Tacelli Ronald Keith - Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Pocket Handbook of

CHRISTIAN
APOLOGETICS

PETER KREEFT AND RONALD K. TACELLI

To Cyndi and Richwhat more could a brother ask for?

To John Kreeft who had a large role in shaping this book and a larger role in shaping one of its authors

Contents

Apologetics

Be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Pet 3:15). Apologetics is the enterprise of obeying that command.

Many people scorn apologetics because it seems very intellectual, abstract and rational. They contend that life and love and morality and sanctity are much more important than reason.

Those who reason this way are right; they just don't notice that they are reasoning. We can't avoid reasoning; we can only avoid doing it well.

Further, reason is a friend to faith (see chapter two).

Another, deeper reason why some people scorn apologetic reasoning is that they decide with their hearts much more than with their heads whether to believe or not. The heart is our center, not the head. But apologetics gets at the heart through the head. The head is important precisely because it is a gate to the heart. We can love only what we know.

Further, reason at least has veto power. We can't believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can't love what we believe to be unreal. Arguments may not bring you to faith, but they can certainly keep you away from faith. Therefore we must join the battle of arguments.

Arguments can bring you closer to faith in the same sense that a car can bring you to the sea. The car can't swim; you have to jump in to do that. But you can't jump in from a hundred miles inland. You need a car first to bring you to the point where you can make a leap of faith into the sea. Faith is a leap, but a leap in the light, not in the dark

We invite critics, skeptics, unbelievers and believers in other religions to dialogue with us and write to us-for the sake of our mutual pursuit of truth and for the (much less important) sake of improving future editions of this book. One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.

An introduction to apologetics usually deals with methodology. We do not. We believe that nowadays second-order questions of method often distract attention from first-order questions of truth. Our intent is to get "back to basics." We have no particular methodological ax to grind. We try to use commonsense standards of rationality and universally agreed principles of logic in all our arguing.

But we must say one thing about method: argumentation is a human enterprise that is embedded in a larger social and psychological context. This context includes (1) the total psyches of the two persons engaged in dialogue, (2) the relationship between the two persons, (3) the immediate situation in which they find themselves and (4) the larger social, cultural and historical situation surrounding them. Even national, political, racial and sexual factors influence the apologetic situation. One should not use the same arguments in discussion with a Muslim woman from Tehran that one would use with an Afri can American teenager from Los Angeles.

In other words, arguments are more like swords than bombs. It matters little who drops a bomb. But it matters enormously who wields a sword, for a sword is an extension of the swordsman. Thus, an argument in apologetics, when actually used in dialogue, is an extension of the arguer. The arguer's tone, sincerity, care, concern, listening and respect matter as much as his or her logic-probably more. The world was won for Christ not by arguments but by sanctity: "What you are speaks so loud, I can hardly hear what you say."

Apologetics is especially needed today, when the world stands at a triple crossroads and crisis.

Western civilization is for the first time in its history in danger of dying. The reason is spiritual. It is losing its life, its soul; that soul was the Christian faith. The infection killing it is not multiculturalism-other faiths-but the monoculturalism of secularism-no faith, no soul. The twentieth century has been marked by genocide, sexual chaos and money-worship. Unless all the prophets are liars, we are doomed unless we repent and "turn back the clock" (not technologically but spiritually).

We are not only in a civil, cultural crisis but also in a philosophical, intellectual one. Our crisis is "a crisis of truth" (to use Ralph Martin's title). Increasingly, the very idea of objective truth is being ignored, abandoned or attacked-especially by the educational and media establishments, who mold our minds. (See chapter fifteen for a defense of objective truth.)

The deepest level of our crisis is not cultural or intellectual but spiritual. At stake are the eternal souls of men and women for whom Christ died. Some think the end is near. We are skeptical of such predictions, but we know one thing with certainty: our civilization may last for another century, but you will not. You will soon stand naked in the light of God. You had better learn to love and seek that light while there is still time, so that it will be your joy and not your fear forever. It is unfashionable today to put such things in print-a fact that says volumes about the spiritual sanity of our ostrichlike age.

We confine ourselves in this book to the core beliefs common to all orthodox Christians-what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity." By mere we do not mean some abstract "lowest common denominator," but the heart or essence of the faith, as summarized in the Apostles' Creed. This ancient and unchanging core unites diverse believers with each other and against unbelievers within many churches and denominations as well as without. Liberal (or modernist or demythologist or revisionist) theologians will not like this book, especially its arguments for miracles, the reliability of Scripture, the reality of the resurrection, the divinity of Christ and the reality of heaven and hell. We invite them to join the self-confessed unbelievers in trying to refute these arguments. We also invite them to begin practicing more accurate "truth in labeling" in describing their own position.