Joe addresses 5 bad catholic arguments that you think are good, but actually aren’t. And he gives you some tips on how to be more convincing when engaging Protestants!
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer and today I want to explore five bad arguments that we as Catholics need to stop using in our conversations with our Protestant brothers and sisters. These are arguments that I’ve heard and sometimes made and they’re bad arguments and we can do better. So before I get there, I want actually lay out a few kind of positive tools because I think it’s important in kind of laying the foundation here to say, if this is how we’re not going to evangelize, if this is how we’re not going to debate, if this is how we’re not going to proceed, how should we proceed? I think if you have a positive vision of how to do the thing right, it becomes more obvious, which argumentative moves are mistakes and are missteps, and it becomes more obvious to know, oh, you shouldn’t have done it that way.
You should do it this way instead. So I’m going to give you five replacements for these bad arguments, but before I get there, I want to give you just a handful of helpful tools to hopefully help you argue evangelize, debate persuade better. So this is going to be, as I suggest, useful in Catholic Protestant discussions or in evangelizing atheists or in anything in life where you might be called upon to persuade someone else to do something different than they’re currently doing. So hopefully this will be pretty useful across the board. The first tool is really simple. As much as possible, ask, don’t tell. And the reason for this is really easy. If I tell you the answer and you don’t want to listen to it, you can just ignore me. But if I help to lead you into the right answer, well it’s much harder to ignore yourself.
Blaze, Pascal puts it like this in the Poe, people are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. And so one way you can approach this is by using something called the Socratic method. If you’re not familiar, Socrates was famous not for making bold proclamations on the nature of the virtues, but rather for having dialogues for asking other people what they thought and then working with them to see if they couldn’t find some holes in the thinking and then asking them more questions that might provoke them to go a little further, a little deeper on these topics. And it’s an incredibly helpful way to get towards the truth if both people involved are patient enough to do it. Now, I want to give that as kind of a caveat. This works better in person or when you have a protracted period of time to have an ongoing conversation, it’s much harder to do in something like this. I can’t just ask you a question and then wait for all of you to comment and then follow up the video from there. It would take way too long. But nevertheless, this is adapted from how to win friends and Influence People. But this is a very helpful explanation briefly of a Socratic method aiming towards what’s called a pattern of yeses.
CLIP:
This can be achieved by employing the Socratic method, a technique that starts the dialogue from common ground and gradually moves to unfamiliar territory. It starts with asking a series of simple agreeable questions to establish a yes momentum. Can we agree that X? Yes. Is it fair to say Y? Yes, getting a yes momentum increases your chances of open communication once the discussion reaches topics of conflict.
Joe:
Now, as we proceed, I’m going to give plenty of examples where I have done this very badly or done the various things I’m telling you not to do. But here I want to actually give an example of this going well or actually remembered what to do in the moment. I was on a university campus and I was speaking to a young woman. I’ve told this story before, so apologies if you’ve heard it before, but I was speaking to a young woman who’d grown up Catholic and then had drifted away when she went to college. And so she would go to mass when she was with her family. And so I asked naturally why what happened? And she said she didn’t agree with the Catholic church on certain issues, and she pointed out abortion as one of the chief wants, and I asked her what her views were on abortion, and she said, well, I’m not okay with abortion across the board, but I think it should be legal in certain cases, rape and incest in the life of the mother.
Now, anyone involved in pro-life activism of any kind has heard that kind of response before and it’s very easy to immediately jump into the defensive mode and say, oh, hey, here’s all the good reasons why you should think that of child’s life is worth protecting even in those cases. But I didn’t do that. I did something that I think works better. I said, well, why are you against abortion and the rest of the cases? And it took her back. So, so much so that I actually had to repeat the question because she thought I was going to ask the other question. The very predictable why are you okay with abortion in these extreme cases? But instead it was like, okay, well look, those cases together are maybe 3% of abortions. You’re against 97% of abortions. What have we done here? We found some common ground, but the second thing we’ve done is I’ve now put the burden on her to explain why do we have that common ground?
Why are you against 97% of abortions? Because once she has to say those words that it’s an unborn child, it’s a life worth protecting, you then are in a place to broach the topics of conflict so that it’s no longer me just saying, Hey, you should care about the life of the unborn. She’s already saying in 97% of the cases I do. Okay, well, all you’re asking for now is a little bit more consistency. So hopefully that’s clear. Hopefully that helps and it doesn’t always work in practice, but that’s the kind of way to do it. If you can think about the difference between immediately jumping into, no, you’re wrong and here’s why you’re wrong, compared to starting with, okay, where do we already agree and why do we already agree? That gives us some tools. Many of you have asked, why do you spend so much time answering Protestantism rather than atheism or something else?
And I think there’s two answers to that, frankly. Number one, it’s what I’m passionate about, interested in, experienced in and knowledgeable about. I know much more about the nuanced arguments based on having grown up in a pretty Protestant part of the country than I do about other things. I think the differences between Catholics and Mormons are bigger or Catholics and Jehovah’s witnesses, but I didn’t grow up in a Jehovah’s Witness part of the country or Mormon part of the country. So when I speak on those topics, it’s a lot harder to speak accurately and a lot harder to make a convincing argument because I know less about it. And so knowing the kind of common ground can be really important and just having a deeper knowledge of the thing. The second reason I often focus on those questions is because there are simply more areas of common ground.
We can have a more fruitful conversation. And so people say, well, these other people are further away. Yeah, that’s also why it’s harder to have the really good conversations with them. Now, you can do that, but only by establishing some common ground first. When you’re talking to a conservative Protestant, you can take almost for granted. Well, they believe in the authority of scripture. So if you can prove a thing from scripture, they’ll take that seriously. If you’re talking to a Hindu, what are you going to point to that you know that they’ll accept? But you really have to do a lot of groundwork to figure that out. So hope that helps. Hope that makes sense, both in terms of explaining why I focus on the topics I do, but more importantly, how do we persuade effectively? And having something like a Socratic method where you can find the common ground and build from it can be very helpful, particularly using questions as often as you can ask, don’t tell.
Second tool, steal man. This is really the inversion of a very common Catholic argument that we get badly, which is, and by no means are Catholics unique on this. Everybody has issues with this. We’ll say, there’s a tendency to take a sort of silly version of the other person’s argument and as much as possible, and this can be very hard to do, especially if it’s not a view that you’re sympathetic to or maybe a view you feel like you understand very well make the best version of the argument. Now, I want to caveat that and say, sometimes people will say, okay, you shouldn’t take the popular version. You should take this other version that only a handful of nerdy theologians or scholars actually believes in. I don’t go that far. Sometimes you’ll find the theologians just disagree with the popular level, and if they’re disagreeing, then I’d say answer both.
It might just be two different arguments. If there’s a take, for example, people who say, Constantine founded the Catholic, no scholar says that, that I’m aware of because it’s a pretty ridiculous position, it’s hard to steelman that one, and the Steelman version of it would just be the church changes and grows over time or something that is really just a different argument. In those cases, Truda is different arguments and steelman in there might just be recognizing this is a popular level argument. This isn’t what the more well-formed Protestants are going to believe. And so it’s a way of doing justice to the other person, even if you can’t do greater justice to the argument. The model of this is St. Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell, who was an atheist and his book on the history of Western philosophy praises Aquinas and said, even if every one of the doctrines in the summa was mistaken, it would still be an imposing intellectual edifice.
Why? Well, because when Aquinas wishes to refute some doctrine and Russell’s words, he states it first often with great force and almost always with an attempt at fairness. Now, I would maybe go beyond almost always, but fine, fair enough that Aquinas regularly presents the strongest form of his opponent’s argument stronger in many cases than the opponent themselves might do. And then he praises him in particular saying he knows Aristotle well and understands him thoroughly, which cannot be said of any earlier Catholic philosopher. Now, if you watch my recent episode where Luther claims to understand Aristotle, well, this actually gets to a key difference in how the two men work in terms of their argumentation. Aquinas is very calm. He collects the strongest objections. He presents them in a way that his opponents would recognize. Now, this is the key. When you’re in a conversation, if you can say to the other person, I think your argument is X, and they say, that’s it, you’ve got it, then you’re ready to answer it.
But if instead you rely on the name calling and the caricatures and everything else, which again, if you want to contrast Luther and St. Thomas Aquinas on this, it’s not hard to do. Well then the other person who’s going to say, no, I am not saying these things. You’re putting in my mouth. And so of course I’m not persuaded if you just call me names. I’m not persuaded if you give an intentionally distorted kind of strawman version of my argument. And so as much as possible try to find this strongest and best way you can present your opponent’s argument. And that’s probably going to be see the first tip by asking them for ongoing clarification because maybe the first time you try to formulate it, they say, that’s kind of it. That’s not quite it. And then, okay, let’s find out a little more. Doing that also and doing it rigorously can help to reveal some of the errors in their position that maybe wouldn’t have been obvious otherwise.
The more you try to get in their shoes, the more you might say, aha, I see where things have gone wrong here. It’s worth pointing out that St EU of Leon in the second century was our number one source on gnostic theology until the discovery of the non Hamadi library in the 20th century. I think that was 20th century in modern times whenever that was. And the reason is very simple that he really wanted to document exactly what gnostics believed before he felt comfortable showing why they were wrong. And he does this to an extent that a modern reader, I think would fairly call boring because we don’t want to read page after page after page of obscure agnostic theology. But he’s doing this work in laying the foundation of what his opponent believes so that he can answer it. That’s hard to do. It’s time consuming again, but if you want to do this well, let’s how you do it.
The third kind of tool I would just call Pascal’s model of persuasion. And I’m going back to Blaise Pascal, who I quoted already in the Ponte, in Pon number nine. He says, when we wish to correct with advantage and to show another that he heirs. So notice the framework here. If you want to convince someone they’re wrong, great. This is the method to do it. We must number one, notice from what side he views the matter for on that side, it is usually true. And number two, admit that truth to him. But number three, reveal to him the sight on which it is false. Pascal then says maybe, hopefully he is satisfied with that for he sees that he was not mistaken that he only failed to see all sides. So let’s make sure you get those three steps. Number one, figure out why it is that your friend or the person you’re speaking to believes what they believe believes the way that they do.
Number two, once you see that, affirm what is true in that to them. And then number three, reveal what’s missing. I’ll give another example from the abortion debates. I know I’m turning to Protestantism in a second, but these are nice neutral examples for Catholics or Protestants to hopefully see. If someone says, I believe my body, my choice, then I think it’s important to say, look, I appreciate and understand the desire for something like bodily autonomy. I don’t want people performing random science experiments on me. I don’t want people telling me I can’t do things I should be allowed to do with my own body. That’s all completely legitimate. And I think as pro-lifers, we sometimes forget to point this out, and so we just sound like we’re anti bodily autonomy, which is crazy.
Just acknowledge this. Maybe this thing that you think is so obvious, you take it for granted, acknowledge it to the other person like, Hey, look, the thing you’re worried about is a legitimate thing to worry about. Bodily autonomy is an important principle, but it is also, I think we can also agree on this, not an unchecked principle. It is something that has to be bounded. I can’t use my bodily autonomy of waving my arms around to punch neighbor in the face. And other people have bodily autonomy too, which is why bodily autonomy can’t be an absolute because my bodily autonomy may interfere with your bodily autonomy if I push you or whatever. And so we have to respect one principle of bodily autonomy is that it is a self-limiting principle. Meaning if I believe bodily autonomy is a good for all humans, then that means I can’t use my bodily autonomy to violate somebody else’s.
So there’s an inbuilt limitation to bodily autonomy even if you don’t consider any other values. So then you say, okay, cool. Once we’ve established that we’ve built from this common ground, we can then say, look at this. Scientifically, the unborn child is another human being just as a matter of principle. And so if everything you just said is true, they also have bodily autonomy in such a way that we can’t use our bodies to harm theirs. Now of course, there are various ways you can harm somebody’s body unintentionally, but you can’t use your body to intentionally harm somebody. And so it seems like we’ve had a pretty good argument from bodily autonomy, from my body, my choice against abortion, but only by patiently unpacking what the argument is getting right first and then seeing the limitations in what part it’s missing. So that’s Pascal’s model of persuasion.
So with that said, let’s look at some of the various ways we fall short of living that out. So these are five bad Catholic arguments that I’ve heard or maybe used, and then five better alternatives. Number one has to be there are 30,000 or 37,000 or 40,000 or 45,000 Protestant denominations. And already by the mere variety of numbers, something seems like it’s up. Now, if you’re wondering this isn’t coming out of thin air, there’s actually a decent foundation for this. So Gordon Conwell Seminary has an encyclopedia that tries to keep track of every Christian denomination on earth and they update it periodically. And so the most recent update in 2024 says that there are 47,000 denominations on Earth. Now, many people reading that without, and you’ll notice if you look at that chart, there’s no explanation on that page explaining what they mean by their terms.
So someone reading that naturally says, aha, there are 47,000 Protestant denominations, and then they run with that. The reality is a little trickier because if you look to how the encyclopedia defines a denomination, here’s what it says in their own words, they say it’s an organized Christian Church tradition, religious group, community of people aggregate of worship center, usually within a specific whose component congregations and members are called by the same name in different areas regarding themselves as autonomous Christian, excuse me, as an autonomous Christian Church distinct from other churches and traditions. Okay? So it’s pretty much self-determined. What denomination do you consider yourself to be in? And if you say one thing and your neighbor says something else, you guys are in two different denominations. That is frankly a pretty good definition of a denomination. But you’ll notice in that good definition, it says they’re usually within a specific country because some denominations aren’t the Seventh Day Adventists, for example, the Anglicans for example.
And if you were to treat Catholics and Orthodox as a denomination, well, we’re also international. Now, that’s going to be important because even though they acknowledge that international Christian churches or denominations exist for purposes of their study, they do it at a country by country level. And so denominations are defined and measured at the country level. That is a huge and important detail. Why? Because it means that the Catholic church, because it exists in all 234 countries on earth, is counted for their purposes as 234 Catholic denominations. And in fact, more than that, because they treat each right like Byzantine and Latin as separate denominations. Now that’s kind of a disaster because it means, okay, that number is just wrong, then it’s pointing to something true. But because they’ve defined denomination in this kind of weird way, it doesn’t really work and it lets Protestants who reject this argument sort of laugh off the 40,000 denominations. And I’ll give you an example. This is from ready to harvest, arguing against the use of these kind of numbers and these kind of statistics, and notice how they kind of get around the denominational numbers on the basis of this weakness.
CLIP:
If you’re using these numbers to say there are a lot of Protestants, you’re inherently accepting a methodology that leads to there being 234 Catholic denominations. Most Catholics would say that there’s only one Catholic church because being in different countries doesn’t mean the church is divided, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Joe:
And so at this point, I think a lot of people who have heard this debate go back and forth kind of cringe when someone jumps in the YouTube comments and throws out a 40,000 or 47,000 denomination number because we realize, yeah, there’s real methodological shortcomings with that. What’s a better form of that argument? Well, remember the very first positive tool ask rather than tell as much as possible. So you should just ask the other person, well, how many denominations are there? Or if you want to use some other version of how many churches, how many competing versions of Christianity, how many theological traditions are there, et cetera. And so in this case here, just other guy we just heard from would answer that question,
CLIP:
If the Catholic Church numbers can be divided from 234 down to one, then the Protestant numbers also need to be cut tenfold, at least
Joe:
To be totally honest with you, I’m a little dubious about that math. It just seems like that at least we have to reduce by 90% feels pretty arbitrary. Even if you do that, you’re at somewhere around 4,700 denominations, which is still a huge number of Protestant denominations, but where’s he getting? We need to reduce by 90%. As Gordon Conwell points out, the reason they’re doing this country by country is in part because most denominations on earth exist only within a specific country. So it’s probably not that on average every denomination is in 10 different countries, so you don’t really need to reduce tenfold, but that’s fine. I mean, even if you take that number, I don’t think whether it’s 4,700 or 9,000 or 40,000 is particularly important for the question. So just to give a second example, GLM, which is an evangelical group that largely answers Mormons, church of Jesus Christ for Latterday Saints, they hear this argument from Mormons as well, who’d say, look, you guys are so scattered, why would we listen to you? And in response, GLM claims that there’s really only 10,000 denominations.
CLIP:
Now it’s really, really hard to ascertain a specific number, but it’s likely that there are around 10,000 Protestant denominational institutions with only around 300 notable and meaningfully distinct Christian traditions.
Joe:
So there’s the advantage. Now, you’re no longer debating about the exact number. You can just accept whatever number they give you because whatever it is, it is going to have to be pretty high. And obviously all of us are estimating to some extent. Nobody including researchers who’ve done country by country analysis can tell you exactly how many there are, partly because the number of Protestant denominations is constantly going up. Now, I think that helpful division between 300 different meaningful traditions is actually an important second level to this that many Catholics don’t understand because we imagine that the big differences in Protestantism are denominational that Presbyterians mostly agree with other Presbyterians, and they mostly disagree with Baptists, and Baptists agree with other Baptists, and they mostly disagree with Presbyterians. And the truth is not really like that. You have this whole thing called evangelicalism that is cross denominational.
So you’ve got a bunch of different denominations that are either evangelical or have a population of evangelicals in there that might agree with other evangelicals in a different denomination, more they agree with the non evangelicals and their own denomination. So the major denominations have these split between what’s sometimes called the mainline Protestants and the evangelicals. You don’t need to get into what all of those differences are, but you have major doctrinal differences, sometimes not between two denominations but within the same denomination. And so you can have a bunch of independent Baptist churches that... Read more on Catholic.com