Warren H. Carroll's Reasons For Hope

Many people believe that Christianity is a hoax. Many people believe that it is false and that there is no God. This book was made to refute all false claims about Catholicism and to show all men that the Catholic faith is true, in the simplest way of looking at reality itself. Before I dive right into the report I’d like to discuss the several authors of the book “Reasons For Hope”. There are four authors that contributed to the book: Warren H. Carroll, William H. Marshner, Jefferey A. Mirus and Kristin M. Popik Burns. All of these authors have something in common and they all played a huge role in creating the book. Warren H. Carroll was born March 24, 1932 in Maine. He attended Columbia University, the University of Colorado law school,
worked two years with the United States Army Signal Corps and later was even a member of the California State Senate. In 1968 he converted his faith and was baptized, and received into the Catholic church. After joining a Catholic journal named Triumph he carried out his idea by founding a Catholic college – Christendom College. Before passing away back in July of 2011, he served as the president of Christendom College and chairmen of the history department until 2002. Carroll is the most influential person to this book. William Marshner was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1942. He attended Gettysburg College and Yale. He too was a convert to the Catholic faith. He was received into the church in 1967 and started writing for the Triumph magazine. Jeffrey Mirus is the founder of Trinity Communications. Trinity Communications controls CatholicCulture.org and was created in 1985. He writes several projects about dealing with apologetics. He got his Ph.D in intellectual History from Princeton University in 1973 and collaborated in founding Christendom College. In addition to that, he is founding director of Christendom Publications. Kristin Popik Burns was the first woman to receive her Ph.D. from the University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. She chairs the Philosophy Department at Christendom College. As stated in the thesis statement, the theology used in this book is apologetics. Christian apologetics argues against the objections it faces. It uses historical, reasoned and evidential bases in Theology. The four major themes regarding this book are: life, faith, reality and soul. My personal favorite chapters were The Existence of God, The Immorality of the Soul, The Signs of Revelation and The Resurrection and Divinity of Christ because all Christians can relate to them, not only Catholics. In addition to that, most if not all Christians have questioned these four subjects. When reading about the existence of God and the immorality of the soul, page 11 states,”To deny them is to do no less than deny reason itself.” As all of the collective authors intended to argue the reasons for hope, I am going to do the same. As stated in the introduction paragraph it is human nature to question. We question why certain things happen, why do things do what they do and why are things the way they are. The even deeper question is “why is there something instead of nothing?” and this can only be answered by the Almighty, Supreme Being that makes things be. Those who wonder this either seek until they find God or stop searching out of frustration. It is difficult for people to grasp the idea of an infinite God because we cannot see him in a physical sense. We know that what we see is actually there for example a tree or a rock but we cannot actually see God himself, this is why we question his authenticity. The book reads a statement from St. Thomas Aquinas which reads,”as the universal experience of mankind attests, we can know that God exists only through his effects.” This book involves classic proofs for the existence of God and they are briefly outlined in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. The first principle is the principle that something cannot simultaneously be and not be. A dog cannot not be a dog and be a dog at the same time, just as a person cannot not be a person and be a person at the same time. This is the ultimate basis for all proofs of God’s existence. If a thing is not always existing then it is clear that it has something that caused it to be. Aristotle explained that when something changes part of it remains and potency enables things to change in existence or in characteristics. The principle concludes that since greater things cannot proceed from the less, the only reason for changeable, caused, possible beings is because there is an uncaused, unchanging, necessary being which makes all things possible. One of three proofs starts from the idea of motion. The major concept of this principle is that whatever is in motion is put in motion by another motion. In saying this, if there is no first mover which is unmoved then there is no motion. So without the Almighty God, there would be nothing. Another proof is the proof that things are contingent, which means it is not necessary and does not have to exist. This was developed by St. Thomas by showing us a world of contingent beings is impossible. We learn that if something at one time won’t exist or didn’t exist, it is contingent. In addition to this we learn that contingent beings cannot explain the existence of itself or others. God himself is explanatory to his own existence because he is responsible for all other things. As people we may feel that certain things or people were needed for change but as a general statement regarding theology everything but God is contingent. The chapter called the Immorality of the Soul is as simple as titles come.
By simply observing the title we can infer that the soul never dies. The soul separates what is living and what is not living. The things that are able to do things on their own are called “alive, besouled and/or animated”. These things are distinguished from the things that are inanimate, such as rocks. The rock cannot act on its own which shows its lack of soul. The understanding of what is alive and what is not is seen everyday of our lives so we don’t spend much time thinking on it. Even young children know the difference between a real bear or a toy bear. The early man thought that things were alive because of the lack of information about the subject. He saw that water and fire was animated so he thought these things were alive. The soul is an integral part of the whole, united with other parts to form one being. “If the soul were a separate being added onto the body of an organism making it alive, the organism would not be one thing but two things combined together.” In a substantial change something stays and something changes. When people die the corpse has a new form, and does not have the old form (which is what made it alive) but the soul remains. A physical human body can be broken down into a corpse because of its physical composition but because the soul does not have a physical structure it can not break down. “Since the subsistence soul can neither decompose in itself nor cease to exist because of the corruption or decomposition of something else, and since these are the only ways in which something might cease to be, the soul cannot stop being.” So through this we understand that the soul is always
present. Before actually reading the book and judging by its cover, I thought that I was going to have a hard time understanding and liking the book. After reading the book I took away many relatable and helpful things that I can teach to others. If I am ever in a situation when I have to argue the actuality of God I know how to go about it. Many times I’ve been approached by other religions and they’ve told me why their religion is right but I never had the proper answers for them. As the authors expressed the defense for Christianity I am glad that I know how to do the same.