K. Scott Oliphint <Covenantal Apologetics> Notes and Review

2024-11-10 0 views

Introduction

Unless one accepts the Bible for what it says and what it is, there would be no real solution to the faith-and-reason problem. But every one appealed to their own final authority.

What this book will do is translate the language, concepts, and ideas set forth in Van Til’s Reformed apologetic into language, terms, and concepts that are more accessible. Second, to translate much of what is meant in Van Til’s own writings from their often philosophical and technical contexts to a more basic biblical and theological context.

Because my approach has its roots in biblical and theological truth, I will begin, in chapter 1, with some of the basic biblical content that informs that approach. Chapter 2 will then explain how that content applies specifically to the activity and discipline of apologetics. Chapters 3 and 4 lay out the methodological impetus behind a covenantal approach. I will argue that, given its theological roots, covenantal apologetics is better seen as the art of persuasion than as the science of demonstration.

Chapter 5 will attempt to show how (what is sometimes called) the “Achilles’ heel” of Christianity—the problem of evil—can be adequately and biblically addressed in a way that moves, naturally and inexorably, to the good news of the gospel. Chapters 6 and 7 are, in the main, expositions, with example dialogs, of what it means for us to do apologetics in a way that requires that we “walk in wisdom toward outsiders.” The “outsiders” in chapter 6 will be those who hold to naturalistic evolution. In chapter 7, the “outsider” will be a convert to Islam.

In all of these chapters, there is a dual goal. I am attempting to explain the focus of our approach and then, through sample dialogs, show the approach “in action.” My hope is that this combination of “principles and practice” will move readers significantly forward in their interest in and practice of a defense of Christianity.

This, then, is the bottom-line truth that must be central in everything we discuss: Christianity is true, so anything opposing it is false. This means that whatever opposition to Christianity we face, it is by definition an opposition that is false. Even if we have no idea what the central tenets or teachings are in such opposition, we know at the outset that it cannot sustain itself in God’s world. The rest of this book is an attempt to explain the implications of that central truth.

Chapter 1 Always Ready

Reformed theology, as worked out by Calvin and his recent exponents such as Hodge, Warfield, Kuyper, and Bavinck, holds that man’s mind is derivative. As such it is naturally in contact with God’s revelation. It is surrounded by nothing but revelation. It is itself inherently revelational. It cannot naturally be conscious of itself without being conscious of its creatureliness. For man self-consciousness presupposes God-consciousness. Calvin speaks of this as man’s inescapable sense of deity.

Christian apologetics is the application of biblical truth to unbelief. What we’ll set out to do in this boo, first of all, is to lay out the primary biblical and theological principles that must be a part of any convenantal defense of Christianity and then to demonstrate how these principles might be applied against certain objectiions. Both principle (foundational) and practical.

Christian Truth

Required to Respond

A covenantal apologetic must proceed on the basis of reality and not on the basis of illusion. We must proceed according to what Christ, who is the Lord, has told us, not according to what our opponents have decided is “appropriate” for a defense of Christianity.

In this light, and basic to everything else that we will say, we should recognize that every person on the face of the earth is defined, in part, by his relationship to a covenant head. That is, there are two, and only two, positions that are possible for humanity, and only one of which can be actual for each person at a given time. A person is either, by nature (after the fall into sin), in Adam, in which case he is opposed to and in rebellion against God, or he is in Christ, in which case by grace a person is not guilty before God but is an heir of eternal life. This is the covenantal status of humanity, and it assumes, in each case, a relationship to God. It assumes as well the ongoing battle against evil in which God is making his enemies a footstool for Christ’s feet.

Requires to Respond

Perhaps the most significant point of Peter’s command is the reason he gives for it. It is as simple as it is profound: “For Christ also died for sins once for all” (3:18, NASB). The ironic twist, one that points us to the transposition of the gospel, is not that when we see suffering, we should conclude there is no God. Rather, it is that when we see suffering, we should remember that God himself, in the person of his Son, did exactly that so that suffering and sin would one day cease. Suffering is clear evidence that Christ is Lord; it is not a testimony against that truth. The suffering that is the cross of Christ—the very thing that, on the face of it, might lead us to believe there is no God—is, as a matter of fact, the deepest expression of his sovereign character as Lord.

But why? Again, the answer is as simple as it is profound: because that is what he is! The specific command that Peter gives can be stated more generally. We are to think about and live in the world according to what it really is, not according to how it might at times appear to us. As Peter writes to persecuted and scattered Christians, he recognizes that one of their paramount temptations is to interpret their circumstances in such a way that would not acknowledge Christ as Lord. In the midst of their persecution and suffering, it may begin to look like someone else is in charge. After all, if Christ were Lord, how could these things be happening?

As a matter of fact, the lordship of Christ explains why these things are happening. The lordship of Christ is the conclusion to, the end result of, his own suffering and humiliation. It is because he was obedient, even to death on a cross, that he has been given the name that is above every name. It is because he suffered that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. The road to his exaltation was paved with blood, sweat, and tears. If we are to be exalted with him on that last day, ours will be so paved as well.

A covenantal apologetic must proceed on the basis of reality and not on the basis of illusion. We must proceed according to what Christ, who is the Lord, has told us, not according to what our opponents have decided is “appropriate” for a defense of Christianity. We view our apologetic and we proceed in it, as in the rest of life, through the corrective lenses of Holy Scripture. Anything less would be like choosing to walk in a fog in order to see more clearly.

In order to think carefully about apologetics, we begin with Scripture as well. But we pursue Scripture in such a way that we have at the forefront of our minds how biblical doctrines—especially the doctrines of God, Christ, sin, and salvation—relate to what Scripture says about unbelief. In other words, the concern of apologetics is biblically to answer challenges that come to Christianity from unbelief.What I hope to show throughout this book is that apologetics must (1) be Christian and (2) have a theological foundation. If these two things are integral to Christian apologetics, then it might be best to give it a proper label. Though the approach I advocate is a version of what some have called presuppositionalism, that label as an approach to apologetics needs once and for all to be laid to rest. It has served its purpose well, but it is no longer descriptively useful, and it offers, now, more confusion than clarity when the subject of apologetics arises.

What is Convenantal Apologetics

This is what a covenantal apologetic seeks to do. It seeks to take the truth of Scripture as the proper diagnosis of the unbelieving condition and challenge the unbeliever to make sense of the world he has made. Scripture tells us that a world built on the foundation of unbelief does not exist; it is a figment of an unbelieving imagination, and thus is basically irrational.

If we want to use a philosophical term for this approach (which is not necessary but could be useful at times), a covenantal apologetic is transcendental. A transcendental approach looks for the (so-called) preconditions for knowledge and life. It does not simply assume that knowledge is the same for believer and unbeliever alike. Instead, this approach asks questions about the basic foundations of an unbelieving position. In asking those questions, it also recognizes that what Scripture says is true. It recognizes, for example, that the only reason there can be an unbelieving position is that God is who he says he is, people are what God says they are, and they all, even unbelievers, “live and move and have [their] being” in the triune God (Acts 17:28).

The Ten Tenets

  1. THE FAITH THAT WE ARE DEFENDING MUST BEGIN WITH, AND NECESSARILY INCLUDE, THE TRIUNE GOD—FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT—WHO, AS GOD, CONDESCENDS TO CREATE AND TO REDEEM.

  2. GOD’S COVENANTAL REVELATION IS AUTHORITATIVE BY VIRTUE OF WHAT IT IS, AND ANY COVENANTAL, CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC WILL NECESSARILY STAND ON AND UTILIZE THAT AUTHORITY IN ORDER TO DEFEND CHRISTIANITY.

  3. IT IS THE TRUTH OF GOD’S REVELATION, TOGETHER WITH THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THAT BRINGS ABOUT A COVENANTAL CHANGE FROM ONE WHO IS IN ADAM TO ONE WHO IS IN CHRIST.

  4. MAN (MALE AND FEMALE) AS IMAGE OF GOD IS IN COVENANT WITH THE TRIUNE GOD FOR ETERNITY

  5. ALL PEOPLE KNOW THE TRUE GOD, AND THAT KNOWLEDGE ENTAILS COVENANTAL OBLIGATIONS.

  6. THOSE WHO ARE AND REMAIN IN ADAM SUPPRESS THE TRUTH THAT THEY KNOW. THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST SEE THAT TRUTH FOR WHAT IT IS.

  7. THERE IS AN ABSOLUTE, COVENANTAL ANTITHESIS BETWEEN CHRISTIAN THEISM AND ANY OTHER, OPPOSING POSITION. THUS, CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE AND ANYTHING OPPOSING IT IS FALSE

Even before we know the details of that view, we know from the outset that it cannot stand of its own weight; it cannot match the way the world is. When we begin to learn the details of an opposing view, then, we do so with the initial conviction that there will be no way for that view to actually make sense of the real world. Any view that opposes Christianity cannot be consistently thought or consistently lived.

  1. SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH, LIKE THE DEPRAVITY OF SIN, IS TOTAL BUT NOT ABSOLUTE. THUS, EVERY UNBELIEVING POSITION WILL NECESSARILY HAVE WITHIN IT IDEAS, CONCEPTS, NOTIONS, AND THE LIKE THAT IT HAS TAKEN AND WRENCHED FROM THEIR TRUE, CHRISTIAN CONTEXT.

  2. THE TRUE, COVENANTAL KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN MAN, TOGETHER WITH GOD’S UNIVERSAL MERCY, ALLOWS FOR PERSUASION IN APOLOGETICS.

  3. EVERY FACT AND EXPERIENCE IS WHAT IT IS BY VIRTUE OF THE COVENANTAL, ALL-CONTROLLING PLAN AND PURPOSE OF GOD.

Chapter 2. Set Christ Apart

I AM

So this lordship of Christ, which Peter commands us to set apart in our hearts, includes both his cosmic lordship—by which he sovereignly ruled and rules his creation from the beginning—and his redemptive lordship—which is his because his work of deliverance is completed, and thus God has highly exalted him.

Condescension and Apologetics

If Kant had given due credit to Christ as Lord, he would have seen and known that, as a matter of fact, all men everywhere, at all times and in all places, have deep and abiding, continual, and persistent experiences of God such that every person, by virtue of being made in God’s image and living in God’s world, knows God. And that knowledge of God comes because God has condescended, covenantally, to reveal himself “in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20), in his Son (Heb. 1:1–3), and in his Word. The second we know about anything at all, God is known as well, and that knowledge comes by way of our living and moving and having our existence, in this world, in him (Acts 17:28).

So Kant’s philosophy, with all of its substantial influence, is singularly unconvincing as an analysis of God’s existence. He is right that we cannot move from the finite to the infinite, but he has not considered that the infinite has moved to the finite. In that light, Kant hasn’t even broached the most basic truths of the Christian God.

He Who Is Not With Me

Family Feud

In an ad hominem argument, the comparison is between a person’s basic claims or commitments, on the one hand, and that same person’s behavior, complaints, assertions, on the other. The problems detected are that the person’s basic commitments cannot be consistent with his other claims or complaints. This serves, in part, to provide significant pressure on the truthfulness or applicability of one’s basic commitments.

There are, then, deep and inviolable forces at work in this debate, forces that go way beyond laws of rationality and evidence. For Dawkins, there is the obvious scale of evil: what is done to Muslim women is more evil that what was done to the Skepchick. But how would Dawkins account for any evil, much less evil on a scale? For the Skepchick, there is a code of morality that must be taken by all with utter seriousness when she is the one violated. But what rational law or evidential fact provides this code to all people? As the article says, there really does seem to be no common rational or evidential commitment between Dawkins and the Skepchick when it comes to their own personal lives, the way they ought to act, and what constitutes acceptable behavior between people.

This is inevitable. Anyone who determines to base his life on something other than the lordship of Christ and all that his lordship entails will discover that whatever foundation he thinks is holding him up is actually, even if sometimes slowly or imperceptibly, crumbling to dust underneath him. Thus, the ad hominem argument is an attempt to show the crumbling foundation in its true light. The supposed basic foundation chosen cannot bear the weight of real life in God’s world as God’s creatures. It is utterly impotent and so cannot begin to accomplish the task it has been assigned.

The article by Thorp is useful in that it points out, in a real-life, tangible way, just what it means when we say that atheists (skeptics included) cannot, on the basis of their own worldview, make a credible judgment on moral issues. With respect to the skeptics, Thorp himself sees the problem clearly. The fact that their own foundational commitments cannot account for their own personal lives, or for how people ought to behave, is no small matter. It destroys the entire approach. Any commitment that cannot account for the way that I and all others should live is doomed at the outset.

Incompatible or Incomprehensible

In all of this, I have pointed to the reality of Christ the Lord and his Word. This must be our ultimate aim. Only in that reality will it ever be possible for one who opposes Christianity to see the truth for what it is. And it is only as the truth (who is Christ—John 14:6) is presented that one who is trapped in unbelief will have the opportunity for his chains to be broken, his mind to be renewed and transformed, so that what initially appeared to be a problem becomes that in which the very glory of God is revealed.

Chapter 3. Proof to All Men

In order not to create an infinite regression, the proofs themselves must proceed from the kind of propositions that, being immediately certain, are not capable of proof or do not need it.

What we hope to accomplish in this chapter is to clarify ways in which our basic principles (the ten tenets) relate to the notion of proof in apologetics. In order to do that, we will need to elaborate on some of those principles and try to situate them properly in light of (some of the) historical discussions and debates in and about the use and place of apologetics itself.

Paul at Athens

This “closeness” of God entailed obligations for them, as Paul made clear. Because God is the sovereign One, independent of anything we could contribute (17:24–26), and yet requires us to relate favorably to him, we are in dire straits. Any philosophy or idea that tries to brush away a fear of God or of death is merely an illusion. Death will come, Paul made clear, and so will judgment. And it just so happens, said Paul, that this God has appointed Christ to judge each and every person. The assurance of that judgment is that God raised Christ from the dead.

All of this is covenantal language. God’s creation, his appointing the boundaries for all men, his independence together with his exhaustive presence with each of us—these signify nothing other than God’s sovereign initiation of a relationship with all of his human creatures, a relationship that places obligations on us.

What made Paul think that he could reach his listeners in this way? Was he not simply, and in confrontational fashion, setting his own beliefs over against theirs? Wasn’t Paul’s address at the Areopagus nothing more than a shouting match between different worldviews? In order to answer these questions, and to set up for further discussion, we need to take a closer look at the substance of a couple of our tenets.

Where Shall I Flee?

God’s Inescapable Image

When God condescends to his creation, he does so in order to relate to that creation, to be involved in it (all the while remaining who he essentially is). More specifically, he creates man (both male and female) in his own image. This means that we are, originally, fundamentally, and eternally, image. This truth goes hand in hand with the fact that God is our ultimate environment. We all, as human beings, live coram Deo, in the presence of him in whose image we are.

This is one reason it might be helpful to remember the analogy of a mirror image. If the image of God is analogous to an image in a mirror, then we realize that the original must be at all times present, in front of the mirror, in order for there to be an image at all. But we also see that the image, as image, while reflecting the original, depends at every second on the presence of the original for its very existence. If the original is no longer present, the image is gone. Image is essentially dependent, for its existence and every one of its characteristics, on the original. The original, however, is in no way dependent on that image in order to be what it is. Furthermore, the image is of a completely different character than its original.

  1. As Lord, God has committed himself, for eternity, to his creation. He has promised not to annihilate what he has made, but rather to keep it for himself forever. This covenant commitment of God the Lord to tie himself to what he has made will go on without end.

  2. Because he is Lord, the relationship that obtains between us and him is not one of equality. God’s commitment to us does not entail that he has become an equal partner in this relationship. He is and remains God, and we are and will remain his creatures. He neither depends on us nor owes us anything (Rom. 11:33–36). We owe him everything, including allegiance and worship, and we owe it to him for eternity. He rules over us—lovingly, sovereignly, wisely—and we submit to that rule (either now or in the future—cf. Phil. 2:9–11).

  3. In creating us as image, God bound us together not only with himself, but with creation as well. There is a bond of humanity with (the rest of) creation such that one will not and cannot exist without the other. It is for this reason that Paul, in speaking of what is sometimes called the problem of evil in Romans 8 can say confidently that, as a result of our sin, the whole creation groans and itself was subjected to futility (Rom. 8:19–20). It does not groan because of its own inherent deficiencies, but because, in our sinning, we subjected it to futility (cf. Gen. 3:16–19). Creation, in covenant with man, fell because we fell.

  4. As with God’s lordship over us, our lordship over creation is not one of equals. We were meant to rule over—lovingly and wisely—all that God made. Because of the entrance of sin, matters have become complicated (to say the least) and our ruling sometimes causes harm rather than good. there is an inseparable and ineluctable link between ourselves and the world, a link that is both established by God and intended to reflect his character. Because of that, we are people created to know and to interact with our world, all to the glory of the triune God, our Creator. It is this crucial but (almost) universally neglected truth—that our covenantal connection with the world is initiated, constituted, orchestrated, and sustained by the triune God—that is the theological key to a Christian understanding of our “situated-ness” in the world and our access (and knowledge of that access) to reality.

In relating himself to us, the triune God creates the means by which he condescends to us. He reveals himself via human language, meaning, experience, and even flesh (supremely in Christ) in order to faithfully maintain his covenant with us; and he does all of this while remaining fully and completely God.

God’s Unabated Revelation

But the second theological truth that informs Paul’s Areopagus address is that God is not hindered by our pretended contexts and supposed barriers. His revelation comes through; it bombards us externally and internally. He continues, always and everywhere, to reveal himself to those who are his image. And that revelation always and everywhere meets its mark and accomplishes its goal. As image, we know him, and that knowledge makes us covenantally accountable to him (tenet 5).

All people have (what Calvin called) a sensus divinitatis (about which I will say more below), which simply is the true knowledge of God, and all are therefore rendered without excuse. All people are covenantally bound to be judged by God. Paul’s point in Romans 1 and 2 is to argue that we all are in the same depraved boat.

Let’s frame Paul’s affirmation of the sensus in terms of a threefold and mutually related truth: (1) The sensus, as a central aspect of our being made in God’s image, is God’s revelation to us. (2) As revelation it is implanted in us by God himself. (3) Given (1) and (2), as Paul makes clear, the sensus is knowledge of God, a knowledge that is universal and infallible. We will take these three in reverse order.

This knowledge of God that we all have is knowledge with significant and substantial content. Universally, clearly, and infallibly, we know much about God by virtue of this clearly perceived and understood revelation of God to us. We know his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity (or “God-ness”). We know these things to such an extent that Paul can pronounce in verse 21 that since the creation of the world to the present, human beings are and have always been creatures who “knew God.”

This is strong (and clear) language. It explicitly states that all of us, “since the creation of the world,” are characterized as those who knew (and know) God; we know his deity and his power—in short, all those things that are a part of his invisible nature. And what are those things? Charles Hodge, in his commentary on Romans, says that Paul means to delineate here “all the divine perfections”8 in his affirmation of those things which we know about God. Presumably, then, human beings are created such that we know God to be “a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”9 Important truths such as these (and we could say these truths are really the most important ones) God has seen fit not to leave to our own reasoning process to discover; they are not left to the schools or seminaries; they are not in any way dependent on the capacities of human creatures themselves for the process of knowing. They are given to us, revealed to and in us, implanted in us, by the creative power and providence of almighty God the Creator.

The second aspect of the sensus is God’s internal implanting of this knowledge in us.

The sensus, then, is not a doctrine or teaching that is learned, but rather something that is present within us “from our mother’s womb.” Such is the case because this knowledge is not dependent on us to be acquired; it is given by God. So we have the sensus because we are God’s image and God implants the knowledge of himself within each of us as his image. And this knowledge is, ipso facto, universal and infallible; to say otherwise would render those in Adam excused before God (cf. Rom. 1:20).

One important qualifier needs to be added here and should be developed, but cannot be elaborated. Since this knowledge of God that all people have is implanted by God through the dynamic of his revelatory activity, it is a knowledge in many ways quite different from most (if not all) other kinds of knowledge that we acquire. It is a knowledge, we could say, that is presupposed by any (perhaps all) other knowledge. For this reason, it may be best to think of it as more psychological than epistemological.16 It is a knowledge that God infuses into his human creatures, and continues to infuse into them, even as they continue to live out their days denying or ignoring him (in Adam).

We should also note that this knowledge of God is implanted “through the things that are made.” Thus, it comes, always and anon, whether or not the human creature claims to know God or to have reason for not knowing. This means that entailed in our condition as human beings is access to the world as created. Behind every culture, behind any context or conditioning, behind any linguistic construct is the world known, and known as created by the true God who is known. As God reveals himself through the universe, the universe is known to us even as God is known to us.

Proving the Proofs

The definition of a valid argument is that the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. A sound argument is a valid argument in which the premises are true.

There are at least two significant and global limitations to the notion of proof. First, absolutely conclusive proofs are hard to come by. This is the case for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is that there are divergent opinions on what constitutes an absolutely conclusive proof. Is it a proof that is objectively sound whether or not someone accepts it? Does it have to be accepted by a person in order to be proved as absolutely conclusive? If not, then how do we understand the notion of conclusive? That is one limitation.18 The other limitation, which goes back at least as far as Aristotle, is that we cannot operate or even think in a context in which every assertion requires a demonstrative proof. For example, one of the most stimulating arguments presented over the past few decades has been Alvin Plantinga’s assertion that there really is no successful case for the existence of “other minds” (i.e., other people). No philosopher has successfully argued for that existence, since it cannot be established on an empirical or a nonempirical basis.

Strictly speaking, the existence of God cannot be proved. However compelling the evidence, it is not its cogency that compels acceptance; rather, it is the Holy Spirit alone who can compel agreement.

The notion of proof is complicated. And notice that we have not even begun to discuss the complexities of sin’s effects on the mind and the radical changes that are caused by regeneration. Those truths play a major role in a discussion of proofs for God’s existence, so that the complexity is made more obvious, and is increased, for those who trust in Christ.

What a Burden

This might be a good place briefly to mention the notion of “burden of proof” (onus probandi) as it applies to argumentation. The primary thing to keep in mind in this regard is that the burden of proof is a loose and ever-shifting concept, not as concrete as some would like to think.

One book on critical thinking defines the “burden of proof” in this way: “The burden of proof rests most heavily on the side of the issue that, from the point of view of educated common sense, is most implausible or unusual or unbelievable.”22 If we are used to reading with a biblically critical eye, a number of questions will immediately come to mind with respect to this definition. What, we could ask, is “the point of view of educated common sense”? This phrase can be taken generally, of course, so that we can affirm much that is “common” to our experience. The problem, however, is that what is “common” is also fraught with sin and confusion, so that “common sense,” from the point of view of the actual world that God created and controls, is often senseless.

We can also legitimately ask our interlocutors to make sense of their own positions in the context of their arguments. As we will see in chapter 6, evolutionary arguments tend to shy away from the clear and obvious fact that human beings have minds that are vastly superior to anything that exists in the animal kingdom. And given a standard notion of causality and its interconnection to its effects, it would be highly unusual if that which is mindless caused people with highly developed, even uniquely developed, minds. The burden rests legitimately on the one who thinks such things have occurred, given that there are no evidential examples of such occurrences.

Chapter 4. We Persuade Others

“Trivial” Matters

The Trivium

Grammar, dialectic or logic, rhetoric. None of these three subjects is neutral with respect to its understanding. Like everything else, all three are informed by one’s view of the world and one’s covenant status before God.

The Theology of Persuasion

The dilemma is obvious. There simply cannot be sufficient evidential propositions ad infinitum. There has to be some “place”—some proposition, some concept, some idea, some foundation of authority—that is sufficient to carry the conceptual weight of what we claim to know, believe, and hold.

It is for this reason, among others, that the founding fathers of the Reformation placed the Scriptures as the proper foundation for everything else that we claim to know or believe. They came to that conclusion, in part, in response to the standard medieval view. During the Middle Ages, insufficient attention was given, in general, to the problem of sin as it relates to our reasoning process.

Thus, a central aspect to “re-forming” theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included a renewed focus on Scripture as our only foundation for knowing, for believing, and for reasoning properly.

So the first theological foundation that informs the priority of persuasion is the principial status of Scripture. The importance of this can hardly be overstated. Scripture serves as our most basic foundation.

The second theological foundation is like unto the first.9 Here, however, we move from God’s special revelation in Scripture to his general, natural revelation in creation, and specifically in us. Because, as we have seen and discussed, all people know the true God, whenever we speak of this God to others, what we say—in apologetics, in preaching, in evangelism—automatically “connects” with what they already know.

The third theological truth that significantly impacts the way we think about persuasion is God’s universal mercy over all that he has made. All of man, in every aspect, is depraved, sinful, in rebellion against God. How, then, are we to account for those things that are done by the unregenerate that are, at least on the surface, not evil? How do we explain the fact that many unbelievers outshine believers with respect to some aspects of a virtuous life?

In an attempt to understand Scripture’s affirmation of God’s universal mercy, then, three basic aspects of that mercy, all interrelated, have been emphasized.

  1. The first aspect of God’s universal mercy includes the fact that God’s attitude toward his creatures made in his image is one of wrath, because of sin (Rom. 1:18), but is also one of mercy and kindness toward them.

  2. The second aspect of God’s universal mercy has to do with the restraint of sin in the lives of individuals and of society.

  3. The third aspect of God’s universal mercy is a consequence of the first. It includes the fact that the unregenerate can perform “righteous” acts, even though still slaves to sin. This point need not be developed here. It is a vitally important theological truth, however. It means that there is much religious good that an unbeliever can participate in and accomplish without himself being regenerate.

So we may want to agree with him that they are indeed of value (at least to some extent), but then ask him how he can make sense of such things, given his own (unbelieving) commitments. We may want to tell him, for example, that his general love for his fellow man is a good thing, but then ask him how he proposes to make sense of such a thing. Thus the notion of God’s universal mercy, given our understanding of total depravity, gives us a significant understanding of just where we might want to challenge unbelief. In that sense, it is an indispensable apologetic truth.

The “Trivium” of Persuasion

We began our discussion in this chapter with the trivium: those three central aspects that form the beginning of a liberal arts education. Following on that, we saw that there were three theological truths, a theological “trivium”—the principial nature of Scripture, the sensus divinitatis (i.e., knowledge of God), and God’s universal mercy—that provide the foundation for a biblical view of persuasion in apologetics. With the educational trivium and theological trivium now in place, we are ready to discuss the “trivium” of persuasion, three aspects that help us understand something of the structure of persuasion itself.

With an emphasis on the rational, we can begin to see why the notion of demonstrative proofs held sway in (much of) theology and apologetics. The motives were good ones; there was an attempt to show Christianity (or theism, more generally) to be rational and not opposed to reason. But we have already seen how such an emphasis, when not properly scrutinized, can sacrifice basic and central truths of the Christian faith.

With an emphasis on the empirical, we can see why the notion of evidences for theism or Christianity held sway in (much of) theology and apologetics. Again, the motives were good; there was an attempt to show Christianity to be connected with real history and to be manifest in creation itself. But, again, we have already seen how such a view can compromise basic and central truths of the Christian faith.

The Kantian influence, as we have seen, gave rise to the present praise of all things scientific at the expense of true, biblical faith. “Faith,” in a Kantian context, can only have experience as its governing principle, not knowledge.

Ethos

“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character [ethos] of the speaker; the second kind on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos]; the third on proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [logos].”

Paul’s summary statement of this false kind of sophistry is evident and made clear at the beginning of his instruction to this church: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:20). This is an important—we could almost say monumental—point with respect to apologetics. While we want to be concerned with how we present the message (grammar), while we want to follow basic rules of thinking so that our speech and our message are coherent (logic), while we want to be concerned with persuasion and with our rhetorical technique (rhetoric) (Paul was concerned with these things as his letters show), we must never let those things be the basis upon which we have hope or upon which we rest as we present our message.

In 1 Peter 3:15, as Peter commands the church to be ready to defend her faith, he is careful to note the ethos in which such a defense must be given. Defend your faith, Peter is saying, “with gentleness and respect.”

a defense of the Christian faith must first demonstrate Christ in our character. Without that, we have nothing of substance to say.

Pathos

As we consider the pathos, therefore, it is necessary for us to take account of the actual audience that we are addressing. Our objective “is to persuade the audience to identify with a particular position. The rhetor seeks to move, even to impel, the audience toward a particular point of view.”

In our persuasive construal of the people to whom we speak, that is, the pathos, two central aspects are always in play and must be considered by the covenantal apologist. These two we can denominate as (1) the aspect of suppression and (2) the aspect of the sensus.

In the midst of his address on Mars Hill, Paul quotes two Greek poets. Why would Paul, in a defense of Christianity, choose to use statements by pagans? Here Paul employs what we have dubbed the suppression aspect of pathos. Paul, in the interest of persuasion, has properly construed his audience; he knows something of their culture and beliefs. So he seeks to identify with his hearers by using statements that they themselves know and many of them believe. In using such statements, he automatically draws them into his discussion. He is interpreting for them statements that they have already accepted.

He enlists them in order to build a bridge between his own presentation of the gospel and what his audience holds to be true. It seems obvious that Paul is persuasively connecting what he himself is arguing for with what his audience already knows. He is using quotations familiar to them in order to advance and clarify his own points about the gospel.

If the only concern were to tell the truth, then the Areopagus address would begin, “Men of Athens, I see by your rampant idolatry that you are all suppressing the truth in unrighteousness and worshiping something created rather than the Creator. Repent!” But Paul is wiser than that. He is interested in telling them the truth persuasively. So to that end, he quotes these two poets, using statements familiar to his entire audience. And he does so in order to bring them into his own (Christian) context. This is a perfect example of the proper application of pathos.

We must recognize, however, that Paul imports a substantially different meaning to these adopted quotations. This is vital to understanding the persuasive element of pathos. It is sometimes thought that in quoting these Greek poets Paul is agreeing that they have gotten at least part of their description of God right. All that Paul is doing, it might be thought, is adding the gospel to the Greeks’ (semi)proper notion of God. But this is not what Paul is doing at all. Remember that Paul knows the source of his audience’s beliefs. He knows that these beliefs are suppressed, “twisted truths” that come from sinful reactions to God’s natural revelation of himself. As suppressed and twisted truths, they are, in the hands of the Greeks, condemnable. They are in error. The Greeks would be without excuse if they stood before God with these notions (Rom. 1:20). When they die, they will not be able to say to God, “See, we got it half right!” In that sense, the things that they believe simply are not true at all; they are false propositions, and Paul knows that.

But when taken and transplanted into their rightful context, to the context of Christianity, these are glorious truths. So Paul surgically removes these poetic propositions from the diseased body that can only kill and destroy their meaning, and transplants them into the healthy body of Christian truth, where alone they are able to thrive.

The suppression aspect of the pathos of persuasion includes a “reading” or construal of the audience such that we take and use their own ideas and beliefs in our defense of the Christian position.

But there is also the sensus aspect working powerfully in Paul’s persuasive presentation. This aspect of pathos is completely absent from all notions of persuasion in discussions of apologetics today. For that reason, such notions become nothing more than one person’s opinion against another’s. In discussions of pathos, as we have seen, the predominant idea is that we must properly construe our audience. As we have seen, that has merit and should be a part of our persuasive dialog. But the more important, central, and crucial point to remember and apply in our persuasive discussion is that God has already “construed” our audience for us, to the extent that he has told us, in his Word, just what unbelief is like.

When we begin to reckon with what Paul tells us in Romans 1:18ff., however, we see that what Descartes wanted and thought he could acquire on his own is actually what God gives us in his natural revelation. That is, part of what it means to be “image of God” is that we inevitably and eternally, as God’s creatures, know him. To use Descartes’s language, because of what God has done (not because of anything in us), we all, as his human creatures, have a “clear and distinct idea” of God himself. Even more, we all have “clear and distinct” knowledge of his character.

This, then, helps us to see that which is certain—the knowledge of God in all people—as one of the primary aspects of the pathos of persuasion. In other words, the sensus of the pathos of persuasion is a clear and distinct knowledge of God. This knowledge will manifest itself in various ways. It will be twisted, decontextualized (from its proper source), and perverted in some ways, but it will stem from the knowledge of God that all of us have and that cannot be utterly annihilated in us.

Logos

The logos of persuasion focuses our attention on the actual arguments, including the content of those arguments, that we aim to present to a given audience.

Understood in this way—and this is undoubtedly how the Athenians would have understood it—we can begin to see Paul’s persuasive logos in his Mars Hill address. When Paul tells the Athenians that God has given pistis to all that judgment will come by his raising Christ from the dead, Paul is, in effect, saying that God’s rhetorical proof, God’s persuasive word, that all men will be judged is the resurrection of Christ.

The power of what Paul is saying here to this Athenian audience can hardly be overestimated. Remember that it was this fact of the resurrection that motivated the philosophers and Athenians in the first place to bring Paul to the Areopagus in order to present his case. It was the resurrection that seemed to be the “new” thing Paul was presenting (17:18–21). That “new” thing was both an agitation to the philosophers and an item of curiosity to the Athenians generally (17:21). So in the midst of a masterfully persuasive argument utilizing both the suppression and the sensus aspects of persuasion, the apostle concludes with a masterstroke of persuasive rhetoric.

The very thing that piqued both interest and scorn was the capstone of Paul’s entire persuasive argument. It was the telos (end goal) both of Paul’s presentation and, as he makes clear, of all history. It was the rhetorical proof (pistis) of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that ensured that history would someday be complete and that Christ, who was dead but is now alive, would come back to judge the living and the dead.

Thus, the word (logos) that we present always aligns itself with the word of God, and our goal in a covenantal apologetic is that we present the Logos himself, the very incarnate Word of God, who is the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:1–9, 14).

Conclusion

First, Luke tells us the outcome of Paul’s address on Mars Hill: “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them” (Acts 17:32–34).

So, as Luke reports it to us, the responses to Paul’s Areopagus address ran the gamut. There were some who continued to mock Paul—some, no doubt, who continued to think him to be nothing more than a “babbler.” There were others who wanted to hear more. They were not yet convinced, but something(s) Paul had said resonated with them, and they were curious to hear him expand on what he had said. And then there were some who joined him and believed. There can be no doubt, given this last response, that it was clear from Paul’s presentation that the proper response was faith. In other words, the pistis (rhetorical proof) of the resurrection of Christ was meant to evoke a response of pistis (faith) from Paul’s audience.

Our goal is to communicate, as persuasively as we are able, the truth of God himself, as that truth finds its focus in the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.

The second concluding point that we need to remember was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Because arguments of persuasion have to take into account the pathos of persuasion, there will not be just one way, or just one set of truths, or one answer given, in every apologetic encounter. What we say, how we say it, and what words and responses we choose to give will depend to a large extent on those to whom we speak. Paul would not have used quotations from Aratus in his defense of Christianity in the synagogue. To do so would have misunderstood the pathos of his audience there.

So in a covenantal approach to apologetics, the question, “What do you say when someone says x?” will likely have many possible answers, since that question is abstract as it stands. A proper response requires a fuller pathos. What cannot change is the ethos and the logos of what we say. In any situation—apologetic or otherwise—we are meant to be holy as God himself is holy. And in any situation—apologetic or otherwise—we are meant, when the opportunities arise, to communicate that which is in and consistent with the word of God. The pathos, however, calls forth from us the application of wisdom. We have to be able to take what we know and to apply it in the given situation we are in at that moment.

Chapter 5. We Destroy Arguments: The Achilles’ Heel

The Good Fight

We destroy arguments (2 Cor. 10:5). That is one of the things that characterizes the ministry of the apostle Paul. We know that there is, and will always be, hostility to the Christian faith. We also know that anything that opposes Christianity is, by that very act, false. We know this not because we are smarter or more rational or more consistent than others. We know it because of what God has said and because of what God’s grace has done in our lives.

Paul is reminding us that the arguments presented by these intruders were only as authoritative as the intruders themselves. And their authority, in the end, was merely in their own minds. It was in their own ideas and reasonings—quite literally a figment of their imaginations. So Paul is saying that he is going to go after and demolish the false authority on which these false apostles rested.

This will be the case whenever we engage in apologetics. Apologetics, in many ways, is simply a battle over authorities. It involves making plain just where we stand, or better, where we rest, with regard to what we claim. It also involves encouraging our opponents to make plain where they rest their own case. The authority issue is always primary.

Two related points might be useful to remember in this regard. First, we recognize that any argument raised up against the knowledge of God can be destructive to any and all who adopt them. Second, we remember that Christianity does have answers to these arguments. Even if we are unfamiliar with the precise terminology and technicalities of the arguments themselves, once we grasp the question those arguments are designed to answer, our understanding of Scripture can begin to supply the true and needed answer. So, in this chapter I hope to show how one particularly predominant argument might be demolished.

Positively, the task of apologetics is to commend the Christian faith to those who are affected by, even enslaved to, unbelief. This is perhaps most obviously done when we have a discussion with someone about the gospel in which objections to it are raised. Whenever we do that, we are commending the Christian faith in the face of opposition. This is what we called the “Christian context” in chapter 2.

Negatively, the task of apologetics is to refute challenges to the truth of the Christian position. Here the focus is on countering arguments that say Christianity is inconsistent or irrational. To use Paul’s terminology, the negative approach destroys the arguments, tears them down, and weakens, lessens, or in some way undermines whatever force they may seem to have. Often included in this negative aspect of apologetics is what we called the Quicksand Quotient in chapter 2. We seek to show that the position advocated against Christianity sinks of its own weight.

Negative Apologetics

Whenever our focus is to neutralize or otherwise weaken an objection to Christianity, we are engaged in (what we have called) negative apologetics. The initial goal of a negative apologetic is to ward off objections and complaints that come against Christianity.

There are a host of these and it would be impossible to address every objection. In negative apologetics, responding to attacks that come against Christianity has more to do with understanding the particular complaint in view than with (as in positive apologetics) commending Christianity as true. Both tasks are essential aspects of apologetics and should go together. But there may be occasions when the best response, at least initially, might be to address the complaint head-on with the hope that it would clear the way for commending Christianity. An illustration of how this could be done might be helpful here.

The existence of sin and evil in the world is as good a place as any to begin thinking about negative apologetics. It may even be that most of the objections against Christianity reduce down to the sin/evil problem in some way, shape, or form. In any case, it is one of the most obvious problems that Christianity has to face. Given the real incompatibility between who God is and the existence of evil, some have dubbed this problem the “Achilles’ heel” of Christianity; it is the one problem that brings the whole thing tumbling down. In its most generic form, it is typically called “the problem of evil.”

How can it be, they ask, that a good, omnipotent, and omniscient God can exist when there is so much evil in the world? Surely if he is good, and if he knew what would happen, and if he is able to stop evil, there would be no evil in the world. But there is obviously much evil in the world. It must be, then, that this kind of God does not or could not exist.

One of the reasons that the problem of evil is so powerful as an objection to Christianity is that it points to two actual truths. (1) There is an incompatibility between God’s character and the evil that exists, and (2) the evil that exists is real and touches everyone in deep and abiding ways. These two truths all Christians would affirm.

Because of its multifaceted character, there is more than one way to respond to the problem of sin and evil. There is a pastoral response, which would seek to show how the Lord himself provides comfort for those who suffer, and how he overcomes his enemies. This is, perhaps, the most central and important response to the problem. But the problem as stated by Hume has a strong intellectual component as well. There is something amiss, in this construal, when we try to hold the two truths of “God exists” and “evil exists” together in our minds. Surely these two truths defy our standard ways of thinking; we seem to lack the intellectual tools needed to bring them together in a satisfactory way. Thus, this aspect of the problem of evil has sometimes been called the “logical problem of evil.”

To say that it has a strong intellectual component, we should see, is also to affirm that it is a practical problem. We dare not succumb to an all-too-typical bifurcation of the theoretical and the practical. While such things can be virtually unrelated, there is no room in Christianity for such a dichotomy.

Without going into detail, a couple of points will help here. First, just to reiterate what we hope to do in this section, we should state clearly in response to the logical problem of evil that what we will offer is a defense. We are not yet interested in offering a theodicy.4 That is, we are not interested, at this point, in responding in a way that would seek to show how there can be both this kind of God and evil. We are not interested in actively commending the truth of God’s existence and his ways, given the existence of evil and sin, in this response. To do that would be to begin to advocate for the position we are defending.5

So we have two statements—(1) An omnipotent, omniscient, and good God exists, and (2) There is evil—which themselves are not easily brought together. How could such statements be more easily merged together? Plantinga notes that what is needed is a third statement, (3), that is consistent with (1) and that entails (2). In other words, another statement that does not conflict, but is consistent, with the fact of God’s existence, but which also includes the fact of evil’s existence, would help us see how the incompatibility might be overcome.

Not only so, but as Plantinga evaluates the objection, he rightly contends that the incompatibility between God’s existence and the existence of evil, in order to be a substantial objection, must, for anyone lodging the complaint, itself be a necessary incompatibility. For the argument/attack to have its force, it would need to be necessarily the case that the existence of God and of evil are incompatible. This is the case because if the existence of God and of evil were only possibly (and not necessarily) incompatible, then the existence of God and of evil would possibly be compatible, and the problem would lose its punch. So those complaining about the lack of compatibility between God and evil must show that lack of compatibility as necessarily the case. They must, in other words, hold that it is impossible (not just improbable) that God and evil coexist.

So what we need is a statement that includes God’s existence and entails the existence of evil—a statement that we have labeled (3). One prime candidate for (3) is this: “Adam responsibly and freely8 chose to disobey God, to eat the forbidden fruit, after which time he and all of creation fell.” This statement, we should note, is consistent with (1)—it is consistent with the existence of a good, omniscient, and omnipotent God. And it is consistent with (2)—it entails the existence of sin and evil since the fall of Adam and all of creation brought evil into the world. So is it possible, we could ask, that the fact that Adam responsibly and freely chose to eat the forbidden fruit brings together God’s existence and the existence of evil such that they are now seen to be compatible? That is, in affirming (3)—“Adam responsibly and freely chose to disobey God, to eat the forbidden fruit, after which time he and all of creation fell”—do we avoid denying(1)? Given (3), God’s goodness, omniscience, and omnipotence all can be affirmed, and we also have an explanation for (2), the entrance of evil and sin into the world. Thus, while we still maintain that God and evil are contrary entities, we can see how both exist by virtue of Adam’s responsible and free choice.

So the fact that the objector may not believe (3) is not relevant to the response that we give, nor is it relevant to whether or not there is an answer to the problem. He does not believe in the existence of God either, but he posits such in order to lay out the problem. So what the objector himself believes is not directly relevant to our answer, even as it was not directly relevant to his objection.

This is an important point and should not be glossed over lightly. It is sometimes thought or assumed by both parties in a debate of this kind that the context, including the response, we posit must be one that each party in the debate will gladly accept. But there are too many other factors present that do, or could, block one or both parties from accepting a particular response. What is needed, in this case, is not a statement that the objector will accept, since the very problem that he poses—the attack that he wages—is one that includes a statement Christians accept, but the objector does not accept, namely (1). So the acceptability of a certain state of affairs (i.e., the existence of God) is itself not a part of the objector’s own beliefs. It can hardly be untoward, therefore, to respond to the objection in a way that is consistent with the challenge itself, even though it is not consistent with the objector’s position; his very objection is inconsistent with his own position!

Think of it this way: the objector comes to us and says, “You Christians believe two propositions which themselves are incompatible. It is your responsibility to show me how these propositions can be compatible.” Now suppose the objector also demands that you show the compatibility of these truths on the basis of the objector’s own atheistic position. That, of course, cannot be done. The only way to show the compatibility of the two propositions is by appealing to the source and substance of those propositions themselves. And the first statement, “God exists,” is absent from the atheist’s position. No response, therefore, can take that position as the proper context for an answer.

Positive Apologetics

For the coexistence of God and of evil. Any argument that concludes for the improbability of the coexistence of these two is no strong argument against it. Improbable things happen all the time. If all the argument produces is an improbability, it is no real objection to Christianity; improbability of this kind oftentimes has more to do with opinion and predisposition than with logical force.

The second aspect of our response took into account that the objection itself draws its content from a conception of God consistent with Christianity. In so doing, the objector has, by way of his own objection, opened himself up to a response that would take seriously just how it is that we know such things about God. That is, the objection assumes that God is good, omniscient, and omnipotent.12 And we know who God is only by virtue of his revelation to us. Once the topic of revelation is introduced, as it is at least implicitly by the objection, it is legitimate to pursue a response that would utilize the teaching of that revelation.

The further objection to our response could look something like this: “You have stated that Adam responsibly ate the forbidden fruit and, thus, we have the entrance of sin and evil in the world. But you have not yet explained in any way how Adam could be responsible for his disobedient choice, given God’s own character.” In other words, the incompatibility that is suspected in the original objection could easily reduce down to an incompatibility between specific characteristics of God and the reality of evil, to which this same God is opposed. The problem, in other words, is not simply a general incompatibility between God’s existence and the existence of evil or sin. Rather, the problem implies a more specific incompatibility that is assumed when it is affirmed that God has the characteristics mentioned above, on the one hand, and that Adam brought about a state of affairs that was and is in opposition to this God.

How could it be, to put the matter more specifically, that God’s omnipotence and omniscience could not “protect” or prevent Adam from bringing the created world into ruin? Surely, as omniscient, God would have known what Adam would do in any possible circumstance, so could he have determined not to bring about those circumstances. Or, given his omnipotence, he could have stopped Adam from eating the forbidden fruit so that evil and sin would not have brought creation into bondage.

Plantinga’s response to this more specific problem was to construe God’s particular characteristics—specifically his omnipotence—in such a way that the creation of Adam imposed limits on God’s essential power. That is, once God determined to create Adam, it is possible, Plantinga would say, that God’s omnipotence was itself limited by the fact of Adam’s moral and ethical responsibility before God.

So the problem with Plantinga’s response is not that he restricts the “omni” in omnipotence. Everyone in Christian theology must qualify the “omni” of omnipotence. The problem, rather, has its focus in just how the omnipotence is thought to be restricted. It is thought to be restricted, as Plantinga makes clear, by virtue of Adam’s (libertarian) free will, a will that itself could bring about a state of affairs that God’s own power could not bring about. In other words, Adam’s will was such that it acted independent of God’s control. Or God is not sovereign over Adam’s choices; those choices must be independent of God. Any will acting in conjunction with God’s control, so the argument goes, could not be free and therefore could not be responsible. Moreover, any will acting in conjunction with God’s will would put the responsibility for its acts squarely on God. Thus, God would be the author of sin.

But this response which construes God’s sovereignty as limited is not open to one who embraces a covenantal apologetic. It is not open to anyone who holds that the theology reaffirmed during the Reformation is itself most consistent with biblical truth.14 Anyone holding to Reformed theology will need to find another way to respond to this objection.

It just so happens that there is another way, and it is a way that moves more explicitly and intentionally toward the reality of the gospel as the only real solution to the problem of evil and sin. It seems to me fair to say that no other approach or response to this problem so naturally moves to the good news of the gospel. And that seems to be a fatal flaw with any other approach to this problem.

Chapter 6. Walk in Wisdom towards Outsiders

But the theory of evolution, which presently serves as explanation, is equally antithetical to Scripture. Just as the natural sciences attempt to infer the animate from the inanimate, the organic from the inorganic, human beings from the animal world, the conscious from the unconscious, the higher from the lower, so also the science of religion of modern times seeks to explain religion in terms of an earlier areligious state of affairs and pure religion from the primitive forms of fetishism, animism, ancestor worship, etc. Earlier in this volume we have already sufficiently explained and refuted this theory of the origin of religion.1

The Wisdom of Persuasion

Merging together what God has said through Paul and Peter in these two passages, we are, in our apologetic encounters, to respond with wisdom in such a way that our speech is gracious and persuasive (winsome) as we treat those to whom we speak with gentleness and respect.

The Spirit of Persuasion

(Luke 21:12-15)

First, it is important to see what Christ is not saying in this passage. He is not saying that the disciples, or we, should neglect to prepare ourselves at all for a confrontation with those who oppose him.

The second aspect of the Spirit’s ministry is what we might call his work of synergy (working with).

The third aspect of the Spirit’s ministry is his work of testimony.

The testimony of the Holy Spirit answers the “so what?” question. It assures me that I am in desperate need of a Savior, that the death of Christ on the cross was for my sins, that the most important thing in my life is to glorify and please God, that I am his child and he will never leave me or forsake me, and so on.

I need to reiterate what I have been at pains to make clear. The fictional discussions below are simply one way—perhaps not even the best way, certainly not the only way—to respond to some specific attacks. Our hope is to respond in wisdom, with graceful and persuasive speech. But it will be obvious, as we have already seen, that such discussions could move in many directions that ours does not, and that responses also could vary from person to person, situation to situation, and point to point. What I do hope to show is that there is a way in a covenantal apologetic to address these specific challenges. Thus, at minimum, these discussions should provide some concrete examples of just how the principles we have been looking at throughout our study can actually be applied to real objections and attacks that might come our way.

Dennett, Dawkins, and Doubt

With these two biblical applications in mind—the necessity of wisdom as the biblical avenue for persuasion, and the Holy Spirit’s work, by and with the Word, as the ultimate persuader—we will attempt to set out an apologetic, a covenantal defense, to a fairly common attack or two on the Christian faith.

Perhaps most threatening to some in our current day is the predominance, even near-reverence, given to scientific knowledge and “dogma.” This is a distinctly modern phenomenon, in that science itself, as we know, was birthed in the cradle of Christianity.9 But it is a phenomenon that is front and center in our culture and in academia today, so it is likely one with which many Christians have struggled.

In most apologetic discussions about science, the topic of evolution is the primary challenge. What I propose to do, then, is very modest and simple, but is, I hope, helpful (even if minimally) as a beginning point in thinking about this particular challenge. This beginning point will not make use of the evolutionary debates and facts that swirl in the almost infinite regions of scientific discussion.

We know that any scientific theory that proposes to be atheistic is false and cannot give proper account of itself; the seeds of self-destruction are resident in any such theory.10 We also know that we cannot simply place ourselves on some supposedly neutral “evidential” ground in order to discuss scientific objections and challenges to Christianity. What is “rational” and what is “evidential” depend, first of all, as we have seen, on where one presumes to stand to make such objections and challenges.

The first thing we recognize is that no human being was there when the world and man were created. This may seem too obvious to point out, but it has significant implications for any evolutionary theory of origins. The second thing we can affirm is that no “missing link” between animals and human beings has been found, nor could it be.11 This, of course, is what it means, in part at least, that God created man (male and female) in a special way, and not through some macroevolutionary means.12

Without needing to immerse ourselves in a detailed scientific discussion of these proponents of blindness and danger, we can begin by highlighting that in the process of their discussion, both Dawkins and Dennett argue for the plausibility of their evolutionary thesis. This will be a significant point in our response, but we’ll tend to that in a minute.

Some Quotes from debate between evolution and creation:

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I am doing two things here that you have already conceded doing yourself. First, I am presenting an “Argument from Authority.” Unless you’ve had your naturalistic head in the ground, you will recognize that the authority from which I argue is the authority of Holy Scripture. Whether you accept it as an authority or not is not relevant here. You argue from authorities that you accept, so you must allow me to do the same. Surely, you won’t expect me as a Christian to concede to your atheistic authorities, will you? Second, and taking from the first point, I am discussing with you which “net” can provide what is needed for the game to even begin. You grant that there has to be a net; but I cannot use your net.

If I may continue. Since we human beings are made from the same basic stuff as the animals, there is bound to be much continuity between us. But the question that your algorithms have not addressed, and cannot (and here I can only speculate as to why you would not address this problem), is the evidentially and rationally obvious discontinuities that exist between the rest of creation and human beings.

For example, you don’t even address the most obvious and specific question as to how that which is mindless can produce the mind of a human being. Surely you would agree that our minds can transcend the “natural.” They readily move beyond the “natural,” for example, in the very activity that we are performing here—the activity of discussion and debate—a discussion and debate in which you and I assume that what we say and propose has meaning, that it resonates with the actual state of affairs in the world.21 We disagree as to the root or cause of those states of affairs, but I doubt you would want to disagree that we are thus engaged right now.

The reason, you see, that your (or any other) evolutionary theory of origins does not address these central questions is that, by definition, it is not able to do so. Any study of the “natural” only, with the supposition that only the “natural” is rational, will by definition have to exclude anything that does not comport with the definition of the “natural.” Your Kantian paradigm—in which there are the data of science, which one can know, and then the (at least logical) possibility of faith, which cannot partake of rational knowledge, is owing, I’m sure you recognize, not to science, but to a philosophical prejudice that itself is not scientifically or evidentially justified.

So, back to my “Argument from Authority.” When God created human beings, he breathed into them the breath of life. He did not create them in the same way that he created anything else, including the animals. Instead, God conferred with himself and determined that human beings would, in a multitude of ways, “image” what he is like. Those “image” characteristics are readily and evidentially observable, even by science. Not only so, but they are the very characteristics that most obviously set us apart from the rest of creation. Yet you neglect even to mention them. Does that look like a fair “net” to put up in the game?

in your book of almost six hundred densely written pages, you never even mention the most obvious and evidential discontinuity between man and animals.

Dawkins and Dennett would both likely believe that certainty is unattainable in science, and perhaps in any other field.25 The best we can do, they would likely say, is argue for plausibility. Plausibility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and it depends on what authority we accept. Perhaps what Dawkins and Dennett want to argue is more than plausibility. Perhaps what they’re saying is that given the evidences or algorithms that they lay out, it is highly probable that evolutionary theory is correct. And as our definition above notes, “a belief is probable if its degree of likelihood is greater than that of its alternatives.”

There are two points to make about this. First, any notion of probability that depends on a “degree of likelihood” in cases such as these depends itself for its calculus on the background knowledge of the calculator. The probability of evolution, in this case, given (the background assumption of) naturalism is thought to be greater than the probability of evolution given (the background assumption of) theism. But that kind of calculus is a sleight of hand; it prejudices the equation at the outset. The real point of contention is with the background assumptions, not with the probability calculus itself. So what is probable, even if more objective than what is plausible, depends, from the start, on what one determines to count as evidence, and what one determines to exclude.

The other point worth considering might be what the probability calculus itself determines. Here we can step on the evolutionist’s ground for a moment. If it is the case, as it must be, that the best one can offer is that evolution is probable, given naturalism, then is it not also the case that evolution (not to mention naturalism) is also to some degree improbable? That is, unless the probability of evolution can be shown to be 1, meaning it is certain (which it could not do), there are by definition degrees in which evolution is improbable. If that is the case, then the calculus that the evolutionist uses itself leaves room for doubt. It may be very little room in the mind of the evolutionary naturalist, but it is room nevertheless.

A Conclusing Word to the Wise

Unbelief in all of its forms, scientific and otherwise, cannot carry its own weight. A habit of biblical “premeditation” will help us see how, where, and when that is true for any objection that might come our way.

Chapter 7. You Are Very Religious

Idol Worship

When a covenantal apologetic meets atheism or various other forms of obvious unbelief, the divide between the two positions (in Adam and in Christ) is as bright as the sun. It is obvious and it lights the way for clear avenues to travel as we try to show the futility of those positions. But when the position that we are dealing with is a specific religion, matters can become more complicated.

In a false religion (and here we’re using the term religion in its usual sense), we are dealing with people who have committed themselves to a god, who spend their lives in service to this god, and who have divine direction, in some form or other, that tells them who they are and what they are to do. There is, therefore, in false religion, a parody or errant copy of Christianity at work.

What I propose to do in this last chapter is to think about how a covenantal approach to apologetics might address those who are “very religious.” This task will be a bit different because of the uniqueness of false religions, as over against unbelief generally. False religions create questions with respect to apologetics that general unbelief might not.

One of the most persistent questions that has come to me, as one who seeks to stand on the authority of Scripture in apologetics, is why, for example, Muslims could not use the exact same approach that we are advocating in this book. Specifically, since our covenantal approach to a defense of Christianity has as its principial foundation the Bible as the word of God, could any religion that has and claims its own “Bible,” or divine word, take the same apologetic approach? And is the best we can hope for with respect to other religions simply a “Battle of the Books”? Don’t we just wind up quoting our respective authorities in our respective “Bibles” and thus engaging in nothing but an apologetic shouting match?3

So, in all of these situations, we are dealing with the dynamic of the sensus, which means that they do know the true God and that knowledge will surface in various ways; and of suppression, which means that when that knowledge surfaces it will surface as a counterfeit—a “Bizarro”—of the real. The resulting counterfeit will inevitably take on the form of an idol.

This sensus/suppression dynamic is a hermeneutical tool in a covenantal apologetic. It is at least a partial grid through which we should interpret all unbelieving positions, including false religions. As such a tool, it gives us the ability to see aspects of another religion as the “welling up” of the knowledge of God that can never be annihilated.5 It also helps us to see that “welling up” as a false belief or a false religion.

In a covenantal approach to apologetics, just as with unbelief generally, we cannot suppose that there are ideas, concepts, notions, affirmations, and the like that we have in common with those who remain in Adam. Just because a statement or religion uses the term God does not mean that we stand in the same sanctuary. Everyone has at least one god (Rom. 1:25); the question is whether or not it is the true, real, and triune God or an illusory idol.

Though we cannot set up Paul’s address on Mars Hill as the only definitive model for approaching other religions, it is instructive to recall how Paul determined to speak to the Athenians. He began his discussion by explaining what they claimed not to know. He told them who the “unknown God” is. Paul knew that his audience was theistic, so he began by proclaiming the true God. But his proclamation was set in contrast to what they themselves believed.

Thus, Paul’s focus among the religious people of Athens was on God’s character, and specifically on his aseity, his utter independence from everything created. With that aseity comes God’s sovereignty, which, for Paul, included God’s meticulous sovereignty even over each breath that we take. The God whom Paul proclaimed is both transcendent and immanent. He is in need of nothing, thus completely self-sustaining, and he is “not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27), giving every one of us the life we have and our every breath.

There is no one recipe for covenantally defending the faith among and with other religions. All religions have their own specific dogmas, codes, rituals, and worship. However, it does seem that, at least initially, three basic categories can help us to focus our analysis of those religions and our conversations with those who hold them.

First, with Paul, we must be acutely aware of exactly who the god of the other religion is. Because other religions exist in order to avoid the true God, they will inevitably interject another god, and that god will have distinct characteristics. This is more difficult to recognize, for example, in Buddhism than in Islam, but it is useful if we can focus, first, on the doctrine of god on which the false religion depends.

Second, it will help us to see how the false religion deals with its god’s relationship to creation. Whatever that relationship, every false religion will inevitably posit either something like a god who is too far off to really relate to creation, as in Islam, or something like a god who is so close that we become gods ourselves, as in Mormonism. In any case, it is useful if we can pinpoint how the proposed god is thought to relate specifically to his creation and to us. What are the attributes or characteristics that allow (or do not allow) this god to relate to us?

Third, if we can understand something of the false religion’s theory of revelation, that understanding may serve us well. This might require that we read the actual books, if there are such books, to which the false religion is committed. But such things can also be brought out in conversation with its followers.

It is only the gospel of Christ that can change hearts. It may be that other religions are a fertile seedbed in which that gospel can be effectively planted (as God, in his sovereign wisdom, gives the increase). If so, then evangelism can often be the proper response to false religions. The gospel is the “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). But that power must be communicated in order to be activated. We should never lose sight of that fact in our discussions.

God Is (Not?) Great

What we did do, however, is seek to show how the religious system of Islam cannot stand of its own rationalistic weight. We then argued that only Christianity answers the questions and needs that are an integral part of the Islamic religion. This sample dialog can at least point a way forward as we think about how best to answer those whose religions can seem, in places, to align closely with Christianity. In reality, however, they are as far away from Christianity as is unbelief itself.

Conclusion

What I have proposed throughout this book are principles and practices of a covenantal apologetic. I have attempted to lay out what theological tenets have to be in place in order to think properly about a defense of Christianity. I have also attempted to show, by means of sample dialogs, how those principles and tenets might be applied. My goal throughout has been to elaborate on a covenantal apologetic as the consistently Reformed approach to a defense of Christianity. In so doing, I have argued that persuasion is the best means by which we might defend the faith.

If persuasion is the means by which we are to defend the Christian faith, then this requires, in the end, that we must be people who pursue holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). It means, in the first place, that we cannot expect to imbibe the spirit of the age and at the same time to present a credible defense of Christianity. This is the ethos of persuasion, and we have not given that central and crucial factor its due in this book. A defense of Christianity must not be wrongly defensive. If we lose our focus and begin to think that our goal is to “out-argue” or intellectually batter those to whom we speak, we have lost the proper ethos for a Christian defense.

We must remember all along that the Lord God will do his own sovereign work, but that he has chosen to do that work through us. It is not ours to convert; it is not even ours to “win” an argument. Ours is to show forth the gentleness and respect that Christ himself had, even as we fight the good fight of contending for the faith once for all given to the saints (Jude 3). We must contend. We must fight. We must not lose sight of the fact that we are in a real “holy war.” But we must also constantly remind ourselves that the Lord of hosts is the commander of the army, and not we ourselves. As his loyal subjects, we fight in full recognition that he alone is in charge, and he alone will procure whatever victory he deems fit and appropriate. As his subjects, we must be vigilant to use only his weapons, and content that those weapons always accomplish the perfect will of our commander in chief.

“What does my Lord say to his servant?”This, as ought to be clear to us by now, is the question that we should ask and answer as we “premeditate” regarding our Christian defense. We have nothing to say to unbelief, in whatever form, unless it is what the Lord himself says to us in his Word. What we hope to offer our opponents is of eternal value. We hope to present the context and content in which alone is the eternal life found only in Christ. This can only be done if we know what the Lord has said to us, his servants, in his Word.

Perhaps the Lord will see fit to use you in a holy, persuasive, gentle, and respectful response to unbelief, to help build that footstool. Once that footstool is complete, and the last enemy is destroyed, then the perishable shall put on the imperishable, the mortal shall put on immortality. “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:25–26, 54, 57).

Review

This is similar to Frame’s book Apologetics to the Glory of God in terms of explaining Van Til’s presuppositionist apologetics, addressing common objections like the problem of evil etc. And it puts it in a covenantal framework since that’s how God deals with man. Also the book has some real sample conversations between a covenantal apologist and unbelievers, this makes the point that author trying to convey more concrete.

I think the main point is still that there is no neutral ground, the relationship between man and God is either man is covenant keeper or a covenant breaker. And many times the culture has been justifying the scientific worldview as the “true” view, which is really ungrounded, but rather, it is a circular reasoning that starts from the position of a covenant breaker that believes that there is no God.

However, unbelievers does not get away with this, they are cronically suppressing the truth, because this is the God’s world, and man are created in God’s image. As Romans 1:20 says “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” The common grace from God is sufficient that there is no excuse in the day of judgment.

One thing that I found interesting is that every is related to the Trinity, “1. THE FAITH THAT WE ARE DEFENDING MUST BEGIN WITH, AND NECESSARILY INCLUDE, THE TRIUNE GOD—FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT—WHO, AS GOD, CONDESCENDS TO CREATE AND TO REDEEM.” We need to defend the faith by specifically talking about the Christian God that’s revealed in the Bible. Not talking about some abstract concept of God (and trying to prove the existence of a conceptual God). This reminds me of Bavinck who answers the age old question of One and Many by resorting to the Trinity. This resonates with Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” and Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things.”

This book gives us a clear view of how we approach apologetics and evangelism as a Christian. How to “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” and “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 26:4-5). But in the end, it’s God who works through us that regenerates his sheep at the appointed time and occasion. Salvation belongs to the Lord and Glory belongs to the Lord.