Christianity did not arise in a vacuum. The very first Christians debated with their opponents in a cultural context within which everyone knew that there is a God and that he had revealed himself through Moses and the prophets. The question, given that background, was what to think of Jesus of Nazareth. Hence the earliest apologists were, in effect, apologists for Christianity as opposed to Judaism, specifically. That didn’t last long. As Christianity spread beyond Judea into the larger Mediterranean world, the question became whether to accept Christianity as opposed to paganism. Much less could be taken for granted.
Still, significant common ground for debate was provided by Greek philosophy. In Book VIII of The City of God, Augustine noted that thinkers in the Neoplatonic tradition had seen that God is the cause of the existence of the world; had seen also that only what is beyond the world of material and changeable things could be God; had understood the distinction between the senses and their objects on the one hand, and the intellect and its objects on the other, and affirmed the superiority of the latter; and had affirmed that the highest good is not the good of the body or even the good of the mind, but to know and imitate God. In short, these pagan thinkers knew some of the key truths about God, the soul, and the natural law that are available to unaided human reason. This purely philosophical knowledge facilitated Augustine’s own conversion to Christianity, and would provide an intellectual skeleton for the developing tradition of Christian apologetics and theology.
In yet other cultural contexts, however -- such as the religions of the far East -- the Christian apologist could presuppose even less than what was known to the Greeks. The seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Roberto de Nobili sought to remedy the problem by making use of the rich conceptual apparatus provided by Hindu philosophy in order to convince learned Hindus of the truth of a Thomistic natural theology, which could in turn be used as a stepping stone to Christian revelation. Nor is it that hard to find common ground here. Hinduism affirms a single self-existent and unchanging divine reality, even if this reality is usually conceived of in pantheistic rather than theistic terms; and there are explicitly theistic strands too in the Hindu philosophical tradition. Hinduism also has a notion of the soul, even if its doctrine of reincarnation takes the idea in a direction foreign to Christianity. In its affirmation of an objective moral order that operates like a law of nature rather than an arbitrary divine command, the notion of karma parallels that of natural law (though of course there are radical differences too). In the Chinese context, Taoism, Confucian ethics, and Neo-Confucian metaphysics also provide a rich set of conceptual resources by which a discussion of natural theology and natural law might proceed.
But in the modern West, even less than that can be taken for granted. The Buddhist critic of Hindu metaphysics at least thinks the debate is well worth having. Though in substance his views are yet farther still from Christianity than those of the Hindu, he is at least at the philosophical level more or less in the same conceptual universe. But as I noted in my recent TAC talk calling for a return to Scholastic apologetics, the typical modern Western secularist doesn’t regard theism, much less Christianity, even worth the bother of refuting. And he is often as dismissive of philosophy itself as he is of the theology the traditional apologist would ground in philosophical arguments. It is, not always but often, empirical science alone that he will take seriously. Given this scientism, you need first to show him why he needs to take metaphysics seriously, and then go from there to natural theology, before you can finally turn to the defense of Christian revealed theology. (Not that that first task is hard to accomplish if one’s interlocutor is intellectually honest. Scientism is not hard to refute. For the refutation, see chapter 0 of Scholastic Metaphysics. For the ocean of metaphysics any possible natural science presupposes, see the rest of the book.) The trouble with contemporary apologetics
So, the modern apologist has his work cut out for him. Though Christianity did not arise in a vacuum, it currently finds itself, at least in the contemporary Western context, in something approximating a vacuum. The religious and philosophical milieu within which Christian revelation is intelligible -- and thus within which an intellectually serious and compelling Christian apologetics must be situated -- has largely been forgotten. And unfortunately it is not only secularists who have forgotten it, but Christians themselves, including self-described Christian apologists.
I have often complained that it is not just New Atheist types, but too many contemporary Christian thinkers, who are operating with a seriously deficient conception of God and a seriously deficient set of background metaphysical assumptions. That is part of the problem I have in mind here. A sound apologetics must be formulated in terms of classical theism and classical (Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Scholastic) metaphysics. But there is more to it than that. We need also to rediscover the depth, scope, and rigor of apologetics as it was understood in the Neo-Scholastic tradition. Rightly understood, apologetics is not a grab bag of ad hocmoves designed merely to win over converts by whatever means are at hand. It is not a kind of rhetoric. It is a kind of science, in the broad sense of a systematic body of objective knowledge. It has a philosophical foundation and a logical structure, a proper ordering of topics integrated into a theoretically coherent whole. It contains no gaps that require that the chain of logical argumentation suddenly be interrupted, and the intellect turned off so that will or emotion can take the reins. And if it is not treated this way -- as a serious intellectual enterprise -- it will not be taken seriously by most intelligent people, and will not deserve to be. One problem with too much contemporary apologetics is that it reflects little awareness of this theoretical structure of the discipline and the proper ordering of its subject matter. Consider approaches which jump straight to the Resurrection of Jesus as an argument for Christianity, or even as an argument for theism. This might be effective with some people who have no strong convictions either way vis-à-vis Christianity or theism, or with a theologically conservative Jewish interlocutor who already affirms the truth of Abrahamic religion and just needs convincing that Christianity represents its correct development. But considered as a completely general “opening move,” suitable for immediate deployment against naturalists and atheists of any stripe, this approach is in my view seriously wrongheaded. A sophisticated naturalist supposes that he has good reason to think events like resurrections just can’t happen, and good reason to think the body of religious teaching associated with this particular resurrection story is a priori implausible. So unless this set of general background assumptions is first undermined, he will understandably think himself perfectly justified in shrugging his shoulders and dismissing even the strongest evidence for the Resurrection as just one of several odd pieces of data we find here and there in history -- a curiosity perhaps, but not something that could by itself undermine what he takes to be an otherwise well-established naturalism.
Of course, some apologists would at least preface a treatment of the Resurrection with an independent argument for God’s existence. But even that is not, by itself, an adequate prolegomenon. For one thing, not every argument for God’s existence will get you to the specific conception of God needed in order to establish the plausibility of a resurrection. For another, the existence of God is by no means the only piece of background philosophical knowledge which can and should be put in place before a specifically Christian apologetic begins. I will return to this issue below.
Another problem with too much contemporary apologetics is that it takes a “kitchen sink” approach that seems more interested in persuading the listener than in presenting the truth. Hence an apologist will sometimes dump out onto the page a bevy of arguments that have been or could be given for some claim, leaving it vague whether he actually accepts all of them himself. This is the apologist-as-salesman, happy as long as you walk out of the store with something, and not too particular about what it is. Welcome to 31 Theological Flavors! Come on in and sample our wide array of proofs for God’s existence. See one you like? Excellent choice, shall I box it up for you or will you be wearing it right away?
The trouble here is not that one or more of the arguments might not in fact be good, and sincerely believed by the apologist to be good. And of course, if an argument really is good, it remains so even if you throw a bunch of questionable arguments in with it. The point is rather that uncritically putting forward anything that might help “make the case” dilutes the intellectual seriousness of the enterprise, and reinforces the false perception of apologetics as mere rhetoric rather than true philosophy.
At this point I need to anticipate an obvious objection. Surely, the atheist or secularist critic will say, any apologetics must of its nature be merely rhetorical rather than truly philosophical or scientific in spirit. For the apologist (so the objection continues) is engaged in putting forward reasons for conclusions which he has already decided beforehand are true, conclusions he originally believed for reasons other than the ones he now puts forward in his role as an apologist (for example, on the basis of what parents and religious authorities told him when he was younger). And that sort of task is intellectually unserious, even intellectually dishonest.
So many a secularist will say. But if he is honest with himself, the secularist will see that he doesn’t really believe this. Consider that almost everyone who believes what modern science has to tell us does so on the basis of what some authority has told him -- parents, teachers, makers of science documentaries, writers of pop science books, and the like. Very few people are capable of carrying out the study necessary to master even a single scientific discipline, and no one can master all of them. Most people have to rely on the expertise of others to know what they know of a scientific nature. But no secularist considers this irrational or dishonest. No secularist would say that you can only rationally believe what science says if you have worked it out for yourself, and done so from first principles, without parents and teachers having first taught you the conclusions before you learned the arguments.
Consider also books like Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker, Philip Kitcher’s Abusing Science, Michael Ruse’s Darwinism Defended, and Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True. It is undeniable that these are works of apologetics -- Darwinian apologetics. They are in no way tentative and dispassionate explorations of their topic, but written precisely to convince the reader that Darwinism is true and to defend it against its critics. And while Darwinians are happy to acknowledge that such books, like all books, might be wrong on this or that point of detail, they will be very, very upset if you do not firmly agree with the overall thrust of the books.
Such books, and science books more generally, also set forth arguments few or none of which their authors actually knew of when they first accepted the conclusions the arguments are meant to support (e.g. when they accepted them in school, on the basis of their teachers’ authority, or at best on the basis of simplified and sometimes mistaken explanations that their teachers gave them). Nor were the arguments that are summarized in such books actually discovered by anyone elsein a way that mirrors the order of presentation in the book itself. In science, what Hans Reichenbach called the “context of discovery” is much, much messier and haphazard than the “context of justification” would indicate. Scientific textbooks give you the “finished product,” and their arguments and order of exposition don’t necessarily mirror the way in which the knowledge was actually arrived at historically.
Now, secularists do not consider any of this in any way objectionable. Though science textbooks and works of Darwinian apologetics are essentially giving you after-the-fact justifications for conclusions that were originally accepted by their authors on the basis of authority -- and justifications that do not entirely reflect the reasoning that historically led to the acceptance of the conclusions by the wider scientific community in the first place -- no secularists will for that reason dismiss such works as mere “rationalizations” of “prejudice.” Nor does the fact that the conclusions are presented in a way that is far from tentative, with critics dealt with dismissively or even polemically, lead the secularist to regard such works as mere rhetoric rather than true science.
In that case, though, the secularist cannot consistently dismiss works of theological apologetics a priori as per seintellectually unserious or contrary to a truly philosophical or scientific approach to their subject. He must acknowledge the possibility that such works are relevantly parallel to scientific textbooks or to books defending scientific theories against skeptics -- that they are, like science textbooks, systematic presentations of ideas and arguments that were historically arrived at in a more haphazard and unsystematic way. He must consider the arguments on their own merits, and cannot reasonably try to short-circuit debate by dismissing the genre in which they are found.
The proper order of apologetics
So, what is the correct order of topics in a philosophically rigorous apologetics -- the kind I have attributed to Neo-Scholastic writers? The key point to emphasize here is how much must be, and can be, established by purely philosophical arguments before one even gets to addressing the claims of Christianity specifically. A rich system of “natural apologetics,” as it is sometimes called, must precede specifically Christian apologetics if the latter is to have its proper intellectual foundation. And arguing for the existence of God is only one part of this task. Let me sketch out the order of topics I have in mind. (Mind you, I am not stating the arguments of natural apologetics or Christian apologetics here. That would take a book. I am sketching out what a complete system of apologetics would involve, and does involve in the best authors on the subject.)
I. Metaphysical prolegomena
“Natural apologetics” presupposes a number of basic metaphysical assumptions. So too, at the end of the day, does specifically Christian apologetics, and indeed the whole system of Christian dogmatic theology when given a rigorous intellectual articulation. Specifically, I would argue, these background assumptions include the key elements of Scholastic metaphysics: the theory of act and potency, the Scholastic theory of causal powers, the principle of causality, the principle of finality, formal and material causes, the Scholastic account of substance, the distinction between essence and existence, and so forth.
To some extent the notions in question can be introduced and defended in the course of giving this or that argument in “natural apologetics.” For example, you could at least introduce the theory of act and potency in the course of setting out the argument for the existence of an unactualized actualizer (i.e. “unmoved mover”). And you typically won’t find, in old Neo-Scholastic works on apologetics and natural theology, a section or chapter devoted specifically to metaphysical prolegomena. One reason is that the metaphysical background assumptions in question were perhaps somewhat more widely known and less controversial in those days. Another is that there were in any event a great many Neo-Scholastic works devoted entirely to metaphysics and philosophy of nature. The interested reader could easily be directed to such works if he had questions about the background metaphysics.
These days, however, there is so much ignorance and misinformation regarding the metaphysical underpinnings of Scholastic arguments in “natural apologetics” that I think a prolegomenon devoted to those underpinnings is necessary. (That is why you have to plow through 50 pages or so of abstract metaphysics in The Last Superstition and Aquinasbefore you get to natural theology, philosophical anthropology, and natural law. There are still book-length treatments available too.) II. Natural theology
Natural theology involves, of course, arguments for the existence of God. But it involves a lot more than that. For one thing, the key arguments of natural theology -- the sort I have defended in many places (e.g. here, here, here, and here) -- do not merely get you to somedeity or other. They get you to nothing less than the God of classical theism, specifically. That is to say, they get you to a cause of the world which is pure actuality rather than a mixture of actuality and potentiality; subsistent being itself rather than merely one being or existent among others; absolutely simple or non-composite; absolutely necessary; immutable and eternal; and something which could not in principle have had a cause of its own but is self-existent. They get you to a God who is, accordingly (and contra pantheism), necessarily utterly distinct from the world (since the world is temporal, changeable, composite, a mixture of actual and potential, etc.). They get you to a God to whom we must attribute intellect, will, omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. They also show that God causes the world not merely in the sense of having gotten the ball rolling 13 billion years ago, but in the more fundamental sense that he conservesthe world in being at every instant. They show that if he were not continuously causing the world, the world would instantly collapse into nothingness. Natural theology also establishes that there is a natural order of “secondary causes” that is both distinct from but depends upon God as primary cause. Natural, secondary causes are real causes (so that occasionalism is ruled out), but they can act only insofar as God imparts causal power to them (so that deism is also ruled out). This is the idea of divine concurrence with natural causes. When worked out it entails, on the one hand, that there is a natural order of things that can be known and studied whether or not one affirms the existence of God. Given just that natural order, certain things are possible and certain things are impossible, and the “laws of nature” revealed by natural science tell us which is which. But on the other hand, the doctrine of divine concurrence tells us that since this entire natural order operates only insofar as the divine primary cause concurs with it, there is also the possibility of a supernatural order of things -- an order of things over and above the natural order, for the sake of which the latter might be suspended. (Notice that “supernatural” here has a technical meaning that is unrelated to the sorts of things popular usage of the word suggests. It has nothing to do with vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the like -- which, if they existed, would be part of the “natural” order in the relevant sense, rather than supernatural.)
Now both of these ideas -- that some things are impossible given just the natural order of secondary causes, but that the divine primary cause might act in a supernatural way -- entail the possibility of miracles. For a miracle in the strictest sense is impossible in the natural order, and thus can only be caused by what is supernatural, which means it can only be caused by God. (Note that the natural order of things broadly construed includes angels, which, like us, are creatures which must be preserved in being by God and whose actions require divine concurrence. Hence a miracle in the strictest sense could not be caused even by an angel, since it is a suspension of the order to which even angels are subject. Obviously, “miracles” in the looser sense of remarkable events outside the ordinary course of things could be caused by beings other than God, but these would be preternatural rather than strictly supernatural.)
Natural theology also establishes divine providence, which entails that God provides the means by which the things he has created can attain the ends for which they exist, and that he allows evil in the world only insofar as he draws greater good out of it.
So, a completed system of natural theology, at least as developed in the Scholastic tradition, tells us quite a bit. It establishes the existence and key attributes of the God of classical theism, the doctrines of conservation, concurrence, and providence, and the possibility of miracles. It thereby tells us not only that there is a God but that he is not a lame “watchmaker” god of the Paley sort (which Hume and Dawkins rightly think would require a cause of his own), that he is notan impersonal Absolute or identical with the world (as pantheism claims), and (given conservation, concurrence, providence, and the possibility of miracles) that he is not an absentee god of the deist sort. A necessary condition for any of the world religions being true, then, is that it is consistent with all of this. That rules out, among other candidates, Buddhism and pantheist forms of Hinduism.
III. Philosophical anthropology
That’s just the beginning of what “natural apologetics” tells us. Let’s turn to human nature. The Scholastic argues that the human soul is to be conceived of as the substantial form of the living human being, related to the body as form to matter. The intellectual and volitional powers of the soul are, it is argued, essentially immaterial, operating without direct dependence on any bodily organ. This in turn leads to the conclusion that the human soul is naturally immortal. For since the intellect and will do not directly depend on the body when a human being is alive, they do not perish with the death of the body. Hence the human soul, reduced to its intellectual and volitional powers, carries on after the loss of our corporeal functions. (I’ve defended these claims in various places, e.g. hereand here.) A consequence of this view is that the soul, because of its immaterial powers, cannot have a natural cause. Each individual human soul requires a special divine creative act, an act which goes beyond divine conservation of, and concurrence with, the ordinary course of nature.
Another consequence is that a disembodied soul is not a complete human being, but, as I have said, only a human being reduced to its intellectual and volitional powers. For the complete human being to be restored would require that the corporeal functions be restored; that is to say, it would require a resurrection from the dead. Now there is nothing in the natural order of things that can accomplish this. Like the coming into existence of a new individual human soul, a resurrection would, the Scholastic argues, require a special divine act.
Though not naturally possible, such a resurrection is nevertheless supernaturally possible because the human soul is immortal. If there were nothing that persisted between the death of an individual human being and his resurrection, the resurrected human being would not really be the same human being, but only a duplicate. (This is why a non-human animal cannot be resurrected. Since such animals have no immaterial operations, there is nothing left of the individual after the death of its body. The most that could come into being after Rover’s death is an exact duplicateof Rover, but not Rover himself.)
Your soul, on this analysis, is also the form of your body, specifically. It is, on the Scholastic analysis, metaphysically impossible for a human soul to be reincarnated in the body of another human being, much less a non-human animal. It is only ever your body that could come once again to have your soul. That entails that the standard reincarnation doctrines are not correct accounts of human nature -- a major strike against all forms of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Among the other things that all of this tells us is that the divine cause of the world, who conserves it in being at every instant and concurs with every exercise of natural causal power, takes a special interest in human beings insofar as he acts in a special way, beyond his ordinary conserving and concurrent activity, when a new individual human soul comes into being. Moreover, what he creates thereby is something immortal -- something which persists not only well after the brief three score and ten years allotted to most of us, but forever. But in the natural course of things, it only exists in a complete way (i.e. together with the body) for a short span of time.
This tells us that if any religion is true, it cannot be one which denies either the special significance of human beings or personal immortality. Philosophical anthropology also at the very least strongly indicates that if any of the allegedly revealed religions is true, it will be one which teaches a doctrine of the resurrection. For while a resurrection is not strictly required given our nature and the special interest God evidently take in us, it is especially fitting given our nature and the special interest God takes in us.
IV. Natural law and natural religion
The mainstream Scholastic position is that the binding force of morality, and at least the broad outlines of its content, can be known via natural reason. Among the many other things about the natural law that we can establish through philosophical arguments is that our highest end is God, that individually and socially we owe him worship, and that religion is therefore absolutely essential to healthy moral and social life. What all this entails in detail is spelled out in standard Scholastic manuals of ethics. A necessary condition of the truth of any religion (or of any non-religious view of things, for that matter) is that it be consistent with what the natural law tells us about the content and binding force of morality.
However, human experience also tells us a few other crucial things about the moral life. First of all, while it is possible for unaided human reason to discover a great deal in the way of natural theology and natural law, in practice very few people have the leisure or intelligence to do it, and even those who do tend to do so very imperfectly. As with natural science, the acquisition of a rigorous and systematic body of knowledge of a “natural apologetics” sort is very difficult and is the work of many generations. Though there is, in different cultures, always some knowledge of a natural theological and natural law sort, given the limitations of our nature it is in practice invariably mixed with greater or lesser amounts of error. Hence in practice our knowledge even of our natural moral and religious obligations is often severely deficient.
Furthermore, even when we are aware of our moral obligations we tend to find them very difficult to fulfill. This is in part because of the strong pull of our passions against our reason even in the best of circumstances, and also because in the course of actual human life there is often a dramatic mismatch between moral virtue and this-worldly rewards. In practice the good often suffer and the evil go unpunished, and this, needless to say, can be extremely demoralizing.
Now as I have said, the arguments of natural theology and philosophical anthropology establish that God takes a very special interest in us, that our highest end is to know him, and that we have a destiny in the hereafter. Natural law arguments also tell us what we need to do in order to achieve our natural end. Yet though it is in principle possible for us to know all this through unaided reason and to live in accordance with the natural law, in practice it is very difficult to do so. This makes it a priori fitting and indeed highly plausible that God would provide special assistance, beyond what our very limited natural faculties provide. That is to say, it makes it a priori highly plausible that he would provide a special revelation.
The only means by which we could know with certainty that such a revelation has actually occurred, though, is if it is backed by a miracle in the strict sense of a divine suspension of the natural order. Anything less than that -- anything that could have been produced by natural or even by preternatural causes rather than a truly supernatural cause -- would, for all we know, be bogus.
V. Christian apologetics
It is only at this point that a specifically Christianapologetics properly begins. “Natural apologetics” tells us to look for a special divine revelation. It tells us that this revelation will have to be backed by a miracle in the strict sense -- something that only God could in principle have caused. And it tells us that this revelation will have to be consistent with everything we know from natural theology, philosophical anthropology, and natural law. As we have seen, given what we know from those fields, that rules out quite a lot. In fact, among the great world religions, it rules out the religions of the far East and tells us to look instead to the Abrahamic traditions. The reason is in part that the content of the religions of the far East is too greatly out of harmony with what we know from natural theology and philosophical anthropology, and in part because it is in the Abrahamic religions rather than the far Eastern ones that we even find in the first place claims to a divine revelation backed by miracles.
Now while there are miracle stories in the Islamic tradition, and even the occasional attribution of a miracle to Muhammad, it is remarkable how little emphasis is placed on the miraculous in Islam compared to Judaism and Christianity. Indeed, the chief miracle attributed to Muhammad is supposed to be the Qur’an itself. But of course, whether the Qur’an is even preternatural, or indeed even something naturally improbable -- let alone something that could not in principle have come about except through a supernatural, divine cause -- is, to say the very least, highly doubtful.
When we turn to Judaism we find that there are no significant miracles affirmed by it that are not also affirmed by Christianity. Hence, suppose it were established beyond any doubt that (say) the miracles attributed to Moses really happened. That wouldn’t establish the truth of Judaism as opposed to Christianity, since the biblical passages telling us about these miracles are considered scriptural in bothreligions.
Now the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is something else altogether. For one thing, if it really happened, it cannot possibly have had a natural or even preternatural cause. Only God himself could have caused it. And if it really happened, it decisively establishes Christianity as opposed to Judaism, and indeed as opposed to any other religion. This is why Christianity has historically staked everything on this particular miracle. “If Christ is not raised,” St. Paul tells the Christian, “your faith is worthless.” But if he wasraised, then the Christian faith is rationally established.
So, was he raised? Here, I maintain, is where the work of the most formidable scholars of the Resurrection -- of a William Lane Craig, say -- should enter the picture. If a skeptic is convinced of the truth of naturalism, and you present him with no reason to doubt his naturalism except the defense of the Resurrection developed by a writer like Craig, then it seems to me perfectly understandable why such a skeptic would regard that defense as inconclusive at best. However, suppose instead that the claims of natural theology, philosophical anthropology, and natural law sketched above can all be independently established. Seen in that context, I maintain, the arguments of writers like Craig are compelling.
That is by no means to deny that there are important considerations other than the Resurrection. For example, I would argue that it is only in light of the Incarnation, of God in the flesh suffering with us, that the problem of evil can be dealt with in a practically and emotionally satisfying way (as opposed to a bloodlessly intellectually satisfying way). And it is highly plausible that, given his special concern for us, God would will to answer the needs of our emotional nature, so as to make absolutely evident his love for us. (Notice that I am not fallaciously “appealing to emotion” here; I am not saying “Proposition p is emotionally satisfying, therefore p is true.” Rather, I am appealing to what God would plausibly will as conducive to our well-being given that we are by nature creatures of emotion as well as of reason.) I would also argue that the supernatural end revealed by Christianity -- the beatific vision -- does greater justice to our rational nature than do the natural ends posited by other purportedly revealed religions. (Since I say this as a critic of Henri de Lubac, this is a claim I would obviously want to formulate very carefully in a fuller treatment!) Obviously much more could be said. But this is not a post about Christian apologetics per se, and it is a post that is already too long. The point is that the full power of distinctively Christian claims about God and man can only be appreciated within the context of a fully developed “natural apologetics.” Scholastic writers of a previous generation understood this. You will find the approach I advocate followed in old books like Paul Glenn’s Apologetics, Anthony Alexander’s College Apologetics, Michael Sheehan’s Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, John McCormick’s Natural Theology, and in many multi-volume works of dogmatic or fundamental theology in the Neo-Scholastic period. The trouble with such works (other than the fact of their often being out of print and hard to find) is that, being old, they do not address the sorts of objections a contemporary analytic philosopher or a contemporary skeptical biblical scholar might raise. Hence there is an urgent need for Catholic theologians and philosophers to return to the task of writing works of apologetics with the depth, breadth, analytic rigor, and systematic character prized in the Scholastic tradition. (It is only fair to note that the Eastern Orthodox philosopher Richard Swinburne is something of a model, having produced over the decades an apologetic oeuvre of remarkable depth, breadth, analytic rigor, and systematic power. If only he were a Scholastic, and if only he weren’t a theistic personalist!)
