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 Foreword to A History of Apologetics | by Timothy George  Print-friendly
version  In
the fall Of 1936 a bright, handsome young man, fresh from one of the leading
prep schools in New England, began his undergraduate studies at Harvard
College. Had the Harvard application form asked for religious affiliation,
he would have marked "Protestant" for he came from a long line of Presbyterians
and his mother had taught him to say the Lord's Prayer as a little boy.
But, like many other students before and since, his nominal attachment
to the Christian faith had left him bereft of any serious religious convictions.
He no longer believed that the cosmos had been brought into being by an
intelligent and purposive Creator or that the human soul had any destiny
to look forward to except that of oblivion or that there was any real
moral meaning to life except the kind of utilitarian ethics based on the
pleasures and preferences of this or that person or community Avery Dulles
was an atheist.However, like many other seminal shapers of Christian thought, including Justin Martyr, St. Augustine, and C. S. Lewis, Dulles was led through the study of philosophy to question the certitude of his doubts and denials. Aristotle taught him to appreciate the dignity of reason and to see the design at the heart of the created world. Through Plato he came to see that moral value—things true and beautiful and good—were more than mere whims of preference; they had an objective basis in that which was ultimately real. All of this came together for him one gray rainy February afternoon when he left his carrel in Widener Library (where he had been reading a chapter from St. Augustine's City of God that he had been assigned in a course on medieval history) and began to trudge through the melting snow and mud along the banks of the Charles River: This epiphany was for Dulles not so much a moment of mystical illumination as an insight or recognition of the then-and-thereness of the created order and of the reality that sustains and governs it by a beneficent providence, the same reality Dante referred to as "the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars". In time, through personal friendships, through the study of the Holy Scriptures, through the witness of a believing community, Avery Dulles would learn the name of that Love: Jesus Christ, the Son of Man of the four canonical Gospels, the eternal Son of the heavenly Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the Savior of the world, the Lord of the Church, the coming King and judge of all. Avery Cardinal Dulles is the first United States born theologian to be made a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church without having first served as a bishop. A History of Apologetics, magisterial in its scope, represents the ripe vintage of a productive life of theological labor and the fruit of a personal pilgrimage of faith in search of understanding. Beginning with the New Testament documents themselves and moving through the successive eras of Church history, Cardinal Dulles presents the drama of apologetics as the story of Christian Faith's encounter with various challenges and threats both within and from its environment and the secular culture.  
One way to interpret the history of apologetics is to see how the Church and her theologians have oscillated through the centuries between the poles of identity and adaptability. In certain historic episodes, the Church has focused narrowly and almost exclusively on her own identity-her internal structures, beliefs, and practices, with little or no concern for the task of evangelization. At other points, the Church has been so outwardly directed in her mission to the world that she has tended to lose her distinctive message and to become assimilated to ideas and trends inimical to the gospel itself. There is a Clear and present danger in both extremes: either the Church becomes a "holy huddle", a sectarian enclave cut off from her social and intellectual milieu, or, conversely, the Church evolves into an expression of the reigning Zeitgeist. Inculturation gives way to acculturation. At its best, Christian apologetics has been alert to these twin dangers and has sought to mediate an expression of "the faith once delivered unto the saints" that avoids both extremes. Apologetics is for everyone. This particular history, while not lacking in learning, was written with the conviction that the issues with which Christian apologists have been concerned through the ages are, or should be, of interest to anyone who asks the basic questions of human life: Who am I? Where did I come from and where am I going? What is the meaning of my life, and of life itself? How should I live in this present world? Is there life beyond the grave and where will I be thirty seconds after I am dead? Such questions, of course, are not unique to Christians. Indeed, they are the property of all persons everywhere. But the Christian faith does not shrink from the task of considering such questions in the light of our common human strivings and with the aid of reason. illumined by faith. In the opening lines of his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II put it this way: just as the Church in her history has veered from time to time between the poles of identity and adaptability, so too apologetics has been tempted by the lure of fide-ism on the one hand and of rationalism on the other. Cardinal Dulles has called for "the revival of apologetics" in our day, and this book is a major resource for such a retrieval. But if Christian apologists are to speak winsomely and convincingly to the pervasive culture of doubt and unbelief so prevalent today, they must remember to be tender-hearted as well as toughminded. They must cultivate an apologetics of personal testimony no less than a mastery of evidences that demand a verdict. Such an approach will recognize that revelation, both in the cosmos and. the conscience as well as in the Word of God itself, ever remains charged with mystery, and that, as Pope John Paul 11 has said, "Faith alone makes it possible to penetrate the mystery in a way that allows us to understand it coherently." This is the kind of understanding that began to dawn for young Avery Dulles as he trudged through the snows along the Charles River those many years ago. All Christians everywhere can be grateful for the deepening and flowering of such understanding in the life of Avery Cardinal Dulles, a humble servant of the Lord who is also a prince of the Church. As he later reflected on that initial step of faith and all that has followed since, Cardinal Dulles, in words that echo St. Augustine's Confessions, celebrates the grace of God in the life of the mind and invites others to taste and see that the Lord is good and faithful and true: [1] Avery Dulles, S.J., A Testimonial to Grace (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1996; original ed., 1946), 36. [2] Dulles, Testimonial, 60. Related IgnatiusInsight.com link: • "The History and Purpose of Apologetics" | An interview with Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.  Dr.
Timothy George is the founding dean of Beeson
Divinity School of Samford University. He teaches church history, historical
theology, and theology of the Reformers. He is currently serving as executive
editor for Christianity Today along with serving on the editorial
advisory boards of The Harvard Theological Review, Christian History,
and Books & Culture. He has served on the Board of Directors
of Lifeway Christian Resources (formerly the Baptist Sunday School Board)
of the Southern Baptist Convention. A prolific author, he has written more
than 20 books and regularly contributes to scholarly journals. If you'd like to receive the FREE IgnatiusInsight.com e-letter (about every 1 to 2 weeks), which includes regular updates about IgnatiusInsight.com articles, reviews, excerpts, and author appearances, please click here to sign-up today! |
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