Notes on apologetic approaches and thought life

What is Christian Apologetics? 

Christian Apologetics, in a broad sense, simply means defending Christianity. Thus, all Christians are or should be apologists. But in the literature on scholarly Apologetics, the definition is narrower. There are two broad schools of thought- presuppositionalism and evidentalism/Classical apologetics. A few notes on these schools of thought are below.

I don't personally like the term "Apologetics" as it means different things to different people, and to some it portrays Christianity in a negative light.

Thought Life and Character

I try to be a thinker. That is, I try to think reflectively, rationally and intelligently about all matters of life. When discussing ideas with others, I try to be thoughtful in my approach there as well. Some of my biggest "heroes" in life (for want of a better word) are Christians scholars who I see as humble, reflective, intelligent, whose ideas I think are reasonable and who communicate thoughtfully as well. Good examples: C. Stephen Evans and John Dickson.

Intellectual brilliance is a great thing, but it is not enough- thinking needs to be self reflective. We should be humble in our views, and charitable towards others.

These things could all be teased out through thousands of words.


Notes on Approaches to Apologetics

General thoughts:

- Note problems with all approaches.
- Note good insights to take from each approach.
-  Mixed bag of first order thinking, negative apologetics and evidences.
- First order(Note: I refer to first order in the sense of underlying, big picture, overarching considerations of a foundational nature to do with frameworks) Arguments still provide "evidence" in a broad sense, so you could say that presuppositionalism is still evidentialism at heart, at least to some degree. Secondly, and similarly, Presuppositionalists wouldn't believe in Christianity unless they had Evidence, in a broader still sense of the term.  (Footnote to this; Douglas Wilson claims that assumptions of Christianity are always implicit within evidence arguments etc. So a true presuppositionalist would claim that presuppositionalism is foundational to evidentalism, similar to how I am claiming here that evidence, broadly construed, is necessary foundation for all beliefs, presuppositionalism included).
- Note: Epistemological issues are at the forefront here. C Stephen Evans is the Gold standard.

Presuppositionalist apologetics:

Based theologically on Calvinism.

Good:
- Neutrality is an entirely false notion. It doesn't exist. No one is truly neutral.
- Negative apologetics is vital. It's easier to disprove something or argue against something than it is to erect a case for something to the exclusion of all others. Not only that, but psychology tells us that some people simply refuse evidence which is more evidence itself for point below- the will gets in the way? Example see the amount of atheists who think Jesus didn't exist and that all stories about him are totally mythical (eg: R Price in the book 5 Views on The Historical Jesus). You can convince yourself of anything if you really want to. So both due to psychology and as a strategy, apologetics must strike out other worldviews, not simply build a case for our own.
- Presuppositions and preconditions. Point out the assumptions upon which the other view rests. This could be seen as a vital cog of negative apologetics. But it's also a universal notion of it's own. To reject one belief, another belief must be held.
- The importance of first order thinking. Looking at the Big picture. Before looking at the detail contained in evidentialist arguments, consider questions like: How are we even here? What conditions must exist for us to be here, doing this debate. Universe- law and order, science. People- Rational Thoughts.
- Rationality and persuasiveness is complex. At the very least, person relative. Critical rationalism is more at home within a presuppositionalist framework.

Bad:
- Presupposing something is inevitable but presupposing the entire Bible is a bridge too far. Begs the question. Assumes what it's trying to prove. Some question begging may be inevitable, perhaps (interesting philosophical question to consider) but the entire Bible and/or Christian worldview is a lot to assume!
- Doesn't go far enough. The Resurrection isn't contained within the apologetic. Ironically this is what they are trying to avoid.
- Presuppositionalism claims to provide certainty and that other approaches fail because they only aim for probability. But Certainty is impossible, just like proper neutrality is impossible (especially on the big questions and on existential questions). Although the impossibility of certainty is easier to prove than the impossibility of neutrality. At least with neutrality, people can just claim to be neutral and that leaves a stalemate (even if psychology and/or philosophical argumentation shows that people always have assumptions they come from, and so to truly get neutrality one must dig through a gazillion layers of muck). Whereas with certainty, one can easily come up with a possible objection to almost any argument.

Evidentialism AND Classical apologetics:

Good:
- Positive case. Negative leaves us in nowhere land.

Bad:
- The problem of shifting evidence. Philosophical arguments against this I am very fond of. Similar to Evans. Eg: Wide Accessibility problem. If the best justifications for belief are only available to a select few who are educated enough to understand the best evidence based arguments, what does this say about God? ie: Fine tuning argument didn't exist in it's most persuasive form 100 years ago because fine tuning had not been found. Neither did Kalam Argument. if God is timeless, he will provide various forms. This fits in with the insight that a personal God would provide personal evidence (Moser). Craig wouldn't disagree (1st chap RF, Holy Spirit is warrant on it's own etc) however the evidentialist approach still places too much emphasis on evidence in it's implicit support for simply believing what the current evidence says. It doesn't account for the nature of God very well.
- Much of reverse of "Good" of presupp belongs here. Eg: Neutrality is impossible. Eg: Craig Parton's claim that 98% time devote to positive evidence is ridiculous. Because the will/psychology ensures some remain unpersuaded. And it's easy to find objections to anything. Defense is the best attack sometimes, and too much emphasis on evidence FOR Christianity neglects this point.

Doug Wilson Interview- an example of someone who doesn't stick wholly to one approach:

- Lewis's Apologetic Approach- Mix of Evidentialism and Presuppositionalism?
- Explanation of presuppositional vs evidentialism- Demolition Derby vs leading someone to something unfamiliar. Presuppose Bible and show Impossibility of contrary. But there is room for evidences.

(Written August 2013?)

God and Evidence

The question of God's existence is alive and well in contemporary culture, and for this we must heap much praise on the likes of Richard Dawkins. He came along and wrote a little book called The God Delusion which has been a best seller for the past 5 years. Whilst I'm fairly young, the impression I get is that the issue has finally escaped from the halls of University Campuses and found it's way into mainstream newspapers and even onto public buses in various locations around the world!

The question is usually framed in the context of how much evidence there is for God's existence. We see the proponents weighing the reasons there are for thinking that God exists against the reasons for thinking that God is the greatest delusion in the history of humankind. And that's all good and well, away we go to happily assess the weight of evidence, right? Wrong. Before we even consider what evidence there is that God exists, we should ask the question of what evidence we should expect to see in the case that God did exist. This is the first and most foundational question in the whole discussion. Absence of evidence A for thing X is only evidence of X's absence if we should expect to see evidence A in the case that X did exist. Yet unfortunatly, this is rarely discussed. People generally argue that there's plenty of evidence for God, that there's enough evidence for God, or that there's no evidence, or some other position on the continuum.

The issue is more complicated than I've said here. For example, what type of evidence we should expect to see is a kind of subset of the initial question. And another question, which is even more foundational, is What is evidence anyway? However the principle is clear enough that it can help hugely without needing to complicate matters with these other questions. If people simply asked this question before talking about what evidence there is for God, it would solve a whole lot of problems and make the discussion much clearer.




[November 2011]

Results of a survey on natural theological arguments

Results of a survey on natural theological arguments

Respondents were mostly professional philosophers and philosophy students.

The Cosmological Argument

The "Cosmological Argument" refers to a a branch of arguments for the existence of God. The cosmological argument comes in various forms but the general idea is that we begin with an undeniable fact- the existence of the universe- and reason to the existence of God, by arguing that God is the best explanation for the universe or that the universe requires a cause.

Recently the most popular version has been the Kalam Cosmological Argument which has been vigorously defended in both popular and scholarly works over the past 30 years by Dr William Lane Craig. That argument proposes that the universe began to exist and that God is it's cause.

However other versions of the cosmological argument propose a principle called the "principle of sufficient reason" or other causal principles and propose that God is the necessary explanation of the universe. Dr Alexander Pruss is one scholar today who argues for the principle of sufficient reason. Here is a wide-ranging article titled "Some Recent Progress on the Cosmological Argument" where Pruss covers various issues in contemporary philosophical debates about cosmological arguments and the problems with the principle of sufficient reason. He focuses on various grounds for attack that opponents of Cosmological Arguments use. Here's an outline of the structure:

1. Introduction
2. Need the first cause be God?
3. Can there be an explanation not involving a first cause?
4. The principle of sufficient reason
5. Four justifications of belief in the PSR or the CP
6. The Taxi cab objection
7. Alternatives to the PSR
8. Conclusions

Pruss concludes that "The last fifty years of analytic philosophy has focused our attention on three critical questions about cosmological arguments. Each of these questions can receive a plausible answer from a defender of the cosmological argument. Moreover, a cumulative case argument can be run from the number of different principles on which a cosmological argument can be based. There is thus good reason, even on the basis of the cosmological argument alone, to suppose that a
God-like being exists.".

Is his conclusion reasonable? Read the article and see what you think! And beware: Some of it is very heavy going, especially if you're relatively uninitiated in philosophy like I am.