Apologetics 315

Norman Geisler vs. Paul Kurtz Debate MP3 Audio

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:30:01 PDT

Norman Geisler and Paul Kurtz debate: Christianity vs. Secular Humanism on the John Ankerberg show. This is an older debate, but a classic. An intense debate between Dr. Geisler and Humanist Paul Kurtz (co-author of Humanism Manifesto II). Includes debate on: What is the origin of the Universe? How did life begin on earth? Is Humanism a threat to academic freedom? Is Jesus Christ God? And, Is there a basis for morality?
Full MP3 Audio here.
Be sure to subscribe to the John Ankerberg podcast via iTunes also.
Enjoy.

Terminology Tuesday: Aesthetics

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:30:00 PDT

Aesthetics: The area of philosophy formally concerned with defining the nature of beauty and discovering criteria or standards by which something can be evaluated as beautiful. In Christian theology beauty is usually defined as what reflects in some way God's own character and nature.1

1. Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 8.

Last year's post: John Lennox on "God of the Gaps"

Apologist Interview: Richard Howe

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:31:02 PDT

Today's interview is with Dr. Richard Howe, Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics and the Director of the Ph.D. Program at Southern Evangelical Seminary. He talks about his background and work, the apologetics program at SES, how theology needs philosophy, integrating apologetics practically, do's and don'ts for apologists, spiritual advice, upcoming conferences, including tomorrow's Tactical Faith hangout, and much more.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here (56 min)

Enjoy.
Subscribe to the Apologetics 315 Interviews podcast here or in iTunes.

James A. Herrick on Science and Spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:30:01 PDT

"Though science may point to God, we cannot experiment our way to God. Knowledge of the divine and of salvation must be revealed to us by God himself, who ever remains in ultimate control of knowledge as well as of power. No scientific discovery will lead us from the lab to the heavens, though it may take us to space. Nature must be explored as a gift that points us to the Giver, not as an Aladdin's lamp yielding up to the diligent inquirer unlimited powers both physical and spiritual. The biblical message is that transforming grace rather than an evolving human race is the means of discovering our spiritual destiny."

—James A. Herrick

Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs (Kindle Locations 3320-3323).

Book Review: Why It Doesn't Matter What YOU Believe If It’s Not True by Stephen McAndrew

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:50:10 PDT

This reviewer is always on the look out for books that take different apologetic issues and puts them into bite-sized chunks that a complete beginner can understand and begin interacting with. That task is quite difficult because many authors take concepts and mutilate them in such a way that the beginner would actually be more confused than when they began.

The opportunity was given a while back to review a copy of Stephen McAndrew's new book Why It Doesn't Matter What YOU Believe If It’s Not True. The book is a short read of only 86 pages. The eleven chapters break up the short book into sections that are extremely manageable for those with only spurts of time to read or need time to digest. This format holds much promise to being a great introductory book. But does it come through?

Chapter 1: Introduction
In the introductory chapter McAndrew draws out his intentions of this book. His goal is to explain that there is extreme tension between the post-modern idea of moral relativism and the inner desire of every human being to grant all other humans "human rights". He critiques the current "sound bite" culture and explains that ideas need to be thoroughly investigated. From that, he moves right into establishing that absolute truth does, in fact, exist.

Chapter 2: Footnotes to Plato
The second chapter is quite nice. McAndrew uses it to show the historical progression of absolute truth to relative truth. He begins with Plato and his concept of The Forms and ends with Wittgenstein's ideas of dynamic language. He covers empiricism and logical positivism and shows how they connect between Plato and Wittgenstein. Being able to understand the philosophical change from absolute truth to relative truth helps the reader to better understand from where people are coming when they promote such a theory.

Chapter 3: The Tyranny of Freedom from Absolute Truth
In chapter 3 McAndrew begins his actual critique of the idea that truth is relative. Beginning here and through the rest of the book, he draws heavily upon Orwell's novel 1984 to show the logical consequences of such a theory. He goes into how the idea that truth is relative demands that to change truth, the meaning of words just need to be changed.

Chapter 4: Can We Believe in Universal Human Rights & Moral Relativism Simultaneously?
Next McAndrew shifts from fiction to history. He takes the reader back to Nazi Germany to remind the reader of what happens when a society gets to decide what is true and what is not. In this chapter, he makes the connection between truth in general and moral truth specifically. He shows that anyone who believes that Nazi Germany committed an absolute moral evil cannot affirm relative truth or even relative morality at the same time.

Chapter 5: The Contingency Contradiction
In chapter 5 McAndrew focuses on showing how the idea of truth being relative actually self-destructs. He points out that if truth is dependent upon culture, then that concept, itself, is a relative statement, which then calls even it into question. He also compares the search for metaphysical truth to the search for scientific truth. He observes that no one allows for scientists to ignore evidence- they must draw conclusions about reality based on the evidence. McAndrew states that based on that, no one actually believes in relative truth- they only claim truth is relative when discussing metaphysical ideas...including morality.

Chapter 6: Re-Imagining Reality
Chapter 6 is McAndrew's invitation to imagine what the world would be like if there were no such thing as absolute truth. He begins by explaining that if the reader agrees that absolute truth exists, that it must be grounded in something metaphysical- God. He guides the reader through a few different philosophies that have tried to deny God's existence, and takes them to their logical ends regarding truth. He concludes that the reason that philosophies keep attempting to deny absolute truth (thus are self-defeating) is because of man's stubborn refusal to accept a transcendent foundation for truth (God).

Chapter 7: What Might a Source of the Human Rights Urge Look Like?
In chapter 7 McAndrew shifts to a positive argument for the Christian God from the existence of objective moral truth. He shows how human rights is a direct implication of the doctrines of Christianity. A contrast is drawn between Christian morality and utilitarian morality to show how the desires of men for human rights fits better with Christianity than with a naturalistic view of morality.

Chapter 8: On Hedonism
Next McAndrew proposes a possible motive in the desire to deny absolute truth- individual pleasure without consequences. He appeals to the desires of every person to show how strong such a desire can be. But he turns it upside-down by explaining that it undermines itself as soon as the fulfillment is granted to all people.

Chapter 9: This is My Truth - A la Carte Belief
Chapter 9 builds upon the discussion of hedonism in chapter 8. McAndrew examines the implication of relative truth that everyone is allowed to have their own set of truths- even contradictory ones. Logical consistency and reason take a backseat to the desires of the individual. He also explains that in such a world that it is actually useless to hold any belief fervently- everyone is just as right as everyone else; everyone is just as wrong as everyone else.

Chapter 10: Some Thoughts on Art
Art is an area that many consider to be quite subjective. Chapter 10 addresses the ideas that beauty is objective and that art may be able to inform man about what is objectively true. McAndrew shows some connections between the current philosophy of art and the philosophy of truth- are things beautiful because society tells one it is beautiful or because one has an innate idea of what is beautiful?

Chapter 11: Final Thoughts
The conclusion of the book is not the typical summary of the content, rather it is a call to action. McAndrew clearly does not what the reader to simply use the content of his book for additional "head-knowledge". He wants the readers to take the new knowledge they have gained. He challenges them to resist holding contradicting beliefs, to examine ideas thoroughly, to see where idea logically end, and to be willing to be wrong about truth, but be willing to change it to coincide with reality.

Reviewer Thoughts
Why It Doesn't Matter What YOU Believe If It’s Not True is a very thoughtful writing. McAndrew is extremely succinct in his presentation. This book may be short in length, but it is not short on thought-provoking content. This reviewer can see this book being used effectively for small groups of beginners to the philosophical concepts of truth or morality. Because of its short length, it is also highly recommended to keep copies on hand for giving to people who may be curious but don't want to invest too much time in the subject...yet.

Apologetics 315 Book Reviewer Luke Nix is a Computer Systems Administrator in Oklahoma, USA. He has a beautiful and supportive wife, but no kids yet. In his spare time he enjoys studying theology, philosophy, biology, astronomy, psychology and apologetics. If you liked this review, more of his writing can be enjoyed at lukenixblog.blogspot.com.

Weekly Apologetics Bonus Links (06/07 - 06/14)

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:00:01 PDT

Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.

• Start with Your Friend

• Does Atheism Require Faith?

• Naturalism is a Strange Belief

• The Gospel According to Bart Ehrman

• Sententias' Philosophy of Science Directory

• What Explains the Existence of Objective Evil?

• Redesigned Christian Apologetics Alliance Blog

• Teaching Logic & Critical Thinking to Your Kids

• Lee Strobel: why does God allow tragedy and suffering?

• Greg Koukl explains how to be a consistent moral relativist

• Greg Koukl debates Michael Shermer on God, atheism, meaning and morality

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Read Along: Chapter 10—Is Religion Dangerous?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:00:09 PDT

Today we continue with Chapter Ten in the Read Along with Apologetics 315 project. This is a chapter-by-chapter study through the book Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow. (Hear an interview about the book here.) Below you will find an audio intro for Chapter Ten, a brief summary of the chapter, a PDF workbook with questions for the chapter, and some notable quotes. You're also encouraged to share your comments and feedback for each chapter in the comment section below. Feel free to interact! Index page here.

[Audio Intro] - Jonathan Morrow introduces this chapter.
[Chapter 10 Study Questions] (with kindle locations) - PDF study guide.
[Podcast Feed RSS | Podcast in iTunes] - Click to subscribe to the audio.

Summary
Chapter Ten: Is Religion Dangerous?
(pages 135-147)
Chapter 10 is the first chapter in the section Responding to Moral and Biblical Challenges. Here the authors unpack the idea that religion is dangerous, in that it causes conflict, wars, and unrest. However, they argue that the real problem is not religion, but people. Furthermore, they point out errors in ascribing terrible things simply to religion, while ignoring the historical impact of atheistic regimes. The authors counter the idea that atheism is merely the "absence of belief." Finally, the chapter concludes with a case for civility in discourse.

Philosopher Douglas Groothuis contributes a short essay describing his own spiritual journey. He outlines his experiences investigating the religions of the world and critically examining Christianity. He finds that, his years of study, teaching, and writing have convinced him that Christianity is objectively true, rational, wise, and pertinent to all of life.

Notable quotes:

If someone wants to criticize Christianity, he or she must make an honest and careful examination of the life and teachings of Jesus because he is the founder of Christianity. Is there anything he taught that necessarily leads to violence? (p. 136-137)

A careful reading of the New Atheists reveals that their worldviews stem from naturalism and secular humanism. Everyone has a worldview-including Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. For good or ill, worldviews contain ideas and ideas have consequences. (p. 141)

From the Christian perspective, the goal isn't a sacred public square where only the ideas rooted in Christianity are preferred (or any single religion for that matter). Nor is the goal a naked public square where no ideas from various religious traditions are even entertained. The goal, as Os Guinness describes it, is a civil public square. (p. 144)

Faith isn't going anywhere and neither is disagreement. We must learn to debate the ideas and the implications of those ideas without affirming that everyone's view is equally valid on the one hand or demonizing those with whom we disagree on the other-this is what is truly dangerous for society. (pp. 144-145)

Discuss

What are some of the reasons people say religion is dangerous?
What has been the historical impact of atheism as a worldview?
What does civility look like?

Recommended Reading

The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It by Os Guinness
Is Religion Dangerous? by Keith Ward

Next Week: Chapter 11—Does God Intend for Us to Keep Slaves?

The Problem of Evil Explained in Three Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:56:47 PDT

In this set of three videos, Christian philosopher Greg Ganssle explains the classic argument that God does not exist, called ‘The Problem of Evil’. He distinguishes two versions of that argument. He gives a response to the deductive version of the Problem of Evil on behalf of someone who believes that God exists. Then Greg considers the evidential version of the Problem of Evil, and gives a theistic response. More resources by Greg Ganssle here. More videos like these here. [HT: Doug Geivett]

Apologetics Group Directory

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:53:50 PDT

Are you looking to find a group of like-minded individuals with a passion for defending the faith? Do you run an apologetics study group in your church, campus, or community? The Apologetics Group Directory is a central directory for finding apologetics study groups in your area.

To request that your group be added, email Apologetics315 with your contact information, description of your group, and your location.

This listing is first by U.S. state, then by country.

Alabama
Huntsville: Reasons to Believe
Huntsville: Ratio Christi (student club)
Huntsville: Confident Christianity (area-wide club)

Arizona
Phoenix: Reasons to Believe

Arkansas
Fayetteville: Reasonable Faith

Centerton: Know What You Believe - First Baptist Church

California
Central Valley: Reasonable Faith
Escondido: Emmanuel Faith Community Church Apologetics Class
Fresno: Reasons to Believe
Lancaster: Reasons to Believe
Longbeach: Noumenal Society of Apologetics
Los Angeles: Reasons to Believe
Los Angeles: Reasonable Faith
Norco/Corona (Riverside): Apologetics Foundations Study Group
Orange County: Reasons to Believe
Palm Springs: Desert Apologetics Network
Riverside: Come Let Us Reason
Sacremento: Reasons to Believe
San Diego: Reasonable Faith
San Jose: Reasons to Believe

Colorado
Denver: Reasons to Believe

Connecticut
Middletown: Reasonable Faith

District of Columbia
Washington, DC: Reasons to Believe

Florida
Brooksville: Reasons to Believe
Jacksonville: Reasons to Believe
Melbourne: Reasons to Believe

Georgia
Atlanta: Reasons to Believe
Atlanta: The Areopagus
Atlanta: William Craig's Defenders Class

Hawaii
Honolulu: Reasonable Faith

Illinois
Chicago: Reasonable Faith
Chicago: Reasons to Believe
Joliet: Study group (alternate contact)

Indiana
Fort Wayne: Reasonable Faith

Iowa
Des Moines: Reasons to Believe

Kansas
Kansas City: Reasons to Believe

Louisiana
Shreveport: Reasons to Believe

Maryland
Westminster: Reasonable Faith

Massachusetts
Boston: Reasons to Believe

Michigan
Grand Rapids: Reasons to Believe
Grand Rapids: One Dollar Apologists

Minnesota
St. Paul: Reasonable Faith

New York
Albany: Reasons to Believe
New York City: Reasonable Faith
Rochester: Reasons to Believe

Nevada
Las Vegas: Reasonable Faith

New Jersey
Metro NY/NJ: Reasons to Believe

North Carolina
Charlotte: Reasonable Faith

Ohio
Albany: Christian Forum
Salem: Reasonable Faith
Cincinnati: Reasons to Believe
Columbus: Reasons to Believe
Columbus: Reasonable Faith

Oklahoma
Tulsa: Reasonable Faith

Tennessee
Memphis: Reasonable Faith
Chattanooga: Reasonable Faith

South Carolina
Greenville: Reasonable Faith

Texas
Austin: Reasons to Believe
College Station, Texas; Texas A&M: Ratio Christi
Dallas: Reasonable Faith
Dallas: Reasons to Believe
Dallas/Fort Worth: The Christian Apologetics Connection
Houston: Reasonable Faith
Houston: Reasons to Believe
Houston (The Woodlands): Reasonable Faith
Houston (Sugarland): Reasonable Faith

Washington
Seattle: Reasons to Believe
Spokane: Reasons to Believe

Wisconsin
South Madison: Reasonable Faith

Argentina
Filial Argentina: Reasons to Believe

Australia
Adelaide: Reasonable Faith
Perth: Reasons to Believe
Goulburn, NSW: Study group
Melboure: Reasonable Faith

Brazil
Recife: Study Group

Canada
Canada Association: Reasons to Believe
Vancouver, B.C.: Reasons to Believe
Calgary: Network of Christian Apologists in Calgary

England
Essex: Reasonable Faith

Finland

at Pori - Reasonable Faith book club

Japan: Reasons to Believe

Puerto Rico, Vega Baja: Fundamento Firme

United Kingdom
North East Lincolnshire: Reasonable Faith
Belfast, Northern Ireland: Reasonable Faith

Terminology Tuesday: Platonism

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:30:00 PDT

Platonism: The philosophical system of the Greek philosopher Plato, which has immeasurably influenced Western thought. Plato's philosophy rests primarily on his concept of forms, cosmology and immortality. According to Plato, actual created things are imperfect copies of transcendent, objective and eternal "forms," the highest of which is the form of the Good. Human knowledge is innate and can be apprehended by rational reflections and Socratic "extraction." At death the body releases the imprisoned soul, which is then able to contemplate truth in its pure form.1

1. Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 91.

Alister McGrath Interview Transcript

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 23:30:01 PDT

The following transcript is from an Apologetics 315 interview with Alister McGrath. Original audio here. Transcript index here. If you enjoy transcripts, please consider supporting, which makes this possible.

BA: Hello this is Brian Auten of Apologetics 315.
Today's interview is with professor Alister McGrath, professor of theology, ministry, and education and head of the Centre of Theology, Religion & Culture at King's College, London. His studies range from a DPhil in molecular biophysics to a Doctor of Divinity at Oxford. He is noted for his work in historical, systematic and scientific theology. He is also author of a number of theology textbooks, scholarly articles, academic textbooks, as well as popular works. His works range from books in systematic theology and scientific theology to works dealing with the new atheism, apologetics and the Christian intellect.

Thank you so much for joining me today for this interview, Professor McGrath.

AM: Well it's a great pleasure. I look forward to our discussion.

BA: Now as you know, many people have heard of an atheist professor from Oxford, who was raised in a Christian home but who became an ardent voice for atheism. But others might want to hear about this Oxford atheist who became a Christian. Obviously, I'm talking about you, but would you mind telling me a bit more about your background and that journey?

AM: Well, I'd be delighted to. Richard Dawkins and I, I think, have traveled in precisely the opposite directions, which I think shows us that things aren't as quite straightforward as he thought they were. Anyway, I began studying the natural sciences in high school back in Northern Ireland, in the late 1960s. And it just seemed obvious to me that, you know, science eroded any space for God...that science proved what it believed. There was no room for any faith or anything like that, and therefore I came to take the view that basically religious people just turned their brains off, where scientists were completely attuned with the need for evidence-based reasoning. And I would have agreed with Richard Dawkins on so many points...you know, that for example, faith is about running away from the evidence, but science is about facing up to it.

So, until I went up to Oxford to actually study the natural sciences, I think actually I would have been very much like Richard Dawkins. I was very aggressive, I was very confident in my atheism, and generally took the view that religious people just hadn't turned the "on" switch in their brain. Then I began to think about things in much more detail. I began to read about the history and philosophy of science. I began to read Christian books. I began to talk to atheists and Christians, and began to realize that things were not as simple as I had realized. I had thought that atheism was intellectually very robust and that Christianity was just wishy-washy, lacking any rigorous foundation. And to cut a very long story short, I just began to realize that atheism wasn’t as intellectually strong as I had thought it was. Whereas, Christianity seemed to me to be really attractive and very robust and I ended up then becoming a Christian during my first year at Oxford University.

BA: Well, speaking of Professor Dawkins, as a fellow colleague at Oxford you’ve had the rare opportunity to debate him, and you’ve also debated or had dialogue with some of the other New Atheist personalities like Daniel Dennett [and] Christopher Hitchens comes to mind. But what is your view on the overall tone and the content of atheism, if you will, as a movement today? Where do you think the main challenge lies for Christians to answering the New Atheism?

AM: I think the New Atheism is distinguished by two things. First of all, it repeats old arguments. We call it the “new” atheism, but actually it’s very old. It recycles old and very often discredited arguments from earlier generations. But, I think what’s new about it is its aggressiveness and its - how should I put it - its utter dismissiveness. It doesn’t take religious people seriously. It ridicules rather than engages, “Only a fool would believe this.” The rhetoric is very, very strong - perhaps covering up an obvious evidential argument as a weakness. And so for me the New Atheism is very, very strong on its rhetoric - its dismissal both of religious belief and religious people. In fact, its arguments are surprisingly weak. And so for me, Christians really ought to, I think, just get used to the rhetoric and say, “I’m not going to allow this to get to me.” And say, “Look, you can call me whatever names you want to, but do you mind if we look at the arguments and the evidence, because I think there may be a problem for you here.” So we mustn’t feel discouraged. We mustn’t feel - how shall I put it - blown away by the rhetoric. We just say, “Look, there are some arguments here that I think we need to look at. You may call me a fool, but I have to say that your arguments aren’t good enough.”

BA: I’m thinking of a couple of books you’ve written on this subject, The Twilight of Atheism and The Future of Atheism, which is a dialogue between you and Daniel Dennett. But, in the Twilight in particular, you mention that although the ideas of atheism are nothing new, the future (in a sense) is largely dependent upon the attitude and actions of Christians and other religious people in society. So could you kind of unpack that a bit? How is atheism’s future determined, do you think?

AM: In the book The Twilight of Atheism, I make the point that atheism’s arguments are very well-known, very well-rehearsed, and there’s nothing very new about them. So I ask, “Well, where’s it going to go in the future?” And the point I make is that atheism is reactive. It’s not really a body of positive beliefs; although, atheists very often will say they are. The really defining characteristic is a rejection of religion. And if religion is weak, well - there’s not much motivation for being an atheist. But if religion is very strong and very aggressive, then actually atheism can easily arise as a reaction to religious strength. And one of the reasons we’ve seen the New Atheism is, paradoxically, because of the strength of religion in the world and especially Christianity in North America, and that really has riled atheists who feel that Christianity ought to have died out years ago. In many ways, I think the New Atheism is the “last hurrah”...the big attempt to try and reverse the flow, and that I think accounts for its aggressiveness. If we look at a history of this, in many ways the event that triggered off the New Atheism was 9/11, which was seen by all the leading New Atheist as demonstrating that religion was dangerous, but also a very real presence in the world today. I think that one of the things I’d want to say is that Christians who want to engage the New Atheism need to be aware that this isn’t simply a battle about ideas. It’s also about the form of Christianity we model. And in many ways we ought to model a gracious form of Christianity, because to come out all “guns ablazing”, modeling a very aggressive form of Christianity simply...how shall I put it...ratchets up the odds. It makes it even more difficult to have a sensible dialogue. It is very, very hard for the New Atheists to say, “Religion is arrogant, dangerous, and diluted” when they’re talking to very gracious, very intelligent dialogue partners. I think that we need to be aware of the best way that we can subvert the New Atheist rhetoric is by being polite, gracious, and above all, being able to show the weaknesses in their arguments.

BA: I want to ask you how you feel about the “old atheism”, so to speak, and the New Atheism. In particular, how they might define themselves. It used to be that atheism was the belief that “There is no god” and now it’s a little more slippery. Now it’s, “I simply lack a belief in gods.” Is this a cop-out, or semantics, or what is your opinion on how that shift in definition has taken place?

AM: Well, I think we do have to recognize that the word ‘atheism’ designates a spectrum of possibilities. It might be refer to someone who says, “Well, you know, I don’t believe in God,” meaning: “I don’t believe in God, but I haven’t really thought about it very much. In fact, at some point in the future I might change my mind.” The New Atheists very often treat that kind of person as an atheist; I would say they are agnostic. They don’t know the answer. They are not religious believers, so in one sense I suppose they are atheists, but they’re not principled atheists. If anything, they are what some scholars would call an apathetic atheist. Then there are those who have thought the thing through and really do believe that there is no god. Look very carefully, that’s a position of faith: “I believe there is no God.” Actually, a lot of those are very, very reasonable, very, very gracious people who just say, “Look, I’ve thought about this. I don’t think there is a God. I know you’ve thought about it and think there is a God, and we respect that position. Actually we understand how you’ve come to that position, but it’s not one we share.” And these people are generally very good in discussion and debate. [They are] very honest about the weaknesses of their own positions. Also I think a very important point is [that] they are absolutely clear that it is rational to be a Christian. They just take the view that it’s more rational to be an atheist. Then we come to the New Atheism, and it’s in a different ballpark. It ridicules rather than argues. It aims to portray religious believers as idiots. It claims a monopoly on rationality. It’s a very aggressive and very arrogant form of atheism. I think it’s interesting to note that most of its chief critics are not Christians like myself but other atheists who find themselves embarrassed and humiliated by its arrogance and its intellectual superficiality.

BA: That’s helpful. Moving on here just a little bit, I want to explore the importance of theology in the work of Christian apologetics. One of your newer books is The Passionate Intellect: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind - that’s the U.S. Title. The UK title is Mere Theology, and in it you give an overview of the purpose and the place and the relevance of theology. So what’s your goal in that book?

AM: My goal, I think, is to make believers into thinkers and thinkers into believers. All I’m really doing there is I’m taking one of the things that Christ says very, very seriously. He says, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” In many ways I’m saying to my readers, as I saw now to my listeners, “Look, part of our discipleship is to supplement a discipleship of the heart and a discipleship of the hands with a discipleship of the mind. We need to go deeper into our faith to appreciate it, to understand it, to really take delight in its ideas and how they make sense of life. That’s good for us. It really brings a new depth and quality to our own faith, but it also enables us to engage our culture and be able to explain to people why Christianity makes sense, to help them grasp why it’s so important and realistic. In short, it really allows you to do good informed apologetics.

BA: Excellent. Some people would see a dichotomy between having a vibrant spiritual faith and being theologically engaged with their intellect or taking an intellectual approach to one’s faith. Do you think you’re trying to dispel this false dichotomy and encourage that a rigorous, intellectual approach to the faith can actually cause your spiritual walk to be more alive and more vibrant?

AM: It certainly can. But I can understand why some people might be a little anxious. As they will say, and I think absolutely rightly, “Look, faith is relational. It’s about a deeper relationship with God...with the risen Christ.” And I agree entirely. I’m not saying that we develop a discipleship of the mind to displace, or replace this very important living and loving relationship with God. I’m saying that as you fall in love with someone, you want to know more about them. You talk to them, you get to know them, you begin to echo what they think. And in many ways I’m just saying that this is an extra layer of the Christian faith. It’s a layer which I think has become more important in recent years. For example, the rise of the New Atheism has really made it all the more important that we’re able to give good intellectually informed accounts of what Christians believe and why, in the public sphere. I take great delight in noting that this is happening. I’m thrilled by some of the books I’ve seen recently and by the quality of some Christian speakers that I’ve heard. So I think what I’m saying is, look, this is not an attempt to break any of the traditional thinking about faith by downplaying the importance of prayer, or of meditative Bible reading, or of spending quality time with God. I’m simply saying maybe in our day and age this has become important. Let’s recover this older way of thinking, not to displace relationality with God, but to supplement it and be able to meet the challenge of this age.

BA: One of the things that you do in the book is, you do offer (later) a critique of some of the New Atheist ideas. How do you see a strong, theological emphasis, with believers helping the cause of Christianity, as it counters this New Atheism or presents a stronger intellectual front, if you will?

AM: One of my favorite apologists is C.S. Lewis, and Lewis I think helps us understand that the Christian faith projects a very powerful rational or intellectual, a very powerful moral, and a very powerful aesthetic vision. In other words, it captivates you at every level by its wonderful vision of reality. And I think we need to recover that...to actually be excited and challenged by the vision that the Christian faith offers us. But, I think there is an issue here that has become particularly important in the light of the circumstances you’ve just mentioned, and it is this: at the moment the New Atheism challenges religious beliefs. In other words, it’s operating at the level of ideas. Now, you and I and everybody listening to this knows perfectly well there is far more to Christianity than its ideas. It’s all about the emotions, the relationship with God and so on, but at this moment in time, it’s the ideas that seem to be the point of debate. It may be in twenty years-time it’s going to be something else, but at the moment it’s the ideas. And therefore, I think we do need to try and recover the sense of showing why Christianity makes sense, critiquing the idea of atheism, and really just rediscovering the rationality of the Christian faith. I think that there’s a real need to do theology properly to help us do good apologetics.

Just let me give you some examples of the ways in which this helps. I think it’s very easy to form the incorrect judgment that basically apologetics is a set of techniques. “Here’s how you answer this question. Here are six very good reasons for believing in God and so on.” A good, theological framework makes it clear that apologetics is a work of grace, in which we are not simply developing techniques - we are being shaped by God; we are being equipped by God. It really emphasizes that there’s a “Godward” dimension of apologetics. And that’s so helpful as a corrective to the idea that apologetics is just about learning techniques. But more than that I think, good theology helps us to deepen our vision of what the Christian faith is. It enables us, if I can put it like this, to look at each element of the Christian faith and appreciate it in its own right. And then to ask, “What might its apologetic significance be?” And it helps us to work out how much there is in the Christian faith that’s able to capture the imagination, or the emotions, or the mind of our audience. And that’s why I think theology is so important. It’s good for each of us because it deepens both our understanding, and our appreciation for our faith, but it also helps us work out how to connect up with our culture and to explain to them the vitality and relevance of faith.

BA: Well, on a practical level, what kind of advice would you have for those who are defenders of the faith, so that they can have a stronger theological foundation? What sort of practical things should they be focusing on?

AM: Well, let me make two very quick suggestions. They should read. They should read people who we know are good apologists. I’ve mentioned C.S. Lewis, and I’m sure we could easily add others to the list. And you need to read them with an agenda, and the agenda is: “What questions are they asking? How do they engage with people? What can I learn from this?” In other words, see them as the masters - what can we learn from them? But secondly, and I think this is very important: we need to listen to our culture. Listen to the questions our friends ask us, to the anxieties we see when we read the newspapers or watch TV, and we need to ask, “How could I engage with that? How could I, for example, take C.S. Lewis and engage that question? How could I provide a good Christian response to the questions being asked?” Apologetics is really about making sure that the Christian faith connects up well with the questions our culture is asking. We need to know our faith. We need to know our culture, and above all, we need to be bridge the gap between them.

BA: That’s good. As far as the church body...the local church, how do you see this engagement with theology and apologetics playing a more dominant role? How do you think that we can practically encourage that in the church at large?

AM: Well, I think the pastor does play a very critical role here. And apologetics is not simply about reaching outside the church. It’s helping people realize why Christianity makes so much sense. There are many people inside church congregations who are wrestling with apologetic questions. They’ve come to faith, but haven’t had all their questions answered. I think the pastor or the preacher needs to realize that if they want their people to be good ministers of the faith, apologists and evangelists, they’ve got to be equipped. They’ve got to be reassured about their faith. They’ve got to be helped to be able to explain it and defend it in the secular marketplace. Now many, many pastors and preachers say, “I couldn’t do this.” In this case you need to bring somebody in who can. But there’s a real need for the local church to see this kind of ministry as a priority in our present cultural situation.

BA: Would there be advice that you’d want to give to lay apologists, that would help them to succeed in getting their congregations more interested in defending the faith. You mentioned there bringing in people who are good equippers, but what sort of initiatives do you see, or would you recommend?

AM: Well, let me recommend two very obvious things that we can do, and we use both of these at the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics, where we equip people to do this kind of thing. Number one: you read some passages from a leading Christian apologist. It might be Ravi Zacharias, it might be C.S. Lewis, or it might be somebody else. And again you’re enjoying reading, but your asking, “How can we use this to help answer the questions we are being asked?” And secondly, you get a group of people together and you say, “Look, we’re going to talk about a question tonight. (For example, why does God allow suffering?) And what we’re going to do is to work our way towards a good answer that we can give to our friends.” And as you talk about this, you will find that your understanding of the answers you can give becomes much much greater because you’re listening to other people, reflecting on how they would answer it. Apologetics is about collaborative. It’s about sharing ideas, sharing insights, and beginning to realize that there are some very good answers that can be given to the questions people are asking.

BA: I want to pick up on a thought you mentioned there, about apologetics being collaborative, and it reminds me of something I’ve heard Gary Habermas say about apologetics being something we do in a community. Would you mind expanding on that a little bit more, and how you see that playing out as we move forward in that field?

AM: I think that there are people who are, how should I put it, lone rangers. They just become very good apologists, and that’s wonderful. But if you take someone like C.S. Lewis, Lewis worked with a group of people. Above all, the people we think of as “Inklings”, and they helped him develop his answers. They would say, “That’s not good enough. You’ve got to do better. What about this?” And in interaction with people like them, he developed better answers. They both challenged him by saying, “You need to do better,” and they helped him work out better answers. And that’s why I think apologetics is best done collaboratively, where we share our ideas and approaches, we kick them around, we fine-tune them if you like, and at the end of the day we all emerge from that having better answers to give to our culture.

BA: That’s good. Now we’ve been speaking about theology and its apologetic applications if you will, but let me ask you about another subject which is related, and to which you’ve put a lot of your energies, and that’s natural theology. Would you mind describing that briefly, and then explain what role you think that plays for Christian apologetics today.

AM: Well, the idea of natural theology can take various forms, but they all have one thing in common, and that is that in some way we can use the natural world around us as a kind of navigable channel to helping people find God. In other words, you’re arguing from the creation to the creator. In many ways, it’s picking up the theme of Psalm 19 verse 1: “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord.” “You see the glory of the heavens? Well doesn’t that point towards the greater glory of God?” And it picks up on where a lot of people are in our culture. They have a very real sense of respect for nature, a love for nature, they appreciate the beauty of nature. One of the things we can do is to try and say, “Look, what you are doing is admiring or loving something that God has done. Might not God himself be even better still?” So it’s using nature as a jumping off point. It’s not saying [that] nature is God, and it’s certainly not saying that nature tells us everything we need to know about God. It’s rather saying that nature can be a gateway, or a starting point for some very important discussions about God. All of these need to be shaped and resourced by the Biblical witness, but even the Biblical witness itself very often suggests we can begin with people’s interest in the natural order and then use that as a way of leading them beyond that to discover God himself.

BA: What other sort of scriptural precedents or appeals to natural theology do you see and how you would encourage people to go about using arguments from natural theology?

AM: Well, I think if we look at Romans chapter one, or of course Paul’s very famous address in Athens - the so-called Areopagus speech of Acts 17...In the case of the Athens speech, Paul, in many ways, is facing up to the fact that his Greek audience doesn’t know anything about the Old Testament; so, how can he explain who Christ is? In many ways, his answer is to appeal to the doctrine of creation - the idea [that] there is someone who’s made this whole thing, and in some way this God can be known. And what he ends up saying is, “What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” In other words, “You have this deep sense [that] there’s something else there. Well, I will tell you who it is and how you find Him.” I think this is very helpful because, as you rightly say, there are many people who have this sense that nature is pointing towards something greater, but they don’t know how to find it. And I think our privilege can be to help them use nature as a gateway to discover the greater reality behind it.

BA: Well, let’s shift gears back to the discipleship of the mind for a few minutes. When it comes to the discipline of learning, what sort of advice would you want to give to Christian apologists who are seeking to be better equipped to defend their faith?

AM: I think one thing we all have to recognize is that we can’t be good at everything. And therefore, I would say to people that it really helps to have a good knowledge of your faith and the questions people are asking. And it also helps to be able to say, “Given my own educational background or my own professional expertise, I could be helpful in this area.” For example, using literature in apologetics, using science in apologetics or indeed, thinking about the psychology of apologetics. And so I just say to anybody listening to this: try and work out what it is that you could do. I will say - very clearly - that the deeper you go, the more excited you’ll become and you will probably be overwhelmed by the idea of what you can do and how you can take things further.

But in many ways, I think the core advice I would give you is this: first - try reading some apologists, and don’t just read them for fun. Ask: “How do they understand apologetics? How do they do it? What can I learn from this?” Then secondly, listen to the questions you hear people asking around you about faith. And ask yourself, “Is there any way that my own background [or] my own expertise might be helpful in this respect?” Because again, apologetics is collaborative, and maybe you’ve got something to contribute to the rest of us that might be very exciting and very important.

BA: You mentioned C.S. Lewis, and obviously he’s influenced you as well as countless others, but what other apologists have been strong influences in your own pursuit?

AM: Lewis has been particularly influential for me, because his own apologetic method actually operates in a number of different levels...the reason, the imagination, the emotions. So I find him particularly interesting, but of course there are others. I enjoy reading Ravi Zacharias. I particularly feel that he’s got a very good sense of where many university students are. I enjoy reading William Lane Craig. I really admire the way in which he demonstrates the coherence of the Christian faith. And there are others as well, but those will just do us for a starting point. I think the important thing I would want to say to anybody listening to this is, “Look...maybe there’s a dialogue partner you could find.” In other words, you read something and you say, “Oh, he’s on my wavelength,” or “Oh, she’s really good.” If you find that person, they can help you grow. So, one of the reasons you’re reading apologists is to try and find somebody who you think might be somebody who you could journey with and grow in your understanding in doing so.

BA: Are there any particular areas that you think may be lacking in the field of apologetics today, that you would want to see reinforced or developed to a greater degree?

AM: I think I’ve been hugely encouraged by the way apologetics has developed in the last twenty years. I think people really are rising to the challenge, and there are some obvious areas. For example, we need my psychologists. We need more sociologists to help us here. And what I’d want to say is, if there’s anybody listening to this that feels like, “I’m in a field of study, and I can see ways in which my discipline could help.” Then start thinking about making those connections. This is how apologetics is going to grow. Go to the conferences. Get in touch with apologists and see what you can do to move things forward. But I think more importantly, what we need to do is make sure we always keep in touch with where culture is. And one of the things apologetics always needs to do is to develop what I’m going to call “culture watches.” In other words, people who deliberately look at the way our culture is going. They read newspapers. They look at the lyrics of popular songs, and they try to ask, “What are the anxieties and concerns of the moment, and how can the Christian faith connect up with those? There is a lot be need to do, but I’m so pleased with how much has been done in the past two decades.

BA: Well one more question, and this is for believers listening who would say, “You know, God has gifted me with a thinking mind, I’m drawn to the academic world, and I want to serve Christ as a Christian academic and defend the faith in that arena. Do you have any advice for how they should approach their studies and think with a longer time perspective?

AM: Well yes I think that you need to do this intentionally. It may take a very long time. At Oxford University we have a Christian mind course which tries to help especially young to mid career professionals work out how to integrate their faith and their professional competencies. And what I want to say is we really do need people who can do this, and it’s not going to happen over night. I’m hoping that when people listen to this they will say, “Look, I’m at the research stage. I’m at an early stage of my career, but I know it really could be important.” And I want to say to you hang in there. Try to make the relating of your faith and your professional work a priority because we need Christian voices in those disciplines, and we need Christian answers to the questions raised by those disciplines. You know, you could be the person who helps us move ahead here.

BA: You mentioned the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics. What kind of people is this geared for and who would you encourage to get involved with that?

AM: Well the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics was founded back in 2004 in recognition that we needed to intentionally help apologists develop their techniques and above all to help people who thought maybe they could become an apologist get started. And we’ve been thrilled by its progress. We’ve grown and grown and grown, and today we are very pleased by the quality of people who come to us for our courses and the people who we are able to help in so many ways. We’re based at Oxford, and I think we do three main things. We run a nine-month course in Christian apologetics in both theory and practice. We run conference throughout the world where we help people to develop their own techniques and approaches, and we also write publications. If you search for Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics on the web, you’ll find out all about us and the kind of things we do.

BA: Great. Now just shifting gears again Professor McGrath; I wanted to ask you about some of your works of fiction. This includes a series called The Aedyn Chronicles. And in fact I found the first book of this series free on Kindle, and that was today. I don’t know how long it will be free on Kindle, but there are a couple more books in this series. Can you tell me more about this series and your goal in writing fiction?

AM: Well I do feel very strongly that one of the weaknesses in contemporary Christian apologetics is that we are very good at arguments. But the real problem is that for many people when they come home tired from work, they’re not going to pick up a book which deals with abstract arguments for the existence of God, but they will read novels. And in many ways fiction is the gateway to the soul for many people these days. I’ve often said to people that we need to write more Christian novels. We need to develop an apologetics of the imagination to get through to these people. And I felt I just couldn’t keep saying, “We need to do this.” I had to at least try to do it myself. So in many ways these novels are an attempt on my part to say, “Look, I’m going to try and do this. Now that I’ve tried it, maybe other people will as well.” And my hope will be that we will identify some really good Christian writers who can develop the kind of ministry that C.S. Lewis had with the Narnia Chronicles 50 years ago. We really need that and I think we really need to encourage people to try and see why fiction, for children or for anyone, can really serve an important role in today’s apologetic task.

BA: Back to C.S. Lewis. You’re working on a project that deals with the works of Lewis. Would you mind talking about that project and any other more recent books or projects that you might want our listeners to be aware of?

AM: Well thank you. The big project I’m working on right now is a biography of C.S. Lewis. It will come out in 2013, which of course is the 50th anniversary of his death. And what I’m trying to do is to really speak to people who have discovered Lewis through his films or his reputation but don’t quite know why he’s so significant. And I’m trying to explain who this man is, why he is so interesting, explaining his ideas, his arguments, his stories, and really I think trying to introduce him to a new generation. It’s a wonderful project, and I’m enjoying writing it enormously. There’s a book that’s coming out very soon in the UK and in two months in the states. It’s called, Why God Won’t Go Away. And as you might expect it’s a critique of the new atheism. It’s saying that we’ve dealt with your critiques of Christianity. Now we’re going to start asking you some hard questions like what are your positive beliefs? In many ways this takes the critique of the New Atheism further, and I really do think it will be uncomfortable for them. It really challenges their own positive approaches and positive beliefs. I think it helps us see that there’s something wrong here. The subtitle of the U.S. edition is, Is the New Atheism Running on Empty?

BA: Well I definitely look forward to that work as well as your biography of C.S. Lewis. Thank you so much for joining me. It’s been excellent.

AM: It’s been a great pleasure.

Brendan Sweetman on the Faith of Secularism

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 01:22:35 PDT

"For the secularist, the belief that everything that exists is physical is based on faith in part; it cannot be fully proven by rational argument or by appeal to the evidence. In particular, the secularist has not proved that the human mind (consciousness, thoughts, ideas, etc.) is physical. Of course, he might believe that it is physical or hope to prove it one day (a misguided hope, I hold), but right now he believes this on faith. He might claim that it is a rational faith; whatever about this point, it is still a belief based partly on faith."

—Brendan Sweetman
Why Politics Needs Religion: The Place of Religious Arguments in the Public Square (pp. 119-120). Kindle Edition.

Book Review: Molinism: The Contemporary Debate

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 23:30:00 PDT

First developed by the sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina, Molinism was accidentally reinvented by Alvin Plantinga in the 1970s, when he unwittingly presupposed it in his Free Will Defense against the logical version of the problem of evil. Molinism is a proposed solution to the age-old problem of reconciling human freedom and divine sovereignty. Its distinguishing claim is that, logically prior to deciding which world to actualize, God knows what any possible person would freely choose in any possible (appropriately specified) situation in which He might place them. Dressed up in more distinctly Molinist terminology, the claim is that God has so-called “middle knowledge,” by which he knows the truth-values of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (hereafter ccfs), which take the form “If person P were in circumstances C, P would freely do X.” By means of this special sort of knowledge, God providentially plans out all the events of history in detail, without any abridgement of human freedom.

Since its reintroduction into contemporary philosophical theology, Molinism has been enthusiastically applied to a wide range of theological problems. In addition to issues of divine sovereignty, predestination, and foreknowledge, as well as Plantinga’s application of the concept to the problem of evil, Molinism has been applied to issues of prayer, prophecy, the incarnation, papal infallibility, the inspiration of Scripture, Christian exclusivism, the perseverance of the saints, evolution, original sin, the demographics of theistic belief, divine hiddenness, sinlessness in heaven, and more. But despite the apparent fruitfulness of the idea, Molinism has formidable critics as well. Ken Perszyk’s volume Molinism: The Contemporary Debate provides a snapshot of the current state of what Perszyk calls “the Molinism Wars.”1

Perszyk’s volume is a compilation of 17 original papers by 12 able Philosophers—critics and defenders of Molinism alike. Following a helpful introduction that reviews what is at stake in the Molinist debate and sketches each of the volume’s contributions, the first half of the book is devoted to arguments for and against the coherency of the notion of middle knowledge. The arguments discussed in these chapters question whether it is possible for God to have middle knowledge. The second half of the book, on the other hand, is devoted to debating a different line of anti-Molinist attack: objections that Molinism provides God with either too much or too little control. Perszyk maintains that the best way to evaluate arguments of this sort is to engage in “Applied Molinism,” that is, to “roll up one’s sleeves and dig deeply into particular aspects of providence and Christian faith to see how Molinism fares with respect to them.”2

Leading anti-Molinist William Hasker opens the discussion by reviewing the two theoretical objections to middle knowledge that have dominated discussions of Molinism since the 1970s. The first is the so-called “grounding objection,” which asks what, if anything, makes Molinist ccfs true, and the second is a reductio argument which attempts to show that Molinism implies the absurdity that persons both have and lack the power to bring about the truth of ccfs describing their own actions. Hasker believes that progress in the Molinist debate depends on continued discussion of these arguments. In the case of the grounding objection, he points out that some Molinists have replied to it by trying to show that ccfs can be grounded in a satisfactory way, while others reject the notion that such grounding is necessary at all. “It will be interesting,” says Hasker, “to see which of these approaches proves more appealing.”3

In chapter 2 Thomas Flint replies to Hasker, maintaining that Molinists have satisfactorily answered the objections Hasker sketches in chapter 1. Flint criticizes Hasker’s reductio argument, charging Hasker with illegitimately defining ccfs into the “history of the world” prior to a given free creaturely choice. But Flint has doubts about the value of continuing to pick at the details of these arguments, expressing skepticism that “if we get this clause just right, or tweak that definition just a bit, the scales will fall from our opponents’ eyes.”4 Flint suggests instead that Molinists should turn to in-house discussions with each other to further develop their model of providence. He also encourages, among other things, shifting more focus to issues of Applied Molinism like those that dominate the latter part of the book.

Following these papers on the current state of the Molinist controversy is a four-chapter exchange where Trenton Merricks criticizes Hasker’s anti-Molinist reductio argument, contending that it threatens more than just Molinism—maybe even libertarian free will—and that the argument ultimately fails. Merricks’ reply involves a particular way of characterizing the relationship between truth and the world, according to which free agents like us are able to bring about the truth of ccfs about ourselves. Both Hasker and his fellow anti-Molinist, Dean Zimmerman, have a say in this exchange, criticizing several aspects of Merrick’s piece, and Merricks gets the final word in a brief reply to both of his critics. Readers are left to decide for themselves who comes out on top in this energetic interchange.

Next up are two stand-alone chapters. In chapter 7, Ken Perszyk and Edwin Mares address Molinism’s relationship to the standard semantics for counterfactuals, arguing that the semantic issues faced by Molinism are distinct from the ontological issues (like the grounding objection), and, furthermore, Molinism is compatible with the standard semantics, despite common allegations to the contrary. Then, in chapter 8, Edward Wierenga tackles the question of what belongs in the antecedents of appropriately specified ccfs. In order to have a truth-value, a ccf must have all the relevant circumstances specified in its antecedent. But just what are the relevant circumstances? Wierenga argues in favor of the view that the antecedents of ccfs describe initial segments of possible worlds, and criticizes an older account.

Another exchange, this time between Dean Zimmerman and William Lane Craig, occupies the next three chapters. Following a précis of Zimmerman’s anti-Molinist argument, Craig launches a multi-faceted attack on the argument, which Zimmerman subsequently criticizes. Zimmerman argues that, on Molinism, there are possible worlds in which creaturely choices are sensitive to trivial adjustments in the creature’s circumstances, (like the way that cosmic dust swirls in a pre-big bang space time), so that God could get creatures to choose however he wished simply by making adjustments in those trivial and removed details of history. Zimmerman refers to this as the possibility that creatures could be transworld manipulable. He then presents Molinists with a dilemma: they must either hold that transworld manipulable creatures are still genuinely free (which Zimmerman finds implausible), or that Molinist ccfs could have been such that God was unable to create free creatures (which Zimmerman sees as a threat to God’s omnipotence). The discussion between Zimmerman and Craig is fascinating and has many subtleties. Once again, readers are left to make their own judgment call on who “wins” this round.

At this point the book turns its attention to issues of Applied Molinism. Thomas Flint heads off this section with a paper that expands his work on applying Molinism to the incarnation. Here he defends the possibility of multiple incarnations, proposing the creative (if odd) view that Christian believers might be, at the completion of their sanctification, assumed by Christ in virtually the same way that the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth was assumed by the Logos. Though many will find this proposal uncomfortable if not downright heretical, Flint believes it can be defended against such concerns and that it accords well with passages like 2 Peter 1:2, Galatians 2:20, and 1 Corinthians 12.

The book then turns to the subject of foreknowledge. In Chapter 13, John Martin Fischer argues that Molinism, contrary to a popular assumption among Christian philosophers, does not provide a unique solution to the dilemma of human freedom and divine foreknowledge even if Molinism is true. While Molinism does provide an important and unique contribution to discussions of divine providence, it works by presupposing rather than presenting a solution to the freedom and foreknowledge dilemma. Following Fischer’s chapter, Greg Restall considers Molinism in relationship to branching time and argues that Molinists should reject branching time, even though this would mean abandoning objective indeterminacy.

Though Molinism’s most prominent critics are open theists, Molinism also faces opposition from the other direction—Thomist theological determinists. While open theists have often objected that Molinism gives God too much control, making theodicy difficult (for example), Thomists complain that Molinism does not give God enough control. Chapters 15 and 16 are a Thomist critique of Molinism and a defense of theological determinism, respectively. Hugh J. McCann’s chapter is on evil and the Free Will defense, in which he argues that open theism and Boethian-atemoporality models of providence do not do justice to God’s omniscience and sovereignty. He argues that Molinism mostly remedies these defects, but he objects to divine middle knowledge on other grounds and concludes that we ought to adopt a Thomist model of providence, thus abandoning the Free Will Defense. In the next chapter Derk Pereboom defends theological determinism against objections that it lacks the resources for doing theodicy and that it does not adequately account for such things as blame, guilt, repentance, gratitude, and love.
The final word goes to Hasker, who presents an open theist theodicy of natural evil in chapter 17. He argues that natural evils result from design features in the world that serve a good purpose overall (e.g. natural disasters are inevitable on a geologically active planet, but an active planet is necessary in many ways to sustain life). Hasker maintains that this sort of “general policy theodicy” fits nicely into risk-taking models of providence like open theism.

Overall, Perszyk’s book is an excellent resource. There are several big names among the contributors, the papers are of the highest quality, and even the bibliography is impressive. While Perszyk doesn’t claim that the bibliography is exhaustive, all appearances suggest that it is pretty close. Furthermore, the discussion in the book does a lot to push the debate forward, while also providing the reader with a clear picture of the state of the debate right now. One notices, for example, that interest in the grounding objection has begun to fade, as both sides apparently feel that there is little more to be said on the matter. Whether or not the debate over Hasker’s reductio argument will end in a similar stalemate is hard to tell at this point. It will be interesting to see how Merricks’ account of truth shapes future discussion in these areas. There also appears to be a need for more internal work to be done among Molinists (like determining exactly what belongs in the antecedents of ccfs), as well as room for more discussion in the area of Applied Molinism.

This reviewer's primary criticism of this volume is that the essays on Applied Molinism in the latter portion of the book lean heavily in the anti-Molinist direction. Apart from Flint’s chapter in the incarnation, readers do not get to see much extension of the work Molinists have done in applying their model to particular Christian doctrines. But perhaps this imbalance was a strategic move, intended to stimulate more discussion in this area.

A final note of caution is in order. This book is an academic title that is not written with the layperson in mind. It is rather technical and it does not serve as a good introduction to Molinism (for an introduction, see Kenneth Keathley’s Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach, or the final chapter of William Lane Craig’s The Only Wise God). But for readers with some background in analytic philosophy or familiarity with the literature on Molinism, this volume is highly recommended.

Apologetics 315 Book Reviewer Justin Mooney is an undergraduate art and design student from Michigan. He has a passion for apologetics and is planning to study philosophy of religion in graduate school. More of his writing can be found at http://jmooney90.tumblr.com.

[1] Perszyk, Ken. Molinism: The Contemporary Debate. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2011, p. 3
[2] Ibid. p. 11
[3] Ibid. p. 35
[4] Ibid. p. 38

Weekly Apologetics Bonus Links (05/31 - 06/07)

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:00:00 PDT

Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.

• Chesterton the Apologist

• Design in Biology and Physics

• Free Logic Primer eBook Download

• Flight: The Genius of Birds – A Review

• An Apologetics Reading Plan for Beginners

• Three Ways of Using Story in Apologetics

• Does science cause people to disbelieve in God?

• Free on Kindle: The Perfect Leader by Ken Boa

• On Kindle for Free: Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal

• Smart Faith Apologetics conference in Phoenix this Saturday

• Are Theists the Only People Who Have the “Burden of Proof”?

• Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli on Apologetic Arguments

• William Paley (1743-1805) – Historical Apologist Spotlight

• Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan for $3.99 on Kindle

• “The NT Canon Was Not Decided at Nicea—Nor Any Other Church Council.”

• J. Warner Wallace: important differences between Christianity and Mormonism

• Dan Barker debates Casey Luskin on academic freedom on the Michael Medved show

• Jurors Are Asked to Do More Than Hear the Case; They’re Asked to Make a Decision

• New App from Doug Powell: iWitness World Religions for iPad on the iTunes App Store

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Read Along: Chapter 9—Is God Just a Human Invention?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:30:01 PDT

Today we continue with Chapter Nine in the Read Along with Apologetics 315 project. This is a chapter-by-chapter study through the book Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow. (Hear an interview about the book here.) Below you will find an audio intro for Chapter Nine, a brief summary of the chapter, a PDF workbook with questions for the chapter, and some notable quotes. You're also encouraged to share your comments and feedback for each chapter in the comment section below. Feel free to interact! Index page here.

[Audio Intro] - Sean McDowell introduces this chapter.
[Chapter 09 Study Questions] (with kindle locations) - PDF study guide.
[Podcast Feed RSS | Podcast in iTunes] - Click to subscribe to the audio.

Summary
Chapter Nine: Is God Just a Human Invention?
(pages 120-131)
Chapter nine looks at the hypothesis that God is just a projection of the human mind. The authors show how this approach begs the question against God, and they reveal reasons why this hypothesis falls short. Other ways of explaining God away include "the God gene", neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology; perhaps Richard Dawkins' memes explain why religion has spread so widely. However, the authors argue against these theories and suggest that the reason people are "hardwired" to believe in God is because God really does exist.

Philosopher Garry DeWeese contributes an essay describing his journey of faith and the importance of having good reasons to believe.

Notable quotes:

Our intention in this chapter is to walk through some of the most common reasons skeptics think God is a human invention and see if they sufficiently show that belief in God has been rendered unreasonable, or if the reason that so many people believe in God is best explained by the fact that he actually does exist. (p. 120)

If it can be argued that humans created God out of a need for security or a father figure, then it can just as easily be argued that atheism is a response to the human desire for the freedom to do whatever one wants without moral constraints or obligations. (p. 123)

If belief in God is indeed an issue of hardwiring, then two possible explanations exist for the design we observe. Either a blind process of natural selection produces religious belief over time as a by-product with some selective advantage, or an Intelligent Mind designed humanity to naturally believe God exists. (p. 112)

Discuss

How does the projection theory beg the question against God?
How does the projection theory "cut both ways"?
What are the implications of humans being "hardwired" to believe?

Recommended Reading

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath
"Belief in God: A Trick of the Brain?" in Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors, edited by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig

Next Week: Chapter 10—Is Religion Dangerous?

Agnosticism vs Christianity: William Lane Craig Debates R.I.G. Hughes

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:30:00 PDT

In this video, Dr. William Lane Craig debates R.I.G. Hughes on the subject: Agnosticism vs Christianity. This took place at University of South Carolina, sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. From YouTube: "Hughes argues for the agnostics' position by explaining that neither logic nor science has anything to say about the existence of God. Any arguments for God come from an extra-logical premise. Craig reveals, however, that the claim "we cannot know that God exists" is a huge claim that needs to bear the burden of proof. He goes on to show that there are different forms of agnosticism and that rational agnosticism is compatible with Christian faith. Dr. Craig defends theism while presenting a multi-faceted argument for the untenability of agnosticism." Video part 1 here; part 2 here. Enjoy this old one.

Kenneth Samples Interview Transcript

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 23:30:01 PDT

The following transcript is from an Apologetics 315 interview with Ken Samples. Original audio here. Transcript index here. If you enjoy transcripts, please consider supporting, which makes this possible.

BA: Hello, this is Brian Auten of Apologetics 315. Today I’m speaking with philosopher and theologian, Ken Samples. He is senior research scholar at Reasons to Believe, and he is the author of Without a Doubt and A World of Difference. He’s contributed to numerous other books as well. He’s written articles for Christianity Today and Christian Research Journal, and he regularly participates in RTB’s podcasts, including Straight Thinking, a podcast dedicated to encouraging Christians to utilize sound reasoning in their apologetics. So, thanks so much for speaking with me today, Ken.

KS: Hi, Brian. It’s a pleasure to be with you. I enjoy your site and enjoy an opportunity to interact with you.

BH: Well, for those who may not be familiar with you, could you tell us a little bit more about your background and how you came to be a philosopher and a theologian?

KS: Yeah. Brian, I grew up in a kind of a nominal Catholic family, and by the time I kind of hit my teens, I was really kind of looking for deeper answers in life. I just kind of felt like I needed a greater sense of purpose and significance and meaning, and I began kind of asking the big questions: How do I know that God exists? Where do I find meaning in my life?

My sister, who had become a Christian a few years earlier, gave me a book by C.S. Lewis called, Mere Christianity. My second year in college, I was studying philosophy. I read Lewis’s book and was just very amazed by it, impressed by it. Again, I kind of grown up Catholic, but didn’t know much about historic Christianity and certainly didn’t comport my life with Christian ethics. So I read the book, and Lewis really taught me historic Christian thinking, and not long after that, I dedicated my life to the Lord, and I immediately thought that I wanted to know more about the Bible. I wanted to know more about my faith, and I began studying philosophy.

I took my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Social Science, so I was always interested in history and philosophy; then later, I took a graduate degree in Theology at Biola University at Talbot. And those were always kind of burning areas for me. I love philosophy. I love to think and reflect. I love history. I’m a big World War II student. My father was a decorated serviceman in Europe during the Second World War. And, of course, I love theology. I love the Scriptures, and a philosophical perspective. So that’s kind of my educational background, and my areas of interest.

BH: Well, you mentioned C.S. Lewis. I’ve heard many people have been so influenced by his books and writings. Were there any other apologists, while you were starting out, who were influential for you?

KS: Yeah, there were. In fact, out of that education, I met Walter Martin, who had a big influence on me. Dr. Martin, of course, was the former, the kind of the original Bible Answer Man, if you will, his popular radio program, call-in radio program, and I worked with Walter. I used to go to his Bible classes that were held here in southern California. And Martin encouraged me and challenged me to read more about Christian philosophy and theology.

Some people that I really admire in theology: Athanasius, the 4th century father who defended Christian orthodoxy against the Arians. Today, we kind of see modern Jehovah's Witnesses or Unitarians embracing a type of Arian theology.

Augustine is probably my favorite Christian thinker outside of the New Testament. I love Augustine’s Confession, City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and On the Trinity. Pascal, the very famous 17th century French thinker, mathematician, religious writer. I love his book, the Pensées. I mentioned Lewis.

I think that it’s important that Christian apologists mentor future apologists. I think that’s part of the way in which we kind of grow in our apologetic goals and our calling in life. Martin was a big influence on my life. Ronald Nash, who wrote very, very fine apologetic book called, Faith and Reason, he also had a big influence on me. So there are a number of ancient thinkers and modern thinkers that have really challenged my apologetic, theological, and philosophical thinking.

BA: I have to say that your resources, through your podcasts and your audios and things from Reasons to Believe, have been really helpful to me, so I appreciate what you’ve been doing in apologetics. Can you tell our listeners more about your apologetics ministry as it is today?

KS: Yes. I worked previously at the Christian Research Institute, and my time there was more in the area of counter-cult apologetics. After that, I spent a lot of time teaching philosophy of religion in various colleges, and then about almost thirteen years ago, Dr. Hugh Ross, who’s the president of Reasons to Believe (RTB), asked me to come on board here. Reasons to Believe is a science-faith think-tank. We engage in discussions about the doctrine of creation and interact with people who hold evolutionary views and things of that nature, and my role in the ministry is largely to provide more philosophical and theological input into what we call our creation model. RTB, I think, has a very robust ministry in kind of reaching out and help people to feel comfortable that you could be a Christian and also be a person who has great confidence in math and in science.

BA: You had mentioned different mentors in your life and part of the reason for this interview is to kind of gain insights from your experience, and so I want to ask you, what advice would you give to those who are just starting out in apologetics and who want to go deeper?

KS: That’s a really important question, and I appreciate that, Brian, because I think back to being a very young Christian, being interested in apologetics, not being sure about what my vocation or calling was, and I was always kind of a cerebral type of person and sometimes the church I would attend weren’t terribly oriented toward ideas and arguments. It was kind of a struggle working through that period.

I think there are a number of things that I would offer in terms of advice. I think one thing that I would say is that it’s very important that, if you’re interested in apologetics, that you appreciate that in the ancient world, apologetics was seen as a branch of theology. And what I mean by that is I think it’s very important in apologetics to tie your apologetic thinking—whether you’re interested in science apologetics, or historical, philosophical, maybe counter-cult apologetics, or even literary apologetics, the kinds of things that we see in Lewis and Tolkien and others—that you tie those areas to a very robust Biblical theology or maybe Walter Martin would put it, that apologists also need to be theologians. I think sometimes apologists can make a mistake if they, you know, they become Mormon experts, experts on Mormonism or experts on a particular area. It’s very important I think to know what you’re defending, to have an appreciation for Biblical theology, historical theology, and philosophical theology. I don’t want to give the impression, though, that an apologist has to know everything, but to have a very robust approach to the Bible and to theology. To me, that’s something that I think would be very significant to young apologists.

BA: So would you say the best approach for someone would be to study theology first or alongside, sort of in tandem, with his or her apologetics studies?

KS: I think it’s something that they could benefit from: keeping it right there—that is, rather than becoming an expert in a particular area, look to integrated it: How does my interest in apologetics integrate with my Christian faith? If I have a background in science, how does science and faith integrate, or if I’m interested in the field of literature, how do I bring the truth of scripture, of robust historic Christian thinking, into that kind of thing.

And again, some apologists will pursue a more formal route. They’ll look for a graduate degree in apologetics or in theology. Others may choose more of a lay ministry, and there they would want to integrate their own personal self-discovery in terms of theology. But apologists, I think, need to be deeply connected to theology—and a good breadth of theology, not just, as important as Scripture is, also understanding historical, philosophical, systematic theology. That can be very robust in making a strong apologist.

BA: Now how would you say the academic route of apologetics compares with, say, a non-academic route. For instance, what sort of things should someone emphasize if they’re training themselves, so to speak, in apologetics if they choose not to go an academic route?

KS: Yeah, that’s a good question. I had a friend, Bob Passantino, who had a ministry for many years, Answers in Action, with his wife, Gretchen. Bob did not pursue a college career, had a family, and a lot of other things. Bob was one of the brightest people I’ve ever met—incredibly well-read, was a very thoughtful and forceful Christian thinker without, you know, ever going the formal academic route.

I kind of think of it, Brian, in these terms, it’s kind of formal versus informal. You either follow an instructor or you follow a kind of self-discovery. I think one thing that, if you are going to be a lay apologist, I think it’s important to expose yourself to critical analysis, maybe developing a mentor type of relationship. [It’s] important to network. I mean, if you’re not going to be in the classroom, there’s one thing I think you’ll miss out on and that is, when you are in a classroom with really good professors, they can serve as a corrective; that is, they’ll respond to your sloppy thinking or they’ll help you kind of balance out what your thinking on something. Sometimes when you study by yourself, you don’t get that. So networking with other people, maybe mentoring. And again, it’s important on the part of [an] apologist, I think, to look to do that kind of thing.

So obviously one of the benefits of not going an academic route is you can read what you want, you can kind of set your schedule. Others are going to want to follow an academic route. They’re going to want to get a solid degree. It may open up opportunities to teach or to teach in the church. So, I encourage people to consider carefully the academic route, but I know there are people who can be very powerful apologists in more of a lay context.

BA: Now do you think there are particular, essential areas of learning that the apologist should master?

KS: Yeah, that’s really, I think, a great area of inquiry. In my book, A World of Difference, no actually, it’s my book, Without a Doubt, the subtitle of that book is Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions, and the last question is, “How do I prepare myself to give reasons for faith?” I think there are some really essential areas. Again, I think, connecting it to theology, a study of systematic theology is going to be very, very important for an apologist.

Another area is logic, exposing yourself to areas of argumentation, the laws of logic, informal fallacies. That can really revolutionize your whole thinking, where your mind becomes much more disciplined to the categories of logic.

Brian, I also think rhetoric is very important. I know that term is a bit controversial, but rhetoric is the persuasive use of language, and I think that that’s very powerful; that is, how do we speak clearly? How do we communicate concisely and persuasively? Speech and debate can be very, very useful and a powerful tool in apologetics context.

I think maybe a broad category that is helpful is worldview thinking. You know, it’s one thing to know something about a particular religion like Islam or the Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. It’s another thing to kind of learn about worldviews—naturalism, post-modernism, worldview of pantheistic monism. These kind of give you a broad perspective, kind of up on a plane at thirty thousand feet.

So I think those areas are important: (1) Systematic Theology, (2) Logic, (3) Rhetoric, (4) Worldview Thinking. Those are categories, those are areas of discipline that I think would really broaden out a person who’s interested in defending the faith.

BA: Well, I think that’s extremely helpful. You, yourself, have taught logic, so what would you say is the best book for learning logic?

KS: Yeah, boy, it’s awfully good to get a really solid logic text. I tell ya, one book that I’ve used for many years teaching college and university courses in logic is a book entitled, A Concise Introduction to Logic by Patrick Hurley. This is probably the most popular book in universities today in the field of introduction to logic.

Hurley does this really good job of conveying ideas clearly. There are lots of charts and diagrams to help you understand the content, but it’s also very readable. Some logic texts can be a bit intimidating. They can be a tome that you feel like you can never get through. Pat Hurley does a great job of kind of balancing careful content with clarity of expression.

If I could be so bold as to even maybe recommend my own book. I have a section in A World of Difference on logic. There are a couple different chapters there on it, and the reason that I did that is that when I was working on writing this book on worldviews, I tried to read every worldview book or every significant worldview book written in the last hundred years, and virtually all of these great books said that, you know, people need to be able to think carefully and clearly, but very few worldview books include kind of a logic section or a logic lesson, if you will. So that could be, the chapters I have, could be a good stepping stone to moving further on the topic.

BA: Now sort of along the lines of logic would be the area of critical thinking. How would you say that one could intentionally develop that area of their thinking, so that they can be a better critical thinker and analyze arguments maybe without going, you know, maybe heavily into logic or do you think there’s big overlap there, and they tend to go along the same lines?

KS: First of all, there’s more of the traditional introduction to logic where you would, you know, study the formal laws of logic, principles of argumentation, language. You’d probably also be taken into a bit more of the formal areas and sometimes that would even include symbolic logic, which is a bit more of an investment and commitment.

On the other hand, critical thinking...maybe the way of thinking about that is critical thinking has greater application, and so you would look at how arguments break down. You’d look at the informal fallacies, the ad hominem, the straw man type of thing. I think that all of these areas are very, very helpful.

Logic—and I draw from Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, who we call the Father of Logic—Aristotle said that logic is a tool or an instrument that helps us discover the truth, and logic is about ordering your thinking. I remember thinking introductory logic courses over and over again for over a 10-year period, and I tell you, Brian, it really helped me, because my mind began to be shaped by these principles, and I learned the principles that will help you have a very strong, robust argument, and I learned the areas where I had to be careful. You know, the fallacious areas, the ways of reasoning that make your argument unravel. I think that that kind of investment is very, very valuable, and I think getting some good materials, working through them, reflecting upon them could help, not only the apologist, not only the minister, the theologian, it can help just the average, everyday Christian, because what is more important than the way we think? I mean, in the Biblical context, we call it discernment. That is very, very valuable, something I highly recommend. Something that’s been a huge help for me, personally.

BA: Yeah. What qualities do you think are the most crucial for an apologist to cultivate? ‘Coz I’m thinking along the lines of, of course, being a critical thinker, thinking logically, developing yourself intellectually, but what about just overall being Christ-like and having the sort of character that is winsome. Would you talk about character traits and habits that the apologist should develop?

KS: Yes. I’m so glad that you asked that, because this is so important. You know, Apologetics 315, I mean, that makes us immediately think of 1 Peter 3:15. Peter there not only tells us that we need to prepare ourselves to give to every man an answer, a reason for the hope that we have. Peter there uses the very word apologia—to give a reason, defend. But the rules of engagement are also laid down by Peter—that it’s to be done with gentleness, respect, keeping a clear conscience, and we’re to submit ourselves to Christ’s Lordship. I think immediately that [those are] the kinds of qualities or attributes that we want to work into our life through the power of the Spirit.

Devotion. We are devoted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We’re not professional, you know, defenders of the faith. We are disciples. We are followers of our Lord.

I think respect for other people. Humility. Knowing that even though we’re cerebral types (most people who are interested in apologetics, arguments and reasoning tend to kind of come easily), we need to recognize that we are finite creatures, that we have been scarred by sin, that we’re limited, and we are deeply dependent upon God’s grace in our life, that it’s not about winning arguments. It is about helping people to move obstacles out of the way so that God’s Spirit can work in people’s life.

I also think that courage is a very important trait. Courage is a rare attribute, both in and outside the church.

Intellectual integrity. I talk about the Golden Rule of apologetics, which I define as treat other people’s arguments and beliefs the way you want yours treated. You know, I’ve written on Seventh-Day Adventism. I’ve written on Roman Catholicism. I’ve written on other particular groups. I think we want to analyze other people’s beliefs with the sense of carefulness, fair play, accuracy. You know, this is important.

Again if I can reference Aristotle: Aristotle talks about logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos is the argumentation, the reason. It’s the logic. Ethos, where we get our word ethics has to do with credibility. I need to be a credible source. My reason and argumentation may not be effective unless people perceive me as morally credible. And then pathos, which I bring it down to the person and show them how it’s connected in an interpersonal type of manner. So I think it is very important that Christian apologists, Christian thinkers, Christian leaders, the average, everyday believer think very carefully about character traits.

BA: You had mentioned ministering as, like doing the Bible Answer Man program. The question I have there is, do you have any tips as far as developing yourself as a public speaker or giving a public answer or thinking on your feet? What helped you to develop skills in that area?

KS: Yeah. I compliment you, Brian. These are really good questions. I mean, I think you’ve touched on the kinds of questions that we should be talking about, and we should be reflecting upon.

You know, I think interacting with Walter Martin—Dr. Martin was a very difficult act to follow. He could speak off the cuffs extemporaneously, and speak in perfectly grammatical sentences, and I then would have to come up and speak after him. I thought, “Boy, this is not an easy thing to do,” but you know, Martin kind of modeled for me the importance of communication. He mastered communication skills on radio and TV and, therefore, was a very powerful force for historic Christian thinking.

I kind of talk about the Four C’s, Brian. When I speak, I want to be clear. I want to be concise. I want to be cogent and compelling. I think that sometimes public speaking is one of the very important areas. We want to be able to communicate intelligently. We want to be able to communicate in a context where people say, “I understand. I really am gripped by those kinds of things.” You know, it’s easy to become an apologist and only talking in language [or] vocabulary that makes sense to people with a couple of graduate degrees.

Is it clear? Is it concise? Is it cogent? Does it hold together? Is it compelling? Is it accompanied by a winsome spirit? And so I often tell my students—you know, they are studying maybe to be a nurse or an engineer or a doctor—and I tell ‘em, I think probably some of the most important courses in your major are not in your major. They’re courses like Logic, Critical Thinking, Public Speaking. These are things that can be very valuable in terms of communicating the Gospel to various venues.

BA: When we’re dealing with people, we’re dealing with a variety of different issues: their minds, their hearts, their emotions. What role do you think that prayer plays in the life of an apologist or an evangelist, and what’s the sort of role that the Holy Spirit would play in ministering to people?

KS: Well, it’s so, so important. You know, I think the pitfall, Brian, for the apologist is clearly that we are very cerebral type of people. I’d sometimes jokingly said I’d rather read a book than pray, or I’d rather read a book about prayer than pray. But that kind of thinking, that kind of action is going to, I think, lead us on a road that we don’t want to go down. It’s easy to get out of balance and to think I can argue people into the faith.

You know, prayer is communication with God, and C.S. Lewis used to say that he could not not pray. It just kind of flowed out of him. I think that as an apologist, and I’ve known some very distinguished apologists, and I hate to say [that] some of them have had bad experiences in life. Their life has gotten out of balance. They’ve had divorce. They’ve had struggles with family issues. You know, all of that is tied to our devotion, our time of, not just study, but our study of Scripture; not just learning something so we can communicate it but feeding on the Word of God; having a life that’s characterized by prayer.

People do not become converted to Christianity merely by the clever arguments that we come up with. God’s Spirit has to illumine their minds, soften their heart, and incline their will to believe. It’s important to realize that without the Holy Spirit, no one is going to come to believe the Gospel. I think it’s also important to realize that God uses argument. Arguments are important—but as they’re used by His Spirit. So I think apologists again have to fall back on the tremendous importance of being the first devotional believers, themselves, and inculcating a sense of humility. You know, look, when you’re really good at something and people acknowledge you, it’s easy to begin to think, “Wow, I must be a hotshot apologist.” You know, that’s very easy to get out of balance, and so the devotional life, the life of prayer, life to your family, commitment to your wife—these all need to come together I think in a very effective ministry.

BA: You had mentioned, you know, these different pitfalls, so to speak, of self-dependency and getting imbalanced, and earlier you had also mentioned how sometimes you don’t listen to the person you’re speaking to. You haven't been a good listener. Back along the lines of pitfalls and conversations with people, do you think there are particular pitfalls that are common and that can be avoided in personal interaction?

KS: I do. I do. I think one pitfall is again to think [that] this is all one big intellectual argument or game, and failing to appreciate the spiritual realities of life. The biblical context is spiritual warfare. I think when we begin to think it’s one big cerebral argument and we detach it from the spiritual life, that can be a very big obstacle. In addition to that, I think when we start treating people as if they are obstacles to be overcome or arguments to be defeated rather than treating them like people, you know, sometimes people reject your arguments, not because you’ve got bad arguments, but because they don’t particular certain character traits in you, or they don’t like your snobbish kind of attitude.

Again, I don’t want to give the impression to anybody who would hear our interview today, Brian, that you have to be perfect, because, boy, there are times I look in my own life and I realize that I’m a broken person, that sin has deeply impacted me. I have challenges and difficulty just like anybody else, but I think to be a very effective apologist, it involves not just the way we reason and the way we talk, but also the way we live. And so sometimes, it is that getting out of balance that I think can be a problem in the field of apologetics.

BA: I think that’s extremely helpful. Now you’ve mentioned in one of the courses I’ve enjoyed of yours was the Learning 101 course. In that course, you had mentioned that you have a goal of reading one book a week. So you’ve obviously spent a lot of time in studying and reading and researching. I would want to ask you, what are your favorite tips or insights for being a life-long learner?

KS: Yeah, that’s a class I love. I absolutely love to teach that class. We call it Learning Skills 101, learning how to learn using Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren’s great book, How to Read a Book. I kind of bring my own experiences and some of my own writings into the course as well.

Brian, I want to talk about what I call The Life of the Mind to the Glory of God; and that is, scientists, neurologists, people who are experts, neuroscientists—they tell us that the human brain/mind is the most complex mechanism in the known universe, that the complexity, consciousness, personhood are these profound realities that scientists grope to kind of explain. Well, the Lord has given us this gift, and I think using our mind to God’s glory. I mean, He’s given us our brain/mind, and this is part of what it means to be made in his image—our ability to think and to reason, to read and understand.

Animals don’t do logic. They don’t read. They don't engage in the arts. This is part of what it means to be made in the image of God, what we call in Latin the Imago Dei . I think we need to see that as part of our devotion to Him. If He’s given us these profound faculties and qualities, we want to use them, not to be Mr. Smart Aleck, not to be, “Look at me, how smart I am, how many books I read,” but, no, I want to use this to His glory. I want to stand before Him and say, “Lord, I desire to love you with everything I am, my heart, my mind, my soul”—I think what Jesus is getting at there: my entire being.

To me, knowledge, learning, wisdom needs to become a daily priority. I think we need to commit ourselves to learning over entertainment, over recreation. I’ve set a personal goal when I was a young adult to try to read three hours a day. I haven’t always been able to meet it. I know [for] some people that would be very difficult to do. I’ve been very fortunate to have the kind of jobs that involve a lot of reading and preparation, but I think setting some intellectual goals. I’ve started a couple of reading groups connected with my church where I talked about New Year’s resolutions for the mind. How about reading six really good books a year? One every two months.

Again, not to promote intellectualism. God doesn’t love intellectuals over non-intellectuals. But I think the way of thinking about it is I want to use everything I have to His glory, and therefore, learning, thinking, reasoning needs to be a daily priority in my life maybe over watching television or for me, a big Lakers fan, maybe watch a little less Lakers game once in a while, devote myself to a bit more reading and thinking. Those are the kinds of things that I think we can put into action that can revolutionize our life. And if you have trouble in reading, Adler’s book is very, very insightful about how to become a more comprehensive reader. Have trouble in logic, I try to summarize things that’ll help students to develop logical principles in my writings as well.

BA: Now you’re part of the Biola Apologetics Program. Could you tell us a little bit more about that, and how you’re involved, and who should take part in that course?

KS: Yeah. I have been serving as an adjunct professor at Biola for, boy, more than ten years now. I teach in both the M.A. in Apologetics and the M.A. in Science and Religion. I think it’s a very strong program. First of all, they’ve got some really good people teaching there. Kevin Lewis, a friend of mine, who is a very good theologian, has a degree in law, and does great work in terms of kind of Christ and culture type issues. John Bloom is the chairman of the Science and Religion Program. He has two doctoral degrees in Physics and another particular discipline in science. Craig Hazen is the chairman of the program, so it’s got real good people.

I think it is very appealing to a lot of people, Brian, because it’s an online program. You don’t have to move to Southern California. You can take courses online. You come to California for a couple of weeks in the summer to hear lectures and interact with your professors. But I think it is a program that can be very appealing to people who want to take a graduate course, who can fit into their schedule in terms of the online context. And for people who aren’t looking for a degree. You can also get a certificate. That could be very useful to people who maybe don’t have a Bachelor’s degree or aren’t looking for maybe a focused Master’s degree. So it’s a good program. Got some really good people there. Some good course work. It can be a solid bridge academically to moving ahead in the enterprise of apologetics.

BA: Excellent. Now also in your ministry at Reasons to Believe, they have RTB chapters. Could you tell us about that and what are those? How can someone be involved in that?

KS: Yeah, we are very excited at Reasons to Believe about some of the things that we have to offer folks. We have chapters all throughout the United States and even a couple outside the United States, in other countries. We have people who are very interested in science-faith issues. Maybe they have a background in engineering or maybe they have a background in medicine or physics, and they’d kind of like to integrate faith and science. So we have programs here where we help people to become RTB volunteer apologists.

A lot of educational apologetic information can be had through Reason to Believe at reasons.org. There are people in various cities throughout the country who collectively have kind of come together and become chapter members. They have regular meetings. They engage in outreaches at churches, at universities, at various places. All of this is available to people who would like to learn more about science-faith, who’d like to derive some of these benefits

In fact, Brian, RTB offers in many ways almost a free apologetics education. We have regular podcasts. I think there are three or four podcasts that you can listen to almost every week. Daily, there are blog apologetic articles in science, philosophy, theology being written by our team of scholars. We regularly produce books and tapes, and so RTB is, I think, a very, very good resource for helping people to think through particularly the science-faith area. So, again, they can go to reasons.org and get a lot of really good information.

BA: Well, I enjoy your ministry and all the podcasts have been extremely helpful, so I commend it to the people who are listening. Well, Ken, I’ve enjoyed speaking with you today. Thanks again for taking the time.

KS: Well, Brian, I want to say thank you. This was really a lot of fun to chat with you about these issues. I also want to endorse and recommend your great ministry, Apologetics 315. I’ve been on your site. I think you do a great job of highlighting various apologists, people who are involved in apologetics in different areas. I think you’re very prudent about the resources that you select to highlight. I think you’re doing a big service, and I want to encourage people to really partake of what you are doing, and thanks for chatting with me.

Terminology Tuesday: Deism

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 23:30:03 PDT

Deism: The belief that understands God as distant, in that God created the universe but then left it to run its course on its own, following certain "laws of nature" that God had built into the universe. An analogy often used to illustrate the deist view is that of an artisan who creates a mechanical clock, winds it up and then leaves the clock alone to "run out." Deism became popular in the early modern era and was prevalent among several of the founding fathers of the United States of America, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.1

1. Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 36.

Free: Essential Apologetics PowerPoint Series

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 23:30:00 PDT

In partnership with The PowerPoint Apologist, Apologetics 315 is offering a series of 12 Free PowerPoint presentations, released monthly. These cover 12 essential topics in apologetics. These are free to download, modify, and use for your own apologetics presentations. (However, please retain the final two slides featuring the PowerPoint Apologist and Apologetics 315 resources.)

The fourth in the series is
"Why God?—part 2: An Intelligent Cause"
Download it here. Slideshare here.
Enjoy.

H.G. Wells on the Historicity of Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 23:30:00 PDT

"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history."

—H.G. Wells

Book Review: Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? A Surgeon-Scientist Examines the Evidence

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Fri, 31 May 2013 23:30:00 PDT

Imagine with me for a second if a respected scientist whose been widely published in scholarly journals, lectured at prestigious universities and served in a prestigious role for the National Institutes of Healthy for twenty-six years wrote a book on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thankfully we do not have to imagine this; we have such a book in Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead A Surgeon-Scientist Examines the Evidence by Dr. Thomas A. Miller, MD. In his book, Dr. Miller responds to the idea that many believe to be true that science is “all authorative”. This approach leaves many in and outside the science community doubting Jesus’s resurrection as a verifiable, historical event. Miller challenges the notion that modern medicine has disproved the possibility of the resurrection through a careful investigation of the evidence and evaluation of its reliability by demonstrating that science and religion are not incompatible. His approach is a compelling one that will help speak to people in the science community.

Many people today question the resurrection of Christ. They think that such an event if it happened isn’t a fact of history but rather a fantasy. If one considers the evidence for the resurrection and understands how ancient history is done, one cannot but come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Christ is a fact of history. To deny that point is to deny the discipline of history itself, a point those who reject the resurrection fail to consider. In order to establish that point consider the following proofs:

Thomas Arnold (Professor of modern history at ….Oxford….): “No one fact in the history of mankind is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort” than the fact that “Christ died and rose from the dead.” Bishop B.F. Westcott: “Indeed, taking all the evidences together it is not too much to say that there is no historical incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ.” John Locke said, “Our Savior’s resurrection is truly of great important in Christianity; so great that His being or not being the Messiah still stands or falls with it.” Billy Graham: “The entire plan for the future has its key in the resurrection.” Martin Luther: “Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in words alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” John R. Stott: “Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.” William Lyon Phelps (Yale Professor: “In the whole story of Jesus Christ, the most important event is the resurrection.” Benjamin Warfield (Princeton Professor): “The resurrection of Christ is a fact.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is rooted in history, He predicted His resurrection (Matthew 12:38-40 Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33-34 John 2:18-22), was buried in a tomb that was easy to find, appeared physically alive three days after His death, was recorded as Scripture shortly after it occurred, celebrated in the earliest church creeds, His family worshipped Him as God because of His death and resurrection, and His resurrection was confirmed by His most bitter enemies like Paul.

Now that we have considered these important points in order to further establish my point that the resurrection of Christ is established by history, consider the following:

Josephus (37-100A.D)
In the Tetestimonium Flavianum,” he says: Now there was about this Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these men and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

Suetonius (70-160 A.D.)
Suetonius was a Roman historian and annalist of the Imperial House. In his biography of Nero, Suetonius mentions the persecution of Christians by indirectly referring to the resurrection: “Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition [the resurrection].”

Pliny the Younger (62-113A.D.)
Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan describing early Christian worship gatherings that met early on Sunday mornings in memory of Jesus’ resurrection day: I have never been present at an examination of Christians. Consequently, I do not know the nature of the extent of the punishments usually meted out to them, nor the grounds for starting an investigation and how are it should be pressed. They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error accounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day[Sunday in remembrance of Jesus’ resurrection] to change verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god.”

Wilbur M. Smith in Therefore Stand: “The original accounts of Buddha never ascribe to him any such thing as a resurrection; in fact, in the earliest accounts of his death, namely, the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, we read that when Buddha died it was ‘with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind.” 60/385

Professor Childers says, ‘There is no trace in the Pali scriptures or commentaries (or so far as I know in any Pali book) Sakya Muni having existed after his death or appearing to his disciples.’ Mohammed died June 8,632 A.D., at the age of sixty-one, at ….Medina…., where his tomb is annually visited by thousands of devout Mohammedans. All the millions and millions of Jews, Buddhists, and Mohammedans agree that their founders have never come up out of the dust of the earth in resurrection.”

Theodosus Harnock says: “Where you stand with regard to the fact of the Resurrection is in my eyes no longer Christian theology. To me Christianity stands or falls with the Resurrection.”

Professor William Milligan states: “While speaking of the positive evidence for the Resurrection of our Lord, it may be further urged that the fact, if true, harmonizes all the other facts of His history.”

Bernard Ramm says that even “the most cursory reading of the Gospels reveals the fact that the Gospels deal with the death and resurrection of Christ in far greater detail than any other part of the ministry of Christ. The details of the resurrection must not be artificially severed from the passion account.”

Many impartial students who have approached the resurrection of Christ with a judicial spirit have been compelled by the weight of the evidence to belief in the resurrection as a fact of history. An example may be seen from a letter written by Sir Edard Clarke, K.C. To the Rev. E. L. Macassey:

“As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate.”

Professor Bernard Ramm comments: “In both ecclesiastical history and creedal history the resurrection is affirmed from the earliest times. It is mentioned in Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians (95 A.D), the earliest document of church history and so continuously throughout all the patristic period. It appears in all forms of the Apostles’ Creed and is never debated.”

The Jewish explanation
The earliest attempt to provide an alternative explanation for the resurrection of Christ did not deny that tomb was empty (Matthew 28:13-15). The Jews claimed that the body was stolen, thus admitting the fact of the empty tomb. The tomb was closed with an enormous rock and sealed by the government, and there is no explanation for how the rock was moved while being guarded by Roman soldiers. Second, if the body had been stolen, a large ransom could have been offered to the thieves and they could have been coerced to produce the body. If the disciples had taken the body then the only thing the Jews would have had to do is to persecute the disciples enough to give up the body of Jesus. Thirdly, if the body was stolen, how are we to account for the fact that Jesus appeared to multiple crows of people, proving that he was alive. Finally, the theft of the body is unlikely and still fails to account for it returning to life.

As Dr. Miller engages the topic of the resurrection he doesn’t mince any words but engages the Scripture with a view to help people understand what the resurrection is. Given the overwhelming evidence for the resurrection it becomes readily apparent that those who reject it do so because they love their sin and opinions more than they love the Bible and Christ. Sadly, the very people who say they are Bible scholars, are God-rejecting, man-centered, false teachers.

Ultimately no matter how much evidence, one gives for the resurrection it is not enough. The problem isn’t with the evidence for Christ; the problem is men’s hearts. Man is spiritually depraved and incapable of understanding Christ apart from the Sovereign work of the grace of God. Without the Holy Spirit operating in one’s life, opening their eyes to the Truth of Christ, no man can come to Christ (1 Corinthians 12:3).

Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? by Dr. Miller is an important book that will help those who are skeptical about the resurrection understand not only what the resurrection is, why it’s important, but also deals with the underlying worldview issues for why people reject the resurrection of Christ. It is this dealing with the worldview issue especially that this book is worth the price of the book.

Whether you are a Bible College or seminary student, or a Pastor, or layman this book will help you. First, it will help you understand (as it did for me) why people in the science community are often hostile to Christianity. Second, it will help Christians to explain the resurrection of Christ in a fresh but biblically faithful way to people who are scientifically minded. Finally this book written by a leading scientist is a powerful contribution to the literature on the resurrection, and one I will be coming back to often.

Whether you are a skeptic struggling with the resurrection and searching for answers to your questions or you are a new or seasoned Christian this book is a must read for its logical, unbiased evaluation of the facts concerning the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and plan to recommend it to all my friends engaged in dealing with people who doubt the resurrection of Christ.

Apologetics 315 Book Reviewer Dave Jenkins is the Director of Servants of Grace Ministries. He enjoys biblical, systematic and historical theology and apologetics. More of his writing can be found at http://servantsofgrace.org.

Weekly Apologetics Bonus Links (05/24 - 05/31)

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Fri, 31 May 2013 09:00:01 PDT

Here are this week's recommended apologetics links. Enjoy.

• Paul and the Historical Jesus

• A deontic-ontological argument

• The Christian Apologetics Alliance

• Is Apologetics a Failure? (Video)

• Are Moral Facts Independent of God?

• Is It Always Rational to Act Morally?

• Do Christians Make the Bible an Idol?

• HBU Faculty on "What is Apologetics?"

• Yes, You Do Have Time to Learn Apologetics!

• HBU Announces Newest Faculty Member: Lee Strobel

• Darwin’s Doubt: An Interview with Stephen C. Meyer

• William Lane Craig’s case for the resurrection of Jesus

• Life, The Universe & Nothing (Lawrence Krauss/William Lane Craig)

• Cheap on Kindle: "When God Goes to Starbucks: A Guide to Everyday Apologetics by Paul Copan

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Read Along: Ch8—Has Science Shown There Is No Soul?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Thu, 30 May 2013 23:30:00 PDT

Today we continue with Chapter Eight in the Read Along with Apologetics 315 project. This is a chapter-by-chapter study through the book Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow. (Hear an interview about the book here.) Below you will find an audio intro for Chapter Eight, a brief summary of the chapter, a PDF workbook with questions for the chapter, and some notable quotes. You're also encouraged to share your comments and feedback for each chapter in the comment section below. Feel free to interact! Index page here.

[Audio Intro] - Jonathan Morrow introduces this chapter.
[Chapter 08 Study Questions] (with kindle locations) - PDF study guide.
[Podcast Feed RSS | Podcast in iTunes] - Click to subscribe to the audio.

Summary
Chapter Eight: Has Science Shown There Is No Soul?
(pages 108-119)
Chapter eight explores the concept of the human soul. Naturalism asserts that all that exists is a purely materialistic universe. If this is true, then there is no human soul. However, the authors show that our experience of the world strongly points to the existence of the soul. The point to evidence from our personal experience of consciousness, near-death experiences (NDEs), the experience of free will, and the nature of identity, and mental/physical states to make the case that the human soul best accounts for these, while materialism does not adequately explain them.

Dale and Jonalyn Fincher contribute an essay to this chapter which points to the soul as foundational to how we approach our system of human values. They argue that we should beware of any movement or ideology that disinherits us from our souls, for it is the bedrock for the belief that humans are equally valuable.

Notable quotes:

According to the Christian worldview, the material world is not all that exists. God made human beings in his image, and human beings consist of both body and soul. (p. 109)

NDEs provide compelling evidence for the distinction between body and soul as well as for a continued consciousness in the initial moments of the afterlife. (p. 112)

If materialism is true, then a human being is simply a body. If you are solely a material system, then you have no inner self that has the capacity to freely choose between options. You have no center of consciousness to make reasoned decisions. Physical systems operate completely by external programming, not by inner decision making. Thus, if materialism is true, you do not have any genuine ability to choose your actions. (p. 112)

Something nonphysical must account for sameness of identity over time, even with a few unchanging neurons in the brain. The soul is the most reasonable explanation. (p. 114)

Discuss

What evidence for the soul do you find most compelling?
How does the existence of the soul better account for our experience than naturalism?
What's one way you might apply this information to an apologetic conversation?

Recommended Reading

The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul by Mario Beauregard & Denyse O'Leary
The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism by J.P. Moreland

Next Week: Chapter 9—Is God Just a Human Invention?

Video: What is Intelligent Design? by William Dembski

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Wed, 29 May 2013 23:30:00 PDT

In this video, Dr. William Dembski presents the keynote presentation on What is Intelligent Design? Anderson University hosted the 2013 Southeastern Regional Meeting which focused on "The Origins Debate." Dembski is Senior Fellow with the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Watch the video on YouTube, or download the MP3 audio here. Books by Dembski include: No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence, The Design Inference, The Design Revolution, and Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology. Enjoy.

Robert Bowman Interview Transcript

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Auten) — Wed, 29 May 2013 04:04:01 PDT

The following transcript is from an Apologetics 315 interview with Robert Bowman. Original audio here. Transcript index here. If you enjoy transcripts, please consider supporting, which makes this possible.

BA: Hello, this is Brian Auten of Apologetics315. Today’s interview is with Robert M. Bowman Jr., the Director of Research at the Institute for Religious Research. He is the author of nearly sixty articles, and of a dozen books, and these include, Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrated Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith, Twenty Compelling Evidences That God Exists and also, Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ. The purpose of this interview is to learn a bit more about Rob and his work, take a look at apologetic methodologies, and get his advice for those defending the faith. Well, thanks for joining me today Rob.

RB: My pleasure.

BA: Well, first off, I want to thank you for your work. Two of your books that I’ve read have been a couple of my favorites -- Faith Has Its Reasons, and Twenty Compelling Evidences That God Exists. And I think both are excellent, so I look forward to getting to some of your other titles in the future.

RB: Well, thank you, I appreciate that.

BA: First, and before we get started with the main area of our interview, I wanted to find out more about your background and your experience in Christian apologetics.

RB: Okay. I’ve been involved in Christian apologetics in one form or another, context or another, pretty much my whole adult life. Mainly because I had a need to pursue issues in Christian apologetics for myself, and wanted to know the answers to certain questions. And, as I dug into those and researched, and thought about things, and wrote down what my thoughts were, and so forth and so on, I developed an interest in the broad field of Christian apologetics and found myself having opportunities to share with others and do some teaching, and some writing, and so forth, and as people say, “One thing lead to another.” So, I’ve been involved in Christian apologetics really my entire adult life, beginning when I was in college and had questions once I became a Christian. I had questions about, how do we know the bible is true? And you know, so forth and so on.

BA: Now, you’re currently working with the Institute for Religious Research. Can you tell me about that organization and what you do there, and what the main focus of the work is?

RB: Yes. I’ve been with the Institute for Religious Research for about two and a half years. Prior to that, I’ve worked for various apologetics-related ministries, some of which people may have heard of, such as, The Christian Research Institute, or the apologetics department of the North American Mission Board. And then about two and a half years ago, as I said, I became part of the staff of IRR, which has been around for about twenty five years or so. The Institute For Religious Research is an apologetics ministry with its focus primarily on providing resources pertaining to Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and similar groups. And Mormonism would be their number one subject area although there’s a desperate need for general apologetics resources even for people that are coming out of Mormonism. In fact, something that we had a discussion about this morning in our staff meeting, because a lot of people come out of these groups, again any group that you can think of, and they have questions about, “How do we know the bible’s reliable? How do we know the right books are in the bible? How do we know this is historically credible?” Etcetera, etcetera. So, we deal with those kinds of issues as well as issues specific to Mormonism or to some other group of that nature. And, I’m doing a lot of research on Mormonism myself, in fact, the last couple years I’ve been doing research specifically on The Book of Mormon. And, that’s currently a major research focus of mine.

BA: So, if someone wants to find resources on Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, they can go to irr.org and they can find a lot of articles and things of that nature?

RB: That is correct, irr.org is our website, that’s irr.org, and we have a lot of resources on Mormonism. We have some resources on Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that’s growing a little bit. I myself have written four books on the subject of Jehovah’s Witnesses, that’s when I was doing a lot of writing when I was first getting going at professional writing, if you might excuse the term, back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, did a lot of work in that area. I’m trying to do the same thing with Mormonism that I did with Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is focus on the relevance of biblical studies, biblical scholarship to the claims made by these religious groups. And, that is a major need in Mormonism, because Mormon apologetics leans very heavily on a kind of misuse of biblical scholarship to try to defend really everything, the Book of Mormon, and the other Mormon scriptures, Joseph Smith’s unusual theology, and so forth. And so, that’s a major concern I have, is showing where they’re misunderstanding the bible, and misusing biblical scholarship to try to defend the Mormon scriptures and teachings.

BA: Well, excellent. Maybe someday in the future I may want to interview you along those lines, because that is such a deep topic. But today, I want to focus our attention on some of the content that you cover in the book that you co-authored with Ken Boa, called, “Faith Has It’s Reasons: Integrated Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith.” Which, for those that are listening I think is one of the best apologetics books about apologetics and methodology. So, can you kind of talk about why we should even study the methodology behind our defense of the faith?

RB: Sure. Well, many people I think have this idea that we really don’t need to do that because we just kinda jump in and you know, defend the faith. But, the problem with that is, if you don’t think about method at all, and you may be making a lot of mistakes along the way. C. S. Lewis once said something along the lines of, we need to do good philosophy, if for no other reason than to counter bad philosophy. And, the point there is that if you just assume that you have a good method and you don’t ever examine what you’re doing and why you’re doing what you’re doing, then you may be hitting your head up against the wall, and not even realize it. Apologetic methodology is really about the study of understanding why there is a disconnect between what we say when we’re talking to non-believers, which we think is, you know, good reasons for belief, good solid facts to back up what we’re saying and so forth. Why there’s a disconnect between how we perceive the evidence that we’re presenting and how the non-believer perceives it, and what can be done if anything to help overcome that, or to use the way that we present the material to facilitate overcoming some of those obstacles to faith, some of those blockages or disconnects on the part of the non-believers and their thinking processes as they process and think about the same things that we’re trying to talk about. So, that’s really what apologetic methods or methodology is about. If it was a simple matter of saying, “Here is the Christian message, here are the facts that support it,” and the non-believer in perceiving those, and hearing that would immediately see that it’s true, and accept it as true, we might not need to look at methodology, but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen a lot of the time, and there are reasons for it that the study of apologetic methodology seeks to address.

BA: Well, I want you to lay out if you could the different categories that you and Ken Boa use in the book to classify the various methodologies or approaches, and I know you could probably go into huge detail on these, but you don’t have to that at the moment. Lay them out in general, and then we can kind of go from there.

RB: Sure, absolutely. Well, there are four basic categories of approaches that we talk about in the book. The first would be what is commonly called “classical apologetics,” which is an approach to apologetics that emphasizes deductive reasoning, deductive rationality, logical argumentation as the crucial consideration, the crucial standard and approach to knowledge that is to be emphasized and be given priority in defending the truth of Christian faith. So, that would be the classical approach, and the term classical apologetics is used because, at least in the opinion of those who espouse this method, and in the opinion of many that don’t, this is the view or approach that has dominated most of the history of Christian apologetics. Not all of course, but, much of it if not most of it. And, the second approach, and really the other three approaches that I’m going to mention here are all modern responses to philosophical and cultural developments in the modern world that have made the traditional or classical approach to apologetics not always seem as persuasive or successful as we might like. Or, perceiving that there is a need for some change or some adaptation in light of the modern situation. And the second approach is called “Evidentialism” or “Evidential Apologetics.” Evidentialism in this context simply means an approach to the Christian faith that emphasizes empirical evidence – factual support, factual information presented and marshaled in a reasonable way to show that Christianity is true. Whereas, classical apologetics historically tended to be very oriented around philosophy and logic, evidentialism has tended to focus either on scientific evidences, or historical evidences, or possible both and other types of evidence as well. But, science and history would be especially relevant categories of study for those who are of an apologetic persuasion or approach that is classified as evidentialism. These two schools of thought, classical and evidential apologetics are very compatible with one another, very closely related in some ways, evidentialist apologists very often use classical arguments a vice versa. There’s a great deal of overlap between these two schools of thought. The third approach, is quite different in some ways, and is self-consciously intended to be quite different. The broad term that I like to use for this third approach is “reformed apologetics.” Reformed, meaning Calvinist in its theological orientation as well as self-consciously seeking to reform Christian apologetics in the light of certain theological truths that are especially emphasized and articulated in the Calvinist or reformed tradition.

BA: When you’re talking about reformed apologetics, would you say that if you’re reformed, then you automatically do reformed apologetics, or you would say reformed people may embrace this or they may not?

RB: That’s correct, not all Calvinists, not all reformed thinkers, embrace what we’re talking about here as reformed apologetics -- some do, and some don’t. Certainly, for example, if you were to look at someone like Charles Hodge, or B. B. Warfield, they were as reformed and Calvinist in their theology as you could ask, but they were not advocates of what we’re talking about as reformed apologetics. R. C. Sproul is an example of a contemporary reformed theologian, whose approach to apologetics is more or less in the classical tradition rather than the reformed apologetics tradition as I am using it, that expression. Now, reformed apologetics includes but is not limited to what is often called “presuppositionalism.” Presuppositionalism, and there’s actually a couple varieties of that as well, but presuppositionalism is basically a kind of reformed apologetics which was developed by a couple of American Calvinist, theologians and philosophers, Gordon Clark, and Cornelius Van Til. And those two men developed rather different versions of presuppositionalism, but they both argued that the only way to show non-Christians that Christianity is true, is to present a rational argument. It’s not being unreasonable here, but present a rational argument that proceeds on the assumption or the presupposition that Christianity is true. In other words, you don’t try to argue up to the truth of the Christian faith, but you argue, “Here is what Christianity says, it is true. When you see why it’s true, then you can see that you should believe it.” I’m keeping it here at a very popular level, but basically, it is an approach that says, “the only faithful way to defend the Christian faith is to argue on the presupposition that it is in fact true.” There’s a lot more to that, we could go into that later in the discussion if you’d like. Then the fourth approach is called Fideism, now “Fid-ee-ism,” or “Fid-day-ism” (some people pronounce it). The word Fideism comes from the Latin fide meaning faith, and Fideism is the position that Christianity should not be defended rationally or intellectually in a kind of philosophical or logical, or scientific, or dogmatic way. You shouldn’t try to present reasoned arguments to persuade non-Christians intellectually that Christianity is true. So in fact, Fideism is in fact a kind of anti-apologetic stance. And yet, the primary advocates of Fideism, historically, have presented what could be described and some of them have described, as a kind of indirect defense of the Christian faith. And I’m thinking here especially of someone like Soren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth century Danish Christian philosopher. Or, the twentieth century Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, is another example of somebody that does this. Fideism is often characterized as a form of irrationalism. But, Fideists, generally speaking, don’t admit that, or don’t agree with that. They see their approach as the only reasonable one, because in fact Christianity cannot be defended in a direct, rationalistic, or logical manner, because Christianity proclaims paradox; it proclaims mystery; it proclaims a person, Jesus Christ, who defies our sensibilities of what is reasonable and challenges us to rethink the way we view everything. So, Fideists are generally speaking not irrationalists, but they are suspicious of what they would consider to be rationalistic attempts to prove Christianity. They would say, “You can no more do that, and no more should want to do that, than you should want to try to offer three reasons why I love my wife. I’m a Christian because I love God, I love Jesus Christ, I trust him, and if you’re going to ask me to prove that he’s trustworthy, that would be like asking me to prove that I should have faith in my spouse.” They see that as really in opposition to, or antagonistic to what faith is really about. Which is a relationship of trust and love with God and Jesus Christ. So, those are the four major approaches, and then in our book, “Faith Has It’s Reasons,” we talk about integrated approaches that appreciate the elements of two, three, or even all four of these approaches that we’ve talked about, and try to integrate them in some way.

BA: Okay. Well, I like what you do in that book, because you’ve described here how these methodologies approach Christian defense, but in the book you demonstrate it by giving example conversations between someone who’s a skeptic and someone who’s using this different category of approach, and it really demonstrates how it would actually play out on the ground. Now, one other distinction you make in the book are between two sorts of questions, the apologetic questions, or the ones that are aimed at the Christian faith, and what you call “meta-apologetic questions,” those are the ones that deal with, how should be defend the faith? And some of those are for instance: On what basis do we argue that Christianity is the truth? What is the relationship between apologetics and theology? Or, should apologetics engage in philosophical defense of the faith? Can we use science to defend the faith? So, I want to ask you to talk about how we would use these sorts of meta-apologetics questions to arrive at or determine how we approach actually defending the faith?

RB: Well, sure. Let me give a very concrete example so that people can understand what we’re talking about in a practical way. One of the apologetic questions that we talk about in the book that we illustrate with each of these approaches, is the perennial question: How do we know that God exists? Now, as an apologetic question, this invites the apologist, the Christian, to jump in and provide reasons or evidences to show that God exists. And these reasons might be for example, scientific evidence for the creation of the universe. Or, scientific evidence for the supernatural origin of life. And, these are often used arguments, evidences, that Christians of different apologetic approaches as well, may have used in various ways to explain how we know that God exists. But, the meta-apologetic question that would be relevant here is: Can we use science to defend the Christian faith? There are some Christians who would say, “No, because science is always changing; science is a fallible discipline, it is constantly in flux; yesterday’s scientific theories are tossed onto a scrap heap of discarded, obsolete, or discredited views, and we replace them every generation or two with new-fangled theories that will also eventually be discarded.” And so, there are Christians who are suspicious of, or are reticent to draw upon scientific evidences, or scientific arguments to try to show why it is reasonable to believe that God exists. There are other Christians who are very excited and passionate about using scientific evidence to show that God exists, to argue that modern science has actually provided an abundance of evidence for God’s existence that were not accessible until modern times, until the twentieth century. We are now able to prove the universe had a beginning, we’re now able to prove the universe is designed. And so, not only are they not hesitant to use these arguments, they are excited and passionate about using them, and so the meta-apologetic question is: Well, can we use science to provide reasons for faith? And, if we can, how should be go about doing that? And that is a question that would be worth thinking about before we simply jump in and say, “Let’s use this, no, let’s not use that.” The meta-apologetic question helps us to think clearly about what could we do, and what are the limitations in using scientific arguments or scientific evidence to defend belief in God?

BA: So, for instance, someone could take maybe various points of view and how they would arrive at their methodology. For instance, they might be somewhat pragmatic and they would say, “This was persuasive to me, I think this will persuade others, this is the method I’m going to use.” Or, someone might say, Here’s my theology, my main aim here is to make sure that I’m in line with my theology no matter what result, whether it’s accepted or not, I’m honoring God, so I’m going to take this approach because I think this approach matches my theology.” And of course, there are all kinds of places on that spectrum that someone can be on and they’re not mutually exclusive. But, what are the good questions that someone should be asking? We talked about, can we use science? But what are appropriate questions that one should be asking when they’re thinking about, “Boy, does my methodology first off honor God? Is it going to be persuasive? Is it demonstrated in the scripture?” What is your take on that?

RB: Well, there are several questions that we can ask here that can be helpful in coming up with a very workable, and sustainable, and practical use of science in apologetics. We could ask such questions as, “What is the relationship between science and theology? Does science confirm theology? Is it in tension with theology? Does it overlap? Do they deal with entirely different subject areas such as you really cannot cross from a scientific fact to a theological conclusion? Or, vice versa? There are those who would argue that science and theology are non-overlapping subject areas. Science tells us about the notions of the heavenly bodies and things like that, theology tells us why God made it that way, you know, why that is, because God made it. But, it doesn’t tell us how God did it. Theology on this view doesn’t tell us what to expect when we examine the heavenly bodies, it simply says, whatever you see there, if you ask the question why is it like that? Why is there beauty, and grandeur, and order and so forth in the universe? It’s because a loving and wise God made it. So, there are those who would argue that they are totally separate. Then there are those who argue they are not totally separate, because science deals with the facts of the world that God made, and those facts are: God created facts; He made the universe that way. And, furthermore, they would argue that the bible at least touches on some of these issues pertaining to the nature of the cosmos, and we have to ask the question, Can science and theology be shown to be in agreement if there is overlapping subject matter? I’ll give you an example of an obvious place where we might expect to find that: The bible teaches that God made the universe, that He created the heavens and the earth, it appears to indicate this was done in what was called “the beginning,” that is there is a beginning point in time when the universe comes into existence. So, on the basis of revelation in scripture, Christianity historically has held that the universe has not always existed, that it had a beginning. Now, science has investigated this very question, and there was a period of time in the nineteenth century in particular, when astronomers and other scientists studying cosmology, very often wanted to argue the universe was eternal, that it has no beginning, and when they started finding evidence in the beginning decades of the twentieth century that the universe had a beginning, this bothered many scientists. And, it turns out the evidence amassed throughout the twentieth century, that the universe did in fact have a beginning. So, there are Christian apologists who will say, You see, sometimes science and theology do overlap in their concerns, both science and theology ask questions about whether the universe has a beginning. Theology has always in Christianity answered, “Yes.” Scientists have had different views on this, but now it looks like the scientific evidence has swung our direction, and it would be appropriate to point that out. So, asking questions about the domains of science and theology, asking questions about the limitations of what science can demonstrate. Does science actually produce knowledge, or does it just produce sort of workable hypotheses that we can use to manipulate matter, to run experiments, and to create airplanes and things like that? But, it doesn’t actually give us knowledge of the real world. There are people that maintain that kind of non-realist view of science. Should we adopt a non-realist view of science; or, should we not? Christians often assume that their view of science is the obvious and only correct view. It’s helpful to be aware of the fact that there are different views on the nature of science and to think through the issues pertaining to that before trying to appeal to your understanding of science without having as it were, gotten a good understanding of the lay of the land. And also on both sides, there are Christians who you might say take a kind of naively realistic view of science, that whatever the scientists tell us, that’s true. And there are those that take a naively non-realistic view of science that science isn’t really telling us anything about the real world, it’s just telling us how to put things together so we can make stuff. Those are both uncritical and sort of naïve views of science, and it is important to sort that out if we’re to have a proper appreciation for the relationship between what science tells us, and what we learn theologically from the bible.

BA: One of the things that I noticed when I read “Faith Has It’s Reasons,” or other books on methodologies, such as, “Five Views on Apologetics,” was that it is immediately evident that you see an overlap between the various approaches. As you mentioned earlier, the classical approach overlapping in many ways with evidential approaches, and you see them borrowing from one another. And they’re not in their own individual lanes, and so notable proponents of each of these approaches would agree, and I suppose many people though would notice as you pointed out, that one of the biggest differences between these approaches is that presuppositional method, and you talked about how that sort of stands out. One question that would be in my mind, and maybe in other people’s is, When an approach comes to the point of saying, this is the biblical way of doing things, how do most presuppositionalists arrive at saying, This is the biblical way, or the only God-honoring way. Where would you stand on that issue, and how would you reason through that?

RB: Well, the presuppositionalist approach to this question that you just raised is to say something like this, “Look it, in the bible, God is the creator of everything that is not God. He is the creator of the universe. He is the creator of its order, if it’s rationality. He gives the world meaning. He gives the world purpose. He makes facts what they are, facts are what they are because God is the one who makes the world what it is. So, God is the source of fact, of meaning, of purpose, of value, of logic, of reason, and all of these things. And so, all of these things are reflections in our world in our experience, and our thinking, they are created reflections of the uncreated creator of all things.” And so, the presuppositionalist says, “Any argument trying to reason up from specific facts or specific logical arguments, or things of that nature to prove God exists, are trying to reason as it were from the lesser to the greater. They’re trying to reason up to the absolute origin of all these things by looking at specific facts, or specific issues. From their perspective, you really can’t do that, and it’s not even really faithful to God to do that because it’s treating these things as the givens, as the certainties, and treating God as the uncertainty that has to be proved. From their perspective, God is the certainty, and our empirical observations, and our opinions and our forms of mental reasoning and so forth, those are the things that need to be tested, that need to be assessed, that need to be weighed, against the revelation of the absolute certainty of what God is and what He has said in His word. So, from their perspective, this is a theological argument from the nature of God and the nature of creation as revealed in scripture, but this is how apologetics ought to be done. Now, interestingly enough, whereas the presuppositional case from scripture for this approach is based on sort of the macro-theological world view, you know, deduction from what scripture says about God and man, and so forth. Whereas, the presuppositionalist argues from this macro-theological perspective of what the bible says about God, and the world, and man. To their apologetic approach, the evidentialist and classical apologist will typically appeal to specific biblical examples of people defending the Christian faith, of people defending the truth as it were, in the real world in the field. And so, for example, they will appeal to other kinds of reasoning that Jesus uses when He’s talking to Pharisees, or they will appeal to Paul’s speech in Athens as a paradigm or a model for evangelizing gentiles, evangelizing those that do not have a background in biblical truth. So, they will appeal to these specific examples of people defending truth in the bible, and not base their apologetic method on a sort of overarching theological scheme. Now, in my opinion, if I may venture my own opinion on this, we need to consider both. We need to consider the theological world view perspective on apologetic method, and we need also need to look at how Jesus, and the apostles, and the prophets in the bible actually defended the truth in the field. And, I think that a whole, well-rounded apologetic method is going to take both of those under consideration.

BA: In your book, you basically outlined what you call a “integrative approach,” and that’s what you’re alluding to there. Can you go into what that looks like and how all these different approaches can contribute to having this holistic answer?

RB: Sure. I think I need to make a qualification here, and that is that what we are advocating or encouraging in “Faith Has Its Reasons,” is not what might be described as a fifth approach that we describe as integrative, like we have come up with the right way and it’s some combination of the other four. People have taken this that way, that’s not what we’re saying. What we are saying is this, that every one of these approaches, even the Fideist approach, that may be the hardest one to do this from, every one of these approaches can learn from the others, can be enriched by bringing in perspectives and insights from the other approaches, and that the more we do that, the more we integrate into our approach perspectives and insights from the other approaches, the more well-rounded and whole, and potentially successful our defense of the Christian faith will be. We’re not trying to convert evidentialists to a non-evidentialist position, for example. We’re trying to encourage evidentialists to draw on the classical approach, to draw on the presuppositionalist approach, and even to learn something from the Fideists, that they can sort of put into their arsenal of arguments for the Christian faith. We’re not trying to tell the presuppositionalists they shouldn’t be presuppositionalists, we’re trying to encourage them to see that there is a great deal to be learned from, and to accept, and to utilize, from the other approaches, from the classical and evidentialist approaches for example, within their suppositional, theological approach. So that we’re not advocating one integrative approach that everybody is supposed to jump on that band wagon, but rather, we’re encouraging a plurality of approaches. We’re recognizing that there already are a plurality of approaches, we’re not fight that, but we’re trying to encourage Christians of whatever approach they happen to use, to be enriched from the other approaches.

BA: Would you find any apologists, past or present, that you think would embody a good example of this sort of approach?

RB: There are several that come to mind. Francis Schaeffer would be a very famous example of a Christian apologist who embodied the desire to have an approach to apologetics that was sensitive to some of these different issues and drew on different approaches. Schaeffer probably would have been most comfortable being described as a presuppositionalist, but ironically, the presuppositionalists generally didn’t view him in that way, they thought that he was muddying the waters because he wasn’t pure from their perspective in advocating that approach. So, Francis Schaeffer, his approach famously included in what might be described as very rational elements that would be very compatible with the classical approach, and very pragmatic, personal, so called “existential” elements that would be very compatible and resonate with Fideists. And yet, he also drew heavily from, maybe even primarily from, Cornelius Van Til, and the presuppositionalist tradition. So, he’s an example of somebody that did that, and he’s one of the two most famous evangelical Christian apologists of the twentieth century. And, I think one of the reasons why he was so successful, or why he was able to help so many people, is that he was comfortable drawing from these different approaches, and pulling them together in a way that worked as he talked with different kinds of people. Another example of a Christian apologist who is very integrative in his approach is C. Stephen Evans. Stephen Evans is a scholar who’s done a lot of work on Soren Kierkegaard, and the Fideist tradition, and yet, he’s very comfortable with evidentialism. Now, you would think Fideism and evidentialism would mix like oil and water. You would think that it just wouldn’t work, and yet, an evidence approach, Fideism in not irrationalism, and it is open to the use of evidence, but it has to be put within a particular context, and so he integrates both of those. In fact, he really finds something from all four approaches that he can use, and that’s an example of somebody that tries to do that. And there’s several others that have self-consciously gone about trying to integrate two or more of these approaches.

BA: I’m curious what apologists may have been particularly influential to you personally.

RB: Oh gosh, well, I’ve been influenced probably by so many that if I start singling some out, it might lead to some misperception of where I’m coming from. But, I’ve been very influenced by, theologically, by Calvin, and the Calvinist tradition. I don’t know if I’m a card-carrying Calvinist for some people’s money, I’m not a Presbyterian for example, so I don’t fit very neatly into that theological tradition. But, I’m more or less Calvinist in my theological persuasion on a number of issues. So, I’ve been influenced by that tradition. And I went to Westminster Theological Seminary, which was a bastion of presuppositionalism, and learned it from those that were closest to that school of thought. I’ve also been heavily influenced by people like Norman Geisler, who was, you know, kind of the dean of classical apologetics to this day. I’ve been influenced very much by people like John Warwick Montgomery, who’s an evidentialist, in fact, again, probably the dean of evidentialist apologetics for the last forty years or so. So, I’ve been influenced by thinkers of very different approaches to apologetics. I’ve also been influenced by people who were not self-consciously advocating an apologetic approach, but would normally fit into one of these or the other. I’ve been influenced by various local scholars and philosophers, for example. And, I appreciate the different kind of approaches that they had taken to defending various aspects of the Christian faith, and so those have all become part of the way I think about it.

BA: Well Rob, as we begin to wrap up here, you’ve done a lot of work in Christian defense. You’ve taught it, you’ve done it, and you’ve written books all about it. Now, if you’re speaking to students of apologetics, what sort of advice would you want to leave them with, or what advice would you want to give the next generation of Christian apologists?

RB: Well, what I’m about to say now might help to balance out a little bit the emphasis we’ve placed on method, because it does deserve some emphasis, but I want to say to the younger generation, I think I can say that since I’m in my fifties now, that we desperately need numerous, many, many, many Christians, to become excellent in their respective fields. We need Christian philosophers. We need Christians who are physicists, who are biologists, who are chemists, who are engineers, who are artists, who are theologians, of course. We’ve got a lot of those, but we can use some really good ones every generation. We need a lot of good ones. So, we’re always going to need that. We need good biblical scholars. We need good Christian, evangelical old testament scholars who are not afraid to do primary research. We need good evangelical Christian archaeologists. We don’t have as many of those as I’d like. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but we need more. And we need those who are really willing to pursue excellence in those fields, because very often Christian apologists find themselves settling for kind of recycled exclamations, or recycled arguments from decades gone by, that really need to be updated, in some cases may even need to be abandoned, because the evidence has now shown that that approach didn’t work. We need to have people who are current in the field who know what they’re talking about. And we need people who are not only excellent in their fields, but we’re always going to need people who are “big picture” people. Who look at the different fields, look at biblical studies, and science, and philosophy, and try to see how they relate to one another and try to see how they can have some mutual reinforcement and feedback into one another. Because if the physicists are just doing physics, and the old testament scholars are just doing old testament, guess what? We are not going to succeed in addressing apologetic issues very well pertaining to the origins of the world, and what Genesis says about those kinds of subjects. We need people who can bridge their disciplines between science and biblical studies, for example. So, those are the kinds of things that we need, and of course we need people to do that who are sensitive to these methodological concerns. Who will at least give them enough attention so that they’re not making fundamental mistakes, or being overly narrow in the way that they go about what they’re doing. We really need people who are saying, “You know, I’m going to be the best physicist I can be for the glory of God, and I’m going to use my knowledge and my expertise at this discipline to advance human knowledge in this area in a way that will bring glory to God.” This is what Christians historically used to do all the time. And, we’re not as well known for that now as we used to be, but there’s still some that are doing it, but we need to be on the cutting edge of these areas of thought. We need to be making the discoveries and doing the pioneering work that shows that Christianity is not retreating from the world of knowledge and science and so forth, but is actually helping to advance it. If we could be doing that, it’d bring great credibility to the Christian faith in a way that has been kind of lacking for many people over the last couple of generations. So, those are some things that I would say we desperately need. We need Christians who are willing to go into the halls of academia and face down the skeptics and the cynics and the secularists and get their PhDs, and become skilled at what they’re doing. Of course, we need people who are not academics as well to pick this stuff up, to learn Christian apologetics, and teach it at their Sunday schools, teach it to the kids, the children’s Sunday School. We need pastors to teach the stuff from their pulpits, to encourage the Christians in their churches, to learn why they believe what they believe. So, there’s a lot of needs where everybody can play a part in Christian apologetics. You don’t have to have a PhD in philosophy or science, you don’t have to be a theologian. Wherever you are, mothers, fathers, kids going to school, whatever it is, guys working on the job. Apologetics can be a useful part of the Christian witness to a world that needs to know that Christianity is true.

BA: Well, that’s excellent insight and advice Rob. I commend all your books and materials to our listeners, and I want to really thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

RB: Okay, you’re very welcome.