- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Church and Society
- 1 University Theology as a Service to the Church
- 2 Teaching Authority in the Church
- 3 Catholicism and American Culture
- 4 Faith and Experience
- 5 Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism
- 6 The Uses of Scripture in Theology
- 7 John Paul II and the New Evangelization
- 8 Historical Method and the Reality of Christ
- 9 Religion and the Transformation of Politics
- 10 The Church as Communion
- 11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II
- 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- 13 Crucified for Our Sake
- 14 John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium
- 15 Priesthood and Gender
- 16 The Travails of Dialogue
- 17 The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology
- 18 Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium
- 19 Should the Church Repent?
- 20 Human Rights
- 21 Can Philosophy Be Christian?
- 22 Justification Today
- 23 The Papacy for a Global Church
- 24 The Death Penalty
- 25 Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine
- 26 Christ Among the Religions
- 27 When to Forgive
- 28 The Population of Hell
- 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- 30 John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person
- 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- 32 A Eucharistic Church
- 33 How Real Is the Real Presence?
- 34 Benedict XVI
- 35 The Mission of the Laity
- 36 The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
- 37 Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief
- 38 Who Can Be Saved?
- Mcginley Lectures Previously Published
- Index
The Rebirth of Apologetics
The Rebirth of Apologetics
March 2, 2004
- Chapter:
- (p.430) 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- Source:
- Church and Society
- Author(s):
Avery Cardinal Dulles
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
This chapter discusses apologetics, the discipline of defending a religious position through the systematic use of reason. It looks into apologetics's task, its changing forms, its recent criticisms, and its revival. It holds that faith is the work of reason submitting to the word of God, which comes by way of revelation. The unpopularity of apologetics arose from its own excesses. Among many Christian thinkers, apologetics threatened to absorb almost the whole of theology. In some cases it tried to prove too much, claiming to demonstrate by cogent arguments not only the credibility but the truth of Christian revelation. In recent centuries, apologetics has concentrated mainly on how people get to God. In the act of Catholic faith, reliance on testimony goes out indivisibly to Christ and to the Church through which he continues his mission in the world.
Keywords: testimony, apologetics, Christian revelation, reason, theology, personalism
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- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Church and Society
- 1 University Theology as a Service to the Church
- 2 Teaching Authority in the Church
- 3 Catholicism and American Culture
- 4 Faith and Experience
- 5 Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism
- 6 The Uses of Scripture in Theology
- 7 John Paul II and the New Evangelization
- 8 Historical Method and the Reality of Christ
- 9 Religion and the Transformation of Politics
- 10 The Church as Communion
- 11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II
- 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- 13 Crucified for Our Sake
- 14 John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium
- 15 Priesthood and Gender
- 16 The Travails of Dialogue
- 17 The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology
- 18 Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium
- 19 Should the Church Repent?
- 20 Human Rights
- 21 Can Philosophy Be Christian?
- 22 Justification Today
- 23 The Papacy for a Global Church
- 24 The Death Penalty
- 25 Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine
- 26 Christ Among the Religions
- 27 When to Forgive
- 28 The Population of Hell
- 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- 30 John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person
- 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- 32 A Eucharistic Church
- 33 How Real Is the Real Presence?
- 34 Benedict XVI
- 35 The Mission of the Laity
- 36 The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
- 37 Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief
- 38 Who Can Be Saved?
- Mcginley Lectures Previously Published
- Index
