Scholarship and Apologetics

James McGrath asks whether you can be both an apologist and a scholar. As usual any discussion of this sort must contend with the slippery nature of words, and in this case the floor is littered with banana skins, so please forgive the over-simplifications in what follows.

For me the notion of scholarship is tied up with the conviction that you follow the evidence. If the evidence (let's say for the authorship of 2 Peter, or the effectiveness of homoeopathy) points in a particular direction - and it does - you acknowledge that. If the evidence runs contrary to your own views, you acknowledge that too. You don't fudge the issues.

Raymond E. Brown

Can that be done by a scholar with a strong existing faith commitment? Sure. Case in point, Raymond Brown. Brown was a leading Catholic scholar of his generation (died 1998). Many of us were slapped around the chops by his brilliant treatment of the birth narratives in the New Testament. For a younger version of myself reading The Birth of the Messiah was a jaw-dropping experience. Brown laid out the case, left his readers to reach their own conclusions, but nonetheless maintained his personal allegiance to the church's teaching.

It bears restating. Fr. Brown remained loyal to his church's dogma, yet he didn't let that affect his commitment to laying out the clear evidence which led in a different direction.

Was he a scholar? Absolutely. Was he an apologist? Not in my book.

An apologist selects, shapes and massages the evidence to support an existing view. Like Calvinists who read the Bible backwards (the Old Testament in the light of the New) they begin with a conviction then engage in a cherry-picking exercise to lend it credibility. An apologist can certainly use scholarly tools, but are they truly free to follow where the evidence leads? How can they when they've already reached the conclusion in advance?

Then cometh the chorus: but we've all got a bias. No argument. But the point is largely irrelevant. Most of us can distinguish between what we'd like to believe and the uncomfortable facts. When the two clash we either draw the wagons into a circle or we are forced to grow a little by accommodating the new information.

The apologist does the former, the scholar the latter.