LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Early Church Fathers
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
9/2022
The Early Church Fathers
In the postapostolic era, the new challenges that confronted the burgeoning church as it
spread throughout the Roman Empire required a new apologetic counterthrust. Rabbinic
Judaism, fully developed Gnosticism, persecuting paganism, and Hellenistic culture and
philosophy all opposed the fledgling church. The religious apologists defended Christianity
against these attacks and sought to gain converts to the faith by arguing for the superiority of
the Christian position. There were also political apologists who argued that the church should
be tolerated by the state.
The apologists of the second century12 modeled their arguments after contemporary
philosophical refutations of polytheism and the critiques of pagan philosophy by Hellenistic
Jews. Of the many apologists from this period, the most important by far was Justin Martyr (ca.
100-165),13 a convert to Christianity from Platonism. In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin
used messianic prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. In his
two Apologies he appealed for the civil toleration of Christianity and argued that it was in fact
the true philosophy. To show that Christianity should be tolerated, he refuted common errors
and rumors (for example, that Christians were atheists and that they ate flesh and drank blood)
and presented Christianity as a morally superior religion. To support his claim that it was the
true philosophy, Justin made the first attempt in postbiblical history to correlate John’s doctrine
of the Logos with Greek philosophy, arguing that Christianity was superior to Platonism and
that any truth in Plato was actually plagiarized from Moses. Arguably, Justin’s doctrine was less
than consistently biblical, notably in his strongly subordinationist view of Christ. However, his
efforts were commendable given his place in Christian history (even before the process of
collecting the New Testament canon was completed) and in view of his role as a pioneer in
Christian theologizing and apologetics.
The third-century Alexandrians “continued to assimilate arguments from Platonic and Stoic
philosophers as well as Jewish controversialists.”14 Clement of Alexandria wrote a number of
theological discourses and an apologetic work called Protrepticus, a more sophisticated and
persuasive work than those of the second-century apologists. By far the most important Greek
apologist of the third century was Origen (ca. 185-254),15 whose lengthy Contra Celsum
(“Against Celsus”) was a reply to Celsus’s philosophical, ethical, and historical criticisms of
Christianity. In it, for example, Origen argued that Jesus did not do his miracles by sorcery,
offered an impressive historical defense of Jesus’ resurrection against an early hallucination
theory and other objections, and showed that the miracle stories of paganism are far less
credible than those of the Gospels.16 It is with good reason that Origen’s book has been ranked
as one of the classics of apologetics.17
Augustine
In the fourth and fifth centuries, pagan religions were on the wane and Christianity was on
the ascendancy throughout the empire, particularly after the edict of Constantine in 313.
Christian apologists, both Latin and Greek, wrote with pride of the progress and life-changing
effects of Christianity. They also became more systematic in their presentation of Christianity as
a worldview in contrast to competing philosophies, notably Neoplatonism.
The greatest apologist and theologian of this period and indeed of the first millennium of
Christian history was, by nearly everyone’s reckoning, Aurelius Augustine (354-430), the bishop
of Hippo, whose apologetic and theological writings ranged widely over the areas of human
culture, philosophy, and history.18 Augustine was won to the Christian faith after trying
Manicheism, a dualistic philosophy that viewed both good and evil as ultimate realities, and
Platonism, which convinced him that Manicheism was false and so, by his own testimony,
helped him on the path to Christianity. His earlier apologetic works, not surprisingly, were in
large part devoted to refuting Manichean philosophy (On the Catholic and Manichean Ways of
Life, Of True Religion, On the Usefulness of Belief).
As Augustine became more involved in church life, his apologetic works became more
diversified. Over the course of his life he wrote numerous works championing Christianity over
paganism, refuting heresies plaguing the church, and expounding Christian truth in a positive
manner in teaching manuals and in sermons for the edification of Christians. An original and
multigifted writer, thinker, and scholar, Augustine was able to develop an apologetic that was
built on a stronger metaphysical or worldview base. While his worldview was at first heavily
Platonic, as he matured his theology and philosophy became significantly less Platonic and
more and more biblical. Specifically, Augustine became the first Christian theologian and
apologist to embrace a thoroughly Pauline view of faith and of God’s sovereignty in salvation
and in human history. This Pauline theology, in turn, enabled him to develop the first
philosophically sophisticated, biblically sound, and comprehensive Christian view of the world
and of history. Such a Christian philosophy was necessary to combat pagan philosophies,
including Platonism, the philosophy he considered closest to Christianity. All such philosophies
were corrupt and incapable of bringing people to God. Augustine’s Christian philosophy was
expounded most fully in one of his last works, The City of God, widely regarded as one of the
five or ten most important books in the history of Western thought.19
Augustine’s teaching on apologetical issues has inspired apologists and theologians from
his day to the present. In his approach, faith and reason are interactive in coming to know the
true God in Jesus Christ. Reason precedes faith in that a rational mind and recognition of the
truth of what is to be believed must exist if we are to believe anything.20 But faith precedes
reason in that the truths of the Christian faith are in large part unseen—not only is God
invisible, but the redemptive acts of God in Jesus Christ occurred in the past and cannot be
directly witnessed. Because these truths cannot be seen, they must be accepted on the
authority of God’s revelation as given in Scripture and witnessed by the church.21 These truths
can then be understood as the believer comes to appreciate their significance from the inside.
“For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to
believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.”22 Augustine, then, was the first apologist to
enunciate the principle of believing in order to understand, or faith seeking understanding
(fides quaerens intellectum), but for him it was only one side of the coin. He frequently
expressed this interactive or interdependent view of faith and reason in such statements as
“For faith is understanding’s step; and understanding faith’s attainment.”23 Moreover, he
emphasized (in his later writings) that both faith and reason are enabled by God’s grace. He
declared that “no one is sufficient for himself, either to begin or to perfect faith; but our
sufficiency is of God.”24
This does not mean that non-Christians know nothing about God. Augustine cited Romans
1:20 to show that some philosophers, especially Platonists, have been able from the creation to
recognize the fact of a Creator God. The line of reasoning by which even pagans can be made to
admit a Creator is essentially what philosophers would later call a cosmological argument,
reasoning from the changeableness of all things in the world (Greek cosmos) to the existence of
an unmade Maker of all things. This was one of a number of arguments by which Augustine
reasoned that knowledge of God was available to pagans.25 But this knowledge cannot prevent
them from falling into idolatry and polytheism.26 The true worship of God can be found only by
placing faith in Jesus Christ.
Such faith is not a groundless faith: “they are much deceived, who think that we believe in
Christ without any proofs concerning Christ.”27 Augustine wove the proofs he found compelling
into an apologetic consisting of a number of strands. These proofs included fulfilled prophecy,
the consistent monotheistic faith and worship of the church, the miracles of the Bible, and
especially the “miracle” of the massive conversion of much of Roman society to faith in a
crucified God even when such faith brought martyrdom.28
Anselm
By the seventh century Christianity had absorbed Greco-Roman culture and triumphed in
its struggle against paganism. The church was the central vehicle of Western culture, and its
apologists during the Middle Ages directed their efforts in three directions—toward
unconverted Judaism, the threat of Islam, and the rational ground for belief.29 Two Christian
philosophers of the Middle Ages who stand out for their contributions to apologetics, and
whose works continue to be read and debated today, were Anselm and Thomas Aquinas.
Anselm (1033-1109), the bishop of Canterbury, was one of the most creative and original
philosophers the Christian church has ever produced.30 He emphasized the side of Augustine’s
view of faith and reason that viewed faith as prior to reason or understanding. “For I do not
seek to understand in order to believe but I believe in order to understand [credo ut
intelligam].”31 Although his philosophical arguments are often treated simply as rationalistic
proofs designed to convince atheists, for him they were expressions of the search for
understanding of one who already believed. On the other hand, he did intend at least some of
his arguments as proofs to answer unbelievers and to confront them with the truth, as we shall
see.
The most famous by far of these philosophical arguments has come to be known as the
ontological argument,32 the development of which in Anselm’s Proslogion was a
groundbreaking effort in apologetics. The essence of the argument is that the notion of a being
of unsurpassable greatness is logically inescapable. From the idea of “that than which nothing
greater can be thought,” Anselm inferred the existence or being (Greek ontos, hence
“ontological” argument) of God.
The argument has been interpreted in several markedly divergent ways. Frequently it has
been treated as a rational proof of the existence of God, and as such it has usually (but not
always) been rejected by both Christian and non-Christian philosophers. Some philosophers
have taken it to prove that if there is a God, he must be a necessary being (that is, a being that
must exist, that cannot not exist) rather than a contingent being (one that might or might not
have existed). Others have argued that it proves that necessary existence must be
acknowledged for some being, either for the cosmos itself or for a being transcendent to the
cosmos. Still others have offered radical reinterpretations of the argument. For example, Karl
Barth took it to mean that God must reveal himself in order to be known. Charles Hartshorne
reworked it to prove his “process” view that God is not the greatest possible being but is
forever becoming a greater being and, in comparison to all others, is unsurpassably great. This
bewildering diversity of interpretations of Anselm testifies to the provocative genius of his
argument.
Anselm’s other major contribution to apologetics is found in his book Cur Deus Homo
(“Why God became a man” or “Why the God-man”), in which he argued that God became a
man because only God in his infinite being could provide an infinite satisfaction or atonement
for man’s sin.33 Anselm prefaced the work with the observation that the church’s teachers
discussed “the rational basis of our faith . . . not only to confound the foolishness of believers
and to break through their hardheartedness, but also in order to nourish those who, having
hearts already cleansed by faith, delight in the rational basis of our faith—a rational basis for
which we ought to hunger once [we have] the certainty of faith.”34 The first part of the work
“contains the answers of believers to the objections of unbelievers who repudiate the Christian
faith because they regard it as incompatible with reason. And this book goes on to prove by
rational necessity—Christ being removed from sight, as if there had never been anything known
about Him—that no man can possibly be saved without Him.”35 At the beginning of the book
Anselm explained that he wrote it at the request of other believers. They asked for the book
“not in order to approach faith by way of reason but in order to delight in the comprehension
and contemplation of the doctrines which they believe, as well as in order to be ready, as best
they can, always to give a satisfactory answer to everyone who asks of them a reason for the
hope which is in us.”36 Later Anselm pointed out that “although they [unbelievers] seek a
rational basis because they do not believe whereas we seek it because we do believe,
nevertheless it is one and the same thing that both we and they are seeking.”37
These statements in Cur Deus Homo make it clear that Anselm did see his work as
apologetic in purpose. While careful to disavow any intention of displacing faith as the basis of
Christian certainty, Anselm did hope to offer reasoned arguments that would show unbelievers
that Christian faith has a rational basis. Evidently he viewed these arguments as designed to
render unbelievers without rational excuse and even to persuade them to accept the Christian
faith. But while such arguments might help in bringing a person to faith, for Anselm such faith
would have to be placed, not in his rational arguments, but in the God-man himself.
