Introduction
Over the years I have spoken to several people from a variety of backgrounds about the Christian faith. When we started a Ratio Christi apologetics chapter on The Ohio State University in the Fall of 2009, I had been talking to college students about spiritual beliefs for several years. It was during this experience that I began to see the need for a stronger apologetics presence on the college campuses. Also, it should be noted that it was a debate between William Lane Craig and skeptic Robert Price in 1998 that really got me interested in apologetics.
Anyway, over the years I have taught classes, given sermons and written articles about the need for apologetics in the Church. Therefore, myself (along with other Christians who are passionate about apologetics), generally have to take some flack about apologetics. Even though apologetics is seen throughout the Bible, we are sometimes seen as exalting reason to a place that was never intended or we assume apologetics is the sole catalyst as someone’s conversion. I bring this all up because I am presently enjoying reading Introducing Apologetics: Cultivating Christian Commitment by James Taylor. Taylor lists three kinds of people who we will encounter when doing evangelism. If anything, if we do evangelism and encounter people in these categories, we should see why we need apologetics in the Church. Taylor says when dealing with people, many people may fall into various categories such as:
1. Critics: those with criticisms of the Christian faith who are not open to the possibility of its truth. Critics need to be answered to neutralize the effects of their criticisms on seekers and doubters.
2. Seekers: people who are open to our faith but are prevented from making a commitment primarily because of honest questions about the Christian claims.
3. Doubters: are Christians who find it difficult to believe one or more tenants of the Christian faith with complete confidence. Doubters need to be restored to full Christian conviction by giving them the tools to remove their doubts.
My Own Experience
In own experience, I run into a lot of #1′s. Many of these people read a lot of the skeptic literature online or have decided to be a disciple of Richard Dawkins, Richard Carrier, or some other famous atheist. Or, they may say they used to be a Christian or a former Christian apologist and they now have a life calling to tell the entire world how bad Christianity is for the world. Now I don’t have the time to go into the complexities of why these people got to where they are. But my point is that there are a lot of critics and it is these critics that tend to be quite evangelistic.
I also see #2′s and maybe some #3′s. I have seen people who are truly open to the claims of the Christian faith but need some of their questions answered. There are testimonies of people that have come to Christ through apologetic works. Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig and other apologist can testify of many, many, people who have been impacted by their apologetic contributions.
As far as doubters, I am convinced there are doubters all over the Church. But since the Church is not equipped to handle many forms of doubt (whether it be factual, emotional, or psychological), Christians can end up suppressing their doubts or questions. This is unhealthy and can thwart a full commitment to the Christian faith. If anything, some basics of apologetics could help these people. I have run into several college students that had doubts all throughout their youth but never got a handle on it before college. This is one reason why they tend to become agnostics or atheists during their college experience.
What’s the Point?
The reality is that if any Christian wants do obey the commands of Jesus and make disciples (Matt. 28:19), they will encounter critics, seekers, and doubters. But my question is how can we expect any Christian to be prepared to engage critics, seekers, and doubters without some basic apologetic training? If this stirs your heart, then I suggest trying to start an apologetics ministry in your church. To see how you might go about it, see the clip here with William Lane Craig. Or, see this resource from Apologetics 315.
Note: This post originally appeared at ThinkApologetics.com
Mark, your participation here intrigues me. You aren’t even the target audience, yet you went to a whole lot of trouble to behave like precisely the critic that Eric mentioned in 1 above. I’d say apologetics must exist if for no other reason than to be an answer to the verificationism you preach here. It may be a weak alternative, sure, but so far I haven’t actually seen an intellectual argument from your side.
Again, more word games. The simple fact is that you can’ t come up with one single piece of empirical evidence to support your beliefs in your specific diety. Internet atheist? Lol. I could have just as easily called you a Willy Lane Craig hack/wannabe, but i didn’t. I guess you had to fly your true colors.
The apologist’s cry of epistimology is thinnly veiled, semi-sophistacted rewording of their claim that knowledge can’t be known without god; as asserted by certain apologists, without any proof for their claims.
Puhn-leeeazzee!
Honesty is the last word in the vocabulary of apologetics.
Well Mark, here we go with insults and no actual evidence and arguments on your end. Word games? Mark, if you don’t have the ability to do atheist apologetics on the internet and need to just say “More word games” then you need to go get some more atheist apologetic training. But then again, by your own worldview, you have no moral obligation to be on here debating with me. You didn’t answer my question about nature/natural laws. The laws of nature cannot exist without nature itself existing but the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws. You obviously don’t understand what I asked.
It’s very simple. We don’t know why the constants of the universe are where they are. There is also no evidence suggesting that we are the only universe. Is the multiverse theory testable right now? No, so there can’t be any assertions made that this universe was especially made for us, as many people believe. That is completely subjective. How anyone can believe that a magical being that made 99.99..to infinity% of this universe uninhabitable to life as we know it, intelligent design, is mind numbing. If there are other universes, the variables may be very different. Cosmological natural selection. We exist because this universe, through its deterministic processes, allows carbon based life to exist. “Therefore God..” is an assertion without any evidence. Zero.
Am I wrong to assume that you’re gonna respond with a “Therefore God-did-it” argument somewhere. If so, that’s one from ignorance, and without merit. That argument has failed every time. Trumped by a reasonable and naturalistic explanation over and over again.
I know exactly what you were asking, and I provably knew exactly where you were going with it. The circular nature of your question was rather amusing. I’ve heard the fallacious circular reasoning of apologists, but a circular question? That’s kind of a new one.
Mark,
No, you didn’t understand my question at all. I am not talking about the fine tuning argument. And for the record, there is no evidence for any other universes yet. Even if there were, it would never get rid of God. See Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse? by Jeffrey A. Zweerink.
I’ve seen some of his videos on YouTube. Read a little about him a while ago. Seems like a likable and honest guy. Smart too, but a bit delirious in his beliefs. I do like the fact that he debunked Ray Comfort’s last cinematic debacle, Evolution vs. God.
Still no evidence though. The multiverse also doesn’t disprove leprechauns, elves, the flying spaghetti monster, or invisible pink unicorns. Zweerink still only provides words as “evidence”.
How do you get rid of something that there is no evidence for to begin with outside of a wishful thought?
What’s next? Kalam Cosmological? Ontological? Both are fallacious failures as well. I’ve heard the “there can’t be the infinite regress, so the first uncaused cause has to be god”, and it asserts something that it has zero evidence for. That there can be no infinite regress. According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, energy is eternal. Ontological? I’ve seen Willie Craig do it in debates. I’ve seen the crowd cheer after he crescendos with his last premise, and all I can think of is “I can’t believe that people fall for such garbage just because he has a slick delivery.” It amazes me as to how many prominent people in apologetics believe that this flimsy piece of word play is strong argument for god. Here’s that one summed up in two lines: If you can imagine it, it must be real. C’mon, please. See how that one stands up in court? You can’t define things into existence.
Even if veridical, your metaphysically extravagant Anthropic Philosophy, that is, “if the Universe contains an exhaustively random and infinite number of universes, then anything that can occur with non-vanishing probability will occur somewhere,” does nothing to answer the question why there is anything instead of just nothing. It just punts it further down the line.
The existence of this supposed multiverse still cries out for an objective explanation.
To borrow from an illustration by Philosopher Richard Taylor, “Imagine you are walking through the woods on a hike and you come across a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder where that ball came from – what is the explanation of its existence? If your hiking buddy said to you, “Don’t worry about it – it just exists, inexplicably!,” you would think either that he was crazy or that he wanted you to keep on moving. But you wouldn’t take seriously the idea that this ball just exists without any explanation of its existence.
Now suppose that the ball, instead of being the size of a basketball, were the size of an automobile. Merely increasing the size of the ball would not do anything to remove or satisfy the demand for an explanation of its existence, would it? Suppose it were the size of a house? Same problem! Suppose it were the size of a planet or a galaxy? Same problem! Suppose it were the size of the entire universe? Same problem! Merely increasing the size of the object does not do anything to remove or satisfy the demand for an explanation of its existence. And so I think it is very plausible to think that everything that exists has an explanation of why it exists.” (http://bit.ly/Pm4s92)
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” -C.S. Lewis
That is to say, when compared to the metaphysically extravagant Anthropic Philosophy, Theism is by far much more modest.
Hi Joseph,
I guess I am not sure why you think the multiverse issue seems to get rid of an explanation for our own universe. And I am not sure why even if there are any other universes (which is still debated), it would get rid of God. If anything, they would need an explanation as well. There is a great book called “Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse?” by Dr. Jeff Zweerink. Maybe give it a read. If you’re saying that if we posit that God is the explanations for the universe we have that we need to then explain God, (what caused Him or how designed Him), that is a category mistake. Dawkins has been answered on this one about 100x.
Also, the flat earth illustration is not a good one at all. Mortimer J. Adler’s Six Great Ideas where he has a chapter called The Realm of Doubt. The problem we meet is when we attempt to decide which of our judgments belong in the realm of certitude. In order for a judgment to belong in the realm of certitude, it must meet the following criteria: (1) it cannot be challenged by the consideration of new evidence that results from improved observation, nor can it be criticized by improved reasoning or the detection of inadequacies or errors in the reasoning we have done. Beyond such challenge or criticism, such judgments are indubitable, or beyond doubt.
A judgment is subject to doubt if there is any possibility at all (1) of its being challenged in the light of additional or more acute observations or (2) of its being criticized by more cogent or more comprehensive reasoning.
if you think you have certitude that nature is all there is, please feel free to elaborate.
I already did an article on your typical atheist argument on the internet- What God is it? http://chab123.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/a-comparison-between-theism-deism-pantheism-and-polytheism-which-god-or-gods-shall-we-pick/
The problem is that apologetics has zero evidence, and is all word games that are highly superficial and fallacious assertions with no basis in reality. The internet is the death knell for religion. People are no longer being force fed the biased versions of religious “reality”. They are now allowed to research the other side of the equation, and the reality is that there is no truth or evidence to support the supernatural claims of any religion. This is why atheism and agnosticism is one of the most rapidly growing demographics in the first world.
Well Mark I must say, you do what almost all internet atheists do. You overstate your case and show no signs of even an elementary understanding of epistemology.
Also, where do the natural laws/and natural world come from that allow you make all of your metaphysical naturalistic claims?
And what is evidence? And how do we approach the existence of God? Please tell me what approach you are using?
People who argue that the Earth is flat also give reasons and arguments for their position. They’re under the delusion that they’re one of the most rapidly growing demographics in the first world. These choose to ignore the massive and compelling evidence for a round Earth, and such people are, in any case, immune and impervious to facts and logic. They cling to their conclusion with such frantic desperation they won’t let go no matter what anyone says, no matter what reasons or arguments they’re presented with.
It seems clear to me you are much like these advocates of a Flat Earth. Yes, you present reasons and arguments for your position but you present the same reasons and arguments that have been around for the past century or two while ignoring the most obvious facts and arguments that contradict your position. I’m not going to kick a stone, and declare that I’ve refuted your arguments anymore than I’m interested in persuading a Flat Earth advocate that the world is in reality round.
You are free to go your way, believing whatever benighted and moonstruck ideas you wish. All the best!
Thanks for the article, I quite enjoyed it, except for the use of “tenants” for “tenets” – a tenant is someone who rents accommodation a tenet is a doctrine. (proper word usage is a pet peeve of mine). Even so, a good article.