Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith

by K. Scott Oliphint

If Paul was ready to demolish arguments, we must be ready as well.

he is telling his readers that true wisdom consists of demolishing strongholds in which the mighty trust.

The terminology Paul uses is also close to terminology used of the Sophists in Paul’s time. In this way, he is also getting the attention of his challengers.

Paul is reminding us that the arguments presented by these intruders were only as authoritative as the intruders themselves.

Apologetics, in many ways, is simply a battle over authorities.

itself. The Western intellectual tradition is full of these kinds of arguments. This may be one of the reasons why many Christians have chosen to stay well away from that tradition. It can be intimidating and make us feel intellectually inferior.

Even if we are unfamiliar with the precise terminology and technicalities of the arguments themselves, once we grasp the question those arguments are designed to answer, our understanding of Scripture can begin to supply the true and needed answer. So, in this chapter I hope to show how one particularly predominant argument might be demolished.

Apologetics Whenever our focus is to neutralize or otherwise weaken an objection to Christianity, we are engaged in (what we have called) negative apologetics. The initial goal of a negative apologetic is to ward off objections and complaints that come against Christianity.

Both tasks are essential aspects of apologetics and should go together.

It seems that the problem of evil is the most implacable challenge that Christianity must face.

Because of those qualifications, according to Flew, Christianity is not “falsifiable” and thus is itself a meaningless position to hold.

Perhaps David Hume sums up the problem as well as any: “Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered. Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”2 Hume, in quoting Epicurus, is highlighting the same problem that bothered Flew. How can it be, they ask, that a good, omnipotent, and omniscient God can exist when there is so much evil in the world? Surely if he is good, and if he knew what would happen, and if he is able to stop evil, there would be no evil in the world. But there is obviously much evil in the world.

But we should not think that this intellectual focus is only intellectual. As we mentioned above, the motivation for Flew’s parable was the fact that children suffer. So the intellectual problem has very real and practical applications and implications.

objection to Christianity is that it points to two actual truths. (1) There is an incompatibility between God’s character and the evil that exists, and (2) the evil that exists is real and touches everyone in deep and abiding ways. These two truths all Christians would affirm.

We should note, however, that to say that this problem has a strong intellectual component and that it is a “logical” problem is not to say that it is abstract, removed from daily life, or otherwise irrelevant. To say that it has a strong intellectual component, we should see, is also to affirm that it is a practical problem. We dare not succumb to an all-too-typical bifurcation of the theoretical and the practical. While such things can be virtually unrelated, there is no room in Christianity for such a dichotomy. If we have trouble thinking about some truth, then surely we will have difficulty applying it to our daily living and our worship. So our response to the logical problem of evil, if considered properly, will have direct practical consequences. It will affect how we think about God and our relationship with and to him.

Without going into detail, a couple of points will help here. First, just to reiterate what we hope to do in this section, we should state clearly in response to the logical problem of evil that what we will offer is a defense. We are not yet interested in offering a theodicy.4 That is, we are not interested, at this point, in responding in a way that would seek to show how there can be both this kind of God and evil. We are not interested in actively commending the truth of God’s existence and his ways, given the existence of evil and sin, in this response. To do that would be to begin to advocate for the position we are defending.5 Rather, our concern is to stave off the attack, to show that it is in some way illegitimate, and therefore to take away its force. This is, we should note, a completely acceptable mode of argument, though it is a strictly defensive mode. It is useful, even at times necessary, to meet attacks head-on and to push them back so that their force is either weakened or altogether annihilated.

A negative response may require some perseverance on the part of the apologist (and the reader!).

So the logical problem is not one of logical contradiction. Perhaps the logical problem of evil is best understood as a problem, let’s say, of incompatibility.

So the respective propositions—i.e., (1) God exists and (2) There is evil—are thought to be incompatible. This, we should recognize, is exactly right; it is a problem, and Christians should acknowledge that. How can it be that a God who is indeed good and who knows all things and who is all-powerful would allow for the presence, even the overwhelming presence, of evil and sin in the world?

An “easy” (albeit unorthodox) way out of this dilemma would be to deny one of the three attributes above ascribed to God so that the incompatibility disappears.

Plantinga notes that what is needed is a third statement, (3), that is consistent with (1) and that entails (2). In other words, another statement that does not conflict, but is consistent, with the fact of God’s existence, but which also includes the fact of evil’s existence, would help us see how the incompatibility might be overcome.

Plantinga works through some very technical arguments in order to show that it is possible that the existence of God and of evil are compatible.7Without looking at the details of a response to this argument, the point to observe here is that the attack can be fended off by introducing another truth or situation that could allow for the compatibility of the existence of God and of evil.

Second (and this is a monumentally important point that is never brought out in these discussions), consider that the problem of sin and evil itself, as posed by the objector, is a problem that includes within it the existence of God. That is, although an atheist does not believe in God’s existence, the problem that he poses to Christianity at this point is not a problem that attaches to atheism, at least not directly, but rather is one that attaches to Christianity; it is a problem that obtains in such cases when a good, omniscient, and omnipotent God is affirmed.10

is time to begin commending the Christian faith, rather than just letting the defense rest.

The theological reasons for preferring that mode relate to the ten tenets, but have their particular focus in the theological trivium: (1) the principial status of Scripture, (2) the knowledge of God that all people possess (i.e., the sensus divinitatis), and (3) God’s universal mercy toward all people, even those who are and remain in Adam.

persuasion is the most biblical way to think about and proceed in a covenantal defense of Christianity.

persuasion, in and of itself, can be dangerous; it can be dangerous if it is ever divorced from its proper ...

Paul wrote his letter to the church at Colossae so that the people there might hold fast and firm to their conviction of the centrality of Christ (cf. Col. 1:23; 2:3, 6; 4:12), and so that they might be quick to avoid any kind of false philosophy (2:8). It is clear that one of...

Whatever false philosophy was having its way with some in the church there, it apparently had its own persuasive force. Paul’s word here, translated “plausible arguments” (pithanologia), is used only here in the New Testament and is a word used by Plato to indicate persuasive, as over against logically demonstrative, arguments. In other words, as we have already seen with Paul’s relationship to the Corinthian church, this church in Colossae apparently was being duped by the persuasive speech of false teachers. Paul’s solution for them is as profound as it is simple, and it is a solution that is true in any and every situation for the Christian. We are to be taken captive only to a philosophy that is “according to Christ.”

But whoever trusts his own mind is a fool; our trust, and thus our wisdom, is rooted in Christ alone.

If we conduct ourselves wisely when we are engaged with those who do not believe, then we will inevitably get to the heart of the problem, a problem which has its focus in the rebellion that characterizes the “outsiders.”

Paul is calling on Christians to speak with their unbelieving neighbors and friends with gracious, warm, and winsome words—all with the purpose of being able to “answer” unbelievers. . . . An appropriate Christian response will, of course, communicate the content of the gospel, but it will also be done in a manner that will make the gospel attractive. Peter makes a similar point: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15b).2

Before we move to a sample dialog, one more biblical and theological point is necessary to remember. It is useful to think about the task of defending the faith as a task of “premeditated evangelism.” It is evangelism in that our goal is a defense of, and thus a communication of, the Christian faith. That point should be clear by now. It is also premeditated in that our defense includes our own thinking and analysis of the implications of our Christian faith to situations, problems, attacks, and objections that might come our way.

For example, it is often said among well-meaning Christians that “the Lord told them” what they must do or say, or how they must act. We need to understand that with the finished work of Christ came the finished work of Christ’s Word (see Heb. 1:1–4). God the Holy Spirit does not speak audibly to people, even to his people, apart from the word of Christ in the Bible. Hebrews does remind us that, in days gone by, God spoke through his appointed representatives—that is, “by the prophets.” But he has ceased speaking in that way.

very important and interesting

The completion of the Son’s work marks the completion of the Son’s Word as well.

i dont think that a neccesary conflusion of heb 1

“The highest proof of Scripture,” according to John Calvin, “derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in it.”5

The only way to move from “believing that” to “believing into” is by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The

If we desire to provide in the best way for our consciences—that they may not be perpetually beset by the instability of doubt or vacillation, and that they may not also boggle at the smallest quibbles—we ought to seek our conviction in a higher place than human reasons, judgments, or conjectures, that is, in the secret testimony of the Spirit.6

Because these three Gospels are written in part to give us different perspectives on the same events, Matthew and Mark can help us understand Jesus’s concern for his disciples.

These positive statements help us see what is meant in the negative statements. In all three cases, what Jesus wants to emphasize is what he, through the Holy Spirit, will give. This is where the Spirit’s ministry, which we discussed above, is so crucial. The focus of Jesus’s concern for his disciples is that they learn to rely on what the Spirit of Christ gives them when they are challenged. And what is it that the Holy Spirit gives? According to Jesus, he will give them “all the truth” (John 16:13). When they are challenged, therefore,

it is true that no one can be argued into the kingdom. But it is also true, in the Lord’s wise plan, that no one will come to faith in Christ without hearing about that faith (Rom. 10:17). As we defend the Christian faith and commend it to others, the Spirit promises to use us and to give us wisdom and knowledge. What a privilege we have in Christ to be agents of the Spirit himself as he glorifies the Son.

Perhaps most threatening to some in our current day is the predominance, even near-reverence, given to scientific knowledge and “dogma.” This is a distinctly modern phenomenon, in that science itself, as we know, was birthed in the cradle of Christianity.

Daniel Dennett in like fashion argues in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea that the “dangerous idea” we glean from Darwin is that the complexity of design in the world is itself dependent on blind chance—coin flips, if you like—and on nothing else. No matter how impressive the products . . . , the underlying process always consists of nothing but a set of individually mindless steps succeeding each other without the help of any intelligent supervision; they are “automatic” by definition: the workings of an automaton.14 Not only so, but Dennett takes Darwin’s dangerous idea and makes his own argument personal: “To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant—inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.”

As stated above, both Dawkins and Dennett aver that anyone who doubts evolution, or who does not believe it, is (let’s just list the defects they mention) “inexcusably ignorant,” “stupid,” “insane,” or “wicked” (though Dawkins is charitable enough to say he does not want to consider the latter). But then, for both of them, the case made for an unguided evolutionary process is a case based on its plausibility and not on its certainty.

The fact that Dennett finds his arguments plausible is a nice piece of biography, but it is no threat to Christian truth, and it surely does not justify his attempt to call into question the character of anyone who disagrees with him.

There are two points to make about this. First, any notion of probability that depends on a “degree of likelihood” in cases such as these depends itself for its calculus on the background knowledge of the calculator. As Copi notes, “[An event] can be assigned a probability only on the basis of the evidence available to the person making the assignment.”29 But we have already seen that “the evidence available to the person making the (probable) assignment” will automatically exclude the fact that God’s character is patently obvious in every bit of evidence used.30 There is a determined bias and rejection of the Christian position at the outset of any notion of probability that Dawkins or Dennett would use.

And if, on the arguments of the evolutionist himself, there is room to doubt, we might ask how could it be that one who doubts evolution is therefore “ignorant, stupid or insane”? Doesn’t the notion of probability require that doubt be included in it?

But “sense” cannot be made when the sensus is suppressed;

it, we can recognize that probability means, for the most part, a lack of certainty. So the conclusion can legitimately be drawn that an evolutionary argument from probability means that the position itself entails at least some level of doubt.

If, for example, we think about the probability of my pulling the ace of spades from a fifty-two-card deck, the probability turns out to be one in fifty-two. Could anyone legitimately think that I am ignorant or insane (but not wicked) if I believe I might pull the ace of spades from a given deck? I may be overly optimistic in some way, but surely the aspersions of ignorance and insanity (but not wickedness) cannot apply here. Now suppose I actually pull the ace of spades from a given deck and I see it in my hand. Could anyone rightly protest that I am ignorant or insane (if not wicked) because I now believe I have an ace of spades? Even on the evolutionist’s own terms, the probability of such things says little about their actual reality.