Jimmy Akin - A Daily Defense: 365 Days ( plus one) to Becoming a Better Apologist

A Daily Defense
365 Days (plus one) to Becoming a Better Apologist

JIMMY AKIN

A Daily Defense

365 Days (plus one) to Becoming a Better Apologist

2016 Jimmy Akin

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Introduction

The history of Christianity is one of debate. As the Gospels reveal, Jesus was challenged right from the start. Rival schools like the Pharisees and Sadducees posed pointed questions to him, trying to trap him in his words and even to get him in trouble with the authorities. Some of Jesus most famous statements were responses to challenges from his critics:

What God has joined together, let man not put asunder.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesars, and unto God what is Gods.

Our world is very different from the one in which Jesus lived. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. If people posed challenges to Jesus, they will do so to us as well.

A disciple is not above his teacher, but every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40).

In our religiously fragmented but highly interconnected world, people from countless perspectives pose challenges to the Faith every dayin conversations, through the mass media, and on the Internet. There is no escaping this daily onslaught.

The solution is to mount a daily defenseto respond to the many challenges that we, as believers, are presented with. Hence this book: It takes up a different challenge every day of the year (plus a bonus challenge for leap year), and shows how you can defend the Faith and give answers to those skeptical of it.

Each page is devoted to a single challenge, which is posed at the top of the page in the CHALLENGE section. The DEFENSE section that follows contains a brief summary of what you can say in response. Obviously, there is much more that can be said on each subject, but here we will cover the highlightsthe key talking points. In some cases there will also be a TIP , which will frequently be a recommendation for a book where you can learn more.

Challenges to the Faith are often unexpected, and the ones in this book are arranged in a way that reflects that. Each day presents you with something new, often dealing with a very different subject, so there is constantly something fresh to learn and think about.

The book is designed so that no matter when in the year you first pick it up, you can start on Day 1 and read straight through for a whole year. Its also designed so that you can quickly find responses to challenges that people put to you. Just check the ALPHABETICAL INDEX in the back to find specific responses.

If the Faith is faced with many challenges today, the good news is that there are solid answers, so we should not be surprised or intimidated by them. Instead, we should be prepared. As St. Peter said:

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (1 Pet. 3:1415).

May God bless you and your efforts as you learn and defend his holy Faith.

Jimmy Akin
May 13, 2016
Our Lady of Ftima

Abbreviations

CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church

JD Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

KJV King James Version

LEB Lexham English Bible

NABRE New American Bible: Revised Edition

ST Summa Theologiae

DAY 1

Spiritual or Religious?

CHALLENGE

I consider myself spiritual rather than religious. Why isnt that enough?

DEFENSE

Because God loves you and wants even better things for you.

When people say they are spiritual rather than religious, they frequently mean that, although they dont practice a specific religion, they recognize there is more to the world than matter; that it has a spiritual dimension. This is good! But it doesnt go very far. Wouldnt it be nice to know more about the worlds spiritual dimension? In every field, having more knowledge is better, and it makes sense to ask if we can learn more about the worlds spiritual dimension.

From a Christian perspective, we can learn more. God loves us and wants us to know himnot just have feelings or guesses. When he created the universe, God left evidence allowing us to learn certain things about him: Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Rom. 1:20).

He also left evidence in the human heart: With [mans] openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about Gods existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material, can have its origin only in God (CCC 33).

Further, God has entered history, communicating with us through his prophets and, most importantly, through his Son, Jesus.

Apologetics examines and presents the evidence showing God has communicated with us, and its ultimate purpose is to help us discover God and the joy and happiness he wants us to have. The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for (CCC 27).

Or, as St. Augustine put it: You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you ( Confessions 1:1:1).

TIP

A good book on the evidence for faith is the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli.

DAY 2

A Stone Too Heavy for God to Lift?

CHALLENGE

The Christian idea of an omnipotent God is logically contradictory. Can God make a stone so heavy he cant lift it? If he can then there is something he cant do (lift the stone), but if he cant, then theres also something he cant do (make the stone).

DEFENSE

To accuse others of a logical contradiction, first you must understand their idea correctly. Otherwise you commit the straw man fallacy. This objection misunderstands omnipotence.

The term omnipotent means all-powerful (Latin, omnis , all, and potens, powerful). This is often said to mean that God can do anything, but this statement is ambiguous, and the ambiguity leads to the objection above.

What does it mean to say God can do anything? If anything means anything that you can say, then the idea would involve logical contradictions. You could, for example, say that God could make four-sided triangles, square circles, married bachelors, two-horned unicorns, and other entities whose definitions involve logical contradictions.

This is not what Christian theologians mean by omnipotence. Instead, they mean that God can do anything that is logically possible that is, anything that does not involve a logical contradiction. This causes the objection to vanish, because if omnipotence excludes logical contradictions, then, by definition, it does not involve them.

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