A Course in Defending the Faith

The outline of the course I present is listed below.  It consists of eight sessions.  A general breakdown of what will be covered in each session can be found after the outline.


I.Introduction
A.Description of the course
B.Define apologetics
C.General ground rules

II.Church Authority
A.The Papacy
B.Authoritative Church
C.Apostolic Succession
D.Infallibility and Impeccability
E.Scripture and Tradition
1.  Sola  Scriptura
2.  Old and New Testament Canon

III.Justification, Sola Fide, Salvation
A.Justification
B.Sola Fide
C.Salvation

IV.The Eucharist
A.John 6
B.The Promise of the Eucharist
C.The Institution of the Eucharist
D.The Passover as a Type of the Eucharist
E.Additional Support

V.Communion of Saints
A.The Body of Christ

VI.Mary
A.Setting the Stage
i.  Mary as the Queen Mother
B.Marian Dogmas
i. Mary, the Mother of God
ii.Perpetual Virginity
iii.Immaculate Conception
1.Mary as Ark of the New Covenant
2.Mary as the New Eve
iv.Assumption of Mary

VII.Other Topics
A.Baptism is Required
B.Baptismal Regeneration
C.Baptism of Infants
D.Confession to a Priest
E.Mortal and Venial Sin
F.Statues
G.Relics
H.Call No Man Father
I.Vain Repetition of Prayers


Session 1

This session introduces the course and begins to discuss the Section on Authority by beginning the section on the Papacy.  The discussion of the Papacy will provide support for the Pope from Scripture and why it is necessary to have a supreme leader in the Church that Christ established.

Session 2

This session completes the discussion on the Papacy and also finishes the Authoritative Church.  The discussion on the Authority of the Church describes the Scriptural support for and the necessity of the Church’s magisterium.

Session 3

Session 3 discusses Apostolic Succession and Infallibility.  In order for a Bishop, Priest or Deacon to have authority, he must be able to trace his ordination all the way back to Christ and the Apostles.  If it cannot be traced, the person has no authority to preach in Christ’s name.  The Catholic Church is the only institution that claims Infallibility when it teaches on matters of faith and morals, what we must believe and what we must do for salvation.

Session 4

Session 4 discusses Scripture and Tradition. Here we talk about Sola Scriptura, the erroneous Protestant doctrine which teaches that the Bible is the sole rule of faith for Christians.  We also cover why the Catholic Bible contains 73 books and the Protestant Bible only has 66 books.  This session wraps up our discussion of the issue of Authority.

Session 5

This session takes up the topic of Justification, how man is saved.  Here we also discuss the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide, that man is saved by faith alone and not any works.

Session 6

In this session we finish our discussion of Salvation and take up the Protestant doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved or Eternal Security which says that once you have been saved, you cannot lose your salvation no matter what you may do after that.  In this session we also discuss the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. 

Session 7

In this session we discuss the Communion of Saints which obviously includes a discussion of praying to the Saints.

Session 8

In this final session we discuss how to defend Our Lady from her detractors.  We will cover each of the four Marian Dogmas.


These sessions reflect the typical way this course plays out.  However, depending on the discussion and the number and type of questions, it is quite possible that there could be some changes in the timing.

Also, you have probably noticed that we have not covered the section of the outline called Other Topics.  Many of these topics are covered during our other discussions but they will be covered if we go faster that the general timing outline.


Defending the Faith
Check back soon for details of classes and/or seminars on this topic.
God Bless you!


Why You Should Take a Course
On Defending the Faith
(Catholic Apologetics)
By Bernie Huff

Introduction
Why a course in Defending the Faith?

Today Catholics are faced with continual attacks on their religion in the media, in the workplace, at recreation, and often in our own pews. 

Recently I was on vacation at a seacoast resort.  We parked our car and began to unload it.  We returned to the car for another load and I saw something on the windshield under the wiper blade.  It was one of Jack Chick’s publications.  We could not have been there 15 minutes.  If you are not familiar with Jack Chick you are probably better off.  He writes small comic books which attack Catholic doctrines in an effort to get Catholics to question the truth of their faith.  If interested, you can see an example at:  http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0040/0040_01.asp


We are called by our Baptism to be evangelizers of our faith.  Each of us has a responsibility to spread the truth.  Further we should be able to defend the teaching of our Church.  We do this with “Apologetics”.  In this course we will learn how to defend the faith to those who challenge it.

In this course we are going to talk about what apologetics is.
  • What does it mean to give an apology?
  • What is the difference between apologetics and ecumenism?
  • Why do we need apologetics today?
         Due to people’s view of authority and the absolute faith people have in themselves, apologetics might be more necessary now   
         than ever.   
         Obedience is not high on the list of our virtues.  Everyone seems to want to be their own Pope.
  • But isn’t this Father’s job?  Well, we will see.
  • What can I do to prepare myself to defend my faith?
  • How can I apply what I learn in my daily life?
The Catholic Church has the truth but how many of us know why the Church teaches the doctrines that it does.  During our catechesis most of us were not taught the “why” of our doctrines but only the “what.”  When someone challenges your faith with a Bible verse, can you explain why the Church teaches what is being challenged?  If a family member leaves the Church because someone convinces them the teachings are wrong, can you convince them why the Church is teaching truth?

What is Apologetics?

1 Pet 3:15-16 - “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…”
The word “apology” comes from the Greek word “apologia” which means “a defense or reason.”   Webster defines apologetics as "A defense, as for a cause or doctrine" Therefore, apologetics is a defense of Church teaching, which is “…the reason for our hope.”

Apologetics can have various focuses.  This course focuses on Catholic apologetics, how to defend the Catholic faith.  Other focuses could be on Christian apologetics, why we should be Christians and not Buddhists.  The approach is the same; but the objections and answers are different.

Didn’t apologetics go out with Vatican Council II’s Decree on Ecumenism?

Well something surely happened?  One hundred years ago, street-corner apologists were found on street corners and in the parks everywhere.  Frank Sheed created the Catholic Evidence Guild to defend the faith publicly.  Then came a period of time when apologetics seemed not to be politically correct.  However, in the last 40 years through the prompting of our church leaders, apologetics has slowly been coming back.

So what is ecumenism?  In the broadest sense it is the religious initiative towards worldwide unity.  A more limited goal of ecumenism is the promotion of co-operation and improved understanding between distinct religious groups.  Those who participate to the movement are doing this not merely as individuals but as corporate bodies.  All of us hope for unity in the Church of God, a truly universal Church set in the world so that the world may believe in the Gospel and be saved.  Ecumenism strives to understand each other and to achieve some degree of unity. 
But ecumenism does not mean that we negotiate our doctrines away.  John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint said, "the one Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church.  The Decree on Ecumenism emphasizes the presence in her of the fullness of the means of salvation.  Full unity will come about when all share in the fullness of the means of salvation entrusted by Christ to his Church."  In his own subtle way, John Paul said in the last sentence, “Full unity will come about when all share in the salvation Christ entrusted to the Catholic Church”.

So then what is the difference between being ecumenical and giving an apology?  Well, apologetics then is to individually give a defense for what we believe.  The goal may not be to convert someone but it is surely to create an environment where people can be united in faith and fully understand what Catholics really believe.  Ecumenism does this corporately.  Both are concerned with the unity of the church.

The church has an obligation to carry out the mission of Jesus Christ, which he passed on to his Apostoles.  That being to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Mat 28:19-20
The Need for Apologetics Today
Do you know that the Catholic Church is losing 8,000 souls each day in Latin America?  They are being lured away from the Church by Evangelical Protestants and it’s happening because there aren’t enough people telling the Catholic side of the story.

We are living in the Post Christian era at a time in history when truth has taken on a new reality.  Truth means something different to each person.  And that particularly applies to our morality.  Moral relativism is a natural outgrowth that says there is no absolute moral truth.  Unfortunately, many Christians have bought into this philosophy.

(Post Christian is a modern term used to describe a society that no longer accepts or adheres in the majority to classical Christian principles and theological concerns.)

(Moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths but instead are relative to social, cultural, historical or personal preferences, and that there is no single standard by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth.)
I’m sure you have heard people say that it really doesn’t matter what church we belong to.  One church is as good as another.   We all worship the same God and that will get us to Heaven.  Americans, have a long tradition of rugged individualism that demands everyone make decisions for themselves.  We think of religion as a private affair, man's personal search for God.  It all sounds very broadminded and it is certainly politically correct.  But if we accept this, it means that we don’t believe our doctrinal differences are at all important.  But they are important!  It does matter that Catholic’s believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.  If non-Catholics do not, how can we believe that all religions are equal?   This phenomenon is called Religious Indifferentism and it is a sin in the eyes of the Church.  Yet many, many Catholics accept this as a truth today.  In the Defending the Faith courses, I have had a number of people say to me, “You sound like you believe that the Catholic Church is the only true church.”  My response is usually “Well of course I do and if you do not, why are you taking this course”.  The unfortunate result has been that some of these people have dropped out of the course. It is truly sad that we have allowed our culture to replace truth with fiction.

It is fact that Catholic Church has poorly catechized it members during the last 40+ years.  Let me try to put this problem into some perspective.  Recent polls have shown that as few as 27% of Catholics in the pew believe that Jesus Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the Blessed Sacrament.  There are around 1.1 billion Catholics in the world.  That means that almost ¾ of a billion Catholics do not believe in this central doctrine of the Church.  That is 750 million people.  We opine that our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters do not believe in the real presence.   But do you realize that there are only about 500 million non-Catholic Christians in the world today.  So where is the bigger problem here?  At this point, the loss of souls to the Protestant Reformation is being dwarfed by the losses we are suffering due to the lack of belief in the doctrines of the Church by Catholics.

Clearly there is a great need for us to take every opportunity that we are presented to bring people to the full knowledge of truth.

So who should engage in apologetics?
To begin with, Scripture encourages us to correct our brothers and sisters when they stray
from the truth. 

1 Pet 3:15-16 Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason
for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so
that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves
be put to shame.

Jud 1:3 Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our common salvation, I found it
necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered
to the saints.

Jam 5:19-20 My brothers, if anyone among you should stray from the truth and someone
bring him back, he should know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way
will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

This is not just the responsibility of our Bishops, Priests and Deacons.  We are all
called to do Christ’s work.  Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have called all members of
the church to the new evangelization in the third Christian millennium.  Bishop Rhoades,
from the very beginning of his episcopate, has issued the same challenge.  His Episcopal
Motto is a continuous call for all of us.  Everyone should know his Motto? 
It is VERITATEM IN CARITATE which translates as Truth in Charity (Eph 4:15).

Christian unity is the desire of our Savior.  It is His prayer in St. John's Gospel 17:21
“so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.”  The separation of Christians continues to be a thorn in Our Lord’s Sacred Heart.

We must remind people that Christianity is a “revealed religion,” a truth that seems to be lost to our generation.  If God has not revealed something to us, we just can’t make assumptions about it.  Do you know what WWJD means?  “What would Jesus do?”  It is a saying that seems to have caught on in the present day.  The question begs for us to give an opinion.  But isn’t our own personal answer to this question is irrelevant.  We try to apply human intelligence to understand Our Lord.  It just doesn’t work.  It seems to me the question that we should be -asking today is “What does the Church teach?” 

By our Baptism we are called to correct errors in truth whenever the opportunity is presented to us.  We must be willing to explain the Catholic faith to those who do not understand it.  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said “There are not 100 persons in the United States that hate the Catholic Church, but millions who hate what they believe it to be.”  Of course the good Bishop is absolutely correct.  Experience tells us that most anti-Catholic bias is purely the result of ignorance of what the Church really teaches.

I do want to warn you however that if you choose to engage in apologetics, sooner or later you will encounter people who say that disagreeing with others about religion shows disrespect for their diversity and it is not politically correct.  But if all we ever do is talk only about those things we agree on without facing our differences, no real progress toward unity is ever going to be made.  So I challenge all of you to have the courage to step out in truth to correct the errors that abound in our world.


Get to know your faith – read the Catechism

If you are going to share your faith with others, you must know your faith.  I will tell you there are few sources of information about the church that are better than the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Anytime you have a question you cannot answer, the Catechism should be the first place you look.   

I encourage everyone, if you haven’t already, to embark on a systematic reading of the Catechism.  Take one section at a time and read everyday.  Before you know it you will be well versed in the truths of the faith.

Read Sacred Scripture

St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  Start with the New Testament and begin with the Gospels reading them in order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  The first three, known as the Synoptic Gospels, are very similar; they follow the same general order in the way that they present the material about Christ’s life and teachings. The Gospel of John is much more distinct.  Begin with Matthew and set aside some time each day until you get all four Gospels read.  Plan to read them slowly and straight through.  That way you’ll get a good overview.  Once you have read them once, re-read them again for a better understanding.

Now read Acts of the Apostles.  Acts is the history of the early church.  There is no better place than Acts to see the fledgling church come alive and grow.  Here too we see Peter take charge of his church; the church hold it’s very first council, the Council of Jerusalem in the year 48-50 AD; we also see the conversion of Paul and the completion of his three missionary journeys.

What can I do to prepare myself to step out in truth?
Next read the epistles.  You should be able to read through the New Testament in less than a month reading as little as 30 pages a day.

Every apologist must be comfortable with Scripture.  If you are trying to explain or defend a position, it will do you no good to pull out your Catechism of the Catholic Church.  In order to make some headway, you must defend your position using a source that has authority with your challenger.  With non-Catholic Christians, that would be the Bible.  It is important for Catholics not just match scripture verse with scripture verse.  More than that, the harmony of scripture is extremely important.  When not correctly understood, many scriptural verses can seem to be in conflict with one another.  We know that only the Catholic understanding of scripture can truly harmonize those conflicts. 


Just Do It!

Finally I suggest you take a course.  When you have completed all this, I encourage you to “Be Not Afraid” and to step up to the task at hand.  If you wait until you feel ready, you will never get there.  The only way to get comfortable is to do it.  If you don’t know an answer, say so and tell the person that you will find out and get back to them.  Then follow through.  By getting back to them you not only provide them with the answer but you also let them know that you serious about wanting to help them.

Do not let people continuously put you on the hot seat by asking all the questions.  Turn the tables on them; take control of the discussion by asking questions of your own.

Make sure the dialogue stays on point.  Do not let people change the topic on you!  This often happens when your answer surprises them and they don’t know how to respond.  At that point they change the subject.  If this happens bring the discussion back to the original topic.  You can do this very easily with a question.

Meet people where they are in their walk in life.  If people are asking simple questions, give them simple answers.  Avoid diving into deep theological discussions every time someone asks a question.

My only caution is not to bluff or stretch the truth.  If you get caught, and you will, you will lose your credibility.  You never have to make an excuse for the truth; there is always an answer.  If you don’t know it, go find it.