Transcript Document

APOLOGETICS
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VARIETIES OF APOLOGETICS
Bernard Ramm’s Taxonomy
• Systems stressing Subjective Immediacy
– Pascal, Kierkegaard, Brunner
• Systems stressing Natural Theology
– Aquinas, Butler, Tennant
• Systems stressing Revelation
– Augustine, Calvin, Kuyper
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VARIETIES OF APOLOGETICS
•
Approaches emphasizing Evidence
• Approaches emphasizing Reason
• Approaches emphasizing Verification
• Approaches emphasizing
Presuppositions
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EVIDENCES
• John W. Montgomery: Emphasizes the philosophical
and historical investigation of the evidence, evidence
that overwhelmingly validates the biblical view of
reality. Among the most significant of all evidences is
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Our apologetic must be
modeled on the Christ who offered objective evidence
of his power to forgive sins by healing the paralytic and
who convinced the unbelieving Thomas that he was God
and Lord by the undeniable presence of his resurrected
body.” John W. Montgomery, “Once Upon an A
Priori,” in E.R. Geehan, ed., Jerusalem and Athens, 390.
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EVIDENCES
• “Christianity is radically different from the welter of
religious options of past and present in that it does not
demand a ‘leap of blind faith’- an amputation of the
head- as prerequisite for inner confirmation of its
message. True as with any life commitment (marriage is
an obvious example), Christianity’s subjective
attestation comes only with the personal entrée into it,
but that entrance can be made with full confidence that
the evidence warrants it. To appropriate Christianity
subjectively is to respond in the most reasonable manner
to the powerful objective evidence of its truth.”
Montgomery, Christianity for the Tough Minded, 14-15.
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EVIDENCES
• Josh McDowell: Emphasizes the
philosophical and historical reasons that
prove the truthfulness of Christianity.
Believing in the “correspondence theory of
truth” (ultimate truth corresponds to reality,
or what is, McDowell employs logic,
common sense, and evidences to demonstrate
the that the Christian interpretation of the
facts of history is the best and most
consistent.
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EVIDENCES
• McDowell explains his own experience: “I took
the evidence that I could gather and placed it on
the scales. The scales tipped in favor of Christ
as the Son of God, resurrected from the dead.
The evidence so overwhelmingly leans toward
Christ that when I became a Christian, I was
‘stepping into the light’ rather than ‘leaping into
the darkness.’” Josh McDowell, The New
Evidence that Demands A Verdict, xxxii1.
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EVIDENCES
DATA
Inductive
Process
TRUTH
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REASON
• Stuart Hackett: Beginning with the assumption that
the laws of logic are innate, Hackett appeals to the data
of evidence to demonstrate the truthfulness of
Christianity (he makes use of the Kantian synthetic apriori), a truthfulness that is most probable, but not
demonstrable. “. . . apologetics may therefore be
defined as the systematic, rational formulation and
defense of beliefs about knowledge, reality, and
conduct. And in particular, Christian apologetics would
consist in the attempt to show that only the Christian
World View satisfactorily meets the ultimate demands
of reason in its approach to experience.” The
Resurrection of Theism, 20,21.
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REASON
• Gordon Clark: Beginning with the
presuppositions of the existence of God and his
revelation in the Bible, Clark argues that logic
is an expression of the nature of God and, thus,
along with Revelation, the arbiter of all truth
claims. “That Logic is the light of men is a
proposition that could well introduce the
section after next on the relation of logic to
man. But the thought that Logic is God will
bring us to the conclusion of the present
section. . . .
Cont.,
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REASON
• The law of contradiction is not to be taken as an
axiom prior to or independent of God. The law is
God thinking. For this reason also the law of
contradiction is not subsequent to God. If one
should say that logic is dependent on God’s
thinking, it is dependent only in the sense that it
is the characteristic of God’s thinking. It is not
subsequent temporally, for God is eternal and
there never was a time when God existed without
thinking logically.” G. Clark, An Introduction to
Christian Philosophy, 67,68.
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REASON
• “We may assert that every proposition is true because
God thinks it so . . . but the whole is based on
Scripture. Suppose this were not so. Then ‘God’ as an
axiom, apart from Scripture, is just a name. . . . Hence
the important thing is not to presuppose God, but to
define the mind of God presupposed. Therefore
Scripture is offered here as the axiom. This give
definiteness and content without which axioms are
useless. Thus it is that God, Scripture and logic are tied
together. . . . Emphasis on logic is strictly in accord
with John’s prologue and is nothing other than a
recognition of the nature of God.” Clark, ICP, 72
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REASON
• “The Christian axiom, as Clark puts it, is
twofold, including the existence of God and the
truth of His revelation in the Bible.” G. Lewis,
Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims, 108.
• Since only that which is logical can be true,
Clark seeks to show that non-Christian systems
can be reduced to absurdity.” Lewis, 111.
• “The entire history of philosophy, Clark finds,
leaves the scholar with a choice between
skeptical futility and a word from God.” Lewis,
113.
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REASON
• Norman Geisler: Geisler considers himself to
be in the line of classical apologetics, in
continuity with Augustine, Aquinas, Hodge and
Warfield, among others. After demonstrating the
inconsistency of all non-theistic systems, Geisler
seeks to establish the existence of God. “First,
we have argued that every major nontheistic
world view may be internally noncontradictory,
but that they are, nonetheless, somehow selfdefeating and false.” N. Geisler, Christian
Apologetics, 237.
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REASON
• The theist need not claim that everything has a cause; he
need not use the Leibnizian principle of sufficient
reason. Rather, he can return to the thomistic principle
of existential causality which claims that every finite,
contingent, and changing thing has a cause. If this
principle is sound and leads to an infinite, necessary and
unchanging Being, then this Being will not need a cause.
God will be the Uncaused Cause of everything else that
exists. Such is the direction this chapter will take in
developing a proof for the existence of God.” N.
Geisler, Christian Apologetics, 238.
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REASON: Geisler’s Proof
• Some things undeniably exist (I cannot deny my own existence)
• My nonexistence is possible
• Whatever has the possibility not to exist is currently caused to
exist by another
• There cannot be an infinite regress of current causes of existence
• Therefore, a first uncaused cause of my current existence exists
• This uncaused cause must be infinite, unchanging, all-powerful,
all-knowing, and all-perfect
• This infinitely perfect Being is appropriately called “God”
• Therefore, God exists
• This God who exists is identical to the God described in the
Christian Scriptures
• Therefore, the God described in the Bible exists, N. Geisler,
Christian Apologetics, 239
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REASON
• Sproul/Gerstner/Lindsey: Confessing
themselves to be in line with classical
apologetics, this trio of “Ligonier” cadre reject
irrational or fideistic apologetics (i.e., Barth,
Tillich, etc., but preeminently C. Van Til) and
affirms instead the legitimacy, not only of
General Revelation but of Natural Theology.
There are three non-negotiables in the “Ligonier”
apologetic: 1) The Law of Non-Contradiction, 2)
The Law of Causality, and 3) The Basic
Reliability of Sense Perception.
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REASON
• “Why apologetics? Because we are rational
creatures. Because we are by nature rational, we
must be approached with reasons. Because, as
creatures, it is essential that we know about our
Creator. Because we are rational animals who
need religion, we must be given reasons for
believing the true religion.” Sproul/Gerstner/
Lindsey, Classical Apologetics, 16.
• “Simply stated, natural theology refers to
knowledge of God acquired through nature,” 25.
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REASON
Rationalism
Axiom .
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THEISTIC PROOFS
GOD
Moral
Ontological
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Consent
Teleological
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Cosmological
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VERIFICATION
• E. J. Carnell: Carnell begins his apologetic with
the human condition, where we are and who we
are. This is a temporal starting point.
Nevertheless, while recognizing the importance
of experience, Carnell does not want to begin his
argument with experience. Similarly, Carnell
recognizes the importance of reason and
empirical evidence, but he does not want to begin
with logic or sensory data. Instead, Carnell
begins with the existence of God and seeks
verification for this hypothesis. This is a logical
starting point.
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VERIFICATION
• “By the one assumption, the existence of the
God Who has revealed Himself in Scripture, the
Christian finds that he can solve the problem of
the one within the many, and so make sense out
of life. . . Seeing this connection between Christ
and the one within the many, the Christian is
immediately in possession of a basis for truth
and faith. Truth is propositional correspondence
to God’s mind and the test for truth is systematic
consistency.” E. J. Carnell, An Introduction to
Christian Apologetics, 354.
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VERIFICATION
• C.S. Lewis: Lewis argues that a true
explanation for all that is must account
for all the facts, including the laws of
logic, the nature of morality, the sense of
longing for God that humans experience.
Lewis argues for “mere Christianity,” not
for any particular variety and appeals to
reason to verify the “Christian
hypothesis.”
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VERIFICATION
• “Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the
best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my
unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the
belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at
all times. . . . It is at her centre, where her truest children
dwell, that each communion is really closest to every
other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests at the
centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who
against all divergences of belief, all differences of
temperament, all memories of mutual persecution,
speaks with the same voice.” C.S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity, 6,9
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VERIFICATION
• “Let us suppose we possess parts of a novel or a
symphony. Someone now brings us a newly
discovered piece of manuscript and says, ‘This is
the missing part of the work. This is the chapter
on which the whole plot of the novel really
turned. This is the main theme of the symphony.’
Our business would be to see whether the new
passage, if admitted to the central place which
the discoverer claimed for it, did actually
illuminate all the parts we have already seen and
‘pull them together.’”
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VERIFICATION
• Francis Schaeffer: Making use of reason,
Schaeffer argues that it is necessary to push
“systems” to their logical (or, illogical) extreme.
Essentially, those who postulate that life is
predicated upon mere chance (Schaeffer speaks
of a “line of despair” that he associates with the
dialectics of Hegel- the starting point of modern
irrationalism) cannot live consistently with their
premises. However, the Christian, who believes
in an infinite and yet personal God can live
consistently with his/her presuppositions.
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VERIFICATION
• Schaeffer attacks the notion of the two stories as
antithetical
– the upper story (Faith)
– the lower story (reason)
• Rather, faith is founded on adequate evidence.
– “. . . there is a sufficient basis for morals. Nobody has
ever discovered a way of having real ‘morals’ without
a moral absolute
– If there is no moral absolute, we are left with
hedonism (doing what I like) or some form of the
social contract theory (what is best for society as a
whole is right).
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VERIFICATION
– However, neither of these alternatives
corresponds to the moral notions that
men have.
– Talk to people long enough and deeply
enough, and you will find that they
consider some things are really right
and some things are really wrong.
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VERIFICATION
• Without absolutes, morals as morals cease
to exist, and humanistic man starting from
himself is unable to find the absolute he
needs. But because the God of the Bible is
there, real morals exist. Within this
framework I can say one action is right and
another wrong, without talking nonsense.”
Schaeffer, Complete Works, I:117.
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VERIFICATION
Christianity
Other Systems
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BLOCK HOUSE METHODOLOGY
• What do these three approaches have
in common?
• One Emphasizes Evidences
• One Emphasizes Reason
• One Emphasizes Verification
(systematic consistency)
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BLOCK HOUSE METHODOLOGY
GOD
Fact
Fact
Fact
Fact
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Fact
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APOLOGETICS
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