Christian Wagner Might Not Appreciate Me Being Into Apologetics?

New blog on the kid: Christian Wagner Might Not Appreciate Me Being Into Apologetics? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: No, Dei Filius is NOT About Apologetics, It's About the Revelation that Apologetics is Meant to Defend · I Note, Alex O'Connor Didn't Mention Looking Into Geocentrism

I converted in 1988 (probably before he was born, I don't think he's 37 yet). I'm into Apologetics since 2001 (13 years after my conversion, and probably before his).

But. But. He has made a name for himself, has loads of followers and already has an income from it, and just might find it "safest" to tell me indirectly why precisely I shouldn't be doing it. If that's his position. If it isn't, he might clarify by citing me ....

On one video, he is generally making a point why recent converts shouldn't start making videos on Apologetics. Within less than two minutes he has spoken about office, and I have to correct him.

No, Apologist isn't an office. Here's my full remark:

1:42 Apologist is not an office

Perhaps you are slightly confused about it from Protestant backgrounds, since in Protestantism, especially Evangelical such, an Apologist is very typically a pastor.

Not so in the Catholic Church, St. Justin Martyr was a layman.

I could have added, more recently Gilbert Keith Chesterton was one.

Today he's making another video, or in US Time Zones yesterday, but after First Vespers, claiming Dei Filius is about Apologetics. I made two remarks, only the first of which has a timestamp, that being the no:

0:29 The assertion that Dei Filius is actually about Apologetics is, to my immediate suspicion and first check (F-search "apol" on the Latin document on the va site), as unsupported as Providentissimus Deus being about the Galileo affair.

After this, he tries to show his listeners' ignorance by asking on key concepts, here are my answers:

Faith: complete and unhesitant assent to all the truth contained in the Revelation in as far as it is credibly proposed as such, subjectively from the motive that God has revealed it Who can neither lie nor err, objectively from Grace.
Revelation: Whatever God has shown us about Himself and about Morals (our duties to Him or each other) by direct external statement, as distinct from natural theology and the natural law, but containing them, confirming the statements by usually miracle (or, back in Eden, by an order of things which would involve things now considered miraculous).
Patriarchs, Israel, Church: successive guardians of Revelation.
Motives of credibility: miracles and proofs of natural theology, supporting that God indeed did speak.
Grace and motives: Faith could be brought about by pure grace even without the motives of credibility, though that would be rare*, and the motives of credibility are never sufficient to give someone faith, grace is always needed. What this does not mean is that the truth of Catholicism cannot be proven. It means that the proof will be missed by inattention (if not outright distortion) due to illwill or lack of goodwill in a non-Catholic who is not given the grace.

I think this is a pretty fair summary.

And I think this shows the goal of Apologetics, which is not that of Mission. Mission is to bring about faith, by exposing to preaching and praying for faith. Apologetics is to remove obstacles for faith, by showing the motives for credibility.

Given that natural theology as exposed by St. Paul in Romans 1 involves Geocentrism, and the historicity of Abraham is bound up with Young Earth Creationism (otherwise Genesis 14 and the timeline from Abraham to King David after it would be disproven by archaeology), by now, Apologetics has to deal with Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism.

I think this is probably where you thought me confused and where I was actually pretty well informed.

That an Apologist reasons like an Atheist is no fault. Each group of non-believers has its own problems with the Faith, from Pentecostal to Commie, and reasoning like the target group, from common ground** held with them, is not a fault, but an asset.

This being so, it's the missionary, not the apologist, who needs to be in a state of grace. Obviously the apologist, like anyone, should be in a state of grace, but his work doesn't depend on his prayers the same way.

In some cases it may depend to some degree on someone else's prayers.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Luke Evangelist
18.X.2025

In Bithynia natalis beati Lucae Evangelistae, qui, multa passus pro Christi nomine, obiit Spiritu Sancto plenus. Ipsius autem ossa postea Constantinopolim translata sunt, et inde Patavium delata.

* I meant rare in an adult convert. It's highly usual in a newly baptised infant. ** Note: actual common ground. Not ground that's "fake ground" since produced by the deceit within the target group. I can't reason from millions of years to an atheist, because millions of years (other than as a purely artistic conceit) is a conclusion only Atheism and not Christianity warrants, not a neutral conclusion from anyone's sound five senses and by sound logic when confronted with certain facts, like Siccar Point. By the way, my apologetics for Young Earth Creationism has two main target groups: people who might be disinclined to believe Christianity because they are Evolutionists or Deep Timers, and people who think they are doing Christianity a favour by miming, not the reasoning, but the false conclusions of the former group.