The Purpose of Apologetics

Nathan Schneider, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, recently profiled the Christian philosopher/apologist William Lane Craig. I have never read Craig’s work, but the article seemed to present him fairly evenhandedly, considering the author’s clear lack of agreement with Craig on many issues. The broader thrust of the article is to give witness to the renewed Christian emphasis on philosophy as a discipline, of which Craig represents a prominent figure, and the fact that fairly orthodox Christians can now be found at posts at prestigious universities and not just the orthodox hotbeds. While it smacks of a certain “barbarians at the gate” warning to the Chronicle’s more liberal-minded audience, overall it represents the movement in conservative Christianity with some nuance.

But the question that I kept puzzling through as I read the article, and something I have thought about for some time in reading apologetic works, is pretty elemental to the whole endeavor: who is apologetics for? The article, I think, rightly points to the ways in which the more prominent Christian apologists seem to believe that their work will do more to encourage the flock than to save the lost. In other words, apologetics does not stand at the vanguard of Christianity’s efforts to convert the world, but as a rearguard action designed to keep the kids from leaving. Craig debates Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens not in order to convert them or the Freethinker members in attendance, but to encourage the Navigators in the audience that the Christian religion is not without reason.

This is not to demean apologetics in the least. It is vital to give children raised in the church some sense of the intellectual viability and robustness of the tradition in which they have been raised. To encourage them to not be afraid of science or history or theology. Amen for that. In the final lecture I gave to my classes at Kansas State I encouraged the Christians that I had taught, specifically, to really dive into intellectual exploration while at the university and seek out the Christian thinkers who have come before them when they feel challenged, and to not be afraid of a university system which can very often appear to be at odds with their faith. I pray that my encouragement struck a nerve for some of them.

Why I highlight this question of the audience for apologetics is because I used to believe that the skillful use of apologetics was the most effective form of evangelism, that one could quite literally argue a lost soul into the kingdom (and many lost souls unfortunately had to endure these efforts of mine). Now I find this to be ridiculous. It’s appeal to argumentative and academically-minded people like me is unassailable but it does not match the actual lived experience of many.

Most people, even very smart people, who come to faith in Christ do so not because they became convinced of the integrity of the New Testament canon and have studied the historical evidence for the resurrection, but because someone really loved them who was a Christian and the irresistible grace of God stirred them to declare that Christ was the risen Lord. Which is simply to say that our conversion is not a matter primarily of the mind, but one of the heart. Christianity is not about assenting to a list of propositions in the style of Aquinas’ Summa Theologia, but having an encounter with the crucified and resurrected Christ. Reading books about the canon and the resurrection and even Aquinas is great practice once you make the step of faith, but the movement usually goes in that direction.

So I applaud the work of men like Craig and eagerly read books that give testimony to the veracity of the Christian faith, but I try to remember always that it is God that saves, God that makes the heart new, replacing the heart of stone with a heart of flesh. It is not our arguments, our facility at debate, or the prestige of our degrees.