Theological Ramblings

I’m often intrigued by the study of Apologetics. (Or is it Apologetix?).

As an amateur philosopher/theologian, I often run across apologetical studies and apologitsts. Christian philosophers seem to naturally fall into the role of apologist by virtue of the very nature of philosophy. After all, philosophy deals with those key questions. Where did we come from? How did we get here? Where are we going? What is the meaning of life? Christians believe that the Bible has the answers to those questions, but of course as soon as you introduce the idea of God into the equation, you also introduce other issues. There’s the problem of evil. There’s the Euthyphro Dilemma. There’s the paradox of sovereignty and free will.

These topics fascinate me to no end. But I’ve heard countless people talk down about the idea of philosophy. They say things like “You think too much.” (I actually had someone say that to me). I often wonder what the point is. After all, should I concern myself more with knowing the truth more than studying error (as though I do that all day).

The analogy of the counterfeit bill always comes up. They say that bankers don’t study counterfeits in order to be able to recognize them, they study the real bill so well that they instantly recognize a counterfeit. Therefore, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with what the world says or thinks. We should simply focus on knowing the Bible really well and telling the Gospel straight from Scripture. God will give us the opportunities to do this. I’m not going to completely bash this way of thinking. God can certainly use this method, but as far as the logical argument goes, J.P. Morland exposes it for the logical problem it is by starting with the fact that the analogy simply isn’t true! Bankers don’t actually behave that way.

But the question has still been raised. What do we do with apologietics? Is it necessary? Does it do any good. How do we rectify the fact that “you can’t argue anyone into salvation,” which is true by virtue of the fact that salvation by definition is a change of heart and mind which the Holy Spirit must produced, with verses like 2 Corinthians 5:11 which says “…knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others,” and 1 Peter 3:15: “…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you?” In short does apologetics have a place? If so, what is it?

I’m not going to give this concept the full philosophical treatise I could give it and it probably deserves. However, I am going to affirm simply that I believe apologitics to be important and never more so than in the present day. I am also going to give an analogy for what I believe it’s role is. Think of this as a parable

Picture evangelism as a baseball game. If you don’t like baseball, I’m sorry. I do, and it’s baseball season, so…… tough! Picture evangelism as a baseball game. You’re the home team, and the unsaved person is the away team. Try not to go into too much detail about it. The detail isn’t the point. Don’t take it to far, just imagine that through the first 8 innings or so of give and take, you’ve either played to a tie or the unbeliever has a slight lead. Again, don’t get too hung up on how, or what the first 8 innings represent, or what if the lead is bigger for him, or what if I’m ahead. I’m not intending this analogy to be that complex. Just simply imagine that it’s the top of the ninth, you’re on defense, and you’re tied or down by a run.

Apologetics is like the pitcher that you run out to the mound in the top of that inning. He can’t win the game for you. It’s literally impossible for him to score any runs. That’s not his job anyway. His job is simply to keep the game close so that in the bottom of the ninth the offense (the Gospel) has a chance to win it.

This has never been more evident to me than in the testimony of someone I know. He ran from God from the time when he was a kid, and he threw up every philosophical smoke screen you could think of in the way. You couldn’t talk to him about God without the problem of evil coming up. Every time there was always some resentment over issues stemming from one thing or another. But, through it all, he finally came to Christ recently. And you know what got him? No, he didn’t logically assent to getting saved after someone thoroughly explained to him the problem of evil or some other philosophical dilemma. No he wasn’t “argued into salvation”. His conversion came after listening to a John Piper sermon on, get this, John 3:16. The simplest of them all! It’s a divine “gotcha” that almost ranks up there with God naming Abraham and Sarah’s son “laughter”!

But imagine that through all his philosophical smoke screens nobody had ever been there to address the problems. Imagine nobody had ever even thought through the problem long enough to give any kind of coherent problem. Don’t worry I’m not propping myself up here, I was not the one God used in this regard, someone else was - and even if it was me it’s still to God’s glory and credit, right? The point is, if nobody had ever been there, how easy would it have been for him to simply right off the Christian faith as ridiculous and unfounded. I fear that when we shy away from apologitics we run the risk of presenting a structured, rigid systematic theology that looks harsh, cold, irrelevant and dead. This is much of the problems that the Emergent Church is trying to address. I would contend, however, that instead of abandoning the theology like the Emergents appear to be doing, we ought to embrace the doctrine and understand it better so that we could better defend it.

But what of the dollar bill analogy? Let’s go back to baseball. How would that pitcher prepare? Sure, he can work really well in the off season on perfecting his pitches. He can get a really good fastball that’s really zippy and always goes where he wants to. He can get a really great changeup that looks just like a fastball coming out of his hand, but makes Bugs Bunny whiff about eight times. He can perfect a curve ball, slider or any other pitch, but he’s still not quite ready.

The best pitchers know exactly who is at the plate. Every batter has strengths and weaknesses. Every batter has hot and cold zones in his swing. Some can’t hit the ball up and in. Some can’t hit the ball down and away. Every batter has pitches he can’t hit, and others he drives. Some can’t catch up to a fastball. Others can’t lay off a curve ball tailing out of the zone. The best pitchers know exactly who is at the plate and exactly what his strengths and weaknesses are. He knows exactly what pitches to throw and exactly where to put them so that the batter can’t hit it well. This preparation requires studying the opposition to gain this kind of knowledge. When we study the arguments of the opposition, we know exactly what the weaknesses of these philosophical smoke screens are and exactly how to keep them from making our witness irrelevant by driving a ball out of the park.

And of course we don’t study the enemy to the exclusion of knowing the truth. The pitcher doesn’t study the opposing batters so much that he forgets how to throw his fastball! He gets the fastball down first, and then learns when and how to use it. We ought to know the Truth of Scripture first, but as we learn it, keep our ears to the ground as to what the opposition might send at us.

Of course if we really wanted to we could probably expand this analogy. Perhaps the first 8 innings have to do with how to build the witnessing opportunity: living as an example of sanctification, reaching out in love and service, etc. If I really wanted to go overboard I could talk about the 9 hitters that the unbeliever would send to the plate. Hey this sounds like a book! Ha! But wait, I said I didn’t intend for it to be that complex. No, I think I’d rather leave it here, at least for now. Apologetics is important. It helps to dilute the smoke screen of philosophical objections that people have to God so that when they get to the bottom of the ninth, the gospel can do its job without having to make up fourteen runs.

What are your thoughts?