Apologetics

Both Christianity and its opponents have longed waged an apologetics war. I have read a couple of books by the so-called “new atheists” and a plethora of Christian apologetics books. The thing I’ve noticed with “seekers”–people that are flirting with religion and perhaps start with the most popular one in America is that they tend to spend a small amount of time with Christian apologetics and a large amount of time with the rest, then conclude that they have weighed the evidence fairly and end up siding with the non-Christian.

The most popular type of Christian apologetics books are evidence based: The Case for Christ, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, etc. Both offer amazingly convincing evidence that a reasonable person should accept the historicity of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith.

The unbeliever reads a book like that and thinks they have been provided everything Christianity has to offer: yeah, it’s convincing but let’s see what the other side has to say. Along with that they have their inherent bent away from God, which began with our forefather Adam. So, they read Dawkins or Hitchens and find that evidence based apologetics do not have a direct answer for those types of anti-Christian arguments, so they choose against Christianity or, at least, not for it.

It is a mark of arrogance and the complete lack of critical thinking most educated people have. Christianity has been around for 2000 years. To think that NO ONE in all of the history of Christianity has ever come across the “who made God” argument or the, “if God is so great, why is there so much suffering in the world” argument and provided a reasoned answer for it, is so unbelievably ludicrous that it defies comprehension. Yes, most of modern (and perhaps ancient) Christianity is weak and experienced-based and not logically sound, but, my goodness, the Apostle Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Cornelius Van Til (I’m not saying these three are intellectual equals, but they are folks that have influenced me), there are people in the history of Christianity who have answered well all of the arguments against it.

This is another plug for Charlie Clough’s Bible Framework program. By far the most complete apologetics course I have come across. http://www.bibleframework.com/