The Apologetics Men Missed

The unmanliness of irreligion

The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Paul Glenn (Ph.D, S.T.D), a gifted teacher of philosophy, wrote Apologetics to ‘show the unreason and the unmanliness of irreligion, and to dissipate the fog of sentimentality that passes for religion with many moderns.’

‘Apologetics,’ he says, ‘is the science which explains and justifies the Catholic religion as the true religion’ by reasoning systematically and logically from human sources by unaided human reason. He also stresses ‘it is the most im­portant study you could possibly undertake.’ Why?

‘Those who misunderstand your religion, and hate it, and speak all manner of evil things against it, are human beings with souls that God wants saved, and He expects you to do your part in saving them. Now, you may do very much for the saving of such souls by disposing them intellectu­ally to receive the divine gift of faith. Apologetics seeks to fit you for this service.’

This synopsis and commentary follows the plan of Glenn’s book, condensing it into two 10-minute articles. This article will discuss God and religion. The second will discuss Christ and the Church.

But my hope is that you will read the full work. More accessible than his series of undergraduate philosophy textbooks (probably the best ever written), it aims at helping educated Catholics understand ‘they have a warfare to conduct’ and are ‘militant marchers in a hostile world.’

Book First: God

I. The Existence of God

Glenn outlines five rational proofs for the existence of God:

1. The Argument from Cause

The world exists, and causality exists in it. But all things efficiently caused are contingent upon their causes, and the number of finite causes cannot possibly be infinite, so the only sufficient reason and explanation for their existence is a necessary being. This first efficient cause must be eternal, one, necessary, infinite: God.

Glenn stresses that some men have claimed to deny causality to avoid this conclusion, but ‘the man who denies causality denies all things,’ including science. It is also makes no sense to claim, as Bertrand Russell did in his debate with Coplestone, that the universe is simply a ‘brute fact’. It’s contingent, not necessary, so it can’t be a brute fact.

2. The Argument from Motion

Motion is the transition for potentiality to actuality. Fire heats water to make steam. Water can’t heat itself. Similarly, no living thing gives itself life. Thus ‘what­ever is moved is moved by something other than it­self.’ Ultimately, this traces back to a first mover itself unmoved — the first cause itself uncaused. This is God, un­moved and unmovable, i.e., immutable.

3. The Argument from Design

The world exhibits order. But chance is never a cause of anything. If you a meet a friend by chance, the meeting isn’t uncaused. It’s an unintended effect. The order and design of the world, then, can’t be mere chance. It requires a Designer of boundless intelligence and power. Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that evolutionary processes account for all apparent biological design, the design argument retains its force: why is there a universe ordered to give rise to life?

4. The Argument from the Moral Order

There is a moral law. Do good; avoid evil. Man didn’t make this law. Even if everyone legislated that torturing babies was right, it would still be wrong. Since ‘men are subject to this law,’ its source must be superhuman: the Supreme Legislator. This must be the First Cause (God); otherwise, the Legislator would be merely an effect of the First Cause, so his intelligence and power would be ascribable to it.

5. The Argument from History

Although ‘men may be wrong in their interpreta­tion of mere physical facts, all men cannot be wrong in a judgment which is a direct inference of reason from known facts.’ In fact, ‘such a universal agreement is the very voice of rational nature.’ And ‘such an agreement proclaims the existence of God.’ The man who denies that certainty is possible contradicts himself. He’s either not certain there’s no certainty or certain there isn’t. Either way, there’s certainty.

A Note on Atheism and Agnosticism

Although there are rational proofs of God, it is not possible to prove God beyond unreasonable doubt. Glenn notes that ‘all the most noble and enlightened men of every age have openly professed their belief in God’. But it is ‘only when reason is allowed to function, and is not throttled by vanity, pride, or perversity’ that ‘men’s minds must recognise the existence of God.’ Whereas ‘Theoretical Atheism does not square with human reason’ and destroys all morality and authority, agnosticism is ‘cowardly and impertinent.’

II. The Nature and Attributes of God

The Nature of God

Through ‘coldly scientific’ reasoning totally devoid of ‘deviousness or word-juggling,’ we can arrive at a Necessary Being. It must be Pure Actuality ‘since there is no causality at all which is not rooted in’ it. There is nothing potential in it that the action of a cause could render actual. And since it is Pure Actuality, it must have ‘the plenitude of all being’ and therefore be infinitely perfect.  This also entails that it is one: if there were two “infinite beings,” neither would be infinite. It must be simple (not composed of parts) because every composite being exists only after its parts are unified by a cause. But there is nothing prior to the First Cause. It must also be spiritual since a bodily being is always made up of parts.

Metaphysically, then, ‘God is Self-Existent Being,’ and ‘one, infinite, simple, spiritual.’ Using physical definitions, as the Penny Catechism puts it for children, ‘God is a Spirit Infinitely Perfect’.

The Attributes of God

Attributes are ‘indices of a particular nature’. Because they are proper to special natures, they are called properties. For example, reason reveals ‘the funda­mental attributes of God’s necessity, infinity, unity, simplicity, spirituality.’ But the absolutely infinite perfection of God also entails His divine attributes of Being (eternity, ubiquity, immensity, immutability), Intellect (knowledge and wisdom), and of Will (freedom, omnipotence, holiness, goodness, mercy, justice, veracity, fidelity). To understand how this works, read the chapter in full, but the main point here is these are all logical deductions.

Children often ask whether, if God is omnipotent, he can make a square circle. But a square circle is not a thing. It’s a denial of a thing. A circle that is not a circle is nothingness. As Glenn explains, ‘if God could create contradictions as things, He would not be all-perfect, for He would not be all-true…This is not the denial of omnipotence; it is the assertion of omniscience and infinite truth­fulness.’

III. The Action of God upon the World

The Production of the World

Glenn outlines three explanations of the world: Materialism, Pantheism, and Creationism. Creation can be proved by exclusion but also by positive proof. Materialism can’t be true because the world isn’t self-existing. It’s ‘contingent, finite, composed, and full of change.’ Pantheism can’t be true either because it, too, would make ‘the First Cause and Necessary Being one with the world.’ It would also entail change in the Necessary Being — or potentiality — and the absurd consequence that we are not individual beings distinct from others but all merely parts of God.

By contrast, Creationism means the world was created, and God is not only the First Efficient Cause of creatures but also their Final Cause. Since creatures have nothing of being except what God gives them, He creates for His glory. Man alone of all worldly creatures has a spiritual, immortal soul and free will. We can think immaterial things like truth, beauty and goodness. We can also make choices. Matter can’t do either.

The Preservation of the World

God not only created the world out of nothing but preserves it out of nothingness. For contingent things to continue existing requires the action of the Necessary Being. Everything depends on God at every moment like heat depends on fire. Wondrously, God never neglects us — ‘not even when we turn against Him and insult Him by sin!’

The Government of the World

The government of the world is God’s providence, guiding ‘all things toward the ultimate end of creation.’ Denying providence means denying either God’s knowledge of how rule the world, His power to or His desire to. All are incompatible with His infinite perfection. This is why Deism is false: it’s incompatible with God’s providence and His preservation of the world. Minerals, plants and non-rational animals are governed physical laws and instincts. With his free will, man is governed by natural law.

Children often ask why evil exists. Doesn’t it conflict with the perfection of God? No. Physical evils, Glenn explains, ‘are often a help to man, and not a hindrance, in the task of working out his salvation. Sickness, poverty, pain, and other physical ills have often turned the minds of men away from the pursuit of fleeting things and fixed their purpose upon eternal verities and values.’ And moral evil is sin. It comes from the abuse of free will, and God can draw good out of it. Judas freely betrayed Christ, and then God redeemed the world.

Book Second Religion

I. The Nature of Religion

The Meaning of Religion

Religion is ‘the sum-total of man's du­ties to God.’ Objectively, it comprises the ‘truths, laws, and practices which man rec­ognizes and observes in paying worship to God.’ Subjectively, it is ‘the virtue which inclines man to render to God the honor, love, and worship which is His due.’ Natural religion concerns what can be known by human reason alone without revelation (e.g., God exists). Supernatural religion concerns what can be know only by divine revelation (e.g., the Trinity). Glenn stresses ‘that religion is not a mass of ten­der emotions or sentiments, as most men today re­gard it.’ In fact, ‘it is as cold and hard a fact as man can face.’

The Necessity and Universality of Religion

Men need religion because it’s ‘a matter of obligation rooted in man’s very nature.’ It is found ‘among all men of all times.’ The individual man requires it to ‘satisfy the craving of his heart, the tendency of his will, the requirements of his rea­son, the connatural bent of the whole man.’ Society needs it as ‘the basis of true brotherhood, of justice among men, of respect for law and authority, of the integrity and sanctity of the family, and of all moral­ity.’ Men are obliged to ‘express the true religion in their doctrine and worship.’ Religious indifferentism is false.

Glenn corrects the common misconception that religion is irrational. ‘Reason itself,’ he says, ‘is a natural revelation’. This is because ‘revelation’ means ‘the removal of withdrawal of a veil.’ And reason pierces the veil of the contingent, changing, composite world. Thus ‘the quest of causes carries reason ultimately to the recog­nition of a First Cause, itself Uncaused, Infinite, Necessary, All-Perfect.’ This is the basic fact of religion. And ‘directly deducible from the existence of the one infinite God, is man’s dependence upon Him, and man’s duty of knowledge, love, and service toward God.’ St. Paul therefore declared that the pagans were inexcusable for their want of piety.

The Origin of Religion

The true origin of religion is thus rational — rooted in the nature of man. It is not due to fear, fraud anything else. But Scripture also teaches that God taught the basic truths of religion to the first human beings. ‘The ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Chines, Hindus, Persians, all held to the belief in one God in the earliest times.’ Only later did they lapse in polytheism while only the Hebrews, from whom the Redeemer was to come, preserved the truth of monotheism.

II. Supernatural Revelation in Religion

The Meaning, Possibility and Necessity of Supernatural Revelation

Man can know much about God by his natural reason. But ‘supernatural revelation is absolutely necessary for a knowledge of the truths of supernatural religion, while it is morally neces­sary for a knowledge of the truths of the natural re­ligion.’ In His goodness and love, God wants His children to know Him and to help them toward Him as their last end. And not even Plato or Aristotle ‘ever achieved a perfect exposition of natural religion.’

The Fact of Supernatural Revelation

The Bible satisfies the internal criteria of supernatural revelation because of its unity, beauty and other characteristics. But miracles and prophecies are external criteria of supernatural revelation. They are ‘works of God and of no other’ — a dead man being raised back to life, for example, or the Shroud of Turin, or predictions of future events that only Omniscience can know.

Moreover, Tradition is supplementary to Scripture and ‘together with Scripture constitutes the sole source of general divine revelation.’ Indeed, ‘without Tradition we should not know what Scripture is, what books belong to it, nor the proper interpretation of its contents. Those that say that the Bible alone is the source of all revealed truth will search the Bible in vain for the support of their assertion.’ The Bible doesn’t even say it is revelation.

Something The Matter

Glenn quotes Chesterton’s remark that, ‘whatever else men have believed, they have all believed that there is something the matter with mankind.’ In the next article, we will examine Glenn’s explanation of the necessity of Christ and the Church.

These are the two most important things I want you to take away from this article:

1. Religion is rational.

2. God is not an ens (a being) but esse ipsum subsistens (self-subsistent Being). In other words, God is not a being among beings — Russell’s celestial teapot — but Being Itself.

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