Is it just giving yourself time to study, making sure that you’ve studied various issues? I wonder if anyone’s ever compiled a list of, here’s the hundred things you should be proficient in if you’re going to try Catholic apologetics, or something.
Trent Horn:
I know I put out an ultimate apologetics reading list a few years ago on the Catholic Answers Online Magazine. If you just search, ultimate apologetics reading list, Trent Horn. I actually need to update that. It’s been a while since I put that up there. It’s several years. But I specifically put books there, and I ranked the books based on beginning, intermediate, and advanced, in different subjects.
Trent Horn:
So, I think that you can understand and issue. You can read the beginning treatments. You understand it. Then, move on to the intermediate treatments, where it goes a little deeper. And then finally, to the advanced treatments. Sometimes the advanced treatments only cover one subsection. And when you do that, that’s helpful. And, honestly, one thing you can look at is, when you make apologetic claims, be careful about making absolute claims. Should you absolutely be careful? Yes. So, this isn’t the universal. I’m not catching myself in relativism, here.
Trent Horn:
Some claims I can absolutely make. I can absolutely make them. Other claims require caveats or nuance. So, there are some people who will say, “Science proves the universe began to exist.” That would be overstating the evidence we have from physics, astrophysics, from space-time geometry, cosmology. But you could say, “The evidence we have from these fields of science are consistent with the universe beginning to exist,” or, “There are many things within these fields that point towards the universe having an absolute beginning in time.”
Trent Horn:
So, notice here that you can protect yourself, that some people only read the surface level. I guess I will give you an example. I’ve known some people who tried to say, the universe began to exist, and they’ll cite a theorem published in 2003, called the Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem. It is a theorem in cosmology, in astrophysics, and they’ll cite this. And sometimes, and they’ll be very, very, confident about this, and not leave any room for nuance. And I’ll say, “Well, did you actually read the four-page theorem on the [Ardex 00:12:19] website itself, so that you know what you’re saying here.”
Trent Horn:
This actually gets us to another point, Cy. And that would be, in lack of rigor, be careful. This is a mistake I’ve seen a lot. I’ve made it myself. Relying on secondary sources instead of primary sources. For example, sharing a quotation from a Church father or other stories in history, you need to be careful, because sometimes there can be false statements or false quotations that will circulate in secondary sources. And each secondary source, you say, “Okay. Where does this come from?” And they’ll quote another secondary source. And they’ll all quote each other. And then, when you go back to the primary source, like the original writing of the Church father, you’ll see that Augustine, for example, never said, “Rome has spoken. The case is closed.” He said something very similar, but he didn’t say that exact statement. Or the story of Luther nailing the theses on the church in Wittenberg may be apocryphal.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
May not have happened. Or that he may not have been the one who said that justification is like how snow covers a dung hill. So, I’ll qualify. I’ll say, “It has been attributed to…”, or, “Some say,” instead of saying, Luther did this, Luther did that, unless I am absolutely sure of the subject.
Cy Kellett:
All right.
Cy Kellett:
So, Number Two. this one will blow your mind. After a lack of rigor, we’re moving up the list. These get more important as we go. The Number Two most important error that you believe that apologists make is, what?
Trent Horn:
Oh.
Cy Kellett:
Lack of charity.
Trent Horn:
Oh, yeah. I forgot I was supposed to say it. Sorry. Lack of charity.
Cy Kellett:
Lack of charity.
Trent Horn:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Next one on the countdown. And I’m ranking these in ascending order of importance. So, I would rather have an apologist who is ignorant of things, but is charitable, than an uncharitable, highly intelligent, apologist.
Cy Kellett:
I’m not exactly sure what I should do with this, but I think that makes sense to me because the damage caused by ignorance, I think, is easier to fix. You can say, “Oh. Well, here’s actually the correct answer.” “Oh, okay. It’s not 33,000 denominations. It’s a lot, more than one, too many Protestant denominations,” or whatever. “Oh, okay.” But the damage that can be caused by an obnoxious individual who makes the Church look bad with their behavior, that affixes to people in a more emotional way. And I think it’s more difficult to undo that, either to undo the damage or for the person to get a fair hearing.
Cy Kellett:
Also, lack of charity is problematic because it goes back to Number Three. You actually end up being less rigorous, because you could be uncharitable in attitude, like, “Oh. You’re just a…” I heard an argument the other day online. Someone called the other person a, ding dong. To me, that’s just a funny insult that makes me think of a doorbell ditching or a Hostess snack cake, which, which by the way are extremely good if you put in the fridge. I don’t know. I’ve been off sugar for about two weeks, and all jittery.
Trent Horn:
Now, you’re dreaming about it.
Cy Kellett:
No. I do dream about food, actually.
Cy Kellett:
You could be uncharitable in that way. But in my experience, as an apologist, many other uncharitable things is, people will summarize arguments from their opponents and they’ll state it in a very uncharitable way.
Cy Kellett:
They’ll look at an argument. This is also called straw manning, in logic. It’s a logical fallacy, when you refute a weaker version of an opponent’s argument instead of the strongest version. So, the most charitable apologists, what they will do is they will not straw man another person. They will steal man them. They will make their argument even stronger. And then say, “Here is what’s wrong with that.”
Cy Kellett:
So, you have to be careful, in your lack of charity, if you just assume things. You say, “Oh, Protestants think that everything Jesus did is in the Bible, when clearly the Bible says there are many things Jesus did not do that are not recorded there.” But if you actually talk any informed Protestant, they’ll tell you, “No. We don’t believe everything Jesus did is in the Bible. We just believe everything that Jesus wanted us to know about salvation or our faith is in the Bible.” And there’s other times this can happen.
Cy Kellett:
I’ll give you another example. Sometimes, when Catholics critique other holy books, or other religions, they’ll say, “Look at all the contradictions in the Quran or the book of Mormon.” I might say, “Well, hey, those sound kind of similar to the allegations atheists make against the Bible. And if we can offer plausible explanations for those of contradictions, you have to let other people have those same plausible explanations.” Now, I do think the difficulties in other holy books, they are actually intractable when it comes to showing that they are divinely inspired, unlike the Bible, but you’re not treating it the same. Or one last example I might give might be this. Some Catholics will ridicule other beliefs and not understand them. Like people say, “Who’d ever be a Mormon. Mormons. They’re superstitious. They have to wear magic underwear to get to Heaven,” or something like that. And that is both uncharitable and not rigorous. Because Mormons don’t believe that the undergarments that they receive, I believe it was from the endowment ceremony, the undergarments they receive, they’re not a magic talisman to get them to Heaven. Rather they have a spiritual value to remind them of the importance of living out the Mormon faith. In that respect, if you’re going to call that magic underwear, then you’ll have to call a scapular a magic necklace-
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Right.
Trent Horn:
… if you’re going to hold that view. So, the key is to not do that. It’s to understand, “Well, here’s something that Protestants get right, Mormons get right, Muslims get right. I can see where they’re going with this argument. However, here are the difficulties that I have with it, or with an extension of that argument.”
Trent Horn:
And so, that could comes down to them doing good apologetics. It’s not just understanding the Catholic faith, but making sure you understand the lack of faith of other people. There’s different kinds of atheism, for example. And in doing that, you’ll have a better chance of engaging people.
Trent Horn:
I remember once. Actually, I made a lot of headway discussing Mormonism with someone, with a group of friends, because I could speak to him inside baseball, using Mormon terminology, like asking what ward or stake he belongs to. Because they don’t use the terminology, church or parish, or even church like Protestants might, little things like that to show, “Oh, you’ve taken the time to learn what I believe, so I’ll take the time to listen to you.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Lack of rigor was Number Three. Lack of charity was Number Two. I’m I’m not really good at my numbers, I guess. Number One, the number one problem, the number one error, that you see apologists make, lack of spirituality.
Trent Horn:
Ah, this is a dangerous one, my friend. Some people tell me, “How do I become an apologist?” Sometimes, I want to tell them the answer is, don’t. Don’t become an apologist.
Trent Horn:
See, James talks about how teachers will be held to a… It’s either 1 Timothy or James, either one. Says that teachers and bishops, that they’re going to be held to a higher standard because of their office, and what they know. So, I think that applies to apologists, especially those who publicly defend the faith and engage others. CS Lewis has a wonderful prayer called the apologist’s prayer. He talks about making quips where the audience laughs and angels weep, that you start to feel like, as an apologist, you confuse doing apologetics with having a healthy spiritual life. And so, you think that, “Oh. Well, as long as I’m doing apologetics, I’m living my Catholic faith.” And so that substitutes. You study the Bible instead of read the Bible. You study the saints instead of learning from the saints. You go to mass out of obligation, so you can get back home to study rather than entering into the mystery of the liturgy.
Trent Horn:
It’s very dangerous, Cy, because some of the most vociferous individuals that I engage in, the counter apologists, from other religions or from those who are atheists, they were former Catholic apologists. They did apologetics.
Cy Kellett:
Wow.
Trent Horn:
They did all these things.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Trent Horn:
And then they left. And they say, “Oh. I know all that stuff.” And then they’re, they’re off the reservation. And so, it’s so difficult to see people who were once so strong, to fall away. And I think, in a lot of cases, what happens is that, yeah, they lose sight of the spiritual connection. And that’s not first.
Trent Horn:
And that’s something I’ve been guilty of. I’m guilty of it, as well. It’s something I’m always trying to compensate for. Because if you lose sight of it, you can quickly turn the arguments against yourself and cut yourself off from the source of life.
Cy Kellett:
And you definitely will not be charitable, because we just don’t have that charity.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
That charity doesn’t come from us.
Trent Horn:
If you’re in mortal sin, especially, you won’t have the supernatural virtue of charity. You could do things that are pleasing to others-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Trent Horn:
… but you won’t be pleasing God. And, in many cases, I think, yeah, you’ll even lack the natural virtue of charity, and having that disposition. So, I guess, these three elements, they build on themselves. If you’re not rigorous, you won’t be effective. If you’re not charitable, you’ll lose rigor, oftentimes. And if you lack a healthy spirituality, you will lack charity in your response to others.
Trent Horn:
And I’ve seen this. I’ve seen this among apologists who get very nasty with others in debates or online and social media. Not that I’m immune to that. Everybody has a bad day. But they end up cultivating a reputation, as if this is a virtue, rather than a vice. So, I would say, to be a good apologist, you must start by having a healthy spirituality, a prayer life, the sacraments, availing yourself to the sacrament of confession. and understanding that’s where pride comes in, thinking that you’re the greatest, you’re the one keeping the faith going.
Trent Horn:
Look-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Trent Horn:
… in a hundred years, nobody’s probably going to maybe probably know a Trent Horn book. The faith goes on its own without me. I’m just helping where God wants me to help. But, if you start thinking the faith depends on you, instead of you depend on the faith, that’s where you’re going to be in a world to hurt.
Cy Kellett:
You don’t think Things the Saints Never Said is going to be around in a hundred years? My concern would be, would they make that almost like a quasi scripture, that people would be over appreciative of it.
Trent Horn:
No. No. Maybe people will just argue disputed quotation, “If you think the faith depends on you, rather than you depend on the faith.” Did Trent Horn say this? Maybe, but it probably was Mother Teresa, actually. That’s what they’re going to argue about.
Cy Kellett:
[crosstalk 00:23:28] all the good stuff.
Trent Horn:
[crosstalk 00:23:30] Mother Teresa.
Cy Kellett:
Trent, thank you very, very, much. I’ll just repeat for folks. Lack of rigor, lack of charity, and lack of a spiritual life, or lack of spirituality, are the top three errors. It’s not an error like, you thought this, but the answer was that. All those things can be dealt with. Rigor will help. But I see the very best apologists in the world in my job. And sometimes they make a mistake. Sometimes they-
Trent Horn:
Sure. Only human.
Cy Kellett:
… they don’t know the answer. As a matter of fact, I wonder, and I’ll leave this as the last question for you. Have you gotten more comfortable with being able to say, “I don’t know,” as you’ve done this over the years?
Trent Horn:
Yes. Absolutely. My preferred phrase in those situations is usually, “I’m going to have to look into that.”
Cy Kellett:
Ah, yeah.
Trent Horn:
Makes it easier than having to say, “I don’t know.” Or you might say, “There’s a lot of facets to that issue that I’d like to look into before I give you a comprehensive answer.”
Trent Horn:
Because, in many cases I do have a rough answer to the question. There’s the difference there? It’s not so much a blank, unless it’s like some subject I’ve absolutely never heard of before. [crosstalk 00:24:39] to me. I’m like, “What?” And then I go and look it up. But usually it’s, “I’m familiar with that,” but as you get more or experience, you see I’m going to be cognizant of my limits on that particular topic, and to answer any particular question on it, I might have to go deeper if it’s a subset question that I’m not as familiar with. But I am more comfortable with that.
Trent Horn:
I remember, Cy, at the very beginning as an apologist to the Catholic Answer’s Conference, we’d have that panel. And it’s like, you get the question, and how are you going to answer. And I was super duper nervous when Carl had asked me a question, because it’s like, “Oh, man. I’m the new kid. And if I can’t prove I know what I’ve got, they’re going to fire me.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
And I was all nervous. And I got to know everything. But now, I’ve been with you guys for 10 years. I can just say, “Hey, I’m not really sure. Jimmy, what do you think about that?”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Just because there’s things that I focus on, things I don’t. And that’s okay.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Very good. Trent Horn, thanks for doing this with us.
Trent Horn:
Anytime, Cy.
Cy Kellett:
I don’t know what I was expecting Trent to say when we asked him to tell us the big mistakes that apologists make, but it wasn’t that. But I was very pleased when I read him, and then to get to hear what Trent has to say. Knowing him for years now, and watching him do what he does, I can tell you, it’s true. And he lives by it. He lives by it every day.
Cy Kellett:
And so I’m glad that he was able to get that out there and make that clear to folks. Because anyone can defend the Catholic faith so long as you’re willing to do the things that are needed. That includes being close to Jesus, being close to the church. Avoiding that, well maybe don’t do apologetics until you get that straightened out.
Cy Kellett:
And then you can learn. You can learn. You can say, “I don’t know.” You can say, “I’ll get back to you.” All those things are possible when you really just have a heart of love and charity for the other person and you want to be helpful. Not that you just want to win arguments. If you want to just win arguments, then do apologetics for Star Wars over Star Trek, or something. But if you want to do Catholic apologetics, apologetics for Christ and his Church, you got to do it with a heart full of love, or it isn’t going to work.
Cy Kellett:
Hey, thanks for joining us. We’re really glad when you do. We got this new YouTube page. If you’re watching us on YouTube right now, like and subscribe and hit that little bell. That way you’ll get notifications when new episodes are available. If you’re listening on one of the podcast services, wherever you get it, if you’d like and subscribe there, then that will help to grow the podcast. If you give us that five star review and a few nice words, would you, would you?well, that’ll help us to grow the podcast. And, as always, we can use your financial support. You can do that by going to givecatholic.com.
Cy Kellett:
I’m Cy Kellett, your host. We’ll see you next time, god willing, right here on Catholic Answers Focus.