Christian
Thought

Rick Wade graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a B.A. in
Communications (radio broadcasting) in 1986. He graduated ***** laude in
1990 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian
Thought (theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated
in a thesis on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry.

http://www.probe.org/content/view/839/64/

The Relevance of Christianity: An Apologetic

Written by Rick Wade

Although
truth is not ultimately determined by experience, the common experience
of humanity provides a point of contact for the Gospel. Even if such
matters are not persuasive by themselves, they might at least serve to
show that Christianity is relevant to our lives today.

Christianity strikes many people the same way, McGrath says. They
simply see no need for a religion that is 2000 years old and has had
its day. How is it relevant to them?

http://www.probe.org/content/view/839/64/


The Relevance of Christianity: An Apologetic



Written by Rick Wade

About the Author

Rick Wade graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a B.A. in
Communications (radio broadcasting) in 1986. He graduated ***** laude in
1990 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian
Thought (theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated
in a thesis on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry.





Christianity and Human Experience


In his book, Intellectuals Don't Need God and Other Modern Myths,
theologian Alister McGrath tells about his friend's stamp-collecting
hobby. His friend, he says, "is perfectly capable of telling me
everything I could possibly want to know about the watermarks of stamps
issued during the reign of Queen Victoria by the Caribbean islands of
Trinidad and Tobago. And while I have no doubt about the truth of what
he is telling me, I cannot help but feel that it is an utter
irrelevance to my life."{1}

Christianity strikes many people the same way, McGrath says. They
simply see no need for a religion that is 2000 years old and has had
its day. How is it relevant to them?

One of the duties of Christian apologetics is that of making a case for
the faith. We can prepare ourselves for such opportunities by
memorizing many facts about our faith, such as evidences for the
reliability of the Bible and the truth of the resurrection. We can
learn logical arguments such as those for the existence of God or the
logical consistency of Christian doctrines. While these are important
components, such things can seem very remote from people today. They
will not do much good in our apologetics if people are not listening.

This is why some Christian thinkers are now saying that before we can
show Christianity to be credible, we must first make it plausible. In
other words, we must get people's attention first by bringing
Christianity--at least in their thinking--into the position of being
possibly true.{2} We need to find those points of contact with people
that will encourage them to want to listen.

Why do we need to begin at such a basic level? A few reasons come to
mind. First, many people think religion has nothing important to say
regarding our public activities. So, in our daily lives religion is
only allowed a minor role at best. This attitude quickly affects how we
view our private lives as well. Second, many people hold that science
is the only worthwhile source of meaningful knowledge. This
often--although not necessarily--leads to a naturalistic worldview or
at least causes people to think like naturalists. Scientism and
naturalism seem to go hand-in-hand. Thus, in order to get a person's
attention, the first step we might need to take is to show him how
Christianity applies to his life's experience.{3}

Even though we are physically better off because of our scientific
knowledge applied through various technologies, are we better off all
around than before we had such things? I am not deriding the benefit of
science and technology; I am simply wondering about our spiritual and
moral health. Our society is trying to find itself. This is clearly
seen in current debates over important ethical and social issues. At
the root of our culture wars is the question, Who are we, and what are
we to be about? The age-old questions continue to haunt us: Where did I
come from? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? Where am I
going? With the loss of his exalted place in the universe following the
loss of a Christian world view, man now wonders what his place is. Am I
significant in a universe that sees me as just one more piece of cosmic
dust? Is there any intrinsic meaning to my existence? Or must I
determine for myself what my place and role will be?

In addition to apologetic arguments from logic and factual evidence, we
should also be prepared to answer questions such as these. We need to
let people know that in Christ are found answers to the major issues of
life. By doing this, we can engage people where they really live. We
can show them that God is not some abstract force separated from the
concerns of life, but "is intimately related to personal and human
needs."{4} As one writer put it, "God must be shown to be necessitated
or justified by practical or existential thinking."{5}

In this article I will address these three issues: meaning, morality,
and hope.{7} offers and contrast it with the Christian view.

The Matter of Meaning
Let us begin with the matter of meaning. The question What is the
meaning of life? might not be one which most people give serious
attention to. But a similar question is often heard, namely, What's the
point? When we look for the significance or the point of our
activities, we are wondering about their meaning. Reflective
individuals carry this idea further, wondering What's the point--or
what is the meaning--of it all? Although many people would argue that
life has no ultimate meaning, most people seem to expect it to. We
search for it in creativity, in helping others, in "finding ourselves,"
and in a variety of other ways.

The question of meaning encompasses other questions: Where did I come
from? What is the significance of the experiences of my life? What is
my overall purpose, and what should I be doing? Where is all this
heading?

The prevailing view in the West today, for all practical purposes, is
naturalism. This is not only the prevailing philosophy on college
campuses, but we have all been encouraged by the successes of science
to believe that if something is not scientific, it is not reliable.
Since science investigates the natural order, we tend to see nature as
all that is really important, or even as all that exists. This is
called scientific reductionism.

However, the scientific method is capable of dealing only with
quantitative matters: How much? How big? How far? How fast? Philosopher
Huston Smith has argued that, for all the achievements of science, it
is incapable of speaking to such important issues as values, purpose,
meaning, and quality.{8}

This focus on science is not meant to pick on this discipline, but to
point out that science cannot give answers to some of the major issues
of life. Moreover, if we go so far as to adopt naturalism as a world
view, we are really in a bind, for naturalism has no answers to give,
at least to the question of ultimate meaning. Naturalism says there was
no purpose for our coming into being; the only meaning we can have now
is that which we superimpose on our own lives; and we are all just
going back to the dust. If the universe is just a chance accident in
space and time; if living beings intrinsically are nothing more than
just so many molecules, no matter how marvelously arranged; if human
beings are merely cousins to trees, trapped on a planet caught
somewhere "between immensity and eternity," as Carl Sagan said; then
there is no meaning to life that we ourselves do not give to it. Being
finite, we are by nature incapable of providing ultimate meaning.

If we should seek to establish our own meanings, what is to guide us?
By what shall we measure such things? What if that which is meaningful
to me is offensive to you? Furthermore, what if the goals we pursue are
not capable of bearing the meaning we try to put into them? Many people
strive to move up the ladder, to attain the power and prestige that
they think will fulfill them, only to find that it's not all it's
cracked up to be. The possession of material goods defines many of our
lives. But how much is enough? Does the one with the most toys when he
dies really win? Or, as some have said, is it simply that the one who
dies with the most toys . . . still dies?

Thus, there is no ultimate meaning in a universe without God, and our
attempts at providing our own limited meanings often leave us looking
for more.

If naturalism is true, we should be able to shake off the fantasies of
our past and give up worrying about questions of ultimate meaning.
However, we continue to look for something bigger than ourselves,
something that will give our lives meaning. Christianity provides the
explanation. We are drawn toward the One who created us and imbues our
lives with meaning as part of His purposes. We are significant in
ourselves because He made us, and there is meaning in our daily
activities because that is the context in which we work out His
ambitions for us and our world. Recognizing the true God opens to us
the reality of value and meaning. The meaning of life is found when we
find our place in God's world.

The Matter of Morality
In his book, Can Man Live Without God, apologist Ravi Zacharias makes
this bold assertion: "Antitheism provides every reason to be immoral
and is bereft of any objective point of reference with which to condemn
any choice. Any antitheist who lives a moral life merely lives better
than his or her philosophy warrants."{9} What a bold thing to say! Is
Zacharias saying that all atheists (or antitheists, as he calls them)
are immoral? Not at all. But he is saying that atheism itself makes no
provision for fixed moral standards.

One very important aspect of being human is morality. A basic
understanding of the concept of right and wrong or good and bad is
fixed in our nature. We constantly evaluate actions and events--and
even people--as good or bad or, in some cases, neither. These are moral
evaluations. They are significant for our personal choices, and they
are critical to our participation in society.

In our culture today naturalism is the reigning public philosophy. Even
if many people claim to believe in God, practical naturalism (or
atheism) is the rule of the day. Regarding morality, the general
attitude seems to be that there is no moral code to which we all are
subject. We say in effect, I'll choose my morality, and you choose
yours. But if Zacharias is correct, naturalism (or atheism) provides no
solid foundation even for personal morality.

The question we might pose to an atheist (which could be directed at a
practical atheist as well) is this: How do you justify your own
actions? To that question the atheist could simply answer that he has
need no for justification apart from his own desires and needs. While I
think it is possible to argue that naturalism cannot be trusted to
provide a moral compass--even for one's own needs--we can bring the
real issue to the fore more quickly by asking two questions: How do you
justify your moral outrage at the actions of others in any given
instance? and, Do you expect others to take your objections seriously?
To expect someone to take my objections to his behavior seriously, I
must presuppose a moral standard that stands in authority above us all,
unless, of course, I think that I myself am that standard. But what
does that do to his right to determine his own morality? The atheist
sometimes wants to have it both ways. He wants to be his own
standard-maker. But is he willing to give this privilege to others?

Now, some atheist might respond that, of course, as a culture we have
to have laws in order to live together peacefully. Individuals are not
free to do anything they please; they have to obey the laws of society.
The well-known humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz believes that
"education, reason, science and democratic methods of persuasion" are
adequate for establishing our norms.{10} But there are educated people
who hold different beliefs. Intelligent reason has led people to
different conclusions. Science can not instruct us in morality. And in
a society where there are a variety of opinions about what is right and
wrong, how do we know which opinion is correct? Simple majority rule?
Sometimes the minority is in the right, as the issue of civil rights
has shown. No, Kurtz's reason, education, science, and democracy will
not do by themselves. They need to be informed by a higher law.

Besides all this, Kurtz has certain presupposed ideas about the proper
end of our laws. For example, does furthering the human race mean
giving everyone an equal opportunity? Or does it mean joining with
Hitler and seeking to exterminate the weak and inferior?

Naturalism provides no transcendent law that stands over all people at
all times to which we can appeal to establish a moral order. Nor is
there a solid basis upon which to complain when we are wronged.
Christianity, on the other hand, does provide a transcendent moral
structure and specific moral laws that serve to both restrain us and
protect us.

When the question of morality arises, atheists will often offer the
rebuttal that Christian morality is apparently not sufficient to lead
people into the "good life" because Christians have done some terrible
things to other people {and to each other) over the years. While it is
true that Christians have done some terrible things, there is nothing
in Christianity that requires it, and there are definite commands not
to do such things. The Christian who does evil goes against the
religion he or she professes. The atheist, however, can justify almost
any kind of activity since man becomes the measure of all things.
Again, this does not mean that all or even most atheists lead blatantly
immoral lives. It just means that they have no fixed point of reference
by which to establish laws or to condemn the actions of others.

Christianity not only provides a moral structure and specific moral
laws, it also provides for the power to do what is right. The atheist
is left on his own to do what is right. Those who submit to God also
have the Spirit to enable them to obey God's moral law.

There is turmoil in our society today as we try to decide all over
again what is good and what is evil. In our encounters with
non-believers, by tapping into the need we all have for a moral
structure suitable for both our preservation and our betterment, we can
pave the way for their consideration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Matter of Hope
You have likely heard the expression "hope against hope." It refers to
those times when there is no hope in sight, yet we keep on hoping
anyway. There is something within us--most of us, anyway--which
continues to see some possibility for good beyond a present crisis, or
at least causes us to long for it.

As we consider the role human experience can play in apologetics, we
should give serious attention to the question of hope because it
quickly finds a home in our souls. Few of us have absolutely no hope.
What worse state can we imagine than to have no hope at all? What we
are more likely to see than no hope at all is hope in things that are
not worthy. Nonetheless, the presence of hope in the darkest of places
is something with which we are all familiar.

Nowadays, however, hope seems to be in short supply. In spite of all
the glorious advances made in a number of areas of life, there is a
prevailing mood of unease. Americans seem to be scrambling for
something in which to put their confidence for the future.

For centuries the Western world found its hope in God, the One who was
working out His purposes toward a glorious end. But by the early part
of this century, naturalism had taken hold of the academy and then our
social consciousness as well.

From there, people went in different directions in their thinking.

Secular humanists took the optimistic route and declared their hope in
mankind. They continue to do so in spite of the fact that, in this
"enlightened" era, our means of advancing the cause of humanity include
aborting the unborn and helping the desperate kill themselves.
Education, reason, science, and democracy--the gods of humanism--have
yet to give us any real cause for hope.

Other people have grown cynical. With nothing more to hope in than what
they see around them, they have lost faith in everything. They do not
trust anyone anymore; they doubt that anyone can be truly virtuous; and
they have simply settled into hopelessness. {11} Still others of a more
philosophical bent have been drawn to atheistic existentialism, the
philosophy of despair, which declares that God is dead and with Him
that in which we once put our hope.{12}

A good illustration of someone trying to find something positive in the
loss of hope in the Christian God is found in Albert Camus' novel, The
Stranger.{13} The protagonist, Meursault, winds up in jail for the
senseless murder of a man on a beach. After his trial, as he is
awaiting either an appeal or his execution, Meursault is visited by a
chaplain who tries to get him to confess belief in God. Meursault
informs him that he does not have much time left, "and [he] wasn't
going to waste it on God."{14} Meursault angrily rejects all the priest
says. He believes that the fate of death to which everyone is subject
levels out everything people believe. One action is as good as another;
one way of life is as good as another.

After the priest leaves and Meursault has slept for awhile, he says
this as he considers his fate:

[I] felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great
gush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up
at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time,
the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the
universe. {15}

If there is no God out there, the best we can do is accept the reality
of our nothingness, and begin to make of ourselves whatever we can.
Like the bumper sticker I once saw which read, "I've been much happier
since I gave up hope." Previously Meursault had admitted being afraid,
and he had betrayed his own humanity when, after coolly thinking about
how death comes to everyone, and how it really does not matter when or
how one dies, the thought of a possible appeal brought a sudden rush of
joy through his body and brought tears to his eyes.{16} Now he bravely
faces a universe that does not care, and he feels free.

If anyone ever truly feels this way in real life, that person is the
exception rather than the rule. The word hopeless has negative
connotations; we do not normally think of it as a positive thing. The
atheistic existentialist must go against what appears to be the norm to
achieve this state of happiness in the face of a purposeless universe.

Of course, not all atheists will opt for Camus' philosophy. To some
extent, hope for the fulfillment of our various earthly ambitions fits
in with a naturalistic worldview. A boy can practice his swing with the
hope of doing better in the batter's box. A woman with the hope of
getting married can very likely see that hope fulfilled. A man may get
that promotion he hopes for by working hard. Yet frequently people find
that what they had hoped for fails to provide the fulfillment they
expected.

And what about hope for the future? Is there anything to hope for after
death? When old age creeps up and the elderly man reviews his life, is
there any hope that something will come of all the labors and
heartaches and wins and losses of his life? Was it all leading
somewhere? The most naturalism can allow is that our lives might
benefit others. But naturalism cannot of itself undergird such a hope.
An impersonal universe offers no rewards. And no one can predict what
the next generation will do with one's efforts. Besides, we might
wonder why we should worry about the benefit of others who, like
ourselves, are just pieces of cosmic dust. To take this even further,
naturalism can just as easily allow for the destruction of the weak and
the development of a master race as it can for an altruistic attitude
toward all people.

Of course, naturalism has nothing beyond the grave to offer the
individual him- or herself. There is no culmination, no reward, no
"Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21). You live, you do
your best (according to your own standards, of course), and you die.

Yet, we continue to hope. I wonder if the "hope [that] springs eternal"
is rooted within us in that "eternity" which is "set . . .in the hearts
of men"(Eccl. 3:11)? Or, maybe it stems from the knowledge we all have
of Deity, even though that knowledge might be warped by sin. An
inescapable awareness of something transcendent continually draws us
upward.

Christianity holds that the psychological reality of hope, and the
content of hope that does not fail, is found in Jesus who is our hope
(1 Tim. 1:1). Let us look at that in more detail.

The Answer Found in Jesus
One of the great benefits of addressing the matters of meaning,
morality, and hope in Christian apologetics is that they take us right
into the Gospel message. Our meaning is rooted in the personal God who
created us and is actively involved in our affairs. Lasting, objective
moral values to which we all are accountable and which serve to protect
us find their source in God's nature and will. And hope is what He sent
His Son to give us along with forgiveness and new life and a host of
other things.

Before looking at these issues more closely, I should address a couple
of potential objections to bringing human experience into apologetics.
One objection is that the apologist can quickly fall into selling the
faith by an appeal to the felt needs of consumeristic Americans. Such
needs are not always valid.

Another objection is that such matters are subjective. To appeal to
them is to become trapped in matters that are at best non-rational and
at worst irrational. Our consideration of Christianity should not be
based upon such flimsy foundations.

These problems can be avoided by concentrating on those aspects of our
experience which are universally shared. Someone has called these
"objective-subjective" matters. That is, they are subjective matters of
a kind shared by all of us by virtue of our membership in the human
race. The desire for moral order is something felt inwardly, but it is
a universal need. Faith is subjective, but the disposition to believe
is a universal one. Personal meaning also is an inward desire, but it
is one we all have.

Let us consider now the answers the Bible gives to the questions we're
considering.

Remember that one of the questions encompassed by the question of
meaning is, Where did I come from? In John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16-17,
and Hebrews 1:2 we learn that we were created by God through Jesus.
Furthermore, we learn from the examples of David and Jeremiah that God
created us and knows us individually (Ps. 139:13-16; Jer. 1:5). Unless
we are prepared to argue that we were made on a whim or maybe just for
sport--and nothing in Scripture indicates that God does anything like
that--we must conclude that He made us for a purpose.

The question, Is there meaning in the experiences of daily life?, is
answered by the understanding that God is working out His own purposes
in our lives (Phil. 2:12-13; Rom. 8:28; 9:11,17; Eph. 1:11).

Finally, to the questions, What is my purpose? and What should I be
doing?, Scripture teaches that I am to obey God's moral precepts (Jn.
14:23,24; 1 Jn. [entire book]), and that I am to participate in God's
work by doing the things He has given me to do in particular (Jn.
13:12-17; Eph. 2:10; 1 Pe. 4:10).

Regarding morality, the noble acts of people and the ravages of war are
understandable in light of our being created in God's image, on the one
hand, and corrupted by sin, on the other. Although we typically do not
think of Jesus as the law-giver as much as the exemplar of moral
goodness, this is not to say that He does not Himself define for us
what is good. Being fully God He shares the moral perfection of God the
Father. He also created us as moral creatures and planted in us the
awareness of right and wrong. Furthermore, His central position in the
plan of redemption--which was put into effect because of our
sin-induced estrangement from God--makes Him a focal point in the
matter of good and evil. Thus, in Jesus is found an understanding of
our consciousness of sin and judgment as well as the solution to the
crucial issue of guilt and forgiveness.

This is all too often forgotten in evangelical witness today. One
theologian has noted that the central theme of the Gospel is no longer
justification by faith, but the new life. But people know that they do
wrong, and they want to have the burden of guilt lifted. Many do this
by denying any kind of universal morality. All they have to do to
maintain a clear conscience, they think, is to be "true" to themselves.
But in practice this does not work. We react negatively when an
individual who is being "true" to himself does something mean to us. We
also know that others are justified in objecting to our actions that
are hurtful to them. Our moral outrage at the actions and words of
others betrays our sense that there is a moral law that transcends us.
Naturalism has no means of dealing with all this, but Jesus does.

I have already touched on the important place that hope occupies in the
Christian life. We have something specific to hope for, and in our walk
with Christ we can experience hope on the psychological level.

For the apostles Paul and Peter, hope finds its objective focal point
in the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 23:6; 24:14-15; 1 Pe. 1:3). For our
hope is eternal life (Titus 1:2; 3:7), and Jesus' resurrection is
objective, concrete evidence that the promise of eternal life is sure.
It is with the objective content of our hope in mind that Paul can say
the Gentiles had no hope and were without God in the world (Eph. 2:12).

The hope we have is not something we can see (Rom. 8:24-25); it is
waiting for us in heaven (Col. 1:5). Nonetheless it provides the
context for our joy today (Rom. 12:12). Hope is strengthened as we
learn what God has done in the past, and as we persevere in our
Christian walk (Rom. 15:4). As our faith grows and we experience the
joy and peace Jesus gives, our hope is brought alive (Rom. 15:13).
Rather than put our hope in earthly riches (1 Tim. 6:17), we put our
hope in the God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2).

In short, the answers to the questions of meaning, law, and hope--which
have no answers in naturalism -- are found in Jesus. These truths,
buttressed by the facts and logical consistency of Christianity, can be
a significant part of our case for the truth of Jesus Christ. Although
truth is not ultimately determined by experience, the common experience
of humanity provides a point of contact for the Gospel. Even if such
matters are not persuasive by themselves, they might at least serve to
show that Christianity is relevant to our lives today.

Notes


Alister McGrath, Intellectuals Don't Need God and Other Modern Myths
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 73.


This is a rather "low level" starting point, I admit, but coming to
faith is often a step-by-step process.


Not that the truth of the faith is subject to the individual's
experience, but that, being true, it does apply to them in their daily
lives.


C. Stephen Evans, Subjectivity and Religious Belief: An Historical,
Critical Study (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982),
7.


Ibid., 11.


Ravi Zacharias organizes his apologetic in Can Man Live Without God
(Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994) around these issues.


In this article I will use the terms "atheism" and "naturalism"
interchangeably.


Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, rev. ed. (Wheaton: Quest
Books, 1989), 83ff.


Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God (Dallas: Word Publishing,
1994), 32.


Paul Kurtz, "Do We Need God To Be Moral? A Debate," Free Inquiry,
Spring 1996, 7.


J.I. Packer and Thomas Howard, Christianity: The True Humanism (Waco,
Tex.: Word Books, 1985), 85.


See C. Stephen Evans, The Philosophy of Despair: Existentialism and the
Quest for Hope (Dallas: Probe Books, 1984). See also Meursault's final
soliloquy in Albert Camus, The Stranger (New York: Vintage Books,
1954), 151-54.


Albert Camus, The Stranger (New York: Vintage Books, 1954), 150.


Ibid., 150.


Ibid., 153-54.


Ibid., 143.

http://www.probe.org/content/view/839/64/


The Relevance of Christianity: An Apologetic



Written by Rick Wade

About the Author

Rick Wade graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a B.A. in
Communications (radio broadcasting) in 1986. He graduated ***** laude in
1990 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian
Thought (theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated
in a thesis on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry.

http://www.probe.org/content/view/839/64/


The Relevance of Christianity: An Apologetic



Written by Rick Wade

About the Author

Rick Wade graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a B.A. in
Communications (radio broadcasting) in 1986. He graduated ***** laude in
1990 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian
Thought (theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated
in a thesis on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry.