Category: Apologetics

When there’s nobody around to hear

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So, another day, another meme. A few days ago, this came across my Facebook newsfeed:

whoknew

So, how might one respond to a meme like this?

Is it accurate?

The first thing to ask is, does this meme accurately represent what Christians believe? After all, if someone’s religion is wrong, it shouldn’t need to be misrepresented to be shown to be false, right?

So, what do Christians believe about the Trinity? Well, we believe that there is only one God, but that within the Godhead that there are three persons: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. So, when the Son was praying, He wasn’t praying to “Himself”, but to the Father.

This meme already isn’t looking that promising…

I wasn’t there…

The meme appears to suggest that, unless you were present at an event, then you couldn’t possibly know what happened.

However, I’m sure there are many events you know much about, but for which you were not present. These events range from the great events in history to the story of how your parents met. The reader will know about these events because those who were there have either told them directly, or because they have read descriptions found in diaries and letters.

The same is true for the life of Jesus. St. Luke didn’t witness Jesus’ ministry, yet he can tell us what happened by reporting the testimony of those who were present at the time. Luke speaks about his sources in the opening of his Gospel:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you… that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.

Luke 1:1-4

No witnesses

Okay, so it’s possible for me to know about an even if I was not there to witness it… but what about the situations where, say, Jesus was alone and there was nobody to hear what He said and see what He did?

For example, all the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13) record Jesus going out into the desert alone for forty days. Despite Jesus doing this alone, Mark tells us that He was tempted by the devil, and Matthew and Luke go into detail about these temptations, even going so far as to narrate the exchanges between Jesus and Satan. How did they know what was said?

The answer to this is, I think, rather obvious. Many of my friends know how I felt when I watched the sunrise each morning as I was walking across Spain. They know this because I told them. Likewise, the events in the desert could easily have been passed onto the Apostles by Jesus Himself. Perhaps one night around the fire, after casting out an unclean spirit in a Synagogue earlier in the day, Jesus told them what had taken place during His time in the wilderness.

Contraception and Erectile Dysfunction

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Another day, another meme… Here’s a picture which a friend posted last week:

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As with all memes, before clicking “Share”, it’s worth taking a moment to fully-articulate the argument which is being made. So, what does this meme claim?

The meme draws an equivalency between pregnancy and impotence. We are told that if pregnancy is God’s will, then so is impotence. It implies that Christians are inconsistent if they’re okay with tax dollars being available for the purchase of viagra, but not for contraceptives or abortions.

So…does this argument hold water? There are three points which I think are worth making.

1. Ordained or “ordered towards”
Is it true that “pregnancy is God’s will”? My suspicion is that what we have here is a misunderstanding (or, at worst a caricature) of the Christian understanding of sex. Sex has two ultimate purposes: the union of the spouses and the the siring of children. We would say that the sexual act is ordered towards procreation. By this, we mean that a natural consequence of the sexual act is the conceiving of children.

So, we can say “pregnancy is God’s will”  insofar as God invented sex and children are the natural result of sex. However, the very fact that women have periods of infertility during the month shows that God does not will that every sexual union result in the conception of a child.

2. Both diseases? 
Now that we’re spoken a little bit about sex in the natural order, it can hopefully be seen how ridiculous it is to compare pregnancy and impotence. Pregnancy is not a disease! If a couple has sex and the fruit of this union is a child then everything is working as it should! It is a natural consequence of the sexual act.

Impotence, in contrast, is a malfunction, a disruption of the intended sexual union. A better parallel would be to compare impotence with ovarian cysts, since the presence of these cysts prevents a woman’s body from functioning properly.

3. Different consequences
Finally, if this meme is being used as an argument in favour of abortion, it is hopefully clear to see the massive disparity between the moral consequences of paying for medication to allow a couple to have a heathy sex life and paying for medication which causes an unborn life to be snuffed out.

Mary, the New Eve

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It is a common misconception that, when people convert or revert to the Catholic Church that they only do so when they fully understand all of the Church’s doctrine. This certainly was not true for me. I had come to the point of recognizing that Sola Scriptura made little sense and that Christ founded a visible Church. However, there were many of the Catholic Church’s teachings I didn’t really understand. For me, most of these difficulties surrounded the person of Mary. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the Catholic fascination with the mother of Jesus…

All this started to change when I discovered Biblical Typology and started to see Mary pre-figured in the Old Testament. I have written before about how Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant and how this helped me to understand Mary’s Holiness. I have also written about how Mary is the Queen Mother and how this aided my understanding of her as intercessor. Today I would like to write about another very important parallel which I discuss in the talk Mary & The Early Church. Once I began to see Mary as the New Eve I began to see the significance of Mary in the story of Salvation History…

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