What Is the Overall Apologetic Task?

The ultimate goal of every Christian is to give a clear answer or defense (apologia) to anyone who asks about the Christian faith (1 Peter 3:15). In addition, because apologetics exists to aid and serve the gospel, this goal also involves presenting a positive case for Christianity, in much the same way that a lawyer argues his case in a courtroom. The process of achieving this goal is known collectively as the “apologetic task.” From a classical point of view, accomplishing this task involves building an argument from the ground up in three successive steps.

These foundational steps, in logical order, include:

(1) philosophical foundation,

(2) theological foundation, and

(3) evidential foundation (some combine steps 1 and 2 together under one heading as worldview considerations).

Each step of the task treats various issues crucial to offering both a defense of and a convincing case for Christianity.

To be clear, this is not a particular argument we are after here, but an attempt to consider the big-picture progression of ideas and the crucial issues that support the overall argument for Christianity itself. Arriving at incorrect conclusions for any one of these topics below may hinder a person’s understanding and receiving of the gospel.

The following chart illustrates the progression of the steps and the topics involved.

Step 1: Philosophical Foundation

The first point to recognize in our apologetic task is that not everyone holds the same worldview (the lens through which a person interprets reality).

Some have claimed there are as many worldviews as there are people in the world! That is to say, each person has a set of glasses through which he or she makes sense of their life, data, and experiences. Sometimes this is why it is a challenge to get others to intellectually understand the gospel message. Everyone relies on his or her own assumptions, whether right or wrong, to help make sense of the world. Therefore, Steps 1 and 2 address the unbeliever’s worldview.

This difficulty led Francis Schaeffer to coin the term pre-evangelism to refer to the work that needs to be done with regard to an unbeliever’s worldview prior to receiving the gospel. To be clear, we always want to give the simple gospel message first! However, when objections arise and a chronic refusal to receive Christ occurs, there may be worldview obstacles  that are hindering that person’s understanding of what he might think is possible or intelligible. At this point, it is best to discern what exactly is hindering their progress towards Jesus. Most often, unbelievers go wrong in at least one of the three steps. Ultimately, we want to be sure thei worldview is not holding back faith in Christ because of misunderstandings or incorrect conclusions. Steps 1 and 2 of the task are designed to address these issues. These include topics relating to the nature and knowability of truth (absolute or relative?), the laws of logic (rules of thought?), reality/being (does something exist?), logic (rules of thought?), and meaning (objective or cultural?).

The answers to these crucial issues can make a big difference in helping an unbeliever be able to accept what is true when it comes to considering Christianity. For example, if a person views truth as relative, then any reference to the gospel “truth” would seem like nonsense (or at least be viewed as having equal status with other mutually exclusive views) because you are merely stating your personal opinion.

Moreover, any absolute truth claims you may utter to a relativist will fall on deaf ears because the notion of absolutes (i.e., true for all people, at all times, in all places) is nonsense to him. Given that perspective, it woul seem impossible for an unbeliever to ever receive your case for Christianity as “the truth.” To be effective, it is best to treat the problem issues first, thus removing (with the help of the Holy Spirit) intellectual obstacles to faith (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). For instance, to remove the obstacle of absolute truth, you need only to explain that truth is undeniable, meaning that when a

person tries to deny truth he actually affirms it. The same is undeniably true with logic, knowledge, meaning, absolutes, and other first principles in Step 1 that form the bedrock to any worldview. Any attempt to altogether deny or relativize the topics in Step 1 is tantamount to affirming them. That is, to claim that “Logic doesn’t exist” uses logic to deny logic! And the statement “There is no meaning” is itself a meaningful statement! Likewise, to deny your own existence implies your very existence, because you would have to exist in order to deny your existence—hence something undeniably exists.

The next logical question, then, is this: “How did we get here?” By helping the lost sort out the most fundamental issues in their worldview, you are clearing an intellectual pathway to faith in Christ and a proper interpretation of the evidence in Step 3. After demonstrating that the basic philosophical topics in Step 1 are undeniable, you can then move on to the theological foundation of one’s worldview (Step 2).

Step 2: Theological Foundation

It is important to deal with Step 1 prior to Step 2, for only then can you make use of the undeniable tenets such as truth, logic, knowledge, meaning, and being.

Step 2 addresses questions relating to (1) God’s existence, (2) the possibility of miracles, and (3) the problem of evil.

Answering each question in this section has the potential for a broad life-changing impact, which is why we call these “macro issues.” The logic behind this step is to help the lost sort through questions pertaining to God with a view toward helping them interpret the tangible evidence presented in Step 3 (evidential foundation), thus hopefully drawing them closer to receiving Christ as Savior.

To begin, acknowledging God’s existence is critical to eventually receiving Christ. To offer Christ as the “Son of God” in Step 3 presupposes there is a real God who has a Son. It would make no sense to speak of the Son of God if God did not exist. The same fate is true for the Word of God (Bible), acts of God (miracles), and the people of God (church). Christianity would utterly break down if God did not exist, nor would Christianity be convincing in the mind of the skeptic!

Traditionally, the material world has offered strong support for the existence of God. Paul asserted in Romans 1:19-20 that we can know something about God through His creation. This has fostered various arguments for His existence. Among them are the cosmological argument (reasons from the universe as an effect to a First Cause), teleological argument (reasons from design in the universe to a Designer), moral argument (reasons from moral law to a moral Legislator or Lawgiver), the argument from motion (reasons from motion in the universe to a First Mover), and the anthropological argument (reasons from intelligent beings to an Intelligent Cause). Christians recognize God as the cause responsible for all the effects seen in creation.

Following closely on the matter of God’s existence comes the question of miracles—namely, whether a supernatural event could occur in a world governed by the regular laws of nature. This question has an immediate  bearing on the believability of numerous supernatural events mentioned in Scripture, including the incarnation and the crowning proof of Christianity, the physical resurrection of Christ. Furthermore, the importance of miracles, signs, and wonders rests in the purpose they serve as direct confirmations of God’s message (Acts 2:22; Hebrews 2:3-4).

Some have a difficult time believing in miracles because they assume the laws of nature (such as gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc.) are regular, fixed, and cannot be violated (e.g., David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Benedict de Spinoza). In the past, some have viewed these laws as mandating the way the universe must unalterably operate at all times. If this is the case, then miracles are closed off from our world, which is seen to act like a rigid machine. However, for Christians, a better way to understand the laws of nature is to recognize that they are flexible and merely descriptive of the way the universe usually or normally operates.[1] If that is true, then it would be possible for miracles to occur as exceptions to the laws of nature (not violations of).

And if God does in fact exist, then miracles (acts) of God are possible. There is no reason to doubt the possibility of miracles if there is a God who can act. Within Step 2, an additional sticking point often surfaces in the mind of the skeptic—namely, the problem of evil, which is generally addressed as a subset under God’s existence, known as theodicy. Though there are many challenging questions relating to the matter of evil, the most fundamental objection is this: “If God is good and loving, why does He allow evil to occur?” This question implies that God is to blame for evil, and that He is not as good or loving as He claims to be.

Christians have traditionally pointed out that God gave humans free will, and thus He took a risk—He knew that evil could arise through the misuse of free will. As for why God permitted evil, the answer to the question may be surprisingly simple. Perhaps God allowed evil to occur for the same reason good and loving parents allow their young children to play outside knowing the risks involved, such as the possibility of injury. The alternative is to not allow children to play at all so that injury cannot occur.

What kind of life would that be for the child? That would probably foster more psychological evils as a result!

To put it another way, it is likely that God made evil possible by giving free will, but people make evil actual by misusing that freedom. In this case, God is only the indirect cause of evil, whereas we are the direct and immediate cause of evil through our choices. If that’s true, then blaming God for evil would be like blaming Henry Ford for all auto accidents!

But why does God allow evil to continue today? Its allowance would seem to portray God as lacking the power (impotent) or desire (malevolent indifference) to eliminate evil. However, because evil emerges from a misuse of free choice, the only way to stop its occurrence among free creatures would be to remove freedom. This remedy would indeed remove evil, but it would also abolish the possibility of salvation, since it too is gained by freely receiving Christ. It seems best to allow evil and salvation (good) to coexist until God sorts it out in the future. It is better that evil exists and some people are being saved, than no evil existing and nobody being saved.

Using the problem of evil as an argument against God is dangerous for the skeptic, since, ironically, this problem can turn into an argument in favor of God’s existence. No one could claim that something is evil if they had no absolute standard of good to measure it by. To put it another way, as former atheist C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity, you cannot call a line crooked unless you have, at the same time, an absolute standard (of a straight line) to measure it by. That is to say, no one can claim the world is getting worse if they do not have an absolute moral standard beyond the world of what is best.

Step 3: Evidential Foundation

The final step in clearing away obstacles to faith and presenting a clear case for Christianity involves evaluating tangible evidence. Evidence shows tangible consistency between the Bible and the real world, offering empirical support of the tenets of faith. However, many Christians become frustrated when the evidence itself does not convince a skeptic. At this point, more often than not, we recognize that there are deeper issues at play in how skeptics interpret the evidence. Atheists, pantheists, and Christian theists clearly arrive at different conclusions after viewing the same data.

This is because evidence does not come with instructions on how to interpret the evidence. Interpretation is provided by one’s worldview (which is why Steps 1 and 2 are crucial).

We are fortunate to live in an era in which there is an abundance of evidence to support Christianity, Jesus, and the Scriptures.

The important topics in Step 3 are (1) the textual reliability of the New Testament, (2) the historical reliability of the New Testament, (3) the deity of Christ, and (4) His physical resurrection from the dead.[2] Though there are fuller explanations of these four topics in the chapters of this work, let’s take a brief look at the different kinds of evidence so we can understand how they flow with our three-step process.

The textual reliability of the New Testament is overwhelming! A key factor in determining whether Christianity is true is evaluating whether the biblical manuscripts are an accurate representation of the original texts.

How can we know that an ancient document has been transmitted or copied accurately? In simple terms, scholars analyze two important clues: (1) the number of manuscripts available (more copies to compare to arrive at what the original text said), and (2) the dates of the manuscripts (the earlier the better, which means less chance for myth and embellishment to enter the text).

For example, scholars today have about 1,850 manuscript copies of Homer’s Iliad, with a gap of about 400-500 years between the original composition and our oldest copy. Many other works from ancient history, such as Plato and Aristotle’s, have not fared better, often having more than a 1,000-year gap between the original and the oldest existing copy, with less than two dozen manuscripts of each.

So how does the New Testament stack up in this ancient competition?

We have nearly 30,000 New Testament manuscripts in various languages (versions). Of these, more than 5,800 are in the Greek language, with the oldest verified copy (fragment) of a New Testament document from the Gospel of John, with a gap of fewer than 50 years from the original composition.[3]

No other ancient text comes close to the quantity or early dates of New Testament manuscripts. Based on comparisons of the many manuscripts accompanied by early dates, scholars have estimated that the New Testament documents have been copied with about 99.5+ percent accuracy to the original. Thus, we have more copies of the New Testament, and they are closer timewise to the original Bible than any other ancient document is to their original work, and

copied at the greatest percentage of accuracy.[4] This makes it relatively easy to render the Scriptures in the English language as a faithful representation of the original Bible.

The historical reliability of the New Testament is equally impressive. Archaeological and historical data have collected an impressive array of finds in the last one hundred years. To date, nearly 100 people mentioned in the Old and New Testaments have been confirmed through historical and archaeological sources.[5] Even Jesus of Nazareth is attested to in nearly a dozen nonbiblical literary sources, often written by unbelievers. This evidence includes the controversial James Ossuary (an ossuary is a small stone box in which the bones of the deceased were placed) bearing the names of Jesus, James, and Joseph.[6]

What is more, dozens of geographical markers in the Bible have been identified; including the Temple Mount area, pools of Bethesda (John 5) and Siloam (John 9), and many other locations.[7] This is remarkable in spite of the fact that only 1 percent of all the sites in the Holy Land have been excavated!

The deity of Christ (incarnation) is an important topic in Step 3.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus said and did things that are only appropriate for God to say and do. For example, Jesus forgave sins and described Himself in unmistakable terms of deity (John 8:58; cf. Exodus 3:14). In Scripture, the titles used of Jehovah are also applied to Christ, and He received worship from His followers.

Many important attributes of God listed in the Old Testament are used of Jesus in the New Testament.

Attribute	Old Testament	New Testament
Shepherd	Psalm 23:1	John 10:11
First and last	Isaiah 44:6	Revelation 1:17
Judge	Joel 3:12	Matthew 35:31f.
Bridegroom	Isaiah 62:5	Matthew 25:1
Light	Psalm 27	1 John 8:12
Savior	Isaiah 43:11	John 4:42
God’s glory	Isaiah 42:8	John 17:5
Giver of life	1 Samuel 2:6	John 5:21

Christ’s status as the incarnated God-man (Greek, theanthropos—Joh 1:14) is crucial to apologetics, since He uniquely possessed two distinct natures (divine and human) in one person (the Son). This uniquely qualified Jesus to be the perfect human offering for the sins of the world (representing mankind, the offender). He also had a divine nature, making it possible for Him to remove sin, serve as a mediator, and live as the very expression of God Himself. Therefore, any sound defense of the faith should be Christocentric.

In addition, Christians have long recognized the physical resurrection of Christ as the central miracle claim in the New Testament. It has been said that the resurrection is the capstone in the arch of Christianity; if it is removed, all else crumbles.

There are several lines of evidence that support  the resurrection as historical fact. They include:

1. Jesus’s burial tomb was found empty.

2. Jesus was seen by 500 witnesses, most of which (at least 250) were still alive when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15:1-7.

3. Jesus offered Himself to be touched, and was seen on several occasions after the resurrection, including by the apostles (Luke 24; John 20–21).

4. Mary encountered the resurrected Lord at the tomb (John 20).

5. The apostles’ lives were changed. They were transformed from cowards into lions for their faith and message, eventually being martyred for their faith.

6. The lives of some of Jesus’s critics were changed. Saul (also known as Paul) and James, the brother of Jesus, were known skeptics of Jesus during His lifetime. After Jesus’s death, they became leaders of the new church.[8] People will die for what they believe is true, not for what they know is false.

7. Something radical occurred to immediately change the long-standing dietary restrictions (kosher to nonkosher) and worship habits (Saturday to Sunday) of the apostles and early Jewish followers of Christ. The resurrection is the best explanation for this and other facts relating to the Christian faith.[9]

A Strong Case

Each of the three steps contribute toward forming the foundations of the overall argument for Christianity that takes into consideration the role that worldviews play in the evaluation and interpretation of evidence. Though much more could be said regarding the case for Christianity, this volume offers an excellent panorama of the crucial questions and answers relating to this topic.[10] The evidence that supports the Christian faith is solid; what

remains is conveying the information in an understandable way so as to maximize its impact on the skeptical mind. Recognizing the important role of a person’s worldview in the interpretation process will ensure the evangelist’s flexibility to engage in pre-evangelism when needed. The overall case for Christianity is strong, not because there are some two billion professing Christians (and growing) in the world today, but because it corresponds to reality!

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[1] Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), 458.

[2] There are several well-known modern apologists, who are contributors to this book, who have written extensively on these subjects, such as John Warwick Montgomery, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, H. Wayne House, and Norman Geisler, to name a few.

[3] More recently, Daniel Wallace of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts announced that his team had discovered a fragment from Mark’s Gospel, which a paleographer dated to the first century. If this discovery and analysis survive additional research, it will erase any significant gap between the original document and the oldest existing copy. See https://voice.dts.edu/article/wallace-new-testament-manscript-first-century/.

[4] For more details, see the chapter in this book by Don Stewart and Joseph M. Holden, “Were the New Testament Manuscripts Copied Accurately?”

[5] See Joseph M. Holden and Norman Geisler, The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible: Discoveries that Confirm the Reliability of Scripture (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2013), 261-264, 283-289, 295-305.

[6] For a detailed description and case for the authenticity of the James Ossuary inscription, see Holden and Geisler, The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible, 310-315, 389-393.

[7] For many more interesting finds, see Holden and Geisler, The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible.

[8] See at https://raychoi.org/2012/06/01/what-happened-to-the-12-disciples-afterthe- resurrection-and-ascension/.

[9] See Gary Habermas and Benjamin C.F. Shaw’s chapter on the resurrection (chapter 22). Also see his work The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004).

[10] For more details, see Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, upd. and exp. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2017).