HESITANT ABOUT PROOFS AND APOLOGETICS?

Many question the value of apologetics, the discipline that provides rational reasons-to-believe for the Christian faith, and ultimately, for the Bible upon which our faith rests. However, we are instructed to defend the faith (Jude 3) and also to provide the reasons why we believe:

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

One friend commented that he’s seen many come to faith without any rational grease to lubricate this transition. Although this may be true, many others require a mental shoehorn to ease them past the doubts and intellectual objections.

I’m not trying to argue for a salvation-by-rationality. Salvation is clearly of the Lord (2 Tim. 2:24-26) and entirely His free gift to us (Eph. 2:8-9). However, He has demonstrated that He’s not at all adverse to using argumentation (Acts 17:2-4; 18:4), wisdom (2 Tim. 3:15) and evidences (John 10:37; 20:31; Acts 1:3; 2:22; Hebrews 2:4) to accomplish His miraculous work of salvation.

Many have testified that the absence of a rationale for the faith allowed them to stray away. In Search for the Truth, scientist and creationist Bruce Malone wrote:

• Prior to graduation from college, I had not once been shown any of the scientific evidence for creation either in school or in church. Little wonder, that by the time I started my career [as a chemist], God had little relevance in my life. It wasn’t as though I had any animosity toward God or religion. It simply held no relevance to the world around me. This should be no surprise when the subject never came up in school and everything seemed to be explained without reference to a Creator.

However, the rational underpinning of the faith is also of paramount importance to those of us who already believe. I’ve been blessed with weakness-of-faith. My nature is fretful and doubting. Whenever a doubt entered into my anxious thought-life, I was never able to merely dismiss it. It was like an infection that had to be lanced and drained, or else it would spread. I couldn’t make-believe that it wasn’t there. It was just too painful. In this way, Christ coerced me to deal with these issues.

Although this process had been painful, I can now thank God for the weakness, because through it, He created in me understanding, assurance and strength. He has comforted me with His knowledge and has privileged me with something precious that I can pass on to others (2 Cor. 1:4). Consequently, I now enjoy going to atheist meetings and blogging in hostile environs. It gives me far more pleasure than playing tennis.

Although having this rational defense isn’t the faith itself, it serves as a protective shield for our spiritual life in the same way that the earth’s atmosphere shields us from dangerous rays, while it allows the beneficial rays to enter our lives (2 Cor. 10:4-5). To ignore this shield is to ignore the Bible, which gives us so many warnings against the power of bad teachings to corrupt faith and to draw many away from Christ.

It was for this reason that Paul required that elders possess a mastery of Scripture so that they would be able to refute false teachings that were leading people away from Christ:

• For an overseer… must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families... (Titus 1:7-1)

Paul also warned that false philosophies, when embraced, also had such power (Col. 2:8, 18-23). Jesus wasn’t a fear-monger, but He too warned His disciples against the corrosive doctrines of the religious leadership (Matthew 7:15; Mark 8:15).

When we ignore apologetics, we ignore the welfare of the Church and the commands of Scripture to defend the faith (Jude 3). Many had been devastated by reading the “DaVinci Code,” which suggested that the Bible was merely the product of political infighting, and that many other equally substantial candidates for canonical inclusion had been arbitrarily rejected. Fortunately, a number of able apologists came forth with books and DVDs to address this potent threat.

However, apologetics isn’t simply defensive – taking captive the challenges that come to us from science, psychology, history, and Biblical criticism, according to the Gospel – it’s also “offensive.” Apologetics also elucidates faith-building and God-glorifying intra-Biblical phenomena. For example, it illustrates how Christ has fulfilled prophecy. Regarding this, Jesus purposely prophesied to His struggling disciples about what would later occur so that “when it does happen, you will believe” (John 14:28-29).

They needed corroborating evidences, and so do we! When we lack these, we are easily muscled into silence by those who charge, “What right do you Christians have to tell believers in other religions that you have the truth and they don’t! That’s just arrogant. How do you presume that your religious experiences are any more valid than theirs? They also have their ‘revelations.” If we can’t argue that Christ is not only our life, but He’s also the truth – and there are many solid reasons to believe this – then their charge of “arrogance” remains.

Too often I’ve heard people say–-especially theistic evolutionists–-that “The Bible isn’t about proof but proclamation.” Of course, it is about proclamation, but it’s also about proof. Psalm 19 declares that the creation points to its Creator:

• The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)

All God’s creation speaks about Him. Therefore, when the skeptic demands that I show him proof of the Creation, I sometimes respond:

• We are surrounded by the proof. Wherever we look, we see evidence of our Creator. We see this evidence in life, DNA, and in every elegant, knowable, and immutable law of science. We see Him in the sunrise, in the planets, and in the sunset. We see Him in life and even in our own conscience.

This evidence is so compelling that we are “without excuse” for not believing:

• For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

I might be weak in faith and require more rational reassurances than most, but we all are weak to some extent. Our faith is always under construction (1 Peter 4:11), and construction sites are not very pretty.

Sadly, I’ve heard many testimonies claiming that youth leaders were simply too ill-equipped to answer the youths’ questions about the reasons for the faith. The youth have then concluded that there simply weren’t any and left the church.

Without the protective shield of evidences and proofs, we become highly vulnerable to the assaults of doubt. Jesus’ crucifixion caused His disciples to doubt and flee. However, Jesus restored them through the compelling proofs of His resurrection (Acts 1:3). Conversely, a rejection of apologetics becomes an invitation to hungry viruses to invade and to take us captive, instead of our fulfilling our mandate to take them captive:

• For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

If we fail to take these thoughts captive, they will certainly take us captive. A little leaven (yeast) will leaven the entire loaf of bread (Galatians 5:9).

None of us are above doubting (1 Cor. 10:13). Jesus promised that the power of false teachings and signs can be so overwhelming that even His chosen ones could be deceived (Matthew 24:11, 24). Indeed, He will not allow this to happen. However, don’t count on His protection if we reject one of His ordained means of protection.