In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Joe Heschmeyer to discuss how new Catholics can defend their faith against friends who challenge their beliefs. Joe provides practical advice on engaging with differing interpretations of Scripture and emphasizes the importance of understanding Catholic doctrine.
Transcript:
Caller: I’m currently in ocia. My confirmation is just a little over a month from now. However, I’ve got a close friend of mine and he has been really urging me to study Scripture. And he’s. He’s telling me that I’ll find ways that the Scripture will actually contradict some of the Catholic doctrine. He does believe in sola scriptura, and he doesn’t receive any of the sacraments. If I’m new in my faith and I’m not very well rounded in it, what’s the best way I can defend my faith?
Joe Heschmeyer: That’s. It’s a great question. I’m going to give you a pair of three 15 Bible verses. So there’s two that I think you should bear in mind. The first one is first Timothy. It’s actually 3:14, 15. But St. Paul is saying, I hope to come to you soon, but I’m writing these instructions to you so that if I’m delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. So that’s our first red flag. Your friend, it sounds like he doesn’t believe that the church is led by the Holy Spirit in understanding the Scriptures, but he is individually. And the question then becomes like, why would you be the pillar and bulwark of the truth? Why is your personal reading of Scripture the thing protected by God and not the reading of the visible church? Like throughout all of history, if somebody in the first century said, hey, I think the apostles, they’re not really getting Jesus’s message. It was this other thing. Instead, we wouldn’t even have to stop and ask. We could just say, well, well, that person’s arrogant. That person’s completely out to sea. They don’t know what they’re talking about. And when somebody’s in that situation, you should take them aside and you should help them understand the way of God more accurately. So in Acts 18, there’s a guy named Apollos who. He’s an eloquent man, well versed in the scriptures. That’s what Acts 18:24 says. Sounds like your friend. He’d been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. So again, sounds like your friend got a lot right. Doesn’t have the sacramental part. Then we’re told he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately. So somebody like this, they’ve got the zeal, that’s wonderful. They’ve got the eloquence, they can make a persuasive argument. That’s wonderful. But they don’t have the sacraments and they don’t have the teaching of the Church guiding them. And so here these two well established people within the Church take him aside and explain the way of God more accurately. That’s what should be happening with your friend. He’s not in a position to teach in the same way that Apollo had to learn the way of God better. So 1st Timothy 3:15 is the first one. The second one is 1st Peter 3:15. 1st Peter 3:15 says, Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you. Ye do with gentleness and reverence and keep your conscience clear so that when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. So you don’t need to know how to answer every possible objection to Catholicism somebody may have when they’re just like I think Scripture means X prove to me it doesn’t. That’s not your. You don’t have to do that. It’s enough to say, number one, the pillar and foundation of truth, the Church says you’re wrong and I trust them. Or number two, maybe that’s a really good question. Let’s find out. How did Christians for 2000 years understand this passage? Or how is this always understood? And then I just keep returning to what’s more likely, the Holy Spirit’s just leading you as a radical renegade or the Holy Spirit is leading the Church, which Ephesians one calls the fullness of Christ. So should we trust the fullness of Christ or should we trust one random cut off part of the body who claims to be led by the Holy Spirit? So that would be what I would come back to, to have the humility to say part of this. There’s a couple things. Even if we didn’t have the promise that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church into the fullness of truth, which Jesus gives in John 14 and John 16, he promises to send the counselor of the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit, Spirit of truth will lead us into truth, all truth, like the fullness of truth. So even if we didn’t have that which is a good reason to trust the Church and not your friend, we would also have just the bas fact that so you know the game who wants to Be a millionaire. They did studies on this, and they found that of the three different lifelines, when you’re faced with four choices, you could do a 5050 and reduce it to two, or you could phone a friend where it was somebody that you thought was really smart and could answer the question. Or you could ask the audience, and the audience is just the random people who happen to be assembled. You know what they found. Phoning a friend was way less accurate than asking the audience that. A random group of people, on average is going to significantly outperform the individual person you think is smart. So you should trust the crowd over the individual in general, with most things as a default. That doesn’t mean always. There’s times where somebody is truly brilliant and, you know, they realize the truth. You know, germ theory of disease, when that was originally discovered, nobody believed the guy. There are going to be a handful of those cases, but overwhelmingly, we should trust. If 2000 years of people thought it meant this, and this is what everybody understands the evidence to mean, it probably means that. And then you add on the fact the Holy Spirit is guiding the church and not your friend into the fullness of truth, and the church and not your friend is labeled the pillar and foundation of truth. I think those would be the things we’re stressing. So your job then is to be able to give a defense, an apologia, which is where the word apologist comes from, to give a defense for the hope that is within you. You should be able to tell anyone who asks why you are becoming Catholic that may or may not answer all the questions they have, but you should be able to do that. You should do it in a certain way, with gentleness and with reverence, with a clear conscience. So that’s your burden. Don’t imagine burden is to solve every possible thing that comes your way. Because you’re right. The devil himself quotes scripture, and as St. Jerome points out, basically every heresy in the history of the church is somebody taking some passage of scripture and interpreting it in a way that preserves the text and denies the meaning. And that’s what we have to watch out for. That makes sense.
Caller: Makes total sense. And that’s a very good point. And this is a lot of great info. Is this episode going to be podcasted? Because it’s a lot of info and
Caller: I’d love to go back. And it’s available on YouTube right now, actually.
Edgar Lujuno: Yeah, you can watch it on YouTube. You can also watch it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. It’s available everywhere. So make sure you go back and listen to it. And on top of that, Jordan, I want to go ahead and send you the Big Book of Catholic Answers, Volume 1. Sounds like you’re you want to have a nice good defense. So I think this will be a great start to kind of get you going in general. So hang on the line. Thanks for your question.