DAY 121
CHALLENGE
“Catholic apologists say we must not use ‘private judgment,’ but we can’t avoid it. The point of apologetics is to convince someone to use his private judgment to accept a position.”
DEFENSE
This misunderstands the role that our exercise of reason plays.
It should be pointed out that, whatever happens in apologetic discussions, the theme of “private judgment” is remarkably rare in Church documents. The phrase does not appear at all in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and when it does appear in Church documents, it does not reject the role of the intellect in theology.
That would scarcely be likely given the rich intellectual tradition of Catholic theology, which has always celebrated the contributions of theologians like Augustine, Aquinas, and others as gifts from God. Indeed, God has granted every individual an intellect, and he expects them to use this gift “that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him” (Acts 17:27; cf. CCC 31–38).
Apologetics thus has an important role providing evidence so that people can understand the reasons for embracing the Faith—whether it is understood as the Christian faith broadly or the Catholic Faith specifically.
When understanding and appreciating this evidence, the individual exercise of reason is indispensible. However, once one has come to the point of faith, the situation changes, because we no longer rely on reason alone but on God’s revelation.
Jesus did not start a philosophy club but a religion. He “taught them as one who had authority” (Mark 1:22), proclaiming God’s definitive word to man (John 1:4; Heb. 1:1–2; Jude 3). Consequently, when one embraces faith in Christ, one must accept certain things as authoritative that one did not accept before the point of faith. It is here that the individual exercise of reason can become problematic.
It is praiseworthy to exercise one’s intellect in accord with the authorities established by Christ, as the great theologians have done. How- ever, it is problematic to exercise one’s intellect contrary to them. This was the origin of the heresies that have arisen in Christian history.
Both Protestants and Catholics agree that it is a mistake to prefer one’s “private judgment” to the authorities established by Christ. The question is what the authorities are and how we are to understand them.