Theological Liberalism and the Crisis in Contemporary Catholic Apologetics...

By Chad Arneson

“We can not have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing…” ― St. Thomas Aquinas

Any student of Catholic Tradition soon discovers a rift between what the Fathers, Doctors, Popes, and Councils have authoritatively taught and many teachings of contemporary Catholic apologists. This rift reflects a major shift within Catholic academia. The philosophy of St. John of Damascus and St. Thomas has been replaced by a new modern philosophy. Holy Tradition has been supplanted by the private opinions of contemporary Popes, Church leaders, or even mere theologians.

Unsuspecting and sincere Catholics who have the gift of Divine Faith are rightly moved with charity toward God and neighbor when they seek to defend and explain the teachings of our Holy Mother the Church. Unfortunately there are those ready to instruct these sincere souls from a philosophical perspective that was born from the womb of Liberal Protestantism and that took the Protestant world by storm in the 19th century. Another name for this Protestant world-view is “Theological Liberalism.”

But first a little background is in order. Theological Liberalism was built upon the Classical Liberalism of Great Britain and her American colonies. This movement within Protestantism refused to recognize the authority of God over the State. Catholics and Orthodox alone have held that God is only given true worship within the one, true Church.[i] And since human society “has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author”[ii], He “is the paramount ruler of the world.”[iii] Therefore the Church authoritatively teaches that “the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion.”[iv] The State may not profess “such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion”[v] - the Catholic religion.

So while the Liberals in Protestant States, such as the Unites States and the United Kingdom, moved toward religious liberty for their citizenry, in a Catholic state such a move was unthinkable. For the Catholic, error has no rights. For men like Jefferson and Franklin, empirical science was to be made superior to religious tradition. So for many of the American “Enlightenment” thinkers Holy Tradition – which teaches us about man’s origin, his nature, his sin, and his present condition – cannot be trusted because of a lack of empirical data confirming its authenticity.

By the end of the eighteenth century, this attitude of subordinating the supernatural to the natural began to take hold in Catholic France. Protestant (and now Catholic) Liberals, having willfully traded Holy Tradition (with its sacred theology and philosophy) for a contrived non-authoritative standard of empiricism informed by modern philosophy, began to ignore the rights of God in matters pertaining to the State. Jefferson and Rousseau wrote enthusiastically about the so-called rights of man. Religious Liberty (meaning the granting of freedom to all religions by the State) was spoken of as a human right. Of course the Magisterium of the Church condemned this foolish notion on more than one occasion.[vi]

But now to the subject at hand. Theological Liberalism can be traced to the German “Enlightenment” of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, especially to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the religious views of Friedrich Schleiermacher. What would come to be known as Theological Liberalism and then “modernism” sought to assimilate modern thought and a new form of scientific philosophy into Protestantism. It embraced religious naturalism and therefore denied supernatural realities as superstitious and ignorant. There was a feeling of intellectual superiority among its adherents due to an intellectual elevation of empirical science over theology and philosophy. Thus the queen of the sciences (theology) and her handmaiden (philosophy) were subordinated to a lower science (natural science with its handmaiden empiricism) that had no power to interpret itself.

Holy Tradition was, therefore, distrusted by the Theological Liberals and a perceived door was opened in their own minds to all manner of innovation and novelty. In medieval Christendom, philosophy was subordinated to God and produced abundant good fruit. In Liberalism, philosophy was subordinated to man and brought forth spiritual darkness. Thus the birthright Western Civilization had received from the Catholic Church was traded for a mess of empirical pottage void of the salt of Christian philosophy, especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Protestant revolution was marching on, further away from submission to God and deeper into darkness. And what did they call it? Enlightenment. And what was taking place? They had gone, like the dog back to his vomit, back to embrace the spirit of their pagan ancestors about whom St. Paul spoke:

”Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.” (Romans 1:21)

Sola Scriptura was a useful tool of the devil to bring about an initial break of the Protestants from the Catholic Church. But it never could have been his intention to enshrine the Scriptures in the hearts of the Protestants. For the Scriptures were written by plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost and cherished by the Catholic Church from the beginning. Sola Scriptura was merely the tip of the wedge. Further down was a new, wider form of schism, one that would seek to render the Scriptures themselves powerless. The devil’s new deception, Theological Liberalism, would naturally flourish like a weed in an unplanted field among those now devoid of Divine Faith.

Theological Liberals emphasized human ethics rather than doctrinal beliefs. Scriptural authority was doubted wherever empirical science, modern archaeology or historical evidence did not plainly attest to a given doctrine. This new Liberalism was readily accepted by most mainline Protestant denominations.

Theological Liberals espoused what was termed “Higher Criticism” by which they critiqued the authenticity and message of the Sacred Scriptures according to a standard of empirical scientific enquiry. The Bible was treated as any other book. The word of Holy Tradition was distrusted and rejected on purely empirical grounds. That a St. John Chrysostom, for example, supported the inclusion of manuscript evidence for any Scriptural reading was merely a matter of historical support. The sanctity and authority of any such source would normally elevate the source itself to a higher degree of trustworthiness. But the Theological Liberals treated these distinctions as inconsequential.

Interpretation of the Biblical text itself, separated from Holy Tradition by Sola Scriptura, was already problematic for Protestants. But what could be known by archaeology and the advances of modern science were used as a test that could determine whether any interpretation was plausible. Respect for the inerrancy of the literal and obvious sense of Sacred Scripture intended by the sacred author was rejected in favor of the view that the authors were prone to human error.

Armed with a new approach to Biblical interpretation, the heresies of the Theological Liberals included a denial of the Deity of Christ, a denial of the miracles of Christ, a denial of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible itself, and a denial of the Virgin Birth of Christ.

When Darwin and Lyell came along, the Liberals were quick to praise and accept their writings. They accepted the new evolutionary view of the origin of man without requiring of it the same scientific rigor that they imposed upon the Scriptures. This acceptance was based on such “evidence” as the faked drawings of Haeckel illustrating the development of the embryos of various species including humans, all with supposed “gill slits” (Even though they were proved to be fakes over 150 years ago, they are still used in science textbooks around the world today.). And so they rejected the entirety of Christian revelation on the subject of origins.

The liberals not only rejected the consensus of the Church Fathers concerning the doctrines of Genesis. They rejected the historicity of the book of Genesis itself, claiming poor historical and manuscript support. Genesis was treated as a cultural myth. Thus the foundation of the Gospel itself was undermined. The doctrine of Original Sin, rooted in the literal historical interpretation of Genesis, was rejected.

In its place, the liberals espoused a view called religious naturalism, a view which denies the existence of the supernatural and seeks to explain human events by natural causes. Their religious naturalism caused them to deny the global Flood, the miracles of the Old Testament, and even the miracles of our Blessed Lord.

Not only did the modernists accept a new pseudo-science, but they imposed this pseudo-scientific view upon theology. Theology was said to be in a state of “evolution.” Thus the claims of historical Christianity could, for the Liberal, “evolve” or change. This was important for the Liberals because Protestants, who were inextricably bound by Luther and the rest of the Protestant revolutionaries to the Bible, had historically affirmed many orthodox doctrines, such as the Deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity among many others. The Liberal modernists did not want to be yoked to what they viewed as a medieval or backward religious philosophy developed in a dark and archaic age.

The Liberals had created a modern synthesis of all heresies. And the alarming thing was that it was beginning to be accepted by some within the Catholic Church, prompting a firm response from several Popes during the 19th century. Leo XII wrote in his encyclical Ubi Primum (1824) against:

“A certain sect, which you surely know, has unjustly arrogated to itself the name of philosophy, and has aroused from the ashes the disorderly ranks of practically every error.”

Pius VIII (1829-1830) wrote an encyclical (Traditi Humilitati) against:

“…the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to natural reason.”

Gregory XVI wrote an encyclical (Mirari Vos) against Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism in 1832 in which he lamented:

“Depravity exults; science is impudent; liberty, dissolute. The holiness of the sacred is despised; the majesty of divine worship is not only disapproved by evil men, but defiled and held up to ridicule. Hence sound doctrine is perverted and errors of all kinds spread boldly.”

Blessed Pius IX wrote an encyclical (Quanta Cura) in 1864 condemning

“…the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it…”

And the same Blessed Pontiff wrote that glorious Syllabus of Errors in which he condemned certain modern errors of the Liberals. It should be underscored here that these condemnations of modern errors are binding upon the consciences of all Catholics today.

Then in the early 20th century Pope St. Pius X wrote a crowning encyclical against the heresy of modernism (Pascendi Dominici Gregis). He lamented concerning modernists who had, sadly, entered the ranks of even the sacred priesthood:

We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church

St. Pius X went so far as to draft an “Oath Against Modernism” which he required "all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries" to swear. The requirement to swear this oath was rescinded by Pope Paul VI in 1967 at a time when, more than ever, the Church was battling modernism.

Modernism may be defined as "the critique of our supernatural knowledge according to the false postulates of contemporary philosophy.”[vii] This definition is an important reference. The Church has received supernatural knowledge from God by Divine Revelation that cannot be known through the Natural Law (such as the mystery of the Blessed Trinity). If only what is “natural” is trusted, then the whole cosmic order is turned on its head. The created presumes authority to authenticate the Creator. The mind of man (natural philosophy) is placed above the mind of God (theology aided by Catholic philosophy).

Protestantism was an indirect rebellion against the authority of God. It did this indirectly through a rejection of the Vicar of the Son of God, an authority which God the Son had established over His whole Church. Liberal modernism, on the other hand, was a direct rebellion against God Himself. It was the “sequel”[viii] to Protestantism. Not only was the authority of the pope questioned, but so, too, was the authority of God to decree the worship He desired. Even belief in Christ Himself was deemed unimportant so long as one’s reason allowed him to consider a different religion as true. This heresy of indifferentism espoused by Theological Liberalism was really an attempt to enthrone man in the place of his God.

While Liberalism swept the European mainland with its new modernism, Protestant Britain and America did not entirely succumb. A new movement was started across denominational lines to resist this new Liberalism. It was called Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism had its start in the early 20th century. It had as its founding creed a twelve-volume set of ninety essays drafted to combat Theological Liberalism streaming, primarily, out of Germany. These essays combating the “Higher Criticism” of the Liberals were reducible to what were termed “The Five Fundamentals” which were:

1. Biblical inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture (which Catholics hold)

2. The virgin birth of Jesus (which Catholics hold)

3. The belief that Christ’s death was the atonement for sin (which Catholics hold)

4. The bodily resurrection of Jesus (which Catholics hold)

5. The historical reality of the miracles of Jesus (which Catholics hold)

If one defines Fundamentalism only by these five Fundamentals, then one could accurately include every Catholic in the world as a “fundamentalist.” One would hardly know this from the way modern Catholic apologists pillory the “evil” Fundamentalists, but I digress. Of course Catholics do have a very real opposition to Fundamentalism outside of the Five Fundamentals. Any Catholic would certainly agree that this group of Protestants held to a number of heresies and errors. Among the errors of the Fundamentalists was the belief in “dispensationalism” which is based on a rejection of the Catholic doctrine of supercessionism and includes a pre-tribulational “rapture” of all Christians to Heaven before the coming of antichrist. The Fundamentalists also held to the historic Protestant heresies of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide.

But the distinction being made here is important. Of the two errant Protestant groups being discussed here (Liberals and Fundamentalists), the group that held much more closely to traditional Catholic doctrine was the Fundamentalist party. They held the line against many gross errors. And for that, they should be commended by Catholics.

What modern Catholic apologists fail to realize is that most of their antagonism against Fundamentalism is really a rejection of historic Protestant doctrines, not Fundamentalism. What defined Fundamentalism as such was not its antagonism toward Catholicism. What defined Fundamentalism was its antagonism against Theological Liberalism, also called modernism. This is an important distinction.

In its article on “Modernism”, the Old Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 states, “There even exists a conservative Protestant party which is one with the Church in combating modernism.” What was that “conservative Protestant party” that, with the Church, combated modernism? If it wasn’t the Fundamentalist movement of 1910, then there is no party this writer knows of that fits the bill.

And this brings us to the reason for this article: the crisis in contemporary Catholic apologetics. Many Catholic apologists have been obsessed with combating Fundamentalism during the last two decades. “Fundamentalism” has become a buzz word in the field—so much so that the average Catholic in the pew plugged in to Catholic television or radio thinks they know exactly what Fundamentalism is and why it’s bad. Not only do they think it is the worst kind of Protestantism—they think that it is the antithesis of Catholicism. Fundamentalists have been painted by modern Catholic apologists with the same brush that Liberal modernists have used against them.

So why do so many contemporary Catholic apologists think Fundamentalism is the worst form of Protestantism? What is the distinctive heresy of Fundamentalism? Is it traditional Protestant heresies such as Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide? No. They certainly hold to those heresies. But why not just call them Protestants? Why identify them as Fundamentalists? Modern Catholic Apologetics has a special designation for Fundamentalists apart from other Protestants. What is that designation? Here it is: They are “Literalists.”

That’s right. Literalists! They take the Bible literally. The reader or listener to a modern apologist is told that the “literalist” view is when someone reads the Bible but does not take into account the nature of the Biblical literature being read. An example of this could be Psalm 90(91) which is poetic literature where God is described as having “feathers” and “wings.” It is then asserted that Fundamentalists notoriously make the mistake of confusing various Biblical literary genre and therefore are guilty of bad hermeneutics and of error.

What is the problem with this assessment of Fundamentalism? The problem is that it is a false, inaccurate, and unfair assessment of Fundamentalism. I will break from my third person writing style to give a helpful personal perspective. I used to be what many would consider a Fundamentalist pastor. I am the son of a Fundamentalist pastor. And both of my grandfathers were Fundamentalist ministers. I grew up in an environment that many would term Fundamentalist. And I can tell you that no Fundamentalist preacher in his right mind would ever think that God has feathers and wings. In Bible College, proper Biblical hermeneutics[ix] or exegesis was heavily stressed. Any preacher, pastor, teacher, missionary, or evangelist who did not know how to distinguish literary genres would have been viewed as not worth his salt. Ladies and Gentlemen, this “literalist” propaganda is a canard!

Here is the truth of the matter. Fundamentalists do not read the Bible nearly as literally as Catholics.

When a Catholic reads Our Lord’s words at the Mystical Supper “this is My Body”, he takes them literally. The Fundamentalist allegorizes them.

When a Catholic reads “eat My flesh” and “drink My Blood” in John 6, he takes Jesus literally. The Fundamentalist allegorizes His words.

When a Catholic reads “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”, he takes Jesus literally. The Fundamentalist finds a way around.

When a Catholic reads “be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins”, he takes it literally. The Fundamentalist finds a way to disconnect baptism from the remission of sins.

So Fundamentalists don’t seem to be guilty of being literal in their exegesis of fundamental Scriptural passages. In fact, they are not literal enough. If a Catholic apologist wants to contend with Fundamentalism, he should start by pointing out to them that they are not literal enough. Using a charge of excessive literalism would only serve to prove to them that the apologist does not even know what Fundamentalists believe. There are plenty of other errors to confront a Fundamentalist with. Some have been stated previously.

Tragically, many contemporary Catholic apologists give Catholics the idea that the Church does not direct us to take Scripture literally. And this is gravely wrong. The teaching of the Church is that the literal view of Scripture is the default view for Catholics. Various senses are employed in the Bible, but the literal obvious sense must be believed unless reason dictates or necessity requires (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus).

That so many contemporary Catholic apologists see Fundamentalist Protestants as a major enemy, but blind themselves to the errors of Theological Liberalism, betrays a dangerous bias. And that is the reason for this article. There is clearly a bias among modern Catholic apologists toward views espoused by modernist Liberal Protestantism. Here are just some of the philosophically Liberal positions of many contemporary Catholic apologists:

Many Catholic apologists shy away from traditional Catholic philosophy, especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas. They flirt with Liberal philosophy which tends to concern itself only with material and efficient causality and not with formal and final causes. Unlike St. Thomas and the Fathers, and like liberal philosophers, many contemporary apologists do not distinguish between the order of creation and the natural order of providence. Thus, they welcome speculative conjectures about origins and earth’s history which are based on a uniformitarian philosophy that abolishes the distinction between these two orders. Thus many contemporary Catholic apologists teach and sound like Liberal Protestants.

Many contemporary apologists also ignore the different degrees of Magisterial authority attached to different parts of the content of Holy Tradition. This causes them to act as if the Pope is as infallible in a Wednesday audience as he is in an ex cathedra dogmatic pronouncement. In this respect, they are like the sedevacantists. The only difference lies in their respective responses. When the pope is in error in his private judgment, the sedevacantists separate from him, and the modern Catholic apologists (or should we call them the new Liberals?) follow him into it. This in turn reflects the tendency in modernist Liberal philosophy to value social expectations and mores over adherence to the principles of Catholic philosophy and theology.

Many contemporary apologists ignore the unanimous teaching of the Church Fathers regarding the book of Genesis, and they tell unsuspecting Catholics that they are “permitted” to believe in a theistic evolution which, by its own definition, would contradict Church dogma and doctrine. This agrees with Liberal Protestantism which seeks to allegorize and thus mythologize the account of the Creation of the world and of the Fall of Man and the contracting of Original Sin. This also agrees with their “Higher Criticism” in which an artificial change of literary genre is imposed upon Genesis 1, a change which has no basis in the writings of the Church Fathers.

Some contemporary apologists also defend novelty and innovation in ecclesiastical tradition as in the sacred liturgy and holy iconography. This is in line with the Liberals who distrust tradition and demand empirical evidence to believe any teaching is authentic. This also betrays an acceptance of modern philosophy and a rejection of Catholic philosophy with its adherence to forms.

Many apologists embrace innovative language regarding those outside the Church, describing them, for example, as members of an “ecclesial community.” In Greek ekklesia means Church. There is only one Church. Thus, this use of language can be confused with an understanding which reflects the influence of the heresy of indifferentism espoused by the Liberal Protestants and modernists.

Many embrace the heretical idea of Religious Freedom as condemned by the Church on numerous occasions (see Leo XIII’s Libertas). They refrain from confronting the errors of so-called Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, and Freedom of Religion, without due regard for the teaching of the popes. This agrees perfectly with Liberalism, which upholds the so-called rights of man above the rights of God. Further, knowing that Vatican II, using the name “religious liberty” rightly condemns coercion of other religions to accept the true religion, the modern apologists use the same term to an audience whose ignorance would lead them to think that the apologist is supporting the Americanist heresy of indifferentism, not the Vatican II definition. In this way they support the heresy by silence, since they have an obligation to be clear when they address the subject.

Finally, many apologists dance with religious indifferentism by speaking about false religions in a subjective, rather than an objective manner. They refrain from condemning the religions of devils claiming the possibility of their adherents achieving salvation upon their death beds. False religious adherents are not said to be lost and in grave danger of hell. Rather they are all presumed to be bound for heaven, contrary to the teaching of the Church.[x]

Of course this is not an exhaustive list. But it does serve to illustrate that the literalist canard and Fundamentalist bashing form a useful smokescreen for an insidious modernist bias on the part of many contemporary apologists.

The major enemies within the visible boundaries of the Church are the Liberals who espouse a modernism dangerous to faith and to the good of souls. A good apologist explains the weight attached to various Magisterial teachings. A good apologist will distrust anything that is not in perfect line with the rule of faith, Holy Tradition. A good apologist will affirm the dogmas of the faith as written and without a hidden explanation. A good apologist will tell you that dogmatic decrees are definitions in themselves and that if anyone understands them differently than the Church has always understood them, he is in error. A good apologist will be docile to what has been believed always, everywhere and by all. A good apologist will assume that the traditional Catholic understanding of any doctrine is to be accepted with docility until a higher, more authoritative decree brings fuller understanding. A good apologist will love the Scriptures as the inspired, inerrant Word of God. A good apologist will uphold the literal and obvious sense of Scripture as the default view for all Catholics.

May God grant us good and faithful apologists to explain and defend the one true Faith.

Chad Arneson

July 26th, Feast of St. Ann, Mother of the Holy Theotokos