Week #1: Introduction to Apologetics

1.   What is Apologetics and why study it?

WHAT IS APOLOGETICS?

Apologetics is a defense of something.  In the case of Christian apologetics, it is the defense of orthodox, biblical Christianity.

1 Peter 3:15 “…Always be prepared to give an answer¹ to everyone who asks you to give the reason² for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

¹Greek apologia: a speech in defense

Original Word: ἀπολογία, ας, ἡ

Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine

Transliteration: apologia

Phonetic Spelling: (ap-ol-og-ee’-ah)

Definition: a speech in defense

Usage: a verbal defense (particularly in a law court).

from Strong’s Concordance on Biblehub.com

WHY STUDY APOLOGETICS?

²The purpose of learning about apologetics is to EQUIP you as a witness of Jesus Christ.  The arguments and information we will learn in this Apologetics class are a SUPPLEMENT to YOUR STORY.

No one can dispute YOUR STORY about what Jesus means to you, how he has worked in your life, how life is different FOR YOU as a result of your relationship with Jesus.

But it will be helpful to have answers to the most common objections to Christianity, the Bible, etc.  And it will likely build your own faith to learn more about these subjects, as well.

In a later class, we will each write our own 1-minute faith story with the objective of being able to share it with others.

Youth need reasons to believe.  J. Warner Wallace in the forward of the book Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side by Natasha Crain explained that after his first year as a youth pastor, the kids he had throughout their entire senior year all gave up on their faith by the end of their first semester at university.  He had focused on building the group and helping them form friendships, entertaining them, and ensuring that the kids liked him.  But he hadn’t “given them sufficient reason to believe that Christianity is true.”   He quickly changed his approach to provide evidence for the truth of Christianity, the kind of evidence that convinced him, as a cold case homicide detective and former atheist, to believe.

Loss of Catechism as a normal practice.  Christians used to always have to go through a process of “catechesis” prior to baptism or confirmation.  Catechism taught the basics of Christian doctrine, often in a question/answer format.  Catechisms usually included explanations of God’s redemptive story of creation, the fall, and redemption as well as the 10 Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer.  Catholics still do this.

Apologetics of other belief systems.  Nabeel Qureshi was a devout Muslim who read the entire Quran in Arabic and memorized the last seven chapters of the Quran by the time he was 5 years old.  Nabeel explained the pattern of prayers for devout Muslims and also that he was taught Muslim apologetics that he used to convince Christians to convert to Islam in school.  He even learned how to use specific Bible verses.  The Muslim emphasis on prayers and education makes Christian training, especially in the family, look extremely anemic.

His testimony can be found here:  https://youtu.be/k0D8Uz4oQck and begins at 12:23.

2.   Four Functions of Apologetics

1. PROOF/MAKE A CASE:  Using philosophical arguments and scientific and historical evidences of the Christian faith.  Goal is to develop a positive case for Christianity as a belief system.  Show that Christianity is reasonable.
2. DEFENSE:  Defending Christianity against misunderstandings, misrepresentations; answering objections, criticisms or questions from non-Christians; clearing away any intellectual difficulties that nonbelievers claim stand in the way of their coming to faith.  Show that Christianity is credible. 
3. REFUTATION:  “Offense.”  Refutation of opposing beliefs.  Show that non-Christian thought is unreasonable – show the irrationality of the non-Christian position.
4. PERSUASION:  Bringing non-Christians to a commitment to Christ – evangelism.  Show that Christianity is not known by reason alone – faith to trust Christ.

(Notes from Faith Has Its Reasons by Ken Boa and Robert Bowman, Jr.)

3.   Brief History of Apologetics

Christian apologetics has developed over the entire course of Christian history, beginning in the Bible.  There have been/are MANY apologists and apologetic writings through the centuries.  Books and articles continue to be written on this subject and no doubt will until Christ returns.  The ones noted here are meant to provide just a few examples.

Apologetics in the Bible

Though the New Testament writings are not classified as formal apologetic treatises, most of them include arguments for believing in Jesus Christ, attempts to convince Jews that Jesus is the Messiah described by Old Testament prophets, that the resurrection is real, etc. 

Many New Testament writings provide arguments against false teachings in order to defend the gospel against perversion from within the church.  Some examples include:

• Luke 1:1-4, John 20:31
• Acts 17:16-32:  Paul’s speech to the Athenians (Acts 17) is a model of Christian apology.  Notice how Paul connects the Gospel to something the Athenians are familiar with – their “unknown God.”
• Many of the writings of Paul in his epistles.

EARLY CHURCH FATHERS:  Opposition to early Christianity:  Rabbinic Judaism, various heresies such as Gnosticism and Arianism, persecuting paganism, Hellenistic culture.  Just a few early apologists

JUSTIN MARTYR (c. 100-165) – convert from Platonism. 

• First Apology
• Second Apology
• Discourse to the Greeks
• On the Resurrection
• On the Sole Government of God
• Hortatory Address to the Greeks
• Fragments from the Lost Writings of Justin
• Dialogue with Trypho

Origen – Book Contra Celsum one of the classics of apologetics. 

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430) – most important for the first millennium.  The City of God widely regarded as one of the five or ten most important books in the history of Western thought.

“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.”   

Middle Ages – Most Important Apologists

Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4–1109)  Anselm was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109.  He was a philosopher as well as a theologian and presented the Christian faith as a rational system of belief.  He is best known for the well-known “ontological argument” for the existence of God which he describes in the Proslogion, one of his major works.  The other is the Monologion.

Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274)  Perhaps the greatest figure of thirteenth-century Europe in philosophy and theology. His Summa Theologica is a collection of all of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church.  It’s purpose was to be an instructional guide for theology students, including seminarians and laity who were literate.  The Summa presents step by step logic regarding the doctrines of God, Creation, Man, Christ, and the Sacraments.  You can read it here:  https://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/home.html.

Post-Reformation

Three influential apologists post-reformation were:

Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer.

• “Pascal sought to strike a balance between faith and reason.  He did not want to abandon reason altogether, but he also did not want its importance or value in knowing Christ to be over-emphasized.
• He believed that God has given enough evidence of the truth of Christianity that those who want to know the truth will see it, but he has not shown himself in a way that would compel faith in those who don’t care or don’t want to believe.
• Pascal was especially concerned about those who don’t give serious thought to the issue. He urged them to realize that if Christianity is true and they fail to believe, they are in most serious danger.”  (Faith Has Its Reasons, p.47, emphasis mine).

Charles Hodge:  the most famous Calvinist theologian at Old Princeton,

• maintained that although reason must submit to God’s revelation in Scripture, reason must first discern whether Scripture is indeed a revelation from God.
• The non-Christian must therefore be invited to use reason and “common sense” to evaluate the evidences (miracles, fulfilled prophecy, etc.) for Christianity.  (Faith Has Its Reasons, p.50).

Abraham Kuyper:  developed the notion of the antithesis.

• There is, said Kuyper, an absolute antithesis between the two sets of principles to which Christians and non-Christians are fundamentally committed, (for example, God as sovereign versus man as autonomous).

Modern Apologists

There are many great apologists around today.  Here is one website’s list of the top 20 along with links to their websites:

1. Norm Geisler:  normangeisler.com
2. William Lane Craig:  Reasonable Faith.org
3. J. Warner Wallace: ColdCaseChristianity.com
4. John Lennox: John Lennox.org
5. Greg Koukl: STR.org
6. Paul Copan: PaulCopan.com
7. Ed Feser: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/
8. Lee Strobel:  Lee Strobel.com
9. Josh McDowell:  Josh.org
10. Discovery Institute  (Dembski, Meyer, Richards, Luskin, Wells): www.Discovery.org
11. C.S. Lewis: CSLewis.org
12. Gary Habermas:  GaryHabermas.com
13. Timothy McGrew:  http://historicalapologetics.org/
14. Dr. Michael Brown:  AskDrBRown.org
15. Richard Howe: Richardghowe.com
16. Tim Keller:  TimothyKeller.com
17. J. Budziszewski:  Undergroundthomist.org
18. Hank Hanegraaff:  Equip.org
19. Hugh Ross: Reasons.org
20. R. C. Sproul: Ligonier

from https://crossexamined.org/top-20-apologists/

4.   Apologetical Approaches

In reality, as witnesses of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, we will likely use a mix of these approaches.

Classical Apologetics refers to an apologetic approach that emphasizes the use of logical criteria for example, the law of noncontradiction, self-consistency, comprehensiveness, coherence) in determining the validity of competing religious philosophies.  These criteria are used to refute the truth claims of non-Christian worldviews and to establish the existence of God through theistic proofs.

Evidentialism seeks to ground the Christian faith primarily on empirically and historically verifiable facts. Evidentialists often draw a parallel between the scientific method of testing theories and theological verification. 

Reformed Apologetics argues that we ought to ground reason and fact on the truth of the Christian faith, rather than trying to prove or defend the faith on the basis of reason or fact.  Most Reformed apologists seek to show that while non-Christian belief systems cannot account for the validity of reason, fact, and truth, Christian theism can.   This approach was inspired by the theology of John Calvin.

Fideism maintains that human knowledge of truth (including, and especially, religious truth) is at bottom a personal matter of the heart or the will rather than of the intellect.  Personal, existential experience with God cannot be grounded in rational analysis or scientific and historical evidences, since it is a matter of the heart.  Fideism argues from humanity’s basic existential needs to the fulfillment of those needs in Christianity.

(from Faith Has Its Reasons)

Expository Apologetics uses Scripture to defend tenets of the Christian faith and to refute misuse of and erroneous beliefs about the Bible and Christianity.  Promoted by Dr. Voddie Baucham, Jr. in his new book by the same name.

Narrative Apologetics is an approach to explain and defend the Christian faith by telling stories.  New approach described in a book by Alistair McGrath by the same name.  Telling stories is the hot button du jour so it is no surprise that someone has come up with this approach to apologetics. 

Apologetics Bibliography

(A work in progress.)

Baucham.  Expository Apologetics.

Boa. Faith Has Its Reasons.

Boa.  I’m Glad You Asked.

Brumby.  Do You Still Think God is Good?

Childers.  Another Gospel?

Clayton.  The Source.

Colson.  How Now Shall We Live?

Craig. Reasonable Faith.

Crain.  Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side.

CrossExamined.org.  https://crossexamined.org/top-20-apologists/#

Geisler. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.

Geisler.  The Big Book of Christian Apologetics.

Groothuis.  Truth Decay.

Keller.  The Reason for God.

Koukl.  Tactics.

Lewis.  Mere Christianity.

Markos.  Apologetics for the 21^st Century.

McDowell.  Answers.

McDowell.  Evidence that Demands a Verdict.

McFarland. The 10 Most common Objections to Christianity.

Schaeffer.  He is There and He is Not Silent.

Strobel.  The Case for Christ.

Strobel.  The Case for the Resurrection.

Zacharias.  Jesus Among Other Gods.