What is Apologetics and Why
is it important?
by Dr. Greg Pritchard
Apologetics and William Wilberforce –
What role did apologetics have on Wilberforce, the
British politician who worked
to eliminate
slavery?
What is
Apologetics?
· Is it the Defense of the faith?
·
Apologetics is the Science
and Art of Christian Persuasion.
1. Apologetics is the Science and Art of Christian Persuasion.
· The Ethical context of Persuasion
· Most quoted verse about Apologetics: I Peter 3:15.
“Always be prepared to give an (apologia)
defense to everyone who asks
you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
What is the context of this verse?
8Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be
sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with
blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
10For,“Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from deceitful speech.
11He must turn from evil and do good;
he must seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those
who do evil.”
13Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are
blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.” 15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to
everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do
this with gentleness and respect, 16keeping
a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good
behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good
than for doing evil.
·
As disciples of Jesus we
are called to an ethical and relational way of life and
out of this way of life to persuasively speak
a word of truth.
It is
not Christian Apologetics without
this ethical way of life.
· Burning a heretic vs. Reflecting Christ’s character
2. Apologetics is the Science and Art of Christian Persuasion
·The spectre of post-modernism frightens people from
saying Christianity is true.
·
Many Evangelicals have taught that any
attempt to persuade a nonbeliever is fruitless and
unbiblical.
·
The early Christians proclaimed the Gospel and they persuaded
their contemporaries that it was
true
and reasonable.
· We are called to persuade others like Paul did. Acts 17 records:
As
his custom was Paul went into the
synagogue and on three days he reasoned
with
them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to
suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I
am proclaiming to you is the Christ,”
he said.
Some of the Jews were persuaded
and joined Paul and Silas, as did a
large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. (vs 2-4)
· We will examine the Biblical Principles of Persuasion in some depth in the second half of this
lecture.
3. Apologetics is the Science and Art
of Christian Persuasion
· The Science of Apologetics is the systematic study of the academic disciplines which are
involved in apologetics.
· To study and practice apologetics, we need to be good students and understand a large body of
knowledge. Apologetics is one branch of theological study which is interdisciplinary by
its very nature.
· The dialectic of spiritual growth in Apologetics:
Eagerness to grow and share our faith à Being confronted with things we don’t
understand à Honestly asking Questions à Zealous desire to learn
· Many Christian leaders shame individuals to not be honest about their questions
· Without understanding what we believe and why we believe it, our faith becomes brittle and
fragile: “Honest questions deserve honest answers.”
· Virtually any aspect of human life can be turned into an argument for why
Christianity is true and reasonable
4. Lastly Apologetics is the Science and Art of Christian Persuasion.
·What are the skills that are needed to communicate effectively with a
nonbeliever?
·The skill of a Christian apologist who debates atheists is comparable to the skill
needed in becoming an Olympic figure skater.
·The four quadrants of learning any skill
1. Unconsciously Incompetent
1. Consciously
Incompetent
2. Consciously
Competent
3. Unconsciously Competent
· We need to have lay apologists, apologists in politics, apologists in media,
apologists in film, apologists in journalism, in law, in medicine and in all
areas of academia.
What are the central elements of a biblical model of
persuasion?
·
With apologetics, we are to not merely protect our
flock but we are to seek to win the sheep
that are helpless and harassed without a
Shepherd.
The Gospel of Matthew 9: 35-38 relates how Jesus was
confronted by the needs of the masses:
“Jesus went through all the towns and
villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom
and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had
compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without
a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers
into his harvest field.”
·
The individuals that
Jesus responds to are not yet his disciples.
The Lord feels empathy and compassion in
seeing unbelievers.
He tells his disciples to pray for workers, to pray for Spiritual Shepherds.
· Augustine is attracted by Christian love and its way of life. Augustine recalls his mother’s
love for him and her confidence that he would one day turn to Christ. Bishop
Ambrose’s kindness and generosity softened Augustine’s heart toward the gospel.
Jesus
understood his audience and employed images that they understood.
Paul sought to proclaim, explain and defend the gospel (persuade) in a
way that made sense in each separate context.
Understanding the person or audience one is addressing is the first essential step
of persuasion.
To help individuals understand and respond to the Gospel, we need to first understand them.
There are many different types of unbelievers.
· Indifferent Unbelievers
· Hostile Unbelievers
· Curious Unbelievers
· Sincere Unbelievers
Ø Each requires a different response.
The path to faith is often littered with various roadblocks. An apologist who is seeking to help someone come to faith must first identify the particular obstacles between that person and a commitment of faith. These roadblocks might include various Alternatives to Christianity, common Roadblocks to Christianity, and various Misconceptions about Christianity. Only after understanding an individual or group, can an apologist possibly help remove such roadblocks.
Roadblock of Pride
The doorway to the truth is humility. If someone wants to enter they must humbly lower their neck. When Augustine first examined Christianity, he rejected it, for it didn’t appeal to his inflated pride.
Roadblock of Sin & Lust
Augustine explained, “for the space of nine years I lived a life in which I was seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, the prey of various desires.”
Roadblock of False Beliefs
Augustine explained “When I thought of you, I was not thinking of something firm and solid. For it was not you yourself who were my God; my God was an empty fantasy, a creation of my own error.”
Roadblock of False paths
Augustine began
following the Manichean false teaching.
Augustine writes “as I went
farther
from
the truth, I had the impression that I was drawing nearer to it.”
Jesus taught the truth to people where they lived. Jesus spoke a distinct word to each unique
situation. He taught people the truth, rather than the truth to people. When the scribes showed their lack of sincerity, Jesus responded by telling a parable that illustrated their hard hearts. Mark writes, “They knew he had spoken the parable against them.” (12:12)
New Testament scholar Walter Hollenweger explains:
“We find everywhere the same pattern: the starting point of Jesus’ evangelism is mostly
(although not always) a question, or the concrete situation of the people around him…
New
Testament evangelism does not start from a proposition. It starts from a
situation.”
The Apostle Paul is the primary example of one who, in his efforts to communicate, identified
with different audiences. In I Corinthians 9:19-22 he writes,
Though I am free and belong to no man, I
make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as
possible. To the Jews I become as a Jew, to win the Jews. To those
under the law I
became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the
law), so as to win those
under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not
having the law (though
I am
not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not
having
the
law. To the weak I became weak, to win
the weak. I have become all things to
all
men
so that by all means I might save some.
Historian Henry
Chadwick explains “Paul’s genius as an
apologist is his astonishing ability to
reduce to an apparent vanishing point the gulf between himself and
his converts and yet
to gain them for the Christian gospel.”
E. Challenging individuals to Sincerely
seek the truth
Jesus promised “If anyone chooses
to do God’s will, he will find out whether my
teaching comes from God of whether I speak on
my own.” (John 7:17)
When Jesus sees Jerusalem he cries
out:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often I would have gathered you children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not.” (Mt. 23:37)
The Lord places blame on those who
are not sincerely seeking the truth.
He condemns those who choose to not listen to and follow him.
Listen to what he says to his
generation:
condemn it;
for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Soloman’s wisdom, and now
one greater than Soloman is here.” (Math. 12: 42)
The Bereans, after listening to Paul in Acts 17 are called “of more noble character” for they
responded to Paul’s message by “examining the Scriptures every day to see
if what Paul
was saying was true.”
“If you call out for insight and cry aloud
for understanding and if you look for it as
for silver and search for it as for hidden
treasure then you will
understand the fear of the Lord and find the
knowledge of God. For the
Lord gives wisdom” (Prov.
2:3-6a)
We see God’s sovereignty and human freedom side by side in the Scripture on this very point.
In Acts 8:30-34 Philip is led by the Spirit to run along side the Eunuch chariot and then
Asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” the Eunuch answers,
“unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come and sit with him …
The Eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me please, who is the prophet talking about?”
A destabilizing argument seeks to eliminate a false belief system or idea which someone may hold.
We see the apostle Paul engaged in this enterprise when he writes:
“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.” (II Cor. 10:5)
Before a nonbeliever is willing to seriously consider the truth claims of Christianity, he
must be willing to leave his current worldview or explanation of the world. An unbeliever becomes increasingly open to an alternative when shown that his world view does not adequately explain the world.
The word nihilation comes from Nihilism, the philosophical belief that rejects the existence of
meaning in the world. In essence, this process of destabilizing someone’s worldview seeks to push someone toward nihilism. We see an example of nihilation when Augustine observed one Christian Apologist who publically confronted the Manicheans in open debate. Augustine recalls,
I had began to be disturbed by listening to
a man called Elpidius who spoke and
argued openly against the Manichees and
produced evidence from the Scripture
which was not easy to resist. And the answer which they (the Manichees) did give, seemed to me a very feeble one.”
We need to identify various Alternatives to Christianity, the common Roadblocks to
Christianity, and the various Misconceptions about Christianity and begin a work of deconstruction.
G. Positive Arguments on why Christianity is True
It is this area of positive argument and evidence that many think is apologetics.
Only at this point do arguments that show why Christianity is true and reasonable seem credible.
A consistent example in Acts of a repeated positive (why is Christianity true) argument are Paul’s
repeated speeches to the Jews explaining why Jesus was the Messiah of the Old Testament.
Augustine was eager to grow in his professional life as a professor of Rhetoric and went to listen to
Bishop Ambrose who was considered a great orator. He was stunned by what he heard.
“As I opened
my heart in order to recognize how eloquently he was speaking, it occurred to
me at the
same time (though this idea came gradually) how truly he was
speaking. First I began to see that the points which he made were capable of
being defended. I had thought that nothing could be said for the Catholic faith
in the face of the objections raised by the Manichees, but it now appeared to
me that this faith could be maintained on reasonable grounds”.
Applying this approach to our times
One historian
summarizes that the early church’s success was due to 3 factors: The early
Christians out-thought, out-lived and
out-died their contemporaries.