Apologetics: Brief History, Issues, Definition, and Message

In this article, we will discuss four things related to apologetics: a brief historical background, issues, definition, and message.

Brief History

Bernard Ramm, in the 1st chapter of his book, Varieties of Christian Apologetics (1962, pp. 11-27), gave us an overview about the three systems of apologetics and enumeration of problems or issues in this academic discipline. Before introducing his twin subjects, he first narrated a brief historical background of apologetics. He traced it first from ancient Athenian legal proceedings where the accused had to defend himself. In the New Testament, he saw this apologetical activity both in the ministry of Christ and the apostles (Matthew 22; Acts 22:1ff; 23:1ff; 24:1ff; 26:1ff; Galatians 1 -2; 1 Corinthians 9; 2 Corinthians 13; 1 Peter 3:15; 2 Timothy 4:16). And then in the early church, the practice had been continued and Origen’s Against Celsus was 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.  In concluding this brief historical survey, Ramm reminded us that book titles should not prevent us from identifying apologetical content. From his viewpoint, Kant’s philosophical works such as the three great Critiques can be considered as apologetics from moral perspective. The same thing can be said with Barth’s Church Dogmatics.

Issues:

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, evidences, 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 are found in “the laws of logic and rules of procedure in science” (p. 24).

Definition

Understanding the meaning of apologetics, we will take John Frame's definition. He defines Christian apologetics “as the discipline that teaches Christians how to give a reason for their hope” (p. 1). He distinguished three aspects in apologetics. They are:

• “Apologetics as proof: presenting a rational basis for faith or ‘proving Christianity to be true’” (p. 2). 
• “Apologetics as defense: answering the objections of unbelief” (ibid.).
• And “apologetics as offense: attacking the foolishness of unbelieving thought” (ibid.).

Message

Turning to chapter of John Frame's book, Apologetics to the Glory of God, he describes the message of the apologist in two ways: Christianity as a philosophy and as good news. Christianity as a philosophy offers a comprehensive worldview based on theory of reality (metaphysics), theory of knowledge (epistemology), and theory of value or good (ethics). It is interesting that under ethics, Frame includes economics. Based on Christian worldview, Frame emphasizes the existence of a distinct outlook of every academic disciplines and as such it competes with other non-Christian worldviews. See how Frame puts this basic perspective:

“There are, I believe, distinctive Christian views on history, science, psychology, business, economics, labor, sociology, education, the arts, the problems of philosophy, etc.” (p. 32).

“Christianity therefore competes with Platonism, Aristotelianism, empiricism, rationalism, skepticism, materialism, monism, pluralism, process thought, secular humanism, New Age thought, Marxism, and whatever other philosophies there may be – as well as other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism” (ibid.).

Since the public is ignorant[1] about the existence Christian worldview and has adopted a non-Christian theist worldview, numerous problems in society that characterized the modern age emerged. These social problems could be traced to an intellectual crisis in education. One of its concrete manifestations is the distorted idea about the separation of church and state. Notice how Frame describes this unfortunate state:  

“One of the more unfortunate repercussions of America’s distorted view of ‘the separation of church and state’ is that public school children are able to hear advocacy of every system of thought except those that arbitrarily labeled ‘religious.’ Who is to say tthat the truth might not be found in, or even limited to, one of these religious positions? Is it even remotely fair, in terms of freedom of thought and speech, to restrict public education to allegedly secular viewpoints? Is this not brainwashing of the worst kind?” (pp. 32-33).

“Further, the extreme separationist often seem to be more opposed to the public expression of Christianity in particular than to religion in general. Too often, they have no objection to presentations in schools favoring Eastern mysticism or modern witchcraft – only to Christianity. Inconsistent as it may appear, however, this specifically anti-Christian behavior makes some sense. For, as we shall see, it is Christianity, not Eastern mysticism or witchcraft or native American chanting, that really stands against the natural drift of the unregenerate mind. Christianity is excluded from the schools although (or perhaps because) it is the only genuine alternative to the conventional wisdom of the modern establishment” (p. 33).

Due to this crisis in education, numerous social problems are their natural consequences:

“But that ‘conventional wisdom’ has given us enormous increases in divorce, abortion, single-parent families, latchkey children, drugs, gangs, crime rates, AIDS (and related health concerns such as the resurgence of tuberculosis), homelessness, hunger, government deficits, taxation, political corruption, degeneracy of the arts, mediocrity in education, non-competitive industry, interest groups demanding ‘rights’ of all sorts (rights without corresponding responsibilities and at the expenses of everyone else), and pollution of the environment. It has given us the messianic state, which claims all authority and seeks to solve all problems (secular ‘salvation’), but which generally makes things worse. It has brought about the appalling movement toward ‘political correctness’ on university campuses, which one claimed plausibly to be bastions of intellectual freedom. It has allowed the language of polite society to degenerate into the language of blasphemy and mutual contempt. It has created an atmosphere in which popular music (‘rap’) urges people to kill police” (pp. 33-34).   

Theory of Reality or Metaphysics

Frame at the outset, identifies the four most important elements in a Christian worldview: “the absolute personality of God,” “the distinction between Creator and creature,” “the sovereignty of God,” and “the Trinity” (ibid.). The absolute personality of God is relevant concerning the question of fundamental or ultimate reality whether personal or impersonal. This reminds us of the debate between cosmic personalism and cosmic impersonalism. See how Frame explains the nature of this debate:

“The great question confronting modern humanity is this: Granted that the universe contains both persons (like you and me) and impersonal structures (like matter, motion, chance, time, space, and physical laws), which is fundamental?” (p. 35).

“If the impersonal is primary, then there is no consciousness, no wisdom, and no will in the ultimate origin of things” (ibid.).

“But if the personal is primary, then the world was made according to a rational plan that can be understood by rational minds” (p. 36). 

Also to the absolute personality of God is the tension between personalism and the absolute. He saw this tension among world religions:

“The major religions of the world, in their most typical (one tends to say ‘authentic’) forms, are either pantheistic (Hinduism, Taoism) or polytheistic (animism, some forms of Hinduism, Shinto, and the traditional religions of Greece, Rome, Egypt, etc.). Pantheism has an absolute, but not a personal absolute. Polytheism has personal gods, but none of these is absolute” (p. 38).

The Creator-creature relationship is relevant to apologetics for this doctrine affirms both the transcendence and the immanence of God. Frame identifies all non-Christian thoughts as well as those who claim to be Christians but not epistemologically conscious as guilty of taking this Creator-creature relationship for granted:

“And non-Christians of all persuasions radically deny the biblical Creator-creature distinction. Atheists deny it, of course, but so do pantheists, who hold that the world itself is divine in character. It is denied in secular humanism, in which the human mind is adored as the ultimate standard for truth and rightness. It is denied in Kantian philosophy, in which the human mind is the author of the forms of its experience. It is denied in existentialism, where man creates his own meaning. It is denied in those forms of naturalistic science that claim in effect that the universe is its own creator. It is denied in Eastern religions and Western New Age thought, which urge people to look to the ‘God within’ and to ‘create their own reality’ by vizualization” (p. 42).

“In liberalism (and in so-called neo-orthodoxy) God is ‘wholly other’ – so far beyond us that we cannot (even with the help of revelation) speak or think correctly about him” (p. 43).

“Non-Christian thinkers, including liberal theologians, often use the rhetoric of immanence to suggest that the world is really divine in some sense, or that God is identical with the historical process (so Hegel, secular theology, and liberation theology). Process theologians use the rhetoric of immanence . . . to deny divine sovereignty, eternity, and omniscience in their biblical senses. And Karl Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy, adds to the notion of God as ‘wholly other’ the contradictory notion that God is ‘wholly revealed’ in Christ” (ibid.).

“The ‘wholly revealed’ version of immanence contradicts the biblical doctrine of transcendence; the ‘wholly other’ view of transcendence contradicts the biblical doctrine of immanence. . . If God is ‘wholly other,’ then of course he cannot speak to us. If he is ‘wholly revealed,’ then he is on our level and not entitled to speak with authority” (ibid.).

Thirdly, the sovereignty of God or the “divine rulership” as Frame puts it is also important to apologetics for according to him “it destroys the unbeliever’s pretense of autonomy” (p. 46). Read how Frame elaborates this idea further:

“If God creates and governs all things, then he interprets all things. His plan is the ultimate source of the events of nature and history, and his plan never fails. Therefore, his plan determines what things are, what is true or false, and what is right or wrong. For us to make judgments in these areas, we must consult his revelation (in nature and Scripture), seeking humbly to think God’s thoughts after him. We may not claim that our mind, or anything else in creation, is the ultimate standard for being, truth, or right” (ibid.).

Finally the Trinity. “Why is the Trinity important to apologetics?” Frame asks. He saw the relevance of the Trinity to apologetics in two ways: as the only alternative to unitarianism of diverse kinds and as the only rational to explain the existence of both unity and diversity in created world:  

“Well, what happens when unitarianism (the view that God is merely one) is substituted for Trinitarianism? One result is that the God so defined tends to lose definition and the marks of personality. In the early centuries of the Christian era, the Gnostics, the Arians, and the Neoplatonists worshiped a non-Trinitarian God. That God was pure oneness, with no plurality of any kind. A unity of what? In answer to those questions, nothing could be said” (p. 47).

“The Trinity also means that God’s creation can be both one and many. Secular philosophy veers between the extremes of monism (the world is really one; plurality is an illusion) and pluralism (the world is radically disunited; unity is an illusion). Secular philosophy moves from one extreme to the other, because it does not have the resources to define a position between the two extremes, and because it seeks an absolute at one extreme or another – as if there must be an absolute oneness (with no plurality) or else a universe of absolute unique, unconnected elements, creating an absolute pluralism and destroying any universal oneness. . . But the Christian knows there is no absolute unity (devoid of plurality) or absolute plurality (devoid of unity). These exist neither in the world nor in the world’s Creator. If either of these existed in the world, it would be a sort of unitarian god, but there is no God but the Trinitarian Lord. . . But the Christian knows that God is the only absolute, and that the absolute is both one and many. . . Thus, the Trinity also has implications for epistemology” (p. 49).

Theory of Knowledge or Epistemology

Turning to epistemology, Frame asserts that “God is not only the origin of truth, but also the supreme authority for knowledge” (p. 51). This stance is contrary to rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, existentialism, and liberalism:

“So rationalistic philosophy declares human reason to be the final standard. Empiricism, recognizing the flights of speculation to which unbridled ‘reason’ is prone, demands that all ideas be ultimately accountable to human sense experience. And skepticism, recognizing that both human reason and sense experience are prone to error, declares (on its own authority!) that truth is unattainable. Kantian and existentialist thought in effect make man the very source of significance in his experience. Liberal theologians are all too eager to go along with these traditions, and the Christian heresies continue to manipulate the biblical message as they see fit” (ibid.).

Frame is calling the Christian apologist to be epistemologically self-conscious:

“The apologist must not only refuse to compromise with these distorted epistemologies, but also summon unbelievers to abandon them. For such epistemologies are part of the unbeliever’s sinful suppression of the truth” (p. 52).

“We cannot consistently issue a challenge if, as has often been done traditionally, we build our own apologetics upon one of those non-Christian epistemological options” (ibid.).

Theory of Value or Ethics

Under Frame’s discussion on ethics and similar to his explanation in epistemology, he positions Christian ethics against all kinds of non-Christian ethics:

“Under ‘Epistemology’ we saw that God is the supreme criterion of truth and falsehood. Under ‘Ethics’ we must observe that God is also the supreme standard of what is good and evil, right and wrong” (ibid.).

“Teleological ethics seeks to base values on sense experience, but it cannot bridge the gap between the ‘is’ of experience and the ‘ought’ of value. Deontological ethics claims a source of duty beyond experience, but that source is ultimately mysterious – to the point where it lacks all usefulness. Subjectivist ethics bases its judgments on mere feeling, but why should one person’s feelings command anyone else’s attention or behavior?” (pp. 52-53).

“After the philosophers, the liberal theologians come running in, waving the banner of autonomy. Joseph Fletcher’s ‘situation ethics’ comes from their group, leading the flock of more recent ethicists – the Callahans, Childresses, Gustfasons, Kervokians, Spongs. And the newspaper columnists, the talk show hosts, and the politicians follow suit. Abortions become legitimate for no other reason than that people want to have them. . . . If ethical autonomy is really true, then of course we can justify gangs, drugs, sadistic rap music, and all the rest” (p. 53).

Christianity as Good News

Frame’s explanation on Christianity as good news is very brief. The most important point he made here is the exact identification of human problem. By negating all sorts of modern problems as the problem, by implication, Frame identifies sin as the root cause of human trouble. As such, the solution is found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ:

“Our problem, therefore, is not finitude (as we are told by some pantheists, New Age thinkers, and the like), and the solution to the problem is not for us to become God. Nor is our chief problem to be found in our heredity, environment, emotional makeup, poverty, or sicknesses” (pp. 53-54).

“No philosophy, no liberal theology, not even any Christian heresy offers any solution to human sin, beyond encouragements to try harder. However persuasive they may be in other respects, these ideologies agree that there is no free gift of divine forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus. Empiricism, rationalism, idealism, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses – all are religions of work righteousness, which is self-righteousness” (p. 54).

Guide Questions:

1. What is the message of the apologist?

2. Is modern society aware about the existence of Christian worldview? What are the consequences of such ignorance?

3. In what way public education is said to be the source of social problems?

4. What are the four most important elements in Christian worldview? Why is the absolute personality of God important in apologetics? How about the Creator-creature distinction? The sovereignty of God? And the Trinity?

5. In relation to epistemology, what is the basic requirement for an apologist in defending his faith

6. Reflect on Frame’s quotes on ethics.

7. How is the basic problem of mankind presented in the modern age?

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[1] “In our time (as opposed to, say, six hundred years ago), people are ignorant of the basic Christian worldview” (p. 34).