by Raymond de Souza
Flying directly from Sydney to Perth takes about five hours, and I have done it several times in the last few years, coming home from apologetics tours in Australia’s eastern states. It is usually a relaxed trip, but the last time I had an unforgettable experience.
I usually prefer sitting by the window to look out at the cloud formations coming from the Tasman Sea on my left and the sun setting in the direction of the Indian Ocean, ahead of the plane. If I do not get a window seat, I am quite happy with the aisle seat — but never the seat in the middle.
Well, for my sins, I guess, that last time I sat precisely in the middle seat, between two unforgettable fellow-travelers: At the window sat an agnostic, and by the aisle a Presbyterian.
We naturally chatted away, talking about the food, the drinks, the cold weather outside and the heat inside and when would they decide to switch on the air conditioning, or how one nearly missed the flight because of the usual traffic jams around the Sydney airport, and all the rest.
During dinner we talked about ourselves, and when I said I run an educational work aimed at imparting Catholic apologetics, I got very mixed reactions. The agnostic chap by the window expressed surprise that I should apologize for being a Catholic. Australia is a free country and nobody should apologize for belonging to any particular religious denomination.
The Presbyterian bloke by the aisle gazed at me suspiciously and asked if I was in favor of the return of the Spanish Inquisition.
I was in for a fun ride indeed!
* * *
First of all, I explained to the agnostic that apologetics in its contemporary sense had nothing to do with apologizing. They may have the same root, as both words stem from the Greek apologia, which means, basically, an answer or explanatory defense. That’s the word Saint Peter used in his first epistle, that we ought to “be always ready with an answer to everyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in us” (1 Pet. 3:15). That is Catholic apologetics, another way for Catholics to become well equipped to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).
Then I quickly turned to my Presbyterian neighbor and reassured him that I was not in favor of the return of the Spanish Inquisition, and that for two basic reasons: first, because we were in Australia and not in Spain, wherefore the Spanish Inquisition would have no jurisdiction whatsoever in Australia. Secondly, the reasons that prompted the work of the Spanish Inquisition were peculiar to that time and place, no longer relevant to our days.
Having said that, I hastily added that I could defend the work of the Spanish Inquisition, if he so wished, comparing it with the inquisition set up in Geneva by John Calvin to judge and execute those who disagreed with his version of Protestantism — but only if he so wished.
Well, he didn’t. He was quite content just to be reassured.
Seeing that the Inquisition question had been settled, the agnostic chap said, rather candidly, that “All religions are equally good anyway, aren’t they?” He then proceeded to explain why, and said that since all human religious experiences are valid, the most one could say is that some experiences are more explicit, more developed, more defined than others. “But all are valid, and equally so.” He ended his sentence in a rather pontifical tone. He then sipped his wine, smiled from the left corner of his mouth, and raised both his eyebrows once, so as to suggest that the floor was now mine and that he awaited my comments.
The Presbyterian fellow and I joined forces against him — albeit temporarily. Addressing the agnostic, the separated brother said, “What is your religion, Sir?”
The agnostic sipped again, looked up towards the reading lights above our heads, and replied: “ I have experienced many in my time. I’ve been through Catholic Christianity, Seventh Day Adventist, Spiritism, Mormonism and, of late, I have been in touch with the Liberal Catholic Church. Yet I have had a great deal of experience with people from Islam, Buddhism, and Shintoism as well. That gives you an idea of my experience in that area,” he concluded, pompously and self-assuredly.
The Presbyterian moved on: “If I understand you correctly, you are assuming that all of those religions are merely human experiences, one being as human as the other. Is that right?”
“Quite,” answered the agnostic. “So what is your point?”
“My point is,” replied the Presbyterian, “that you would be right if all religions had a mere human origin. But — and this but is most important, mind you — but, I say, if one religion has a divine origin, that would necessarily be the religion par excellence, the religion that would possess the fullness of divine truth. Correct?”
“Correct,” replied the agnostic, “But only if — and this if is most important, mind you, only if one religion in particular had a divine origin. But unfortunately, since no one can know for sure — and that is my agnostic point — we have to content ourselves with our individual preferences, don’t we?”
“No, we don’t,” I interjected. “You are taking your individual ignorance of the existence of a divine religion and imposing it on everybody else on the planet. Demonstrably, there are people who think differently.”
Counting on the full support of my Presbyterian fellow-traveler, I proceeded to show the agnostic that it makes sense to be a Christian because of the evidence in favor of the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. I spoke of the authenticity of the Gospels as historical documents, of the Old Testament prophecies showing Jesus Christ as the only man in history whose life was prophesied in detail by different men from different times and places, and that everything comes true in Him, and Him alone — a thoroughly unique feature among founders of religions.
I also spoke of His power to perform miracles — another unique feature among founders of religions, and how His enemies and executioners acknowledged His power. I pointed out that Jesus has been acclaimed by virtually everyone in history as a good man, just and truthful — and the agnostic chap agreed 100% with that — yet He claimed to be divine! Was He lying? If so, He could not be a good man, just and truthful. If He was telling the truth, then He was divine, and so on and so forth.*
I also said that religions are either human or divine. Divine they cannot all be, for they contradict one another in essential points, and God cannot contradict Himself. If God, being one, revealed Himself to mankind there would be just one religion possessing the fullness of the truth. “And the religion founded by Jesus Christ fits the bill,” I added, nonchalantly.
“All other religions are of human origin, therefore; well-intentioned, many of them, but human nevertheless. One who knew there was a divine religion yet preferred to hang on to a man-made one just for personal preference would make a great mistake.”
My Presbyterian friend beamed with sheer delight. He may well have thought I was a fellow-Presbyterian in Catholic mufti, out there infiltrating the R.C. Church to undo the work of popery.
The agnostic simply added that there is still the problem that there are many bad Catholics and bad Protestants these days, and too many people who indicate that Catholicism and Protestantism are not of a divine origin…
The Presbyterian jumped into the arena, ready for the fray. He said, “Not really, Sir, because one cannot judge a religion by the behavior — or misbehavior — of some of its followers. Every religion has good and bad people in it, right my friend?” With that he turned to me, certain I would agree but clearly not realizing that he was shooting himself in the foot since, according to Calvin, the church is formed by the saved alone.
Yet, I agreed: “Of course. Just take a look at the great King David, a man after God’s own heart but an adulterer and murderer at a given point in his life. How could anyone say that the religion of the Hebrews was false because of David’s sins? No, it was true in spite of David’s sins. He was acting against the dictates of his religion. Jesus Himself spoke of the kingdom of God as being like a net full of fishes, both good and bad. In the end, the bad ones would be thrown out and the good ones kept.”
While the agnostic chap ordered some more wine, my new ally turned to me and said, “You are perfectly right, Sir. Jesus is the Son of God, and both of us have accepted Him in our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior, haven’t we?”
“Yes, we have,” I replied, “But I have gone beyond the acceptance and moved forward to receiving Him in Holy Communion, His own flesh and blood, as He prescribed in John, Chapter 6, and, of course, I belong to the Church He founded and accept the fullness of the Faith He handed on to the Apostles…”
I paused for a moment or two to give my temporary ally a chance to reply. And he did.
“I believe in Jesus because of the Bible, but you seem to believe in Him because of the R.C. Church,” he said, not without a certain note of disappointment as he realized that, after all, I was not a fellow-Presbyterian infiltrating the “R.C. Church” to overthrow popery.
“If you truly believe in the Bible,” I commented, “then you believe in the Roman Catholic Church as well. Since Jesus wrote not a single book, the only assurance you have that the Bible is true is by accepting the testimony of the so-called R.C. Church. Remember: the Apostles were Bishops of the Church; the Church councils separated the inspired books from the non-inspired ones; the Church’s monks copied and copied the Bible through the centuries, saved it from destruction during the barbarian invasions, translated it into many European languages, and ensured that its text remained unadulterated. All of these things happened long before Martin Luther’s parents attended Sunday school…”
“You are not by any chance saying that the Bible is a Catholic book, are you?” sneered my past ally.
“Actually, I am,” I replied. “If you accept the Bible, you are implicitly affirming that the Catholic Church did not mistranslate the text. As a consequence, you are accepting the authority of the Catholic Church.”
At this moment, the agnostic chap intervened: “Surely you could compare the current texts of the Bible with the originals to make sure that no corruption crept in, can’t you?”
My separated brother did not reply. He simply looked at me and waited for me to say something. Rubbing it in a bit,, I said to him: “Yes, surely any Protestant today can check the text of his Bible with the originals, can’t he?”
Since this separated brother remained so by his silence, I decided to reply. “No, he cannot. Nobody can, in fact, because the originals were lost in the first couple of centuries, and the Bible that Luther had — or Calvin, for that matter — was a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, and so on and so forth, of the original text — everything done by the Catholic Church. Otherwise, how could Luther and Calvin even be able to read the Bible, if the Catholic Church had not given it to them?
“Moreover,” I continued, “since only the originals were inspired, and not the copies, you’ve got to trust the chaps who certified the copies as being authentic. If the Catholic Church had wished to tamper with the text, She could have done it long before the Middle Ages. But She didn’t. She did not alter the text of Her own Book.”
“I have the Bible,” pontificated my separated brother, “And that is enough for me.”
“If you say so,” I replied, “If you say so. But your saying so does not change the fact that you are believing in a Catholic book. In fact, when you accept the Bible as the Word of God, you are accepting the witness of the Catholic Church who said that the Bible is the word of God. And since it was the Church who declared the authenticity of the Bible, only the Church can give the right interpretation of the book that She declared authentic.”
“But I don’t need the Church to tell me what the Bible means,” he retorted. “I can read it by myself!”
“Of course you can,” I replied without hesitation. “And it is precisely because so many people since Luther have done just that that you have among the so-called Protestant Church thousands of different denominations, agreeing here and disagreeing there, without any semblance of unity — except in their opposition of the Catholic Church. The Bible teaching that there should be one Lord, one faith, one baptism, is thoroughly meaningless within Protestantism.”
“But the Catholic Church burned many bibles in mediaeval times!” he shouted.
I am already quite used to that business of changing the subject and seeking another angle of attack when one lacks a good answer, but I let him have his way, because the apologist should never corner the opponent too closely lest the latter harden his mind out of sheer spite. So I said, “Of course She did. Plenty of bibles went up in smoke. But tell me something, friend, would you accept in your congregation the Bible promoted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the New World Translation?”
He said “Of course not!” without batting an eyelid.
“And why not, may I ask?” — in as friendly a manner as possible.
“Because their text is adulterated, unscholarly, corrupted. No serious Bible reader would touch it.” He concluded with the determined air of a Spanish Inquisitor delivering his opening remarks.
“And you are quite correct,,” I replied, “quite correct, indeed. That is precisely the reason that the Catholic Church forbade the use of certain spurious texts, purported to be “the Bible.” They were, to use your own words, “adulterated, unscholarly, and corrupted.” The burning of the paper was a symbolic act of rejection of deceit and fraud, and of fidelity to truth and authenticity. Today we would simply recycle the paper and help protect the environment,” I mused.
The agnostic laughed at that, but our Presbyterian friend was not amused.
Before he could say anything, the voice of a stewardess told us to fasten our seat belts, and we could see, far away in the horizon, the lights of the city of Perth — home, finally! I had to leave it for another time to finish the conversation.
In any event, it had been an interesting conversation, contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints, with an answer to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in us (Jude 1:3 and 1 Pet 3:15). That is Catholic apologetics.
And we make no apologies for it.
Note
I will recall that the argumentation for this was published in a series of articles during the Jubilee Year of 2000. For brevity’s sake, I will just here say that the agnostic eventually admitted never having considered the evidence in favor of the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He even jotted down the website from which he could order my e-book, “Was He Really God?” Please see details for this at the end of the article.
(This article courtesy of St. Gabriel Communications. You can download the article in e-Book form for permanent FREE usage and/or further distribution. This is one of the many projects of the Perth, West Australia-based apostolate in response to the Holy Father's call to Re-Evangelise the Baptised.)
