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How Should We Defend Our Faith?

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The Apostle Peter exhorts Christians to "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15). Believers recognize that God calls us the defense of our faith--that is, to the practice of apologetics. But how do we defend our faith? How do we give an answer? Throughout church history, Christians have approached the task of apologetics in a variety of ways. Steven Cowan has brought together proponents of five different views to defend their apologetic method and interact with the other contributors. The result is Five Views on Apologetics.

Five scholars participated in this printed discussion advocating their views: William Lane Craig, the classical method; Gary Habermas, the evidential method; Paul Feinberg, the cumulative-case method; John Frame, the presuppositional method; and Kelly James Clark, the Reformed epistemological method. This book follows the typical format established by previous titles in Zondervan's Counterpoints series. Each contributor begins a section by summarizing and defending his method, followed by a response to the initial presentation by each of the other authors. After the last view is presented and engaged, the original advocates have a final opportunity to reply to the other contributors. By the time the reader finishes the book, he or she should have a much better understanding of each individual approach and the differences among the methods.

I really enjoyed this book. Apologetic method has always interested me, and bringing together several of today's leading evangelical apologists to interact with one another on how we should defend our faith was sure to bring forth fruitful discussion and insight. While I won't focus on which methodology I prefer (even though some of you may already know!), I can say that I richly benefited from each presentation and the back-and-forth of the contributors.

Still, I do wonder if the editor could have chosen better advocates for the viewpoints presented. Almost none of the contributors could be accurately described as a "purist." As Frame points out in one of his responses: "In my view, not a great deal of difference exists between the methods of William Craig, Gary Habermas, and Paul Feinberg" (132). Kelly James Clark begins his response to Craig by saying, "I could have written William Craig's essay (at least major parts of it)" (82). Such statements occur frequently, with those involved voicing their general agreement with one another. William Lane Craig even comments: "What we are seeing in the present volume is a remarkable convergence of views, which is cause for rejoicing" (317). Maybe so, but in a book seeking to introduce readers to the peculiarities and differences among various apologetic methods such a "convergence" only muddies the waters. Perhaps including an "eclectic method" or "integrationist method" as a separate attempt to bring together the other views into a new approach alongside more traditional presentations would have been more beneficial.

The work also seems overly technical. Multiple-view books function best as introductions to the central issues of contemporary debates. Having to wade through difficult philosophical concepts and the probability calculus of Bayes' Theorem is far beyond the capability of most lay Christians. Restricting the discussion of apologetic method to such a high academic level severely limits the book's usefulness. And this is a shame, since such scholars could greatly help our brothers and sisters in Christ to think more clearly about how to defend our faith.

Consequently, I finished this book with mixed thoughts. On the one hand, it's an informative work on an important topic for contemporary Christians; on the other, I can't see recommending it often to fellow believers. Nonetheless, I'm sure it will give helpful insights to those who are somewhat acquainted with philosophical and theological issues related to apologetics, as well as to others who are willing to slowly and carefully work through its contents.

John Divito, Director
Africa Center for Apologetics Research

A Practical Introductory Work for Students of Apologetics

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This book was useful as a student reference to begin Christian Apologetic studies, but it was far from "putting 5 prominent views under the microscope" per the back cover. The Dialogue is accessible with academic terms kept to a minimum. The various authors use of foot notes is frequent enough to be beneficial and adequate for extended research into the specific areas of interest beyond the essays.
To the publisher, I commend the format, but recommend the authors be given more pages to develop their initial presentation as well as their response essays. The quality of paper used in this book is very cheap. Thus, I think for the price of $17.95, an extra 100 pages of material could have improved the robustness of interaction between the writers.
I have owned my copy for a few years and have referred back to it on several occasions, but this book is simply too short to interact with all the material needed to understand the five major views. I have since purchased subject specific texts from several authors such as John Frame, William Lane Craig, and Kelly James Clark for supplement. Neither this book or any other work on Apologetics has proved the superiority of one methodology over the other. However, I believe that the endeavors to learn and study these great Scholars is worth while because they all make significant contributions that help Christians make more effective contact with other worldviews.

Useful but dated

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This book is useful in that it presents a catalogue of methodologies that have been used in apologetics in the not so distant past. It also indicates (unwittingly) the need for a new style of apologetics for the present day. Evidentialists use a one step approach, Classical Apologists use a two-step method. What is needed for today's culture is a ballet.

Classical Christian Apologists usually employ a two-step approach in their methodology. The first step is to establish the claim that God exists, and then to establish the claim that God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. One strength of this approach is that pedagogically, people usually accept new ideas generally before they do specifically. The Apostle Paul uses this method in every epistle. The approach is also more useful in times like the present when atheism (both explicit and implicit) is more prevalent.

Craig version utilizes the kalam cosmological argument to make his case for a personal God. It is the strongest of the proofs for the existence of God, in that rests on the finite existence of the universe, which can be argued effectively with common sense and mathematics. Craig, in fact, claims that the finiteness of the universe is proven philosophical in two ways. Actually there are three ways and they are more mathematical than philosophical. The "proof" still suffers the question-begging problem, however, in that it is not clear that existence must always entail cause, and even if a cause is accepted, why must the cause be God, especially a personal one? On the other hand, his defense of the claims of Jesus based on the historicity of the resurrection seems as ironclad as these sorts of claims can be.

Craig also makes much of the distinction between knowing and showing and the important role of the witness of the Holy Spirit. That is all well and good, but isn't apologetics more about showing? So why so much discussion on how Christians know?

Evidential Apologetics claims as its distinctive, that it is a one-step approach to establishing the truth of Christianity by historical evidences. If Christianity can be so established, then there is no need for the preliminary step of establishing theism. Habermas is aware of the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of unbiased historiography. Consequently, he limits admissible evidence to "minimal facts", i.e. data that is 1) well-evidenced and 2) general admitted by critical scholars. He also admits to the epistemic differences between believers and unbelievers, but does rely on certain shared commonalities between believers and unbelievers such sense perception, scientific theories, and the rules of logic.

He begins on a weak note by laying the foundation for his case with the testimony of Jesus regarding himself - this as recorded in the New Testament. Unfortunately this is a testimonial account of a testimony, which for anyone who does not accept Biblical inspiration, approaches the status of gossip. He does access pre-New Testament and extra-biblical sources to support some of his data, but they are admittedly few. Habermas' biggest problem is his overlooking the fact that all the evidence in the world will not affect most people. How people view evidences will be dependent on their respective presuppositions. Two people may draw opposite conclusions from the same body of evidence. In addition, there are some people whose minds are already completely made up, and they don't want to be confused with the "facts". The best that evidential apologetics can do is, to paraphrase Clark, defeat the defeaters.

Much like a legal case, Cumulative Case Apologetics relies on the collaboration of a number of aspects, which, while not complete as individual arguments, are convincing when taken together. The most important strength of the cumulative case approach is that it establishes a Christian worldview and not just a logical argument for theism and/or Christianity. Ultimately, people live their lives according to their worldview, not according to some logical argument. Few individuals qualify for this category of apologists, because it is global, not narrow, and defies academic or theological categorization.

Feinberg does an adequate job of defining the apologetic style, but a poor job of fleshing it out. Where's the "law, history, and literature"? He only presents a toolbox of truth tests and an org chart of the witness of the Holy Spirit. To his defense, the category is enigmatic due to its comprehensibility and organic non-formal nature. Nevertheless, what he tries to do in description is somewhat akin to killing the frog by dissecting it.

In spite of Craig's inappropriate and paranoiac response to Feinberg's treatment of postmodernism, Feinberg does a fair job of recognizing the postmodern culture. What he ultimately misses, however, is that he thinks that certain states of affair "require some explanation". That's the real problem. Many postmodernists don't "require" explanation; they don't even want them. They will, in fact, resist them if you try to explain. They can only respond to a life lived, against which there is no argument.

Presuppositional Apologetics by definition presupposes something. What it presupposes is what (who) classical apologetics seeks first to prove - the God of Scripture. It is economical in that sense. The claim is that a basic belief in God is not irrational, but is, in fact, essential to any attempt to think clearly at all. The question is not "Your place or mine?", but the statement, "My place or no place at all", commonly stated as "My way or the highway." While the claims of Presuppositional Apologetics may be true, they present an attitude that doesn't serve well as an entrée to dialog, especially in this day and age of pluralism and "tolerance."

Having said that, Frame lists an admirable array of methodological items, especially "2. Apologists, therefore, must resist temptations to contentiousness or arrogance" and 7. The actual arguments we use in apologetic witness will vary considerably depending on who [sic] we are talking to. Apologetics is `person variable.'"

As for the postmodern phenomenon, Frame applauds it for its rebellion against Modernism, but rails against its immature claims against absolute and objective truth. He shows that the claim against objective truth is self-refuting, a philosophical card trick that has become old hat, and despite being true remains oddly ineffective. Frame concludes his chapter with an altar call worthy of any revivalist meeting.

Reformed Epistemology Apologetics resists the requirement of evidence and argument as a starting place for apologetics and claims that it is proper and rational to accept belief in God for three reasons: 1) few people have the ability to access theistic arguments, 2) God has given people an innate sense of Himself (sensus divinitatus), and 3) belief in God is more like a belief in a person than in a scientific theory. Claims 1) and 3) are non-controversial. 2), however, is open to debate. The debate is internal to Biblical studies, which makes the claim doubly vulnerable. There is disagreement even amongst those who hold the Bible to be authoritative. To those who do not hold the Bible to be authoritative, the premise never gets off the ground.

It is common sense to admit that most of what people believe is not based on comprehensive investigation of evidence. Indeed, most of what we all believe is based on no investigation at all, just the testimony of someone else. Why would belief in God differ? Reformed epistemology also maintains that the innate awareness of God has been impaired by sin so that the real project for apologetics is a moral one, not an intellectual one. This seems right and Biblical and corrective to the direction of those who attempt to win by rational argument alone. In fact, those who rest their case on argument, even with their perfunctory appeals to the work of the Holy Spirit, are themselves remnants of the Enlightenment era that they claim to eschew.

We're To Contend For The Faith (Jude 3) -- Here Are 5 Ways How

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Apologetics is an extremely important and yet overlooked aspect of Christianity. We are ready to give an answer to every man for the hope that is in us (1 Pet. 3:15), and to contend earnestly for the faith (Jude 3). But how do we do this? Leave it to human beings to come up with organized systems to approach this, and this book introduces us to five different styles to accomplish this.

Let me explain the five views as I would define them:

1. Classical, represented by William Lane Craig: One should start off proving the existence of God before moving to miracles, the resurrection of Christ, etc.

2. Evidential, represented by Gary Habernas: One does not need to prove God's existence before addressing miracle/the resurrection of Christ.

3. Cumulative Case, represented by Paul Feinberg: One cannot prove God's existence or other things by formal argument, but one can informally show Christian theism to be the best alternative.

4. Presuppositional, represented by John Frame: One needs to address people's presuppositions as they are making the case for Christianity.

5. Reformed Epistomology, represented by Kelly James Clark: One cannot prove any argument rational, but one can believe without any evidence.

There can be some variation between the approaches. Most of these authors have been accused of others at not really representing their views. Steven Cowan, the book's editor, pointed out that in the past some of these methodologies acted like you could do it their way or you can do it wrong, particularly Classical, Evidential, and Presuppositional.

This actually is a strength for the book. One reason people avoid apologetics is because it is divisive. These authors come across as if they're aware they're co-soldiers, on the same side. I believe this is the way it should be in the Body of Christ.

To be honest, like evangelism methodologies, I would say the answer to the question "Which is the correct methodology?" is "Yes." God designed each person differently. Some people work better with a certain methodology. And different people would respond to different methodologies.

Let me conclude by stating that I'm in the process of starting a novel, involving a murder mystery during an apologetics conference. This book actually will come in handy for this project. My Dad gave this as a gift, and I am very appreciative of it.

A good taste, but not a comprehensive introduction to RE

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The text gives a good taste of the differences between these schools of apologetics. Some reviewers have shortchanged Clark's Reformed epistemology position, referring to it as "weak" and "timid." For those who really want to understand RE and have no prior exposure to analytic philosophy (e.g., Wittgenstein, Thomas Reid, etc.), I'd advise supplementing Clark's essay with something written by Alvin Plantinga or Nicholas Wolterstorff. RE operates with an entirely different epistemology from that relied upon by evidentialists and classical apologists. I don't see this as a weakness of Clark's essay. The fact is that most evangelicals have had little exposure to analytic philosophy (except for covenental Calvinists, of course).