The Solution to the Problem of Evil/Suffering

The following series of quotes from “Revelations of Divine Justice” gives the basic description of how God can be omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly opposed to all evil/suffering (such that no greater opposition can be conceived), and yet the evil in the world exists as it does. On this model, all evil is gratuitous (i.e. not necessary for any greater good) when considered in itself, but... Read More

A Dialogue on the Origin of Natural Evil

This conversation (posted with permission) covers a number of difficult aspects of theodicy – especially concerning predation, evolution, the origin of natural evil, and how the overall bloodbath reconciles with God’s goodness. There’s also a succinct proof for the entire Christian worldview (redemptive suffering, theosis, etc.) at the end. Really. ————————–————— Sri... Read More

An Introduction to Gift/Demand Algebra in the Gospels: A Proof of the Historicity and Divinity of Christ

We’ve never had much of an interest in Gospel historicity controversies because the very nature of historical argumentation seemed to us to be too loose to be compelling. Consequently, our research at New Apologetics has tended to favor deductive forms of argumentation, especially those benefiting from the rigor of analytic philosophy. By means of our research in other areas, and without... Read More

Matt McCormick’s Paraduxx (sic) of Divine Agency

Matt McCormick’s original article “The Paradox of Divine Agency”, In Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier (eds.), The Impossibility of God. Prometheus (2003) can be found here: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mccormickm/DivineAgency.htm I don’t blame McCormick. In the order of blameworthy, it goes like this: the devil, the apologists (including myself), and then me again (for not writing faster).... Read More

Divine Hiddenness, Part 2: You Are Here with Me Always

A lot of people want to have a relationship with God, but can’t find him, and many who “have” a relationship with God may be inclined to wonder from time to time (or all the time, in hindsight) if there is any external participant in that relationship. Knowledge that the “other” exists is universally agreed to be the starting point in any normal relationship. When it comes to our... Read More

New Evangelization Series, Part II: Compassion or Something Better?

We Christians have a problem. We know that God is love, and that all of the teachings of the Church are to be understood as propositional manifestations of that love. We know that we are called to love one another as Christ loves us. And yet, we often find ourselves on the outside of social interactions where someone is talking about something that they are happy about. You may have heard the maxim,... Read More

“Three Pains” – A Lesson about Spiritual Abortion

[This is a conversation between one of our contributors and an agnostic reader of NA. The names have been changed, and permission to publish has been granted.  This conversation is a wake-up call of sorts, in that it it portrays the unintentional, mostly unidentified, but nonetheless death-dealing phenomenon of what we’ve named “spiritual abortion”. Fear-based caring on the part... Read More

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag (A Dialogue on Pseudo-Catholicism)

  Conversation started November 24, 2013   11/24, 12:06am James Christopher Are you discerning a vocation to the priesthood?   11/24, 12:07am Matthew Von Zarovich Yes.   11/24, 12:08am James Christopher You can ask whatever is on your mind here. There is a sort of behind the scenes ministry through FB chat.   11/24, 12:09am Matthew Von Zarovich What kind of ministry?   11/24,... Read More

The Christian Charism – An Explorative Conversation

This three-part talk is a spontaneous recording which took place in late 2013. The topics are very substantial, and are of import to all interested in the spiritual life.  Read More →

The New Evangelization Series, Part I: The Atheists are Right

  You’ve probably heard the question, “Is the glass half-empty or half-full?” It’s a question that supposedly introduces a person to the perennial struggle between optimists and pessimists – one which is supposedly never to resolve. We’re taught that these are two divergent ways of seeing the world, and are led to believe them to be incompatible. However, if we approach... Read More

Divine Hiddenness, Part I: We Don’t Know What We Know

We apologists don’t always make mistakes, but when we do we poison the hope of billions of people. Here’s a prime example: “The possibility of the world being filled with evil of all kinds while God is perfectly and omnipotently opposing every evil with all the power of his holiness seems like a definitive logical vacuum. …if God were perfectly opposing evil with the fullness of his... Read More

Seamless

This is an original poem by New Apologetics, reposted here from where it first appeared on our Facebook page.  Please continue to check our Facebook page for additional content, as new poems and prayers will usually appear there first. We include the poem here as an artistic representation of the theology of the Church as it has been, is, and always will be. Seamless I Upon some altar I offer my... Read More

The Theodicy of Divine Chastity, Part II

Feast of the Prodigal Son — Vasily Polenov In The Theodicy of Divine Chastity, Part I, we began to describe how God, who is infinite love, gives of himself in a simple, innocent, and unconditionally faithful way regardless of whether or not we abuse or ignore his love. This perfection of self-offering is what we named the “chastity” of God. We chose this term in recognition that chastity, understood... Read More

An Open Letter to Atheists

As Catholic apologists, we want to do something that our name would suggest we do far more often: We’d like to apologize. By that we mean exactly what you would think; we want to say that we’re sorry. We understand that you might be suspicious right now, that you may be thinking that this is another “tactic” for drawing you in. It isn’t. In fact, having tactics is one of the things we’re... Read More

A Line in the Sand

Since the time of the Apostles, the Church has been engaged in the business of explaining Christian doctrine and defending it against error from both outside forces and inside forces (heresies). 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to “always be ready to give an explanation for the hope that is within you.” Recently, Cardinal Levada stated that the Church needs a New Apologetics for the New Evangelization. But... Read More