By Richard Howe

A distinctive feature of Southern Evangelical Seminary that the reader has seen displayed throughout the argument of this pamphlet is a commitment to Classical Apologetics [1] . To say that an apologetic method is “classical” is to say something about how SES does apologetics. It offers an answer to the question “what is the proper way for Christians to defend the truth of the Christian faith?” The SES commitment to Classical Apologetics arises from what SES believes about the nature of God and how he has created us in his image, including how we reason as humans and how we know truths not only about God, but about the rest of his creation.

The Biblical Basis of Apologetics

In a slight irony, Christian apologists sometimes find it necessary to make an apologia for apologetics. Sometimes we are asked to defend the fact that defending the faith is actually biblical .

The Bible is clear about defending the faith

In several places, the Bible commands us to defend the faith. I Peter 3:15 tells us to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is in you, but do so with gentleness and respect; ” (NASB) [2] . Jude 3 says, “ Beloved, while I was eagerly waiting to write to you about our common salvation, I felt compelled to write to you and exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (NASB). Another passage that is rarely cited in this context is Titus 1:10-11. “ Now there are many rebels, charlatans, and deceivers, especially those who are partisans of circumcision. Their mouths must be stopped …” (NIV). The pressing question here is exactly how we are going to stop the mouths of the unsubmissive. I maintain that it is through sound argument that He can leave them with nothing to say in response. We see several examples of this very thing in Jesus’ encounter with the Sadducees. Matthew 22:23-24 recounts the incident in which Jesus was challenged to explain whose wife a woman would be in the afterlife if she were married to more than one man in this life. After instructing them in sound reasoning and biblical interpretation, the narrative observes that He had “ silenced the Sadducees ” (NIV). In another instance we find, “ So they could not catch Him by what He said in public. Instead, they were astonished at His answer and fell silent” (Luke 20:26 ESV).

Being able to respond convincingly in certain situations is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a church elder. In the passage from Titus, just before the passage quoted above, we learn that the overseer must be able “ both to exhort and to convince those who contradict ” (Titus 1:9 ESV). Convincing those who contradict involves defending the truth claims of Christianity [3] .

The Apostles dedicated themselves to defending the faith

We can also see that the Apostles themselves served as a model for us in defending the faith. A chain of references throughout the book of Acts shows how they often confounded, tested, had dissensions and disputes, reasoned, explained, demonstrated, spoke boldly, persuaded, and solemnly testified with Jews and Greeks in the synagogues, the marketplace, and the schools about things pertaining to the Kingdom of God [4] . Several observations can be made about how the apostles reasoned. Note that they were confronted both by those who took into account the authority of God’s written word (the Jews) and those who did not (the Greeks). Sometimes that biblical authority was appealed to (Acts 17:2) and other times by other sources (Acts 17:22-33). Reactions ranged from some who believed (Acts 17:4, 12), to others who did not believe (Acts 17:5), to others who wanted to hear more (Acts 17:32).

The anatomy of classical apologetics

Since the biblical mandate for apologetics is clear, how exactly is the task to be undertaken? Classical Apologetics is characterized by three levels of demonstration: the philosophical foundation, the existence of God, and the truths of Christianity. The order is deliberate, as the first level makes possible the second and third steps, and the second step makes possible the third.

Philosophical foundation

The first level holds that philosophy is essential in establishing the foundation for dealing with unbelievers who might raise certain challenges, including the challenge that truth is not objective or the challenge that only the natural sciences are the source of truth about reality. Thus, when encountering the unbeliever (and sometimes even a fellow believer), the Christian should (if the occasion demands) argue that reality is knowable, that logic applies to reality, and that morally fallen human beings have some capacity to intellectually understand (even if they morally reject) certain claims of the Christian faith. It might also be necessary, depending on the unbeliever’s assumptions, to delve into questions concerning the nature of reality itself . [5] The apologist would not necessarily have to deal with these questions insofar as many unbelievers (and believers) already work with these normal, rational commitments. Only in those cases where the unbeliever (or believer) has been unduly influenced by postmodernism (the idea that truth is relative to the individual or culture or is in some way qualified from its classical understanding) [6] or by scientism (the idea that only the hard sciences can offer the truth about reality) [7] or by some other false philosophical system, would the apologist need to address these issues. Thus, unless his listener is open to the tools and principles of objective logic and reasoning, it will be impossible to engage with him in a defense of the faith.

Philosophy is also essential in dealing with certain issues of Bible interpretation. Two areas readily come to mind. The first has to do with the principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics), considered in general. The second has to do with specific interpretive issues having to do with the nature of God himself.

Every reader of the Bible has some method (conscious or unconscious) for interpreting the Bible, that is, every reader of the Bible has some hermeneutic. The question is this: Where do you get the principles of hermeneutics? It is impossible to get the hermeneutical principles from the Bible itself. This is because, if you could understand the Bible in order to get these hermeneutical principles, then you understand the Bible before you have your principles of understanding the Bible (which means you would not need the principles you sought to get from the Bible). On the other hand, if you think you cannot understand the Bible without some principles of understanding the Bible (I would say you have to), then that means you could not understand the Bible well enough to get the principles themselves (if you were committed to the notion that you get those same principles from the Bible). In either case, you are in an impossible situation. So we see that it is impossible to get all the principles of interpreting the Bible from the Bible itself, even if you can get some of them. Instead, they have to come from somewhere else.

The reader might expect me to argue here that these principles must come from philosophy. This is not my position. Rather, these principles of hermeneutics are grounded in the nature of reality itself. Certainly, reality is what it is because God is who He is, and creation is what it is because of how God created it. In all of this, I am not suggesting that one has to do an in-depth examination of reality in order to somehow excavate the principles of hermeneutics in order to then begin to understand one’s Bible. Rather, I am arguing that in many (if not most) cases, such principles of understanding are quite natural to us as rational creatures created in the image of God (analogous to how we naturally perceive the physical world around us with our sensory faculties). However, there are times when a deeper philosophical examination of the issues is warranted. This is increasingly the case as false philosophies increase their influence on people’s thinking.

The second interpretive issue has to do with the details of what the Bible says about the nature and attributes of God. As we have said, without a sound philosophy, the student of the Bible would be unable to substantiate the classic attributes of God, including his immateriality and infinity. The problem is not merely academic. There are teachers within the ostensive Christian community who embrace such heresies as that God is a finite and limited being. Consider these words from Word of Faith teacher Kenneth Copeland:

“The Bible says [Isa. 40:12] that He measured the heavens with a span of nine inches. Now the span is the difference, the distance between the end of the thumb and the end of the little finger. And the Bible says—in fact, the Amplified Translation translates the Hebrew text that way—that He measured the heavens with a span of nine inches. Well, I took a ruler and I measured mine and my span is eight and three-quarters of an inch. So God’s span is a quarter of an inch longer than mine. So you see, that faith didn’t come waving out of some giant monster somewhere. It came out of the heart of a being that is very strange in the way that it looks a lot like you and me—a being that’s about six-two, six-three, that weighs about a couple hundred pounds, a little better, has a wingspan of eight and, I mean, nine inches across—he stood up and said, ‘Let there be!’ and this universe was created.” placed, and it was set in motion. Glory to God! Hallelujah!” [8]

The same problem is also exemplified by Finis Jennings Dake, the editor of the Dake Annotated Reference Bible. [9] Dake is of the opinion that God is a person “with a personal spiritual body, a personal soul, and a personal spirit, like that of the angels and like that of man, except that His body is of spiritual substance instead of flesh and bones” [10] . Dake also argues that “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are present wherever there are beings with whom they have dealings; but they are not omnibodies, that is, their bodies are not omnipresent. All three go about bodily, as do all other beings in the universe” [11] . This is no doubt said by how he takes the verses that speak of God in bodily terms. He argues,

“God has a personal spiritual body (Dan. 7:9-14; 10:5-19); form (Jn. 5:37); shape (Phil. 2:5-7); image and likeness of a man (Gen. 1:26; 9:6; Ezek. 1:26-28; 1 ​​Cor. 11:7; Jas. 3:9). He has bodily parts such as, parts of the back (Ex. 33:23), heart (Gen. 6:6; 8:21), fingers and hands (Ps. 8:3-6; Heb. 1:10), mouth (Num. 12:8), lips and tongue (Isa. 30:27), feet (Ex. 24:10), eyes and eyelids (Ps. 11:4; 33:18), ears (Ps. 18:6), hair, head, face, the arms (Dan. 7:9-14; 10:5-19; Rev. 5:1-7; 22:4-6) and other parts of the body” [12] .

One should take careful note of how many verses of Scripture Dake has cited. I suspect that if one were to challenge Dake that God does not literally have these body parts, his response would be that he is the one who is taking the testimony of Scripture seriously, since that is what the text seems (to Dake) to clearly say. The only way to answer Dake is by appealing to sound philosophy [13] .

The existence of God

The second level of the Classical Apologetics method holds that God’s existence can be proven by a series of proofs and arguments. The way this step figures in the general case of Christianity should not be overlooked. Classical Apologetics holds that God’s existence must be affirmed before specific evidence for the truth of Christianity in particular can be made sense of. Demonstrating the specific truths of Christianity involves, among other things, appealing to miracles. This is because God used miracles to vindicate the message proclaimed by his prophets and apostles and by his own Son. But miracles are only possible because God exists. This is because miracles are supernatural acts of God. There can be no acts of God if there is no God who can act. Therefore, God’s existence must be demonstrated (in those cases where his existence is doubted or denied) before specific arguments for Christianity can be advanced. If the metaphysics of Thomism is employed, it is not simply a general theism. On the contrary, such sound metaphysics is the only way to prove the classical attributes of God that the Church has cherished throughout its history. Moreover, as sound philosophy has been eroded from the broader Christian philosophical community, so too are these classical attributes being eroded.

The truth of Christianity

Once the existence of God is demonstrated (and thus the possibility of miracles established), specific arguments are given for the truth of the Christian faith, including arguments from manuscript evidence, archaeology, and other historical evidence corroborating the historical reliability of the Bible, arguments from the Bible and other sources for the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, and arguments from the teachings of Jesus for the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. [14]

In conclusion, it can be seen that there is, in fact, a scriptural mandate to engage in apologetics. According to the Classical Apologetics approach, demonstrating the truth of Christianity requires the tools of sound reason and logic that can be employed to build the case that God exists and has certain attributes and that God has revealed himself in history through his prophets, apostles, and ultimately through his Son Jesus Christ. This mandate has been built into the very DNA of Southern Evangelical Seminary.

Grades

[1] Some of the material in this article appeared in Richard Howe’s “Classical Apologetics and Creationism,” Christian Apologetics Journal 11, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 5–31.

[2] The context of this passage is important. Peter is encouraging his readers to endure suffering and persecution. He apparently expected his readers’ godly response to that suffering to engender questions from others about what enables them, as Christians, to endure suffering. Peter expected observers to ask what the reason for their hope is. In response, Christians should be prepared to defend their response.

[3] I am indebted to Simon Brace for helping me see the apologetic application of this verse.

[4] Acts 9:22, 15:2, 17:2-4, 17:17, 18:4, 18:19, 19:8-10, 28:23-24.

[5] These questions would include the nature of universals, the essence/existence distinction, the hylomorphic (form/matter) composition of sensible objects, and the relations of the metaphysical constituents of sensible objects, including substance, accidents, and properties.

[6] Some postmodernists mistakenly think that any contemporary emphasis on logic and reason (as can be found, for example, in contemporary disputes over the inerrancy of the Bible or in Classical Apologetics) is due to the unfortunate influence of Modernism (as they mistakenly understand it). Robert Webber claims that “the question of modernity has been one of reason.” [Robert E. Webber, The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 98.] The fact is that Classical Apologetics’ commitment to sound reason finds its roots back to (and indeed, beyond) Aristotle, who said (regarding the definition of “true” and “false”), “To say of what is, that it is not, or of what is not, that it is, is false, while to say of what is, that it is and of what is not, that it is not, is true.” [Metaphysics, IV, 7, 1001b26-29, trans. W.D. Ross in Richard McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941).

[7] Atheist Richard Dawkins argues: “The presence or absence of a creative superintelligence [i.e., God] is unequivocally a scientific question, although it is not practically—or not yet—a settled question.” He continues: “There is an answer to every one of these questions [about miracles], whether we can practically discover it or not, and it is a strictly scientific answer. The methods we should use to settle the question, in the unlikely event that relevant evidence ever became available, would be purely and entirely scientific methods.” [Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 58, 59.]

[8] Kenneth Copeland, Christianity in Crisis Audio Tape (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1993).

[9] Finis Jennings Dake, The Dake Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1991).

[10] Dake, Reference Bible, New Testament, 97.

[11] Dake, Reference Bible, in the “Complete Concordance and Cyclopean Index,” 81.

[12] Dake, Reference Bible, New Testament, 97.

[13] Lest anyone think these examples are extreme, this question of God’s attributes is increasingly troubling even within evangelical circles. A survey of systematic theologies and other sources dealing with theology proper over the past 150 years shows a marked shift away from the classical attributes of God. This drift (or, in some cases, deliberate migration) is illustrated by the dispute over open theism. Gregory Boyd, in discussing certain passages of Scripture that describe God as experiencing regret or uncertainty about future outcomes, comments: “It is, I hold, harder to conceive of God’s experiencing such things if the future is exhaustively set in his mind than if it is partly composed of possibilities.” [Gregory A. Boyd, “Neo-Molinism and the Infinite Intelligence of God,” Philosophia Christi 5, no. 1 (2003): 192.] Time and space will not permit me here to examine the status of other attributes of God that are fading in evangelical circles, such as simplicity and impassibility. Nor will time and space permit me to go into the details of why they are important. The question one must ask, however, is how one might respond to the aberrant or heretical thinking of Finis Jennings Dake and others. I submit that it can be answered only by sound philosophy and sound principles of hermeneutics (which are in turn defended by sound philosophy).

[14] I am indebted to R. C. Sproul for this template (basic reliability of the New Testament, who Jesus is, what Jesus teaches about the Bible) in his “The Case for Inerrancy: A Methodological Analysis,” God’s Inerrant Word: An International Symposium on the Trustworthiness of Scripture (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1974), 242-261.

Recommended resources in Spanish: 

Stealing from God ( Paperback ), ( Teacher Study Guide ), and ( Student Study Guide ) by Dr. Frank Turek

Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek 

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Richard G. Howe is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Apologetics (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.) Dissertation: A Defense of Thomas Aquinas’ Second Way. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He holds a B.A. in Bible from Mississippi College, an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Mississippi, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Arkansas. Dr. Howe is a past president of the International Society for Christian Apologetics (ISCA). He is a writer as well as a speaker and debater at churches, conferences, and college campuses on topics related to apologetics and Christian philosophy. He has spoken and/or debated at churches and colleges in the United States and Canada, as well as in Europe and Africa, on topics related to the defense of the Christian faith.

Original Blog: https://cutt.ly/1RLwKH4

Translated and edited by Yatniel Vega García