In writing the Introduction to the Five Views on Apologetics, Stephen B. Cowan, the General Editor of the book focused on what he thought to be the best way to classify various schools of apologetic methodology. He acknowledged that contributors to this book would not agree with him using “argumentative strategy” as the way to answer the question on taxonomy. After sharing his brief journey in apologetics from being an evidentialist to classical and giving a concise definition of apologetics and description of its twofold tasks, he then proceeded to discuss his “tentative taxonomy of apologetic methods” (p. 14).
Personal Journey, Definition and Description of Apologetic Tasks
His journey in apologetics started with “Paul Little’s little book, Know Why You Believe, and Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict” (p. 8). From these two books, he jumped “into Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley’s Classical Apologetics” (ibid.). He said that this latter book “sparked” in him “an insatiable thirst” “for apologetics, philosophy, and theology” (ibid.).
Stephen D. Cowan gave us a definition of apologetics and description of its twofold tasks. He defines apologetics as “the defense of the Christian faith against charges of falsehood, inconsistency, or credulity” (p. 9). Understanding this academic discipline in the Christian sense, it would mean that “apologetics has to do with defending, or making a case for the truth of the Christian faith” (ibid.).
Its dual purposes are edification and evangelism. These tasks can be accomplished by negative or defensive apologetics and positive or offensive apologetics. Examples of negative or defensive apologetics would be refuting objections to Christianity such as the problem of evil and the charge of incoherence against Christian doctrines. Examples of positive or offensive apologetics would be offering “arguments for God’s existence or for the resurrection and deity of Christ . . . ” (ibid.).
The Question of Taxonomy
Cowan then turned to his primary concern. But before enumerating his overview of the five schools of apologetics, he identified other alternatives in responding to this question of taxonomy. Here he mentioned the works of Gordon Lewis and Bernard Ramm. As for Lewis, he “classifies apologetic methods according to their respective religious epistemologies” and by doing this, he arrives with six different apologetic methods (p. 10). In Lewis’ system, pure empiricism and rationalism are two methodologies that have distinct religious epistemologies. Cowan identified J. Oliver Buswell Jr. as an advocate of pure empiricism where in this methodology, the requirement is “to make observations of the world and draw causal inferences from those observations,” which proponents of this idea think that this “will lead the objective observer to belief in God and in the truth of the Christian faith” (ibid.). Buswell Jr. “uses the classical theistic arguments and appeals to historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus” (ibid.).
On the other hand, we have Gordon H. Clark who came up with rationalism as another methodology. In this approach, Clark “argues that the apologist must begin with Scripture as a first principle” (ibid.). The Scripture then “serves as a rational axiom by which all other truth claims are tested” (ibid.). On this basis, Clark “argues that Christianity is the only coherent system, all other worldviews being logically inconsistent” (ibid.).
Cowan then shifted his attention to Bernard Ramm. For him, Ramm’s project is more promising in terms of approach to apologetic taxonomy. Ramm “distinguishes three families of apologetic systems” (p. 11):
Systems that stress the uniqueness of the Christian experience of grace. Ramm outlines several distinguishing traits of this apologetic approach but points out the emphasis placed on subjective religious experience. . . . The individual’s ‘experience of religion is so profound or so unique or self-validating that the experience itself is its own proof.’ Ramm lists Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Brunner as members of this family.
Systems that stress natural theology as the point at which apologetics begins. Those who follow this school put great trust in human reason to discover religious knowledge. Accordingly, there is less emphasis on the noetic effects of sin and the transcendence of God. Religious truths can be known and verified much the same way scientific propositions can be known and verified. Among those following this method, one will find extensive use of theistic arguments and historical evidence to demonstrate the truth of Christianity. Aquinas, Butler, and Tennant are Ramm’s paradigm proponents of this apologetic approach.
Systems that stress revelation as the foundation upon which apologetics must be built. Ramm portrays this approach as falling somewhat in the middle of the first two. As he puts it, ‘The revelational school believes that the first school is too subjectivistic…[and] criticizes the second school for not seriously evaluating man’s depravity.” Rather than beginning with the subjectivism of religious experience or the rationalism of natural theology, this third school begins with the objective truth of the revealed Word of God. Reason has a role in this approach, but reason is based on faith in God’s revelation and seeks to understand God’s revelation. Reason cannot stand in judgment of God’s revelation. This approach puts great stress on the noetic effects of sin but perhaps not so much on God’s transcendence. God is able to reveal himself in propositional form to human beings through a written revelation (i.e., the Bible) and by the work of the Holy Spirit is able to lessen the blinding effects of sin in the mind of the believer. This school focuses on negative apologetics, though there is some limited use of theistic arguments and historical evidence. Ramm points to Augustine, Calvin, and Kuyper as advocates of this apologetic school.
After presenting Gordon Lewis and Bernard Ramm’s approaches to apologetic taxonomy, Cowan introduced his own proposal, which he labeled as “A Tentative Taxonomy of Apologetic Methods’ (p. 14). Here he gave us a synopsis of the five views on apologetics:
Classical Method
“The classical method is an approach that begins by employing natural theology to establish theism as the correct worldview. After God’s existence has thus been shown, the classical method moves to a presentation of the historical evidences for the deity of Christ, the trustworthiness of Scripture, et cetera, to show that Christianity is the best version of theism, as opposed to, say, Judaism and Islam. This school is called the ‘classical’ method because it is assumed that this is the method used by the most prominent apologists of earlier centuries. William Lane Craig contributes this volume’s defense of classical apologetics. Other contemporary apologists who may be classified as classical apologists include R. C. Sproul, Norman Geisler, Stephen T. Davis, and Richard Swinburne” (p. 14).
The Evidential Method
“The evidential method “is fairly eclectic in its use of various positive evidences and negative critiques, utilizing both philosophical and historical arguments. Yet it tends to focus chiefly on the legitimacy of accumulating various historical and other inductive arguments for the truth of Christianity” (ibid.).
“Besides Gary Habermas, one of the contributors to this book, advocates of evidentialism include John W. Montgomery, Clark Pinnock, and Wolfhart Pannenberg” (p. 15).
The Cumulative Case Method.
“. . . the cumulative case method does ‘not conform to the ordinary pattern of deductive or inductive reasoning.’ The case is more like the brief that a lawyer makes in a court of law or that a literary critic makes for a particular interpretation of a book. It is an informal argument that pieces together several lines or types of data into a sort of hypothesis or theory that comprehensively explains that data and does so better than any alternative hypothesis. Paul Feinberg, this volume’s cumulative case methodologist, says that ‘Christian theists are urging that [Christianity] makes better sense of all the evidence available than does any other alternative worldview on offer, whether that alternative is some other theistic view or atheism’ (p. 152). The data that the cumulative case seeks to explain include the existence and nature of the cosmos, the reality of religious experience, the objectivity of morality, and certain other historical facts, such as the resurrection of Jesus. Besides Feinberg and Mitchell, the cumulative case school would likely include C. S. Lewis and C. Stephen Evans” (ibid.).
The Presuppositional Method
“Due to the noetic effects of sin, presuppositionalists usually hold that there is not enough common ground between believers and unbelievers that would allow followers of the prior three methods to accomplish their goals. The apologist must simply presuppose the truth of Christianity as the proper starting point in apologetics. Here the Christian revelation in the Scriptures is the framework through which all experience is interpreted and all truth is known. Various evidences and arguments can be advanced for the truth of Christianity, but these at least implicitly presuppose premises that can be true only if Christianity is true. Presuppositionalists attempt, then, to argue transcendentally. That is, they argue that all meaning and thought—indeed, every fact—logically presupposes the God of the Scriptures. John Frame represents presuppositionalism in this volume, and he puts the matter this way: “[We] should present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible” (p. 220). By demonstrating that unbelievers cannot argue, think, or live without presupposing God, presuppositionalists try to show unbelievers that their own worldview is inadequate to explain their experience of the world and to get unbelievers to see that Christianity alone can make sense of their experience. Other presuppositionalists include Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark (both mentioned earlier), as well as Greg Bahnsen and Francis Schaeffer” (pp. 15-16).
The Reformed Epistemology method
“Reformed epistemology . . . hold that it is perfectly reasonable for a person to believe many things without evidence. Most strikingly, they argue that belief in God does not require the support of evidence or argument in order for it to be rational. The Reformed epistemology apologist will not necessarily eschew making positive arguments in defense of Christianity, but will argue that such arguments are not necessary for rational faith. If Calvin is right that human beings are born with an innate sensus divinitatis (sense of the divine), then people may rightly and rationally come to have a belief in God immediately without the aid of evidence” (p. 16).
“The list of contemporary Reformed epistemologists includes this volume’s contributor, already noted, Kelly James Clark. But four other names that would head that list would be Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, George Mavrodes, and William Alston” (ibid.).
Personal Response
At this point several sections in Cowan’s introduction deserve expansion and relevant comments. As mentioned by Cowan, Bernard Ramm’s project is more promising. In the first chapter of Ramm’s Brief Introduction to Christian Apologetics (pp. 11 -27), he shared with us the two subjects that he covered in his book, the three systems of apologetics and the enumeration of problems in this intellectual discipline. But prior to the discussion of the twin subjects, he gave us models of great works on apologetics in the history of the church. He first mentioned Origen’s Against Celsus, which is recognized as the greatest work of apologetics of the early church. However, it was Augustine who was acknowledged as the one who laid the foundation of Christian apologetics in his masterpieces, The City of God and The Confessions. Moreover, he also added Immanuel Kant’s philosophical works such as the three great Critiques can also be considered as apologetics from a moral perspective. The same thing can be said with Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.
Ramm’s approach is different from Cowan. The latter focused on argumentative strategy as his way of classifying schools of apologetics. In the case of Ramm, to achieve his aim of setting “forth a number of fundamental positions in Christian apologetics as a means of clarifying the fundamental problem of apologetics,” (p. 14) the best way is to adopt a comparative approach, “an investigation of types of apologetic systems” (ibid.). Following this approach, he was able to group different schools of apologetics under three types or systems as also identified by Cowan with unique emphasis on Christian experience, natural theology, and revelation. Furthermore, Ramm identifies that the three classes or systems of apologetics he dealt in the book do not cover all schools. If he would cover all of them, ten to twelve types or systems would come out. For him, the three systems are enough to easily understand other systems.
As to the major problems of Christian apologetics, he identifies ten: relationship between philosophy and Christianity, the value of theistic proofs, the place of some theory of truth, doctrine of sin, revelation, certainty, point of contact, faith, evidence, and relationship between faith and reason. Among these ten problems, I find the seventh interesting. This is because Ramm mentioned the names of Van Til, Barth and Carnell. The fact that he mentioned Van Til together with Barth tells a lot. According to him both share a radical stance on point of contact though with different reasons. And then he introduced Carnell’s concept of point of contact that is found in “the laws of logic and rules of procedure in science” (p. 24).
Concerning empiricism and rationalism, as a follower of presuppositionalism apologetics, I don’t see any problem using both Buswell’s “empiricism” and Clark’s “rationalism” within the transcendental presuppositional framework. However, Buswell’s “empiricism” fails to distinguish between two kinds of observers, the regenerated and the unregenerate, whose spiritual status will certainly affect their conclusion. As for Clark’s “rationalism,” it appears to me that his emphasis on the necessity of epistemology, the Bible as a first principle and the view that Christianity is the only coherent system are the same emphases that transcendental presuppositionalism emphasized.
Regarding the use of natural theology by the classical school, I find it problematic because I don’t think that it has a biblical basis. I believe that the Bible teaches natural revelation, not natural theology. However, this topic requires more space and I cannot do it here. I also don’t agree with the classical stance that Christianity is the best version of theism. Rather, it is the only true theism.
In introducing the position of presuppositionalism apologetics, it is inaccurate for Cowan to say that “there is not enough common ground between believers and unbelievers” in this approach to apologetics. In fact common ground in the sense of the first three methods does not exist, but this does not mean that there is really no common ground between believers and unbelievers. It is that they find the common ground in the wrong place. The common ground cannot be found in epistemology, but in metaphysics and ontology, in general revelation and common grace.
Finally, a comment on Reformed epistemology. Presuppositionalists used the same basis from Calvin’s writing. By the sense of the divine, presuppositionalists interpret this as referring not to epistemology, but to ontology and metaphysics or general revelation.
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