Religious Term "Apologetics"

Maryn

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I'm helping a deeply religious friend with a letter she wrote to her church's leaders, critiquing what she hopes is its final version. (I hope it isn't.) I've had to look up a few terms, mostly for whether they're capitalized, but now I'm struggling with the word apologetics, a noun meaning reasoned arguments or writings that justify something, usually a religious doctrine. Okay, got it.

But the writer is using it with singular verbs, apologetics is, and while it reads wrong to me, I don't really know. Nor have I been able to find a source that makes it clear. Is it a collective noun, a group of writings or arguments treated as a singular thing?

Looking for the word in use online, I see both singular and plural uses.

My critique is nearly done except for this, and I'd like to finish it up today. Anybody got an inside track on this word?
 

Curlz

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"Mathematics is tough", too. Think of it as "the science of apologetics". It's one thing.
 

MaeZe

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There is no version of apologetics without the 's' that I'm aware of. I've always thought of it as singular.
 

benbenberi

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Other singular nouns of similar type: politics, ethics, economics, mathematics. It's a Greek thing.
 

Maryn

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Those wily Greeks! Thanks, everyone. I'll send the critique as it stands.

Maryn, who knows so very little
 

ForeverYoursCaffiene

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I've always liked this definition on a humor level:

Apologetics: People who apologize for their faith.
 

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Apologetics as a subject is singular. "Apologetics is a fun subject in divinity school." But when referring to a number of apologetic treatises, it is plural. "Aquinas and and C.S. Lewis both wrote apologetic essays. Their apologetics are all well written and fascinating reading." Context is everything.