You can look at my more detailed notes, but this is an overview of the content of Book II of “Mere Christianity”…
Chapter 1 – “Rival Conceptions of God”
Quotations
Truth in other religions
If you are Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth…[However,] as in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum…but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others
Pantheism
…these people think that long before you got anywhere near the divine point of view the distinction [between good and evil] would have disappeared altogether…
Pantheists usually believe that God, so to speak, animates the universe as you animate your body: that the universe almost is God, so that if it did not exist He would not exist either, and anything you find in the universe is a part of God…
If you do not take the distinction between good an bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God
Non-Pantheists
…[these people believe in] a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not in another…
…God invented and made the universe – like a man making a picture or composing a tune. A painter is not a picture, and he does not die if his picture is destroyed
…if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will…a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on putting them right again
Evil and God
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line…I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies
Questions
1. Why does Jack say that when he became a Christian he adopted the more “liberal” view?
2. Is it possible to affirm the truth of other religions while still holding to the absolute truth claims of Christianity?
3. Can you think of any religion completely devoid of ALL truth?
4. Into what two central conceptions of God does Jack say people hold? Do you think we could divide it up in a different way?
5. In what way do these conceptions of God and our attitudes towards the Moral Law and the Universe relate to each other?
6. Why does the very question of asking about evil in the world presuppose the existence of God?
I wrote this post over a year ago but I never felt quite comfortable in publishing it. I now think it’s time…
I have my friends in Washington DC on speed dial. I am only a few clicks away from video chatting with my family in England. I regularly send emails and texts which could wait until we meet in person, but I choose not to delay because of the ease of communication. We live in a world in which we are increasingly connected to one another…
This idea of a deep connection between people in far-flung locations is nothing new. Catholicism has clearly understood this concept for two thousand years. I mean, think of all the things that Catholics “share”. Regardless of where we are in the world, we are all washed in Baptism. We share in the same Spirit. This connection through the Spirit is indeed profound; we are all bound together, even with those who have already died and are in Heaven. We pray common prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. We share a common Sunday liturgy. We proclaim the same creed. And finally, of course, we share the same Eucharist meal.
In Bible study we’re currently doing a whistle-stop tour of the Bible. Last week we looked at the opening verses of Genesis. It often goes unnoticed what God is actually doing in the account of creation found in the opening verses. Today I’d like to do a short post covering the first part of our discussion and speak about the literary structure of the first chapter of Genesis.
In Chapter 1, verse 2, after affirming that “God created the heavens and the earth”, the author says that “the earth was formless and void” (Hebrew: “tohu wabohu”). The rest of the chapter sets about explaining how God solved both of these problems…
Across the dinner table a few months ago, we were discussing the subject of books and what we each thought were the “Must Read” books for adult Catholics. Today I would like to say a few words about a book which I think is the number one book on the subject of pro-life apologetics, “Persuasive Pro-Life” by Trent Horn from Catholic Answers.
I had originally intended to take some time to write a longer review, but since you can currently pick up a copy for $5 or download the eBook for free, it seemed wise to write a shorter review and have it published before the sale comes to an end:
The first thing which should be highlighted is that, although this book is published by Catholic Answers, none of the arguments outlined in the book are based on the Bible or even the existence of God. All arguments are based on easy-to-understand science and clear logic. Even if you are a pro-life atheist/agnostic, you will find this book extremely useful.
Typically, if I like a book, it’ll be in large part because of the way it is organized. This book is no exception. Trent assigns a separate chapter in his book to each pro-choice archetype. These archetypes include:
The Tolerant who personally don’t like abortion, but believe other people should be able to choose it.
The Skeptic who deny that anyone can know when life begins.
The Disqualifier who claim that unborn children do not have a right to life because the unborn are different from born humans.
The Autonomist, for whom it does not matter whether or not the fetus is a human being, because a woman has a right to bodily autonomy.
…
In each chapter, Trent addresses the essential arguments used by each archetype. He then goes on to explain the faulty science, incorrect assumptions or poor logic which are at work. The chapter then concludes with a (somewhat) imaginary dialogue between Trent and a pro-choice advocate. I particularly liked this feature since this shows how to apply practically what you have learned in that chapter. Not only that, it demonstrates how one can engage in pro-life apologetics in a respectful, productive and persuasive manner.
What other pro-life books would you recommend? Who else is going to the Walk For Life this weekend?
In this episode of “Theology With An English Accent” (TEA) is the first of a few talks I’m giving this Lent at St. Ignatius in Los Angeles. This is a longer version of the talk I gave the previous week in Dodge City which was called “What is the point of Christianity?”. The first 20 minutes is basically identical, after which I get into new material.
Life in Christ: Not mere improvement, but transformation (Download)
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Last night I gave my acceptance speech for the Fiat Award at the San Diego Young Adult Christmas Gala. Here’s the text…
Greeting
Good evening everyone. I’m humbled and really privileged to receive this award, thank you.
I’m keen to get on with the rest of the evening, as I’m sure you are, and to bust out some sweet moves on that dancefloor…but Patrick said that I could speak to you for a few minutes and there is something, in particular, which I would like to share tonight. You see, even some of my close friends may not know everything about my Faith journey…
My Journey
I grew up in a good Catholic home, but it was the work of an Irish missionary (and the Holy Spirit) which brought my faith fully alive at University. There at University, I was surrounded by a vibrant community of Catholics, many of a similar age, who cared deeply about growing in the Faith and about about sharing the Gospel.
But it was after university that things started to go awry… I graduated and was hired by a company in an unfamiliar town. I naturally went to Sunday Mass assuming that I would find new friends there…but I was to leave disappointed. Nobody greeted me. There was no Young Adult community. As far as I could see, there were no ministries whatsoever. The place just seemed… dead.
To add insult to injury, the company which had brought me to that town went bankrupt in my first week there (It wasn’t anything I did, I swear!). But this left me in an unfamiliar town, without a job, with friends, without a community….
As a result of all this, on my way back from Mass, I wandered into a non-Catholic congregation. It was here, in that Protestant congregation that I found the community for which I was longing. I was given such a warm welcome (well, at least as warm a welcome as is possible for the English!). During my time there…
…I learned so much about the Christian life
…I found a group my own age
…I was invited to help out with their youth group
…I made friends…I had found a home
It would be many years before I would rediscover the truth of Catholicism and return whole-heartedly to the Church.
The state of our Communion
Now why am I sharing this story? I’m sharing it because I don’t think it’s unique. I don’t think it’s even rare. I think my story is common for many many, many Catholics…and many former Catholics. The total number of Catholics in the United States has dropped by 3 million since 2007, that’s about 20%, one-fifth of the total Catholic population in the United States.
Why do they leave? There are several important reasons, but I would suggest that a major reason is that people are looking for spiritual nourishment, seeking connection, a community,…and when they don’t find it in the Catholic Church….they look elsewhere.
This Award
I’m really grateful and feel very honoured to receive this award tonight, but I have done nothing that special.
My life, my very existence, comes from God…
…and my supernatural life comes through Christ and His sacrifice for me.
If I have any talents they are not my own, they come from Him.
I owe God everything. So given all that, what else could I do but put myself at His service and the service of His Church?
I would suggest that, if anything can be learned from my receiving this award tonight, it’s not that I have done anything that extraordinary….
… The lesson is rather that, ministry is not simply the domain of ordained clergy or salaried parish employees, ministry is the role and calling of every…baptized…Catholic.
Rachel
At the beginning of this year, I nominated my friend, Rachel, to receive this very award. You see, when Rachel became Catholic, she immediately set about galvanizing the Immaculata Young Adults and approached her pastor asking to start a Bible Study.
It was for this reason that I nominated her for the award. She didn’t wait for someone else in the parish to do it. She saw a need and stepped up, putting her time and her talents at the service of her parish.
Dream a little dream with me
My friends, our Diocese is often praised in other parts of the country for its Young Adult Ministry (and rightly so)… but imagine with me for a moment if you will, what this Diocese would look like if every Catholic in this Diocese imitated my friend Rachel. I promise you, our Diocese would be un-recog-nizable…
There would be activities every night of the week, every weekend. There would be opportunities to socialize, to grow in the Faith, to serve the wider community. And most importantly, the people who came to the Church seeking nourishment and community… they’d find it…and in so doing, encounter Jesus.
Objections
But there’s a problem. As soon as I spoke about each one of us finding a place to serve, a voice at the back of your head probably started coming up with a long list of objections:
“What, me? Doing ministry?! I don’t know how to do that…”
“I can’t organize big events!” “I’m not a theologian. I’m sure someoneelse better qualified will do something!”
Am I right?
Small things with great love
In case you misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that each of you should head-up some grand catechesis programme in your parish, and devote all your time, every evening and weekend to that work. No, I’m simply inviting you to think about your passions and skills and consider where there is a need in the Church, because, as Frederick Buechner said:
“The place God calls you to [your vocation] is the place where your deep gladness [all those things you really love and care about] and the world’s deep hunger [and the unmet needs in the Church] meet [where they meet]”
My ministries
As for myself…
I like going to the theatre and the symphony. I therefore inaugurated “The Finer Things Club” and invited others to join me on my cultural adventures.
My housemate and I agreed that we wanted to have better accountability, so we formed a Men’s Huddle, inviting a few other guys to meet together a couple of times a month to share a beer and talk about our lives.
My friend Teresa wanted to sing Taize songs, so we picked a date and invited people over to the house for an evening of candle-lit Taize prayer and song. We now do this once a month if you’d like to join us.
I’ve always loved the writings of C.S. Lewis, so I arranged to meet up with my friend Matt at a coffee shop, to talk about one of his books. I let other people know about it on Facebook, and a meeting of two C.S. Lewis nerds grew into a regular group and we’ve now read six of Lewis’ books.
Because of interest in this group from outside of San Diego, Matt and I then launched a podcast, where we discuss the works of C.S. Lewis chapter-by-chapter each week.
This then grew into a website, PintsWithJack.com, to host a video series which was launched this week.
My point here is that all these things began simply by doing what I love…and then inviting others to join me.
Have a little help from my friends
And I know I’m not the only one. I don’t have to look hard to find other examples from among my friends…
Joseph, having discovered Our Lady, committed to praying the rosary at the beach each week, and invited others to join him.
Kareen was troubled by the homelessness in Downtown San Diego, so with a few friends she set about making food and handing it out. Others joined her.
My friend Joe really likes scotch, so he decided to get together some friends and introduce them to the finer points of whiskey-tasting.
All of these activities build community, help deepen spirituality and make a positive change in the world (especially the scotch!).
The invitation
So what about you? What are the things you enjoy? Where do you see an unmet need in the Church? Where do you feel the tug of the Holy Spirit?
Again, it doesn’t have to be complicated…Maybe you like volleyball. You could assemble some friends to have a casual game one weekend, or purchase host a monthly movie night at your house, inviting some new parishioners you met at Mass.
Never Alone
But even with these simple suggestions, it may all seem too intimidating. But the good news is that you don’t have to do this alone.
Reach out to your pastor – he’s there to help!
Reach out to Patrick and Pam – the purpose of their office is to support you…to help you… as you help build the Kingdom.
My time is now just about up, so I would like to thank you all for your indulgence for the past ten minutes. But I’d like to end with a prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission… I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good. I shall do His work.”
In the JP2 Group we’re doing a mini-series on Christian worship in the Early Church. It is for this reason that I recently posted several blog entries about St. Justin Martyr, an Early Church Father and one of the first great Christian apologists.
However, I realized as I was finishing up yesterday’s post that I haven’t actually written an introductory post about this great man. I had done this previously when we were studying St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna. So today I’m going to remedy this, providing a little bit of information about St. Justin’s life.
Who was this man whose writings we’ve been studying?
Searching For Truth
What we know about St. Justin mainly comes from his own writings. He was born in about AD 103 to Pagan parents in Flavia Neapolis, modern day Nablus on the West Bank. He had a great love of philosophy and studied various philosophical systems:
“…I surrendered myself to a Stoic Philosopher…but when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary)…I left him…
A Peripatetic Philosopher… asked me for money. For this reason I left him, believing him to be no philosopher at all….
I came to a Pythagorean Philosopher, very celebrated – a man who thought much of his own wisdom… He said, ‘What then? Are you acquainted with music, astronomy, and geometry?’ Having commended many of these branches of learning, and telling me that they were necessary, he dismissed me.
In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting with the Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city…and I progressed, and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise; and such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato’s philosophy.
– Dialogue With Trypho, Chapter 2
You can look at my more detailed notes, but this is an overview of the content of Book II of “Mere Christianity”…
I have my friends in Washington DC on speed dial. I am only a few clicks away from video chatting with my family in England. I regularly send emails and texts which could wait until we meet in person, but I choose not to delay because of the ease of communication. We live in a world in which we are increasingly connected to one another…
In the