God the Spirit must enlighten the soul of someone to be persuaded of the truth claims of the Bible. Why engage in Apologetics? It's a great deal of effort and you won't convert some people. God commands Christians to reflect Christ, and Christ is Truth. So we are to give a defense to:
Many people claim to be scientific, but will then suspend the Law of Causality or the Law of Non-Contradiction to avoid a logical conclusion that does not fit their desired solution. The conclusion is already written on their heart and they will not accept good reasons:
- Silence the critics of God by responding to objections
- Fulfill the Great Commission by offering the Truth about Christ
God demands you to give an account of your faith
1 Peter 3:15 ...honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. However, do this with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear, so that when you are accused, those who denounce your Christian life will be put to shame. HCSB
Apologetics is one way we honor the Lord. You wouldn't let someone “talk about your momma” without raising an objection – why would you stand silently by when someone slanders God? As Christians we combat and demolish lies against Him:
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. HCSB
Don't be surprised at the hostility you receive when you present the Truth. God's Word divides people
1 John 3:8 The one who commits sin is of the Devil, for the Devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the Devil’s works.
Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart. No creature is hidden from Him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
The pagan says Christianity is not rational or scientific -- that Christians just “believe” in spite of the facts. Apologists must counter these lies with reason and facts in a calm, respectful way.
What are we up against?
“The average Christian does not realize that there is an intellectual war going on in the universities and in the professional journals and scholarly societies. Christianity is being attacked as irrational or obsolete, and millions of students, our future generation of leaders, have absorbed that viewpoint.“ Dr, William Lane Craig, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/in-intellectual-neutral#_edn4
Today in society, Christianity, and in fact all religion, is considered a 'self-delusion'. Coming from the perspective that Christians are 'dorks' and believe in myths and legends, we are viewed as intellectually “damaged” or “lacking” of some key mental ability. Society uncritically believes that our “brightest” minds are firmly committed naturalists and evolutionists.
False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root. J. Gresham Machen, "Christianity and Culture," Princeton Theological Review 11 (1913): 7.
“The root of the obstacle is to be found in the university, and it is there that it must be attacked.” Dr, William Lane Craig, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/in-intellectual-neutral#_edn4
Dr. Machen warned us about this in 1913!
“What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassionate debate. So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity.” J. Gresham Machen, "Christianity and Culture," Princeton Theological Review 11 (1913): 6.
Why is it important that Christians never cede the intellectual 'high ground' to the secularists? Because
“...the gospel is never heard in isolation. It is always heard against the background of the cultural milieu in which one lives. A person raised in a cultural milieu in which Christianity is still seen as an intellectually viable option will display an openness to the Gospel which a person who is secularized will not. For the secular person you may as well tell him to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ! “ Dr, William Lane Craig, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/in-intellectual-neutral#_edn4
Yet for all the intellectual posturing and self-congratulation of the atheistic crowd, they betray their own insecurity in many ways. Start with the key question of faith “Do you believe in evolution?” Evolution, you see, is a belief system. It must be believed or disbelieved – it is not a scientific fact that can be accepted without doubt because it in reality is not a fact or even a good scientific model for the complexity and information bearing design seen everywhere in biological systems.
What part has the church played?
J. P. Moreland, in his challenging book "Love Your God with All Your Mind" has severe criticism for our churches that cater to a 'buyers market' mentality, filled with consumers who attend to be entertained and filled with spiritual energy without taking the personal responsibility for their own growth. He asks of that churchWhat would be the theological understanding, ...the evangelistic courage, the. . . cultural penetration of such a church? …If the interior life does not really matter all that much, why spend the time ...trying to develop an ...intellectual, spiritually mature life? If someone is basically passive, he or she will just not make the effort to read, preferring instead to be entertained. If a person is sensate in orientation, music, magazines filled with pictures, and visual media in general will be more important than mere words on a page or abstract thoughts. If one is hurried and distracted, one will have little patience for theoretical knowledge and too short ...an attention span to stay with an idea while it is being carefully developed...
And if someone is overly individualistic, infantile, and narcissistic, what will that person read, if he or she reads at all? ...Christian self-help books that are filled with self-serving content, ...slogans, simplistic moralizing, a lot of stories and pictures, and inadequate diagnosis of issues that place no demand on the reader. Books about Christian celebrities. ...what will not be read are books that equip people to ...develop a well-reasoned, theological understanding of the Christian religion, and fill their role in the broader kingdom of God ...[Such] a church ...will become ...impotent to stand against the powerful forces of secularism that threaten to bury Christian ideas under a veneer of soulless pluralism and misguided scientism.
In such a context, the church will be tempted to measure her success largely in terms of numbers—numbers achieved by cultural accommodation to empty selves. In this way, ...the church will become her own grave digger; her means of short-term "success" will turn out to be the very thing that marginalizes her in the long run.
J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: Nav Press, 1997), 93-94.
So Where Does the Apologist Start?
Demonstrate the existence of God. Use reason and facts, not emotion or experiences – once a person accepts God “is”, only then will your testimony be useful. But beware the pitfalls of logic. Language often becomes an obstacle to communication, especially abstract ideas.Many people claim to be scientific, but will then suspend the Law of Causality or the Law of Non-Contradiction to avoid a logical conclusion that does not fit their desired solution. The conclusion is already written on their heart and they will not accept good reasons:
Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “God does not exist.” They are corrupt; they do vile deeds. HSCB
A proud heart corrupts wisdom. This was the cause of the fall of Satan:
Ezekiel 28:17 Your heart became proud because of your beauty; For the sake of your splendor you corrupted your wisdom. HSCB
A man's heart can deceive his rational mind:
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it? HSCB
The strategy of the Apologist is to show that it is:
- Irrational to deny the existence of God
- Unscientific to reject the truth claims of Jesus of Nazareth, a historical person.
Scientific inquiry will reveal the Truth of Christianity. This will provide persuasive evidence, but will not provide unassailable proof. But neither does the “skeptic” have unassailable proof. So while some will remain unpersuaded to the facts of Christ and God, do not allow the unbeliever, who has faith in something else, and a bias from their world view, to not be responsible for the burden of any proof. The pagan must also defend their world view, and they cannot. Their only strategy is to try and force the Christian to have the burden of proof.
Get busy learning something; especially logic and Apologetics, if not for others, then to at least strengthen your own belief. Frankly, I see our churches aimed at newcomers and children and teach doctrine and theology at the 3rd grade level most of the time. Christians are entertained, not educated; emotionally recharged, but not intellectually equipped. Their “buzz” on Sunday is crushed on Monday by the intellectual arguments of society or the pressures and vicissitudes of life.
The Bible persuades the open minded person with sound reason and the Spirit - it does not ask the believer to suspend the laws of Logic and Epistemology:
Get busy learning something; especially logic and Apologetics, if not for others, then to at least strengthen your own belief. Frankly, I see our churches aimed at newcomers and children and teach doctrine and theology at the 3rd grade level most of the time. Christians are entertained, not educated; emotionally recharged, but not intellectually equipped. Their “buzz” on Sunday is crushed on Monday by the intellectual arguments of society or the pressures and vicissitudes of life.
The Bible persuades the open minded person with sound reason and the Spirit - it does not ask the believer to suspend the laws of Logic and Epistemology:
- Law of Non-Contradiction - part of the scientific method and basis of all logic
- Law of Causality - for every effect there must be a cause.
- Assumption of the Reliability of Sense Perception
- Analogical Use of Language - holding of meaning when using language
More Articles on Christian Apologetics
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Scripture citations are from: Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) © 2009 Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville TN or New King James Version®. (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson
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