Skip to main contentAccessibility feedback

An Answer for Those with Ears to Hear

An Answer for Those with Ears to Hear

Are ecumenism and apologetics at odds? Ecumenism, we’re told, means not trying to convert the other guy to your version of Christianity. Apologetics, on the other hand, means standing up for what is distinctively Catholic and always showing the non-Catholic Christian where he’s missed the boat.

But that way of looking at things misconstrues both subjects. So argues Dominican Fr. Benedict Ashley in his book Choosing a World-View and Value-System, subtitled An Ecumenical Apologetics. But isn’t “ecumenical apologetics” an oxymoron?

Not according to Fr. Ashley. “Ecumenical apologetics” is genuine apologetics because it defends the faith and gives non-Catholics reasons to believe. At the same time, it’s ecumenical: While it aims at full communion with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit within the Catholic Church, it does not neglect elements of truth that exist outside the visible structure of the Catholic Church nor does it overlook the limited communion in the truth that already exists with non-Catholics. In short, ecumenical apologetics seeks “to disclose Jesus Christ as the Truth in which all truth, from whatever source it comes, can be honestly acknowledged and reconciled” (x).

Unfortunately, not all Catholic apologists today are as ecumenical as they should be. Some acknowledge in principle the Church’s teaching on ecumenism but disregard it in practice. These apologists almost always stress how wrong non-Catholics are, rather what we have in common with them, as a basis for discussing our differences. But this approach is hard to square with Vatican II.

Fr. Ashley first considers the man who thinks religion unimportant and therefore rejects committing to any particular religion. Fr. Ashley argues that humans have a “believe” default mode that makes it all but impossible for them not to believe in something. People sometimes miss that point because it’s hard to give a substantive definition of religion that applies equally well to all worldviews. The author settles for a “functional definition,” arguing that those who claim no religion have the functional equivalent of a religion.

Which brings us to the title—”choosing a world-view and value-system.” To some degree, contends Fr. Ashley, choice enters into what we believe. The case for any particular worldview is never so overwhelming that we must accept it, like it or not. There’s maneuvering room when it comes to accepting the truth.

How then to decide what to believe? On the basis of what suits us—what we want to believe? Or do we choose what we judge to be true or good? Do we “go with the flow” and uncritically imbibe the worldview and values of others? What are our options when it comes to worldviews?

In part one, Ashley treats these and other important issues. He considers four main options when it comes to worldviews: humanism, mythological religions, emanation religions, and creation religions. Under emanation religions Fr. Ashley considers Hinduism and Buddhism; among the creation religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Then, in part two, he makes the case that the Catholic Church is the historical Christian community without minimizing the Christian reality in Orthodoxy and Protestantism.

Ashley’s final chapter examines the subjective and objective approaches to apologetics and tackles that great obstacle to faith: the problem of evil. Objective apologetics first tries “to establish the rational motives of credibility of the gospel.” It then argues for “the moral obligation of all who have become aware of that credibility to render obedience to the faith and to the gospel by an act of the will moving their intelligences to assent to it.” The subjective method, on the other hand, establishes first “the human need for religion in order to live successfully, then [deduces] what kind of religion could satisfy this need” (all quotes from page 297). The last step: Show how Christianity alone adequately satisfies that need.

Though he acknowledges the complementarity of the two methods, Ashley argues that objective apologetics “should have the priority if we are not to fall into a solipsism that hampers the hearing of faith” (297). Yet he uses the objective-subjective distinction to explore the perennial problem of evil, showing how the objective, rational case for the Christian view (as strong as it may be) doesn’t always persuade the subject, for whom the question of evil is rarely a mere abstract proposition. Even so, Christian faith provides an answer for those with ears to hear.

Choosing a World-View and Value-System isn’t a comprehensive treatise but an extended essay, sketching out an ecumenical apologetics. It shows how Christianity in general—and Catholicism in particular—includes the truths found in other worldviews but not their errors. It’s an exercise in “big-picture” apologetics (what James Akin calls macro-apologetics), which leaves it to others to fill in the details of refined argument on subtle points. 
— Mark Brumley 

Choosing a World-View and Value-System 
By Benedict Ashley, O.P. 
Alba House (2000)
326 pages
$19.95
ISBN: 0-8189-0746-0 


Filled with Apologetic Gems 

 

Mark Shea’s latest book is a welcome addition to the growing list of fine Catholic books written by former Evangelical Protestants. Shea’s first two books, By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition and This is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers the Real Presence, were apologetic in focus. While Making Senses Out of Scripture is catechetical in nature, it’s still filled with apologetic gems. As the subtitle implies, the goal of the book is to assist Catholics (and other Christians) with the often daunting task of studying the Bible.

As Shea notes in the introduction, there are two wrong ways of studying the Bible: “The first . . . is to not study it at all. The second is to study it as though we were the Lone Ranger or the first doctor to ever wonder what was hidden beneath our skin” (27). (Many readers will recognize that the first group includes many Catholics, while the second is full of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.) To help combat both errors, Shea sets out to provide some basic tools for those who are seeking to enter more deeply into the study of Scripture.

To this end, Making Senses Out of Scripture is divided into two major sections. The first, “The Big Picture,” is a masterful overview of Scripture written in the personable style Shea demonstrated in his earlier works. Centering his discussion on the six covenants between God and man, Shea explains the nature of divine revelation, provides a crash course in Biblical anthropology, tackles evolution, deals with some of the more disturbing Old Testament stories, and lays waste to modern myths about the nature of Jesus Christ.

Used throughout are well-selected sections of Scripture and official Catholic documents, plus quotes from luminaries such as G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis (two of Shea’s heroes). Reflecting Chesterton’s influence, Shea often appeals to the paradoxical nature of Christianity. For instance, in describing the role of the Mosaic Law, a hard thing to explain to many modern readers, Shea writes that the “paradoxical role the Mosaic covenant plays in God’s plan to heal the world from the fall of Adam turns out to be the paradox of the X-ray machine. It is a tool used in the healing process, but it is not a tool that can heal. . . . The law can X-ray the broken soul of the fallen children of Adam and Eve, but it cannot heal it” (143).

The second section is an explanation and defense of the four senses of Scripture: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. Both the explanation and defense, written in insightful but never dull style, are breaths of fresh air. Some Catholic scholars and catechists frown upon the four senses as some sort of Scholastic, and many Fundamentalists and Evangelicals believe they were invented to “spiritualize away” the essential truths of the Bible.

In this regard the chapter on the allegorical sense of Scripture is especially helpful. Addressing the issue of Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 and the “virgin” (was she really a virgin or just a young girl?), Shea shows that the New Testament authors did not arrange Old Testament prophecies in a spreadsheet and start marking them off when Christ fulfilled them. Rather, they began to recognize Christ in the Old Testament over time, especially after his death and resurrection (see Luke 24:13–32): “The Old Testament is not the basis of their belief in these things, it is the witnessto these things” (190).

In fact, the allegorical method, far from being a medieval device, was used often and with great effect by Christ, the apostles, and the evangelists: “Likewise, Christ explicitly declares (John 3:14) that he is prefigured in the bronze serpent in Numbers 21:9. Similarly, Paul tells us in Galatians 4:21–31 that Hagar and Sarah can be fruitfully understood as images of the old and new covenants. And so on through connection after connection in both the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament” (193).

Shea has a gift for analogy and explaining complex concepts without using terms that might discourage a reader who is unfamiliar with the subtleties of Scripture and theology. Using this skill, combined with his warm wit and strong g.asp of the material at hand, he has written a book that will be helpful to Catholic lay people, catechists, and apologists. Since the goal of Making Senses Out of Scripture is to generate study of the Bible by ordinary people, this book is a natural pick for use in a home or parish Bible study, especially as an introduction to the Bible and its major themes. 
— Carl E. Olson 

Making Senses Out of Scripture 
By Mark P. Shea 
Basilica Press (1999)
262 pages
$14.99
ISBN: 0-9642610-6-5

Did you like this content? Please help keep us ad-free
Enjoying this content?  Please support our mission!Donatewww.catholic.com/support-us