The meaning of the term and the justification for its use

The word apologetics is an instant turn-off for many people; it sounds heavy and complicated, as if you need a PhD to understand it. Yet the issues it deals with are in the thoughts of almost everyone at some time; for example, the question ‘Where was God when…’ is uttered by countless people every time some disaster strikes. 

The word also has negative associations of deferential feebleness because of the use of the word ‘apology’ in English. In fact the word derives from the Greek apologia, meaning literally ‘to speak on behalf of’, or to make a defence. The classic scripture verse is 1 Peter 3:15 where Peter counsels believers to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks them to give the reason for the hope that they have.

Apologetics is also the Cinderella of the church. There is colossal ignorance of what it is; a church elder I met had never heard of it, and he is not untypical. There are theological colleges that do not even offer courses in Apologetics; this may be because the very term implies that there exists a corpus of belief to be defended, an idea which would sit uneasily both with liberals and postmoderns because of their rejection of credal truth. 

Even some evangelicals are suspicious of the whole idea of apologetics, because they see it as relying on rational argument, which is no use in the face of man’s corrupted mind affected by sin even in his ability to reason correctly. Thus, they would argue, nothing can be achieved unless God first intervenes and regenerates a person’s mind and reasoning power, whereupon that person will accept Christ by faith, not rational argument.

However we cannot do better than follow the example of the apostle Paul in our evangelism, and Paul engaged in apologetics. Look at Acts 17:2-4 ‘he reasoned with them from the scriptures explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead.’ Here Paul did apologetics in a way appropriate to his audience; in Thessalonica and Berea he reasoned with Jews, proving that Jesus was Messiah from the scriptures which they knew and believed. But in Acts 17 v 18 onwards we find Paul reasoning with Greek philosophers who either did not know or did not believe the Jewish scriptures. So he quotes their own poets to them, and tells them about God’s plan, with the resurrection as proof.

What apologetics can and cannot do
It can try to answer some of the difficult questions that stop people considering the claims of Christ.

It can expose the false security of other belief systems. The late Francis Schaeffer of L’Abri Fellowship used to say that doing apologetics was like taking the roof off a person’s house to let in the rain of truth.

It can challenge people’s prejudices and the way they may be conditioned by their culture; for example, British society of the late 20th century would have seen the death in war of a soldier defending his country as a waste, whereas in some cultures it would be regarded as the highest honour and privilege, even guaranteeing entrance to happiness in the next life.  

Apologetic argument by itself cannot bring a person to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Only God the Holy Spirit can do this as He calls some to repentance and saving faith. At the same time it is part of the biblical pattern of evangelism to point out to people the evidence that supports our faith. (e.g. Paul in 1Cor. 15:6  mentions that the risen Jesus was seen by more than 500 people at one time, most of whom are still alive; in other words, his readers are invited to check the evidence for themselves).

An analogy of what apologetics can and can’t do is found in the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life in John chapter 11. Only Jesus could give the command for Lazarus to come out of the tomb. But notice that Jesus asked the people who were there to take away the stone, the barrier that was in the way. The role of apologetics is to try to move away the stones that cause barriers and blockages to faith. But no-one can bring a soul to new life; that is given by the command of Christ alone.
 

Some tips on doing apologetics

We need to make sure that we have thought through the main questions that people raise; these tend to be grouped around ten or so commonly- held objections, so it is not as difficult as you might think to get a grasp of the arguments. Don’t worry if you can’t answer a particular question or objection; you can tell the questioner that you will think about what he or she has said, and that you will come back to them – but make sure that you do! It’s more important to take people seriously and to show respect and love, than to have an answer ready for every point they make. Sometimes they might be testing whether we are genuinely interested in them or whether we will drop them if they don’t agree with us. 

While we may not be able to answer every objection, we can do better than just say ‘I don’t know.’ It’s better to admit we don’t know than pretend that we do, but we can tell them that we’ll try to find out; that can be more helpful than someone trotting out answers parrot-fashion as if they had learned them from an evangelism manual! Try always to steer the conversation towards Jesus and our response to him, rather than getting bogged down in a circular argument. But don’t give the impression that you are not listening to what they are saying, and that you are pursuing your own agenda regardless of theirs.

Use the text Deuteronomy 29:29 ‘The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may follow all the words of this law.’ In other words we can’t answer everything because God has not revealed it, but he has revealed what we need to know in order to follow him.

If you are stuck in an argument with someone who is insisting on proof of a kind that we cannot give, point out that all of us base our lives on beliefs which are not strictly provable but for which we believe there is reasonable evidence. You can ask someone who cites a lack of proof as the main problem ‘If I could supply the proof you say you need that what Jesus said was true, then would you want to follow him?’ Sometimes this can jolt people into realising that what they thought was an intellectual problem is in fact a moral reluctance to commit to a changed lifestyle.

Do not assume, however, that intellectual objections are merely ‘red herrings’, as is often alleged in evangelical circles. Although this may often be the case, we must give people the benefit of the doubt, and not brush away their problems with some glib statement such as ‘If you had faith then all your questions would disappear.’
 

Dealing with underlying assumptions using relativism as an example

Sometimes it is necessary to see beyond the alleged objection to tackle the assumptions which lie behind it; for example, the dogma of relativism maintains that what is true for you is not true for me. The classic way to deal with this assumption is to try to show that relativism is self-contradictory (in that the very statement that nothing is universally true is itself an absolute claim), or to find examples of things which are still regarded as absolutely wrong for everyone (such as child abuse) in order to demonstrate that there is such a thing as absolute truth.

While both these approaches can be used very successfully, another tactic to try is to point out the confusion of categories that gives plausibility to relativism: that is the muddling of fact and opinion. G. K. Chesterton suggested in the early 20th century that we were in danger of producing a generation too mentally modest to believe the multiplication tables. He said ‘What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.’ (Orthodoxy, first published 1908; republished Hodder & Stoughton, 1996).

Relativist thinkers tend to see Christians as yet another set of people trying to force their religious opinions on others, hence the accusations of intolerance and arrogance (the modern unforgivable sins). Instead we must focus on the idea that Christians are part of a chain of news reporters stretching from the apostles until today whose job it is to make known the fact of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. If we were silent we would be guilty of denying the world the news to which it is entitled, that a cure for death has been found.

Try the idea on the person you are talking with that if he or she was accused of causing a fatal road accident which was not in fact his or her fault, he or she would be desperate to find reliable witnesses to the event to establish the truth of what happened; the idea that one account was true for one witness but not for another would seem distinctly undesirable.
 

A study in apologetics – the existence of evil

Anyone reading this is likely to be familiar with the classic logical contradiction:

God is good
God is omnipotent
Evil exists

Faced with the seemingly intractable problem of suffering, many apologists retreat into mystery by declaring that we cannot fully understand the ways of God. No doubt this is so, but it does not help the questioner who is genuinely troubled over this apparently insoluble problem. The following outline approach is offered as an alternative.

Welcome the objection as going to the heart of the Christian faith. Christianity is not a set of cosy beliefs, into which the problem of suffering intrudes like the unwanted fairy at the princess’s christening.
It is the story of how God deals with the evil and suffering brought about by humanity’s rebellion against the Creator. When God took flesh and visited his creatures, our race hammered nails into the hands that made the world. We turn against the source of all good, then are surprised that things have gone wrong.

We have to explain the whole plan of God from the scriptures: the entrance of evil into the world, the victory of Christ over evil through his death and resurrection, the age in which we live during which God is giving the opportunity of repentance and salvation to all the world’s peoples, and the final expulsion of all evil from the new heaven and earth described in the book of Revelation. 

Some apologetic approaches to this question have been strong on the argument that the world’s problems are caused by man rather than God, but weak when challenged about the problem of so-called ‘natural evil’: the countless diseases, the destructiveness of earthquakes, or the cruelty of some animals to others, to give just three examples. We need to stress that the Fall involved the natural order as well as human beings; God had linked the well-being of all his creation together, so that when Adam and Eve, as stewards of the natural world, obeyed Satan rather than God, so the world of nature came under the rule of the power of evil, and destructive consequences ensued.

Although the Bible does not set out a systematic explanation of why evil arose in the first place, it does offer clues which help to answer the question. The parable of the wheat and the weeds, for example (Matthew 13:24-30,36-43) reminds us that what God planted was good; the destructive element was put there by an enemy. The reason why the farmer does not instantly uproot the weeds is so that none of the wheat might be damaged while it grows, but there will be a day of harvest when all will be sorted out. The Bible does not tell us too much about the enemy, but there are hints (Ezekiel 28:13-17) that he was cast out of heaven for pride and rebellion against God, the same sin as Adam and Eve. Presumably the possibility of rebellion must be inherent in any creature which has freedom; a hypothetical creature without true freedom was not possible, or at least not worthwhile. 

It is important to counteract the commonly-heard objection ‘I cannot believe in a God when there is so much suffering’ with the suggestion that the existence of suffering is no argument against there being a Designer; what it does throw into question is the moral character of the Designer. Is God a cosmic sadist?  ‘No’ says the Christian, on the evidence of the Gospels’ record of the character and actions of Jesus Christ who claimed to show us what God was like.

Although we must avoid glib answers such as ‘This may seem bad now but in the long term God will use it for good’ to those who are experiencing personal suffering, we must not become reluctant to proclaim the biblical answer to the problem of the existence of evil and suffering, in case we are seen as insensitive. Christianity offers a coherent explanation and solution to the problem; people may not like it when we explain it, but at least we have more to say than ‘It’s all a mystery that we don’t understand.’ We can put the idea to the questioner that the whole of Christianity is about this very question as to why there is evil in the world and what God is doing about it; we can ask the person whose side he or she wants to be on: with God against evil, or the opposite? 
 

Alison Carter
December 2000