What is Apologetics?

The word “apologetics” comes from the greek word apologia (απολογία), which literally means “in defense of.”  When you think about it, every apology you give is really a defense of your actions. 

In the last post, I outlined Paul’s use of apologetics throughout his ministry.  In this post, I will define the two major views on apologetics—evidentialism and presuppositionalism.  Basically, these two viewpoints differ in how Christianity should be justified. 

1) Evidentialism
 
   Evidentialism, also known as classical apologetics, uses hard evidence for justification of the Christian worldview.  A great analogy of how this system works would be a court case—where Christianity is the defendant.  Christianity is a justified belief system based on the weight of evidence.  If skeptics of the faith can prove that any part of Christianity is not justified based on the evidence—then Christianity is guilty of being a falsehood.  

   Although subcategories of this view exist, they aren’t that much different from each other in that they basically all suggest that some kind of evidence can be a rationally justified belief in Christianity.  It should be noted that these subcategories are not suggesting that every part of Christianity has to have hard evidence—the argument is that, if there is more evidence for Christianity than for any other religion, then the Christian faith is justified. 


2) Presuppositionalism

    Presuppositionalism is somewhat more complex than evidentialism.  This is mostly because its followers disagree as to what exactly presuppositionalism is and how it should be used.  Regardless of this, if we compare presuppositionalism to evidentialism in light of the above “court case” analogy, we would see that presuppositionalism holds the opposite position—that Christianity is the prosecutor and that all other religions are the defendants.  

A) Soft Presuppositionalism

Famous theologian Cornelius Van Til originally founded this school of thought—his intention was to create an approach that bases itself in the supposed unintelligibility of the world without Christianity.  He argued that men already presuppose that God exists before they can even debate that He exists. 

“The issue between believers and non-believers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to ‘facts’ or ‘laws’ whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate. The question is rather as to what is the final reference-point required to make the ‘facts’ and the ‘laws’ intelligible. The question is as to what the ‘facts’ and ‘laws’ really are. Are they what the non-Christian methodology assumes they are? Are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are?” (Defense of the Faith, Philadelphia, 1967)

B) Hard Presuppositionalism

  Some in this school of thought do not hold to the same concepts as those of Van Til.  Gordon Clark, who was another famous reformed theologian, reformulated Van Til’s ideas and argued that one cannot prove that God does exist and thus, claimed that all of classical apologetics is useless. 

Phil Fernandez claims, “Clark not only despised the use of philosophical arguments to provide evidence for God’s existence, but he also deplored the utilization of historical evidences in defense of Christianity.”  He claims further, “Instead, [Clark believed that] Christians must presuppose the truth of God’s Word and allow revelation to interpret the facts of history for them.”
 
C) Middle Presuppositionalism

  There is still another major school of thought that falls between the two mentioned above.  John Frame defines this subcategory of presupposationalism as “a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition....This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.” 
 
  While soft presuppositionalism is used by almost all Christian apologists at some level, the harder forms are almost exclusively used by reformed apologists.  Indeed, one could argue that the basis of presuppositionalism is in the reformed tradition’s view of the total depravity of man.  For if man is totally depraved, in the Calvinist understanding, then how can he understand the things of God?

3) Evaluation

   Due to the complexity of presuppositionalism, and the disagreements its followers have between themselves, it has questionable value to practical evangelism.  And while it is true that some things are more logical than others for most people—it by no means justifies presupposing anything, especially in academic apologetics.  For example, one can presuppose that for every effect there is a greater cause (this is otherwise known as the law of causality).  This seems inherently logical.  And yet, modern science has offered some evidence in quantum physics that states that not every effect has a direct cause.  What would the presupposationalist do with this?  They must turn to evidentialism to prove that the law of causality is valid.  Certainly, one can argue that most people won’t know this.  But this necessarily leads to the next question—are we trying to really justify our faith or are we trying to get off the hook with the evidence?  From my perspective, presupposationalism in its hardest forms can only be used as a crutch by those people who don’t want to have to do the hard work and do what they are called to do—to “know the reason for the hope that is within.”