Ways to avoid ruining the opportunity to defend the faith (Part 2)
#2. Understand the basis for the defense.
1 Peter 3:15
15 but 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,
Gentleness and respect. How can we have gentleness and respect? First, it is key that we understand the basis for our arguments. Is our faith based on reason? Is our faith reasonable to begin with?
Is it illogical to demand religion to be reasonable?
1. We do not want a god that can be fully explained by human reason.
To demand that God be explained and proven by human reason would be an appetite for a God contained by our small mental faculties. If you used reason to fully explain and prove God, He would be so small as to be useless. He would be no God at all, for He would be smaller than His own creation. I want the real and infinite God.
The real God is supra-logical and supra-rational
Notice, I did not say illogical or irrational. The Scriptures are written to be reasoned through, because God is a reasonable God. Yet God is also beyond our reason (Isaiah 55:8-9). This itself is a reasonable claim, because by very definition, God must be infinite and thus above creation. Any time a finite mind tries to mentally grasp the infinite God, there will be a point of intersection where the finite is unable to comprehend the vastness of the nature of God. Some call it a mystery. Some say it is illogical. But I believe it is the expected chasm between God’s infinite nature and man’s finite understanding.
Therefore, God must speak.
For those wanting to reason their way into believing God exists, I think they will either become convinced by incomplete arguments (not taking into account the totality of the reasoning), or they will become discouraged. God will not be proved or fully explained by reason (though God can and does sovereignly use reasoning to bring men to Himself). This is not to say that there is no place for reason, but rather that reason itself is not the proper instrument to use in order to find God. How then can we know God? God Himself must speak to us, for He alone can testify to Himself without limiting Himself. God has done so by His Word, both written and incarnate (John 1:1-14). The inerrancy of the Word and the historicity of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ become crucial. These must be understood and defended in order to truly defend the faith’s foundations.
What happened to being open minded?
It never left. On a fundamental level, a person’s worldview can be classified as theocentric (God-centered) or anthropocentric (man-centered). This worldview permeates his or her vision and affects the way basic facts are interpreted. Having an open mind should not preclude worldview analysis. Once we understand that their arguments are built on presuppositions founded in their worldview, we see that some of the demands and arguments are worthless. The theocentric worldview can not be forced to conform to the demands of the anthropocentric worldview, because they are, on the deepest level, at odds with each other. This in no way should keep anyone from questioning the key points of the Christians faith. This should not eliminate debate and exchanges between both sides of the aisle, but it should bring greater understanding to the defenses given. Presuppositional apologetics has been a turning point in my defense of my faith (and a note of thanks to Dr. Harry Reeder, who has patiently worked me through some of these very issues).
How should this affect my defense of the faith?
Misunderstanding the view of the opposing side spawns tension and miscommunication, leading to an ineffective defense. We can better defend the faith when we understand the grounds the arguments are rooted in.
Father, I want to be able to defend the reason for the hope that is in me, yet I can not do it with gentleness and respect unless I understand the grounds for my own faith as well as the worldview of the lost. Please grant me a love for their heart, not a mere desire to win arguments.
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Related posts:
- Ways to avoid ruining the opportunity to defend the faith
- Apologetics Is Not For Convincing Atheists
- My Battle with Skepticism