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Catholic Apologetics Today: Answers to Modern Critics
Catholic Apologetics Today - Answers to Modern Critics Rev. William G. Most An up-to-date Apologetics that is completely traditional. Covers Christ as Messias, veracity of the Gospels, miracles, existence of God, good and evil, authorship of Scripture, can pagans be saved, etc. Continually popular.
- GenresReligion
272 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 1992
1 person is currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
William G. Most
22 books2 followersFr. Most held doctorates in both classical languages and theology. For over 40 years, beginning in the 1940's, he taught undergraduates at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. Then at the end of the 1980's, while in his own mid-70's, Fr. Most moved to northern Virginia to take a position on the faculty of the Notre Dame Institute, a Pontifical institute offering a Masters Degree in religious studies.
Fr. Most's arrival in Virginia placed him on the doorstep of Trinity Communications, whose president, Jeff Mirus, had already published two of Fr. Most's books. In 1986, Trinity had also commissioned John Janaro to write a brief life of Fr. Most and nine other outstanding American priests in a book called Fishers of Men.
Therefore, when Trinity founded the Catholic Resource Network (CRNET) in 1993, it was natural for Fr. Most to become both a theological advisor and an important member of CRNET's Ask the Experts panel, which fielded Catholic questions from users. When CRNET moved to the Internet and merged with the Eternal Word Television Network, Fr. Most continued this role in the Catholic Q&A section on EWTN's web site.
Author of numerous scholarly and popular books and articles covering such topics as grace, Scriptural interpretation, the role of Mary in the redemption, and many other topics, Fr. Most was internationally recognized as one of the premier faithful Catholic theologians of our time. His theological breakthroughs on difficult questions regarding grace, free will and the prerogatives of Mary are already legendary.
For the last few years of his life in the late 1990's, Fr. Most suffered limited mobility because of blood cancer. He could not teach in the classroom as often as he would have liked. Yet his spirit was more than willing and his keen mind still in demand. The result? His contribution online became even more important -- both to himself and to those who would learn from this great Catholic thinker.
Although that contribution is continued in The Most Database on PetersNet, Fr. Most himself has passed beyond theological speculation. In late January of 1999, he began to suffer a general system breakdown and he died shortly after 1:00 a.m. on January 31st at Prince William Hospital in Manassas, Virginia.
Fr. Most was 84 years old. He had spent well over sixty of those years in direct, active and faithful service to the Church for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Fr. Most's arrival in Virginia placed him on the doorstep of Trinity Communications, whose president, Jeff Mirus, had already published two of Fr. Most's books. In 1986, Trinity had also commissioned John Janaro to write a brief life of Fr. Most and nine other outstanding American priests in a book called Fishers of Men.
Therefore, when Trinity founded the Catholic Resource Network (CRNET) in 1993, it was natural for Fr. Most to become both a theological advisor and an important member of CRNET's Ask the Experts panel, which fielded Catholic questions from users. When CRNET moved to the Internet and merged with the Eternal Word Television Network, Fr. Most continued this role in the Catholic Q&A section on EWTN's web site.
Author of numerous scholarly and popular books and articles covering such topics as grace, Scriptural interpretation, the role of Mary in the redemption, and many other topics, Fr. Most was internationally recognized as one of the premier faithful Catholic theologians of our time. His theological breakthroughs on difficult questions regarding grace, free will and the prerogatives of Mary are already legendary.
For the last few years of his life in the late 1990's, Fr. Most suffered limited mobility because of blood cancer. He could not teach in the classroom as often as he would have liked. Yet his spirit was more than willing and his keen mind still in demand. The result? His contribution online became even more important -- both to himself and to those who would learn from this great Catholic thinker.
Although that contribution is continued in The Most Database on PetersNet, Fr. Most himself has passed beyond theological speculation. In late January of 1999, he began to suffer a general system breakdown and he died shortly after 1:00 a.m. on January 31st at Prince William Hospital in Manassas, Virginia.
Fr. Most was 84 years old. He had spent well over sixty of those years in direct, active and faithful service to the Church for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 13, 2024
A SUMMARY OF CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS
Fr. William G. Most has also written Free from All Error: Authorship Inerrancy Historicity of Scripture, Church Teaching, and Modern Scripture Scholars. He wrote in the first chapter of this 1986 book, "we are going to start out on a search. There will be two stages: first reason, then faith. That is, before anyone can or should believe, he should go through a process of discovery based on reason, not on faith... Only after these necessary preliminaries we will look for the rational foundations for faith. After this basic work, we will consider the claims of other religions including Protestantism, Judaism, and non-Christian religions. Finally... we will answer objections about specific teachings of the Church."
He states, "The important thing is that the Magisterium is on the receiving end of the promises of Christ. Nothing else matters. We may think a particular Pope or Bishop is a very disreputable person. Pope Alexander VI even had illegitimate children and made no secret of it. Yet, Christ could and did protect his teaching... Abuses in the Church were immense in [Luther's] day. Yet the TEACHING of the Church then, as now, was still protected by Christ. It was not the TEACHING that was in error, it was rather a case of mismanagement of things and a lack of PRUDENCE. Imprudence is not the same as false doctrine." (Pg. 103)
He says, "if one looks for wonders which our senses can take in, the Church has them in abundance. They include cures that are beyond the possible power of suggestion...it is only the Catholic Church that has a Lourdes and other places where miracles have happened that have been scientifically checked. No sect even tries to claim such miracles---except of course for the questionable cases we have mentioned, in which the power of suggestion can be a factor." (Pg. 130)
He suggests, "The way to reconcile seemingly opposite things may be to accept that we can never resolve them, at least in this life. For example, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is unsolvable in this life... We must take care not to deny, or even to strain the interpretation of either of the two truths. So here we must hold that membership in the Church is required---yet that some can be saved who seem not to have that membership." (Pg. 145)
He suggests, "So it is with the infallible teachings of the Church, except that with them the possibility of error is much more remote than is the chance with the canned food or the criminal court. Further, if there were any mistake, the Divine Judge would never charge it against us if we had believed His Church. But He would penalize us if we did not believe." (Pg. 167)
Fr. William G. Most has also written Free from All Error: Authorship Inerrancy Historicity of Scripture, Church Teaching, and Modern Scripture Scholars. He wrote in the first chapter of this 1986 book, "we are going to start out on a search. There will be two stages: first reason, then faith. That is, before anyone can or should believe, he should go through a process of discovery based on reason, not on faith... Only after these necessary preliminaries we will look for the rational foundations for faith. After this basic work, we will consider the claims of other religions including Protestantism, Judaism, and non-Christian religions. Finally... we will answer objections about specific teachings of the Church."
He states, "The important thing is that the Magisterium is on the receiving end of the promises of Christ. Nothing else matters. We may think a particular Pope or Bishop is a very disreputable person. Pope Alexander VI even had illegitimate children and made no secret of it. Yet, Christ could and did protect his teaching... Abuses in the Church were immense in [Luther's] day. Yet the TEACHING of the Church then, as now, was still protected by Christ. It was not the TEACHING that was in error, it was rather a case of mismanagement of things and a lack of PRUDENCE. Imprudence is not the same as false doctrine." (Pg. 103)
He says, "if one looks for wonders which our senses can take in, the Church has them in abundance. They include cures that are beyond the possible power of suggestion...it is only the Catholic Church that has a Lourdes and other places where miracles have happened that have been scientifically checked. No sect even tries to claim such miracles---except of course for the questionable cases we have mentioned, in which the power of suggestion can be a factor." (Pg. 130)
He suggests, "The way to reconcile seemingly opposite things may be to accept that we can never resolve them, at least in this life. For example, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is unsolvable in this life... We must take care not to deny, or even to strain the interpretation of either of the two truths. So here we must hold that membership in the Church is required---yet that some can be saved who seem not to have that membership." (Pg. 145)
He suggests, "So it is with the infallible teachings of the Church, except that with them the possibility of error is much more remote than is the chance with the canned food or the criminal court. Further, if there were any mistake, the Divine Judge would never charge it against us if we had believed His Church. But He would penalize us if we did not believe." (Pg. 167)
April 3, 2011
This book is Catholics and people who are looking for an excuse to be Catholic. I can't even get into how completely full of holes and excuses the arguments are, how condescending the author is, the vindictive, almost prissy brand of barbed defense he takes when discussing things that even Catholics themselves admit they were wrong about (Galileo is the easiest example, but not by a long shot the only one). This book, if anything, has turned me off Catholicism far more than I was before I read it. If this is all a 2000 year old institution can offer a person who really spent some time with it and diligently read every page, I'm not impressed.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews