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Apologetics and Evangelism: Methods and Systems · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to the deep dive. Today we're embarking on a
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really crucial discussion, something right at the heart of
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Christian thought. It's about how followers of
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Christ explain and, you know, uphold their convictions.
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We call this practice apologetics.
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Right, giving a reason for the hope we have.
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Exactly. And this specific deep dive,
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we're calling it reformed thinking because we want to cut
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through some of the, well, the sheer amount of information out
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there on this there is a lot. Our goal is really to bring you
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the most relevant insights, maybe some surprising facts from
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the sources you've shared with us.
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He'll hopefully gain a clearer picture of the different ways
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Christians have historically and now defended the truth of their
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faith. So let's dig in.
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Sounds good and you know Christian apologetics this this
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practice of defending the faith it's not some modern invention
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at. All.
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No, it goes way back. Way back, it's been a constant
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part of Christian life, right from the New Testament.
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The foundation really is first. Peter 3.15.
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Always be ready. Always be ready to give an
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answer or defense and apologia in the Greek for the hope within
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you that's not just like a helpful tip.
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No, it's a command. It's a clear biblical
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imperative. It's set the precedent right
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from the start. It's this divine expectation
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that we can actually explain why we believe what we believe.
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And it's amazing how quickly that became necessary, wasn't
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it, for the early church? Immediately.
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They face challenges pretty much straight away, from inside, from
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outside. What were some of those early
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internal pressures that made defending the faith so vital?
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Well, the the brand new church was graveling with internal
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threats almost from day one. Maybe the biggest one early on
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was Gnosticism in its various forms.
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Ah, Gnosticism. That's a complex 1.
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It is, yeah, not one single system, more like a collection
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of beliefs, but they generally shared this radical dualism,
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meaning the spiritual world was seen as purely good, but the
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material world, the physical stuff, was inherently evil or
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flawed. OK.
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And that has some pretty big implications for basic Christian
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beliefs, right? Like creation?
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Huge implications. If matter is evil, then many
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Gnostics thought God being perfectly good couldn't have
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directly created this, you know, messy material world.
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So who did in their view? They came up with these ideas of
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lesser intermediary divine beings, sort of emanations from
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the true God who are responsible for creation.
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It pushed the good God away from the physical realm.
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So that directly contradicts Genesis where God calls creation
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good. What did it mean for
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understanding Jesus then if matter is bad?
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That's the crucial Christological point.
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If matter was evil, how could Christ, this divine being, truly
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take on a physical body? Right?
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So Gnostics often ended up concluding that Jesus only
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appeared to have a physical body.
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It's a view called dosatism, from the Greek word to seem.
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You just seemed human. Right.
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He was really a spirit, a divine messenger, bringing secret
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knowledge, the gnosis that you needed for salvation.
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This attacked everything really. Like the incarnation itself.
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Exactly The genuine humanity of his bodily resurrection, the
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whole idea of God taking on flesh, it undermined the core of
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the gospel. So apologists like Irenaeus had
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their work cut out for them. Absolutely.
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They spent a lot of effort defending the goodness of
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creation and the true nature of Christ, fully God and fully man,
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because the actual gospel message was on the line.
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So the church was really fighting for its own identity,
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its core message. What about challenges from
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outside, from the wider Roman world?
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Externally, yeah, it was kind of A2 front war.
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On one side you had unbelieving Jews.
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They shared the Old Testament scriptures, but not the
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conclusion about Jesus. Precisely so.
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Apologists like Justin Martyr, who was actually a convert from
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Pagan philosophy, interestingly wrote these detailed defenses.
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What was his approach? He painstakingly went through
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the Old Testament prophecies to show how Jesus fulfilled them.
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He was arguing for continuity, saying Christianity wasn't some
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weird new thing, but the actual culmination of God's plan
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revealed in the Hebrew scripture.
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Showing it was a fulfillment, not a rejection of Judaism.
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Exactly. And then on the other side you
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have the Pagan philosophers and just the general Roman
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worldview. Which must have found
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Christianity very strange, maybe even subversive.
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Oh, definitely. Thinkers like Celsus, a Greek
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philosopher for around the 2nd century, wrote these quite
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sophisticated critiques. What kind of things did he
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attack? He mocked the virgin birth, the
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resurrection, the whole idea of a God who would suffer.
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He saw Christian beliefs as irrational, maybe even dangerous
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to the social order. So how did Christians respond to
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that kind of intellectual attack?
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Well, apologists had to engage with those philosophical
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arguments. They had to show that Christian
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theology wasn't just based on blind faith, but was actually
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coherent, that it offered a better explanation for reality
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than the Pagan philosophies did. Making a rational case.
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Yes, and also pointing to the change lives of Christians, the
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ethics, the historical reality of Jesus.
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This whole period really saw the beginning of apologetic writing
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as we know it. OK, let's shift forward then,
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into the Middle Ages. Constantine comes along around
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313 AD. Christianity eventually gets
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official acceptance, even becomes dominant.
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You'd think maybe the need for apologetics would fade a bit.
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You might think so, but the need didn't disappear, it just
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changed shape. Even with wider acceptance, the
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intellectual task of showing the truth of Christianity remained.
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How did that look different? Well, you get major thinkers
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like Anselm in the 11th century, Thomas Aquinas in the 13th
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century. Their big project was often
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trying to demonstrate Christian truth using reason alone.
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Without necessarily quoting the Bible directly, why?
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It wasn't that they didn't value Scripture.
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They absolutely did. But they wanted to find common
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ground, a way to argue with people who didn't start by
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accepting the Bible's authority. Building a bridge using reason.
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Exactly. And this period really
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strengthened what we now call the classical evidential
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approach, using rational arguments to establish God's
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existence first before getting into specifically Christian
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claims. And this is where we get some of
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those famous arguments, like the cosmological and teleological
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ones. Precisely.
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Anselm is known for the ontological argument, trying to
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prove God from the very concept of God as the greatest
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conceivable being. Aquinas, heavily influenced by
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Aristotle, laid out his five ways.
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The five ways like the argument from causation.
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Yes, the cosmological argument. Everything that moves was moved
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by something else. Everything that exists has a
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cause, so you trace that back. You must eventually arrive at an
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unmoved mover, an uncaused first, 'cause that's God.
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And the teleological argument. That's the argument from design.
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You look at the order, the complexity, the apparent purpose
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in the universe, like an eye is clearly designed for seeing, and
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you infer there must be an intelligent designer behind it
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all. So these were arguments designed
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to appeal to just pure reason, accessible to anyone.
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That was the goal, to show that belief in God wasn't just a
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matter of faith, but something reason itself pointed towards
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based on observing the world. Were there specific challenges
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in the Middle Ages they were responding to with these
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arguments besides just general philosophical?
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Well, outright atheism was still pretty rare and frankly
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dangerous to profess openly. But there are definitely streams
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of skepticism. And significantly, the rise and
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spread of Islam presented a major intellectual and
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theological challenge. With his own sophisticated
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philosophy and theology. Absolutely.
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So there were debates, disputations and having
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arguments based on universal reason, not just scripture,
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became a really important tool. And engaging with Islamic
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thinkers and defending Christian distinctives.
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They were trying to build a logic case anyone could
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potentially accept. Okay, Fast forward again.
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We hit the 17th and 18th centuries and the Enlightenment.
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This sounds like a massive shift.
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Oh, it was seismic. A genuine epistemological
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revolution. A revolution in how people
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thought about knowledge itself. How so?
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The Enlightenment basically declared human reason as the
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primary, maybe even the only reliable source for knowledge.
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It pushed aside tradition, divine revelation, the Bible,
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church authority. So the human mind became the
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ultimate standard. Pretty much before this
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authority often rested elsewhere, the Enlightenment put
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the individual human mind and its rational power right at the
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top. If something couldn't be
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verified by reason or empirical observation, it was suspect.
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That sounds like bad news for traditional Christianity, with
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its miracles and mysteries. It was incredibly challenging.
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This period gave rise to what's called the magisterial use of
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reason. Magisterial like a magistrate, a
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judge. Exactly.
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Imagine human reason sitting on the Judges bench and the Bible
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or Christian doctrine is brought before it.
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Reason asks, Does this make sense to me?
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Is it rational according to my standards?
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And if the answer was no. Then it was considered perfectly
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acceptable, even necessary, to reject it.
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So things like the resurrection, miracles, the Trinity, these
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often didn't pass the Enlightenment's rationalistic
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tests. Leading to widespread rejection
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of biblical authority. A significant rejection, yes.
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And you saw the rise of things like deism.
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The clockmaker God idea. Right.
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God made the world wounded up like a clock and then just
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stepped back, letting it run according to natural laws
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without any intervention, no miracles, no personal
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involvement. That's a very different God from
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the God of the Bible. So Christian apologists suddenly
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face this huge task, defending faith in an age that prized
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reason above all else and was deeply skeptical of the
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supernatural. How did they even begin?
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It was tough, but you had figures like Thomas Reed in
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Scotland, William Paley in England, Joseph Butler.
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They didn't just give up, they fought back, arguing that
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Christianity was still reasonable, still rational, even
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by Enlightenment standards. How do they make that case?
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They pointed to historical evidence, especially for the
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resurrection. Paley famously used the
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Watchmaker analogy, a version of the design argument Butler
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argued from Analogy between the Natural world and Revelation.
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They tackled the arguments of skeptics like David Hume, who
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was very critical of miracles. Hume argued that uniform human
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experience against miracles always outweighs testimony for
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them, right. Yes, that was a major challenge
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they had to address. These apologists were trying to
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show that belief wasn't contrary to reason, but actually
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supported by it. When you looked at all the
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evidence, this whole period really shaped what we think of
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as traditional apologetics today.
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OK, that historical overview is really helpful to get a handle
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on the different approaches that developed.
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Bernard Ram's classification is a good starting point.
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He talked about 3 main families based on how they see faith and
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reason relating. Let's look at his system 1.
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Right. Rahm's first system puts the
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stress squarely on subjective religious experience.
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This often leads to what's called phydeism.
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Phydeism, faith, ISM basically. Essentially, yes.
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It characterizes belief as something held either without
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needing reason or evidence, or sometimes even consciously in
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spite of a lack of evidence. So belief doesn't come from
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arguments, but from what? An inner feeling.
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More like a direct personal encounter with God, or a deep
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inner conviction or intuition. For someone in this camp, that
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direct experience makes external proofs or logical arguments kind
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of unnecessary, maybe even irrelevant.
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If you feel God's presence, you don't need someone to prove he
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exists. That's the core idea.
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Think of someone like Sir and Kierkegaard.
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The father of existentialism. Right.
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He talked about the leap of faith, a passionate personal
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commitment that might not have a neat, rational explanation in
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the traditional sense. It's a commitment of the will,
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the whole person. Is Pascal sometimes put in this
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category too? Yeah, with his, The heart has
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its reasons. He is sometimes associated with
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it, yeah, because he emphasized the heart's role in knowing God.
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But Pascal's position is actually more complex.
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He did use irrational arguments too, but system One in its
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purest form is pretty negative towards traditional apologetics
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based on proofs. It prioritizes that inner faith.
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OK, so that's one extreme maybe then RAM system too sounds like
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the complete opposite. It stresses natural theology,
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it. Really is the polar opposite.
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The system has enormous confidence and human reasons
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ability to discover religious truth.
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So it argues that you can basically verify or demonstrate
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spiritual truths in a way similar to how you might prove
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scientific claims or mathematical theorems.
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Using logic and evidence. Exactly.
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It relies heavily on those philosophical arguments for
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God's existence we mentioned, the cosmological, the
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teleological, and also on historical evidence to back up
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Christianity specifically. Thomas Aquinas is the classic
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example here. So this approach really trusts
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reason to persuade people. Does it downplay faith or the
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Holy Spirit? It definitely puts a strong
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emphasis on reason's persuasive power, and looking at it, you
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might think it gives reason priority over faith, like you
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need intellectual conviction first.
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But, and this is crucial, the actual proponents of this view,
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classical and evidential apologists, consistently affirm
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that the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for real
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conversion. So the arguments don't save
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people on their own. Never.
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They fully acknowledge that without God working, without the
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Spirit opening someone's heart and mind, the best arguments in
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the world won't produce genuine faith.
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The arguments are tools the Spirit might use.
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But they aren't the cause of faith.
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OK, so system 1 is subjective experience, System 2 is reason
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in natural theology was RAM system 3A middle ground.
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It tries to be yes. It seeks a balance.
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It's starting point for apologetics isn't subjective
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experience, nor is it human reason alone.
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It's the objective truth of the Word of God.
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Revelation is the foundation. Precisely.
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Reason has a role, a very important one, but it operates
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under God's revelation. Its job is to understand and
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articulate what God has revealed, not to stand over it
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in judgement. And this system takes sin
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seriously. How it affects our thinking.
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Very much so. It acknowledges the noetic
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effects of sin. That's the theological term for
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sins, impact on the mind. It's blinding, distorting
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influence. Sin makes it hard for us to see
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spiritual truth clearly on our own.
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But it doesn't lead to total skepticism about knowing God.
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No, because it also affirms God's power to reveal Himself
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clearly, especially through the written scriptures and the Holy
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Spirit's work and overcoming sins effects, illuminating the
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mind to grasp that truth. This sounds very much in line
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with reformed theology. It absolutely is.
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You think of figures like Augustine, then Calvin, Abraham,
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Kuyper. They're all associated with this
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perspective. Faith comes first, rooted in
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God's revelation, and reason serves that faith.
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It's a reason working for Revelation.
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It seems like despite the different starting points and
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methods, there's a common thread emerging, especially between
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systems two and three, about God's role in the end.
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Yes. What's really important to see
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is that even those who champion the classical and evidential
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methods system 2 are explicit conversion.
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Real spiritual change will never happen without God's influence.
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The Holy Spirit is indispensable.
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Absolutely. No matter the method, arguments,
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evidence, whatever the spirits work is seen as necessary.
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The real difference is often boiled down to where you start
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with reason, with revelation, and how much capacity you think
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unaided human reason has. Especially after the fall.
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But the ultimate source of faith?
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That's consistently God. OK, ROM gives us the big
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families, but Stephen Cowan offers a more fine grained look
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at specific methods used today. Let's dive into those five.
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First, the classical method. Right.
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Cowan's categories get more specific.
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The classical method is often seen as like the standard
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approach. Think of popular apologists like
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Josh McDowell or Lee Strobel. Their work often fits this
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pattern. And you mentioned it has a 2
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step methodology. What's step one?
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Step one is all about establishing theism, the
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existence of a God, using natural theology.
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That means philosophical arguments from reason alone.
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The cosmological teleological arguments again.
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Exactly those kinds. The goal is to show that any
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rational person, just by thinking about the world, should
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conclude that some kind of powerful, transcendent being
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exists. You're not trying to prove the
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Christian God yet, just that a creator or first 'cause is
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rationally necessary, laying the groundwork.
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OK, so you establish God exists philosophically, then what's
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Step 2? Step 2 is presenting the
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historical evidence specifically for Christian theism.
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Now you bring in the arguments for the reliability of the
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Bible, the deity of Jesus, and especially the evidence for his
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resurrection. Ah, so step one makes belief in
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God plausible. Step 2 makes belief in the
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Christian God compelling. That's the idea.
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You distinguish Christianity from other forms of theism like
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Judaism or Islam or Deism, arguing it's the best
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explanation for the specific historical data, especially
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concerning Jesus. Does this method claim to offer
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absolute proof like mathematical certainty?
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Generally, no. Classical apologists usually
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talk in terms of probability. They argue that Christianity is
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the most credible worldview, the one that makes the most sense of
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all the evidence, philosophically and
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historically. It's about building a strong,
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highly probable case. And what about miracles?
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How do they fit in? Do they prove God?
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The typical classical viewers that you need to establish God's
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existence first before miracles make sense.
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Their line is often miracles cannot prove God, but God can
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prove miracles. Meaning once you accept a being
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powerful enough to create the universe exists than that being
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intervening in the universe, a miracle becomes plausible.
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Exactly. You need the possibility of a
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miracle worker before you can assess evidence for a specific
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miracle. We talked about the magisterial
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use of reason from the Enlightenment.
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How does the classical method view reason?
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They strongly reject that magisterial use where reason
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judges revelation. Instead, they advocate for a
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ministerial use of reason. Reason as a servant, not a
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master. Precisely.
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Reason operates under the authority of God and His
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revelation. It helps us understand,
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organize, and defend the faith, but it doesn't get to decide
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what's true. So they value reason highly, but
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they aren't rationalists. They don't think reason is the
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only path to truth, or that every single doctrine has to be
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proven solely by reason. How do they typically view
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science, say on origins? Generally, they're quite open to
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mainstream science. Many hold an old Earth view,
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seeing scientific findings about the age of the universe or
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biological development as compatible with Christian
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theism. They distinguish between
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scientific data and, say, a purely naturalistic
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philosophical interpretation of that data which rules out God
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from the start. William Lane Craig's a big name
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here. You mentioned this distinction
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between knowing and showing Christianity is true.
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Can you unpack that a bit? Yeah, Craig's distinction is
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helpful. He says a Christian primarily
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knows Christianity is true through the inner witness of the
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Holy Spirit. This is personal immediate self
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authenticating. It doesn't need arguments to be
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valid for the believer. But apologetics is about
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showing. Right.
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Showing Christianity to be true involves using logic, evidence,
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sound arguments, the tools of apologetics.
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The hope isn't that the arguments themselves create
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faith out of nothing, but that the Holy Spirit might use these
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arguments to clear away intellectual doubts or
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objections, making someone receptive to the gospel.
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So the arguments serve the Spirit's work.
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That's the framework. Besides Craig, you'd put RC
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Sprawl, Norman Geisler, JP Moreland in this classical camp.
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OK, that's classical. Next is the evidential method.
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Sounds similar, but there's a key difference about miracles.
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Yes, they share a lot reliance on history philosophy, but the
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core difference is indeed about miracles.
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Evidential is generally believe miracles don't have to
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presuppose God's existence first.
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Oh. How does that work?
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They argue that a unique event like the resurrection of Jesus,
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if the evidence for it is strong enough, can itself serve as
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powerful evidence pointing towards God's existence and his
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specific action in the world. So you don't need the 2 steps,
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you could just start with the evidence for the resurrection.
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Exactly. That's why it's often called a
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one step approach. The historical evidence for
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something like the resurrection can simultaneously suggest that
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God exists, that he acts, and that Christianity is the true
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form of theism all in one go. Without needing separate
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philosophical arguments first. Correct.
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They believe there's enough common ground, creation,
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conscience history to directly challenge unbelievers with
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historical data that supports Christian claims.
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Gary Habermas is probably the best known proponent, especially
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for his massive work compiling evidence for the resurrection.
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And like the classical guys, they still affirm the Holy
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Spirit's rule. Absolutely.
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Same conviction, arguments and evidence are tools potentially
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used by the Spirit, but conversion itself is God's work.
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OK, third on Callan's list, the cumulative case method.
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This sounds different. Again, inference to the best
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explanation. Yeah, it's still in the same
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broad family as classical and evidential relying on evidence,
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but the structure of the argument is different.
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It's less like a formal proof, more like building a case in
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court, or maybe a detective solving a mystery.
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It doesn't rely on one single deductive argument.
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Instead, it gathers many different lines of evidence,
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philosophical, historical, scientific, experiential, and
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weaves them together. Into one big picture.
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Exactly. The claim isn't necessarily this
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proves Christianity with certainty, but rather that
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Christianity makes better sense of all the evidence taken
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together than any competing worldview like naturalism or
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pantheism. So it's about explanatory power.
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What kind of evidence does it use?
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A whole range the existence and fine tuning of the universe, The
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existence of objective morality, human consciousness, religious
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experience, historical evidence for Jesus and the resurrection,
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the impact of Christianity, Lots of things.
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And no single piece is foundational.
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You can start anywhere. Pretty much you can tailor the
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starting point to the person you're talking to.
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If they're interested in morality, start there.
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If it's history, start there. It's more flexible.
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The model feels more like arguing from law or history than
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pure philosophy. Who's associated with this?
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You mentioned the CS Lewis earlier.
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Yes, Paul Feinberg is a key proponent, and CS Lewis is often
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seen as using this kind of reasoning.
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His own conversion seemed to be a gradual realization that
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Christianity just fit the facts of the world and human
22:29
experience better than atheism did.
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It wasn't one single argument, but the cumulative weight.
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And it uses tests for truth. Like what?
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Yeah, Things like, is the worldview internally consistent?
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Does it correspond to reality as we experience it?
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How comprehensive is it? Does it explain a wide range of
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data? Is it relatively simple?
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Can you actually live by it? Does it lead to positive
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outcomes? Does it require radically
22:54
throwing out everything else we think we know?
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Christianity, they argue, scores well on these tests.
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OK. That's three methods broadly in
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the evidence Reason camp. Now if it's something quite
23:02
different, the presuppositional method.
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Strong ties to reformed theology here.
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Very strong, developed primarily by Cornelius van 'til in the
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20th century. Really is a critique of
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classical apologetics from a staunchly Reformed Calvinistic
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perspective. He felt the classical method
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compromised too much. How so?
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What's the starting point for van 'til?
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The starting point is non negotiable.
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The Christian presupposes the truth of Christianity, the whole
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package, Triune God, infallible Bible.
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Right from the outset. You don't put your faith on hold
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or pretend neutrality to argue. The Bible is the ultimate
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authority, the lens through which you see everything else.
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Precisely. It's the interpretive framework
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for all reality, all facts, all reasoning.
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So a presuppositionalist won't agree to argue on some supposed
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neutral ground based only on reason or agreed facts, apart
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from God. So if you're not arguing from
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neutral ground, how do you argue with an unbeliever?
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What's the method? It's often called a
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transcendental argument. The claim is essentially that
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the very possibility of meaning, logic, morality, science,
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anything the unbeliever relies on to argue or live, actually
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presupposes the existence of the Christian God.
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So the unbeliever is borrowing Christian capital even to argue
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against Christianity. That's exactly the idea, Van
24:19
Till would say The unbeliever cannot argue, think, or live
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without presupposing God. The goal isn't to prove God
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exists in a vacuum, but to show the unbeliever that their own
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worldview utterly fails to account for reality, and that
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Christianity alone provides the necessary foundation for
24:35
knowledge, meaning, and morality.
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So it's an internal critique of the non Christian worldview
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showing its incoherence. Yes, showing it's inadequate and
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ultimately irrational that it can't make sense of the world or
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human experience. An atheist uses logic, but where
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does logic come from if not the mind of a rational God?
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They appeal to morality, but how can morality be objective
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without God? They're sawing off the branch
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they're sitting on. And this approach argues for
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certainty, not just probability. Definitely.
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It argues for the absolute certainty of Christian truth and
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the inherent irrationality and contradictoriness of all
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opposing worldviews. There's a very strong emphasis
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here on the effects of sin on the mind, the futility and
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darkness of the unbeliever's thinking.
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The noetic effects of sin are central.
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Very central. The idea is that the unbeliever
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isn't just lacking information, they are actively suppressing
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the truth of God. They inherently know because of
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sin. Romans 1 So logic alone won't
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fix that. You need the Word of God and the
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regenerating work of the Holy Spirit to overcome that
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blindness. Key names here are Van Till,
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John Frame, Greg Bonson. Those are the main figures, yes.
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It's a distinctly reformed approach.
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OK, 5th and finally Reformed epistemology, also connected to
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reformed thought, but newer. How does it differ?
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Yes, relatively newer, associated primarily with Alvin
25:56
Plantinga. It also reacts against that
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Enlightenment demand for proof for everything, but maybe takes
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a slightly different angle than presuppositionalism.
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What's its critique of the Enlightenment influence on
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apologetics? It suggests that Christians
26:08
sometimes made a mistake by trying to beat the Enlightenment
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at its own game, by feeling they had to provide rational proofs
26:14
for God's existence before belief could be considered
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rational. Reformed epistemology challenges
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that whole requirement. What's the core idea?
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The core idea is that belief in God can be properly basic.
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Properly basic meaning foundational doesn't need proof
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itself. Exactly.
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It means it's perfectly rational to believe in God without
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needing supporting arguments or evidence.
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Just like it's rational to believe in the external world,
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or believe you had breakfast this morning, or believe in
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other minds. These aren't things we typically
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prove. They're foundational beliefs
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that arise naturally in certain circumstances.
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So belief in God is like believing your senses are
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reliable. You don't need a philosophical
26:54
proof for it to be rational. That's the analogy Plantinga
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often uses. Belief in God, he argues, is
27:00
similar. Humans are created in such a way
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that under the right conditions, belief in God naturally forms in
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US. So it doesn't need to be based
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on other beliefs or arguments to be rational.
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What does this mean for apologetics then?
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Is the focus different? Yes, the focus tends to shift
27:16
more towards negative or defensive apologetics.
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The main job isn't necessarily to build positive arguments for
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God's existence to make belief rational, but rather to defeat
27:25
objections against belief in God to show that belief is not
27:29
irrational. Clearing away the obstacles
27:31
rather than building the whole foundation with arguments.
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Kind of, yes, And it connects strongly back to Calvin's idea
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of the senses, divinitatus. The sense of divinity that
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everyone has, an innate awareness of God.
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Right, Plantinga argues this innate sense is why belief in
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God can be properly basic. Unbelief, then, isn't just an
27:50
intellectual mistake. It's often seen as a result of
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sin disrupting or suppressing this natural awareness.
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So how might an apologist using this approach engage someone?
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Well, one suggestion from Kelly James Clark is more situational.
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Encourage people to put themselves in context where that
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census divinitatus is often triggered or felt more strongly.
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Like where? Like being out in nature, on a
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mountain, at the sea, or witnessing profound life events
28:16
like the birth of a child, a beautiful sunset, or facing
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difficult things like death or a crisis.
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The idea is that in those moments, the awareness of God
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might come closer to the surface, bypassing purely
28:28
intellectual defenses. Interesting.
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So key figures are our Plantinga Kelly, James Clark, maybe
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Nicholas Waltersdorf. Yes, those are the central
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figures in reformed epistemology.
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Wow. OK, so we've covered quite a
28:40
range from classical arguments to presuppositions to properly
28:45
basic beliefs. Looking back across all 5 of
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Cowan's methods, what are some key themes or distinctions that
28:52
really stand out? Well, the role of reason is
28:55
definitely a big one. You see it ranging from being
28:57
almost the primary tool for discovering truth about God in
29:00
classical and evidential methods.
29:02
To being seen as serving under revelation in System 3.
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To having its autonomous power seriously questioned due to sin
29:09
in presuppositional ISM, or maybe seen as not strictly
29:12
necessary for rational belief and reformed epistemology.
29:15
It's a spectrum. And the use of evidence follows
29:17
that doesn't. It it really does, is evidence
29:19
the foundation classical? Is it a direct pointer?
29:23
Evidential? Is it part of a cumulative case?
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Or is it secondary to your presupposed truth?
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Or maybe not needed for the belief to be rational in the 1st
29:30
place? How you view reason shapes how
29:33
you use evidence. But despite all these
29:36
differences in method and starting points, that thread
29:39
about the Holy Spirit seems persistent.
29:41
It's incredibly persistent, yes, almost across the board.
29:44
There's an acknowledgement, sometimes more explicit,
29:47
sometimes less, that arguments and evidence alone don't save.
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Genuine conversion requires the work of the Holy Spirit.
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Even if the methods differ on how much they integrate that
29:57
fact into the apologetic process itself, right?
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Presuppositional ISM and Reformed epistemology perhaps
30:04
make the spirits direct work and the problem of spiritual
30:07
blindness more central to their methodology, arguing that logic
30:11
alone can't overcome sins effects.
30:13
But the underlying theological point about the spirits
30:15
necessity is very widely shared. And that connects directly to
30:19
how seriously different methods take the noetic effects of sin.
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Exactly how much has sin messed up our thinking?
30:25
How capable are we on our own of reasoning our way to God?
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Presuppositional ISM puts that problem front and center,
30:32
arguing the unbelievers mind is fundamentally hostile and
30:34
suppressive of truth, which dictates a more confrontational
30:37
approach. Other methods might see more
30:40
potential for common ground through reason or evidence, even
30:43
while acknowledging sin's impact.
30:44
It's certainly been a journey through this wide landscape of
30:47
Christian apologetics today, from those first offenses in the
30:50
New Testament in early church right up to these quite complex
30:54
contemporary methods. Yeah, you really see how
30:57
defenders of the faith have wrestled with presenting
30:59
Christianity's truth, using reason, evidence, and
31:02
acknowledging spiritual realities, all within constantly
31:05
shifting intellectual climates. It definitely shows the the
31:09
depth of thought within the church over centuries.
31:12
A rich tradition of engaging the mind for the sake of the Gospel.
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So as you, our listener, consider everything we've
31:18
unpacked today, from Justin Martyr arguing with philosophers
31:22
to Aquinas's five ways to Van Till's presuppositions to
31:25
Plantinga's properly basic beliefs.
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Maybe think about this. Which of these approaches seems
31:31
to resonate most with your own understanding of God's
31:33
sovereignty, the authority of Scripture, and the spiritual
31:37
condition of humanity? And perhaps more practically,
31:40
why might that be, and how could it shape the way you talk about
31:43
your faith with others?