Seventh article in the series “With Good Reason”
by Keith Bassham
We seem to be always pounding the desk about apologetics and evangelism in this series, and, to borrow from the series’ name, we do it with good reason. Though apologetics can make you more certain and thus allow you to feel better about your own beliefs, the main point is to take those beliefs about God, His Son, and His purpose to others. After all, the touchstone Bible passage has been:
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: (1 Peter 3:15).
The point being that while learning about apologetics is good for a lot of things, we do it so we Christians can give a good reason to others for our hope.
We have therefore written about the basics: how we know and reason, who is God, how trustworthy is the Bible, and in our last article, Jesus as the only way to God. Some may have thought I should include some articles about what others believe and how to defeat arguments for other faiths and non-faiths.
To do that, at least to do it with any detail, would require many more pages than I have available, and I’m not certain how valuable it would be in the long run. John Frame, in one of his very good works on apologetics, makes this intriguing claim:
One does not need to study every world religion and philosophy thoroughly. Only two are of any importance. As Scripture puts it, we are faced with a choice between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16).
In Haddon Robinson’s text on preaching, he writes of a boy in China who wanted to learn all about the precious gemstone, jade. And so he went to study with an old man reputed to know all there was to know about jade. The first thing the old man did was to place a piece of jade into the boy’s hand and tell him to hold it tight. Then the old man proceeded to talk about everything under the sun; everything except jade. After an hour of this, he took the gem back and told the boy to go home. This routine went on for weeks — the boy holding the piece of jade in his hand, the old man talking about everything but jade. Understandably, the boy became frustrated. “When is my teacher going to start talking about jade?” he thought. Then one day, when the old man put an ordinary stone into his hand, the boy cried out instinctively, “That’s not jade!”
Suppose you learned all you could about Buddhism — history, structure, weaknesses, and strengths of Buddhist thought — only to find that your conversation partner has embraced not only some Buddhism, but has added aspects of Native American mythology. Or say you have struck up a friendship with a Jewish person — ethnically Jewish but spiritually atheist, or perhaps an adherent of kabbalism (no, they don’t eat people, but they have special mystical interpretations of Old Testament scriptures based on symbolism).
Consider what competes with Christianity today: ancient philosophies (revived) like Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Gnosticism; modern Western spiritualist forms such as New Age, neopaganism, cosmic humanism, witchcraft; Eastern mysticism comes in the form of yoga, tantra, falun gong, and numberless others; secular thinking in the form of empiricism, rationalism, skepticism, materialism, pluralism, Marxism, and any number of political philosophies; and then you have the so-called Great Religions: Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the many sects in Christendom. Keep in mind as well that these different thought forms do not confine themselves to the metaphysical world or in churches and temples only, but they have a presence in economics, politics, ethics, history, psychology, education, medicine, and the arts. Where does an aspiring apologist begin?
Fortunately, Peter didn’t say you had to be a walking encyclopedia of religions and philosophy, but only that you be ready to give a reason for your hope. And for that, you need merely to know the difference between jade and fake jade, or in the world of apologetics, truth and fake truth. That’s what Mr. Frame meant when he said, you only need to know two systems thoroughly.
What we are really talking about here is the subject of worldviews. What is a worldview, you may ask? It is a way of looking at the world around you and being in that world. Another way of thinking about worldview is to describe it as a lens or window through which you interpret the world around you.
All the questions of life — who are we; where are we; what is wrong; what is the solution — will have answers determined by your worldview. In most cases, we are oblivious to a conscious worldview because we take certain things for granted, or, as I like to say, we have all had our bags packed for us.
Take the earliest stories from the Bible — the creation of the world and man. We who hold to the traditional Christian worldview take these stories seriously, and any departure from their essential truthfulness will change fundamentally our view of who we are. For the Bible-believing Christian, the story of the creation of the world is our story, defining our origins, our responsibilities, our natures, and our ultimate destinations.
But our worldview is not just about human origins and destinations. No, worldview has to do with our praxis in the world around us: “He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion” (Jeremiah 10:12). In this worldview, God is responsible for the whole scheme, all that we can perceive.
Augustine (City of God), wrote:
Thus God is the supreme reality, with his Word and the Holy Spirit — three who are one. He is the God omnipotent, creator and maker of every soul and every body…. From him derives every mode of being, every species, every order, all measure, number, and weight. He is the source of all that exists in nature, whatever its kinds, whatsoever its value, and of the seeds of forms, and forms of seeds, and the motions of seeds and forms. He has given to flesh its origin, beauty, health, fertility in propagation, the arrangement of the bodily organs, and the health that comes from their harmony. He has endowed even the soul of irrational creatures with memory, sense, and appetites, but above all this, he has given to the rational soul thought, intelligence, and will. He has not abandoned even the inner parts of the smallest and lowliest creature, or the bird’s feather (to say nothing of the heavens and the earth, the angels and mankind) — he has not left them without a harmony of their constituent parts, a kind of peace. It is beyond anything incredible that he should have willed the kingdoms of men, their dominations and their servitudes, to be outside the range of the laws of his providence.
Therefore, God is interested in and gives direction for such non-religious pursuits as the arts (Exodus 35:30-35), farming (Isaiah 28:23-29), marriage (Matthew 19:1-12), work (Colossians 3:22-4:1), and government (Romans 13:1-7). In the words of another author, “God’s principles honeycomb creation, and by careful study they can be known and understood…Depending upon the kind of response given to them, the whole of life can either be rightly or wrongly directed, honored or violated, blessed or cursed” (David K. Naugle, Worldview: the history of a concept, 265).
Now, take this worldview, largely shared by Bible-believing Christians through many nations and generations and cultures, and compare it with another, one without the Creator. The story of the evolution of the world and the human race tells a completely different story, with a completely different set of packed bags. In this worldview, man is here through a series of accidents or random acts of nature, with no real responsibilities other than those we give ourselves, possessing natures only slightly different from the animals whose ancestry we supposedly share, occupying what John Frame calls “a gray world of matter and motion and chance.” Nevertheless, evolution has become the all-purpose explanation for just about everything observable, and for much of the world we inhabit, it is the conventional way of thinking, even among many who call themselves Christian.
The biblical worldview we propose is rational with purpose and plan and design, based on a Creator-creature relationship, and intended to produce hope that is worth asking a reason for. Further, we maintain that is not merely a better alternative, but truth set against non-truth, one of the two ways of thinking is described in 1 Corinthians 1:18- 2:16,
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. …For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21).
So, how does this apply to apologetics, and specifically, to giving a reason for our hope?
First, when giving the reason for your hope you will have to question the other person’s worldview. The text in 1 Corinthians says that God’s wisdom is set against the world’s foolishness. The unbeliever has a distorted view of God and His world. This is understandable when you remember that the statements in Romans 3 about man and his sin (Romans 3:10, 20-23) are at the end of an argument that begins in Romans 1:18-20:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold (suppress, as in hold down, KWB) the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
This universal rebellion and suppression is important to remember. We have shown before that non-belief itself is a faith position, so do not be surprised that your friend will continue to hold onto their non-belief in spite of your best reasons an logic. But the statement in Romans 1 and 3 confirms what we have been saying in this article: this is God’s world and God “speaks” to the unbeliever through that world.
Second, remember that no other worldview offers a solution for the sin problem. Virtually all religions, if they acknowledge sin as a problem, offer perhaps two ways of dealing with it. One way is to try harder to be better (a works-based self-righteousness). The second way is to claim that God will forgive all sin universally without making any type of demand on anyone.
Only biblical Christianity offers a solution to the sin problem:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
The demand God makes for the forgiveness of sin is not harder work, but acceptance of his gift:
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
Finally, know that apologetics is evangelism, and evangelism is apologetics. You can always witness your faith with good reason.