Pre-publication conference paper. Circulated for the conference Further Thoughts on Deification and forthcoming in the conference volume. © Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University. Posted as revised for the conference volume; please cite the published version when it appears.
Defense and Deification:
Biblical Apologetics as Participation in the Divine Life
Paul Copan
“…but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15).1
There is a good deal of triumphalist Christian apologetics in our day. On YouTube, for instance, we might come across video captions like “Christian totally destroys atheist opponent” or “theist refutes skeptic.” As we’ll see, while there is a place for debate and disputation, some Christian apologists seem to believe that apologetics a matter of “beating people up for Jesus”—what Christian philosopher Michael Murray has called “sledgehammer apologetics.”2 Such an approach does not reveal Spirit-filled wisdom and grace that defending the gospel calls for.
I want to present the case that truly biblical apologetics is a necessary ministry and a discipline that flows from the reality of deification (2 Peter 1:4)—that is, a Spirit-filled participation in Christ’s life both individually and corporately.3 As a priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9), part of our calling is to be ready to give an answer—an apologetic—for the hope that lies within us (1 Peter 3:15). Such an apologetic involves worship, is supported by Christ-like character, promotes spiritual transformation, enhances discipleship, and has a role in removing the doubts of unbelievers so that they might participate in the life of Christ.
Contrary to the boastful, gloating spirit found in certain expressions of “Christian apologetics,” I present an approach that is bound up with the reality of deification and transformation through life in Christ. In my introduction, I begin with the example of St. Augustine, whose life illustrates the importance of apologetics in conversion and spiritual growth. Second, apologetics must be rooted in Christ-centered worship—setting Christ apart as Lord in our hearts. Third, I make the connection between apologetics and Christ-like character; such a character is not driven by fear but rather a boldness that is bound up with gentleness and respect. Fourth, following Dallas Willard’s definition of apologetics as “doubt-removal,” I attempt to show how dealing with doubts can help promote spiritual growth and discipleship—an exercise relevant to both believers and unbelievers alike. Finally, I address the unfolding process often involved in apologetics towards unbelievers; rooted in relational engagement, this outward-focused apologetic involves a kind of “sanctification” process that takes into account God’s working through both general and special revelation. To some degree, each of these points reinforces the connection between apologetics and deification.
I. Augustine, Apologetics, and Growth in Christ
Exhibit A for my thesis is Augustine of Hippo (354-430). He stands as a paradigm case of the absence of Christian apologetics that led to corrosive doubt, the stunting of his spiritual growth, and the undermining of his faith. Augustine grew up in a kind of intellectual wasteland in Catholic North Africa. The failure of theologians and clergy to offer answers to basic apologetical questions profoundly stunted his spiritual growth. But only when those intellectual doubts and questions were answered was the groundwork lain for his conversion through the conviction of the Spirit, sparked by taking up and reading the end of Romans 13.
Augustine’s anti-intellectual environment—as well as the infiltration of the Manichean heresy into North African churches4s—created theological and intellectual confusion and barriers for him. He wrestled with two particularly perplexing questions. One was the problem of evil: Was evil a substance or entity? The dualistic Manichees believed evil was a “thing”—an eternal principle that co-existed with the good: The kingdom of light (the good) and the kingdom of darkness (evil). Neither prevailed over the other. But how could evil be a thing?
The other problem was God’s apparent corporeality—a notion influenced by Stoicism’s belief in the world as God’s “body.” Augustine’s North African theological predecessors Tertullian and Cyprian maintained that if something is not corporeal, it is not real.5 This led Augustine to wonder how God could be physically suffused throughout space, which just seemed empty to him.6 This doctrine meant that there must be more of God in an elephant than a sparrow!7 And the Manichees tormented North African Christians with their questions: “Is God confined within a corporeal form? Does God have hair and nails?”8
To make matters worse, Tertullian himself made various statements that implied irrationality and anti-intellectualism. Tertullian asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”9 He insisted: “I believe because it is foolish.”10 His aversion to philosophy was no secret.11 Cyprian, who was slightly less strident than his “master” Tertullian, shaped North African Christendom’s anti-intellectualism.12 Overall, Augustine considered the North African Catholic mind to be superstitious.
In The Usefulness of Belief, Augustine wrote of the Manichees’ charge that “we [Catholics] were overawed by superstition [superstitione terreri]”— and were bidden to believe rather than to reason, while [the Manichees] pressed no one to believe until the truth had been discussed and elucidated.” 13 For Augustine, superstitio was that which deterred investigation and the pursuit of truth. As an adolescent, Augustine was “enticed by these promises,” given his “mind eager for truth.”14 He said: “I fell among these people for no other reason than that they declared that they would put aside all overawing [terribili] authority, and by pure and simple reason would bring to God those who were willing to listen to them and so deliver them from all error [errore].”15 Eugene Teselle characterizes Augustine’s conservative Catholic environment as stressing “reverence for divine authority at the expense of rational inquiry and may even have been inclined to counsel blind faith.”16
Augustine despaired about the mindlessness of Catholic authorities, which led him to join the Manichees for nine to ten years of his life because at least they took his intellectual questions seriously. Augustine mentioned a question raised by the Manichees: “What did God do before he made heaven and earth?”17 The common response from the Catholic clergy was: “He was preparing hell…for those prying into such deep subjects.” This intellectual dishonesty dismayed Augustine, who refused to evade “by a joke the force of the objection,” adding:
It is one thing to see the objection; it is another to make a joke of it. I do not answer in this way. I would rather respond, “I do not know,” concerning what I do not know rather than say something for which a man inquiring about such profound matters is laughed at while the one giving a false answer is praised.18
Augustine’s intellectual quest was itself inspired by reading Cicero’s Hortensius (or “An Exhortation to Philosophy”), which inspired in him a love of philosophy. He said “that book filled me with the love of wisdom (which is called philosophy in Greek).”19 This work taught Augustine “to love wisdom itself, whatever it might be, and to search for it, pursue it, hold it, and embrace it firmly.”20 Eventually, Augustine would become a Christian through his exposure to the Christian Neoplatonist philosopher-theologian Ambrose of Milan, whose philosophical reflections guided Augustine to address his most pressing questions: first, evil is a privation rather than a substance; and God is not corporeal but is a spiritual substance. Reflecting on his Christian conversion, when “it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away.”21 Augustine exemplifies the profound connection between a philosophically-informed apologetic and spiritual life and growth in Christ.
This interconnection between intellectual doubt, the absence of apologetical resources, and stunted spiritual growth has been made in more recent days. The late Christian philosopher Dallas Willard emphasized both spiritual growth in Christ (e.g., Spirit of the Disciplines)22 as well as Christian apologetics (e.g., The Allure of Gentleness).23 In the latter work, he tightly connects them: apologetics—an important but neglected ministry in the local church—can enhance one’s spiritual growth in Christ when rightly administered and received. After all, apologetics is an exercise in doubt-removal which can both deepen true discipleship for the believer as well as help the unbeliever get on the path of discipleship.
It is this connection I hope to explore in the reminder of this essay. The neglect or even sheer absence of a holistic Christian apologetic can often have a deleterious impact on spiritual growth for believers, as we saw with Augustine. It turns out that doing apologetics well can be seen as an expression of our participation in the life of Christ; by God’s Spirit, apologetics encourages Christian growth and Christ-like transformation and enhances the believer’s witness in preparing the soil for reception of the gospel.
II. Apologetics as Christ-Centered Worship
The most-cited text in support of engaging in apologetics is 1 Peter 3:15 begins with worship—with “sanctify[ing] in your hearts” Christ as Lord in our hearts (hagiasate tais kardiais hymōn). Our apologetic has a Christ-centered starting point. This theme of sanctifying or hallowing God is uppermost in Jesus’ mind in “the Lord’s Prayer.” The first petition (Mt. 6:9) is for God’s name to be “hallowed” (hagiasthētōto onoma sou). As with other New Testament authorities,24 Peter here assumes Jesus shares in the divine identity and that his name was to be hallowed above all others.25 The point here is that apologetic task is bound up with participation in the life of Christ—a reality also known as deification. Peter here sets the backdrop for apologetics as worshiping Christ, hallowing his name.
To further reinforce the centrality of worshiping Christ and Peter’s assumption that Jesus shares in the divine identity, he has already referred to Isaiah 8:12: “You are not to say, ‘It is a conspiracy!’ in regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, and you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy [kyrion auton hagiasate. And He shall be your fear [phobos], and He shall be your dread” (8:13). While Isaiah stresses that “the Lord of hosts” is to be regarded as holy, Peter applies this text to Jesus: “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts” (v. 15). And just prior to this in Isaiah 8:10 comes the declaration, “for God is with us” (hoti meth’ hēmōn kyrios ho theos)—a passage that connects to the name “Immanuel” (“God with us”) in Isaiah 7 and 8, to which Matthew 1:23 also refers with regard to the incarnation of Christ. That is, Peter sees Jesus as sharing in the divine identity, who is to be revered. And participation in Christ’s life—worshiping or revering Christ as Lord is the prolegomenon of the true apologetic task.
A couple of applications become readily apparent. First, the apologetic task is to be carried out in dependence on Christ. Apologetics is about the name and the glory of Jesus Christ—not an exercise in pride that promotes the self by putting down or humiliating another. Nor is apologetics an effort to “reason someone into the kingdom” or marshal arguments that bring a person to his spiritual knees. Rather, the Christian apologist trusts in the name of Christ and in his mighty power.
Second, the apologist will devote time to praying for unbelievers, which reflects a spirit of dependence on Christ. We should first talk to Jesus about our unbelieving friends before talking to our unbelieving friends about Jesus.26 No wonder Paul requests prayer “that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak” (Eph 6:19-20).
Apologetics and Christ-Like Character
Not only will participation in Christ’s life—or deification—be evident in our worship (setting apart Christ as Lord in our hearts). Our character will increasingly exhibit the spirit of Christ as we defend the faith. As the body of Christ moves to full maturity, growing up into Christ who is the head (Ephesians 4:11-16; Colossians 3:10-14). These characteristics include “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12).
Courage and Boldness Rather Than Fear
Both the larger and immediate contexts of 1 Peter 3:15 include the persecution and unjust suffering of Christians, who may be tempted to give in to fear (1:6-7; 3:16-17; 4:12-19). And earlier in 1 Peter, believers are called to imitate the suffering and crucified Christ—to follow in his steps (2:21). Like him, we should entrust ourselves to the one who judges righteously (2:23). The pattern of cruciformity and Christoformity is the larger goal of the apologist, who must not be cowed or intimidated by another’s status and worldly credentials.
Think of Justin Martyr—a second-century Platonist philosopher, who encountered a mysterious man by the sea at Ephesus. Rather than being cowed by a philosopher, this Christian man exhibited “meek and venerable manners,” and he boldly challenged Justin to consider how he could be a philosopher but “not a lover of deeds or truth.” This old man went on to speak of the life and miracles of Jesus of Nazareth and his fulfilling many prophecies. He pleaded with Justin to attend to attend to these matters personally. Although Justin would not see this elderly man again, he recounted that “straightway a flame was kindled in my soul.” In fact, Justin had already come to admire Christians who were facing persecution, and he observed that they were “intrepid in the face of death,”27 and he concluded that “it was impossible that they should be living in evil and in the love of pleasure.” As they faced death, these Christians were giving a defense for the hope within them; they did not give in to fear.
Their future hope was connected to belief in a bodily resurrection to come, which anchored their earthly boldness It was not merely an individual Christian Justin saw. He witnessed the corporate testimony of many Christians filled with a hope that did not give in to fear.28
Through the example of courageous Christians—who didn’t fear death as others did—and through the gracious man by the sea who wasn’t intimidated by speaking with a philosopher, Justin would would conclude that Christianity is the “true philosophy”: “I found this [Christian] philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, and for this reason, I am a philosopher.” Through this conversation, Justin came to discover that the Christian faith is the “true philosophy.”
New Testament scholar Karen Jobes observes that 1 Peter 3:15’s reference to a “defense” can legitimately be applied to formal Christian philosophy and apologetics. However, Peter didn’t have in mind a professional discipline here. Sometimes the word apologia is used in legal settings, but here it is more general, as it is elsewhere in the New Testament.29
Furthermore, as with the old man by the sea who boldly challenged Justin, Peter calls his readers to be ready to give a defense at any time and to anyone: “always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you” (1 Pet. 3:15). This fact further reinforces a more informal and general setting for giving a defense than a formal legal one. 30 Peter exhorts believers to give a courageous defense in all circumstances.
An Understandable Defense
We could add that Christians who speak boldly of the hope within them to unbelievers should defend this hope in a way that unbelievers can understand it. This requires creativity, suppleness of mind, and consideration given to the unbeliever’s own story and background. Paul’s sermon to the Athenians in Acts 17 is one such example.
Jobes offers this admonition:
This verse raises the question of how many Christians today could make an articulate statement of the reasons for their faith in Christ in terms that would be understood by modern society. Most “testimonies,” when given at all, are given in a Christian gathering, using the jargon of the church, which makes perfect sense to the converted, but in terms that have little meaning for those who are not already believers. While such a practice is an important part of a Christian’s development… believers must be able to relate the Christian faith to unbelievers by addressing their questions in terms they find meaningful.31
As a master philosopher, Jesus often responded to critics’ questions with questions of his own (whose image, who was the neighbor, why do you call me good?). Jesus as a master philosopher, who would often respond to his critics’ questions with a question of his own to prompt deeper reflection, to expose hypocrisy, to throw hearers’ off-balance. He was not afraid to rebuke and challenge.
A Defense of a Transformed Life
Jobes further points out that the kind of question raised by unbelievers about the hope within assumes a transformed life: “since the questioning is concerning the hope that is in you, Peter must be assuming that the inward hope of Christians results in lives so noticeably different that unbelievers are prompted to ask why they are so distinctive.”32 Willard likewise states that our joyful lives should provoke the unbeliever to wonder and to ask why we are hopeful and joyful: “Apologetics is answering a question [like ‘Why are you happy?’] that will open the doorway of faith for another person.”33
Our apologetical endeavors must involve becoming like Jesus in boldness and courage that reflect a fearless hope within that does not shrink back out of fear. But we read of other features of Christlike character when engaging in apologetics.
“Gentleness and Respect”
Willard’s book title The Allure of Gentleness is taken from James 3:12: “But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” Thus, giving a defense is not “beating unwilling people into intellectual submission,” but involves speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15) and engaging as “relentless servants of truth.”34 In an era of entrenched ideological commitments and drawn battle lines between clashing ideas, he asks, “how will we get a hearing by merely insisting that we have truth and reason on our side?”35 Our message will much more readily speak to the hearts of unbelievers if we defend the faith “with gentleness and reverence” needs to be heeded. Indeed, gentleness is a quality of the disciple of Jesus (Matt. 5:5; 11:29-30) and is a mark of deification (Colossians 3:12).
Humility of spirit (3:8) was considered a sign of weakness in the Greco-Roman world,36 but Jesus illustrated how humility did not stand in opposition to possessing divine authority (Matthew 11:25-30). And gentleness or graciousness (1 Peter 3:16) is a virtue that involves not tearing down another person or being self-protective. We answer gently because of we have sanctified Christ in our hearts.37
The mention of “reverence” or “respect” (phobos) connects to the earlier reference to showing reverence to God: it is “an attitude toward others that is rooted in one’s attitude toward God.”38 This reverence toward God becomes apparent in our giving an answer that is gentle and respectful rather than harsh and rude. And this defense is to be carried out with integrity—with a good conscience and good conduct (v 16). This requires having a life and character that reinforce the message.
Craig Keener points out that in an ancient court of law, “slander against someone of good character was harder to believe. Judges and juries decided cases partly on the basis of character (ēthos),” which is a factor important for persuasion.39 While “negative character made charges believable,” a “positive character made them difficult to accept.”40
Keener writes elsewhere about the importance of a transformed character when undertaking apologetics. Given the context of 1 Peter that speaks of Christians being slandered (2:12; 3:16) and possibly subject to prosecution at times (cf. 4:15-16), “[b]eing able to offer a defense meant being able to show that the charges against Christians (or at least against the Christian movement as a whole) were untrue.”41 Appealing to evidence is certainly an important dimension of apologetics, as the book of Acts and 1 Corinthians 15 make clear. However, behavior is also part of the Christian apologetic: when “the arguments against the Christian message are the alleged behavior of Christians, Christians need to work all the harder to live an apologetic that undermines the charges.”42 And while we cannot control misrepresentations and false charges made against us, Peter is advising believers regarding what they can control—namely, their behavior: “live in such a way that refutes such accusations.”43 This includes not returning insult for insult but entrusting ourselves to God, as Christ did (2:21, 23; 3:18).
An excellent illustration of an apologist who understood gentleness and respect is the late Francis Schaeffer. Here is the testimony of Dorothy Hurely, who lived at Schaeffer’s L’Abri in Switzerland. She wrote:
When Mr. Schaeffer would talk to you, there was nothing else in the world that was going on. He was totally focused on you and what you were talking about and was very involved, very interested. It wouldn’t matter who the person was. It could be from the most simple person to the most intellectual — that focus and interest and involvement was the same. I saw it time and time again. I experience it myself, and it wasn’t anything false. He was really interested in people, and it was something that was very striking. I’d never seen that degree of concentration and having that kind of attention, I don’t think, with anybody else.44
Apologetics and a transformed life in Christ go hand in hand; they are deeply interconnected.
But isn’t there a place for debate, refutation, and sharp rebuke? If so, are these opposed to gentleness and respect? Yes, Spirit-filled debate and refutation have a role in the Christian life. Consider Jesus—Wisdom incarnate—who frequently silenced his hostile opposition. By the end of Jesus’ disputes with his opponents in Matthew 22, “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions” (v. 46 NIV; cf. vv. 15-22, 23-33, 34-40, and 41-46). Likewise, Stephen engaged with theological opponents, though “full of grace and power” (Acts 6:8 ESV). And, Luke tells us, “they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (v. 15). And though his adversaries trumped up false charges against him (v. 11), he would eventually use strong language—just as Jesus did: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you” (7:51). He added further denunciations (vv. 52-53). Though he issued a forceful rebuke, Luke describes him as “full of the Holy Spirit” (v. 55). And while he was being stoned to death, he cried out, as Jesus did from the cross, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (v. 60).
Jesus and Stephen sternly rebuked hypocrisy, but their calls for forgiveness reveal a spirit of love. Paul tells Titus to silence and sternly rebuke false teachers, but this is no triumphalistic undertaking. The goal is that “they may be sound in faith” (Tit. 1:11, 13, ESV).
Furthermore, apologetics is aimed at the discovery of truth—and goodness and beauty as well—and any truth discovered is part of God’s general revelation, even when it comes from an unbeliever. Our honest “I don’t know” or “That’s a great question” expresses integrity and humility that should be woven into the Christian apologist’s frame of mind. The pursuit of truth in a spirit of love—not winning a debate—reflects a proper gentleness and respect.
Apologetics: Doubt-Removal To Promote Discipleship
Doubters Outside and Inside the Church
As we have noted, Dallas Willard asserts that apologetics is an exercise in doubt-removal. But to what end? This is not merely some intellectual exercise to establish justified true belief that God exists or that Jesus rose from the dead. The demons also belief that (James 2:19). Apologetics, Willard says, is really about “aiding others in removing doubts that hinder their enthusiastic and full participation in the kingdom of the heavens and their discipleship to Christ.”45 That is, the apologetical task of doubt-removal has Christian discipleship and deepened participation in Christ’s life and God’s kingdom as its aim—whether for Christians and non-Christians.
Note that this doubt-removal is not merely extra muros—“outside the walls” of a church building. Jude 22 (ESV) refers to an important ministry to doubters within the church: “have mercy on those who doubt.” Believers themselves have doubts, which can have a corrosive effect on their spiritual growth and more fully participating in “the kingdom of the heavens and their discipleship to Christ.”
Historically speaking, the role of apologetics as intra muros has unfolded gradually. Catholic apologist Avery Dulles observed,
The goals and methods of apologetics have frequently shifted. The earliest apologists were primarily concerned with obtaining civil toleration for the Christian community—to prove that Christians were not malefactors deserving the death penalty. Gradually through the early centuries the apologies for Christianity became less defensive. Assuming the counteroffensive, they aimed to win converts from other groups. Some were addressed to pagans, others to Jews. Subsequently apologetics turned its attention to Moslems, then to atheists, agnostics, and religious indifferentists. Finally apologists came to recognize that every Christian harbors within himself a secret infidel. At this point apologetics became, to some extent, a dialogue between the believer and the unbeliever in the heart of the Christian himself. In speaking to his unregenerate self the apologist assumed – quite correctly – that he would best be able to reach others similarly situated.46
More recently, another Catholic writer reinforced this point: “Apologetics is important first of all within the Church herself. We need to give reasons for the faith not only to enlighten those who do not share it but also to strengthen those within the household of the faith.”47 Apologetics has a role of not only defending the gospel but also confirming it as well (Philippians 1:7).
The Christian Faith, Knowledge, and Reason
The Christian faith is a knowledge tradition. For example, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul laid out an eyewitness list of those who saw Jesus alive after his death. He staked the Christian faith on this historical reality, and if Christ was not raised, there can be no Christian faith—no life in Christ. He assumed that the Christian faith is, in principle, falsifiable. In this spirit, Dallas Willard connects Christian growth to knowledge. And what is knowledge? In philosophical circles, knowledge from Plato onward has been defined along the lines of justified true belief or, as Alvin Plantinga defends, warranted true belief.48 Knowledge has three basic components: it involves (a) a belief that is (b) true but also has (c) warrant. Warrant is what turns true belief into knowledge. One can have an accidentally true belief—a matter of luck rather than intellectual virtue. For example, if all our beliefs are determined by physical forces over which I have no control, then if I just happen to believe that, this true belief is not based on any rational merit or warrant. It is just a fluke. I am no more rational than the person who—in this case, wrongly— believes that we can rise above physical forces to make a rational judgment.
Willard provides a layperson’s definition of knowledge. It is “being able to deal with things as they are on an appropriate basis of thought and experience.”49 Willard points out one common, but flawed, attempt to ground knowledge (“warrant”)—namely, using the criterion of scientism. This is the claim that science alone can give us knowledge. But if we follow this scientistic (not scientific) methodology, it will actually block us from knowing most things and from knowing the most important kinds of things too: “art, morality, and personal relationships,” for example.50
Furthermore, while God’s Spirit can use reason and evidence to clear up doubts, humans can also use reason to hide from God and evade his authority over them. Doing so is to move in the opposite direction of knowledge. Suppressing the truth of God—which includes refusing to honor God and give him thanks—leads to ignorance and foolishness (Romans 1:19-22). True wisdom begins with the fear of God (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7). If we remove relationship with God as our foundation and frame of reference, we remove ourselves from access to answers for life’s central questions.51 Alvin Plantinga rightly notes that theism “offers suggestions for answers to a wide range of otherwise intractable questions.”52 Or as C. S. Lewis put it, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”53 Or to use Paul’s wording, it is Christ “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
By contrast, some may have a “zeal without knowledge” (Romans 10:2) or are “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7 ESV). A people may be ruined because of a “lack of knowledge”—indeed, a rejection of it (Hosea 4:6). Knowledge of the truth is vital for spiritual growth, and some may worship what they “do not know” (John 4:21-24). Willard emphasizes that we must constantly learn from Jesus and allow his Spirit to correct and clarify our thinking and enable us to obey. If we do this, we will be prepared for the ministry of apologetics.
Knowledge and Intellectual Virtues
Setting Christ apart as Lord involves not only moral virtues like gentleness and respect. It will also require related virtues—namely, intellectual ones. These center on the pursuit of truth. The love of truth does have a moral component like honesty and humility, of course: Paul speaks of those who will perish “because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thes 2:10, 12). But intellectual virtues can be carried out without moral character: an immoral law student may thoroughly prepare for his bar exam, or an immoral lawyer might be diligent in examining all the relevant evidence for a case.
The apologist will take seriously the love of the truth and will direct her mind toward rationality, truth, knowledge, and understanding—what we would call proper and important epistemic ends.54 Our love for the truth requires intellectual virtues to achieve those ends.55 While virtues such as attentiveness, open-mindedness, perseverance, curiosity, impartiality, and courage do not guarantee knowledge, they play a supportive role in the knowing process. Human agency and intentionality will nourish these intellectual virtues.
Jesus of Nazareth was the world’s greatest philosopher and smartest person who ever lived.56 He displayed these virtues, which were cultivated through his attentiveness to the Scriptures, to prayer, to deep reflection, to other persons, and to the human condition. Even if we are not academics, transformed apologists can nevertheless display these intellectual virtues. We will be bold but also humble. We will study good reasons for faith and discard inferior ones—and welcome corrections to our views, whatever the source. We will have courage to avoid intellectual fads and fashions; Christians ought to engage in their discipline of apologetics in a distinctively Christian manner.
“From One Degree…to Another”: Entering (More Fully) into Life in Christ Through Apologetics
Praeparatio Evangelica
In addition to looking at apologetics as doubt-removal to promote deepened discipleship, apologetics ultimately serves the proclamation of the gospel and living out the gospel through our participation in the life of the divine Trinity. Theologian Alister McGrath remarks that apologetics is “a kind of pre-evangelism, something that lays the groundwork for evangelism at a later stage.”57 Apologetics is a praeparatio evangelica—a preparation for the gospel. And both apologetics and evangelism go hand-in-hand, especially in a disenchanted era in which belief in God is viewed optional and no longer incontestable.58 McGrath notes: “Evangelism needs to be seen as essential to Christianity’s survival and growth. And apologetics is an integral part of that program of evangelism.”59 Evangelism, he says, is like offering bread to someone while apologetics compares to persuading people that bread is available and good to eat: “Apologetics stresses the reasonableness and attractiveness of the Christian faith; evangelism makes the offer of that faith.”60
Furthermore, McGrath notes that there is a negative side to apologetics as well as a positive one. As to the former, Christians must be able to handle basic objections to the Christian faith, whether from the media, in workplace, and dinner parties. This involves exposing spurious arguments while acknowledging true obstacles that prevent people from coming to faith in Christ—and then helping unbelievers move toward the cross. As to the latter, apologetics sets out the glory and beauty of the gospel of salvation. This endeavor includes translating familiar language that we are familiar with—“grace,” “redemption,” “sin”—and explaining their meaning and what these realities offer an unchurched culture.61
Just as evangelism is a process rather than event, the apologetic which accompanies it is part of that process. And just as Christians are to be transformed into the image of Christ as they move from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18), the task of apologetics has a kind of movement from one degree of spiritual awareness to another—toward participation in Christ’s life.
Apologists as Spiritual Diagnosticians
As Christian philosopher Greg Ganssle points out,62 part of this preparation for the gospel involves our being diagnosticians. We have the role of being personal spiritual physicians for those needing the Great Physician who came to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:31-32). Ganssle quotes the writer Walker Percy, who believed that the novelist was something of a physician within culture:
My point is that the stance of the physician is appropriate here. For his stance is that of the diagnostician. A diagnostician is a person who stands towards another person in the relation of one who knows that something has gone wrong with the other. He, the physician-novelist, has a nose for pathology.63
Ganssle applies this image of diagnostician to the apologetical task. By utilizing a spectrum of attitudes toward God or Christ, one can engage a person where she stands. These steps on the spectrum “have more to do with what a person sees as valuable than what he understands.”64 In this process, the evangelistically-minded apologist attempts, by God’s grace, to help that person move one step closer to entering the kingdom of God—from one degree of spiritual awareness to another. Here is the spectrum of possible steps in this process:65
-9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 ** 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | Suspicious of any truth claim or objective moral values—thoroughly secular either postmodern or otherwise. “God is completely irrelevant to everything I value or to which I aspire.” Suspicion of theism and Christianity in particular. Engages with believers: “Even if there is truth, it’s not found in God.” Believers begin to shake up smug secularism (non-religious stance). “Christianity is plausible. I still do not believe it.” “I want to be like you” (which assumes authenticity). “I can begin to see myself as a(n authentic) Christian.” “I see my need for Christ.” REPENTANCE AND FAITH IN CHRIST Still largely secular and postmodern but committed to growing as a Christian. Further involvement in the community of believers. Sees how the life of Christ is lived out. Begins to think biblically about relationships and issues of integrity. Growing reliance on the Word and the Spirit of God in daily life. Begins to think biblically about life and career/use of spiritual gifts. Develops spiritual gifts, mentors others, engages the contemporary mind one person at a time. |
|---|
The apologist is to cultivate a pre-evangelistic “nose” for identifying the unbeliever’s spiritual, moral, or even emotional pathology in order to help that her embrace the gospel.66
To expand on this, let us consider diagnostics related to four areas: postmodernism and truth, the place of beauty and imagination, existential reasons for belief, and different types of doubt.
Truth and Postmodernism
Look back at that a spectrum of attitudes and degreed beliefs about the truth, God, and Jesus. The Christian is to be aware of the degrees of distance a person is from God to prayerfully help him come closer toward God’s kingdom and Christian discipleship, one step at a time. Ganssle begins with a person’s suspicion towards any truth-claim whatsoever—a very postmodern attitude or mood.
Why not instead begin with natural theology—with arguments for God’s existence? Natural theological arguments are drawn from God’s natural revelation that is available to all persons. These reasons have an important role to play in the dissemination of knowledge. These reasons include cosmological, teleological, or moral arguments—not to mention the case for God from consciousness, rationality, beauty and the like. These arguments may serve as a kind of pre-evangelism. Their aim is to show that their conclusions are more plausible or reasonable than their denials and that they offer better or best explanations for key features of our universe as well as our own human experience.67 If God exists, then a plausible context for God’s saving revelation through Jesus Christ serves as a crucial extension—a natural next step to consider. We can ask the question: “If God exists, what has he done to make himself known more clearly? What has this God done to help humanity in a world of brokenness, evil, misery, and sin?” 68
But the more basic problem is: what if our postmodern friend doesn’t even believe in truth, let alone truth about God or Jesus’ resurrection?
Apologist Nancy Pearcey’s story serves as an illustration of this kind of stepping-stone movement toward the gospel. While she appreciates and teaches on the evidence for the resurrection, but when she was a postmodern agnostic, she did not have a category for objective evidence. Thinking in terms of true or false was misguided. In high school she would tell friends, “You can’t say anyone is right or wrong.” When she was eighteen. and her Christian brother presented her with evidence for the resurrection, Nancy replied that the resurrection story “could be a wonderful parable that makes some people feel good.”
At that stage of her life, she was not open to factual arguments. She came to believe through the work of Francis Schaeffer and living at his retreat home in L’Abri. Schaeffer held to a kind of two-step process of first (pre-evangelistically) explaining what we mean by truth and then making the case that the Christian faith is true. Pearcey first needed convincing that there was such a thing as objective truth. Of course, she now teaches her students that “to be a responsible Christian, you should master all forms of apologetics—historical apologetics (evidence for the resurrection), biblical apologetics (the reliability of Scripture), scientific apologetics, moral apologetics, philosophical apologetics, and cultural apologetics.”69 But the first hurdle needed to be overcome—dealing with her suspicion of any truth-claim.
“Another Way of Seeing”: Beauty and Imagination
For others, objective “evidences” for the Christian faith—for Jesus’ bodily resurrection or the reliability of Scripture—may have only a secondary role. Sometimes a different diagnosis is needed. Rather than truth, the power of the gospel’s goodness and beauty must become apparent. This is a different kind of evidence that can be discerned by cutting to the heart of the human condition. A different channel or pathway is needed to help particular persons see the truth of the gospel.
The late University of Dallas literature professor Louise Cowan recounted how her faith had been damaged during her college years, thanks to a required course in religion; for her, the gospel had been called into serious question. What brought her to faith was not reading the Bible, but reading the literary classics like Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: “Not until a literary work of art awakened my imaginative faculties could the possibility of a larger context than reason alone engage my mind. I had been expecting logical proof of something one was intended to recognize. What was needed was a way of seeing. I had to be transformed in the way that literature transforms by story, image, symbol before I could see the simple truths of the gospel.”70 Her imagination had been “baptized.” Cowan adds:
Above all else this seems to me the chief value of what we call the classics: they summon us to belief. They seize our imaginations and make us commit ourselves to the self-evident, which we have forgotten how to recognize…. Even for the things ordinarily considered certain, we moderns require proof. In this state of abstraction, we are cut off from the fullness of reality. Something has to reach into our hearts and impel us toward recognition.71
Existential Reasons for God
Part of being wise diagnosticians is discerning that may best help connect a person to the gospel. It may involve intellectual answers or it may include exposure to great works of literature or poetry. In addition, existential reasons may help open people’s eyes to the gospel. C.S. Lewis was known for giving intellectual reasons for the Christian faith, but he also included practical or existential reasons for embracing the gospel, pointing to the deepest human longings; this has been called “the argument from desire.” In the “Weight of Glory” essay, he appealed to a deep human longing in our hearts for “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”72
Along these lines, philosopher Clifford Williams presents a taxonomy of these deep longings as an existential argument for God.73 These deep, interrelated human longings readily connect to God and are clearly addressed and ultimately fulfilled in the gospel. These include the longing to be free from guilt and shame (forgiveness); security and significance; the desire for immortality; relief from the fear of death; the search for meaning and purpose.
According to Williams, there are five basic criteria for defining something as a need: (1) it must be felt by many others; (2) it must endure; (3) it must be significant; (4) it must be part of a constellation of connected needs; (5) it must be felt strongly. Or we could label them this way: ubiquity, permanency, substantiality, profundity, interrelationality, intensity.
This existentialist reason was how the former atheist Francis Spufford on why he left atheism behind:
[Atheism] turned out not to contain what my soul needed for nourishment in bad times. It was not any kind of philosophical process that led me out from disbelief. I had made a mess of things in my life, and I needed mercy, and to my astonishment, mercy was there. An experience of mercy, rather than an idea of it. And the rest followed from there. I felt my way back to Christianity, discovering through many surprises that the religion I remembered from my childhood looked different if you came to it as an adult with adult needs: not pretty, not small, not ridiculous, but tough and gigantic and marvellous.74
Dealing with Doubt
Dallas Willard points out that one great problem in the church is doubt,75 and apologetics is an appropriate response to it. But we must take care not to treat doubt-removal in a monolithic fashion. There are different types of doubt; we must diagnose doubt properly. Though the “treatment” for each will look different, we must not exclude overlapping treatments for two or more types of doubt. Here is at least a brief and partial taxonomy of doubt:
Intellectual: For honest intellectual doubts, the doubter should seek out intellectual responses. Part of the treatment for doubt should be pre-emptive: we must prepare for doubt before doubts appear, as they can often catch us by surprise. But we must remember that, even here, God is more interested in experiential knowledge of him—not just factual.
Emotional: Though it may mask as intellectual doubt, this type is due to certain insecurities, emotional pain, and psychological barriers—perhaps even the lack of a good father figure.76
Moral: Through immoral choices or preferences, doubts about God and the faith will naturally arise in the process of rationalization to justify those choices. Eroding confidence in one’s faith is not intellectual but is an attempt to relieve a nagging conscience.
Spiritual: Beyond intellectual wrestling is the wrestling against principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12), which is why we put on Christ and pray and trust in God’s promises. Satan is the accuser of the believer, who discourages and assails and seeks to undermine Christian assurance (Revelation 12:10).
Temperamental: There are some people who will doubt everything, including whether their mother loves them. If God is just another category of skepticism in a wide range of topics, keep this in perspective.
Existential: Deep loss or a crisis may shake us up and unsettle us. For example, in 1983, Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff lost his son to a mountain-climbing accident in Austria. He did not doubt the reality of God and could not shake the reality of gospel. But he wrote these reflections:
I am at an impasse, and you, O God, have brought me here. From my earliest days, I believed in you. I shared in the life of your people: in their prayers, in their work, in their songs, in their listening for your speech and their watching for your presence. For me your yoke was easy. On me your presence smiled.
Noon has darkened. As fast as [my wife could report] “He’s dead,” the light dimmed. And where are you in this darkness? I learned to spy you in the light. Here in this darkness I cannot find you…. Will my eyes adjust to this darkness? Will I find you in the dark —not in the streaks of light which remain, but in the darkness? Has anyone found you there? … Or in the dark, is it best to wait in silence?77
While we cannot fully address the diagnoses of doubt. The Christian apologist will also be engaging in a kind of pastoral care. This involves helping diagnose the doubts of individuals address their doubts on a case-by-case basis, treating each doubter individually, being quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19). Willard provides one general strategy for dealing with doubts: “believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts as well as to doubt your beliefs and believe your doubts,” which is how knowledge grows.78
Conclusion
To show the connection between apologetics and spiritual transformation and deification, we began with Augustine. We observed that apologetics is not a sledgehammer methodology. It is a corporate ministry of the church aimed to assist others in removing doubts—whether helping unbelievers enter God’s kingdom or aiding believers in their growth in Christ. Apologetics is, first, rooted in worship (setting Christ apart as Lord in our hearts), involves a transformed Christ-like character, calls us to being spiritual diagnosticians to discern where a person stands in relation to Christ, and to wisely point the way forward for their own new birth and spiritual transformation.
Bibliography
Augustine, Confessions.
——-. The Happy Life.
——-. Soliloquies.
——-. The Usefulness of Reason.
Baehr, Jason. The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues & Virtue Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Bauckham, Richard. Who Is God? Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020.
Copan, Paul. A Little Book for New Philosophers: Why and How To Study Philosophy. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016.
Copan, Paul, and Michael M. C. Reardon, eds. Transformed into the Same Image: Constructive Investigations into the Doctrine of Deification. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2024.
Courcelle, Pierre.Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin. Paris: Boccard, 1968.
Cowan, Louise. “The Importance of the Classics.” In An Invitation to the Classics. Ed. Louise Cowan and Os Guinness. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998.
Davids, Peter H. The First Epistle of Peter, New International Commentary on the New Testament, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.
Davis, Stephen T. God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997),
Dulles, Avery. A History of Christian Apologetics. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971.
Duriez, Colin. Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life. Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2008.
Everts, Don, and Doug Schaupp, I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008.
Ganssle, Gregory E. “Making the Gospel Connection.” In Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics. Eds. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012.
George, Francis Cardinal. The Difference God Makes (New York: Crossroad/Herder & Herder, 2009).
Grudem, Wayne. 1 Peter, Tyndale New Testament Commentary 17. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Jobes, Karen H. 1 Peter, Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022.
Justin (Martyr), Second Apology.
Keener, Craig S. 1 Peter: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024.
——-. “Lifestyle Apologetics and 1 Peter 3:15” (July 1, 2019). https://craigkeener.com/lifestyle-apologetics-and-1-peter-315/.
Lewis, C. S. “Is Theology Poetry?” In The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
——-. “The Weight of Glory,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949.
McGrath, Alister. “Evangelical Apologetics.” Bibliotheca Sacra 155: 617 (Jan.-Mar.1998): 3-10.
Moberly, R. W. L. Moberly. The Bible in a Disenchanted Age: The Enduring Possibility of Christian Faith. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.
Murray Michael. Reason for the Hope Within. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
Nichols, Doug. “Francis Schaeffer Slept Here.” Randy Alcorn webpage (May 26, 2009), https://www.epm.org/resources/2009/May/26/a-life-of-humility/.
O’Connell, Robert J. “The Riddle of Augustine’s ‘Confessions’: A Plotinian Key,” International Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1964): .
O’Meara, John J. The Young Augustine: An Introduction to the Confessions of St. Augustine, 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 1980.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600): The Christian Tradition, vol. 1. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1971.
Percy, Walker. “Physician as Novelist.” In Signposts in a Strange Land. Ed. Patrick Samway. New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1991.
Plantinga, Alvin “Natural Theology” In The Blackwell Companion to Metaphysics. Ed. Ernest Sosa and Jaegwon Kim. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Spufford, Francis (interview with Luis Rivas). “Q&A on ‘Impenitente [Unapologetic])” at http://unapologetic-book.tumblr.com/post/99715799639/qa-about-impenitente-english-version.
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ.
——-. On the Soul.
——-. Prescription of Heretics.
Teske, Roland, Paradoxes of Time in Saint Augustine. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1996.
Teselle, Eugene. Augustine the Theologian. New York: Herder & Herder, 1970.
Vitz, Paul C. “The Psychology of Atheism.” In The Naturalness of Belief. Ed. Paul Copan and Charles Taliaferro. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. Pages 175-195.
Willard, Dallas. The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2016.
Willard, Dallas. “Jesus the Logician,” Christian Scholar’s Review 28, no. 4 (1999): 605-614.
Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1990.
Williams, Clifford. Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible.↩︎
Michael Murray uses this term in the introduction to his edited book Reason for the Hope Within (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).↩︎
On the corporate aspect of deification, see Paul Copan and Michael M. C. Reardon, eds. Transformed into the Same Image: Constructive Investigations into the Doctrine of Deification (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2024).↩︎
John J. O’Meara, The Young Augustine: An Introduction to the Confessions of St. Augustine 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1980): “It even happened that Christian ministers were, after many years’ performance of their functions, discovered to have been Manichees all the time” (63).↩︎
On the soul’s corporeality, Tertullian wrote: “It is the Stoics I am speaking of, who will easily prove that the soul is a body, even though they almost agree with us in saying that the soul is a spirit” (On the Soul 5.2). Again, “Nothing lacks bodily existence but that which is non-existent” (On the Flesh of Christ 11).↩︎
Augustine, Confessions 7.1.1.↩︎
Augustine, Confessions, 7.1.2.↩︎
Augustine, Confessions 3.7.12.↩︎
Tertullian, Prescription of Heretics. 7.9↩︎
Tertullian declared, “Credibile est, quia ineptum est (On the Flesh of Christ 5.4). Although Tertullian is not necessarily arguing for the glories of irrationality, he has been understood—and not by accident—to have a dislike for philosophy. Roland Teske, Paradoxes of Time in Saint Augustine (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1996)], 70n.↩︎
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (The Christian Tradition, vol. 1) (Chicago: University Press, 1971), 49-50.↩︎
Robert J. O’Connell, “The Riddle of Augustine’s ‘Confessions’: A Plotinian Key,” International Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1964): 343 and note.↩︎
Augustine, The Happy Life 4.↩︎
Augustine, The Happy Life, 4.↩︎
Augustine, The Usefulness of Belief 1.2.↩︎
Eugene Teselle, Augustine the Theologian (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), 27.↩︎
Augustine, Confessions, 11.12.14.↩︎
Augustine, Confessions 11.12.14↩︎
Augustine, The Usefulness of Belief 1.2.↩︎
Augustine, Confessions 3.4.8.↩︎
Augustine, Confessions 3.4.8.↩︎
Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1990).↩︎
Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2016).↩︎
E.g., John 1:1-3; 20:28; Philippians 2:9-11 with Isa. 45:23.↩︎
Richard Bauckham, Who Is God? (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 35-60.↩︎
Thanks to Lee Strobel for this turn of phrase.↩︎
The quotations throughout this section are taken from Justin’s Second Apology.↩︎
Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter, Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), 230.↩︎
For examples of this less-formal sense of “defense,” consider Paul’s usage: “My defense to those who examine me [i.e., the legitimacy of Paul’s apostleship] is this” (1 Corinthians 9:3); “…what vindication of yourselves…” (2 Corinthians 7:11). See Jobes, 1 Peter, 230.↩︎
Peter H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter, New International Commentary on the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 131.↩︎
Jobes, 1 Peter, 230-231.↩︎
Wayne Grudem, 1 Peter TNTC 17 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 153.↩︎
Willard, Allure, 35.↩︎
Willard, Allure, 3.↩︎
Willard, Allure, 4.↩︎
Jobes, 1 Peter, 226.↩︎
Davids, First Epistle of Peter, 132.↩︎
Jobes, 1 Peter, 231.↩︎
Craig S. Keener, 1 Peter: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024),
262.↩︎
Keener, 1 Peter, 263.↩︎
Craig Keener, “Lifestyle Apologetics and 1 Peter 3:15” (July 1, 2019), https://craigkeener.com/lifestyle-apologetics-and-1-peter-315/.↩︎
Keener, “Lifestyle Apologetics.”↩︎
Keener, “Lifestyle Apologetics.”↩︎
Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2008), 175. Schaeffer’s humility was a notable character quality. Doug Nichols tells the story of Schaeffer’s arriving after hours for a conference, at which he was a guest speaker at an Operation Mobilization conference in London. Rather than announce he was a guest speaker, he asked where he could sleep, which turned out to be on a mattress—along with 50 other people sleeping on the floor as well. See “Francis Schaeffer Slept Here,” at Randy Alcorn’s blog page: “A Life of Humility” (May 26, 2009),, https://www.epm.org/resources/2009/May/26/a-life-of-humility/. Thanks to my wife Jacqueline for pointing me to this story.↩︎
Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2015), 9.↩︎
Avery Dulles, A History of Christian Apologetics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,1971), xvi.↩︎
Francis Cardinal George,The Difference God Makes (New York: Crossroad/Herder & Herder, 2009), 65.↩︎
See, for example, Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).↩︎
Willard, Allure, 13.↩︎
Willard, Allure, 14.↩︎
See R. W. L. Moberly, The Bible in a Disenchanted Age: The Enduring Possibility of Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 92.↩︎
Alvin Plantinga, “Natural Theology,” in The Blackwell Companion to Metaphysics, eds. Ernest Sosa and Jaegwon Kim (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 347.↩︎
C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 140.↩︎
See Jason Baehr, The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues & Virtue Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).↩︎
On the intellectual virtues of perseverance and courage, see Paul Copan, A Little Book for New Philosopher (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 83-93.↩︎
Dallas Willard, “Jesus the Logician,” Christian Scholar’s Review 28, no. 4 (1999): 605-614.↩︎
Alister McGrath, “Evangelical Apologetics,” Bibliotheca Sacra 155.617 (1998): 5.↩︎
See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).↩︎
McGrath, “Evangelical Apologetics,” 5↩︎
McGrath, “Evangelical Apologetics,” 6.↩︎
McGrath, 3-4.↩︎
This is taken from Gregory E. Ganssle, “Making the Gospel Connection,” in Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics, eds. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012), 6-7.↩︎
Walker Percy, “Physician as Novelist,” in Signposts in a Strange Land, ed., Patrick Samway (New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1991), 193-94.↩︎
Ganssle, “Making the Gospel Connection,” 14.↩︎
Ganssle, “Making the Gospel Connection,” 13-14. Note: I have slightly modified Ganssle’s chart and have put it into chart form.↩︎
Ganssle, “Making the Gospel Connection,” 6-7.↩︎
Stephen T. Davis, God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 4.↩︎
Similar to Ganssle’s chart, InterVarsity campus ministers Don Everts and Doug Schaupp discovered the following pattern as they sought to reach postmoderns for Christ. They discovered five basic thresholds needed to be crossed—again, a kind of Spirit-led sanctification process through different stages toward faith in Christ. I summarize it here:
Threshold #1: The move from distrust to trust. The postmodern learns to trust a believer., who has been living a faithful, authentic life. This is a crucial first step to establish.
Threshold #2: The move from complacency to curiosity: They start to become more interested in Jesus.
Threshold #3: The move from resistance to openness to change in their lives.
Threshold #4: The move from meandering to seeking. They become more active in seeking after good.
Threshold #5: The move into the kingdom of God itself through repentance and faith.
See Don Everts and Doug Schaupp, I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008).↩︎
Thanks to Nancy Pearcey this recounting of her story in a July 17, 2026 email.↩︎
See Louise Cowan, “The Importance of the Classics,” in Invitation to the Classics, eds. Louise Cowan and Os Guinness (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 20.↩︎
Cowan, “The Importance of the Classics,” 20.↩︎
C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 5.↩︎
Clifford Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011).↩︎
Luis Rivas with Francis Spufford, “Q&A on ‘Impenitente [Unapologetic])” at http://unapologetic-book.tumblr.com/post/99715799639/qa-about-impenitente-english-version↩︎
Willard, Allure of Gentleness, 25.↩︎
See Paul Vitz, “The Psychology of Atheism,” in The Naturalness of Belief, eds. Paul Copan and Charles Taliaferro (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 175-195.↩︎
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 67, 69.↩︎
Willard, Allure, 28.↩︎
Dr. Jacob Chengwei Feng 