Too Late to Apologize?

Here is what I posted at the Grace and Peace blog yesterday. Check it out to find more gospel centered writing in several different types from my good friends.

apol•o•get•ic \ə-pä-lə-ˈje-tik\ adj: offered in defense or vindication〈the apologetic writings of the early Christians〉

"...in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect..." (1 Peter 3:15)

I am not an apologist nor do I want to pretend to be. However, I have had a few opportunities to answer questions and give a defense for the gospel in my evangelistic efforts. Because I have had some experience and have learned a lot from that (as well as from studying the subject) I want to offer you some tips in a new series of posts. I will probably interrupt the series some weeks for other kinds of posts but in an attempt to offer as much help as I can I think it will be good not to limit myself by trying to fit everything into a single post.

Presuppositions exist, don't ignore them.

This is one of the foundational truths of the brand of apologetics known as Presuppositionalism. It isn't important at this level to go into a textbook style summary of what that means. What you should remember is that you cannot prove the existence of the God of the Bible without acknowledging that you are assuming the truth of His Scripture.

This is one of the great problems I have with many respectable men in the field of apologetics. They make great arguments based on real evidence for the existence of God but in order to avoid the charge of assuming the truth of the Bible they have to say things like "the great preponderance of the evidence points to the likelihood of the existence of a god." Which my be convincing enough to bring some people to faith in "a god" but the assumption behind that kind of argument is that we just need to convince people to become theists and hopefully they will throw themselves into the Christian camp as well.

Instead, I suggest that you simply acknowledge that you are entering the debate with a heart and mind that has been changed by God and, therefore, you assume His existence from the beginning.

You also must remember that because all of mankind has been radically affected by the Fall they are doing the same thing. In Romans Paul says, "no one seeks after God" (Romans 3:11) and in Ephesians 2 man is further described as "following the Prince of the power of the air" and described as "the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2).

So biblically speaking you are entering the "debate" with a bias for the God of the Bible and they enter it with a bias against Him. Ignoring that doesn't make the debate go smoother, but it can lead to arguments that are meant to be for God's existence but end up blasphemous.

More to come...

Grace and Peace,
Stephen