Radio Replies: Initial Questions

I discovered the series of books called Radio Replies through Catholic Answers Live, the radio show arm of the Catholic.com apostolate.

Radio Replies is the granddaddy of Catholic apologetics in broadcasting. It provided questions and answers on Catholicism and Protestantism given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM in Sydney, Australia by Father Charles M. Carty and Father Leslie Rumble. There are almost 7,000 questions and answers that were printed in their series of books. Keep in mind the material covers a time span from 1938 to 1968, so answers may not completely account for changes in Church teachings and the Second Vatican Council. You may come across information that is outdated, and covers abolished material. Catholic Answers reprinted these volumes and edited them to remove both duplicate questions and dated material.



You can either purchase the updated Catholic Answers updated book here, or the e-Book here. You can still purchase the original books in their unedited form here, or the Kindle version here.

Additionally, you could Google for these books as many websites have taken to posting the entire contents of the books online.

I'm currently reading the book and am going to post just a handful of questions that jumped out at me. I'm listing 27 questions out of the first 100. This should be enough to get you going.

God's existence known by reason

1. Please give me evidence that God exists. I have never had any such evidence for I do not accept the Bible.

What do you mean by evidence? Some people think that evidence must be seen and touched, as an animal sees a patch of grass and eats it. But men are not mere animals. They have reason, and can appreciate intellectual evidence. For example, the evidence of beauty in music or in painting is perceived by man's mind, not by his senses. An animal could hear the same sounds, or see the same colors, without being impressed by their harmony and proportion. Apart from the Bible altogether, reason can detect sufficient evidence to guarantee the existence of God.



2. What is this evidence for God's existence, apart from the Bible?

There are many indications, the chief of which I shall give you very briefly: The first is from causality. The universe, limited in all its details, could not be its own cause. It could no more come together with all its regulating laws than the San Francisco Harbor Bridge could just happen, or a clock could assemble itself and keep perfect time without a clock-maker. On the same principle, if there were no God, there would be no you to dispute His existence.

A second indication is drawn from the universal reasoning, or if you wish, intuition of men. The universal judgment of mankind can no more be wrong on this vital point than the intuition of an infant that food must be conveyed to the mouth. The stamp of God's handiwork is so clearly impressed upon creation, and, above all, upon man, that all nations instinctively believe that there is a God. The truth is in possession. Men do not have to persuade themselves that there is a God. They have to try to persuade themselves that there is no God. And no one yet, who has attained to such a temporary persuasion, has been able to find a valid reason for it. Men do not grow into the idea of a God; they endeavor to grow out of it.

The sense of moral obligation confirms these reasons. In every man there is a sense of right and wrong. A man knows interiorly when he is doing wrong. Something rebukes his conduct. He knows that he is going against an inward voice. It is the voice of conscience, dictating to us a law we did not make, and which no man could have made, for this voice protests whether other men know our conduct or not. This voice is often quite against what we wish to do, warning us beforehand, condemning us after its violation. The law dictated by this voice of conscience supposes a lawgiver who has written his law in our hearts. And as God alone could do this, it is certain that He exists.

Finally, justice demands that there be a God. The very sense of justice among men, resulting in law-courts, supposes a just God. We did not give ourselves our sense of justice. It comes from whoever made us, and no one can give what he does not possess himself. Yet justice cannot always be done by men in this world. Here the good often suffer, and the wicked prosper. And, even though human justice does not always succeed in balancing the scales, they will be balanced some day by a just God, who most certainly must exist.



3. You, as a Priest, argue to a clock-maker. I, as a rationalist, ask, "Who created your uncreated clock-maker?"

That is not a rational question. I say that the universe is obviously created, and that what is created supposes a Creator who is uncreated, or the problem goes on forever, the whole endless chain of dependent beings as unable to explain itself as each of its links. It is rational to argue to an uncreated clock-maker. It is not rational to ask, "Who created this uncreated clock-maker?" God was not created. If He were, He would be a creature and would have a creator. His creator would then be God, and not He Himself. God always existed. He never began, and will never cease to be. He is eternal.



7. If I sincerely believe that there is no God, and there be a God, would not invincible ignorance save me?

Such ignorance is not invincible. You can overcome it. You violated your reason in suppressing its spontaneous concept of God, and by persuading yourself that religion is false. If you took the pressure off your reason and let it swing back to the Supreme Cause of its very being, it would do so as the needle to the pole. Pascal rightly says that there are two types of men, those who are afraid to lose God, and those who are afraid that they might find Him.

Nature of God

8. What do you mean by the term God?

God is a spiritual, substantial, personal being, infinite in intelligence, in will, and in all perfection, absolutely simple or lacking composition, immutable, happy in Himself and by Himself, and infinitely superior to all that is or can be conceived apart from Himself. He is incomprehensible in His infinite perfection by all lesser intelligences, although knowable as to the fact of His existence as Living Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, almighty, eternal, immense, and distinct from all that He has created. That is what I mean by God.



9. How do you know that God is eternal, or always was, is, and will be?

Because if God ever had a beginning, then before He began there was nothing. Now nothing, with nothing to work upon, and no faculties with which to work, could never turn its non-existent self into something. But there is obviously something, and there can never have been a time when there was nothing. God at least must always have existed, and if no one is responsible for His beginning, there is no one who could possibly bring His existence to an end. He always will be. God rightly declared Himself the eternally existent Being when He said to Moses, "I am Who am."

Providence of God and Problem of Evil

13. What becomes of God when you think of the misery and starvation in the world?

We have already seen that there is a God. Inability to comprehend every detail in the universe does not prove that there is no God, but merely the limited capacity of the finite human mind. However, the human mind can propose certain principles which go a long way towards the removal of difficulties.Firstly, evil is really the negation or privation of good, and if there is evil in the world, there is also much good which can be accounted for only by the existence of God.Secondly, the fluctuations of this mutable life cannot affect God's existence. I mean that you cannot have God when things seem to be all right, and annihilate Him when things seem to go wrong. If God exists before things go wrong, He still exists despite the unhappiness of an individual. And note that word individual. Viewing the race as a whole, we find that life is a mixture of comfortable and uncomfortable things. When we are happy, others are suffering. When we are suffering, others are happy. And we cannot say that God is existing for the happy ones, and simultaneously not existing for the unhappy ones. We must not take local and individual views only, but a universal outlook.Thirdly, and particularly as regards the uneven distribution of this world's goods with consequent starvation for some, God's providence has not failed. Man's administration is at fault. Whilst individuals suffer want, we know that the world has produced enough wheat, fruit, meat, and wool to feed and clothe everyone. God has not failed to provide enough to fill every mouth. But He has given this world over to the administration of men, and it is their bad management they must correct rather than blame God. At least their incapable administration should teach them the saving grace of humility.



16. If God is loving, just, and all-powerful, why does He permit moral evil, or sin?

Because God is Love, He asks the freely given love of man, and not a compelled love. Because He is just, He will not deprive man of the free will which is in accordance with his rational nature. Nor is this against the omnipotence of God, for even His power does not extend to contradictory things. Man cannot be free to love and serve God, without being free to reject Him and rebel against Him. We cannot have it both ways. Even God, if He wants men to be free, cannot take from them the power to choose evil. If He enforces goodness, He takes away freedom. If He leaves freedom, He must permit evil, even though He forbids it. It is man's dignity that he is master of his own destiny instead of having to develop just like a tree which necessarily obeys natural law. Men, as a matter of fact, misused their freedom, and sin and brutality resulted. But it was impossible to give man the gift of freedom and the dignity of being master of his own destiny without risking the permission of such failures.



17. At least, being all-powerful, just, and loving, He ought to give everyone a fair chance of obtaining the good things of this world.

Being all-powerful, there is no reason why He ought to do our bidding as if we were all-powerful.Being just, He is not going to give us a tin trumpet and let us think that to be our real good when it is not.Being loving, He will not usually allow man to have those riches which may cause difficulties in the way of salvation. I do not want Him to say to me, "Amen, I say to you, you have had your reward." We are Christians, and Christians are disciples of a crucified Master. We have no right to complain if we also must tread the path of suffering.



18. Do you tell me that a good God permits deformed children, with a lifetime of misery before them?

God is certainly good, and if He permits evil of any kind it is only because He knows that He can draw greater good from it in the end. The human race misused its freedom, abandoned God, and found not happiness but misery. It is good to be just, and God's justice permitted this misery. Also, in His wisdom, He may permit a child to be born deformed who with health and strength would fling itself into pleasures which would end in eternal loss. Again, an imbecile is incapable of sin, and it would often seem to us a mercy had some apparently sane people been born imbeciles. Poor people, whether mentally or bodily deformed, do not spend the whole of their lives in misery and suffering. We must not judge them by our own experiences. Likewise, we must remember that what we call "the whole of their lives" is not confined to this earth. There is a continuance of existence in eternity, where all will be rectified.We might say, "If God be good, why did He allow His Son to go through excruciating torture?" Sin is the real evil, not suffering. Christ found happiness in proving His love by suffering, a greater good than mere health. And the miseries of this world have driven thousands to God who would have been self-sufficient and independent only for the naturally insoluble problem of suffering. If only for this reason we can discern an indication of God's goodness in it.



19. Is it, then, God's will that people should suffer from such terrible diseases as Cancer or Consumption?

We must distinguish between God's positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my soul, He may mercifully permit my health to be ruined, and thus lead me to Him where He would otherwise lose me. There would have been no diseases had men not sinned. God did not will sin, but having made men free, He permitted it and its consequences. This permission was a less serious thing than would have been the depriving us of our freedom.

Existence and nature of the soul

27. Prove that a soul does exist in man.

A living human body is not the same thing as a corpse. Now the soul is the difference between a corpse and a living being. A dead body cannot move, eat, think, express itself, enjoy, or be miserable. It can but fall to pieces and go back to dust. There is something that stops your body from doing that now. It is your soul. For every activity you must find a principle of operation behind it. The principle in a man which thinks and loves, and is happy or miserable, is a very real thing. It is not nothing, less than the very body it animates. Nor is it a chemical. No doctor, examining a corpse, can tell you what chemical is missing that it should not live. If there be nothing else save chemical substances, let doctors and scientists gather together the requisite chemicals and say, "Live!" They can effect nothing like this. There is something that chemistry cannot reach; it is the soul or spirit. Look anyone in the face, and behind those animated features, those changing expressions, in the very eyes, you will read the soul.

Immortality of the soul

43. Your doctrine of immortality supposes consciousness after death. I do not believe it, otherwise the soul would be conscious under chloroform, or when the body is knocked senseless in an accident.

This fact does not invalidate the reasons given already, and is also easily explained. The soul whilst in a state of union with the body operates by using the faculties of that body. If the sense instruments are incapacitated, the soul can no longer operate adequately whilst united to the body. But once released from the body, its intelligence and will and power to love at once assert themselves. Hydrogen and oxygen unite to form a drop of water. They can operate as water only whilst united. Hydrogen is there, but it cannot operate as hydrogen until released from the union. Soul and body make one human being. And both elements must be fit to co-operate in the activities of a bodily human being. The soul cannot operate separately as a distinct unit whilst still united. But once released, it can operate independently every bit as much as hydrogen when released from its essential union with oxygen to form water.

Destiny of the soul

46. What is the purpose of life on this earth?

Man is created to praise, love, and serve God in this life, and by doing so to attain eternal life with God hereafter. This is not our only life. It is but an infinitesimal part of it.

Freewill of man

52. If God knows all things beforehand, is not that the end of our freedom?

No. God's knowledge does not make us so act. An astronomer may be able to say, "There will be an eclipse of the sun." When the eclipse comes, no one says that it had to come because the astronomer said it would. The astronomer's knowledge was caused by the fact that it would come; the eclipse was not caused by the fact that he foresaw it.

Nature of religion

57. What do you mean by religion?

By religion I mean that act of justice by which we render to God, both privately as individuals, and publicly as social beings, the honor, gratitude, and obedience due to Him, and in the way prescribed by Him.

Necessity of religion

58. Is the practice of religion necessary?

Yes. God has definite rights which no man is justified in ignoring. Moreover God definitely commands you to adore and serve Him. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . this is the first and greatest commandment." A man with no religion, who never worships God, never says a prayer to Him, is far from fulfilling this commandment of love. It is not enough to admit off-hand that God exists, and then ignore His definite claims.



64. I don't miss much by not having a religion.

Religion is the virtue of justice which renders to God the honor and worship due to Him. Your remark is like saying, "I do not miss much in refusing to acknowledge my debts." However you do miss more than you think.



67. The laws of nature regulate all and I worship only at her altars.

Laws don't float round without a lawgiver. If nature has laws they have been imposed by a lawgiver. All legislation supposes a legislator. And who authorized you to specify that particular form of religion? Surely the one who is to be worshipped has the right to specify how he shall be worshipped.



68. You say that religion is necessary. I say that it is positively evil and degrading. It restrains our freedom.

Sincere religion spells freedom—freedom from vice, from all injustice and want of charity. There is no absolute freedom. You must be free from vice and subject to virtue, or free from virtue and subject to vice.



70. Where are a man's ideals who cannot do right for right's sake, but needs a heavenly policeman to keep him straight?

To do right for right's sake implies that right ought to be done. Why ought it to be done? Ought or must suppose some kind of law. All law derives its force from the right of the lawgiver. To do right for right's sake pushes us back to doing right for the sake of the Supreme Author of all right. No one can do right for right's sake if he ignores God, for without God he cannot prove that what he thinks to be right is right or has any binding force at all. Also in the state we have laws and policemen. But it is absurd to say that no citizen is good except through dread of the law, and that the police are necessary to keep every single one of us on the path of duty. A religious man knows that God is his Father, and he serves as a child of God from a motive of love, a love which casts out servile fear without diminishing filial respect.



72. I have no religion and am well off; the poor wretches who practice religion do not seem to gain much by it.

Religion is not supposed to be an easy road to temporal prosperity in things which death takes from those who have them. It is the road, not always comfortable, to never-ending and eternal happiness. We do not expect religion to result in earthly advancement. If it did men would rush it as a good business proposition, and offer to God a devotion quite without value. Temporal things are subject to the natural course of events. You are not materially well off because you have no religion. There are thousands who have no religion and are not well off. So, too, the poor are not poor because they practice religion. There are well-to-do people who also practice their religion. And if the poor gave up their religion they would not suddenly become rich. In the mean time, you prosper because of natural circumstances or natural ability, or because God is giving you temporal rewards for such good as you do. Everyone does some good sometimes. For the poor, God often reserves their compensation for the next life.



73. I am perfectly happy. Your kill-joy religion will leave you feeling a dreadful fool when you find that death ends all.

If you are perfectly happy you are the only one on earth who is. Is there absolutely nothing further you would like to have but which you do not yet possess? Anyway, religion is not a kill-joy. One of the really happiest men who ever lived was St. Francis of Assisi, born and bred in the Catholic spirit. The simplest Priest finds more joy in saying one Mass, and the least of our Catholic people in one Communion, than you have experienced in your whole life. Then, too, I have already shown that death cannot end all. If it did, the religious man would hardly be able to feel a fool. But if it does not, as it cannot, you will scarcely enjoy meeting a God whom you have consistently ignored. The idea that death ends all is not the result of thought. It is the result of refusing to think.



76. All know that creed has nothing to do with conduct. Religious people sin, and are hypocrites.

All do not know that creed has nothing to do with conduct. In fact no man knows precisely what motive has moved men to do given things. God alone can read the heart. We have no experience save of our own interior dispositions. Religious people may sin. But they do not call vice virtue. They know they sin. Nor do their sins dispense them from the duty of continuing to pay due honor to God. I know tax-payers who are drunkards, but that does not exempt them from paying their taxes. If some are hypocrites, that is not due to the teachings of their religion. Blame them, not their religion. They must give up what is evil, their hypocrisy; not what is good, their religion.



78. Well, I believe in God, but practice no religion.

Thus charges give way to excuses. It is something to believe in God. But what notice do you take of God? You believed in the existence of your own parents, but I am sure you paid them more attention than you have ever paid to God, in whom you say you also believe.



83. There are many intelligent people who do not bother about religion.

In what way are they intelligent and clever? Some are clever in mathematics; others in law, but they may be very ignorant in the science of religion. A Catholic school-child could teach many of them quite a lot in this matter. Your argument might have some value if they were well instructed in the truths of religion. But it is little use saying, "I know a very clever doctor, and he has never studied music, so I do not see the use of music." The doctor's medical knowledge is no argument against music, and not all the learning of your friends in mathematics, science, physics, or astronomy, can be an argument against religion. Their knowledge of these things does not make heaven the least bit less worth having, nor hell one jot more comfortable. Let us serve the God before whom all the wisdom of men is childish prattle, and who in His infinite wisdom declares that religion is necessary not only in addition to honesty and goodness, but in order to be honest and good.

Miracles

100. Must I believe the miracles recorded in the Gospels? Believe a thing which cannot be substantiated in order to be saved?

You are not asked to believe anything which cannot be substantiated in order to be saved. By what rule of evidence, then, can the miracles of the Gospel be substantiated? By sworn affidavit, or in other words, by written declaration on oath. If, in a modern court, I offered documentary evidence given by my friend Jones, the court would wish to be satisfied concerning five things. (1) Did Jones write this statement, or is it a forgery? (2) Is it just as Jones wrote it, or has it been altered or tampered with by interested parties? (3) Did Jones have reliable knowledge, or could he have been misinformed? (4) Granted his knowledge, was he telling the truth or lying? (5) Does he make this statement under oath before God? Now when I offer the Gospels as documentary evidence I am prepared to prove that the assigned authors wrote the books, that the books have not been tampered with, that the writers had first-hand knowledge, that they did not lie, and that they gave their testimony under oath before God.

The true Church

327. What positive proof have you that the Catholic Church is the only true Church?

The proof lies in the fact that the Catholic Church alone corresponds exactly to the exact religion established by Christ. Now the Christian religion is that religion which— (a) Was founded by Christ personally; (b) Has existed continuously since the time of Christ; (c) Is Catholic or universal, in accordance with Christ's command to go to all the world and teach all nations; (d) Demands that all her members admit the same doctrine; (e) Exercises divine authority over her subjects, since Christ said that if a man would not hear the Church he would be as the heathen. Now the Catholic Church alone can claim— (a) To have been founded by Christ personally. All other Churches disappear as you go back through history. Christ said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." There are many claimants to the honor of being Christ's Church. But among all non-Catholic Churches, we find one built on a John Wesley; another on a Martin Luther; another on a Mrs. Eddy, etc. But the Catholic Church alone can possibly claim to have been built on Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and one-time Bishop of Rome. (b) To have existed in all the centuries since Christ. (c) That every one of her members admits exactly the same essential doctrines. (d) To be Catholic or universal. (e) To speak with a voice of true authority in the name of God.



1390. Why do you prefer the Catholic Church to Protestantism?

The reasons are legion, whether from God's point of view, or from my own point of view, or from the viewpoint of Protestantism itself, or from the aspect of the Catholic Church. I shall try to summarize them for you. From God's point of view, He certainly has the right, not only that I should acknowledge and serve Him, but that I should do so in the way He commands. Not any way of my own choosing will do. And as He has commanded the Catholic way, I am obliged to serve Him in that way. From my own point of view, I want a religion that can really substantiate its claim to be the one true form of religion in this world; that knows its own mind, and can tell me definitely what is to be believed and what is to be done; and which can offer me the necessary spiritual helps in the way of guidance, inspiration, and assistance, to do these things. Catholicism alone can comply with these requirements.

From the viewpoint of Protestantism, its origin in the sixteenth century was sixteen centuries too late to be the religion given to the world by Christ; it has no consistent doctrinal teaching; its services vary with the idiosyncrasies of individual clergymen; those clergymen have no valid Orders in the Christian sense of the word, and therefore they lack the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the power to destroy sin by sacramental absolution in Confession. In a word, historically, Scripturally, and logically, no form of Protestantism can stand. On the other hand, from the aspect of the Catholic Church, historically, she alone goes right back to Christ, and can alone inherit His promise to be with His Church all days from His time till the end of the world; Scripturally, she alone is in complete accord with God's revealed word; logically, she alone is thoroughly consistent; as a teacher, she alone claims to know her own mind infallibly; and as a guide, she alone knows what discipline really means.