Part 1: Foundations
This is Part 1 of Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Guide.
2. What Apologetics Is (Foundations)
2.1. What is Apologetics?
Apologetics, as I use the term here, includes defensive and offensive arguments for Christianity, the claims made by Jesus in the Gospels and the apostles. Naturally, because Jesus referenced other books of the Old Testament, and the apostles referenced such and even wrote other books of the New Testament, then apologetics encompasses thousands of years of writings that make claims about everything ranging from the origins of the universe all the way to minute, historical details about obscure people and places. Hence, the list of topics that apologetics must cover is practically endless.
Unanswered Questions vs. Sound Arguments in Apologetics
That means if Christianity is true, then every piece of evidence should support the Christian faith. In other words, there will be no sound arguments against Christianity. It's crucial to note that an unanswered question isn't the same as a sound argument. Apologetics won't be able to answer every question. This isn't unique to apologetics. There are still unanswered questions about gravity, but that doesn't mean gravity doesn't exist. Human knowledge is limited, so we can't exhaustively know everything. But we can know some things truly.
Some get tripped up here by thinking that if we can't know everything, then there's the possibility that what we think we know is wrong. That perhaps some day we'll discover some fact that renders all of our present facts obsolete. However, this traps us in a never-ending cycle of complete skepticism and the inability to know anything. Suppose we did discover some new fact X that upsets our existing beliefs. There would still be the possibility of some other new knowledge that would then upset the belief in X. And so on. We shouldn't use lack of exhaustive knowledge as an excuse to feign ignorance about things we do actually know truly.
2.2. If Christianity is true, shouldn't it be obvious to everyone?
The word apologetic simply means to speak in defense of something. Typically it's used in the context of defending a set of religious propositions, such as...
- God exists
- He created the universe
- Humans sin and their sin has separated them from God
- Jesus is God in human form
- He died on the cross and rose from the dead
- Only those who confess that Jesus is God and believe that He rose from the dead can be forgiven and go to heaven
...and so on.
Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, so you'd think that everything that could have been written in defense of it has already been written. And that's partly true, but it needs some clarification.
Arguments for different aspects of Christianity have been around a long time. And as we learn more about the world, we occasionally come up with new arguments based on new discoveries. This might seem surprising if you've heard the lie that "science disproves" some aspect of Christianity. In fact, the entire history of science has been one finding after another that aligns perfectly with Scripture (especially in biology and cosmology, which also surprises lot of people). For example, the discovery of intact dinosaur blood cells, soft tissue, and collagen support the Bible's record of a relatively young earth.
That's just one example. The point here is that not a single scientific discovery has ever contradicted the Bible. Any so-called "science" that supposedly disproves some aspect of Christianity is always purely theoretical, un-empirical, and hardly worthy of being called science at all. I'll circle back to this later as well.
2.3. Ignorance is the Enemy of Christianity
A lot of people have never heard good arguments for Christianity, and mistakenly believe that no good arguments exist. Furthermore, there are a lot of bad arguments against Christianity that many people have heard, and think they're actually good arguments just because they haven't heard any alternatives or rebuttals.
It's like if you grew up eating nothing but cheap school cafeteria food, and the lunch ladies always told you you were eating the best food in the world. There was nothing better out there. And you believed it because you had never tasted anything better. Then one day a world class chef comes and prepares the food, and you suddenly realize that you've been missing out on really great food all those years.
It's the same thing with knowledge and understanding. If you've been consistently fed outdated, incorrect, and even illogical nonsense, you might just subconsciously assume that it's the truth and that there's nothing better out there. The goal of apologetics is to take off the blinders, correct errors, and fill in the blanks so that you can arrive at the correct conclusions on your own, fully convinced and persuaded—not just indoctrinated.
To be blunt, most arguments against Christianity are dumbed down zingers that appeal to emotions, but are intellectually empty, illogical, and sometimes just obviously false. And it's important to address those because they appeal to popular misconceptions, myths, and assumptions that people aren't aware of.
Addressing Common Myths: The Dinosaur Fossil Example
For example, atheists often make the claim that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, and use the supposed age of dinosaur fossils as proof. If this is true, then the literal creation account of Genesis can't be correct, because it claims God created the world in just six literal days. This claim of six literal days was reiterated by Jesus in the New Testament. If we look at the rest of the Scriptures and the dates and genealogies provided, the Bible indicates that this creation event happened about 6,000 years ago. So there's a clear contradiction between the secular millions-of-years claim and the Bible.
But many people aren't aware that we have dinosaur fossils that contain actual dinosaur blood vessels, blood cells, and proteins, which couldn't be possible if these fossils were millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of years old. Some have tried to explain this problem away by saying iron preserved the tissues. It's pretty obvious that iron cannot preserve anything for millions of years. Even our most sophisticated modern food preservation processes can only preserve food for maybe a few thousand years under the right conditions. So, no, dinosaur soft tissue was not preserved for millions of years. Therefore, it's not only reasonable, but actually scientific to conclude that dinosaurs existed recently enough that their soft tissue has been preserved.
The point of this example is not to suggest that apologetics rests on dinosaur fossils. After all, we didn't even know these fossils existed prior to a few hundred years ago. The point is that atheists sometimes use new discoveries to try to disprove some aspect of Christianity, only to have it backfire on them. Dinosaurs are just one example of that.
3. The Fundamental Question
3.1. The Terminal Objection
Apologetics, and all discussions on origins and religion, always comes down to the same question:
Why did God do things the way He did?
Regardless of the topic, a discussion touching on apologetics is always going to wind up at this question, which I call the terminal objection. Sometimes it's phrased as a question, as above, whereas other times it is phrased as a statement.
Here's an example: One popular atheist argument asks something like, "If there were a loving God, why would He allow x, y, and z?" where x, y, and z are bad things such as suffering, disease, natural disasters, etc. This argument is often followed by a hedging, "I wouldn't want to worship a God that does things that way." So, at least for some atheists, their argument against God isn't against His existence, but against what He does or doesn't do. This is an example of the atheist hedging his bets by essentially saying, "Even if God exists, He didn't do enough to win me over."
Of course, an atheist who doesn't believe in God at all would say the question is moot. What about atheists who are purely naturalists and materialists, and don't believe in any supernatural beings at all? They look at the world and assume that if God existed, He would not allow certain things to happen, and the world would look entirely different than it does now. They conclude then that God doesn't exist.
You might recognize that this argument, regardless of form, rests on a false dichotomy or a false choice:
- Option 1: "Either God exists and operates the way I think he should"
- Option 2: "He doesn't exist at all."
This is a false choice because there's third possibility:
- Option 3: "God exists and doesn't operate the way I think He should".
Recognizing the false choice, many people who call themselves atheists would go a step beyond it. They might say something like, "If God exists, then He allowed x, y, z, and therefore I don't want to follow Him." The unspoken assumption is that God didn't have a good reason for allowing x, y, and z. So again, we're back at the terminal objection.
If you pay close attention, you'll see atheists swing this pendulum back and forth. They'll claim there's no good evidence for God, then when you point out some evidence to them, they bring up the terminal objection, not as a rebuttal of the evidence, but as a distraction from it.
Ultimately, the atheist is looking for reasons not to believe.
3.2. Forms of the Terminal Objection
The terminal objection isn't always so obvious. It comes up in the form of many different questions such as:
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"Why doesn't God regularly proclaim Himself audibly or visibly in no uncertain terms from the heavens?" The idea is that this would remove any argument that there's no evidence for God.
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"Why doesn't God speak to each person individually in the way that will be most convincing to them?" God could personally persuade each individual, customizing His approach to their personalities.
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"If God wanted people to be saved, why wouldn't He do a, b, and c?" This is a variation of the previous question.
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"If God is good, loving, powerful, and just, then why does He allow evil instead of stopping it?" God could lock everyone in their own invincible bubble, preventing physical harm from coming to them. He could stop people from vocalizing mean thoughts before the words ever left their mouth.
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"Why did God design creatures to look or behave a certain way?" He could have made animals without claws, teeth, or venom.
You could probably think of some more.
To be clear, I don't think all of these questions are bad. In fact, I'll try to address some of them shortly. Sadly, some people raise these questions not out of genuine curiosity, but as a thinly veiled objection and an excuse to reject God by either denying His existence or denying that He's worthy of worship. The implication is that the person asking the question thinks that their suggestion would be more effective than whatever God is (or isn't) doing. It's pride.
But failure to understand something is not an argument against it. We have all seen people do things that didn't make any sense to us. That doesn't mean that they didn't do it, and it certainly doesn't mean they don't exist!
3.3. Seeing is not necessarily believing
Now, let's get to the questions. Why doesn't God speak to each person individually? I believe that God has tried this in the past, and it doesn't work. In the Garden, God spoke directly to Adam and Eve. But they didn't listen. God spoke directly with their children, and some of them didn't listen. All throughout the Bible, God speaks to people directly and audibly as well as through intermediaries, and in general, those people don't listen.
I once heard an atheist ask why God doesn't write something in the sky to convince everyone He exists. If He did this, people would find excuses not to believe it. Some would say it's a hoax, others would say it's a hallucination, and some might believe. People would no doubt take pictures and videos, and there would be stories written about it. But fast-forward 100 years later, and what would people say? They would say the pictures and videos are fake, or they would ask why God doesn't still write in the sky if He's real, and so on. Even if God wrote in the sky every minute of every day, people would find excuses to dismiss it. Seeing is not necessarily believing.
So while the thought of God speaking to everyone individually might sound appealing, a quick study of human history shows that people will not believe what they don't want to believe.