Transcript Introducing Apologetics - Guildford Baptist Church

Introducing Apologetics
What is Apologetics?

Apologia – to make a ‘defence’ or a ‘reply’

Read
◦ Acts 22:1
◦ 2 Timothy 4:16
◦ Philippians 1:7, 16
◦ 1 Peter 3:15
“...a presentation and defence of
[the Christian faith’s] claims to
truth and relevance in the great
market place of ideas.”
Alister McGrath
“Apologetics is that branch of
Christian theology which seeks to
provide a rational justification for the
truth claims of the Christian faith.
Apologetics is thus primarily a
theoretical discipline, though it has
practical application...[it] tries to
answer the question, What rational
defence can be given for the Christian
faith?”
William Lane Craig
“...an activity of the Christian
mind which attempts to show
that the gospel message is true
in what it affirms. An apologist is
one who is prepared to defend
the message against criticism and
distortion, and to give evidence
of its credibility.”
Clark Pinnock
5th Sep
Introduction to Apologetics
12th
Can you take the Bible literally?
19th
Isn't belief in God just a childish myth?
26th
How can a loving God send people to Hell?
3rd Oct
How can God allow suffering?
10th
Don't all religions lead to God?
17th
Street Angels commissioning service
24th
Isn't Christianity repressive?
31st
Isn't the deity of Christ a fabrication of the Church?
7th Nov
What happens to those who have never heard the gospel?
14th
Understanding apologetic conversations
21st
Hasn't science proved that religious belief is bad?
28th
Isn't the Christmas story just a myth?
5th Dec
Humble apologetics without compromise
The apologetic choice...
To build walls or bridges between
people...?
Objections to the Christian Faith

Philosophical – how can you know?

Religious – how can you be so exclusive?

Moral – how can you be so judgemental?

Historical – how can you trust the evidence?

Scientific – how can you be so naive?

Political – how can you still think you are relevant?
Remembering an apologetic
conversation...
What question/s did the person ask?
 What answer/s did you give?
 What objection/s did they raise to your
answers?
 What was the attitude of the person?
 What triggered the conversation in the
first place?
 How did you feel about the conversation
once it was over?

The Problem with Apologetics

The Problem of God – some things
aren’t easily explained!

The Problem of Jesus – some things
aren’t easily ignored!

The Problem of the Bible – some
things aren’t easily accepted!
The Limits of Apologetics
Cannot replace the Holy Spirit
 Cannot replace a faithful and godly life
 Cannot guarantee successful evangelism
 Can do much harm
 Cannot be ignored
 Has been a means through which God
saves people
 Clear answers can never replace humble
but mysterious faith

“To be a witness does not
consist in engaging in
propaganda nor even stirring
people up, but in being a living
mystery. It means to live in such
a way that one’s life would not
make sense if God did not exist.”
Cardinal Suhard
People who simply ride the roller-coaster of
emotional experience are cheating themselves out
of a deeper and richer Christian faith by neglecting
the intellectual side of the faith. They know little of
the riches of deep understanding of Christian
truth, of the confidence inspired by the discovery
that’s one’s faith is logical and fits the facts of
experience, of the stability brought to one’s life by
the conviction that one’s faith is objectively true.
Intellectual impoverishment with respect to one’s
faith can thus lead to spiritual impoverishment as
well. But the results of being intellectually neutral
extend far beyond oneself...
...If Christian laymen (and women!) don’t become
intellectually engaged, then we are in serious
danger of losing our children. In high school and
college Christian teenagers are intellectually
assaulted on every hand by a barrage of antiChristian philosophies and attitudes. As I speak in
churches around the country, I continually meet
parents whose children have left the faith because
there was no-one in the church to answer their
questions. For the sake of our youth, we
desperately need informed parents who are
equipped to wrestle with the issues at an
intellectual level.
William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith