I think most Pagans today are probably aware of Christian apologetics. Apology is from the Greek word for “defense” (apologia). Apologetics are as old as orthodox Christianity and they are as popular (and necessary) today as they were in the second century. Not a few of them are aimed at Bart Ehrman, which is reason alone to read his books, if you haven’t already.

Christians constantly feel the need to justify their religion. And why not? Something as derivative and cobbled-together (not to say ramshackle) needs to be defended and justified. The whole rotten edifice comes crumbling down the moment you start applying the historical record to the myth and Christians have long been aware of this fact. The purpose of apologetic works is to enable Christians to sleep free of doubts. “There is no reason to panic!” they say. “Everything you believe is true, and we will prove it to you!”

Currently, the Catholic Answers Project is offering a terrific gift for those who contribute hundreds of dollars to the campaign to defend “The Truth”:

Handbook of Catholic Apologetics—by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. Unbelievers, doubters and skeptics continue to attack the truths of Christianity. Handbook of Catholic Apologetics categorizes and summarizes all the major arguments in support of the main Christian beliefs. Also included is a Protestant-friendly treatment of Catholic-Protestant issues. The Catholic answers to Protestant questions show how Catholicism is the fullness of the Christian faith.

Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is full of the wisdom and wit, clarity and insight of philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. This is an informative and valuable guidebook for anyone looking for answers to questions of faith and reason. Whether you are asking the questions yourself or want to respond to others who are, here is the resource you have been waiting for.

I’ve read this particular book. And I can tell you a few things about it here. It may impress the “faithful” who need desperately to be reassured that they haven’t wasted their lives on this superstition, but it won’t convince those who live in an evidence-based world. Read on:

Christians recognize the need for a historical Jesus: “Without a historical Christ there is no Christianity.” So say Kreeft and Tacelli in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics.[1] Christians need, after all, as Paul early recognized, the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.[2] At the same time, many Christians (and it would be dangerous here to generalize too much) do not want a historical Jesus or rather, they want a specific historical Jesus. Why? A historical Jesus is a direct challenge to the primacy and inerrancy of scripture, not to mention the literality held so dear by “traditionalists,” or as they are sometimes called, “reconstructionists.” Christians are at times willing to explore the historical background of Jesus but this seldom serves any purpose other than finding proof for what is already accepted as fact. That is, any historical Jesus must match exactly the Jesus of Christian belief, doctrine and dogma (not necessarily the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel accounts, for as we will see, these are not identical). What we end up with is a case of “feel free to research the historical Jesus as long as you use these sources and come up with these conclusions.” We must take to heart the warning of E.P. Sanders, who notes that many New Testament scholars write books about Jesus in which they discover that he corresponds with their own version of Christianity.[3]

Kreeft & Tacelli offer many amusing claims, if you’re interested, including the following:

• that no bliblical claims have been disproved by archaeology.[4] Their own claim is demonstrably untrue, yet they make it all the same and they manage to do it with a straight face. Their faith does not allow them to admit to the lie. They have to believe that archaeology cannot disprove biblical claims.
• against the lack of archaeological or epigraphic evidence for the Exodus is offered the weak protest of Kreeft and Tacelli that the lack of physical remains constitutes only “unanswered questions, not disproofs”[5] Nice try at a save there, but it doesn’t work. Archaeologists apply the same standards to any movement of ancient peoples, and the “Dorian Migrations” once widely believed in have also gone the way of the buffalo, as have the “Sea Peoples”.
• Kreef and Tacelli assert that “Christians accept everything in traditional (biblical) Judaism, and regard it as not only true but divinely revealed.”[6]This is not true. If it were, Christians would be Jews. But they’re not. They’ve superseded Judaism and you cannot supersede Judaism without setting aside its beliefs.[7]

Against Pagan veneration for the old, Christianity brought the new. Kreeft and Tacelli, however, authors of the Handbook of Christian Apologetics, caution against a strictly chronological approach when arguing with non-Christians. “The problem here is telling truth with a clock or calendar, confusing “true” with “new.” By this standard, Marxism is one of the most progressive religions. If, on the other hand, we use a standard other than simply happening later in time to judge evolutionary advancement, this brings us back to a nonrevolutionary criterion.” They do not, however, deny that Christianity is superior to all that came before. Indeed not. It is the very purpose of their handbook to prove just this.[8]

Jonathan Hirsch says: “Nothing in human nature…suggests the inevitability of the notion that there is only one god,”[8] and I agree, whatever logical or philosophical circumlocutions and acrobatics modern day apologists employ to the contrary. Kreeft and Tacelli, offer a prime example of these acrobatics with their “Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God”[9]

In the end, we might turn Mark 8:18 around: “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” In Christianity, it’s not about seeing and hearing so that you may believe. It’s about believing so that you can see and hear what you’re supposed to see and here. If we rely on seeing and hearing, that belief isn’t going to come. And that’s why Kreef and Tacelli published their book. They want to shore up that belief so that you can keep hearing and seeing the right things – the orthodox things. You can tweak the evidence; you can ignore it; you can put a spin on it. But in the end, you can’t make the evidence go away and no amount of apologia can obscure it for anyone willing to put faith aside long enough to actually examine the evidence.

Notes:

[1] Peter Kreef and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 213. Messrs Kreef and Tacelli are professors of philosophy at Boston College.

[2] Paul recounts the consequences of Christ not being resurrected at 1 Cor. 15:12-19. Obviously, if Jesus is not the Christ, things are just as serious.

[3] E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 330, n. 148.

[4] Kreef and Tacelli (1994), 216.

[5] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 217.

[6] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 357. Full quote: “In comparing Christianity with other religions, the relation between Christianity and Judaism is in a class by itself. For Christians accept everything in traditional (biblical) Judaism, and regard it as not only true but divinely revealed.”

[7] If one is looking for continuity within Judaism it will be difficult to find; if one extends the search to include Christianity, the task becomes well nigh impossible. I would go so far as to assert that as a term Judeo-Christian is not only misleading, it is inaccurate. At the least, as Mark S. Smith points out, the “so-called ‘Judeo Christian tradition’” is “itself a Christian ideological construct of sorts.” See Mark S. Smith, “Ugaritic Studies and Israelite Religion: A Retrospective View,” Near Eastern Archaeology 65 (2002), 19.

[8] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 354.

[9] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 47-48.