In this free-for-all-Friday Trent sits down with Fr. Pine to discuss when apologetics can hinder the spiritual life.
Transcript:
00;00;00;03 – 00;00;16;01
Hey guys, in today’s episode, I want to share with you a recent chat that I had with Father Gregory Pine on the Gods Planning podcast. He asked me to come on and talk about apologetics, and in particular we talked about like, when apologetics isn’t enough, its role, its proper role, its misuse. I think you guys will get a lot out of this conversation.
00;00;16;01 – 00;00;33;22
So I want to share that with you now. And thank you guys for supporting the podcast. So let’s get right to it. You have a very like, well, kind of specified and curated presence on the internet for which I respect you. You like, you know, what you’re about, you know what you’re doing and you do it very well.
00;00;33;24 – 00;00;53;29
And and something that falls within the ambit of that is apologetics specifically with an eye to a Protestant audience. That’s something that I’ve never really done much of, but recently I’ve started having conversations with people like Ryan Bethea, whose become a good friend. And then I recently sat down with Gavin Orland, and I’m intrigued. So kind of what got you into Protestant apologetics first?
00;00;54;01 – 00;01;17;23
Well, I think what got me into it originally, I mean, I’m a convert myself. I was not religious, I wasn’t an atheist, but I wasn’t religious. And middle school and early high school. About midway through high school, I was interacting with a Catholic youth group that set me on the path of becoming Christian and later accepting Catholicism. And so I was received into the church.
00;01;17;23 – 00;01;42;20
I was baptized First Communion confirmation in 2002. So I have been Catholic going on now for a little over 25 years. So, you know, I apologize kind of came for many, many apologists or converts because we had to go through an apologetic journey for ourselves. And some of us have felt called to want to help other people along that journey.
00;01;42;20 – 00;02;03;00
And so at one point, I was convinced of the truth of Christianity. Then I had to sort through, okay, well, which church should I belong to? Because I had Protestant friends and Catholic friends and so Protestant apologists, something that I was involved in early on. But then really when I was after college, I did pro-life work, and so I did pro-life apologetics.
00;02;03;00 – 00;02;28;16
I worked for the Diocese of Phoenix. I really cared about secularism. So when I worked at Catholic Answers, my first books weren’t even apologetics about Protestantism. I did answering Atheism persuasive pro-life. My first formal debate on Protestantism was not until 2017 at a G3 conference. It was the commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and I debated James White on whether salvation can be lost.
00;02;28;16 – 00;02;55;05
And many people I know many people who have become Catholic or entered RCA after watching that debate, really got their wheels turning. And so I and around that time I wrote my book, The Case for Catholicism and Why We’re Catholic. And I’ve been engaging with lots of non-Catholics, both non-Christians, Muslims, atheists, Jews, people like that, but also many Protestants, because I want them to have the fullness of the faith that God has given us in the one holy, Catholic and apostolic church.
00;02;55;05 – 00;03;15;28
And so I’ve been doing that for, you know what? Well over a decade now. Okay. So like different people cotton to different parts of the conversation, specifically the apologetic conversation. There are some people who just like fighting. There are some people who just like winning. There are some people who like sussing it out. There’s some people who like thinking it through.
00;03;16;00 – 00;03;36;04
Like, what about it specifically do you find most enjoyable? And maybe if it diverts from what you find most enjoyable, what do you find about it like most efficacious? Well, I mean, the most enjoyable thing for me is always if I can do my part. And really, of course, God obviously doesn’t need me. He frankly he’d do a better job without me.
00;03;36;04 – 00;04;03;28
But for some reason he wants to include me and stuff. And if that’s that’s what he wants and I’m not going to stop him. He knows what he’s doing. But he asked me, you know, you go and do this. And so the things most enjoyable for me, if somehow in cooperating with him, I can help someone to come to a fullness of the truth, to have spiritual joy and being united to Christ, to finding salvation in him, to being able to receive Christ in the sacraments, to get to help someone, to find that peace in the fullness of the faith.
00;04;04;05 – 00;04;30;29
And so that’s a really is makes his, I find to be most enjoyable. And even if it’s not a fullness of the faith, even just in my part, maybe I have to lead someone a little bit to the faith. So a lot of times I’ll talk to someone who’s Protestant. Maybe I won’t convince them of Catholicism, but I will convince them that there’s certain Protestant doctrines they ought to give up for, you know, like one saved, always saved, or a purely symbolic view of Eucharist or something like that.
00;04;30;29 – 00;04;53;29
And so it moves them. And, you know, somebody else may or may work on that. It’s like what Paul says in first Corinthians three, you know, he says that, you know, I planted, Apollos watered. You know that all of all of us are God’s coworkers working together in the vineyard. Yeah. Or even just like I was, I was reading the fifth theological oration of Gregory of Nazianzus recently, and he talks about God’s pedagogical purpose.
00;04;54;00 – 00;05;16;07
He’s like, all right, get them to be monotheist. And once they’re staunchly monotheist, then get them to be Trinitarian and don’t lose the monotheism while getting them to be Trinitarian. Exactly. Yeah. That’s that’s tough. Yeah. Okay. So then people have different objections. Obviously they fall into different buckets and people can carve up the differences among those objections in various ways.
00;05;16;08 – 00;05;46;09
Like a lot of people talk about how you have kind of more speculative, maybe doctrinal objections, and then you have more practical kind of existential objections. Do you have a particular way by which of surfacing where the real obstacles are, or like where the real objections lie with a person with whom you’re arguing in good faith? Yeah, I think a lot of times when Catholics engage Protestants, we can kind of get stuck on issues and we can fall into their paradigm and trying to please their manner of determining truth.
00;05;46;09 – 00;06;10;10
So they’ll say, well, where is the pope in the Bible and will appeal to well-known proof text? And I do think that the Bible provides ample evidence for the Petrine office, for Peter’s leadership in the early church. And also there’s good historical evidence for that continuing among the successors. But we’ll fall into a pattern of trying to, you know, argue Bible verses and trying to make our case to someone who’s a Protestant.
00;06;10;10 – 00;06;31;05
And in my time of engaging Protestants on this, I don’t think that’s always the best approach. And I’ve tried very hard to note a problem related to the burden of proof. So a few years ago, I wrote a book called When Protestants Argue Like Atheists, and a fair number of Protestants were not happy about the title, and I get that.
00;06;31;12 – 00;06;52;10
But I’m not saying, of course, that Protestants are morally equivalent to atheists in virtue of their valid baptisms. They are a part of the body of Christ, and so they are united, however imperfectly, you know, to Christ Church, because they have, you know, they have a valid baptism. There’s certainly not atheists by any stretch of the imagination, but the arguments are very similar to atheism.
00;06;52;10 – 00;07;12;29
And I think that we need to be able to point that out. And here’s how it goes. So take an atheist. You know, you’ve engaged people, Alex O’Connor and other atheists, and they’ll often say this. They’ll say, look, Father Pine, I’m an atheist. You’re a Christian. We both agree the natural world exists. Like, hey, well, why not just have the natural world?
00;07;13;07 – 00;07;37;14
You go ahead, you prove the supernatural. I’m going to cross my arms. You know what? I’m just not buying your proofs for the supernatural. I’m going to stick with the natural. Natural world alone is all I need. I don’t need your supernatural. I don’t see good evidence for that. But notice what’s happening in that exchange. That the atheist is just a shoed the burden of proof saying, well, wait a minute, you’re just assuming this natural world.
00;07;37;14 – 00;07;59;26
Where did the natural world come from? You know, what’s your explanation is I can explain it. You can’t. And I see something very similar with Protestants. They’ll say, look, Father Pine, you’re you’re a Catholic. I’m a Protestant. We both agree. Scripture is the word of God. Scripture is infallible. It’s an infallible rule of faith. You want to add this other infallible rule of faith like the church?
00;07;59;27 – 00;08;20;17
Well, I’m just going to fold my arms and say, you know, prove it. Prove that, prove your Catholic doctrines and your infallible rule. You know, I’m not I’m just not convinced of that Catholic proof. You know, the the Catholic infallible rules you want to add to Scripture. I’m not convinced to that. So, Father Pine, why can’t we just have the Scripture that we both agree is an infallible rule for us and just have that?
00;08;20;17 – 00;08;38;24
But once again, it’s like the atheist. You can say, hey, wait a minute, you’re just assuming these 66 books, as you would put them, is an infallible rule of faith. How do you know they are? What’s the source of your authority? You’ve just assumed where you’ve started. You have been proven it. You need my paradigm to prove the very paradigm that you’re standing on.
00;08;38;24 – 00;08;56;22
So I think that it’s important for us as Catholics when we engage Protestants, we should be gracious, we should be charitable, but we should point out the problem that they also have a burden of proof. The default is not Protestantism. The default is just agnosticism saying, you know, I believe Jesus rose from the dead. Should I be Catholic?
00;08;56;23 – 00;09;30;16
Should I be Protestant? Heavy Orthodox? Each side has to offer their evidences, and at the very least, I would say Protestantism has the least historical claim. When you look at Scripture and when you look at church history. So I wonder then like, to what extent do you think apologetics entails a dumb word? But like representing reason because it seems like, you know, if you’re going to find common ground, you’re going to also have to find a way by which of establishing common ground, which will mean at least some similarity and argumentative method.
00;09;30;16 – 00;09;49;15
So does there have to be a common commitment to an understanding which is available to both parties? In what sense? Like what is necessary or requisite in terms of that common ground? Yeah. I mean, we can’t talk to each other unless we have some kind of common framework. And so a lot of times that’s why I think when debating about doctrine, we can’t just say, okay, I’m going to prove this from the Bible.
00;09;49;17 – 00;10;06;20
And I believe many doctrines, we actually can do that. But we have to go back and say, all right, well, what is our starting point? That’s why many discussions I have with not with Protestants ends up going back to the question of solar scriptura is and really sussing that out more to say, what do you mean by sola scriptura?
00;10;06;20 – 00;10;34;20
If you mean Christian doctrine cannot contradict Scripture? I could believe in solar scriptura. I don’t think any Catholic doctrine contradicts Scripture. I find that most Protestants there objection is not contradiction. It is. I don’t find this Catholic doctrine in Scripture, so I don’t feel obliged to believe it. And I would say, but wait, that principle, the only things that are obligatory are those things that are found explicitly in Scripture itself is not found in Scripture, so it’s self refuting.
00;10;34;20 – 00;10;54;12
So I do think that we need to be able to have a similar framework for argument. I think we should make common ground to say, of course I agree with this. I agree with that and understand language talking past one another like are you saved? My reply to that is usually, well, yes, I was saved and born again in baptism.
00;10;54;18 – 00;11;19;23
I am being saved right now by the power of God because I’m holding fast to Christ and I will be saved when I enter into heaven. And pointing out where Scripture talks about salvation and past, present and future tenses, but then asking the person, what do you mean by are you saved? Are you saying that salvation is a one time event that is accomplished by faith that can never be lost?
00;11;19;23 – 00;11;44;19
If that is the case, you have very serious problems because Scripture says a salvation can be lost. It does not speak of it as a as a one time event. And so it’s important, I think, a lot of these conversations to really cut through the misunderstandings and say, look, I do not think we are saved by faith and works as if I do an arbitrary combination of believing and doing good deeds, and I will get to heaven.
00;11;44;20 – 00;12;14;28
As the Catechism says in paragraph 2010, the initial moment of salvation, the first movement of grace. That is something that can’t be merited by faith or works. It explains why a baby can be saved in baptism. They don’t do anything. The first moment of our salvation is just received by grace alone. We’re not saved by a work in baptism any more than we are saved by a work, by climbing on to a life raft that a lifeguard throws to us, you know, in you know, or the or the Coast Guard throws to us after our ship sank.
00;12;14;29 – 00;12;35;17
We can’t save ourselves after the ship sank and climbing to the raft that they gratuitously gave us. That’s not a work we do to save ourselves. We just received the salvation that’s offered. But I would say to my Protestant friend, we can throw away salvation. And so as Catholics, we believe that you can lose salvation. There’s only one work you have to do to be saved.
00;12;35;19 – 00;13;00;19
Do not die in a state of mortal sin. Do not live in unrepentant mortal sin until death. That’s it. And many Protestants would actually agree with that. Where we disagree is just on okay, well, what are we called to do as Christians? And then we can have a fruitful conversation about that. I was talking to so as I mentioned, I was talking to Gavin Orland, who is awesome.
00;13;00;19 – 00;13;16;18
I really like him a lot. He’s just like a really good man. And he was saying that he was doing Christian apologetics, but he felt a need within that setting to do Protestant apologetics because the really wasn’t many people in that space. But it seems like in the past, like 5 to 7 years, that there are more and more people in that space.
00;13;16;18 – 00;13;37;16
And it seems like whereas a former kind of generation of Protestant apologetics would have been more kind of vehemently anti-Catholic, it seems like the current tendency is less. You still find that in some places, obviously, but it seems like the current tendency is less so. Do you have like read the signs of the times? Do you have a sense of like what’s going on in this space or where the spirit might be moving?
00;13;37;18 – 00;13;59;24
Yeah, it’s always hard to tell because the field of people who are influencers, who are evangelists, who are apologists, it’s grown very widely. There are hundreds of channels dedicated to apologetics of varying sizes, so it can be difficult to determine there. I would say, though, there aren’t very many, like there are some more growing, like high level Protestant channels.
00;13;59;26 – 00;14;27;27
I think there’s always been people who are more low church evangelicals putting forward arguments that I would say represent a very ahistorical view of, or simply ignore church history. And many people quickly leave that when they see Catholicism, rich historical pedigree, you know, pedigree. I think seeing more, I think you’re seeing more Protestants who are getting involved in engaging Islam, doing more mere Christian apologetics.
00;14;28;01 – 00;14;53;18
And there is a bit of a rise of Protestants who want to have a magisterial Protestantism, one that is rooted in the intricacies of the reformers, not merely sort of low church evangelicalism, but one that is cognizant of church history and of even scholastic distinctions. So they would like something that’s a bit more robust, but still Protestant. There are channels dedicated to that, but they’re very small.
00;14;53;18 – 00;15;17;08
I see that they’re growing, and I think that’s going to get more attention over time. As you know, as Protestants see the shallowness and a lot of evangelicals, they will they will hunger for that. And there’s been a hunger lately just for antiquity in general. And those who can offer a sort of timeless and sure source of history and orthodoxy, we’ve just been more attractive to people.
00;15;17;11 – 00;15;39;28
So, you know, like people who follow Matt, Fred will have heard about Cameron. I mean, people who follow camera. Bertuzzi will have heard about Cameron Bertuzzi being received in the Catholic communion. And like kind of they were just a few big kind of conversions or receptions into full communion in this space over the course of the past few years.
00;15;39;28 – 00;16;02;13
But you also have now, it seems, in the ecosystem, like within this ecosystem. Now they’re just there are in every imaginable direction. And also like when you establish yourself in a space with relationships and interactions of various sorts, it becomes harder, I suppose, to move more freely insofar as your whole, like public persona is rooted or kind of grounded in this or that or the other thing.
00;16;02;13 – 00;16;27;20
So it seems like, I don’t know, like, like there’s so many more resources for becoming Catholic, but at least in certain pockets, it’s becoming harder to maybe disentangle. I don’t know what’s what’s your sense of this, like the fluidity with which one can become Catholic given the arguments that are available at present? Yeah, I am concerned. I’ve seen some people bring this up and I very try very hard just in my own work, you know, try to guard against this.
00;16;27;20 – 00;16;55;27
There are many avenues for learning about the faith and drawing people to it, and I think that’s always a great thing. Where I would be concerned is that people identify an influencer that helped bring them into the faith, but treating that person as if they’re identical to the faith itself, that they’re kind of a guru, and then just listening to all of their theological takes and just following them incessantly, even if that person is saying certain things, you must believe and you don’t have to believe them.
00;16;55;27 – 00;17;13;15
Or promoting ideology that might be attention with or directly contradict the faith. So that’s a concern I have, is that there’s a lot more avenues for people to come into the faith, but there could be safeguards lost there in a kind of Wild West online frontier as a result. And so I think people need to be wary of that.
00;17;13;15 – 00;17;36;06
And interestingly, I mean, this is the same problem we have just in the first century. Paul talks about this in his first letter to the Corinthians, first Corinthians chapter one, verses 15 through 17. He talks about how he didn’t he didn’t come to baptize or to preach the gospel. Not that baptism wasn’t important. In Romans six, Paul makes it clear, were buried with Christ in baptism when we rise with him.
00;17;36;08 – 00;17;55;15
But Paul was talking about how some people were just basically doing whatever, you know, they just pledged themselves to the person who had baptized them as if they were there, just their sole spiritual authority. And that’s why Paul was glad he doesn’t remember how many people he baptized. But he’s glad he didn’t baptize some people so he didn’t have to deal with this problem.
00;17;55;15 – 00;18;12;06
So I think there could be that concern of an influencer, you know, someone who brings them into the church. People are grateful for that. But in treating them like some kind of guru or like they’re the one who represents the faith, it’s like Trent Horn is not Catholicism. Father pine is not Catholicism. We are we’re servants. We get the faith right.
00;18;12;06 – 00;18;38;19
We might make a mistake here or there. We certainly we certainly aren’t infallible. Even the Pope isn’t infallible in every single utterance that he makes. Look to the faith itself, and don’t let it be wrapped up in just a single person. So then maybe kind of transitioning from more speculative objections to more practical objections. Obviously, there’s a cost to conversion in the sense that it will often mean a realignment of one’s relationships and interactions.
00;18;38;22 – 00;19;04;28
It also means wedding oneself to an institutional church, which has had her ups and downs at least as far as the adherence go, you know, has had her fair share of scandals. I think there’s a kind of, yeah, temptation on the part of every human being to disassociate oneself from things that are complicated with a checkered past. Otherwise, you know, unsavory or not, according to my particular preference.
00;19;05;00 – 00;19;29;12
Like, what’s what are the spiritual dispositions requisite for a person who’s thinking about converting or thinking about being received into full communion, who looks at the church and says he? Well, I am reminded of the line by the the great comedian Groucho Marx. I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member, and I think that that’s just something important for people.
00;19;29;14 – 00;20;12;08
I mean, the idea like, oh, I don’t want, you know, that the Catholic Church is too much baggage. Well, you know what? Anything. Anything that has been around for 2000 years is going to have baggage. In fact, one of the traditional arguments, one of the the motives of credibility, as it might be called in scholastic terminology for the truth of the Catholic faith, has been that in spite of the sins and the failings of its of its human members, the Catholic Church has remained and has taught faithfully for 2000 years something that could really only have happened through, you know, the divine assistance the spirit gives to the church.
00;20;12;08 – 00;20;29;09
So I think that people, you know, we get this consumer mentality of thinking, oh, well, I just want to I only want to belong to whatever has 4.9 stars on Yelp. I’m not going to be a sucker and take something that has bad reviews, but it’s like, okay. It’s like, imagine there are two hospitals and you’re dying from a snakebite.
00;20;29;11 – 00;20;51;11
One hospital is poorly rated, but it has the actual anti-venom that will treat you. And the other hospital is highly rated. It’s great. It’s got a fountain, it’s got a great cafeteria, but it’s anti-venom. You know, it’s just, you know, it’s it’s just like grape juice mixed together with some essential oils. It feels great, but it doesn’t do anything.
00;20;51;14 – 00;21;05;15
You should pick the one that actually is going to cure the thing that’s going to kill you, even if you don’t like the customer service. And I think that’s what we have to be able to put forward to say, look, church is not about fulfilling. It’s not about, you know, he’ll say, oh, I didn’t get anything out of church.
00;21;05;15 – 00;21;25;19
Liturgy is from is comes from later goes the work of the people. We don’t you won’t you don’t go to church to get something out of it. We put something in, in praising, worshiping God, offering even ourselves our prayers as sacrifices as the priest offers the one sacrifice on the altar. And when we are involved in that work, we do get something out of it.
00;21;25;19 – 00;21;46;22
Just like when you put in an honest day’s work, you get some. You get a sense of accomplishment out of that because you weren’t directly seeking that in and of itself. It’s something that came about as a byproduct of putting yourself directly into it. Okay, so thinking then, you know, there’s been a lot of hubbub about people who are becoming Catholic.
00;21;46;22 – 00;22;10;01
And I think people who are becoming Orthodox people are becoming evangelical. In the past 5 or 6 years especially, you’ve done some work highlighting the fact that that people are still leaving at a higher rate than they are entering, which should cause us concern. But so I’m thinking about the people who are coming specifically, and there’s a kind of thrill of the chase that comes with initial inquiry into and then reception into Christian life.
00;22;10;01 – 00;22;38;02
How do those people transition from a kind of more apologetic approach to a more broadly speaking, catechetical mystical approach, a more ecclesial approach where they’re looking not so much in terms of convincing themselves or being convinced, but more in terms of receiving a kind of more integral human formation, Christian formation that will last them such that, you know, when the seas rise and the storms rage, they won’t be otherwise battered and bruised.
00;22;38;05 – 00;23;03;17
I would say the most important thing for a convert, a new convert to Catholicism to do, is to basically not be on social media. Or if you are on social media, take it very easy. I am just flabbergasted when someone says, I just came into the church I went to see. I was baptized three months ago and now this is my Catholic apologetics YouTube channel.
00;23;03;19 – 00;23;25;14
That is a recipe for just disaster. So if people, even if you weren’t doing it publicly, even if it’s just, oh, now that I’ve been baptized, I want to really become an apologetics junkie. I think that’s not a not a good idea. But Scripture gives us, as Paul gives us instruction to Timothy saying, you know, do not allow, don’t let a recent convert become a bishop or he’ll be puffed up with pride.
00;23;25;16 – 00;23;43;06
Paul himself went to Arabia for 14 years. He wanted to make sure he got the gospel right before he was involved in this, this heavy duty work as an apostle. So if someone is a new convert and apologetics brought them in. Praise be to God. That’s what happened to me. But don’t put yourself out there as an apologist.
00;23;43;06 – 00;24;01;23
If you’re brand new, you have a lot of growing to do. I did not engage as a full time apologist for the Catholic faith of the public presence until I have been Catholic for ten years before I started doing that. I’m not saying people have to wait that long, but you want to be grounded in your spiritual life.
00;24;01;23 – 00;24;29;29
So I think the important thing here is to say, okay, you believe this is true. Apologetics is fun, but it can be very tempting. Now you need to focus on going deeper in mastering all of the elements of the life, of prayer, of the sacramental life, of the churches. You know, the corporal works of mercy. Finding a spiritual director, I think, is incredibly helpful for the catacombs, the catacombs, minute stage or sorry, no, not that human.
00;24;30;01 – 00;24;54;24
The neophyte I remember I was a neophyte that first year, your brand new kiddo. Being able to go into that and know that it’s going to be small improvements. And for the love of goodness of your a new convert, be very careful with social media and don’t parlay yourself as an apologist. Give it some time. Yeah, okay, I have one final thought and a concern.
00;24;54;25 – 00;25;22;02
Specifically the way that one moves from questioning out of doubt to questioning out of wonder. I was reading this particular passage and the Summa Theologica apo the virtue of Faith, and then this commentary on it by a priest named Marie Michel. And, you know, like he talks about how one can inquire into the faith from a disposition of doubt which can actually undermine the virtue of faith, as if to say like it’s God’s responsibility to prove himself.
00;25;22;02 – 00;25;43;20
And you kind of put him to the test in, as it were, faith discourse, but in a way that that weakens faith. I think, like, you know, like a lot of people come to faith with some measure of curiosity, but sometimes with a disposition of like, God’s kind of got to show himself in that conversation that I had with Alex O’Connor, who was like, well, you think that God gives himself or makes himself available sufficiently to all persons in all times and places?
00;25;43;20 – 00;26;01;23
He hasn’t done so with me. You know, there’s there’s a kind of disposition there where it’s like, it’s it’s for God to do it, and it’s for me to kind of, well, put him to it. I don’t know what the best expression is for that, but but I think that once one has received the gift of faith, it’s more so like a gift to be treasured.
00;26;01;23 – 00;26;25;01
It’s a gift to be unpacked progressively. How does one move from that disposition of kind of like more doubting to more wondering at what one has received? Well, I think one can do that by steeping themselves in the mysteries and gifts that have been given to us. So, for example, reading Scripture, you know, not as an apologetic junkie, like, okay, well, how can I prove doctrine from this verse or that verse?
00;26;25;01 – 00;26;46;07
But like reading Scripture, practicing, you know, Lexia Divino practicing like like reading scripture. And the apostles went and did this, and I had a theology teacher tell me, you know, when you read Scripture, write as many questions as you can in the margins of the Bible, you know, well, why did the apostles do that? You know, why did they talk to this person?
00;26;46;07 – 00;27;06;07
What’s the meaning of this? Sometimes the question won’t have an answer or be hard to find, but doing that in a way. So yeah, when you’re steeped in these things, whether it is prayer, whether it is reading scripture, reading the lives of the saints to move your mindset from, I need ammunition for my next debate to how can this help me to grow as a person, to grow closer to God?
00;27;06;07 – 00;27;25;16
How can is there something here that can help me when maybe I’m facing a trial and I’m tempted to want to be rash in my response, or not be trusting in God? What can I find here that is helpful for me in that regard? And ironically enough, when you do that and you’re steeped in the faith in a mature way, you’ll be able to share that with non-Catholics.
00;27;25;16 – 00;27;51;23
And that can be a more powerful apologetic than any kind of like proof text you might ramble off. Yeah, I kind of testimony to the God whom you’ve met and whom you love, which ultimately proves most attractive. Well, that’s because there’s a difference. I mean, you can study, I mean, sorry, in First Corinthians 13, Paul says wonderfully, if I have all knowledge as to answer all questions, even if I have all faith, you know, as to move mountains.
00;27;51;23 – 00;28;09;28
But if I don’t have love, I’m just a resounding gong. You know, the most language is the word no. There are two words for it. So like in Spanish, there is the verb sub air, which means to know kind of abstractly, to know of a thing. Or and then there’s conocer, which means to know intimately, to be familiar with.
00;28;10;00 – 00;28;26;09
It’s like people will ask me like, you know, do you know this Catholic writer? And sometimes I’ll be like, oh, I know of him. I’ve never met him. I don’t know him, I know him, I’ve read his book. But, you know, I don’t know him. We’re not buds. So when it comes to God, you don’t want to know him.
00;28;26;10 – 00;28;48;05
Like you just know some, like, book on a shelf that you enjoy reading. You want to know him as a friend. I mean, you know, not just as a friend. Be on friendly terms, but understand that just like a king can be friendly with a member of the court, and Christ is our king. God is our king. He’s not an unapproachable, sovereign.
00;28;48;05 – 00;29;18;13
First Peter five beautifully says, cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares for you. But we should not treat God as if he’s in a box here to serve us. He’s our sovereign that we can always come to with our needs. Yeah. Yeah. I think like there’s a way in which at the end of the day, you know, like the science of the cross of the knowledge of the cross is Edith Stein put it in her last book, it’s got this existential grit to it, which has a way of leavening the discourse.
00;29;18;13 – 00;29;35;22
One thing that I find challenging is that it doesn’t necessarily make the discourse immediately evident or like, immediately pellucid, like you still have to do the work, like you can do a lot by just knowing and loving the Lord. You know, praying, making good use of the sacraments, introducing some penance in your life, loving your family, loving those whom God has entrusted you with.
00;29;35;24 – 00;29;55;09
But like when it comes to giving a reason for your hope, you know, like sometimes it is requisite to learn more things depending upon your state in life, right? Depending upon your employee and to hold those two things together. You know, like I think my my temptation is just to live religious life, study sacred theology, and then have whatever conversations come my way.
00;29;55;09 – 00;30;19;11
But I sometimes find that I’m ill equipped for those conversations because I don’t actually know the things that I need to know to talk with this person about this issue. Right. Which is chastening. You know, it’s like it’s humbling. So, so holding those two things together in one’s life, it’s not a mere matter of balance. It’s a matter of subordinating your life to God’s call in the way in which that unfolds concretely, which, yeah, kudos to you for doing it well.
00;30;19;15 – 00;30;47;23
Well, I mean, thanks. Thanks be to God. And I appreciate how you I mean, I’ve heard many great things about your interactions with, with Gavin. And I think what’s important for anyone when we go and we share our faith, do not think, oh, well, I can’t go out and share my faith, people, because I can’t quote the Summa or Aquinas like Father Pine, or I can’t make arguments like Trent Horn, you know, first Corinthians 12, you know, the hand says, I can’t do anything because I’m not the foot.
00;30;47;25 – 00;31;05;19
Well, look, if it was all feet, what kind of weird body is that going to be? If it’s all hands? Look, if it’s all Father Gregory Pines, what kind of body is that? If it’s all Trent horns, it’s horrible. Like, I hope it never becomes that. It’s like. Reminds me of the movie multiplicity with Michael Keaton. You know, multiplicity of Trent Horn.
00;31;05;20 – 00;31;21;02
That would be a horror film in and of itself. But just to understand, no, God gave you a story. He’s he’s worked in your life. Some of the best ways is just to say, look, I don’t have all these arguments, but here’s what God has done in my life and I’ll just share it with you. And that can have just a huge effect on people if we live it out.
00;31;21;02 – 00;31;39;17
But every day we can grow in our knowledge. Just read like a just read a chapter of the New Testament each day and you read it Monday through Friday. Skip the weekends. In a year you’ll go through the whole New Testament. Do the same thing with ten paragraphs of the Catechism. You’ll go through the whole catechism and you’ll be able to answer like 80%, 90%.
00;31;39;18 – 00;31;56;15
Even questions ask to you because many objections to the faith, they’re just misunderstandings. Like people will say, oh, you know, I don’t believe in purgatory. Like a place you have to buy tickets to get out of and indulgences like, no, no, no, that’s not how it works at all. You know, or I don’t worship Mary like a goddess or something.
00;31;56;16 – 00;32;14;15
Well, we don’t either. You know, I don’t, you know, I don’t like Catholicism. You sacrifice Christ at every mass, like. No, we don’t do that. We represent the one sacrifice. And if you know the faith, you just correct these misunderstandings. And that can go a long way. I can indeed. Kennedy. All right. I want to be respectful of your time.
00;32;14;15 – 00;32;33;00
Thanks so much for making said time. Where can people follow up with you? We mentioned the Council of Trent. You’ve mentioned a couple of books, but any particular ventures of late that you’re especially excited about? I would recommend my Channel Council of Trent, so that is just available on YouTube. People can support us at Trent Horn Podcast, but I would recommend there.
00;32;33;00 – 00;32;42;26
And then of course, I have a lot of articles and work available at Catholic. Thank you guys so much for listening. Be sure to check out Father Gregory Pines God’s Planning Podcast, and I hope you all have a very blessed weekend.