Answers to Common Objections to Evidential Apologetics (Part 2)
In the first article in this series, I argued for the importance of the search for the real historical evidence for the life of Jesus. But this inevitably leads to a series of objections that are commonly made to such a search.
First, is evidential apologetics just another attempt at “salvation by works”? In other words, rather than inviting us to accept the preaching of the gospel with a generous heart, are we being encouraged by the apologists to make our own way to Christian belief: to climb the ladder of the mind to God ourselves, rather than letting his Word and His Spirit lift us? However, there is no good reason to set at variance the work of human reason and the grace of the Holy Spirit in bringing sinners to conversion to Jesus Christ. After all, according to Scripture, the Holy Spirit is none other than the Spirit of “Truth” (Jn. 15:26-27; 16:12-15). As Evangelical philosopher E.J. Carnell once wrote in An Introduction to Christian Apologetics:
Technically speaking one never “argues” another into becoming a Christian. We gently refute error; then we preach the gospel, for men are saved by the power of the gospel. … When one defends his faith [or uses reason to share his faith] he is not in competition with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God draws men through the convicting power of evidence.
It is also unfair to charge “evidential apologetics” with being an attempt to use “coercive” argumentation to “impose” one’s over-arching belief structure or “metanarrative” on others, and to “compel” a commitment of faith. No wise defender of the classical apologetics would make such a claim, nor have such an intent. As New Testament historian John Dickson wrote in Jesus: A Short Life (2012): “History can only ever hope to provide ‘indications’ of the reality of Christian faith. It demonstrates that the story at the heart of the Gospels is neither a myth nor a fraud, but a broadly credible account of a short first-century life.” Evangelical apologist Dan Story manifests the limited aims of the authentic Christian apologist when he writes in Defending Your Faith:
If we do our job well, we will present such compelling evidence for Christianity that if one chooses to reject Jesus Christ, he will know why he is doing so. He will not be able to cite intellectual reasons because the overwhelming preponderance of evidence endorses Christianity. He will realize, however, that his rejection of the faith is based on his unwillingness to make the sacrifices that a commitment to Christ will ultimately convict him to do. His unbelief is ultimately moral and wilful [or at least non- rational, and emotionally based], not intellectual. Once he sees this, we have done our job as an apologist. And hopefully, the unbeliever will be ready to listen to why he needs Jesus Christ, and how Jesus will change his life if he will only let him.
Rational apologetics cannot compel the act of “faith” in the sense of “entrusting one’s whole self to God” (and who would even want to try? What good would such a surrender of faith be if it was merely a result of compulsion?), but apologetics can bring the sincere seeker to what philosophers call a “moral certainty” of the truth of many basic Christian beliefs about Jesus. This is the kind of certitude that law courts try to attain when they convict someone of a crime: converging lines of evidence that establish guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” This form of certitude was clearly evident in St. Peter’s first evangelistic homily. After recounting the eyewitness testimony to the miracles and the resurrection of Jesus, and to the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament that he fulfilled, St. Peter held these converging reasons as a solid basis for belief in the divine and messianic identity of Jesus Christ: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).
The claim by Christian apologists that they can enable us to believe with moral certainty is not necessarily a sign of a lack of intellectual humility. True humility is submission to reality in all its forms, whether apprehended by reason or by revelation (as opposed to prideful clinging to what one would prefer the truth to be); it is not the timidity of half-hearted conviction. As Evangelical theologian J.I. Packer once wrote in Knowing Christianity (1995):
Biblical religion is marked by a certainty about beliefs and duties. The diffidence and indefiniteness of conviction that thinks of itself as humility has no place or warrant in Scripture, where humility begins with taking God’s word about things. All through the Bible God’s servants appear as folk who know what God has told them and are living by that knowledge.
Some would argue that Scripture indicates the radical poverty of philosophical and evidential pathways to God, teaching us instead that the internal witness of the Holy Spirit is all that is really necessary to bring us to a personal conviction of God’s reality, and his love for us in Christ. To be sure, St. Paul warns us against the dangers of “philosophy and empty deceit”(Col. 2:8) — there is plenty of poorly conceived rational philosophy and historical research lurking about that does not harmonize with the Christian Faith ! But St. Paul certainly does not condemn all philosophical or evidential roads to God; he implicitly indicates some (Acts 14: 15-17; 17:27-28; Rom. 2:14-15) and explicitly attests to others (Rom. 1:18-21, I Cor 15: 3-14).
In I Corinthians 2:1-16, St. Paul states that he came to the Corinthians proclaiming God’s truth not in “plausible words of wisdom” and “the wisdom of men,” but by preaching the basic gospel, backed up by “demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” In his book Introducing Apologetics (2006), James E. Taylor sees in this a biblical testimony to a non-evidential, and equally valid path to belief in Christ:
If the Corinthians’ faith was based on demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power rather than on human wisdom, then it would seem that it was justified for them to hold their Christian beliefs on the basis of the former rather than the latter. The reality of God could have been made evident to them on the basis of their experience of the Holy Spirit’s power rather than on the basis of evidence of a propositional sort (the sort of evidence the evidentialist says is required for justified belief in God). Many Christian testimonies over the centuries would seem to support this.
To be sure, the way to conversion that involves a strong dose of rational apologetics is not necessarily the best way for all: in each particular case, that will depend upon the nature and extent of the intellectual obstacles in the way of conversion, the intellectual curiosity and capacity of the potential converts, and the moral and cultural circumstances involved. In Athens, on the Areopagus, St. Paul led up to the presentation of the gospel message with a philosophical preamble (Acts 17:22-28). But St. Paul evidently had good reason to use a different method with the Corinthians, for he says they were still “babes in Christ” whom he had originally fed “with milk, not solid food” (I Cor. 3:1), and they were now beset with a spirit of “jealousy and strife,” divided into disputing parties (I Cor. 3: 2-3; 1:17) — no doubt there was too much pride and self-assertion in Corinth manifesting itself in petty rationalizations of differing theologies. Saint Paul cuts through all this bickering with the preaching of the Word and the power of the Spirit.
Moreover, when St. Paul mentions the “demonstration of the Spirit and power” that backed up his preaching, we must not infer that he was speaking of a solely internal witness of the Spirit. This internal power of the Holy Spirit was externally manifest in conversions and the outpouring of extraordinary charisms upon the Corinthian Christians. That is precisely what made it a “demonstration” of the Spirit’s power, and corroborating evidence for the gospel he preached. After all, if it were an exclusively internal testimony of the Spirit, how would the Corinthians have known with assurance that it was the Spirit of God who was touching their hearts, rather than mere fantasy or wishful thinking? The life-changing conversions and the gifts of tongues, prophecy and healing were precisely the corroborating evidence needed to show that the power of the Spirit was at work in their midst. In fact, St. Paul alludes to this same internal-external demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power when he writes to the Romans: “ For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and by deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ” (Rom. 15:18-19).
A biblical passage frequently misunderstood in this regard is the story of the conversion of “doubting Thomas” in John 20:24-29. Jesus’ final words to Thomas are held by some to be an indication that it is better not to seek empirical evidence for Christian belief, but to trust in the risen Jesus without it: “Jesus said to him: ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe’” (v.29). However, this cannot be taken as teaching the superiority of “blind faith” over an evidentially grounded faith. New Testament scholar D.A. Carson explained this clearly in his book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (2005):
The point [of the whole passage] is that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical event, and the only access we have to historical events are through the original witnesses and the records they have left behind. Jesus graciously offered Thomas concrete evidence of his own resurrection, evidence so tangible that Thomas could not discount it. He believed and began to see something of the implications. But many others would come to faith in the resurrected Jesus who would not see him. The resurrected Jesus remained on this earth for only forty days before his ascension. He no longer accords the same sort of proof that he accorded to the first apostles and their friends, the “more than five hundred” of whom Paul writes (I Cor. 15:6). Yet their faith, too, is blessed: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Jn. 20:29) [cf. Lk. 10:23-24; believers who have seen Him with their own eyes are said to be “blessed” too].
But on what basis do [“those who have not seen”] come to faith? Is this merely an existential leap? Far from it. Verse 29 is integrally related to verses 30-31: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” In other words, later generations come to faith by means of the historical witness of the first generation, the generation that included Thomas. He saw and believed, and these things have been written so that we may believe too. Here, then, is emphasis not only on the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, but on the historical nature of that truth and the need for reliable witnesses to that truth and for faithful recording of that truth in written form.
In short, Jesus is not saying “Blessed are those who believe in my risen life with blind faith,” but “Blessed are those who, not having seen my risen and glorified life with their own bodily eyes, believe on the basis of the sure testimony of Thomas and the others who did see me.” This passage is not, therefore, a repudiation of the need for an evidential basis for faith in Christ, but an illustration and commendation of that foundation.
Finally, some commentators note that in our “postmodern,” age — so full of skepticism with regard to almost all forms of human knowledge — trying to make a case for the truth of the gospel story about Jesus based on a rational approach to the historical evidence is not liable to be either helpful or convincing. The postmodernist typically says: “Rational arguments go back and forth, and on and on endlessly, and therefore lead us to no sure knowledge. So don’t try to rationally demonstrate what you believe about Jesus: show me! Witness to me about your own personal experience of Jesus (for who can deny your own experience?), and show me the real difference it has made to your life. Then maybe I will try it for myself and see.”
No doubt, in today’s postmodern world very few will begin their journey to Jesus Christ with evidential apologetics. More likely the initial attraction will come from personal acquaintance with those whose lives exhibit the beauty of holiness, and the transformation that Christ brings to the human heart. For example, one of the most popular evidential apologists writing today, Lee Strobel, started on a journey to find the truth about Jesus of Nazareth primarily because he had seen what a tremendous difference faith in Christ had made in the life of his own wife.
Nevertheless, if the way of beauty and the way of holiness are often the first steps on the journey for many, the journey will remain incomplete — and its results will be unstable and insecure — if the seeker does not eventually do what Strobel did, and ground his faith also in the objective truth about who Jesus is and what he has said and done for our salvation. In today’s sceptical age, many seekers are not simply going to take the gospel stories of the life of Jesus as given fact, just because they are in the Bible. At some point, they are going to ask the obvious question: “How do we know that all this really happened?” Then, only if we have done our “homework” in evidential apologetics, or can at least recommend some good books (and a good web series!) on this subject, are we likely to be of much help to them.
Next time: How Shall We Proceed - And Which Scholars Can You Trust?
Robert Stackpole, STD
© The Mere Christian Fellowship, 2017
