Apologetics As Proof (Part One)*

Lesson Four: Apologetics As Proof (Part One)^*

• The Concept of Proof
  • For followers of Christ:
    • (a) what Scripture says is always true;
    • (b) Scripture says that God exists;
    • (c) therefore, God exists.
  • Non-Christians “know” God (Romans 1:21) but suppress the truth (Romans 1:18, 21-28).
• The Need for Proof (Formulation of arguments based on evidence)
  • Belief in God is “properly basic” (Plantinga) and needs no more proof than that suggested by Psalm 8:3.
    • To claim otherwise is foolish (Psalm 14:1) and Satanic (2 Corinthians 4:4).
    • Faith in God is best understood when modeled after the faith of a child (Luke 18:15-17).
  • For many non-Christians, Christianity is believable enough (i.e., not implausible).
    • There must be a regenerated motivation in order to respond to the Gospel.
  • Some non-Christians may need to be shown (granted permission to believe) that God, the Gospel and Christianity are not implausible. (E.g., C.S. Lewis.) Our approach to should:
    • Be intellectual understandable (accessible).
    • Be interesting and compelling.
    • Address specific areas of weakness or uncertainty on the part of the unbeliever.
    • Contain some element of surprise, so that their prepared responses will be nullified and they will be forced to think and re-think their default position(s).
    • Set forth the truth without hesitance or compromise.
    • In manner, demeanor and content, communicate the love of Christ.
• Example: Answering a Question such as, “Who Made God?”
  • The non-Christian perspective: Starts with the presuppositions that: (1) there is no Creator-God; (2) the Bible is not a credible or reliable source of truth about God; and (3) “creation” was not created.
    • It is not uncommon for atheists who are confronted with evidence of creation to respond, “Oh yeah? Well, who made God?”
    • When discussing “who made God,” what “point of contacts” or common ground does a follower of Christ have with a non-Christian?
      • Law of causality: everything that had a beginning has a cause (every effect has a cause).
        • Variants:
          • Nothing can begin to happen without a cause.
          • Every material effect (physical thing) must have an adequate antecedent.
            • Note: The creation of the universe did not happen in space and time, it was the creation of space and time, along with energy and matter.
        • Common sense basis of all science, all thinking and all wisdom.
          • All science relies on relies on the law of causality, along with the orderly laws of physics.
          • Where did these laws come from? How can they be explained?
      • Inference to the best explanation: A powerful, personal, timeless, spaceless, immaterial God chose to create time, space and matter versus:
        • The idea of an eternal universe with no beginning; or
        • A theory of a spontaneous, uncaused “singularity,” i.e., no one created something out of nothing.
          • Note to Lawrence Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing: relativistic-quantum-field-vacuum states are not nothing.
  • The Christian Perspective:
    • Law of Causality:
      • What does Hebrews 3:4 have to say about the law of causality?
      • What does John 3:4 have to say about this law?
    • Inference to the best explanation: A personal God chose to create time, space and matter versus the universe with no eternal uncaused first cause.
      • Question: What does Romans 1:20 have to say about this explanation?
      • Question: What does Psalm 90:2 have to say about this explanation?
• Faith, Scripture, and Evidence
  • Is God’s word “irrational”? Is God’s Word sufficient “evidence” or “proof” for belief?
  • Consider: Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. 22).
  • Abraham’s honored of God’s word as sufficient. See also, Romans 4:20-21.
  • Consider the historical evidence at 1 Corinthians 15:1-19.
  • Compare: Paul’s directive to believe because of preaching (vv. 1-2, and v. 11).
• Point of Contact with non-Christians: The residual knowledge of God that has been suppressed.
  • Should not be an effort to reason “on the turf” of the unbeliever’s pretense of autonomous knowledge, since this would compromise the believer’s platform of truth.
    • Believers cannot properly (appear to) accept “for argument’s sake” – and then address – the unbeliever’s distorted worldview.
    • Arguing for higher probabilities can sometimes result in the believer’s falling into this trap.
  • Should be an effort to “speak to” the unbeliever’s repressed knowledge of the truth.
    • Believer’s may accept and address the undistorted revelation that the nonbeliever holds within himself/herself despite an otherwise distorted worldview.
    • Minimal rebuttals, arguing that the components of the Christian worldview are not implausible, helps reduce the risk of being caught up in a discussion on the unbeliever’s turf.
      • Our job is to rebuke unbelieving criteria, not affirm them.
• Conclusion: Followers of Christ do not require “proof” (i.e., extra-Biblical “evidence”) of the existence of God (or much of anything else that really matters, for that matter). Followers of Christ may “remind” non-Christians of (suppressed) Biblical truths by pointing to evidence that the claims of the Bible in general, and the claims of the Gospel in particular, are not inherently implausible.

*Drawn from John M. Frame & Joseph E. Torres, Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief (P&R Publishing, 2015), ISBN: 978-1596389380: Chapter 3, “Apologetics as Proof: Some Methodological Considerations”