Spirit Empowered Speech-Toward a Pentecostal Apologetical Method

SPIRIT EMPOWERED SPEECH: TOWARD A PENTECOSTAL APOLOGETICAL METHOD

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO PENTECOSTAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF DIVINITY

BY KEVIN SNIDER

CLEVELAND, TN 15 DECEMBER 2012

 

 

Spirit Empowered Speech: Toward A Pentecostal Apologetical Method

Accepted by the Examining Committee: ________________________________________________ Steven J. Land, President ________________________________________________ Date ________________________________________________ Sang Ehil Han, Vice President for Academics ________________________________________________ Date ________________________________________________ Oliver McMahan, Vice President for Ministry Formation ________________________________________________ Date ________________________________________________ (Sang Ehil Han), Academic Advisor/Reader ________________________________________________ Date

  iii  

COPYING AGREEMENT

The physical format of this project is approved and accepted for copy and deposit in the seminary library:

__________________________________________ Office of the Librarian __________________________________________ Date

Permission for copy granted if accepted for deposit. Any other revision or use would have to be approved by the writer.

___________________________________________ Kevin B. Snider

  iv  

ABSTRACT The current cultural climate has brought with it both challenges and opportunities for Christians. In this thesis I argue that the postmodern milieu and the New Atheists present unique apologetic challenges that must be addressed and that the current methods, while good, are missing a vital element. This element, testimony, is supplied by a Pentecostal apologetical method. It is my contention that Pentecostals, while relying on the methods and manners of those who have come before in the area of apologetics, bring to the task an important contribution and thus need to recognize the importance of their participation in apologetics.

  v  

To my wife, Tara, who by her authentic Pentecostal spirituality challenges me to be a better theologian-apologist.

  vi  

PREFACE The process which has culminated in this thesis has left me with a list of people of whom I owe the deepest gratitude. To mention them all would require greater space than I have. However, I would mention some who have been most influential. Dr. Rob Debelak, who in my undergraduate training first admonished me to pursue the master of divinity rather than a purely academic program, is due a deep debt of gratitude. Upon arriving at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary I was assigned to Dr. Ken Archer as an advisee. This relationship has proven to be one of the most fruitful I have had in seminary. Ken’s friendship, guidance, and challenge were precisely what I needed and he has shaped the person and theologian I am now in ways that I can only begin to process and be grateful. One final professor has been more formative to me than any other mentioned here, that is my father-in-law Dr. Terry Cross. Through continual conversation, he has shaped me as a thinker and Christian in more ways than I can recount. This thesis is, in large part, due to an assignment he gave me as his teaching assistant in Systematic Theology during my internship. I am indebted to him beyond what a simple word of thanks can suffice, nevertheless, thank you. I would be remiss if I did not mention that it was my mother-in-law and her conversations with me that have helped me to formulate more clearly what I think a Pentecostal apologetic should look like. Her conversations deserve more than a mere mention of gratitude—they have indeed been God’s means of grace for me and for that I am indebted. The greatest order of appreciate goes to my wife, who has been a conversation partner, accountability partner, and thorough supporter through this entire process. She above all is the one I am grateful for; without her, this thesis would only be a thought experiment.

  vii  

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v DEDICATION PAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Chapter 1.

The Scandal of the Pentecostal Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Introduction Earliest History Foundations for Rationalism Reformed Pentecostal Internship

2.

Apologetical Method: “What has La Mirada to do with Azusa?” . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Introduction Lay of the Land: Why the Need for Another Apologetical Method Current Methods in Apologetics Conclusion

3.

Spirit Empowered Speech: Toward a Pentecostal Apologetical Method . . . . . .75 Introduction Dialogical/Ambassadorial Apologetics Pentecostal Worldview/Way of Being Pentecostal Apologetics: Testimony

4.

The Future of Pentecostal Apologetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 Introduction Current Pentecostal Apologetics Pentecostal Theology of Culture and Apologetics Conclusion

APPENDICES A

List of Apologetic Resources Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

B

Introduction to Apologetics Course Syllabus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

C

Annotated Bibliography of Apologetic Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

 viii  

Chapter One: “The Scandal of the Pentecostal Mind”

Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. Matt. 22.37-8

 

Introduction “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind,” said Mark Noll in the opening line of his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.1 Harry Blamires, writing years earlier is less sympathetic when he says, “There is no longer a Christian mind.”2 What I heard when I read Noll during my undergraduate studies was, “The scandal of the Pentecostal mind is that there is not much of a Pentecostal mind.” And in Blamires’s lament I heard, “There is no Pentecostal mind.” Perhaps in Noll’s and Blamires’s time of writing there was not much of an evangelical mind, however, by the time his book was being ingested by me there had been a large response by evangelicals to promote the life of the mind. What I had not encountered was a Pentecostal engagement of the life of the mind. The journey from Noll’s book and my reinterpretation of his first line to the thinking Pentecostal that I am now is the subject of this first chapter. Here I set the stage for the groundwork necessary for what comes in the following chapters. Earliest History: How did the church community set the stage for my intellectual path? Neither of my parents were church-going people as I was growing up. My father comes from a Jehovah’s Witness background—having been disfellowshipped in his late teens, he has been embittered by “the church”—and my mother comes from the nominal cultural Christianity that is so prevalent in the Southern United States. When, in early elementary school, my school bus driver came by our house to ask if she might be able to                                                                                                                 1

Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1994), 3.

2

Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1963), 3.

2

pick us kids up for church on Sunday mornings, both of my parents were happy to oblige. Although they were not interested in church attendance themselves, they were grateful for a morning free from kids and saw some benefits in a “Christian upbringing.” This bus ministry was the conduit for my continued connection to the church and eventually the gospel message. Through children’s church, I came to know Jesus as Savior. At the time this Church of God pastured by a Lee University graduate from Trinidad. It was a small congregation but growing. The bus ministry soon expanded to Wednesday night services where I became involved in the boys program Royal Rangers. The structure of Royal Rangers and the intentional involvement of the men who led it were particularly formative for me during those years from elementary school to high school. I continued in the program much longer than most boys, eventually moving into the youth group during my sophomore year in high school. Pentecostal emotionalism Home Church As an Assemblies of God program, the Royal Rangers is Pentecostal and in its earlier history focused on campcraft and Bible study. Every year we would have regional camping trips called Pow Wow where churches from the region would compete at a themed campcraft week and spend time in worship services in the evenings. This became my first exposure to the revivalistic spirituality of Pentecostalism.3 During a specialized training weekend in leadership and survival skill, we had a worship time focused intentionally on the baptism of the Holy Spirit where I would first experience in a

                                                                                                                3

Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 2007),

65-8.

3

personal way the power of the Holy Spirit. These emotional and ecstatic services poured a foundation for a spirituality that was experience and emotion driven. This was not lessened as I moved from the boys program into the youth group as a young teen. Typical of Wednesday night youth service was moving music and an engaging sermon related to living the Christian life in purity and passion for God. There was a clear ethical and pietistic tone to our youth services that promoted a life of deep affection for God and continued struggle to live free from sin. A couple times a year we would have spiritual retreats. Most of these involved only our church group. On these trips, we would travel to retreat centers that specialize in hosting large groups—mostly church groups. During the day we would swim, horseback ride, hike, or do whatever else the area had available. In the evenings, we would have services of worship, preaching, and altar. Although it came last, the altar often functioned as the centerpiece . The whole of the service was building up to the final part that would also be the longest lasting. Without that distinctive element it would be hard to distinguish our youth group from any other that might go on spiritual retreats. However, it was the altar service that proved most formational and this was intentional. There we would be encouraged to have a real encounter with God, pray, seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit—if we had not already received it—or perhaps be “slain in the Spirit,” which was not an uncommon experience. These services could last for hours into the early morning. As a teen I remember them being very energizing; we would leave the retreat feeling refreshed and empowered to face daily life with a renewed sense of purity and passion for God. Coupled with the local retreats we went once a year to the large gathering of Church of God youth—Winterfest. This event was a three-day weekend of evening

4

services directed particularly at youth groups. The denomination invested a great deal of time, energy and money into these events. Prominent worship leaders and speakers were brought in to minister. The structure was much like our own private retreats: the daytime was spent around the surrounding area enjoying the sights and attractions; in the evening were the services. The nightly services were on a grand scale, what we tried to accomplish on the much smaller scale of our private retreats. Two nights—Friday and Saturday—were devoted to lively and engaging worship followed by preaching and finally the altar service. In the early years, the sheer number of youth gathered, when the venue was smaller and the services were split were only a couple thousand gathered at a time, but in the later years when the venue moved to the local basketball stadium often there were closer to twenty thousand in attendance. This many gathered together carried with it an energy of its own and, coupled with the emotion of worship and altar services, it can be hard to describe the intensity and power felt. I went with my youth group to this gathering four years consecutively and without doubt, they were some of the most formative experiences for me. It was here that I encountered others my age responding to the move of the Spirit in various ways that set the stage for my later discomfort with Pentecostal expression. In an environment where emotional and spiritual expression was not limited since to do so was to stifle the Spirit (and perhaps even to blaspheme against the Spirit4), nearly any manifestation was possible and acceptable. Abuses and authentic expression were seen often right next to each other and neither were unpacked or processed in any reflective manner by the chaperones or pastoral staff. Indeed, as we

                                                                                                                4

A clear understanding of what it meant to “blaspheme the Holy Spirit” was fleeting but it could be associated with any criticism of what purported to be a move of the Spirit.

5

went home from these events we were encouraged to seek these same experiences on Wednesday nights. I found that upon our return on Sunday we would be engaged and lively for the next few weeks both on Sundays and Wednesdays. Like many other Pentecostal churches, Sunday mornings were more subdued, although still clearly charismatic and Pentecostal, but the Sunday evening service was reserved for a more revivalistic feel where the full expression of charismata and Pentecost was welcomed. Our full participation in these services was most strong after Winterfest or a weekend retreat—the same would be true of Wednesday night youth group. Soon, however, we would return to “normal” and need re-energizing. The climate of the youth group, and perhaps less so the church as a whole, was one that promoted emotional, ecstatic and episodic spiritual experiences. During at least two of these charged worship services I experienced a “call” into vocational ministry, which at the time meant for me youth pastoring. Without a doubt, I could only process this calling in light of the most influential minister in my life at the time—my youth pastor. Master’s Commission Immediately after graduating from high school, I joined the discipleship program called “Master’s Commission” as preparation for youth ministry. My first encounter with this discipleship group was at Winterfest. Part of one of the sermons was an interactive drama/pantomime that helped to unfold the message; the students from Master’s Commission were doing the acting. The program was designed to offer nine months of intensive discipleship and ministry preparation. At the time our youth Sunday School was doing a discipleship curriculum that had engaged me in ways that our other programs and

6

activities had not. I had been the chaplain for the Royal Ranger program, and still was at the time. I had become very interested in studying the Bible. The discipleship class we had started on Sunday mornings had “homework” requirements with levels to move up to, which included scripture memory, prayer, and evangelization. Although I was involved with the church drama team, I had little interest in that aspect of Master’s Commission and was drawn to the discipleship and ministry training—this was in my mind obviously what God was calling me to do. Although I was unaware at the time Master’s Commission was intended to be holistic discipleship. There were the scripture memory, prayer, spiritual retreats and worship times but also college courses in Bible and ministry. Thus the attempt was to engage our minds and our spirits. This would be the first time that I was intellectually challenged regarding the Bible. Even more, the first year experience of the program was designed to stimulate spiritual growth through identity development and maturation. The process was such a positive experience for me that I wanted to return for a second year to be apart of that process for incoming first year students after which I would go to Lee University, study youth ministry and then become a youth pastor. However, the second and third year of the program were for me the most formative and challenging. All that came before had set the stage for what would happen intellectually and spiritually during my last two years in Master’s Commission.5                                                                                                                 5

Before developing that journey, it is appropriate to offer a proviso on the above history and the subsequent evaluation to follow. Pentecostalism and the Church of God are not monolithic, that is to say, that my experience is not indicative of all who have grown up in these two atmospheres. The values of holiness perfection were strong in my early faith community in ways that date the community to a much earlier time in Pentecostal history. Yet, the youth group—because of a youth pastor raised in the Assemblies of God—was not as heavily focused on “Christian perfection” but rather on emotional experiences (although this does not seem to stem from his association with the Assemblies of God). This interesting mix bred in me both a strong passion for holiness—perfectionism—and spirituality— emotionalism. The church was a wonderful community of faith who loved Jesus Christ and his church,

7

There was a bit of a shift in Master’s Commission during my second year in the program. Previously we had been attached to a local church where we worked closely with the pastoral staff and ministered. During this second year we traveled more. Whereas before on Wednesday nights we would be at our local church we now went to other youth groups and ministered. Since I had expressed a calling to youth ministry it meant that I was chosen to speak on the nights we were at a youth group. After the service we would often stay, fellowship, and eat pizza—the youth group staple. This exposed me to many different youth groups and high school students. Through many conversations with these students I came to realize that they were biblically illiterate; in fact, this was true of those I had grown up with in youth group also. I noticed that, as a church, we were focused intently on experiencing God and hearing from his Spirit but not focused on learning his Word. This began fueling a passion to study the scriptures in order to teach them to other Christians. At the same time, I continued course work at Lee University but soon found myself lacking any real engagement and intellectual challenge . Two sources would be the stimulus in challenging intellectual growth and set me on the path that would provide the greatest change. One of the pastoral staff in Master’s Commission was reading a book by Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods6, and he recommended it to me. Through his book, Ravi showed me that the Christian faith is worth thinking about and, indeed, can be thought about. However, his book would only set the stage for what would be the most transformative read that year. Expressing my                                                                                                                 sought to train people in authentic Christian life, and reach people for the kingdom of God. The journey I make from the foundation they laid is not to be understood as an implicit critique or failing of that community. To be sure, my path was influenced and in some ways directed by this my early faith community, however, what I intend to show is that my own personality and predilections had equal if not reigning influence. As such, I analyze this foundational community as one inside it and an intimate part of it. 6 Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000).

8

anguish over the illiteracy of the youth I encountered and my own lack of knowledge to meet the challenge, a fellow student in Master’s Commission recommended and gave to me J.P. Moreland’s book Love Your God with All Your Mind.7 Foundations for Rationalism J.P. Moreland Since this was one of the more formative books for me, a brief dialogue with Moreland is appropriate. Moreland helped me to put words and concepts to what I was coming to experience in the various youth groups to which I was speaking. In the first chapter, he puts his finger on the heartbeat of the problem, as he sees it: “a growing antiintellectualism in the church resulting in the marginalization of Christianity in society.”8 This was my first encounter with the idea that the church had an anti-intellectual element. To be sure, my church never espoused an anti-intellectual message from the pulpit or youth room.9 Indeed, both the senior pastor and youth pastor were college graduates and both had to work hard at great personal cost to obtain that education (furthermore, the senior pastor went on to earn a master’s degree and his wife a doctorate, albeit neither in religious studies). The church was very supportive of college education since most of the members were college educated themselves. However, somehow there was a disconnect between educational pursuit for vocational gain and the same sort of intellectual pursuit                                                                                                                 7

J. P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997). 8

Ibid., 21.

9

The precritical beliefs are made known through the practiced liturgies, as Smith puts it, “Implicit in these [Pentecostal] practices are not only ‘beleifs,’ but also an unarticulated, affective understanding that, when articulated, we will describe as a pentecostal ‘worldview’” (James K.A. Smith, Thinking In Tongues [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Pub Co., 2010], 27). These beliefs do not have to be taught explicitly from the point of authority to take root in the congregation. Rather, the liturgy of the service is formative on its own and by that virtue “teaches” also.

9

for spiritual gain. Unlike other Christian traditions that require graduate training for their pastors, my tradition merely requires “calling” and the Spirit. Thus, on the one hand, there was no explicit teaching that education was wrong or that intellectual endeavors were superfluous, yet on the other hand, there was no need and, in reality, no encouragement to seek education. A part of being Pentecostal means believing that the Spirit can and does speak to anyone, even (perhaps especially) the uneducated. Moreland goes on to show that one of the influencing factors in the growth of anti-intellectualism in Christianity was the influence of American revivalism. Quoting George Marsden, he says, “anti-intellectualism was a feature of American revivalism.”10 Unpacking the repercussions of revivalism, Moreland points out, Their overall effect was to overemphasize immediate personal conversion to Christ instead of a studied period of reflection and conviction; emotional, simple, popular preaching instead of intellectually careful doctrinally precise sermons; and personal feelings and relationship to Christ instead of a deep grasp of the nature of Christian teaching and ideas11 Upon reading this, it became obvious that he could just as easily have been referring to the Pentecostal Christianity that I had come to know. Our emphasis was certainly on personal conversion and feelings. Furthermore, “the Bible increasingly was sought solely as a practical guide for ethical guidance and spiritual growth” but not as a “body of divinely revealed, true propositions about various topics that requires devoted intellect to grasp and study systematically.”12 Again, Moreland could have been describing myself and all the Pentecostals that I had been discipled by and was now teaching. At least until I                                                                                                                 10

Ibid. 23.

11

Ibid.

12

Ibid., 24.

10

began taking college Bible courses, Bible study was the process of finding personal meaning and “words from the Lord.” There was no need for hermeneutical training when the Spirit was available to all to give the text meaning. The intersection of Moreland’s depiction of the problem facing Christianity with my own encounter with youth confirmed in me that Pentecostals had been and are anti-intellectual. I, however, was thoroughly engaged by and enjoyed study. Therefore, Moreland’s antidote to the illness facing Christianity was a breath of fresh air: development of the Christian mind, which is “perhaps the most integral component of the believer’s sanctification.”13 At this point, my journey was set. If I was to make an impact on the lack of Christian mind in the church, particularly the youth, I would need to pursue the life of the mind as J.P. Moreland describes it. Although Moreland set me on the path toward rationalism, it was not he alone who had the sole influence. Calvinism After Master’s Commission, I joined the Army National Guard and connected with a unit in Maryland. The strong community aspect of Master’s Commission instilled a desire to connect beyond surface level with a faith community. I start attending an ecumenical Bible study held in the home of a married couple that were close friends. The group was mostly Baptist. The husband of the couple was a Seventh Day Baptist, however there was a Presbyterian and myself, the only Pentecostal (and Arminian). Over the course of a year we developed strong friendships and engaged in deep conversation about theological issues. In particular, the Presbyterian and I engage in many discussions over Calvinism versus Arminianism. During those discussions, I found that I was                                                                                                                 13

Ibid., 22.

11

woefully inadequate at rebuffing his critiques of my view and he is able to deftly answer my invectives. This set me on the pursuit to understand theology more closely and I began to read two systematic texts written from a Calvinist perspective.14 Both of these books engaged my intellect in ways that I had not found before. The theological pursuit began to meet the need for developing the life of the mind that Moreland had so pointedly convinced me needed attention. In Calvinism, I found that there was little room for antiintellectualism but a warm welcome to be rational. After a year and a half, there was still the passion and calling to vocational ministry but now the vision had been refined a bit. I would move back to Lee University and pursue a degree in Bible and theology with the intention of teaching Bible and theology as a pastor of some kind. Calvinism had opened the door to pursue theological and intellectual excellence so that my theology would be Calvinistic even though I would be trained at an Arminian school. There is a spiritual element to my conversion to Calvinism that cannot be dismissed. An aspect of Arminian theology is the prospect that salvation can be lost. This idea—coupled with the holiness movement’s consistent focus on sanctification as what one does—is a formula for the loss of assurance. As a young Christian I would pray every night to be saved—although I had been to the altar as an eight year old and said the sinner’s prayer—in the event that I had done something during that day that would remove me from the rolls of heaven. The only assurance I had was what I felt; my emotions became the barometer of my spirituality. This, however, was not the explicit message from the pulpit on Sunday mornings; it was the formative message from the altar where a great deal of Pentecostals get their theology—the prayer time after the sermon                                                                                                                 14

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004); and Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003).

12

where God is supposed to be encountered. Calvinism, by contrast, offered assurance based solely on the work of Christ; I would no longer have to rely on my feelings as the arbiter of spirituality—piety would not longer be determined by how elated or close to God I felt. Thus my conversion to Calvinism was not purely rational. Undergraduate Although I had planned to work toward a bachelor’s of arts in Bible and theology, I found that when I got to Lee it would be faster, and substantially cheaper, for me to major in Christian ministry with an emphasis in theology. The course work I had completed in Master’s Commission was part of the pastoral ministry degree and thus a Christian ministry program allowed more to transfer. Eventually in preparation for graduate work I changed the emphasis to Bible since I would be doing theological studies at the graduate level. It was during my undergraduate work that I became most solidified in pursuing intellectual studies. As part of our program of study, the university gave us copies of Clifford Williams’s book The Life of the Mind,15 which sparked my interest to read other books like Williams’s and Moreland’s. I began to read James Sire,16 which in turn led to Mark Noll and James Emery White.17 Each of these authors lifted up the importance of the mind as a Christian calling or discipline and each offered approaches on how best to train the mind. A common thread to all was the importance of building a library and reading, but also knowing what one believed and how to defend those beliefs.                                                                                                                 15

Clifford Williams, The Life of the Mind: A Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002). 16

James W. Sire, Discipleship of the Mind: Learning to Love God in the Ways We Think (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1990); and Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000). 17

James Emery White, A Mind for God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

13

The influence of Master’s Commission and my experience in youth group left me with a sense of the importance to stay connected to the local body of faith. My only connection in Maryland had been the Bible study; I attended a Pentecostal church but had little connection to the ministry. Therefore, when I came back to Lee University I sought out an internship at a local church. I connected with a large church in the area as a youth staff intern, which would be my home for the next two and a half years. This experience proved to be one of the most formative in pushing me in the direction of rationalism. A clearer picture of anti-intellectualism would be difficult to find than that which was given in this youth group. Consistently education was derided as unnecessary and potentially a waste; what was truly valuable was experience and the Spirit. Although I had volunteered apart from the degree program to intern, I was constantly reminded that college training for ministry was superfluous and often wrong. All the while, the youth pastor would often misunderstand theological concepts or make remarks that reflected ignorance of basic biblical concepts. Rather than detract from my intellectual pursuit it pushed me harder to study and learn—in order not to be like this pastor. I dove into the readings by authors who promoted the life of the mind. Through their writings I encountered the subdiscipline of apologetics. Most of those who were promoting Christian intellectualism were also apologists. This interest in apologetics fueled the growing rationalism in me, since “Christianity is rational…it is eminently rational.”18 Apologetics was not available to study as part of the degree program I was pursuing at Lee (there is only one course listed in the catalogue for this subject, which had not been offered in a couple years at the time), thus I had to search out where to get                                                                                                                 18

R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), ix.

14

training. Denver Seminary through their online and distance learning programs had made available the lectures of philosopher and apologist Douglas Groothuis. His lectures on philosophy and apologetics were soon staple listening for me. Ronald Nash, another Christian philosopher and apologist whose seminary and undergraduate lectures were available online, also became foundational for my apologetics training. Along with an understanding of apologetics comes the need to engage in philosophical study, which I was able to accomplish through ITunes University and the lectures available there from multiple universities. This entire process sharpened my intellectual skill while at the same time solidifying me in the rationalist vein. Upon graduating from Lee my intention was to pursue a master’s degree in apologetics and philosophy from a school that specializes in both; from there I would go to post-graduate education in philosophy and apologetics and eventually teach both at the undergraduate level. The closest seminary that offered a program I was interested was not accredited, which would not work for me being accepted into a doctoral program. Thus, I looked closer to home with the intention of going a semester and then deciding where to pursue apologetics. Reformed Pentecostal Seminary Following the bad news that the school nearby that offered a program in apologetics and philosophy was not accredited, I applied to the Pentecostal Theological Seminary. This was somewhat begrudgingly and resistantly done. I had no aspirations to attend a Pentecostal institution, especially one so avowedly Pentecostal as to change their name and title all their courses declaratively. I was a Calvinist looking to study philosophy—two items for which Pentecostals are not known as specialists. Furthermore,

15

I was not interested in ministry as a vocation at this point, only in being a professor and thus had little use for a Master of Divinity. I had, however, been given some advice in my undergraduate studies by my advisor that still weighed on me: Christian schools who hire professors want to know that those they hire will look at teaching as a ministry not just a paycheck. The Master of Divinity as preparation for this will be much better than a Master of Arts in theological studies I was advised. After the first semester, I had not found a school to study apologetics and instead I had bought a house, built close friendships with fellow classmates, and started dating the woman whom I would later marry. It is clear, now, that God had planned a journey of which I was unaware and against which I was fighting. The process of moving from a rationalistic to a holistic view of what it means to be human was instigated by my experience and study at The Pentecostal Theological Seminary. During the second year of the MDiv program I took a required course on the foundations of discipleship in which one of the tasks of the course was to write a research paper in support of my own philosophy of discipleship. I had found John Wesley’s “Methodism” structure helpful and applied a rationalistic model to it that made it similar to three college classrooms with differing sizes. Each would be centered on a classroom teaching model that would encourage the development of the life of the mind. I envisioned each of the three groups (Class, Band, and Society) as places where the worldview of Christians could be formed.19 In the process of writing this paper I came                                                                                                                 19

Sire’s definition of worldview best summarized my own conception of the culmination of one’s life orientation. He defines it as, “A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being (James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, 4th ed. [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009], 20).

16

across what would amount to a major critique of my approach, James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom and Thinking in Tongues.20 Thinking In Tongues I had encountered Jamie Smith’s work earlier in a proposed course studying the intersection of Pentecostalism and postmodernity and a course on the intersection of theology and philosophy.21 Since then, Smith has proven to be a vital influence in bringing a holistic and integrated view of the human to my theology, and specifically my anthropology. In many ways, he stands in contrast to the earlier reading that I had been doing. Previously, all of the philosophers and apologists that I had read took a very negative view of postmodernism. His critique of the regnant dismissal of any value to be found in postmodernism set the stage for his critique of rationalism. This aspect of how postmodernism responds to the rationalism of modernity will be explored more in the next chapter, but it is important to highlight how Smith’s move opened up for me the possibility of moving from a rationalist to holist. On his blog, Jamie Smith had promoted his upcoming book Desiring the Kingdom and even made some of the material available to read early. He did this also with his Pentecostal contribution to philosophy, Thinking in Tongues. Never before had I encountered a Pentecostal doing philosophy and so I was very intrigued with Jamie’s work (which I pre-ordered and read within two days of its arrival). This began the                                                                                                                 20

James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009); and Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2010). 21

James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); and Kelly James Clark, Richard Lints, and James K.A. Smith, 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004).

17

journey away from rationalism. How Smith unpacks his message in both books shows how to move away from rationalism. Before the details of these two books is explored it is important to note that Smith has planned to write a three-part series exploring cultural liturgies, of which Desiring the Kingdom is volume one. Thinking in Tongues is part of another series, “Pentecostal Manifestos.” However, Smith has said that it fits well as volume 1.5 in his cultural liturgy. The close connection that the two share is anthropological—the view of the human found in both volumes informs the implications explored in both; first education in Desiring the Kingdom, and second Pentecostalism in Thinking in Tongues. In contrast to my understanding of worldview (which was characterized by rational propositions that are both known and unknown and the Christian worldview as characterized by beliefs, ideas, and doctrines), Smith responds to this by wondering if this view has started from the wrong place—what if it is more about formation than information? The challenge that Smith sounds in his Desiring the Kingdom is against the view that humans are only “thinking things”—the kind of being that is strongly promoted in rationalistic thinking. He offers instead a view of humanity in which humans are first and foremost driven by passions; that is, “our thinking and cognition arise from a more fundamental, precognitive orientation to the world,”22 which Smith unpacks as love. The precritical orientation that people have is driven by what they desire or love. The task of Christian education and discipleship is the formation and transformation of these passions. He is careful to point out that this is not an exhortation to anti-intellectualism, but a revision of anthropology which is more holistic—it takes into consideration the affective element of what it means to be human. Desiring the Kingdom has a clear                                                                                                                 22

Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 28

18

direction toward education and the implications and practices that arise from his initial point and thus had bearing on my paper for a creative discipleship model. Although I read Thinking in Tongues too far into my seminary experience to move to another institution, I was still no less interested in philosophy and indeed wanted my emphasis not only to be theology but more specifically philosophical theology. Therefore, when Smith’s book reached my door I read it immediately. In this small exploration, the ideas of Smith’s work had great implications for who I was—it came to impact my identity. I had approached the Pentecostal Theological Seminary begrudgingly because I felt neither Pentecostal—at least not in the classical sense—nor a minister. I wanted to do academic studies. I encountered Thinking in Tongues in the summer prior to the second year and by this time I had resigned to finish the degree program. Smith’s work was a breath of fresh air in the face of frustration with Pentecostal theology. My experience growing up in the Pentecostal movement had instilled in me the belief that to be Pentecostal was to be enamored with emotionalism and anti-intellectualism. Although the professors at the seminary were not this kind of Pentecostal, all of my experience with those outside of the academic Pentecostals circles still confirmed this view—speaking in tongues and ecstatic, cathartic experiences define what it means to be Pentecostal. The abuses I had seen at Winterfest and youth group had confirmed in me that being a Pentecostal had nothing to do with the life of the mind, which had become so important to me. As a philosopher, Reformed thinker, and Pentecostal, Jamie Smith opened a new way for me to think about being Pentecostal. For Smith, “Pentecostalism offers not only a distinct way of worshiping, but also a distinct way of thinking;”23 this is precisely what I needed to embrace Pentecostalism once again. In enumerating this “way of thinking,”                                                                                                                 23

Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 25; emphasis original.

19

Smith unpacks a Pentecostal worldview but first must redefine “worldview” to correct the overly rationalistic approaches that have come before. A “worldview is a passional orientation that governs how one sees, inhabits, and engages the world,” and quoting Olthius, “A worldview (or vision of life) is a framework or set of fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our calling and future in it.”24 Offering further clarification, Smith notes, “So, to speak of a worldview is to speak about our most fundamental orientation to the world; a framework that operates even prior to thought; a passional orientation of our imagination that filters and explains our experience of the world.”25 Already it is clear that this understanding of worldview stands in contrast to what I had come to embrace through Sire and indeed, this view critiques my incipient anthropology. Smith’s five elements of a Pentecostal worldview present a Pentecostalism that I could embrace; perhaps because they are more catholic than particular, yet they are distinctive enough in that a cessationist assumption would prohibit acceptance.26 The five elements are (1) radical openness to God, (2) “enchanted” theology of creation and culture, (3) nondualistic affirmation of embodiment and materiality, (4) affective, narrative epistemology, and (5) eschatological orientation to mission and justice.27 The two most influential in shifting my thinking were elements three (a new view of anthropology that was not dualistic but embraced the affective and the material) and four                                                                                                                 24

Ibid., 27.

25

Ibid., 29.

26

It should be noted that in all of my struggling with Pentecostal as an identity, I never became a cessationist. To the contrary, I find the arguments in favor of cessationism very weak and obscurantist. However, in my own spiritual practice I was theoretically open to the gifts and operation of the Spirit but functionally closed. 27

Smith, Thinking In Tongues, 32-3.

20

(an epistemology that is not characterized by modernistic rationalism). To be sure the other elements were impactful, particularly the first, which allowed for a view of God that is dynamic and personal—the kind of view of God that I had come to know through the work of Jürgen Moltmann28 and that allowed for the five-fold gospel. Through this work, it became clear to me that a holistic view of what it means to be human was most at home in a Pentecostal “view of life.” One other text helped to solidify my theological and spiritual identity by Jamie Smith, Letters to a Young Calvinist.29 I had grown defensive and frustrated with the interaction between some students and faculty with ideas that stand in contrast to Pentecostalism, specifically Calvinism. As one who thought of myself as a Calvinist, I found the representation of Calvin (and Calvinists) as unfair, biased, and at times very inaccurate. It would not be unusual for fellow students to joking say they would pray for my conversion (with clear implication that they were also serious), or for faculty to make blanket statements about Calvin that were untrue (“there is no assurance in Calvin’s theology”), or for a class to require a text that misrepresents Calvin and the Reformed tradition grossly (Wynkoop’s Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology30). Smith had                                                                                                                 28

Especially impactful for me was his Trinity and the Kingdom.

29

James K.A. Smith, Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2010). 30

One misrepresentation, among the many citations that could be given, from this work is: “in Calvinism the image [imago Dei] is thought to be totally destroyed, making man wholly and irrevocably corrupt in this life and incapable of any act or word or thought untainted by that corruption” (Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology, [Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1967], 98). However, Calvinism has not taught, nor did Calvin, that the image of God is “totally destroyed” – this is the error; the second half of her quote is more accurate but misrepresents the Calvinists view in that she makes a false connection. The image is marred and as such incapable of seeking God, but it is not totally lost leading to what she has concluded. See Calvin’s own Institutes, 1.15.4 for clarification: “There is no doubt that Adam, when he fell from his state, was by this defection alienated from God. Therefore, even though we grant that God’s image was not totally annihilated and destroyed in him, yet it was so corrupted

21

opened the door for me to accept that I could be Pentecostal and intellectual at the same time (I cannot also dismiss the many professors who exhibit this characteristic and their influence), but I continued to face the proposition that I could not be Pentecostal and Calvinist at the same time. Jamie Smith published both Thinking in Tongues and Letters to a Young Calvinist in the same year. In both he holds to the Reformed faith while at the same time embracing a Pentecostal view of life. This showed me that both can be held at the same time, if perhaps not the kind of Calvinism that is popular among more staunch “New Calvinists” nor the Pentecostalism that is tied too closely to dispensationalism and Arminianism. However, none of these quantifiers (“New Calvinism,” dispensationalism, Arminianism, etc) are the sine qua non of what it means to be either broadly Reformed or Pentecostal. The writings of Jamie Smith has been the force that opened the door for me to embrace Pentecostalism once again, however without losing the distinctive of Reformed theology that I gained along the journey. With Smith, I confess my identity as a Reformed Pentecostal. This is not without its tensions and untidiness I realize, but it most faithfully represents my experience and theology at this point and directly impacts how I view the task of defending the faith. One more piece of the puzzle is necessary to view the picture of how my story impacts the subject of apologetics. Internship

                                                                                                                that whatever remains is frightful deformity.” The Lutheran doctrine, from Luther himself, holds that the image is destroyed. However, one must understand how “image” is being defined in Lutheran theology – most often it is in terms of relationality, such that at the fall the relation between God and humanity was lost, thus the image was destroyed; although, Michael Horton in his The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way argues that the Calvinist and Luther doctrines are not so far apart and closer to Calvin when the terms are properly understood.

22

A vital part of the MDiv program is the completion of an internship that gives important connections to the ministry future envisioned. Since I understand my calling as a theology professor, the natural choice was to do my internship as a teaching assistant in the theology department of Lee University. One of the assignments that I was given was to offer a lecture on the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris), their major objections to Christian faith and how to respond to them. Because of my interest in apologetics, I had already read some of their work but this gave me the opportunity to read most of their writing against Christianity and really study the responses that Christian apologists have offered. In the process of this research, and in light of the changes in my philosophy/theology through the influence of Jamie Smith and the seminary, I found that the typical responses of Christian philosophers and apologists, while surely up to the task and rational, did not address the concerns of a postmodern, post-Christian milieu. They, like I had been, were (and are) enamored with a modernistic rationalist response. In working on the response, I found that as a Pentecostal in a postmodern culture I have some advantages in the apologetic task. To be sure, this is not narrowly Pentecostal in the sense that only Pentecostals have the advantage, but by virtue of the way Pentecostals do theology and in virtue of the view of life as Smith describes it, Pentecostals are especially suited to answer the challenges presented by the New Atheists and the world at-large. The nature of apologetics and the current culture is the subject of chapter two and chapter three will unpack how Pentecostals can offer something new to the task of apologetics.

23

Chapter Two: “What has La Mirada to do with Azusa?”31

                                                                                                                31

This quote is a play on James K.A. Smith’s oft-used phrase, “What has Athens to do with Azusa?” (itself a turn of Tertullian’s words “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?”) Smith is a philosopher and a Pentecostal, two adjectives that are rarely seen together and thus he has had to defend, on both sides of the fence—philosophy and Pentecostalism—his authenticity to both. La Mirada, California is home to Biola University and Talbot School of Theology, both of which are centers for Christian apologetics. Top tier philosophers in Christian apologetics are professors there and the program in apologetics and philosophy is among the best in the nation. With this phrase I am attempting to capture the current disconnect between apologetics and Pentecostalism.

24

Introduction “The times, they are a-changin’” Bob Dylan said in the 1960s. This is no less true of our current times than it was of his. These changes present many challenges and opportunities for Christians. We face the overt challenge of the New Atheists and the covert challenges and opportunities in the culture shift with postmodernism. The Christian is faced with the question of how to respond. The aim of this chapter is to set the groundwork for an authentic Pentecostal way of doing apologetics32—explicated in the following chapter. This groundwork consists of exploring the current Western cultural climate33 and the influence of the New Atheists. After this, we will examination the current methods of apologetics to see if they are meeting the challenges posed by both the culture and the New Atheists. Finally, the Pentecostal worldview will be unpacked as foundational for the methodology that flows out of such a way of being in the world. Each of these steps will set up the following chapter of actual methodology for a Pentecostal apologetics.                                                                                                                 32

It may be helpful to the reader to have a definition of “apologetics.” Alister McGrath points out that there are essentially two sides to apologetics: “On the one hand it concerns the countering of objections to the Christian faith, and on the other it concerns setting out the attractiveness of the gospel” (Alister McGrath, “Evangelical Apologetics,” Bibliotheca Sacra 155, no. 617 [Jan 1998], 3). For a more in depth look at the definition of apologetics a couple works are helpful: James K. Beilby, Thinking About Christian Apologetics: What it is and Why We Do It (Downers Grove, IL: InterVaristy Press, 2011), esp. 11-34; Louis Markos, Apologetics for the 21st Century (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), esp 17-24; and Alister McGrath, Mere Apolgoetics: How to Help Seekers & Skeptics Find Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012), esp. 13-25. In this thesis I do not set out to defend apologetics, that is, it is not my intention to offer biblical, theological, or philosophical reasons for doing apologetics. Sources are available toward that end: Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), esp. 23-44; Craig Hazen, “Defending the Defense of the Faith,” in To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview, eds. Francis J. Beckwith, William Lane Craig, and J.P. Moreland (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004), 37-46. 33

Although Pentecostalism’s largest presence is non-Western or Majority World, this study focuses on Western culture as the locus specifically because of my own contextualization. This is not to privilege Western culture over against the Majority World context, rather it sees the Western postmodern and post-Christian culture as presenting particular and peculiar challenges (that may be present in nonWestern cultures also) that Pentecostals are especially poised to meet.

25

Lay of the Land: Why the Need for Another Apologetic Method? Cultural Exploration In the opening chapters of Mark, Jesus offers a parable of the sower and the seed (Mark 4.2-8). In this parable a farmer goes out into the field to plant seed. The field is comprised of multifarious soil types; some of it is hard, some of it has thorns, other soils are good and rich. As the seed takes root, the soil type dictates the success the farmer has with the crop. A few verses later, Jesus explains that the seed is the word and the differing soils are those who receive the seed. Gregory Ganssle has made an interesting apologetic connection to this parable.34 He reminds us that it is not the sower or the soil that necessarily makes the seed grow (although in Jesus’s parable it is clear that the soil is a major part of the process), rather, by referencing Paul in First Corinthians, Ganssle points out that it is God who makes growth happen. The Christian, or in Ganssle’s model, apologete, is the one who does the sowing of the seed. His observation is that one task of apologetics is to diagnose the soil’s condition. Ganssle remarks that it would have been in the front of the hearers’ minds, as part of an agrarian culture, to consider the condition of the soil and properly respond to it. The connection, then, to apologetics is that as we do defense of the faith we take into consideration the condition of the soil and respond appropriately to it. This response takes different forms depending on the soil. Sometimes the farmer (or apologist) tills the ground more, or perhaps waters more. In any case, the farmer must respond to the soil by changing the receptivity of the seed. Thus, this next

                                                                                                                34

Gregory E. Ganssle, “Making the Gospel Connection: An Essay Concerning Applied Apologetics,” in Come Let us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics, eds. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2012), 7-8.

26

section is a brief diagnosis of the soil into which we sow the seed of the word through apologetics. Postmodernism Postmodernism is notoriously difficult to define, often being referred to as a “slippery notion.”35 It seems there are miscellaneous connotations depending on exactly to what this word is being referred. Anything from architecture to physics might be postmodern, but for our purposes here we will look at it from a philosophical and cultural/sociological standpoint. As the word itself implies, postmodernism is postmodern—that is, after modernity.36 To better understand what follows modernity, a brief look at modernity is in order. Modernism William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland have laid out a brief summative history that helps define modernism, they write, “Modernity is the period of European thought that developed out of the Renaissance (14th-17th centuries) and flourished in the Enlightenment (17th-19th centuries) in the ideas of people like Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz and Kant.”37 Following after Descartes, modernity is often characterized as a time focused on the establishment of knowledge on a universal and                                                                                                                 35

This will be a very brief sketch of postmodernism. Some helpful resources on further exploring postmodernity: Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer On Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996); James K. A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006); Carl Raschke, The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004); and for critical views see: Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2000); and “Theories of Truth and Postmodernism,” in Philosophical Foundations For a Christian Worldview, esp. pages 144-53. 36

James Sire maintains, and in this he is not alone, that postmodernism is not post anything, rather “it is the last move of the modern, the result of the modern taking its own commitments seriously and seeing that they fail to stand the test of analysis” (James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, 4th ed., [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004], 212). 37 Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 145.

27

objective foundation.38 Descartes, who is considered the father of modernity,39 emphasized two elements: knowledge is equal to certainty (“achieved solely on the basis of reason”); and the mathematization of the world—“seeing the world as a geometrical object of investigation rather than a living organism.”40 Descartes breaks the necessary ground for the flourishing of scientism—“the belief that all truth is scientific truth and that the sciences give us our best shot at knowing ‘how things really are’”.41 Following Descartes comes the Enlightenment with two basic emphases also: autonomous reason and autonomy of the individual.42 Therefore, to summarize briefly, modernity: (1) attempted to establish culture and life on a universal and objective foundation; (2) offered Reason (with a capital R) to scrutinize critically every claim and to ground the edifice of knowledge; and (3) proffered the hope that through Reason humans could understand the cosmos, establish social peace and improve their condition.43 In the epistemological framework of philosophy and the sciences, the modernist trajectory establishes empiricism or evidentialism (also referred to as verificationism44) and absolute

                                                                                                                38

Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm, “Introduction,” in Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, ed. Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm (Downers Grove IL.: IVP Academic, 1995), 12. 39

Justin Skirry, s.v. “René Descartes (1596-1650): Overview,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Jason Waller (13 September 2008). http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/ 40

“Modernity/Modernism,” 101 Key Terms in Philosophy, 54-5.

41

C. Stephen Evans quoted in Brian J. Walsh and J. Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 167. James Taylor lists two kinds of scientism: strong scientism where the only source of knowledge is through the empirical sciences; and weak scientism where the best epistemology is grounded in empiricism. See James E. Taylor, s.v. “The New Atheists,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (29 January 2010). http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/. 42 43

“Modernity/Modernism,” 101 Key Terms in Philosophy, 55. Phillips and Okholm, “Introduction,” Christian Apologetics, 12.

28

objectivity and (supposed) neutrality. This is the scene which postmodernism reacts against. As Jamie Smith has pointed out, however, the relationship between modernism and postmodernism is not a clear-cut move from one into the other. Both cultural philosophies are variegated and “there are both continuities and discontinuities between modernity and postmodernity.”45 Postmodernism Postmodernism can accurately be construed (if only slightly reductionistically) as a critical epistemological response to the foundationalism of modernity—“a reinterpretation of what knowledge is and what counts as knowledge.”46 It is important to note that postmodernism is understood in various ways by its proponents and this short introduction cannot do justice to the finer points of agreement and disagreement between postmodern thinkers and their critics. What I will give here is postmodernism’s chief complaints against modernism and how this sets up the apologetic enterprise for those living in a postmodern culture. Initially, I pointed out that postmodernism (in one facet) is a response to foundationalism; it may serve well to have a better understanding of foundationalism. Essentially, it is a theory of epistemic justification that “represents a quest for epistemic certainty and it is this desire to have certainty that provides the intellectual impetus for foundationalism.”47 Postmodernism rejects this theory as the only and appropriate                                                                                                                 44

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 18. 45

James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 26. 46 47

Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 145. Ibid, 146.

29

epistemic justification. Closely connected to this is the rejection of rationality as objective. Postmodern thinkers maintain that there is no “God’s eye view” or purely objective view. Reason, argumentation and truth are culturally and socially conditioned. “There is no neutral standpoint from which to approach the world, and thus observations, beliefs and so forth are perspectival constructions that reflect the viewpoint implicit in one’s own web of beliefs.”48 Because neutrality is rejected so is access to “objective” truth and this is generally interpreted by critics as a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth as well as, an embrace of relativism. Not all postmodern thinkers accept this characterization. Philip Kenneson in his article, “There’s no Such Thing as Objective Truth, and it’s a Good Thing Too,” argues that his position, while rejecting objective truth as something “out there” we have access to, denies relativism.49 For Kenneson and other postmodern thinkers, truth is grounded in language, which is conditioned by hermeneutics and semiotics. Similarly, any narrative that assumes at its base to rest on the purely neutral truth is questioned. This leads to their rejection of meta-narratives. This is often seen differently among postmodern thinkers. Some only reject those that appear to be foundationalistic, while others reject any narratives that seek to encompass all other narratives. To summarize briefly and perhaps a bit too simplistically, postmodernism questions all claims to neutrality and objectivity. Any theory or claim that rests on some claim to neutral/objective “reality” is suspect in postmodern thinking. This does have benefits for Christian apologetics. It opens the way for a less rationalistic view of                                                                                                                 48

Ibid.

49

Philip D. Kenneson, “There’s No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and it’s a Good Thing Too,” in Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, ed. Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1995), 155-70.

30

epistemology. Knowledge is not centered chiefly in objectivity, but is conditioned by personal experience. In this way, the postmodern view is more open to the life “story” of others. This provides great opportunities for Pentecostals doing apologetics. With its move from modernism to postmodernism, the cultural milieu has drastically changed in the last century . This has brought challenges, both positive and negative, to the church’s attempt at evangelization and apologetics. With the rejection of meta-narratives, the table of fellowship has opened chairs for voices otherwise oppressed and marginalized. This is surely a positive thing for Christians, particularly Pentecostals who have been in times past, kept from the table. This new act of openness is doubleedged, however. While welcoming all narratives to the discussion, the pluralism fathered by postmodernity rejects any narrative that makes objective claims. This puts the Christian in a peculiar position, she now has a “right” to speak, but her impression is that Jesus does indeed make claim for all humanity. How is she to proceed in offering hope to a dying world that rejects claims over all humanity as oppressive, power language games inherent in meta-narratives? Coupled with this concern about sharing her hope she is faced with the challenges the New Atheists propose. How might she defend her faith in a postmodern world against what appears to be modernist challenges? This hybrid challenge has been the topic of interest to those who are interested in apologetic method. A further challenge that the move from modernism has given the Christian apologist is the fact and value divide. Fact/Value Divide

31

Francis   Schaeffer   in   his   little   book,   Escape   From   Reason,50   traces   the   historical  development  of  what  he  calls  the  upper  and  lower  story  of  knowledge.  For   Schaeffer,  how  humanity  came  to  the  current  state  where  there  is  a  divide  between   rationality  and  faith  (ultimately  non-­‐rationality)  is  a  long  history  with  its  beginnings   in   Thomas   Aquinas.   The   picture   that   he   is   painting   has   to   do   with   the   mental   division   created   between   those   things   which   are   rational,   such   as   facts   or   science,   and  those  which  are  non-­‐rational,  such  as  morals,  faith,  art,  etc.  Although  Schaeffer   was   discussing   these   issues   in   1968,   they   have   not   subsided.   Rather,   it   seems   that   Schaeffer   had   his   finger   on   the   pulse   of   the   culture   and   its   direction.   This   divide   presents  unique  challenges  to  doing  apologetics  and  thus  is  worth  some  exploration.   In   humanity’s   earliest   philosophical   history,   there   has   been   a   divide— between   material   and   immaterial.   The   immaterial   was   more   valuable   and   focused   on  than  the  material.  However,  this  begins  to  change,  according  to  Schaeffer,  when   Thomas   Aquinas   makes   the   divide   between   nature   and   grace.   Nature   is   the   lower   level   where   creation   resides   and   grace   is   the   upper   level   where   God   and   the   heavenly   things,   including   the   human   soul,   reside.   This   creates   a   problem   for   Schaeffer—and   one   that   only   gets   worse   through   history,   is   the   autonomy   that   is   afforded   the   lower   level   versus   the   upper   level.   When   nature   was   perceived   as   autonomous,   it   became   destructive.   Indeed   this   is   almost   necessarily   the   case.   “As   soon  as  one  allows  an  autonomous  realm  one  finds  that  the  lower  element  begins  to   eat   up   the   higher,”51   says   Schaeffer.   The   project   of   natural   theology,   begun   in                                                                                                                   1968).

50

Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape From Reason (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006, original

51

Ibid., 42

32

Thomas,  is  evidence  of  this  downward  move.  There  is,  however,  some  reprieve  from   the  inordinate  divide  in  the  Reformation  with  the  recovery  of  an  appropriate  view  of   the   Fall.   In   the   Reformation   the   autonomy   of   humanity   is   called   into   question   and   the  authority  of  God  is  brought  back  to  center  stage.     With  Immanuel  Kant  the  downward  slide  begins  again.  Now  the  divide  is  no   longer  nature  and  grace,  but  nature  and  freedom.52  Schaeffer  attributes  this  change   to   the   dispelling   of   grace   from   society,   as   culture   moves   further   away   from   its   biblical   moorings.   The   Enlightenment,   Kant,   Hegel,   and   more   particularly   Kierkegaard,  set  up  the  next  move  to  the  divide  between  rationality  and  faith  from   nature   and   freedom.   Kierkegaard’s   push   of   faith   to   a   level   beyond   and   above   rationalism,  which  requires  a  leap,  paves  the  way  for  a  total  and  complete  divide— or  chasm—between  the  lower  and  upper  story  such  that  one  has  nothing  to  do  with   the   other.   This   history   is   not   merely   of   the   way   theology   came   to   be   done   where   natural  theology  and  particular  revelation  are  held  in  tension.  Rather,  for  Schaeffer   these  divides  accurately  describe  not  simply  what  is  happening  at  the  philosophical   and  theological  levels  but  also  what  the  common  culture  is  coming  to  embrace.     Thus,   when   he   comes   to   the   modern   situation   he   describes   faith   as   “totally   separated  from  the  logical  and  reasonable.”53  More  than  that,  whatever  is  placed  in   the   upper   story   makes   no   real   difference   to   life.   It   is   only   the   lower   story   that   matters.  This  is  the  condition  of  postmodernism.  The  connection  is  born  out  in  the   relativistic   tendencies   of   the   postmodern   view.   If,   as   Schaeffer   argues,   values   and                                                                                                                   52

Ibid., 44.

53

Ibid., 67.

33

morals   have   been   moved   to   the   upper   level   and   this   level   is   really   indifferent   to   life,   then  relativism  is  the  natural  moral  course.  While  people  still  value  the  opinions  of   science,   which   remains   in   the   lower   level   and   offers   “facts”   about   reality,   there   is   indifference  to  the  differing  upper  levels—no  one  is  better  than  another,  they  are  all   equally   non-­‐binding   (meaningless   in   Schaeffer’s   view).   Nancy   Pearcey   points   out   this   divide   as   between   the   public   sphere,   which   is   science   and   its   “value-­‐free”   enterprise,  and  the  private  sphere,  which  is  value-­‐laden  and  personal  preference.54   She  goes  on  to  give  a  diagram  of  “Today’s  two-­‐story  truth:”55   POSTMODERNISM   Subjective,  Relative  to  Particular  Groups   —————————————————————————   MODERNISM   Objective,  Universally  Valid     The   implications   for   apologetics   is   both   daunting   and   challenging.   In   short,   an   apologetic   which   seeks   to   establish   the   Christian   faith   as   something   important   to   the   lower   level   of   the   public   sphere—something   which   the   Christian   faith   itself   takes  to  be  of  utmost  importance—will  have  to  take  into  consideration  the  regnant   divide  and  accommodate  the  methodology.  Not  relegated  to  a  monolithic  view,  the   New  Atheists  can  be  seen  as  paradigmatic  of  this  two-­‐story  truth.  Furthermore,  as   one  of  the  popular  voices  among  the  detractors  from  faith,  the  New  Atheists  present   challenges   to   the   Christian   faith   that   have   bearing   on   how   apologetics   is   done.   Continuing   the   soil   diagnosis   requires   a   look   into   this   group   and   their   major                                                                                                                   54

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Chritsianity from its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 20 55

Ibid., 21.

34

objections  is  require—since  they,  and  those  they  have  influenced,  comprise  a  large   patch  of  ground  that  needs  seeding.   The New Atheists: Who Are They? My goal is not to offer a refutation of the claims made by the New Atheists, rather it is to briefly sketch their major objections and how this integrates into a postmodern world. There are great answers to the objections and challenges raised by the New Atheists and the footnotes and bibliography will point to works worth considering when seeking a reasonable and reflected answer when challenged to give an account for the hope within. The New Atheists present a unique challenge to the task of defending the faith. They show that it is not merely existential answers that are needed in the case for Christianity, but that the classic work of apologetics still has viability—if only in a different way, as I will construe in the next chapter. At this point, however, it will be important to have an introduction to the New Atheists and their objections to Christian faith. The moniker “New Atheists” may be credited to Gary Wolf of Wired magazine. In his 2006 article, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” Wolf writes of the challenge posed by the new-to-the-publishing-scene atheists to their fellow non-believers—get in the fight and declare the irrationality of religion!56 Also known as the “Four Horsemen” from an informal discussion that took place in 2007, these celebrity New Atheists are Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. A brief biographical sketch of each is in order.

                                                                                                                56

Gary Wolf, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” Wired, November 2006, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html accessed: 16 September 2011.

35

Until his recent retirement, Richard Dawkins was the Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. His academic training (Ph.D.) and profession, for which he is well-known and respected, is in evolutionary biology, specifically ethology (study of animal behavior). Dawkins has been a prolific writer for both science and atheism with his earliest books more focused on his scientific studies and their implications for “faith.” He is perhaps most well known for his work, The God Delusion (2006). He has, however, published other influential books for atheism and science: The Selfish Gene (1976), The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), and The Greatest Show on Earth (2009). Dawkins is the current vice president for the British Humanist Association. Daniel Dennett is Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University (Medford, MA). Dennett is a philosopher by trade and training (B.A. and Ph.D.). Philosophy of the mind is Dennett’s discipline and he has written two influential books for atheism: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) and Breaking the Spell (2006). Sam Harris is the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason. Harris has a mixed background in his academic training with a Bachelor’s in philosophy and a Ph.D. in neuroscience. His most influential writings are: The End of Faith (2005), Letter to a Christian Nation (2008), and The Moral Landscape (2010). Christopher Hitchens rounds out the last of the “Four Horsemen” of atheism.57 He is the least trained academically but equally well known as a liberal journalist. This should not detract from our responsibility to hear him and respond. He was a prolific                                                                                                                 57

Hitchens passed away 15 December 2011.

36

writer and speaker whose charisma, intellect, and rhetoric made him popular among atheists and Christians alike. His most popular book is God is Not Great (2009). An interesting point in common to all of the New Atheists is that none was raised in an overtly religious home. Although each did grow up in a nominally religious culture, none claims to have had a terrible experience with a religious figure. Rather, they came to non-faith through a process of reason. The objections to faith rationally outweighed any answers they were given. Alister McGrath has pointed out that it is also worth noting “that its four leading representatives are all Anglo-Saxon Protestant males from remarkably similar backgrounds of privilege and power.”58 He also observes that they are all white males, although this does not define the New Atheism. Their label as New Atheist is a bit of a misnomer since they are not recent “converts” to atheism nor do they offer anything new to the charges of atheism against theism. Indeed, as James Taylor points out: “It is difficult to identify anything philosophically unprecedented in their position and arguments, but the New Atheists have provoked considerable controversy with their body of work.”59 What does distinguish them from previous atheists is their commitment to the eradication of religion. It is not enough that they show belief in God to be false; they also advocate the elimination of religion per se from the public and private spheres of life. Furthermore, as Alister McGrath has remarked, “the New Atheism cannot be defined or described simply in                                                                                                                 58

Alister McGrath, Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running On Empty? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 36. A fascinating study could be made of the psychological and/or sociological implications of the demographics of the New Atheists. McGrath gives a couple sources to further explore this: E. Digby Baltzell, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), or from a feminist perspective Beattie, The New Atheists. 59

James E. Taylor, “The New Atheists,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 29 January 2010, http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/ accessed 16 September 2011.

37

terms of the canonical writings of the ‘Four Horsemen.’ It’s generated a global community of individuals who find these authors authoritative and inspirational guides to the rational and scientific worldview they believe holds the key to the future of the human race.”60 Because of their far reaching influence (all have been on multiple major best seller lists and national broadcasts) and the spirit with which their writings have inspired followers, it is incumbent upon Christians to take notice, consider, analyze, and respond to the claims these four and their followers are making. The New Atheists: Why Should We Listen? Given their shrill sound, unfriendly tone, and lack of novelty, one might wonder why Christians ought to engage the New Atheists’ claims at all. A few reasons make themselves immediately apparent. First, ideas have consequences. The New Atheists are making claims about the way the world actually is—claims that contradict the view of life proposed by theists. Either the New Atheists have it correct or the theists do,61 and there are implications that follow from either view. These implications are answers to the transcendent questions of life: meaning, morality, and destiny.62 Second, due to their popularity, the New Atheists writers exert influence on the culture. Friends, family, fellow Christians, and non-believers will have encountered the claims of this atheism. It should be the response of Christians to offer a reasonable answer to their questions and challenges. Finally, engagement with challenges forces us to clarify our thinking                                                                                                                 60

McGrath, Why God Won't Go Away, 38-9.

61

That is, either there is no god or there is (perhaps that there are many gods should also be included in the theistic possibility). Given the laws of logic, specifically non-contradiction and excluded middle, either one or the other is true. 62

Ravi Zacharias, “Faith Under Fire: Jesus Among Other Gods,” Just Thinking Podcast, 30 August 2011.

38

regarding the most important issues of life.63 As Johnson and Reynolds point out, the church has too often in the past swept under the rug questions of critical discussion64 with devastating consequences—that is, the loss of faith in Christ of those who have not been given adequate room to question or provided with satisfying answers. A second question one might well ask is on what authority do the New Atheists speak? Worded differently, are they qualified to raise the concerns they propose? The answer to this query is less obvious and perhaps less “neat.” On the one hand, the objections they raise must be addressed regardless of the qualifications of the one asking, else we might commit a fallacy akin to ad hominem—it is the claim/objection that is to be addressed, not the one asking.65 On the other hand, it does seem that at times the New Atheists move out of their respective specialties into areas in which they have little training. This causes them to ask questions that might otherwise be characterized as illogical at best and jejune at worst.66 We must again appeal to their ubiquitous presence in the popular media; qualified or not, they are having an impact and merit our attention. The theist’s, specifically Christian’s, imperative to listen and respond to the New Atheists stems from the implications of ideas and the influence these ideas have on the

                                                                                                                63

Phillip E. Johnson and John Mark Reynolds, Against All Gods: What's Right and Wrong About the New Atheism (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2010), 8. 64

Ibid, 9.

65

C.S. Lewis coined a name for such a fallacy, “Bulverism.” Stated positively, Lewis mandated that “you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong” (Lewis’ emphasis). C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays On Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub Co, 1994), 273. 66

See Terry Eagleton’s critique of Dawkins’ God Delusion, “Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching,” London Review of Books, Vol. 28 No. 20 19 October 2006, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terryeagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching

39

culture and the church. We turn next to the main objections and claims the New Atheists make against religion. The New Atheists: Objections and Claims The main claims and objections that the New Atheists proclaim can be generalized into three basic contentions: the problem of evil, the problem of evidence, and the problem of epistemology. It should be noted that, (1) these are the problems that the “Four Horsemen” consistently propose for religion and that there are many more, that may not fit well in any of the categories I have given, made by followers of and contemporaries to the four writers listed;67 and, (2) in this section I will only address the objections raised by Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. John Haught has argued that Dennett’s contentions do not differ from these three and in many ways repeats them.68 In discussing the problem of evil, all of the New Atheists make a contribution. However, my focus will be on the writing of Harris and Hitchens. Dawkins is given to quoting Harris when discussing this particular problem, but he is more original in the second contention, where he is the one oft quoted by the other two and therefore will serve as the main voice for the problem of evidence. The final contention, the problem of epistemology, is less existential and more philosophical but no less important for the New Atheists. Indeed, it                                                                                                                 67

One such charge is the reliability of the scriptural texts. It is my contention that most all challenges to the Christian faith proposed by “New Atheists” and their “foot soldiers” (See McGrath, Why God Won’t Go Away) fall into one of the three categories I give. 68

John F. Haught, God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press: 2008), ix-x. This point should not detract from a reflected and critical engagement with any of the so-called Four Horsemen, nor for that matter anyone who challenges the faith by repetition of previous challenges. It seems every generation must work out for themselves challenges and rejoinders concerning the Christian faith—including both believers and nonbelievers. Given this, and the fact that religion attempts to answers questions of most importance to humans, it ought not bring surprise that challenges and answers are debated.

40

may be the most important since it finds mention in nearly every book, lecture, article, and debate into which the New Atheists are engaging. It is there that we shall start to set the groundwork and foundation for the other broad indictments. The Problem of Epistemology This first indictment against religion in general I have called the problem of epistemology because the New Atheists take issue with the very knowledge structures that faith purports to have. In fact, they challenge that there is a knowledge structure at all and therefore define faith as wishful thinking or worse, madness. There is a second reason that epistemology poses a problem: the underlying epistemic structure of the New Atheists and its role in all their subsequent challenges. At the outset, it seems appropriate to better define what it meant by “epistemology” and then to explore the challenge of faith-as-wishful thinking and finally to probe the epistemological structure from which the New Atheists work. Epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that makes “sense out of knowledge, rationality and justified or unjustified beliefs.”69 There is concern for important questions about knowledge: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is the ground of knowledge? What is its structure, and what are its limits?70 It explores how knowledge is attainted and whether the process by which one                                                                                                                 69

J.P. Moreland & William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations For a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 72. 70

Matthias Steup, “Epistemology,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2005 ed. Online. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/ accessed 19 September 2011; Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman, Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith (Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2006), 39.

41

comes to know is valid or warranted. Epistemology offers great import to the discussion precisely because the answers given will directly influence what evidence and arguments are permitted in the endeavor for truth. Answers to the basic epistemological questions form the foundation of the noetic structure—the sum total of all that one believes.71 The New Atheists challenge this very structure of believers based on their (the atheists) epistemological framework and hence noetic structure. In terms of worldview, epistemology and the answers to the questions it raises appears to be of vital importance. What is accepted as believable is first determined by how we answer the question of what is knowledge. Although most people will not actively reflect on their own noetic structure or the answers they give to the epistemological questions, it is these presuppositions that function initially to adjudicate in matters of vital importance. It seems that the beginning of all objections to faith have their presuppositions in epistemology—whether implicit or explicit. This is the point the New Atheists make: the epistemological framework of the religious is flawed;72 more than that, it leads to evil. The New Atheists’ contention against “faith” rests on the ideas of warrant and justification. We should therefore define what is meant by these two concepts, at least for the challengers. While they can be differentiated, warrant and justification are often used synonymously in the New Atheists writings. A belief is justified/warranted if it has been                                                                                                                 71

Ronald H. Nash, Faith and Reason: Searching For a Rational Faith (Faith Lessons) (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 21. 72

Nicholas Wolterstorff has classified this objection as the “evidentialist objection.” His characterization of this objection and challenge fits well the New Atheist’s epistemological structure, furthermore, he points out that this objection is characteristically modernistic (Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Can Belief in God be Rational if it Has No Foundations?” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, eds. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1983, reprint 2009], 135-86).

42

supported by evidence and/or reason. In the New Atheist understanding this means that beliefs are true, that is, beliefs are warranted and justified, when they are supported by evidence and reason (the question of what qualifies as “evidence” will be discussed in the section on the New Atheist’s epistemology). Faith For the New Atheists, faith is wishful thinking.73 Although a Christian, Edward Feser has offered a great definition of the New Atheists’ version of “faith”: “an unshakable commitment grounded not in reason but rather in sheer willfulness, a deeply ingrained desire to want things to be a certain way regardless of whether the evidence shows they are that way.”74 Their premise is that there is no warrant or justification for the beliefs delivered by faith. In their own words: faith, according to Dawkins, is “the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate the evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”75 He also describes faith as “a state of mind that leads people to believe something—it doesn’t matter what— in the total absence of supporting evidence.”76 Harris has offered his contribution to the definition of faith. It is, “motivated by credulity…unjustified belief [about] matters of ultimate concern…what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse—constraints like reasonableness, internal                                                                                                                 73

Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (USA: Twelve,

2009), 4. 74

Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2010), 6. 75

This is from a lecture by Dawkins titled “Lions 10, Christians Nil.” It was delivered at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (1992) and is quoted in McGrath, Why God Won’t Go Away, 85. 76

Ibid., 111.

43

coherence, civility, and candor;”77 and “nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.”78 Their description of faith is reminiscent of the Kierkegaardian notion of “leap of faith.” This is not surprising as Hitchens clearly references this Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” which he sees as unsatisfactory to keep belief in spite of evidence. Therefore, religion corrupts faith and must manipulate reason and “confect ‘proofs’” such as design, revelation, punishments, and miracles (this charge will be addressed more in detail in the problem of evidence section).79 It is clear that the working definition of faith for the New Atheists is belief that is held without evidence or reason and sometimes in spite of reason and evidence. Religion, for them, then, rests on fideism—the denial of reasons. New Atheists’ Epistemology The New Atheists accuse the religious of working from a deficient epistemological structure based on wishful thinking. What, then, do they offer? What is clear from their problem with religious faith is that any belief must be supported by evidence and reason. Therefore, it would seem that for the New Atheists, the epistemological questions that address the grounding of faith are answered with evidence and reason. Yet, it is not just any evidence that will work, since Hitchens has denied the claims of religion as positing any evidence even with its “proofs.”80 W. K. Clifford’s oft                                                                                                                 77

Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, 1st Norton pbk. ed. (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2005), 65. 78

Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 1st Vintage Books ed. (New York, NY: Vintage,

2008), 67. 79

Hitchens, God is Not Great, 71. Also see Harris, End of Faith, 23.

80

Ibid.

44

quoted line seems to be the working thesis of the New Atheists: “It is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”81 The key for the New Atheists is that their definition of “sufficient evidence” must be followed. And the “evidence” the New Atheists desire is only clarified by Harris: it is “sensory or logic.”82 Harris also provides the clearest place where evidence (sensory or logical) can be found in a response to the eminent agnostic Stephen Jay Gould. It is worth looking at Gould’s proposal and Harris’ response—this will indicate clearly the epistemological direction of the New Atheists. Gould wrote an article titled, “Nonoverlaping Magisteria”83 that was prompted by an encyclical released by Pope John Paul II. The Pope’s message was that evolution and Catholic dogma were in essence compatible. To a large degree, Gould agreed with the Pope on the basis of his (Gould’s) idea of two nonoverlaping magisteria. Picking up on the language of the Catholic church’s title for the teaching authority, Gould posits two “teaching authorities,” science and religion. It was his contention that these two did not conflict, contrary to popular thought, because there is “a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meanings of our lives.”84 He further clarifies what he means by these two magisteria:                                                                                                                 81

Quoted in Ronald H. Nash, Faith and Reason: Searching For a Rational Faith, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 71. Clifford’s article is available online and is worth the read, http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html 82

Harris, End of Faith, 71

83

Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonoverlaping Magisteria,” Natural History, 106 (March 1997) Online www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html accessed 20 September 2011. 84

Ibid.

45

The net of science covers the empirical universe: what it is made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).85 Although these two realms do not cross over, they do at times “bump up” against each other and provoke what Gould called “deep” questions that call on both for a full answer.86 Harris’ response to Gould is telling: “It is time that all rational people acknowledge that where claims about the nature of reality are concerned, there is only one magisterium.”87 The magisterium that Harris has in mind is clearly that of science. Here is the most lucid statement of the New Atheists’ underlying principle: only science provides true knowledge of the world. Respondents to the New Atheists have often given a clearer picture of the noetic structure held by Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens than they themselves have. Their worldview is characterized by a presumed scientific naturalism. Scientific naturalism can be defined as: “only nature, including humans and our creations, is real; God does not exist; and science alone can give us complete and reliable knowledge of reality.”88 The methods of empirical (i.e. physical, sensory observation) verification are the only legitimate means by which knowledge and therefore beliefs can be formed; such is the presupposition of the New Atheists and their ilk. This epistemic structure moves beyond influencing the noetic construction to laying the metaphysic of the New Atheists. This means that their epistemic assumptions directly affect how they understand the world to                                                                                                                 85

Ibid.

86

Ibid. The question he proposes is in relation to evolution: how does the Christian’s acceptance of evolution effect her understanding of original sin? 87

Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 111.

88

Haught, God and the New Atheists, x.

46

work. If science is the only authority capable of giving a meaningful (and morally sufficient) answer to questions of the way the world really is, then any question that cannot be answered by scientific study is meaningless and irrational (and/or psychotic), and perhaps even evil, as is the case with religion. Victor Reppert has helpfully classified the distinction the New Atheists make between the metaphysic of the atheists and the metaphysic of the religious.89 In his article, “Confronting Naturalism: the Argument from Reason,”90 Reppert posits two metaphysics, the nonmentalistic worldview and the mentalistic worldview. These two views tread on an understanding of what is a basic cause and what are mental states. Basic causes “are causes at rock bottom, in the sense that no underlying explanation is to be found.”91 Basic causes are parallel to properly basic beliefs in epistemology—they end the backward regress to find the foundation (hence foundationalism in Descartian epistemology and following). Mental states are held by agents (rational and personal entities) and are marked with four characteristics: purpose, intentionality or aboutness, normativity, and subjectivity. With these two elements defined, we can now look at Reppert’s two metaphysics—one held by atheists and the other by theists. First, the nonmentalistic worldview is one that states no mental states are basic causes—held by atheists, particularly the New Atheists. This is to say that an agent with mental states is not “at rock bottom” the cause or underlying explanation of the way the world is. Rather the world is materialistic and, Reppert shows, is marked by three characteristics:                                                                                                                 89

Hitchens has an entire chapter in his, God is Not Great, on refuting the metaphysic of religion.

90

Victor Reppert, “Confronting Naturalism: The Argument from Reason,” Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering the New Atheists and Other Objections, 27. 91

Ibid.

47

mechanistic, causally closed, where the nonphysical supervenes on the physical. Second, the theists’ position, that of a mentalistic worldview, is one that has mental states as basic causes. The theists presume the world, at its base/foundation, is explained and caused by an agent. One more voice provides clarity to the epistemology of the New Atheists. Alister McGrath has pointed out that the New Atheists’ presupposition is one of “scientism” or “scientific imperialism.” He defines this as “the view that science can solve all our problems, explain human nature, or tell us what’s morally good. It claims that all that’s known or can be known is capable of verification or falsification using the scientific method.”92 The view the New Atheists hold on epistemology, and subsequently the world, is clearly in focus. This view sets the stage for all their subsequent challenges to the faith. The single challenge that flows most naturally from this scientific imperialism in a nonmentalistic world is their charge of the problem of evidence. The Problem of Evidence This charge has much in common and indeed follows from the New Atheists’ epistemology. The problem can be stated in two facets: first they charge that the evidence shows that there is no God, and second that there is no positive evidence for the existence of God. Plantinga has termed these two types of objections as de facto and de jure.93 De facto objections challenge the truth of Christianity; whereas de jure

                                                                                                                92

McGrath, Why God Won’t Go Away, 117. McGrath is not alone in connecting the New Atheists to scientism. James Taylor also points this out in “The New Atheists” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under the section headed, “Faith and Reason” (http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/). 93

Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000),

498.

48

are arguments or claims to the effect that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or rationally unjustified, or irrational, or not intellectually respectable, or contrary to sound morality, or without sufficient evidence, or in some other way rationally unacceptable, not up to snuff from an intellectual point of view. 94 We will first look at the de facto objections to faith that the New Atheists bring to the table. Evidence for No God This is the positive case that the Atheists produce to prove that God does not exist. It has been noted that the New Atheists, in general, do not put forth any positive case, rather they offer only critique of theistic beliefs. Although it is true that their works are mostly devoted to critiquing the theistic enterprise, the New Atheists do produce works that make a positive case for atheism.95 Their largest claim to proof for the nonexistence of God is scientific, specifically in the field of evolution. Evolution and natural selection serve as proof positive for the atheistic worldview. Indeed, as Dawkins has said, “Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”96 Darwin’s theory of natural selection serves for the atheist, at least the New Atheists, as the best possible explanation for the origins of life and this serves to prove there is no God. In fact, for Dawkins it is the only explanation that “is in principle capable of explaining the                                                                                                                 94

Ibid, ix.

95

To be sure, this often does not look similar to Christian apologetics. In fact, Hitchens, and others have lamented that they have to defend a “worldview” at all since it is their stance that they simply do not believe in something. His defense is that one would not have to prove the nonexistence of unicorns so why should he prove the nonexistence of God. Edward Feser has done well to respond to this rather jejune philosophical position. See Feser, The Last Superstition. 96

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), 6.

49

existence of organized complexity [i.e. life].”97 He goes further than mere life on our planet: “Natural selection’s explanatory power is not just about life on this planet: it is the only theory so far suggested that could, even in principle, explain life on any planet.”98 For Dawkins the reason this explanation is so powerful is that its “explanation ratio” is low. What he means is that the assumptions necessary for the explanation to work are less complicated than the explanation itself—the explanation does not require greater explanation.99 This, he says, is not true of any theistic explanation, least of which is that of design. His position is that any theistic explanation requires even more complicated assumptions and explanations to work. This is seen clearest in his response to Aquinas’ “Five Ways.”100 Dawkins has characterized these five ways as (1) the unmoved mover, (2) the uncaused cause, (3) the cosmological argument, (4) the argument from degree, and (5) the teleological argument or argument from design.101 The first three suffer from the same problem, namely, that they “make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”102 Aquinas had pointed out that there cannot be an infinite regress—some thing (or someone) had to begin the process. The New Atheists                                                                                                                 97

Ibid, 103.

98

Richard Dawkins, “Why Darwin Matters,” The Guardian, 08 February 2008, Online www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/09/darwin.dawkins1, accessed 14 September 2011. 99

Ibid.

100

“The ‘five ways’ of Aquinas offer five different kinds of evidence that can be accounted for only on the basis of God’s existence. The evidence marshaled in the five arguments include change, motion, contingency, cause, and morality/goodness. These natural phenomena force one to conclude that there must be a Creator of all that is but that is not itself created…Each of the five ways argues from facts about the created order to the Creator. Aquinas assumed that all rational creatures would accept these arguments if they were in fact acting rationally [Kelly James Clark, Richard Lints and James K.A. Smith, 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance For Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press, 2004), 7]. 101

Dawkins, The God Delusion, 100-3.

102

Ibid, 101.

50

wonder how is it that God began. They reason that if God created everything, then who created God? As Hitchens opines, “the postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator.”103 Not only does theism not account for God through classical “creationism” but neither does design gain purchase: A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us to escape.104 No Evidence for God The point that there is no evidence for God is made repeatedly throughout all of the New Atheists’ works. This point is most often made in conjunction with the charge that faith is irrational. Thus it is closely related to the New Atheists’ epistemology. Indeed, it follows almost determinedly from the view that only science (empirical verification) can give true knowledge of the world. It is under this premise that the New Atheists respond to the positive scientific claims made by theists and dismiss them as non-evidence. Hitchens has shown us this with his comment that religion fabricates “proofs” and with his assertion that religion is “man-made.”105 It is for this very reason that no evidence can be offered for the existence of a God. Further, this means that the religious are solipsistic. As Hitchens asks, “How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine

                                                                                                                103

Hitchens, God is Not Great, 71.

104

Dawkins, The God Delusion, 136.

105

Hitchens, God is Not Great, 10, 54.

51

plan?”106 It is precisely because “faith” rests on groundless and reasonless belief that there can be no evidence offered. Harris asks, “Is a person really free to believe in a proposition for which he has no evidence? No. Evidence (whether sensory or logical) is the only thing that suggests that a given belief is really about the world in the first place.”107 It is in this way that this objection, that there is no evidence for God, is classified as a de jure objection according to Plantinga’s characterization. This lack of evidence, Harris contends, is what “regularly brings out the worst in us.”108 This is the subject of their next major objection. The Problem of Evil This challenge comes in a couple different forms and in general the New Atheists turns their focus on only one. To lay the ground work we will look at what is the deductive and inductive problem of evil and then turn to the New Atheists’ assertion of religious evil. The first look will be brief enough to give a broad stroke of the general problem. In the second, however, we will allow the New Atheists to speak for themselves as they characterize the problem of evil. It should be clear that the New Atheists are moral realists, that is, they hold that morality (good and evil) actually exists—there is such a thing as being right and wrong.109                                                                                                                 106 107 108

Ibid, 7. Harris, End of Faith, 72. Harris, End of Faith, 26.

109

They tread on this quite heavily when accusing religion of evil—they really believe religion is evil this is not just their opinion. Incidentally, Dawkins has stated that evil and good do not exist, “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA…it is every living object’s sole reason for being” [quoted in William Lane Craig, “Richard Dawkins on Arguments for God,” God is Good, God is Great: Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible, ed. William Lane Craig and Chad Meister (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009),

52

Deductive and Inductive Problem of Evil In times past atheists have articulated the problem of evil deductively. For example, David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion characterized the problem of evil in what has become known as the classical deductive argument. Perhaps Epicurus was the first to state the problem in the third-century B.C.: Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked, If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?110 With some modification, this is what that argument looks like in deductive form:111 1. God is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (wholly good) and omniscient (all-knowing). 2. If God is omnipotent, God can eliminate evil. 3. If God is omnibenevolent, God would want to eliminate evil. 4. If God is omniscient, God knows how to eliminate evil. 5. There is evil. 6. Therefore, God does not exist. The New Atheists rarely use this argument directly when combating religion but, they do mention it sometimes. Indeed, Dawkins does not consider the classical argument against theism to be the best argument because “it is childishly easy to overcome the problem of evil. Simply postulate a nasty god—such as the one who stalks every page of the Old Testament.”112 Harris, however, used this challenge in his debate with William Lane Craig (7 April 2011) concerning the grounding of objective morals. He states,                                                                                                                 18]. However, Dawkins does take issue with the evils perpetrated by religion. This places him in the moral realist category, even if inconsistently with his own views. 110 Quoted in, Chad Meister, “God, Evil and Morality,” God is Good, God is Great, 107. 111

This is a combination of two renditions of the deductive problem of evil from, “Evil, Problem of,” in 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology, 25 and Nash, Faith and Reason, 178. 112

Dawkins, The God Delusion, 135.

53

Any God who would allow children by the millions to suffer and die in this way [in terror and agony], and their parents to grieve in this way [their prayers for their child unanswered], either can do nothing to help them, or doesn’t care to. He is therefore either impotent or evil [i.e. not God].”113 Similarly, the inductive problem finds little use, directly stated, in New Atheists’ work. It is worth noting the structure and flow of this argument because the New Atheists do work from its shoulders in their own accusations against religion. Nash has provided a good simple delineation of the argument: “Given the amount of evil we find in the world—to say nothing of the apparent senselessness of much of this evil—it seems improbable or unlikely that the world was created by or is supported in its existence by a good, omnipotent, omniscient God.”114 Here we can already see that there are two characteristics of the inductive problem, the quantity of evil and the quality of evil. Either there is too much evil in the sense of amount or there is too much evil that is gratuitous, or perhaps both, for there to be a good and all-powerful God. The New Atheists’ problem with religion in general and God in particular is that there is too much evil not simply going on in the world but actually perpetrated by religion for it or God to be true. Religion is Evil This is perhaps the loudest argument the New Atheists shout in every recent work of theirs. Hitchens subtitles his book “How Religion Poisons Everything” and this is the mantra of that work, repeating it anytime he makes an argument against religion. Through their writings, it becomes clear that religion is not merely evil because religious people do evil, but it is evil because it endorses and even commands evil. We will look at                                                                                                                 113

The debate can be found on youtube.com or on Craig’s website: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8877; this similar reasoning also appears in Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation, 55. 114

Nash, Faith and Reason, 196.

54

what each of the Four Horsemen (Dennett not included) has to say about the evils of religion through their own sound-bites. Hitchens, with his rhetorical flare, will begin. Early in his book, God is Not Great, Hitchens begins his attack on the morality of religion and belief in God because it has caused great suffering. “We know for a fact…that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic-cleanser raise an eyebrow.”115 Showing forth his true knack for writing, he pens this biting criticism: religion is “violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of woman and coercive toward children.”116 However, this is to be expected when the Bible contains “a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre.”117 On the basis of its sacred texts, religion persecutes humanity in ways reminiscent of the species’ childhood where the desire was, and now is in religion, “to see everything smashed up and ruined and brought to naught.”118 This is why religion poisons everything; it is bent on the destruction of humanity under the guise of a divine command. An oft-quoted line from Dawkins provides a concise summary of his opinion of religion, specifically the Christian religion and God: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic,                                                                                                                 115

Hitchens, God is Not Great, 6.

116

Ibid, 56.

117

Ibid, 102.

118

Ibid, 57.

55

homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.119 Religion is so terrible precisely because this is a fiction and people read it literally and seek to obey this “man-made” document. Harris also takes his initial point of challenge with the Christian scriptures. Religion is evil and the Bible commands it to be. “Christians have abused, oppressed, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible.”120 The End of Faith has an entire chapter dedicated to the ills of religion. Here, Harris, begins a line of argument that starts with how the Bible commands execution of dissenters. “A literal reading of the Old Testament not only permits but requires heretics to be put to death;” and Deuteronomy “explicitly enjoins the faithful to murder anyone in their midst, even members of their own families, who possess a sympathy for foreign gods.”121 This naturally sets the stage for Christians to persecute heretics, starting with the Jews. As Harris argues, it was the common opinion of the early Christians, and even the Bible’s teaching (cf. 1Thess 2.1416), that the Jews were the killers of the Messiah and by their very existence they served as a denial of Jesus’ Messiahship.122 Anti-Semitism “is as integral to church doctrine as the flying buttress is to the Gothic cathedral, and this terrible truth has been published in Jewish blood since the first centuries of the Common Era.”123 The torture of the Inquisition and witch hunts follow as a natural consequence from the command to                                                                                                                 119

Dawkins, The God Delusion, 51.

120

Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 23

121

Harris, The End of Faith, 82.

122

Ibid, 92-3.

123

Ibid, 92.

56

execute heretics, and finding endorsement in one of Christianity’s most influential early Fathers, Augustine.124 The next step Harris makes is to show that based on the Old Testament, the command to kill heretics, the endorsement of torture from Augustine, and anti-Semitism, it is no wonder that the church does not speak out against the holocaust of the 20th century: When we consider that so few generations had passed since the church left off disemboweling innocent men before the eyes of their families, burning old women alive in public squares, and torturing scholars to the point of madness for merely speculating about the nature of the stars, it is perhaps little wonder that it failed to think anything had gone terribly amiss in Germany during the war years.125 But what of Jesus’ teaching on love, one might ask. Harris has given the resolution to the “mystery” and his conclusion in the argument—religion is evil, because of its texts and its founders: The question of how the church managed to transform Jesus’ principal message of loving one’s neighbor and turning the other cheek into a doctrine of murder and rapine seems to promise a harrowing mystery; but it is no mystery at all. Apart from the Bible’s heterogeneity and outright self-contradiction, allowing it to justify diverse and irreconcilable aims, the culprit is clearly the doctrine of faith itself.126 Since for Harris faith is not based in reality (there is no evidence or reason) and Jesus also endorses fully the commands in the Old Testament (contrary to his other teachings— a testament to the “heterogeneity and outright self-contradiction”), there should be no mystery as to why Christians both accept the command to love and kill the dissenter.

                                                                                                                124

Ibid, 85 (Harris does not quote Augustine; rather he refers the reader to P. Johnson’s A History of Christianity). 125

Ibid, 105.

126

Ibid, 85.

57

It is the nature of religion, according to the Four Horsemen, to destroy and propagate the destruction of human flourishing. It is a danger to reason and morality and as such is evil. This is the clear message of the New Atheists to which the Christian must respond. Current Methods in Apologetics With the lay of the land broadly sketched, an exploration of the avenues used to navigate the current landscape can be undertaken. In this section I will briefly explore the prevailing apologetic methods127 that are in current usage and evaluate their relevant effectiveness in navigating the changing and new landscape given by postmodernism, post-Christendom, and the New Atheists. When attempting to offer a taxonomy of apologetic methods it is important to bear in mind the warning of Norman Geisler against attempting to create “logically exhaustive categories of apologetic systems.”128 Various Christian apologists have found themselves in multiple “categories” of apologetic taxonomies, which should indicate that, although there are important differences that need to be accounted for, there is not one neat and tidy taxonomy that encompasses all the variant approaches to defending the faith. The main approaches that I examine here have been influenced by the taxonomies offered by Steven Cowan,129 Kenneth Boa, Robert Bowman,130 and James Beilby.131                                                                                                                 127

The endeavor here is to examine contemporary apologetic methodologies. I recognize that the modern scene is not the first to do apologetics and that there may be great insights from the methods of classic apologists. The approach here is to see if the current methods are appropriate for the current cultural milieu, thus I give no space to a historical exploration of apologetics. For an adequate treatment of historical apologetics see Avery Cardinal Dulles, A History of Apologetics (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Pub., 1999). 128

Norman Geisler, s.v. “Apologetics, Types of,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 41.

58

Each offers a slightly different take on how the various methods are to be distinguished and each offers a brief history of those who have sought to create apologetic taxonomies. Perhaps the most accessible snapshot of these variations and their respective proponents is found in Boa and Bowman. In the appendix they offer a chart of apologetic taxonomies with the respective proponent.132 I include that chart here, with some editing to add Beilby, as a clear picture of the broad approaches to apologetics. Boa & Bowman Ramm133 Lewis134 Geisler Cowan Beilby

Classical

Evidential

Reason Rational Pure Empiricism Empiricism Classical

Evidential & Historical Classical Evidential & Cumulative Case Evidentialist

Reformed

Fideist

Revelation Rationalism & Revelational Authoritarianism Presuppositional

Experience Mysticism

Presuppositional & Reformed Epistemology Presuppositionalist

Experiential ————— Experientialist

Each writer offers his own rationale as to why he classifies a particular method in the way he does, but, in general, they all have to do with the question of epistemology and method of argumentation. According to these authors’ interpretations how each                                                                                                                 129

Steven B. Cowan, “Introduction,” in Five Views on Apologetics, Counterpoints, eds. Stanley N. Gundry and Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 7-20. 130

Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman, Faith Has its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith 2nd ed., An Apologetics Handbook (Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2006). 131

James K. Beilby, Thinking About Christian Apologetics: What It Is And Why We Do It (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011). 132

Boa and Bowman, Faith Has its Reasons, 533.

133

Bernard Ramm, Types of Apologetic Systems (Wheaton, IL: Van Kampen Press, 1953) and Varieties of Christian Apologetics: An Introduction to the Christian Philosophy of Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1962). 134

Gordon R. Lewis, Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims: Approaches to Christian Apologetics (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1976)

59

apologist approaches the questions of epistemology and argumentation determines which category he belongs to in the taxonomy. I will follow Beilby’s taxonomy, not simply for the sake of simplicity but also because, as Craig points out in his final reflection in Five Views on Apologetics, there is “remarkable convergence of views.”135 There are, however, differences that create legitimate distinctions. To those differences I now turn.136 Evidentialist The evidentialist approach places an emphasis on rational arguments and evidence. Typically, this approach takes a two or three-step method. The first step is to argue for the basics of logic and argumentation (philosophical and epistemic “common ground”). The second step attempts to establish theism in general. And the final step gives support for the Christian view of reality in particular. Some proponents condense steps one and two into a single move and thus evidentialism can be a two-step method. Beilby gives three main ideas that summarize the evidentialist method. The first is anthropological: humans are created as rational beings and “cannot commit themselves to what they believe to be false;” therefore, “rational and evidential arguments for the faith are a crucial element of an apologetic for Christianity.”137 The second has to do with the defeaters that Christianity faces. Since there are intellectual objections to belief in God and Christianity, there is a need for well-reasoned and well-supported responses. The                                                                                                                 135

William Lane Craig, “Closing Remarks,” in Five Views on Apologetics, 317.

136

These explorations will be brief and as such will not do justice to the nuanced and complex issues and views that go into each approach. Furthermore, more division could be made within each category (as Beilby, Boa, and Bowman note). To explore these perspectives in more depth see Five Views on Apologetics, which offers a very comprehensive explanation for each approach by a current apologist from that view. 137

Beilby, Christian Apologetics, 96.

60

third and final point is practical: “rational and evidential arguments can be very effective in overcoming people’s objections to the faith and, at times, in encouraging people to take a step of faith itself.”138 Current Christians who practice some form of evidentialistic apologetics are William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, R.C. Sproul, Gary Habermas, John Warwick Montgomery, Paul Feinberg, and Richard Swinburne.139 Nicholas Wolterstorff points out that it is not until the modern period with the rise of the “evidentialist objection” that Christian apologists begin to respond with evidentialist arguments. Thus the rise of evidentialist apologetics comes from the peculiar challenges first seen in the modern era.140 If this is the case, then evidentialist apologetics is a particular kind of response to a particular kind of objection. However, those who espouse an evidentialist approach would most likely disagree with Wolterstorff that evidentialistic approaches are new to the apologetic scene. Indeed, as Boa and Bowman point out, evidentialists (“classical” in their view) appeal to Justin Martyr, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas as historical Christian theologians who practiced a method of apologetics that used evidences and argumentation.141 What can be seen in the discrepancy here is a shift in the evidentialist strategy after the Enlightenment and into

                                                                                                                138

Ibid.

139

Books that offer the best introduction to this apologetic approach are: Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1976); R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984); Norman Geiler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004); William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008); Peter J. Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 2009); Douglas Groothius, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011). 140

Wolterstorff, “Can Belief in God be Rational?” 137.

141

Boa and Bowman, Faith has its Reasons, 50.

61

Modernism. In any case, from a historical perspective, evidentialist apologetics has seen a boon in the post-Enlightenment era. Presuppositional The presuppositional method is most characteristically used by the Reformed theological tradition. As one of the most eminent presuppositional apologists, Cornelius Van Til has pointed out that one’s theological tradition—as a starting point—will be determinative for one’s apologetic method.142 For this view there is no common ground between the unbeliever and the believer. The two are separated by a chasm of worldview difference where the non-believer’s view serves to suppress and deny the truth of the Christianity. Thus, “according to the presuppositionalist,” says Beilby, “the problem with the non-Christian is not a lack of good reasons but innate sinfulness manifested in rebellion against God, a rebellion that first and foremost amount to a refusal to acknowledge God’s proper place.”143 With this view, then, the presuppositional approach gives no room for evidences in the classical sense; since there is no common epistemic ground upon which the unbeliever will take the presuppositions of Christianity. In this way, the presuppositional approach reminds apologists that every worldview system has, at is base, presumed premises and the drastically different basic beliefs of non-believers and their sinful condition allows for no rational engagement in the best evidentialist sense. This does not lead presuppositionalists to fideism, rather they offer a transcendental argument. It is not an argument for God but a reductio ad absurdum argument where the purpose is to show the absurdity of a worldview that lacks the proper                                                                                                                 142

Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed., ed. William Edgar (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 2003), 101. 143

Beilby, Christian Apologetics, 99.

62

place and authority of God. The only concept that makes sense of reality is God’s existence and authority. Proponents of this view trace it back to Augustine and find particular support in the Reformers, especially Calvin. Karl Barth further influences certain strains of presuppositionalism, but the most prominent practitioner of this method was Cornelius Van Til, who would influence those who followed him, such as Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, Gordon Clark, Carl Henry, and Francis Schaeffer.144 Experiential The experientialist take on how apologetics is practically employed differs most drastically from the evidentialist approach but also parts ways with the presuppositional method. From this perspective, one does not need evidences or rational arguments to know the truth of Christianity. Neither does one need to presuppose the axioms of Christianity in order to accept the implications of the Christian worldview. Rather, what is needed is an experience of God. In this way, Christianity is not a argument to concede to or a presupposition to ground epistemic structures, it is rather something that must be dynamically experienced. The conclusion that experiential apologetics is an existential argument for fideism—understood as the denial of reason, logic, or rationality—is to be cast off. This is not what experiential apologetics is about—the rejection of reason. In this regard, C. Steven Evans has offered two categories of fideism one of which is appropriate for this apologetic approach, the other of which is a false label. Irrational fideism, says                                                                                                                 144

Helpful books from this perspective are: Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 2008) and Christian Apolgoetics 2nd ed., ed. Wiliam Edgar (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 2003); John M. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God: An Introduction (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 1994); Greg Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith, ed. Robert R. Booth (Atlanta, GA and Texarkana, AK: American Vision and Covenant Media Foundation, 1996).

63

Evans, “denies that we can or should think rationally or logically about matter of faith.”145 On the other hand, rational fideism “offers a reasoned case for viewing faith as justified even though what it believes is above, beyond, or in some sense against reason.”146 The Christian faith, then, is a worldview that is ultimately accepted on faith and experience, rather than on rational (evidentialist) or authority (presuppositionalist) structures. Two main arguments come from this particular approach to the apologetic task. First is the argument from religious experience. There is such a ubiquity of those who have some kind of religious experience that it is reasonable to conclude that there must be some ground to that experience, namely God. Kai-Man Kwan, Chinese Christian philosopher, has summarized this argument well: “The argument from religious experience contends that given the appropriate premises, we can derive from the religious experiences of humankind a significant degree of epistemic justification for the existence of God.”147 The second is the argument to religious experience. Here the idea is that to truly know the Christian faith, one must actually experience God. The idea is to “try on for size” the Christian faith and judge it based on experience. At the heart of the experiential method is the idea that Christian truth “is fundamentally not some body of knowledge, but Somebody to know.”148 In other words, “God is not just a hypothesis for                                                                                                                 145

Boa and Bowman, Faith has its Reasons, 337; see C. Steven Evans, Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account, Reason & Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). 146

Ibid., 338.

147

Kia-Man Kwan, “The Argument form Religious Experience,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 498. Kwan’s chapter is a philosophically sophisticated rigorous and logical defense of the argument from religious experience. 148

Boa and Bowman, Faith has its Reasons, 366.

64

the religiously devoted. He is a Living Reality who permeates all their lives.”149 That is, the truth is ultimately a person, Jesus Christ. Knowledge is not simply about Jesus but it is knowing Jesus. This kind of knowledge only comes by experience. In terms of influential experientialists, proponents of this view point to the Early Christian Father Tertullian, the Reformer Martin Luther, as well as Blaise Pascal, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth,150 and Donald Bloesch. Analysis With the broad strokes painted an analysis of the differing methods can be done. The endeavor here is to evaluate each broad approach as to its ability to meet the unique challenges of the current cultural milieu. No one approach has been unanimously accepted as the apologetic method for Christian. Indeed, most apologists use methods from more than one, and sometimes all, approach in seeking to defend the Christian faith. In this sense, I recognize that no one method in the taxonomy chart is an attempt to be the end-all, be-all of apologetic method. Still, the question remains as to whether they are meeting the challenges posed today and in what way they may be failing and how a Pentecostal approach can fill in the remaining gaps. Evidentialist

                                                                                                                149

Kwan, “The Argument form Religious Experience,” 498.

150

Like C.S. Lewis (who is seen as an evidentialist or experientialist depending on who is charting the approaches), Karl Barth is adopted by differing groups. Boa and Bowman list him as a fideist (in the positive sense of Evans) [Faith has its Reasons, 351-8], whereas Beilby implies he leans toward a presuppositionalist tactic [Christian Apologetics, 103] (Beilby does not list him among the presuppositionalists but notes his debate with Brunner as influential for the presuppositional trajectory). This shows the fluid character of the differing approaches to apologetics and how any one person resists being categorically proclaimed as one monolithic practitioner. Thus, I leave him among this list to show the diversity of opinions and theologians.

65

Evidentialism brings many strengths to the apologetic task. At base people want to know that what they believe in is rational and has good evidence. As the evidentialists point out, no one believes that for which they have reasons and evidence against (at least no one whose rational capacity is functioning properly). This method accounts for how natural phenomenon, and philosophical reasoning can bring strong support to the defense of the Christian faith. Furthermore, there are still “defeaters” presented against Christianity—not the least of which come by way of the New Atheists—that necessitate a response in kind. Evidential apologetics does this. The capacity for humans to process and understand natural theology is taken seriously by the evidentialist. Indeed, for some, Christianity is rational, eminently rational.151 Herein is where the evidentialist method disconnects from the current cultural reality. To be sure, Christianity is rational, which is to say that it is not irrational. More strongly, Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley explain that in their view Christianity is not only rational but also includes concern for the “heart”.152 The latter conception, however, does not come through as clearly in their work. It is obvious that for the classical apologetic (or evidentialist) the mind plays a primary role in the apologetic endeavor. The unfortunate presupposition of this is that humans are basically thinking things. The rationalist overtone of evidentialist apologetic is not missed by David Clark in his review of Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley. As he says, “Despite explicitly disclaiming

                                                                                                                151

R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), ix. 152

Ibid. I choose Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley to interact with in this section due to their cogency in presenting the evidentialist method and their response to Presuppositionalism. This structure in their book offers the evidentialist view in very clear terms and exposes, at least some of, their presupposed premises.

66

rationalism, the authors assume the mind functions without much handicap.”153 As other evidentialists are wont to do, their appeal to the laws of logic as the foundation of apologetics assumes that simply giving arguments that remain within the confines of logic (and more on their view: arguments that are valid and true) will suffice to convince. Indeed, they ask credulously, “What objection is there against logical compulsion? What is logic if not compelling?”154 The failure here, as with other evidential approaches, is to inadequately account for the holistic factor that makes up the human person that are just as influential, and sometimes more so, in accepting conclusions from logical force. If humans were in fact only intellect, then the force of logic would be undeniable. Furthermore, if it were as these authors describe it—the intellect is primary in terms of order—then logic would be the only necessary tool in apologetics. However, it is decidedly not the case that logic, reason, or the intellect are the sole arbiter of decisions. This is all the more the case in a postmodern milieu where the objectivity of reason is a fundamental question. An apologist who takes an evidentialist approach, William Lane Craig (to be fair, he prefers the designation “classical approach”), makes great use of probability when making arguments for God’s existence or the historical validity of Jesus’s resurrection.155 In statistics or mathematics, probability may prove to be very helpful, or even in cases where little is at stake—those instances where determining something by probability                                                                                                                 153

David K. Clark, review of Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics, by R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29, no. 3 (September 1986), 326-7, ATLA Religion Database, EBSCOhost http://0search.ebscohost.com.library.acaweb.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0000544888&site=e host-live 154

Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley, Classical Apologetics, 127.

155

Craig explains probability and Bayes’s Theorem in Reasonable Faith, 53-55.

67

costs very little psychologically, emotionally, etc. An example of probability in terms of low cost is the weather report from the local news channel. If it is reported in the morning that the chance (probability) for rain today is 90%, then making the appropriate changes to accommodate this information ranks low on the psychological cost factor—one simply needs to wear the correct attire and perhaps carry an umbrella. However, the existence of God, especially the Christian God, requires much more from a person than a simple change of clothes or apparatus. Thus the probabilistic statement that the existence of God is greater than, say, .8 (or 80%, which would be very high in terms of probability) is, as Beilby states, “insufficient for grounding the level of commitment that accompanies biblical faith.”156 Moreover, when defending the Christian faith it is a person who is at the center and humans do not approach personal relationships based on probability statements. The statement, “The probability that my wife loves me is .92,” is not how I know I am loved by my wife (and my wife is happy for that!); rather I know her love through a multitude of means, the least of which is statistical probability.157 This kind of evidentialism, while perhaps useful in formal debate to show that God’s existence is more probable than not, does not engage the postmodern person who is suspicious of logic as a move of power, for example. Thus, the evidentialist approach, while retaining positive strengthens, does not address well the current Western culture. By resting on a foundational premise that

                                                                                                                156

Beilby, Christian Apologetics, 105.

157

In fairness to W.L. Craig, he does point out that it is not by such means (probability or even rational argumentation), or even apologetics, that one knows Christianity to be true. Rather it is through the self-authenticating inner witness of the Holy Spirit which confirms the truth of God’s existence (Craig, Reasonable Faith, 43).

68

elevates the intellect to a place of primacy, evidentialism creates greater distance between the postmodern person and the apologetic for Christian faith. Presuppositionalist In contrast to the evidentialist’s tactic, the presuppositionalist denies that reason serves as the common ground upon which apologetics builds its case and thus is more careful to avoid rationalistic tendencies. This is surely a strength. The recognition of the effect of sin on not only the moral capacity of humans but also on the rational capacity of humans helps to prevent the presuppositionalist from elevating reason to a level of primacy akin to rationalism. Also, the recognition that all people have some presupposition upon which they have built their worldview opens the way for the idea that more than arguments are necessary for apologetics. In this view, the presuppositional method can take a more holistic approach to what it means to be human—they often recognize that there are deeper issues at work in the human person than logical arguments can address. One of the greatest critiques of presuppositionalism has been circularity. Much ink has been spilt between the two apologetic camps of evidentialism and presuppositionalism and the aim here is not to rehash these discussions. Suffice it to say, those in the presuppositionalist group have defended against the charge of circularity, but the fact that the charge is being made by thinking skeptics and Christians shows a potential weakness. In this regard, it is important to remember that while humans are not only rational, they are also not less than rational. To this end, presuppositionalism has purchase power in the right setting and Postmodernism, with its question of objectivity, gives room for the presuppositional approach. There can be, however, a tendency to

69

overstate the effect of sin. “It is far from obvious,” Beibly states, “that the unbelievers’ failure to presuppose God’s existence, authority, and revelation make it impossible for them to understand truths about the physical world and even about important aspects of the spiritual world.”158 The over emphasis on sin’s impact to the rational structure of humans can lead to another “weakness” most evident in the postmodern milieu. Presuppositionalists can present a case that divides believer and non-believers drastically and, although no apologist who claims to be a presuppositionalist actually claims to be in a better position than the non-believer—quite the opposite to be fair—the unbelieving postmodern can understand the presuppositionalist as implying that the unbeliever is unequal, thus feeding into the postmodern reaction against metanarrative or power-play through knowledge and language. Therefore, presuppositionalism can be both at home in the current cultural climate and a stranger. Many presuppositionalists are happy to be considered strangers but fail to realize the negative image portrayed to the non-Christian, one that puts the apologist in the “modern mind,” distant, disconnected, and disinterested in authentic dialogue. Experientialist Connecting with people on more than the intellectual level is one of the great strengths of the experiential approach. Personal experience with something can often leave the greatest impressions. Consider the Grand Canyon or Mt Everest; one can know in great detail all the important facts about these places, but until a visit is made and the grandeur experienced, something distinct is lacking. This is more so with a person, who is dynamic not static like a mountain or canyon. The appeal of the experientialist to the                                                                                                                 158

Ibid.

70

non-believer to encounter God moves the knowledge of God gained in such an encounter beyond the rational into the core of a person. Surely, this strength resonates very well in the postmodern context of spirituality and existentialism. To be sure, there is also a weakness imbedded in this approach: How is one to determine if the experience is really God, or the even Christian God and not some other deity or force? The charge of fideism in the pejorative sense does not ring entirely hollow for experientialism. That is to say, does one take the experience of God as selfauthenticating and thus based purely on faith—without any real rational way to adjudicate it? Although experientialism does not have to degenerate to fideism in the pejorative sense, it is harder to avoid this in view of other experiences, which stand in contradistinction from the particularly Christian view. Furthermore, the question of how experientialism addresses the New Atheists does not seem to have a clear answer. Perhaps the experiential approach fits will in some postmodern contexts, but it does not respond to the problem of evil as given by Sam Harris, for example. Therefore, like the methodologies above, experientialism fits well in some ways and is disconnected in other ways. The conclusion to be drawn from this is simply that no one method is the right way of doing apologetics. However, the broader conclusion that an anthropologically holistic approach is necessary is clear. The question I seek to answer is if a Pentecostal approach is anthropologically holistic and in touch with the cultural atmosphere. A Pentecostal Reflection A Pentecostal would find herself more at home in the experiential and presuppositional approaches. Evidentialism is not the heart of Pentecostalism. This is not

71

to say that Pentecostals do not value evidences and rational arguments. Rather, primarily Pentecostals theologize based on an encounter with God. Therefore, an approach to apologetics from a Pentecostal point of view will have commonality with the three broad methods above but will resonate more with experiential and presuppositional approaches. Experiential is more obvious, but how does Pentecostalism find commonality with a tradition of apologetics that is consistently Reformed? The answer to this will be clearer in the following chapter but suffice it to say here that because Pentecostals place emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in conversion and sanctification, and due to the influence of John Wesley, they have a view of sin that finds commonality with the Reformed tradition. The noetic effects of sin on the unbeliever, as characterized by Reformed thinkers, is not out of place with Pentecostal thinking and thus there is more “common ground” between Pentecostals and presuppositionalists than there may seem at first. With this said, Pentecostal apologetics is not simply an eclectic approach, combinationalism,159 or an integrative approach,160 rather Pentecostals bring a unique element to the table that will be explored in the next chapter.

Conclusion David Clark asks, “Can there be a postmodern evangelical apologetics?” With him, we affirm, indeed there can be. This approach will look different from previous generations but will stand on their shoulders. The New Atheists propose a new challenge with their indictment that religion is evil that will require a Christian response saturated in the character of Christ with humility and integrity leading the way. Postmodernism,                                                                                                                 159

On this approach to apologetics see Geisler, Christian Apologetics, 117-32.

160

See Boa and Bowman, Faith has its Reasons, 483-500.

72

while offering appropriate critiques to modernism, offers its own unique set of challenges for the church. The defense of the faith will have to look less like theological rationalism with its syllogistic arguments that prove beyond a shadow of doubt that Christianity is true and right. Apologetics will need to embrace a humble epistemology and a gracious conversational tone, all the while engaging the intellect, affections, and imagination. This is best expressed in a Pentecostal approach as “Spirit empowered speech.”161 The details of this Pentecostal approach will be offered in the next chapter.

                                                                                                                161

This phrase comes from the work of Tony Richie who offers Pentecostal testimony as a way of doing interreligious dialogue. He sees the dialogical interchange as being pneumatically inspired. Tony Richie, Speaking by the Spirit: A Pentecostal Model for Interreligious Dialogue (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2011), 174-175.

73

Chapter Three: Spirit Empowered Speech: Toward a Pentecostal Apologetical Method

74

Introduction In chapter two, I explored the cultural backdrop that sets the contemporary stage for doing apologetics; looked at the most popular current methods in apologetics and noted their weaknesses to address the challenges facing the Christian faith; and offered a Pentecostal way of being that begins to break ground for the building of an apologetic method that meets the current cultural milieu. Before unpacking a Pentecostal apologetical method, some methodological considerations from the broader Christian tradition will prove helpful. This will serve to help integrate into the Pentecostal approach an expansive Christian view, thus avoiding obscurantism or the charge of elitism—as if Pentecostals were the only ones who could do apologetics fully or rightly. The Spirit is at work in the church universal and as such there is much to be found outside the particular expression of Christianity that is Pentecostalism. Furthermore, apologists have begun to think and write about how to respond to the contemporary and unique challenges presented by the postmodern, post-Christian context. Their insights will only serve to strengthen the Pentecostal method. Yet, it is my conviction that Pentecostals have implicit within their spirituality a peculiar practice that will aid in the doing of apologetics unlike other Christian traditions—testimony. Thus, I will incorporate the insights of the various “postmodern apologetics” (also called dialogical or ambassadorial apologetics), but I will also seek to go beyond them to include a distinct Pentecostal contribution. As such, this chapter will be structured as follows: first, an exploration of the dialogical/ambassadorial method and the relevant insights for a Pentecostal approach to doing apologetics; second, a brief review of how the Pentecostal way of being sets up

75

the apologetic task; and finally, a look to how the Pentecostal practice of testimony can serve as an apologetic method. Dialogical/Ambassadorial Apologetics In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul admonishes us that we are Christ’s ambassadors, as though God is making his appeal through us (2 Cor 5.20).

The

ambassadorial approach is the method that Paul commends to us for sharing the message of hope and reconciliation found in Christ. Christians do indeed have the best offer of hope that makes sense of the world, but how is it that Christians should communicate this message given the postmodern climate and New Atheist challenges?

Greg Koukl

remarks that the apologetic method should look a lot more like diplomacy than D-Day.162 Picking up on Paul’s language in 2 Corinthians, Koukl has developed a method of apologetics that is less combative and more personal. He explains that an ambassador has three essential characteristics that make the message more effective: character, knowledge and wisdom.163 He is not the first to explore an apologetic that is effective in current culture. David Clark, in similar fashion to Koukl, puts forth what he calls three “conceptual commitments” of a “postmodern evangelical apologetic:”164 (1) humility; (2) truth, beauty and goodness; and (3) defense. The symmetry of both Clark and Koukl is readily apparent and gives an excellent starting point from which to create a postmodern apologetic. Moreover, the insights provided by these two apologists are necessary                                                                                                                 162

Gregory Koukl, Tactics: a Game Plan For Discussing Your Christian Convictions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 19. 163

This is the premise of Koukl’s ministry, Stand to Reason (str.org) and the methodology he elucidates in his book Tactics. 164

David K. Clark, “Postmodern Evangelical Apologetics?” in Alister E. McGrath & Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement, ed. Sung Wook Chung, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003) 325-6.

76

features of a Pentecostal apologetic method. Therefore a look at each characteristic in detail is in order. Character Character is the foundation of what it means to be an ambassador for Christ. We see this in Peter’s imperative to defend the faith, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Pet. 3.15 NIV). Prior to our answer—the defense165—we are to have Christ as Lord revered in our hearts. This entails much more than mere intellectual acknowledgement or assent to a true proposition. There is integrity of relationship required. Our character must match up to the assent that Christ is Lord, indeed he is Lord of me. Kenneson observes that in a postmodern world, where the idea of truth as correspondence is incoherent, people will only know the truth of Christ’s lordship if “we live in such a way that our lives are incomprehensible apart from this.”166 Although Kenneson and I would disagree on the value of the correspondence theory of truth, we would surely agree that our statements are only perceived as true by the prevailing culture to the extent that they correspond to our lives. This is what we mean by integrity—our message and lives are one and the same. Clark also points out the importance of intellectual humility—we are to recognize the fallibility of human reasoning, without abandoning the enterprise of reason altogether. He states, “Being humble intellectually requires retaining an open spirit of correction.                                                                                                                 165

The Greek word that Peter uses in this verse is apologia, from which comes the English word, apologetic. It means “a defense,” or “a reason for doing or believing something” and often carried with it legal connotations (to offer a legal defense) [Alister McGrath, “Evangelical Apologetics,” Bibliotheca Sacra 155, no. 617 (Jan 1998), 5]. 166

Kenneson, “There’s no Such Thing as Objective Truth, and it’s a Good Thing Too,” 169.

77

Being honest means making a fair appraisal of the evidence at hand, dedicating effort to reaching all conclusions, admitting personal biases that affect beliefs and seeking to override or reduce those biases.”167 Pretense and pride have no place in the character of an ambassador, least of which one who serves Christ. A sure way to lose an opportunity for diplomacy and degenerate a discussion into combat is through pride and pretense. These characteristics (pride and pretense) are clearly lost on a world questioning absolute knowledge claims. Therefore integrity and humility (among many other characterizes noted in Scripture, especially the fruit of the Spirit) are the marks of an ambassador. As we have seen, then, character (being) is the first mark of an ambassadorial approach to apologetics. Knowledge Knowledge is the second mark of our diplomatic trajectory. While this is often placed as the first and most important element in apologetics, I will make clear that it is vital only in combination with the other two: character and wisdom. Knowledge is the preliminary and necessary work of getting to know the material. The importance of study is the foundation of knowledge. A multitude of books have been written to encourage the development of the Christian mind,168 so here I will make only a few brief points.                                                                                                                 167

Clark, “Postmodern Evangelical Apologetics?” 329

168

See, Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Ann Arbor, MI: Regent College Publishing, 2005); Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, Come, Let Us Reason: an Introduction to Logical Thinking(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1990); Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994); Alister McGrath, The Passionate Intellect: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2010); J. P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007); J.P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: the Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997); Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995); John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2011); James W. Sire, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (Downers Grove,

78

The knowledge component is made up of studying the materials, which includes the objections and their responses. Gaining knowledge, then, takes seriously Peter’s second part of his imperative to “Always be prepared…” (1 Pet. 3.15b) Preparation takes discipline and commitment, and a bit of an intellectual mindset. Koukl is careful to point out that as apologists we do not have to know everything, but we are not relieved of doing our homework. The tools of reason and logic form the basis of all persuasive language. The proper use of the tools, however, does not always come naturally and often requires training. This training is the development of knowledge. The intellectual side of apologetics is not virtueless as it might seem. James Sire and Jay Wood have created lists of intellectual virtues169 that should lend clarity to the intellectual enterprise: Acquisition Virtues: Passion for the Truth • Inquisitiveness • Teachable • Persistence • Humility Maintenance Virtues: Passion for Consistency • Perseverance • Courage • Constancy • Tenacity • Patience • Humility                                                                                                                 IL: IVP Books, 2000); John R.W. Stott, Your Mind Matters: the Place of the Mind in the Christian Life, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006); James Emery White, A Mind For God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006); Clifford Williams, The Life of the Mind: a Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002). 169

Sire, A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics, 94-5; and W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1998), 34-40. What follows is from Sire’s summarization with my own slight modification from Wood’s text. Linda Zagzebski has done much work in the are of virtue epistemology and a few of her titles must be mentioned as points of further exploration: Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski (New York, Oxford University Press, 2003); Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996) [Terry Cross pointed me in the direction of Zabzebski’s work].

79

Application Virtues: Passion for Holiness • Love for God and his holiness • Fortitude • Integrity • Humility Communication Virtues: Compassion for Others • Compassion • Patience • Articulation • Clarity • Humility Two observations are important; first, the virtues shown here make clear that knowledge is more than mere gathering and storing of information but has symbiotic connection to the other two elements of our model, character and wisdom. Second, humility is the binding motif of the whole paradigm. In short, knowledge is the application of these virtues to the study of apologetics—arguments, reason, logic, defeaters, etc. One more point is necessary under the rubric of knowledge. Knowledge values truth and proposition but it also, as Clark rightly asserts, appreciates beauty and goodness in equal proportion. As Clark argues, “We can’t live humane lives if all we have is large blocks of intellectual truth.”170 His point is that people today are not simply walking minds looking for rational, deductive arguments to persuade us from one belief to another. Rather, as many have pointed out, humans are attuned to secondary qualities— things that stimulate our senses, such as color, smell, taste—and value normative properties, of which only one is intellect, the other two being ethics and beauty.171 For knowledge and our apologetics to be holistic, it will need to embrace the whole mind— including, that which is attuned to beauty. This means that the arts should take on a                                                                                                                 170

Clark, “Postmodern Evangelical Apologetics?” 325-6.

171

Moreland, Kingdom Triangle.

80

completely new perspective for the apologist. Apologetics would be the better if more exploration of the application of arts was attempted, and this could prove to be a broad bridge to the current culture, which is so enamored with art and symbol.172 Wisdom Some people think apologetics involves the attempt to provide deductively certain and universally compelling rationalist argumentation on behalf of the Christian faith…Those who place their bets on this kind of apologetic have missed the memo on the demise of modernism, however. And fail to understand contemporary culture.173 Wisdom is the artful method/approach to apologetics and, according to David Clark and my own contention, apologetics, classically understood, does not work. What practical method, then, is one to take? Our previous two points, character and knowledge, seemed to fit quite well with a rationalist (perhaps even evidentialist) approach, which is what Clark and I are arguing against primarily. How then does this last element, wisdom, change the game, as it were? The method that I propose here is not in total disagreement from what others that have espoused; rather it is a suggestion of how we apply those methods174 and how Pentecostals contribute something unique to the task of apologetics. In his work of the same title, Clark calls this method “Dialogical Apologetics” and emphasizes its person-centered approach. Before we enumerate the practical functioning,                                                                                                                 172

Craig J. Hazen’s novel, Five Sacred Crossings (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008), is an attempt to cross the gap between apologetics and fiction writing. Also, I will explore this topic more in the fourth chapter. 173

Clark, “Postmodern Evangelical Apologetics?” 312.

174

Two superb works of the different approaches to apologetic method, Five Views On Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2000); and Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith (Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2006). To be clear, any of the popular methods of apologetics will work with this tactical approach and perhaps all are necessary at some point. That is to say, I think that each approach can make a positive impact in the right setting; in other words, the Pentecostal method promoted here is not the end-all, be-all of apologetic methodology.

81

a word is in order about the foundational assumptions. These assumptions are key to the Pentecostal approach since it builds on the foundation set by dialogical/ambassadorial apologetics, as particularly set out by Clark and Koukl. Role of the Holy Spirit These working assumptions are those that every apologist must bear in mind during the endeavor to defend the faith. First, we must remember the role and place of the Holy Spirit. If we take the metaphor of a harvest, one Jesus and Paul both use, we remember that not all actually collect the harvest but some plant seeds while others water (cf. Matt 9.37,8; 1 Cor 3.5-9). However, it is God who causes growth. God, by way of the Holy Spirit, does the work of conversion, even conversion from one belief to another. This does not in any way denigrate the role of actual conversation where a persuasive case is made for the Christian view of life. As Clark writes, “dialogical apologetics mean renouncing a fixation with mere results. It is instead a service-oriented apologetic, an others-focused method, that recognizes other values—honest dialogue and genuine relationship—for their own sake.”175 Empowerment to value the “other” and build honest and genuine relationships comes from the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is necessary precisely because of the noetic effects of the fall. As Plantinga has observed, “Our knowledge of God and his glory is muffled and impaired; it has been replaced (by virtue of sin) by stupidity, dullness, blindness, inability to perceive God or to perceive him in his handiwork.”176 Plantinga’s elucidation,

                                                                                                                175

David K. Clark, Dialogical Apologetics: A Person-Centered Approach to Christian Defense, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 102-3.

82

although developed more, is largely what Paul states of the godless who have suppressed the truth, engage in futile thinking, and have a depraved mind (see Rom 1.18-32). This condition has direct impact on the unbeliever’s acceptance of any rationale for theism and more precisely, Christianity. Given this fallen noetic structure, the Holy Spirit is required to break-in and work graciously to restore, as Calvin called it, the sensus divinitatis (sense of Divine). Holistic Approach Anthropology The second element to the assumption is that humans are not brains-on-a-stick or, in the words of James K. A. Smith, “thinking things” or “brains-in-a-vat.”177 This was explored in more depth in chapter two, thus it will only briefly be touched on here. To be sure, “rationality is part of God’s image in the human spirit. [However], humans are much more than rational, but not less.”178 The method of apologetics endorsed here, namely Pentecostal, seeks to embrace the whole person; indeed it must, given the elements of the Pentecostal way of being. Reason and rationality are important to the method, as are the laws of logic, however, if mere argumentation—the trotting out of deductive argument after deductive argument, with a few inductive for good measure— were enough, then at least many more New Atheists would be theists after their public debates. However, as the New Atheists show, persons are made up of more than their epistemic structure, as vital as that is to their way of life. Kelly James Clark has noted                                                                                                                 176

Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2000),

214-5. 177

James K. A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 61. 178

Clark, “Postmodern Evangelical Apologetics?” 328.

83

this as well: “there is no simple, or unidirectional, logic of believing…Our believings are inextricably entwined with our passions, emotions and will.”179 Clark further clarifies why we are not simply “thinking things:” We are, in every case, epistemically situated—historically, culturally, socially… Demonstration, therefore, is not simply a matter of trotting out true premises and showing their relevance to a true conclusion…the process of demonstration proper involves the psychological elements of attending to and being persuaded by, which are in turn deeply affected by our will.180

It is for this reason that dialogical apologetics is person-oriented. “Dialogical apologetics makes a person-oriented stance central to the definition and theory of apologetics. The unique qualities of individuals, not an abstract theory about how all human beings know, guides apologetics practice.”181 This is why, in practice, apologetics must be audiencesensitive.182 Attention to the audience—be it the person across the coffee table, or the auditorium full of college students, or the Sunday school at the local church—will keep us from using the “hammer of reason”183 to pound our opponents into a solidified, nearly petrified, position against God. To carry this thought further, Smith has argued that fundamentally people are “embodied agents of desire or love.”184 A view of the human as primarily rational fails “to honor the complexity and richness of human persons” and essentially reduces “us and                                                                                                                 179

Kelly James Clark, “A Reformed Epistemologist’s Response” (To Craig, “Classical Apologetics”) in Five Views On Apologetics, ed. Steven B Cowan, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2000) 84, 85. 180

Ibid.

181

Clark, Dialogical Apologetics, 110.

182

Ibid, 112.

183

This idea comes from Kelly James Clark, “A Reformed Epistemologist’s Response” (To Craig’s, “Classical Apologetics”), 89. 184

James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Cultural Liturgies, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009),47.

84

our core identities to something less than they should be.”185 The apologetic method must accommodate to what people really are in essence. As has been noted, this does not discount the importance of offering reasons and rationale for the Christian view of life. Rather, it pushes the way apologetics is done to a more comprehensive level—that of engaging the whole person. Akin to this is the view that at bottom Christianity is about an encounter with a living God, not propositions and syllogisms. While propositions and syllogisms may (and in my view do) help facilitate knowledge of God, they are not the primary means of knowing God. If Smith’s argument is true, then Pentecostal apologetics (and any apologetic method) will have to approach human persons as loving and desiring beings. This line of thinking has implications for epistemology that need further exploration. Epistemology Building on the proposal by Smith—that humans are primarily desiring beings, that is their controlling center is not the rational mind but the affections, dispositions, desires, and love—requires a consideration of how this impacts epistemology. Were it the case that humans were only rational beings, then epistemology in relation to apologetics would be a matter of offering valid and true syllogisms. However, given that people are more than rational (but not less), does Christian epistemology make room for this view of the human? As I showed in chapter two, the Pentecostal view indeed does make room for this kind of knowledge. Pentecostals are not alone in this either. Christian philosopher, Gary DeWeese, has written about the Christian applications of “knowledge by

                                                                                                                185

Ibid., 46.

85

acquaintance”—the view in epistemology that some knowledge is gained by relation.186 This knowledge, while surely containing propositions, is not primarily propositional. He uses the example of knowing a girl named Jane. While entailing propositions it is doubtful that this knowledge (of Jane) can be reduced to propositions, it “has a different ‘feel’ than knowing that the new girl is named Jane.”187 This point is very much what William Lane Craig holds when he proposes a difference between knowing Christianity to be true and showing it to be true.188 Knowledge of God, which apologetics—in part— seeks to establish, is primarily established by encounter with the Holy Spirit. In this way, the human person’s affections, desires, and dispositions are engaged in a way that propositions are not structured to do. As Craig states, “For the believer, God is not the conclusion of a syllogism; he is the living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dwelling within us. How then does the believer know that Christianity is true? He [or she] knows because of the self-authenticating witness of God’s Spirit who lives within him [or her].”189 From a Pentecostal view of apologetics, this encounter can be facilitated through the sharing of testimony—the telling of one’s encounter with the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (I expound this more below under the section on testimony). Given these considerations, our epistemology takes a more open view of what it means to know and how that knowledge is communicated, which need not be through the modernistic model of rationalism.                                                                                                                 186

Garrett J. DeWeese, Doing Philosophy as a Christian, Christian Worldview Integration Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 152. 187

Ibid.

188

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 43-52. 189

Ibid., 46.

86

The postmodern critique of modernism is appropriate to remember here. “Reason is not neutral. It does not stand dispassionately, without prejudice (prejudgment), overlooking the evidence; it is not bias-free (at least on matter of fundamental human concern).”190 Reason and argumentation are important elements but certainly not the only elements we have in apologetics—others include honest relationship and open dialogue— and perhaps not the most important. If we make a friend but lose the “argument” we still have an opportunity for more dialogue; if, however, we “win” the argument but lose a friend we have lost the opportunity for so much more. “A commitment to defend the faith is not a promise to argue whatever, however, whenever, and with whomever. It is a commitment to be, to the highest degree possible, what God wants his servants to be— intellectually, relationally, and spiritually.”191 Thus, apologetics is a person-to-person encounter that God through the Holy Spirit uses to engage the core of the person. The Dialogical/Ambassadorial Method Given the three underlying considerations—the role of the Holy Spirit, the noetic effects of sin, and the holistic person—what would dialogical apologetics look like in practice. Greg Koukl proposes a dialogue that is guided by questions—a Socratic method, as it were. Koukl points out three goals he has when asking questions: (1) gain information, (2) reverse burden of proof, and (3) exploit weakness.192 Asking with respect and gentleness assures our conversation partners that they are not being interrogated. A word of clarification is necessary. This is not “friendship evangelism”                                                                                                                 190

Kelly James Clark, “Closing Remarks,” in Five Views On Apologetics, ed. Steven B Cowan, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2000) 365. 191

Clark, Dialogical Apologetics, 234. (Emphasis original)

192

Koukl, Tactics, 47-9.

87

where we befriend only with the agenda to convert. Dialogical apologetics flows out of natural encounters and true friendship. Questions by nature are interactive, “inviting others to participate in dialogue. They are also neutral, no ‘preaching’ is involved.”193 The first goal Koukl gives allows the other person to clarify what he or she means by what they have said. When an assertion or challenge to Christianity is made simply asking, “What do you mean by that?” or some derivative of this question give the other a chance to clarify. This will ensure that, in line with the intellectual virtues, we give full audience to the claim. A second question, still in support of the first goal, is to ask, “How did you come to that conclusion?” After finding out what someone thinks, then it appropriate to find out why he or she thinks this way. These two pieces of information are most vital when answering an objection to any view. Responding to a question with a question can ensure that when we respond our answer gets to the issue.194 Questions that seek to gain information allow for clarification and precision in the conversation. To reverse the burden of proof does not require a particular question on its own. Rather by requesting opponents to support their claim, we have made sure the burden of proof remains on the appropriate side. As Koukl points out, in conversations we must “reject the impulse to counter every assertion someone manufactures.”195 Instead of making assertions for our view, we need to ask a carefully placed question to shift the burden back on the one making the claim. In a formal debate format, the side that asserts the proposition is responsible to shoulder the burden to prove it. Although, conversations                                                                                                                 193

Koukl, “Tactics: Applying Apologetics to Everyday Life,” in To Everyone an Answer, eds. Francis J. Beckwith, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland, (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2004), 49. 194

Sire, A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics, 60.

195

Koukl, “Tactics,” 51.

88

are not formal debates (nor should they be!), it is fair to request the one making the claim shoulder the burden of proof. This serves as a tactical move more than an overt conversation piece. The last goal to exploit weakness is used to expose faulty thinking, not embarrass or denigrate our conversation partner. When working toward this goal the first element of our method becomes vital: character. Our character will speak loudest when we are challenging another person’s views. As Sire observes, “a casual attitude and tone are a great advantage in reaching people’s hearts and minds;”196 this is certainly right when challenging their views. A case study from one of Koukl’s examples should prove helpful in gaining an understanding of the method he espouses here. The conversation begins when, at the counter of a store, Koukl asks the cashier a question about her necklace: Koukl: Does that star have religious significance, or is it just jewelry?” [He notes that this is a form of “What do you mean by that?”] Cashier: Yes, it has religious significance. The five points stand for earth, wind, fire, water, and spirit. I’m a pagan. Koukl: So you’re a Wiccan? Cashier nodding: Yes, It’s an Earth religion, like the Native Americans. We respect all life. Koukl: If you respect all life, then I suppose you’re pro-life on the abortion issue. Cashier: No, actually I’m not. I’m pro-choice. Koukl: Isn’t that an unusual position for someone in Wicca to take, I mean, since you’re committed to respecting all life? Cashier: You’re right. It is odd…I know I could never do that. I mean, I could never kill a baby. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone else because I might come back on me. Koukl: Well, maybe you wouldn’t do anything to hurt a baby, but other people would. Shouldn’t we do something to stop them from killing babies?

                                                                                                                196

Sire, A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics, 63.

89

Cashier: I think women should have a choice. Koukl: Do you mean women should have the choice to kill their own babies? Cashier: Well…I think all things should be taken into consideration on this question. Koukl: Okay, tell me: What kind of considerations would make it all right to kill a baby? Cashier: Incest. Koukl: Hmm. Let me see if I understand. Let’s just say I had a two-year-old child standing next to me who had been conceived as a result of incest. On your view, it seems, I should have the liberty to kill her. Is that right? Cashier: I’d have mixed feelings about that.197

Beginning with a question opened up an opportunity for dialogue in a non-threatening environment. Dialogical apologetics does just this, it seeks humbly to ask questions that clarify the conversation and direct it toward positive interchange. Without overtly telling the cashier that her position was inconsistent, Koukl was able to expose and challenge her thinking with a well-put question backed by his use of reason and logic. Dialogical apologetics, then, attempts to be both rational and personal. It is a rational enterprise in that it seek to build a reasoned, probabilistic, holistic, cumulative case for Christianity. But it is personal in that it recognizes at the same time the roadblocks to faith thrown up by the audience’s culture, psychology, attitudes, intellect, morality, ad infinitum.198

Pentecostal Worldview/Way of Being The Pentecostal way of doing apologetics builds on the foundation set by the dialogical/ambassadorial approach explained above. However, more needs to be said about the Pentecostal worldview that enables a distinctive approach to apologetics. In his work on Christian apologetics, Cornelius Van Til points out that the point of contact— where “the rubber meets the road” in terms of actually defending the faith—for

                                                                                                                197

Koukl, Tactics, 20-3. I have modified the format and condensed the conversation some.

198

Clark, Dialogical Apologetics, 113-4.

90

apologetics is broadly determined by two things: theology and anthropology.199 From the first element, how we conceive of God, revelation, salvation, and so forth, will determine how we approach the task of defending the faith. In this way, our systematic theology (both embedded and deliberative) bears major influence on how we approach the task of defending the faith. This is true whether we have thought through the theological implications for apologetics or not. In the second element, how we view what it means to be human will be determinative for which approach we take in the task of apologetics. Having looked at some of the current methods of apologetics it is now important to turn to an exploration of these two elements (theology and anthropology) from a Pentecostal perspective as a set up for the final section on the actual Pentecostal method. In the exploration of a “Pentecostal theology” it is important to note that for Pentecostals theology is not so much propositional—doctrines, dogmas, and theoria— (although it does contain these elements), but theology is caught up with spirituality; a point Steve Land makes in his landmark book on Pentecostal spirituality.200 And as Cross has noted, “Pentecostal theology can never be merely a set of propositions on paper; it is a reflection of a life lived before God in the power of the Spirit. Our spirituality informs our theology.”201 Land defines spirituality as “the integration of beliefs and practices in                                                                                                                 199

Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith Fourth Edition, ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 2008), 95; 103. 200 I agree with Terry Cross that theology is more than spirituality and hence have not equated theology and spirituality, even if there is a symbiotic relationship from which it can be hard to assign strict boundaries. Cross states, “I would argue that spirituality does not equal theology. There is more to the theological task than reflection on the spiritual experiences with God that one might have. These experiences open the door to lead me further into a knowledge of this God with whom we have to do” (Terry L. Cross, “Can There Be a Pentecostal Systematic Theology? An Essay on Theological Method in a Postmodern World,” Paper presented to the Theology Interest Group, 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies [2001], 16). 201

Terry L. Cross, “A Proposal to Break the Ice: What Can Pentecostal Theology Offer Evangelical Theology?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10, no. 2 (2002), 72.

91

the affections which are themselves evoked and expressed by those beliefs and practices.”202 More recently, Peter Neumann has assigned four elements that denote Pentecostal spirituality, “(1) experiential, (2) biblical/revelational, (3) holistic, and (4) missional/pragmatic.”203 An appropriate understanding of Pentecostal theology, then, is as Jamie Smith puts it, “the nexus of practices that make up pentecostal spirituality (which might be described as an ‘implicit theology’ or perhaps even a ‘folk theology’).”204 This, however, should not lead one to think that for Pentecostals theology is purely existential and emotive. Rather, as Douglas Jacobsen has pointed out, “There is no question that spiritual affections are hugely important within pentecostalism, but that emphasis on experiential faith does not require a concomitant diminution of the intellect or a rejection of theology.”205 He goes further to point out that without theology, Pentecostalism would be non-existent because it is not the peculiarity of the Pentecostal experience that sets Pentecostals apart but how those experiences are reflected on theologically. Behind this theological reflection lies what Smith calls “prephilosophical assumptions that constitute this constellation of pentecostal commitments,” or more simply, a Pentecostal worldview. This worldview needs to be unpack to set the stage for

                                                                                                                202

Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom, 13

203

Peter D. Neumann, “Spirituality,” in Handbook of Pentecostal Christianity, ed. Adam Stewart (Dekalb, IL: NIU Press, 2012), 196. 204

James K.A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 26. Smith explains why he prefers pentecostal (with a lower case “p”) versus Pentecostal: “By pentecostal I am referring not to a classical or denominational definition…Thus I use the term in an older sense, which now would include ‘charismatic’ traditions…I use the convention of small-p pentecostalism to refer to the broader renewal of Pentecostal/charismatic traditions” (James K.A. Smith, “Is The Universe Open For Surprise? Pentecostal Ontology and the Spirit of Naturalism,” Zygon 43, no. 4 [December 2008], 893n1). 205

Douglas Jacobson, Reader in Pentecostal Theology, 5; quoted in Smith, Thinking in Tongues,

25-6n13.

92

the individual elements of theology and anthropology and their import for a Pentecostal apologetic method. Worldview To say that Pentecostals have a worldview requires some explanation of what is meant by “worldview.”206 After unpacking the concept “worldview,” I will expound the elements of a Pentecostal worldview that provide the basis for a holistic anthropology, epistemology, and unique way of doing theology. James Olthuis has offered a very helpful explanation of worldview in his article “On Worldviews” and one that resonates well with Pentecostalism.207 Succinctly, Olthuis introduces worldview as “the framework of fundamental considerations which give context, direction, and meaning to our lives.”208 This framework comes in the form of answers to the “big” questions (“Where did I come from? What is life’s meaning? How do I define right from wrong and what happens to me when I die?”209) even if these answers are only partial or implicit. Unpacking his succinct statement, Olthuis defines a worldview thusly:                                                                                                                 206

This section is intentionally brief. For more in-depth expositions of worldview see David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002). 207

James H. Olthuis, “On Worldviews,” in Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science (New York, NY: University Press of America, 1989), 26, PDF online. http://groups.apu.edu/theophil/Culp/Phil496%20Readings/Olthuis%20WV.pdf. Jamie Smith, a Pentecostal philosopher, interacts with Olthuis in Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Cultural Liturgies Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 23-4; and Thinking in Tongues, 27. In the latter, particularly, Smith shows how Olthuis’s conceptions fit well in the Pentecostal milieu. 208

Olthuis, “On Worldviews,” 26.

209

Ravi Zacharias characterizes a worldview as the answers to these major questions, which everyone faces. Julia Duin, “Christian Worldview,” The Washington Times 3 July 2003, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/jul/3/20030703-114701-1540r/?page=all. Olthuis offers these as the pressing questions that form one’s worldview: “Who am I? Where are I going? What’s it all about? Is there a god? How can I live and die happily?” Olthuis, “On Worldviews,” 26.

93

A worldview (or vision of life) is a framework or set of fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our calling and future in it. This vision need not be fully articulated: it may be so internalized that it goes largely unquestioned; it may not be explicitly developed into a systematic conception of life; it may not be theoretically deepened into a philosophy; it may not even be codified into a creedal form; it may be greatly refined through cultural-historical development. Nevertheless, this vision is a channel for the ultimate beliefs which give direction and meaning to life. It is the integrative and interpretative framework by which order and disorder are judged; it is the standard by which reality is managed and pursued; it is the set of hinges on which all our everyday thinking and doing turns.210 This conception is perhaps one of the best for construing how worldview (vision of life) functions for Pentecostals. Pentecostals are oriented by a particular “take” on the world, which includes answers to the “big” questions, but often these answers and this “vision” are not articulated, but remain implicit. This “take” then is better understood as a “way of being.” Steve Land, et al—and from a philosophical view Jamie Smith—has done great work to make explicit the implicit and tacit “take” that Pentecostal have on being in the world. “So,” Smith writes, “to speak of worldview is to speak about our most fundamental orientation to the world; a framework that operates even prior to thought; a passional orientation of our imagination that filters and explains our experience of the world;” and “a pentecostal worldview is first embedded in a constellation of spiritual practices that carry within them an implicit understanding.”211 What distinct features of this “fundamental orientation” does Pentecostalism exhibit?212

                                                                                                                210

Olthuis, “On Worldviews,” 29.

211

Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 29, 30-1.

212

Smith’s disclaimer is important to mention here, as he does, before the exposition of a “Pentecostal worldview.” “By a pentecostal worldview” I don’t mean to suggest that pentecostalism has its own catalogue of propositional truths sitting on a shelf that deductively tell us how to think differently about the world. Rather I mean that embedded in the embodied practices and spirituality of pentecostalism

94

As mentioned in chapter one, Smith has five “elements of a distinctly pentecostal worldview.”213 First is a position of radical openness to God.214 Second, Pentecostals have an “enchanted” theology of creation and culture. Third, there is a nondualistic affirmation of embodiment and materiality (what I call holistic anthropology). Fourth, Pentecostals hold to an affective, narrative epistemology. Finally, fifth, there is an eschatological orientation to mission and justice in Pentecostalism. I will mention and briefly unpack three (1, 2, and 5) and explain more fully two of these elements (3 and 4) in the following sections. The first distinctive, it seems to me, is the distinctive of Pentecostal spirituality/theology that makes the remaining possible, namely, radical openness to God.215 For Pentecostals, God is dynamically present and active in the world. The system of creation is not closed as it is in naturalism or in some construals of Christian theism,                                                                                                                 are elements of a latent but distinctive understanding of the world, an affective ‘take’ on the world that constitutes more of a social imaginary than a cognitive framework” (Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 31). 213

Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 32-3.

214

Smith unpacks this view in more detail and in dialogue with science in “Is The Universe Open For Surprise? Pentecostal Ontology and the Spirit of Naturalism,” 888-93. He writes of a more robust Pentecostal view that sees the world not as an autonomous order that God breaks into, but rather as a world already caught up in the Spirit. “Embedded in a pentecostal social imaginary is an understanding of the God-world relation that eschews the discretion model and refuses to grant nature the autonomy of a closed system. The Spirit is always already present at and in creation. The Spirit’s presence is not a postlapsarian or soteriological visiting of a creation that is otherwise without God. The Spirit is always already dynamically active in the cosmos (world, nature). God does not have to enter nature as a visitor and alien; God is always already present in the world. Thus is creation primed for the Spirit’s action” (891). 215

This observation is not mine alone. Pentecostals “confess a radical openness to the invasion and intervention of God’s Spirit in our daily lives,” says Cross. And he further notes, “I am not suggesting that other Christians do not also approach God with such radical openness, but rather that as a central feature of our communities of faith, Pentecostals seem to wear this confession as if it were our creed” (Terry L. Cross, “The Divine-Human Encounter: Towards a Pentecostal Theology of Experience,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 31 [2009], 6, 6n5). See also his Answering the Call in the Spirit: Pentecostal Reflections on a Theology of Vocation, Work, and Life (Cleveland, TN: Lee University Press, 2007): “Pentecostals possess a radical openness to God’s presence and power. Because we have encountered God’s presence in the Spirit, we have been transformed” (p.14). In this vein, I am suggesting that it is not the five-fold gospel (a la K. Archer or J.C. Thomas) or Spirit baptism (a la F. Macchia) that is the distinctive of Pentecostals. Rather, it is position of radical openness (and even expectation) of God’s dynamic in breaking.

95

such as cessationinst strands. Rather, in the Pentecostal view, God is breaking into the world to act and do that which he has not done yet. Pentecostals are open to God doing new or different things in the world. The world is an open system where God can, and does, interrupt in surprising ways—this is not simply a theoretical affirmation of Pentecostals but an expectation. While abuses and deviations from classical orthodoxy have occurred, this openness is not a denial of the revelation given in Scripture or a license to go beyond Scripture. As Neumann points out, Pentecostals are still committed to biblical/revelational spirituality. The second aspect naturally flows from the first—an “enchanted” theology of creation and culture. If God is dynamically active in the world through the ministry of the Spirit, as Pentecostals take him to be, then it follows that creation and culture become places of that activity and are thus “enchanted.” In this way, Smith takes culture to be “the work of human ‘making’ that elucidates the potentialities folded into creation,” and as such it is part of creation.216 Herein is an aspect that needs more elucidation by Pentecostal scholars, a point I make in the final chapter. The final element of Smith’s “pentecostal worldview” is an eschatological orientation. This is not reserved to Smith alone; he builds off of the work done by Land on this point. Pentecostal spirituality and theology aims at the last days, that is, it is moving in a direction that is guided by reflection on what it means to have the Spirit present with us now as inaugural of the Kingdom of God. Part of what this orientation means is an impetus to mission. Thus, as Smith points out, “endemic to a pentecostal worldview is an eschatology that engenders a commitment both to mission and to                                                                                                                 216

Ibid., 39n61.

96

ministries of empowerment and social justice.”217 This is true even if it is not always explicitly practiced by Pentecostals. The final two elements of the worldview will receive a larger treatment as they pertain more particularly to the apologetic endeavor. Holistic Anthropology In the previous chapter I explored the dualistic view that the contemporary culture takes on facts and values. I would like to point to the further divide that a dualistic anthropology has given the current culture also, that is the current experience versus knowledge divide—namely, that knowledge does not come from experience, or at least the kind of knowledge on which one can build a stable structure. Greg West, who runs a widely known, accessible, and popular level apologetics website, recently responded to a popular rejoinder to apologetics.218 His response exhibits very well the popular-level divide that is propagated in rationalistic apologetics. The charge is this: that one does not need apologetics since what is really needed is to experience Jesus (as he frames it, “We don’t need apologetics; we just need to experience Jesus”). West’s response is to affirm the importance of experiencing Jesus, however, knowledge of Jesus that is based only on                                                                                                                 217

Ibid., 45.

218

Greg’s site is thepoachedegg.net and it is a mixture of scholarly works from well-known and qualified philosopher-apologists and popular-level blog type engagements with common apologetic issues. I include him here not because he is a well-known scholar and established in the field of apologetics, but because I think he shows the common understanding in lower level philosophical anthropology (that is, those who are engaged in learning apologetics through certificate programs, like Greg, or on their own apart from or with very little oversight and direction by trained theologians and philosophers. This lack of direction can and does create unbalance given that many topics, such as philosophical or theological anthropology, are not apart of the learning process.). His is simply a very recent example of a trend among popular apologetics (a group I love and encourage, see especially my final chapter of this thesis) that has come down from rationalistic approaches to apologetics by professional philosophers and theologians (thus, this imbalance is not given to lay-level engagement alone; it is simply more likely).

97

experience is like building one’s house on sand. He writes, “if you’re basing your faith on experience alone to the exclusion of reason and knowledge, then you’re building your house not on solid rock, but on sand—and when the rains come down, the streams rise, and the winds blow and beat against your house it will fall with a mighty crash.”219 The implication of his point, and one that he is not alone in making, is that experience is not a solid foundation for knowing.220 Thus, the incipient conclusion describes the human as radically dualistic. On the one hand, humans have knowledge through reason and the intellect—the kind that leads to sure foundations for other enterprises. On the other hand, humans have experiences—even deeply profound, life-transforming encounters with the living God (at least according to Christians). However, only the first epistemological construct (rationalism) gives the human solid foundation to build on. This is the presumption that a Pentecostal holistic anthropology critiques—the dualistic divide of the human, the epistemological implications of which are explore more in the next section. For the Pentecostal real knowledge comes from the latter experience described above. From it come not propositional statements but an affective transformation and formation that can order who a person is on the deepest levels. To be clear, a holistic anthropology does not negate one factor (reason/intellect) in favor of another (experience), but rather moves toward an integrated human experience. In this view, there is equal importance to both experience and intellect and both avenues provide real and certain knowledge.221                                                                                                                 219

Greg West, “We don’t need apologetics; we just need to experience Jesus” (blog), 30 November 2012, http://www.thepoachedegg.net/the-poached-egg/2012/11/we-dont-need-apologetics-wejust-need-to-experience-jesus.html accessed: 30 November 2012. 220

It is possible that West would allow that it takes both reason/knowledge and experience to form a solid foundation. 221

I am using “certain” here not in the logical, rational, or epistemic sense of certainty but in the psychological sense. I realize that there is very little that we know that carries with it logical or epistemic

98

Pentecostals, therefore, are open and accepting to knowing that is occasioned by materialistic existence. This is to say, it is possible to know something through the material of existence not just through the immaterial of rationality. Moving away from the Platonic ideal of escape from the material body, Pentecostals accept embodiment as a God-given grace.222 It was in the creation account of Genesis that God created humans as physical embodied beings and called that “good” (Gen 1.31). Moreover, Pentecostals, as those whose theology has an eschatological orientation, look forward to the day when the body will be resurrected and enjoy life everlasting in God’s kingdom. This resurrection, while clearly something different from what is known in the current existence, cannot be but an affirmation of embodiment— God could have given, in the fullness of his kingdom, a spiritual existence, but he choose embodiment as the expression of existence. Furthermore, Christ’s own somatic existence in the incarnation is an affirmation of human embodiment. By the very fact that the second person of the Trinity came to exist among humans as a human to redeem humans and all this in their “flesh”—that is, their embodiment. These foundational assumptions serve to shore up a theological anthropology that takes seriously more than just the mind/soul element of what it means to be human. Therefore, emotions and ecstatic                                                                                                                 certainty—the state of knowing without the possibility of doubt (an example is mathematical axioms). However, psychological certainty, or the state of being convinced something is true even if it is not indubitable—although it could be incorrigible—is the kind of certainty that normal humans experience. It is this kind of certainty that the inner, self-authenticating experience of the Holy Spirit brings to believers. It is possible that believers are mistaken about their experience (they are not mistaken that they actually experienced something) and thus it is not indubitable. For more information on certainty, see Baron Reed, s.v. “Certainty,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/certainty/#KinCer. 222

Smith offers this explanation of “embodiment”: “To be embodied means that I reside in a time and a place—that I am a person with geography and a history that constitute who I am. It means that my identity is linked with my gender, my race and ethnicity, my desires and passions, my physical gifts and even my incapabilities” (Thinking in Tongues, 60).

99

experiences have a vital role in the life of Pentecostals because these relate to their bodily existence. The divide between mind and body that elevates the mind to the primary (or only) faculty of knowing has no place in a holistic anthropology, and therefore is rejected by Pentecostals.223 To be sure, this rejection is founded upon the unreflected practice of the kind of anthropology just described. That is, it is not that Pentecostals have reflected on the meaning of holistic anthropology and then decided to accept affective epistemology. Rather, as those who have been encountered in dynamic and radical ways by the living God, Pentecostals could not deny the pedagogical nature of such encounters that rose above their rational processing ability. And rather than deny the experience or suppress it because of a rationalistic view of humanity, Pentecostals embedded the tacit assumptions which shaped their anthropology—this is the way of Pentecostal theology, although not the only way. Epistemology The broader outlines of epistemology were given in the section on the New Atheists (in chapter two) so here I want to look at how Pentecostals are alike and differ from common epistemological conceptions, which follow naturally from their anthropology. “A [epistemological] dominant model,” Smith explains, “as old as Plato but rebirthed by Descartes and cultivated throughout modernity, sees human persons as fundamentally a thinking thing.”224 A Pentecostal epistemology stands in contrast to                                                                                                                 223

This is not to be understood as a rejection of substance dualism. There is a substantial difference between the mind (immaterial) and the body (material) for Pentecostals. However, one is not “better” than the other. 224 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 41.

100

Descartes, and thus stands, in some measure, with postmodernism.225 This disconnect between Pentecostals and Descartes becomes quite clear when Descartes writes, I do not now admit anything which is not necessarily true: to speak accurately, I am not more than a thing which thinks, that is to say a mind or a soul, or an understanding, or a reason, which are terms whose significance was formerly unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing and really exist; what thing? I have answered: a thing which thinks.226 To be sure, from the Pentecostal perspective, humans are rational—they are “things” that think. However, humans are not thinking things only, which is the way Descartes characterizes himself. As Smith explains, “Because of an emphasis on the role of experience, and in contrast to rationalistic evangelical theology (which reduces worship to a didactic sermon, and conceives of our relation to God as primarily intellectual, yielding only ‘talking heads’ Christianity), pentecostal spirituality is rooted in affective, narrative epistemic practice.”227 That is to say that for the Pentecostal knowing is not so much about rational proposition or logical syllogism; rather there is a primary openness to avenues of knowing that are beyond intellectualism. Again the qualifier is pertinent: “This incipient epistemology is not antirational, but antirationalist; it is not a critique or rejection of reason as such but rather a commentary on a particularly reductionistic model of reason and rationality, a limited, stunted version of what counts as ‘knowledge.’”228

                                                                                                                225

Smith characterizes Pentecostal epistemology as “proto-postmodern.” Jackie Johns speaks of Pentecostalism as “paramodern,” see his “Pentecostalism and the Postmodern Worldview,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 7 (1995): 73-96. Johns does not use the term “paramodern” in his paper, but does in courses when discussing the relationship of Pentecostalism to postmodernity and the concept in contained in his essay. 226

René Descartes, “Meditation II” quoted in James Sire, The Universe Next Door, 217.

227

Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 43.

228

Ibid., 53.

101

Pushing beyond the bounds of rationalism and intellectualism, which says that the only kind of knowledge is that which is gained by thought or calculation, Pentecostals embrace a narrative epistemology that is most clearly expressed in the practice of testimony (which I will unpack in greater detail below). Endemic to Pentecostal spirituality is the telling of story or testimony and Smith suggests that this narrative recounting is a way of communicating more than rational proposition but something emotional.229 He quotes Christian Smith approvingly, “we not only continue to be animals who make stories but also animals who are made by our stories.”230 While carrying certain propositional and rational elements, testimony goes beyond those and brings with it emotional appeal that impacts and conveys knowledge in more holistic terms.231 In this vein, and with Jonathan Edwards, H. Richard Niebuhr considered emotion to “put us into touch with what is reliable, firm, real, enduring in ways that are inaccessible to conceptual or spectator reason.”232 In this way, narrative epistemology is an affective epistemology—that is, it is characterized by the affections.

                                                                                                                229 230

Ibid., 65. Christian Smith, Moral, Believing Animals, quoted in ibid., 44.

231

Pentecostals can find commonality with Feminist epistemology and philosophy in this area. Two very basic introductions to Feminist epistemology are Marianne Janack, s.v. “Feminist Epistemology,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 31 October 2004, http://www.iep.utm.edu/femepis/; and Elizabeth Anderson, “Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/#empiricism. Jamie Smith suggests Lorraine Code, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001) [Smith, Thinking in Tongues, xxiii n33]. Terry Cross points to, as a helpful source in this vein, Sara Ahmed, Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 232

H. Richard Niebuhr, “Coale Lectures,” quoted in Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 134.

102

Steve Land characterizes Christian affections with three loaded terms: objective, relational, and dispositional.233 The affections are objective in that they take an object, namely God. They are relational in that to have God as the object, who is subject, they require ongoing relationship with him “for their proper genesis and ongoing expression.”234 Indeed, this is the goal or telos of the affections according to Land. Given this understanding, the Christian affections are not episodic expressions conjured at will by the believer, but are dependant upon the continuing sustainment by God. What Land means when he characterizes affections as dispositional (and over against episodic) is, “Affections are abiding dispositions which dispose the person toward God and the neighbor in way appropriate to their source and goal in God…affections characterize a person.”235 The core of a person is an expression of his or her affections, that is, the affections of a person reveal his or her true self. Pentecostals believe that it is the Spirit who orders, forms and transforms one’s affections and that this is carried out through a variety of means beyond merely cognitive learning. Story and experience are two ways that affections are formed and transformed and thus two ways that Pentecostals recognize that they can know—they know because an experience has formed them in such a way as to be self-authenticating. This latter concept is not relegated to Pentecostals alone. Indeed, William Lane Craig, eminent Christian apologist and philosopher, points out that it is the experience of the Holy Spirit that confirms for the believer that God exists.236 He goes further to say                                                                                                                 233

Ibid.

234

Ibid., 135.

235

Ibid., 136.

103

that this experience of God can convey multifarious truths to us that are not conditioned by argumentation or rationality. He finds that this is the position of the premier Christian philosopher of the 20th century Alvin Plantinga and also that of the 18th century apologist Henry Dodwell. There is, then, some affinity between a Pentecostal epistemology and Reformed epistemology, especially as characterized by Alvin Plantinga. The idea that a Christian is justified in believing in God without any rational arguments to support her position, Plantinga has shown is reasonable given the properly basic belief in God from direct encounter.237 Therefore, Pentecostals are not alone in thinking that knowledge is not constrained to mere rationalistic categories and thus a method of apologetic which seeks to push beyond the constraints of rationalism is well-founded, as this Pentecostal method seeks to do. “Doing” Theology This final section under the rubric of a Pentecostal worldview seeks to elucidate the theological method of Pentecostals.238 The explanation of the methodology will serve to ground the apologetic method in the already present practices of Pentecostals. It will

                                                                                                                236

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 43. Craig does not understand this experience of the Holy Spirit to be the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism. On the contrary, he takes issue with the Pentecostal teaching of a second definite experience beyond salvation. The experience is that which Paul references in his epistle to the Romans (8.14-15) and the ongoing relational experience of the Holy Spirit within the believer. 237

Plantinga’s works on warranted Christian belief are especially helpful and there is much common ground between his Reformed Epistemology and a Pentecostal epistemology (although, Plantinga does not make these connections). See Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000). 238

I should note that this treatment is an interaction with the works of leading Pentecostal scholars but in no way attempts to posit a uniform Pentecostal theology. Conversely, I understand Pentecostal theology to be under development and contextual, thus I want to unpack what Pentecostal theology looks like in my own context.

104

show that the method I propose flows directly from the inherent ways that Pentecostals “do” theology.239 How we understand what theology is will be determinative for the practice of theology. Hence, I will consider various definitions of theology from contemporary Pentecostal thinkers. Steve Land has defined “theology” as “a discerning reflection on the living reality” of God with us.240 In more discursive terms, Cross has defined Pentecostal theology thusly: it “is fundamentally a second-order reflection on the primary narrative of God in revelation coordinated with a reflection on the experience of God in our lives…Theology is a critical inquiry and reflection upon the ‘primary truth of the story,’ that is not equated with Scripture but is shaped by the language of Scripture.”241 Compare this to Donald McKim’s definition: “Language or discourse about God. It can be a scientific, methodological attempt to understand God’s divine revelation.”242 While there are similarities between the two—Land and Cross are surely positing something about language and God’s revelation—the convergence in the underlying methodology is striking. The starting point for Pentecostal theology is encounter with the living God. As Cross puts it, “For Pentecostals, the beginning and end of theological reflection will be infused with our experience of God through his Spirit.”243 Otherwise characterized as                                                                                                                 239

Cross makes a similar connection in his article, “A Proposal to Break the Ice.” namely that theological method bears directly on one’s approach to the apologetic task. Cross, “A Proposal to Break the Ice,” 60. 240

Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 34.

241

Terry L. Cross, “The Rich Feast of Theology: Can Pentecostals Bring the Main Course or Only the Relish?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 16 (2000), 36. 242

Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 279-80. 243

Cross, “The Rich Feast of Theology,” 36.

105

God’s revelation, Pentecostals take this revelation to be personal and experiential (more will be said about the role of experience in Pentecostal theology below). So that, although the language of Land and Cross is that of academic theologians—such that this is not precisely how “theology” finds expression among non-academic Pentecostals (or “the average person”)—it does capture in analytical language the heart of what theology means for Pentecostals. McKim’s definition is not distant to Pentecostal theology, to be sure; its lack of experiential tenor, however, makes it less synonymous. In his presidential address to the Society for Pentecostal Studies, J. Christopher Thomas offered five aspects that are important to Pentecostal theology: community (theology flows out of base community), integration (head and heart; ecumenical; and interdisciplinary), accountability (honest assessment of theology sought from community), contextual (not “acultural”), and confessional (“a decision to allow the implications of what we know to be true from the way in which God deals with us to have a place in the way we approach Scripture, theology, and ministry”).244 Others have offered concise summaries of Pentecostal theology that illuminate the methodological character. Hollenweger has noted that a characteristic of Pentecostal theology is its narrativity.245 Archer agrees with Hollenweger adding next to narrative, integration (in the same vein as Thomas).246 This narrative is constituted by experience, which runs like

                                                                                                                244

John Christopher Thomas, “Pentecostal Theology in the Twenty-First Century,” Presidential Address at the Society of Pentecostal Studies, Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 26, no. 1 (Spring 1998), esp. 12. 245

D. Lyle Dabney, “Saul’s Armor: The Problem and Promise of Pentecostal Theology Today,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 23 (2001), 130. 246

Kenneth J. Archer,“A Pentecostal Way of Doing Theology: Method and Manner.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9, no. 3 (2007), 311.

106

a golden thread through all those who discuss the formative characteristics of Pentecostal theology. Pentecostal theology is, in part, the telling of the story of God’s encountering one in daily life. This theology is possible based on the openness to God’s dynamic interaction with creation (discussed above). Because Pentecostals are primed for and expect God by the Holy Spirit to interact with believers, they are pre-critically open to (or disposed to) a different view of God and thus a different way of doing theology. Theology that has deep roots in the daily experience of the community will look less like propositional statements and rational constructs and more like testimony and narrative. This is not to say that Pentecostal do not engage in theology that incorporates and utilizes proposition. Indeed, during the reflective process the rational is brought to bear on the experience in the interpretive process. So Pentecostal theology is experiential and narrative in that it finds foundation in the retelling, understanding, and interpreting of the story of the Gospel; that story’s encounter and affect in the life of the believer retold, understood, and interpreted for and to the community of faith. This process helps to safeguard against ecstatic abuses of errant trajectories. The community plays an important role in the theological process (Thomas’s accountability) and, furthermore, the believer’s experience is not the only story. The Gospel and God’s revelation are positioned as anchors to prevent drifting into theologically treacherous waters. The poignant point here is made by Cross, “Merely to write a theology of our experience will fall into the trap of Schleiermacher and Feuerbach, thereby producing an anthropocentric theology;” and the final powerful point, “to write a theology of the God who encounters

107

us will not ignore human participation with the divine, but will focus on the divine—the appropriate object of our reflection (a more theocentric theology).”247 In summary, then, Pentecostal theology is a narrative theology that springs from the experience of God’s dynamic encounter with believers through the Holy Spirit,248 which is reflected upon in light of the revelation of God—chiefly in Jesus Christ as presented to us in Scripture—and in the accountability of the community of faith. This theological approach has implications for the apologetic method that arises from such a community. One would expect that an apologetic method that resembles the theological method will be experiential and narrative. Indeed, as pointed to in the second chapter, Pentecostals are more comfortable with the experiential model of apologetics—given that they have and expect to experience God in their daily lives. For Pentecostals faith is more than rationality and propositional statements. One who is Pentecostal and defending his or her faith will want to do so in a way that is consistent with his or her view of the faith. As Cross notes, “Instead of some modernistic response that appears to have all the answers already mapped out, Pentecostals can refer to our experiences with God without feeling inferior to those who offer their long intellectual treatises. It is not that Pentecostals do not think or cannot think apologetically—we can and do—but it is rather that we also know there is more to our faith than can fit into our limited intellects or language.”249 Faith, for Pentecostals, cannot be reduced to reason (nor to experience) and thus the method by which they defend their faith cannot be reduced to evidentialist                                                                                                                 247

Cross, “Can There Be a Pentecostal Systematic Theology?” 16.

248

Ken Archer points out that in this way, Pentecostal theology is more in line with that of the Early Church as especially exhibited in the Apostles in the the book of Acts (Archer, “Method and Manner,” 307-8). 249

Terry L. Cross, “The Divine-Human Encounter: Towards a Pentecostal Theology of Experience,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 31 (2009), 31-2.

108

avenues but must embrace a more holistic view. The question that naturally follows, here, is what do Pentecostals contribute to the discussion that is not already done so by experientialist apologetics? The answer to this must be testimony and it is to this that we now turn. Pentecostal Apologetics: Testimony As mentioned already, a Pentecostal apologetic method will build on a foundation set by those who are working in the area of postmodern apologetics and experientialist methodologies. However, Pentecostals can contribute their unique element to the apologetic task—testimony. In what follows, I will unpack the concept of Pentecostal testimony and then show how it applies to the task of apologetics. What is Testimony? Testimony has a long history in the Pentecostal movement and is a practice that if asked about it, most Pentecostals would give a testimony as a response rather than an analytical-etymological answer.250 Richie points out that Pentecostals are not the only ones who utilize testimony but that it is “universally prevalent among humans but present in varied ways, occurring in juridical, religious, or social contexts.”251 The particular context that is important here is religious and the specifics that make Pentecostal testimony distinctive. In this vein, testimony is “speech descriptive of                                                                                                                 250

Tony Richie offers a very extensive history and function of testimony in the North American Pentecostal movement with his Speaking by the Spirit: A Pentecostal Model for Interreligious Dialogue (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2011), esp. 135-7. How much I am indebted to Richie’s work will become evident in this section. The connections he makes between Pentecostal testimony and interreligious dialogue I think are very similar, if not the same, as those which can be drawn between testimony and apologetics. I do realize that interreligious dialogue is not apologetics, although an apologetic moment can arise in such dialogues. 251

Richie, Speaking by the Spirit, 130.

109

religious experience” whose purpose is to “represent in verbal form a life.”252 Immediately the Pentecostal distinctive becomes clear. Much like in the doing of theology, experience is a driving factor for Pentecostals. Indeed, their very posture is one of open expectation of God’s dynamic in-breaking and interacting with his people. From this posture and coupled with the oral and narrative quality of a Pentecostal way of being in the world, testimony follows as a natural and elemental part of the whole that constitutes Pentecostal spirituality and worldview. Testimony is not simply a propositional recounting of what has happened but as Richie says, it “necessarily tends more toward use of ‘poetical and metaphorical language’ as it is ‘more efficacious in communicating certain aspects of the ineffable’ than analytical or logical language.”253 These descriptions are the broad strokes of testimony that other Christian traditions would have little trouble with. Pentecostals import more meaning into testimony than is commonly acceptable for other traditions.254 Pentecostal Testimony The distinctives of Pentecostal testimony—available to all Christians and thus not limited to only Pentecostals—prime it for application to apologetics in particularly

                                                                                                                252

Ibid., 132. Cheryl Johns also offers a succinct definition of testimony, it “is the giving of a personal account of the ongoing confrontation of the uncertainties of life in Christ. This is far more than the telling of a story or the recounting of disengaged facts. It is for us an act of interpersonal engagement in which individuals offer themselves with their limited knowledge of God and life to the group for shared critical reflection in a process that confronts the common tensions of following Christ and thereby contributes to the corporate testimony (Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy Among The Oppressed, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 2, eds. John Christopher Thomas, Rick D. Moore, and Steven J. Land [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 131). 253

Ibid., 131.

254

It is possible that these distinctives would be acceptable in other Christian tradition, however, these emphases do not appear in other traditions with the same emphasis as with Pentecostals.

110

effective ways.255 From Tony Richie’s work it is clear that there are at least three distinct characteristics of testimony that have direct application to apologetics. The first is the functional, practical, and autobiographical elements; the second is the transformational element, and third is the supra rational element. Each of these distinctives will be examined in turn. Functional-Practical-Autobiographical The practical and functional element of testimony in Pentecostal terms was hinted at above. From the Pentecostal view, testimony is not about rational propositions or logical syllogism but about illuminating, clarifying, and verifying God’s activity among his people.256 As Richie puts it, “Testimonies help hearers see the Pentecostal faith more clearly…testimonies are reminders that God still works in human lives and in the world today…the always implicit, and sometimes quite explicit, message is God still does these things today.”257 Hence, testimony pushes beyond just the functional element. That is, testimony is not simply viewed from its functional import in Pentecostal community— there is more to this oral-narrative practice than merely story telling. It is narrative and story, to be sure, and more specifically it is the story of one’s particular encounter with God. It is not a story about someone or something “out there” but autobiographical and intimately personal. Richie puts it well, “They are autobiographical and doxological

                                                                                                                255

I want to be particularly careful to point out that I do not think that Pentecostals have the corner on testimony and thus its application to the apologetic task is available for all Christians. This is precisely how Pentecostals contribute to this discussion. They remind other Christians that there is a tool in the tool box, one that we use frequently, that has been largely ignored but can serve great purpose. 256

This is how French Arrington has characterized Pentecostal testimony. See Richie, Speaking by the Spirit, 133. 257

Ibid.

111

stories of God’s activity as experienced in human lives here and now.”258 In this way, testimony is understood in terms that are more technical for Pentecostals—it is the story of one’s personal and spiritual experience and its interconnectivity with the Gospel story. Again, Richie illuminates this point, In Pentecostal testimony, the deeds of God are told in faith that these deeds will be repeated in different contexts as the need arises…Pentecostal testimony is not only a retelling of the history of the biblical story but also its recapitulation or reenactment in actual human experience for the glory of God and blessing of God’s people. Pentecostal testimony, therefore, involves an ongoing dynamic between human experience, the biblical story, and God…For Pentecostals, testimonies are concrete assurances, even, carefully qualified, convincing evidences, at least for eyes of faith, of one of the most fundamental convictions: that ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb 13.8).259 Thus testimony is more than mere story telling or recounting history, “it is telling ‘hisstory,’ the story of Christ, again. Yet it is even more than that. It is telling one’s own life story caught up in the story of Christ, conveying its truth and power afresh and new.”260 Because it is more than story telling, testimony affects the hearers and the one telling it. Spirit Empowered Speech Testimony moves beyond the realm of the natural—it is Spirit inspired. “Implicit in the theology of testimony,” Richie relates, “is an affirmation of the power of inspired speech in the process of constructing reality…Practically, testimony, therefore, may be a means of receiving and then subsequently retaining a promise of divinely blessed reality.”261 The pneumatological orientation of Pentecostal theology and spirituality                                                                                                                 258

Ibid., 135.

259

Ibid., 139.

260

Ibid., 170.

112

allows for the operation of the Holy Spirit beyond the confines of soteriology. Much like the preaching of the Gospel is anointed by the Spirit, so too is testimony anointed by the Spirit. Again, Richie’s insight is poignant, “Because of what Pentecostals believe is an experience of the Spirit’s anointing upon speakers, Pentecostal testimony not only states spiritual insights but also demonstrates spiritual energy…Although it is difficult to define or describe, Pentecostal testimony accesses spiritual experience as much as it expresses it.”262 The recounting of God’s story intersected with the concrete reality of one’s life is infused with the power of the Spirit to affect the one telling the story and those who hear the story. The very nature of what is recounted invites God to invigorate the hearts and minds of those who recapitulate and hear. In this way, “testimony focuses on the realized presence of God as it facilitates a dramatized divine-human encounter through sharing together in the Spirit what God is doing in and among his people through faith in Christ.”263 Testimony, then, has a way of affecting change in those who tell it and those who hear it. Transformational Because of its pneumatological import, testimony affects its hearers beyond simple knowledge acquisition—it is transformational. With Cheryl Johns, Richie understands testimony as “part of a complex of transforming ‘movements’ arising out of the Pentecostal context of various forms of Spirit energized worship.”264 The Spirit’s infusing of the dramatic story of God’s encounter confronts both the speaker and the                                                                                                                 261

Ibid., 164.

262

Ibid., 174.

263

Ibid., 166-7.

264

Ibid., 134. Cf. Johns, Pentecostal Formation, 130-8.

113

hearer and this confrontation necessarily affects those involved. There is a mutual formative process in the recounting of experiencing God. Or as Richie states, “Pentecostal testimonies express the stories of God’s people in ways that transform the spiritual reality of worshipers as an important element in encountering God’s Spirit and power in and through worship.”265 The implications for apologetics here should not be missed. If testimony is an opportunity for mutual formation to occur because of the Spirit’s attendance and anointing of the telling, then testimony as part of an apologetic method has the ability to affect the hearer in ways that propositional, logical argumentation may not. This does not negate the use or importance of neither rationality nor argumentation but points to the fact that transformational engagement must occur on all levels of human existence and testimony is a broad avenue for this engagement. Supra Rational A disadvantage of evidential apologetics, as pointed to in chapter two, is the reduction of human existence to rationalist structures. If humans were merely thinking things then the debates in which Christian apologists engage on university campuses would leave the audience and interlocutor as Christians. The solid logical arguments, which appeal to the mind and rationality, would convince those who hear it beyond doubt and lead them to faith. However, clearly this is not the case. The arguments are forceful (often this true for both sides of the debate) and yet many leave unconvinced by either side (or more convinced by their own side regardless of the logical, rational cogency of                                                                                                                 265

Ibid., 135. It is important to note that for Richie the giving of testimony is an act of worship no matter where it occurs. Thus the Pentecostal who may have objections to interreligious dialogue can find impetus for engagement in such dialogue because of the implication of “worshiping” before unbelievers and the potential positive impact that may have. I think this is just as true for apologetics.

114

their representative). This points to the fact that more is necessary than mere rationality. Pentecostalism—and the Christian faith in general—meets this requirement. While, as Richie points out, Pentecostalism is not sub-rational, it is supra rational. And this comes to the fore most clearly in testimony; as Richie points out, “Testimonies are like Pentecostal poetry. They are a Pentecostal way of telling what is really inside them.”266 Poetry operates on a level different from rational argumentation. This does not make it irrational, but supra rational. In this way, testimony is distinct among other oral tellings, like lecture or formal debate for example. Testimony has a “superior ability through story to draw everyone in as interested and respected participants and partners.”267 Cheryl Johns explains that testimony involves memory, reflection, and interpretation and that these elements invite communal participation.268 Thus, testimony pulls the audience in, in ways that discursive dialogue does not and it engages them in ways that “flies below the radar” of cognitive filters. Testimony, then, “is a rich resource for [apologetics] precisely because it is capable of carrying the most sublime of ideas in a mode that is accessible and even enjoyable: story.”269 Testimony as Apologetic Pentecostal testimony as autobiographical (it is not abstract and indifferent but immensely personal), Spirit empowered (it is not a mere story or drama, but sacramental because of the Spirit’s inspiration), and supra rational (it impacts those who hear it in                                                                                                                 266

Ibid., 165.

267

Ibid., 166.

268

Johns, Pentecostal Formation, 131. Richie, Speaking by the Spirit, 168. I have inserted “apologetics” where Richie has “interreligious dialogue.” Although I realized that his focus is on interreligious dialogue and theology of religion, I do not think that I have abused his point by adding in apologetics. Through our personal conversation, I have understood that he also finds similar connections that I am making and thus would be comfortable with my emendation of his sentence. 269

115

ways that are more than rational) makes it particularly pertinent to apologetics. This is especially true in a culture that is more open to spiritual experience and narrative than propositions and monologues—as is the case with the postmodern milieu. Telling the story of God’s encounter has the advantage of not purporting to be the meta-narrative that must be accepted (even if the Christian, or the Pentecostal believes that this story is available to all). Rather, because the testimony is potentially Spirit inspired270 it has power beyond the ability of the one speaking to convince the other of the rational quality of the Christian faith. Testimony would not become the sole way of doing apologetics, thus the method enumerated above is still vital, but it should find an important place among the task of defending the faith. While the Christian faith is not less than rational, it is much more than rationality and thus inclusion of the story of experiencing God’s encounter moves the defensive task to a more holistic view of faith. The inclusion of personal testimony in apologetics reminds the Christian and shows the non-Christian that faith is more than assent to rational proposition but commitment to a person. What, then, might a Pentecostal testimony look like? This is an appropriate question given the importance that has been placed on its role in apologetics. As a way toward an answer, I propose that the Five-fold Gospel serves as a great example of Spirit inspired testimony. I want to be careful to note that this is only one example (and one that is particularly contextual to North America) so that Pentecostal testimony is not limited to nor fully encompassed by the five-fold gospel. Five-Fold Gospel                                                                                                                 270

I use “potentially” here to signal that not all recountings are equal. Richie notes this well: “Although at its lowest and worst, testimony can sometimes become inane rambling or distracting diatribe, at its highest and best, it can and often does become truly inspired and inspiring speech from the Spirit” (Speaking by the Spirit, 137).

116

The Five-fold Gospel is best succinctly articulated as: Jesus is (my) savior, sanctifier, Spirit baptizer, healer, and King, soon coming.271 Springing from our embedded theology, the Five-fold Gospel serves as a starting point for testimony within the Pentecostal tradition. Our testimony conveys a way of being in the world beyond mere cerebral acquiescence to propositional statements. The theological reflection offered in the Five-fold is not intended as a systematic theology; that is, it is a reflection on the embedded theology latent in a Pentecostal community. It is the confessional move from the practical experiential way of being in community to reflective theology. The Fivefold Gospel is an attempt to encompass the entire gospel in testimony. The confession that “Jesus is my savior, he is my sanctifier, he is my Spirit baptizer, he is my healer (whether physical, emotional, or spiritual and certainly all of these), and He is my King, soon coming king,” attempts to contain in summary form the entire salvific work of Christ in the life of a Pentecostal. When Pentecostals are confronted with the nonbeliever who asks how is it that they know that God exists, the most natural response that flows from the life of the Pentecostal is his or her testimony, which is contained most simplistically in the Five-fold Gospel. This approach stands on the philosophical shoulders of Reformed epistemology and thus is not easily prey to oversimplification as anti-intellectualism or mere fideism (in the pejorative sense). To be sure, this testimony— and other testimonies—does not address all questions and objections that apologetics proposes to deal with (and thus, other approaches are important also). However, it opens the discussion to the idea that Christian faith is more than answers to questions and                                                                                                                 271

I have preferred R. Hollis Gause’s phrasing of the last element. Rather than “soon coming King,” Gause has preferred to state it as “King, soon coming.” This is to signal that Jesus is king currently and not that he will be king only at his coming.

117

mental assent. Hence, the Pentecostal contribution is no small element—it seeks to bring integration to a field that has been dominated by rationalism. Conclusion Given the cultural climate of postmodernism with its turn from oppressive truth claims to a more narrative and story-laden approach, Pentecostals are poised perfectly to defend the faith from the very heart of their faith. The narrative quality and practice of testimony are the missing elements in many apologetic methods that Pentecostals have already in their approach to Christian faith. I am not suggesting, however, that this Pentecostal method is all sufficient. Rather, Pentecostals bring a unique contribution to what is already in place—we have the ability to fit in a missing puzzle piece to complete the picture. Therefore, the contributions to apologetics that Pentecostals can make are hard to overestimate. However, much more work needs to be done than what little introduction I have provided here. In the next chapter I will point to a few areas that I see need exploration for the future of Pentecostal Apologetics.

118

Chapter Four: The Future of Pentecostal Apologetics

119

Introduction This final chapter looks to the future of Pentecostal apologetics. In the process of writing and researching this thesis, many questions and issues came up that could not be addressed here. In this chapter I explore some of those questions related to apologetics as areas that need further research and reflection in the Pentecostal tradition. To be sure, more than is given here needs to be considered; that is, I do not assume to know all the avenues of exploration that are necessary for Pentecostal engagement in apologetics. Therefore, this chapter will be self-consciously limited in scope. Furthermore, it does not seek to answer all the questions proposed, or assume that they are the appropriate or best questions. I begin with a look at current Pentecostal engagement in apologetics, then look at how a Pentecostal theology of culture can aid in doing apologetics. Current Pentecostal Apologetics In the first chapter, I discussed how my Pentecostal heritage served as part of the impetus for my journey to a more Reformed characterized faith. A part of that was my growing interest in apologetics and the distinct lack of my own tradition to meet this need. The question that pressed me then, and does even now, was, “What are Pentecostals doing in the area of apologetics?” The answer came all too quickly: nothing. Even as I began to research this topic, I found very little by way of published material from Pentecostals on apologetics.272 However, as I began to process the role of testimony in                                                                                                                 272

The only Pentecostal that I have found who engages in apologetics on the academic level is Joseph Davis, associate professor of religion at Southeastern University. He has earned a PhD in apologetics from Westminster Theological Seminary; he is perhaps the only Pentecostal scholar who has pursued this area. This is not to say that other scholars who are Pentecostals are not engaged in apologetics at some level. Indeed, Terry Cross, as part of the systematic theology course that all students who major in a religion component must take (Pastoral Ministries, Youth Ministries, Bible & Theology, etc), focuses certain class sessions on arguments for God’s existence and other pertinent apologetic issues. Without

120

apologetics, I came to realize that Pentecostals are engaged in apologetics consistently. To be sure, this does not look like the methods I came to know from luminaries like Norman Geisler, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, or Greg Koukl. Furthermore, Pentecostals have much room to grow in this vital area of the Christian life. To that end, I would like to point to areas of potential growth and expansion available to Pentecostals— areas where they might put into practice the implicit spirituality that can function as apologetics. I have been, and continue to be, a member of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN), which is has a long history as a North American Pentecostal church. Thus, what I offer here is pertinent to this denomination particularly but applicable across denominational lines. Our tradition would benefit from church ministries and para-church ministries that focus on doing apologetics. At this time, The Church of God (Cleveland, TN) has no ministries that are denomination-wide that are oriented toward apologetics. There are no centralized resources available to assist local churches in answering the tough questions leveled against the faith. This is not to say that local churches are not answering such questions; they are indeed.273 However, an area and opportunity for the Pentecostal community is to expand by starting organized and intentional groups that provide apologetical resources to the local churches.274 Without a doubt, Pentecostals are doing apologetics and this is happening in the local churches where Christians are tackling the                                                                                                                 doubt this is happening in other places also. However meta-apologetic issues are not the concern in systematic theology (and rightly so). 273

Over the summer of 2012, the Pentecostal Theological Seminary hosted a Youth Summer Institute designed to expose high school and freshmen college students to apologetics. I was privileged to take part as an instructor. I mention this to point out that the denomination has members who desire to lead and others who want to learn about apologetics. 274 Appendix B of this thesis offers a basic syllabus for an introduction to apologetics course that could be taught in a Sunday School, Wednesday Family Training Hour, or Bible study setting.

121

tough questions that come up in areas of life. These Pentecostals would benefit greatly from a concerted effort by denominational leaders and local church leaders to plug into and create resources for apologetics. These resources are not lacking since there are a great many para-church groups who exist especially to assist churches in developing apologetic material and sources.275 An important place to start for the local church is small group meetings. Already churches are meeting either for Sunday Schools or small groups. The next step is to focus intentionally and specifically on apologetic issues and how the church and Pentecostals are to address these issues. To be fair, this is taking place in some churches, however there are no denomination-wide curricula to assist pastors and lay leaders in the apologetic endeavor. The resources available on the internet from well-established apologetic organizations and top-tier apologists are not lacking and thus there remains no reason why the Pentecostal church should be lacking in meeting the needs of its people. Yet, what may account for the lack of focus is a pastoral staff with little exposure to the subject of apologetics (and theology in general). What is clear is that pastors and congregants are facing questions that are addressed by apologetics. What is not clear is how well prepared a pastor or lay leader is to handle these questions. To be sure, the major Pentecostal undergraduate and graduate schools include in their catalogue a course in apologetics;276 however, none requires as part of the program a course in                                                                                                                 275

A few such organizations are: William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/); Greg Koukl’s Stand to Reason (http://www.str.org/); Ravi Zacharias’s organization RZIM (http://www.rzim.org/); Reasons to Believe (http://www.reasons.org/); the two last organizations specifically help with apologetics teaching material for use in the local church, The Truth Project (http://www.thetruthproject.org/) and TrueU (http://www.trueu.org/). I have included a more detailed list in Appendix A. 276

Southeastern University has more than one course listed for apologetics, no doubt due to Joseph Davis’s specialization and focus.

122

apologetics.277 As a part of ministry preparation, future pastors and lay ministers should have some encounter and training in the area of apologetics. This area shows itself as equally important as other ministry courses and a point of opportunity for Pentecostals. Much like local church ministries, the resources to help college and seminary students prepare for thinking apologetically are not lacking.278 Pentecostals should avail themselves of these resources until they are capable of creating and disseminating their own. The major Pentecostal institutions of higher education have on their faculties qualified theologians who can teach a course in apologetics. Competent theologians, then, are not lacking so that adding a course (or replacing another course) in apologetics is a reasonable move toward addressing the lack in Pentecostal apologetics. The lack of intentional apologetic work may be indicative of an implicit theological commitment. There is no conflict, in principle, between Pentecostal spirituality and the task of apologetics. However, at least two things can be observed by the lack of Pentecostal engagement in defending the faith. First, the movement is still young and as such has not had the time to develop leaders and thinkers in all areas of the theological tasks. Thus, the lack of apologetic focus could be attributed to the development as a movement; as Pentecostalism matures and grows in theological reflection, it will expand into other areas of thought including apologetics. Unlike the Reformed traditions or broadly Arminian traditions, Pentecostals have not had the same amount of time to raise leaders and theologians to explore all of the theological loci.                                                                                                                 277

The one possible exception to this is the Assemblies of God school, Northwestern University, which offers a master of arts in theology and culture. This program requires courses that are closely related to apologetics. 278

Two premier organizations that focus on helping college students is The Veritas Forum (http://www.veritas.org/) and Ratio Christi (http://ratiochristi.org/). The above noted organizations also provide a great many resources for college students.

123

Given this, it follows that apologetics may be one of those areas, while important, that has not been the pressing need of Pentecostal congregations. The second observation could be that there is a theological pre-commitment that steers Pentecostals away from defending the faith. Some support for this may be seen in the accusation that Pentecostals are anti-intellectual. This, however, does not consider the whole picture of apologetics, especially as I am attempting to paint it in this thesis. Furthermore, this connection also fails to take into account the many responses Pentecostals have given to the accusation coupled with the many works dedicated to explaining the theological method of Pentecostal spirituality.279 These two factors mitigate strongly against the impetus being anti-intellectualism. What it rather points to is that no contemporary apologetic method has fully embraced the Pentecostal ethos. Therefore, Pentecostals have been adverse to venturing into a practice that cuts against the grain of who they are. For that reason, it is clear that the first factor—the youth of the movement—coupled with the conflict of current methodology and Pentecostal ethos, is to be seen as the most reasonable accounting for the lack of a Pentecostal apologetics. More than accounting for the lack of Pentecostal engagement in defending the faith is needed. Pentecostals, with their unique contributions and methodology, must engage their leaders—both clergy and lay—in apologetics training. This can most readily take place in                                                                                                                 279

On Pentecostal responses to anti-intellectualism, most characteristically expressed by Mark Noll in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, see James K.A. Smith, “Scandalizing Theology: A Pentecostal Response to Noll’s Scandal,” Pneuma 19, no. 2 (Fall 1997); and Cheryl Bridges Johns, “Partners in Scandal: Wesleyan Pentecostal Scholarship,” Pneuma 21, no. 2 (Fall 1999). On Pentecostal theological method see: John Christopher Thomas, “Pentecostal Theology in the Twenty-First Century,” Pneuma 20, no 1 (Spring 1998), Terry L. Cross, “The Rich Feast of Theology: Can Pentecostals Bring the Main Dish or Only the Relish?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 16 (2000) and “A Proposal to Break the Ice: What Can Pentecostal Theology Offer Evangelical Theology?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10, no. 2 (2002); Christopher A. Stephenson, “The Rule of Spirituality and the Rule of Doctrine: A Necessary Relationship in Theological Method,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 15, no. 1 (2006); Kenneth J. Archer, “A Pentecostal Way of Doing Theology: Method and Manner,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9, no. 3 (July 2007).

124

two locations: first, the local church, through small groups, Sunday School, and conferences; second, at the level of academic training, through making apologetics a part of the core theological training at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Pentecostal Theology of Culture and Apologetics The changing cultural milieu offers a unique place to Pentecostals in terms of doing apologetics from a testimonial stand point, as I attempted to show in chapters two and three. This change opens up new areas for apologetics that are just recently being explored. As the commitment to a rationalistic paradigm is challenged by postmodernism and the way is opened to engage people in affectional or dispositional avenues, more exploration will need to be done to understand the potential connections between apologetics and the arts. However, prior to this, Pentecostals will need to enumerate a theology of creation that provides a foundation for a theology of culture. Much like apologetics, Pentecostals have not yet expounded a theology of culture that will facilitate a dialogue between apologetics and the arts. To be sure, there has been an embedded theology of culture. Although Richard Niebuhr’s work has been rightfully critiqued, he still offers some helpful categories for thinking through, at least preliminarily, a theology of culture.280 Pentecostals, like all other Christian traditions, do not wholly, nor neatly, fit into just one of Niebuhr’s categories; however, a couple observations on the theological history and commitments have given Pentecostals a particular affinity with Niebuhr’s “Christ against Culture” paradigm. The implications of this affinity and apologetics will be clear after some explanation.

                                                                                                                280

H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ & Culture (New York, NY: HarperCollins Pub., 1951).

125

In his Theological Roots of Pentecostalism,281 Donald Dayton has shown that Pentecostals have the holiness tradition as a primary root. Indeed, Adam Stewart has pointed out that the Wesleyan Holiness movement “made what was the most important contribution to the development of Pentecostal Christianity.”282 This tradition was not monolithic and neither were the subsequent interpretations of it by Pentecostal ministers and members. Part and parcel of this tradition of holiness, as it became interpreted by Pentecostals, was the importance of separation from the world. The various secondary roots that made such an interpretation almost necessary are numerous—a study of which is out of the scope of this thesis. Suffice it to say, the early Pentecostal commitment to holiness meant a separation from “worldliness,” which in turn became a separation from the world. Thus, as one example among many, in order to avoid the appearance of evil— a common and important phrase among Pentecostals—going to the movies/theater was prohibited. Important here is not to enumerate the list of “do’s” and “don’ts” that characterized the holiness strain of Pentecostalism, rather to point out that a certain commitment to holiness necessarily impacted the way in which Pentecostals approached culture. This in turn led to a “Christ against culture” paradigm. The more legalistic tendencies of the early interpretation of holiness have waned, but the cultural implications still need to be thought through. One path to this reflective approach to culture is a theology of creation.

                                                                                                                281

Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub., 1987), 63-79. 282

Adam Stewart, “Holiness Movement,” in Handbook of Pentecostal Christianity, ed. Adam Stewart (Dekalb, IL: NIU Press, 2012), 117.

126

Perhaps not unlike apologetics, Pentecostal theology still in its maturing stages has not considered the role of culture in a theology of creation. If it is the case that culture—as the receptacle of what humans do—is intrinsically part of creation, then culture itself is not bad. Rather, it is, as with all other aspects of creation, good but deeply affected by sin. Unfortunately, Pentecostal thinking about creation has been determined by a fundamentalist-dispensational eschatology.283 This was not always the case and even now is being moved away from, as Peter Althouse has noted.284 The dispensational view of creation that Pentecostals adopted in the middle of our history has dictated a low view of creation and thus a low view of culture.285 The idea here was that ultimately the work done in terms of culture is unimportant because in the eschaton a new heaven and earth will be created after the destruction of this current world. Coupled with holiness, such a view makes it clear why Pentecostals have not engaged in culture-creating elements such as art, theater, literature, etc.286 What is needed then is a Pentecostal theology of creation

                                                                                                                283

Donald Bowdle makes a similar point saying, “The scandal of the Pentecostal mind has been its reluctance—even refusal—to engage culture on its own grounds in the finest tradition of the Christian faith. Several conditions may have conjoined in yesteryear to occasion such a posture,” one of which he posits as, “imminent expectations of premillennial eschatology” (Donald Bowdle “Informed Pentecostalism: An Alternative Paradigm,” in The Spirit and the Mind: Essays in Informed Pentecostalism, eds. Terry L. Cross and Emerson B. Powery [Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000], 10). 284

Peter Althouse, “Eschatology,” in Handbook of Pentecostal Christianity, ed. Adam Stewart (Dekalb, IL: NIU Press, 2012), 74. 285

Current trends in Pentecostal theology has been a focus on the five-fold gospel as the ordering paradigm. One question this raises is: if the five-fold is the ordering theological paradigm (as at least Kenneth Archer has argued, whereas Frank Macchia has denied this), then what room is there for a theology of creation? In other words, where does a theology of creation fit in the five-fold paradigm? 286

This listing surely limits “culture” to a peculiar understanding and leaves out the important elements of culture, even as I have characterized it, that Christians must not engage in. Furthermore, I recognize that in my use of culture I have left out the contributions that Pentecostals have had in terms of music and hymns/poetry. To be sure, Pentecostals have made contributions to culture, thusly defined, and in that case do not distain culture (thus, as I mentioned, do not wholly nor neatly fit into Niebuhr’s “Christ against culture” model). As a whole and in general, Pentecostals have not made large contributions to the arts culture, but rather have avoided, ignored, or repudiated such culture.

127

that appropriately and fairly views culture as a potential means to apologetics. To this connection between culture and apologetics I now turn. With the turn toward a postmodern cultural milieu and the repudiation of epistemological foundationalism and rationalism comes the openness to other avenues of knowing (as described in the previous chapters). This makes room for culture as a means of communicating “truth.” The implications for apologetics are vast. More work from the broadly Christian perspective as well as from a particularly Pentecostal trajectory, needs to be done on how art may serve an apologetic function. What role does the Spirit have in the creation of art (broadly construed) and what consequence does this have for apologetics? As an answer, a pneumatological approach to art could give it prophetic shape. In terms of poetry, Rickie Moore has pointed out the prophetic use of art.287 He argues that a prophet is a poet and the use of poetry moves “at a level deeper than rational discourse. It was generated from and directed toward more than merely the goal of instructing or informing the mind. It was more about the moving, the provoking, and the transforming of the imagination.”288 If poetry, or art in general, has this prophetic possibility, then the import for apologetics is readily visible. Art, as Rickie goes on to point out, has a way of by-passing the rationalistic armor and striking at the core of a person. Apologetic arguments often bounce off of the postmodern armor but an apologetic that uses art inspired by the Spirit takes on a prophetic power that by-passes the armor and strikes to the center, affecting the dispositions and imagination. This line of

                                                                                                                287

Rickie D. Moore, “The Prophetic Calling: An Old Testament Profile and its Relevance for Today,” The Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 24 (2004), 20-23. 288

Ibid., 21.

128

thinking needs more exploration and the future of Pentecostal apologetics will need to examine the possibilities of art in the life of defending the faith.289

Conclusion Much more needs to be explored in terms of the future of Pentecostal apologetics than I have mentioned here.290 What is clear is that as one of the fastest growing movements in Christianity, Pentecostals have a great opportunity to make an impact on and for apologetics. We bring to the table unique gifts and foci that speak to people without the modernistic rhetoric of evidential apologetics and that connect with who people are. In this way, Pentecostals are especially poised to do apologetics with a postmodern world, but we are not limited only to Western postmodern, post-Christian endeavors. Sharing our story as part of the greater story of God saving the world reaches beyond the locality of the West and touches all humanity.

                                                                                                                289

Other Christian traditions have recognized the importance that the arts can have in apologetics. Houston Baptist University offers a master of arts in apologetics, which focuses on the role of the arts in apologetics and it is the only one of its kind to this point. For more information see: http://www.hbu.edu/Choosing-HBU/Academics/Colleges-Schools/School-of-Christian-Thought/GraduateDegrees-and-Programs/Majors/Master-of-Arts-in-Apologetics.aspx 290

I have limited areas of exploration in this part to only practical realms where Pentecostals need to expand. However, I see at least two other figures who can contribute a fuller methodological approach by dialogue with their works, Wilhelm Herrmann and Søren Kierkegaard.

129

APPENDIX A Internet Resources Apologist Specific Sites: • http://www.rzim.org/home.aspx o Ravi Zacharias International Ministries – Ravi Zacharias’ website – perhaps the most well known name in Christian apologetics; Ravi has a multitude of reference resources available. o Podcast: http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/podcasting.aspx o Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/rzimmedia/videos •

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer o Reasonable Faith – William Lane Craig’s website. There are a multitude of resources available, both academic and lay-level, written by Craig and podcasts of question and answer from emails. He also has his Sunday school class available for download/podcast. Craig specializes in philosophical arguments fr the existence of God, particularly the Kalam cosmological argument. He also addresses many philosophical, biblical, and theological questions in articles and podcasts. As one of the most popular debaters, Craig has a substantial amount of debates available for download also. o Podcast: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=podcasting_m ain o Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvideos/videos  (This is channel is not run by Craig himself, but another individual; although all the videos are of William Lane Craig.) o Apologetics315 (Apologetic Blog site) has set up a debate feed for many of Craig’s debates: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WilliamLaneCraigDebateFeed  The debate feed is a subscribable podcast that has all available debates between Craig and others.

•

http://www.reasons.org/ o Reasons to Believe – Hugh Ross’ website – dedicated to providing scientific research in support of Christianity. The resources available here are generally in response to scientific challenges against Christianity. Particularly good writing is available concerning evolution, creation, and intelligent design.

•

http://www.str.org/site/PageServer o Stand to Reason. Greg Koukl and staff have written many resources, mostly lay-level, on every apologetic issue facing Christians. Their 130

specially is developing a method of apologetic that is winsome, fair and tactical. They also have staff that focus on issues pertaining particularly to youth, issues of Islam, and bio-ethics. o Podcast: http://www.str.org/site/PageServer?pagename=podcast o Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/STRvideos/videos •

http://instituteofbiblicaldefense.com/ o Institute of Biblical Defense – Phil Fernandez’s website – designed to train Christians to defend their faith, he offers certificate programs and many resources – written and video – on apologetic issues. He also has debates available that he has done with skeptics, atheists, and other Christians.

•

http://www.aomin.org/ o Alpha & Omega Ministries – James White’s website – White offers reasoned responses to challenges to biblical Christianity from within and without. Articles, podcasts, and debates are available. o Webcast/Podcast: http://aomin.org/articles/webcast.html o Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/DrOakley1689/videos

General Resource Sites: • http://www.apologetics.org/ o C.S. Lewis Society, although home to the academic society they also provide articles related to the defense of the Christian faith. •

http://www.apologetics.com/ o Various resources pertinent to apologetics.

•

http://www.apologetics315.com/ o A blog site that addresses many issues of apologetics and theology. This site has a particularly good resource of audio interviews, debates, lectures, etc.

•

http://www.bethinking.org/ o This site is similar to the Veritas Forum. They provide articles, audio, and video from multiple Christian thinkers on various topics of apologetic concern. They are also ranked in level of difficulty from very popular level to scholarly.

•

http://www.biblicaltraining.org/ o Biblical Training offers thousands of hours of lectures from college and seminary professors on courses from Bible, theology, philosophy, and apologetics.

131

•

http://carm.org/ o Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry specializes in a biblical and theological response to other religions. They also have articles addressing philosophical and scientific objections to Christianity. o Podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/carmorgpodcasting

•

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/index.html o Rational Christianity is a searchable database of articles in response to skeptics and atheistic answers with links to more information on other apologetic websites.

•

http://www.thetruthproject.org/ o The Truth Project, founded by Focus on the Family, is a curriculum intended for small groups to learn the basics of a Christian worldview. DVDs and other materials are provided but are not free and require registration.

•

http://www.trueu.org/ o TrueU is a full course curriculum in the basics of apologetics. It is designed to be used in church groups and comes with DVDs and print materials to aid in teaching. There is a cost for all the materials.

•

http://www.powerpointapologist.org/index.html o The PowerPoint Apologist is a site dedicated to creating powerpoints for use in teaching apologetics. This is great resource for tapping into visual teaching aids particularly when the teacher has little time, training, or resources to create his or her own.

•

http://www.veritas.org/ o The Veritas Forum. A site dedicated to making available lectures given on college campuses, secular and Christian, by Christian thinkers. Video and audio downloads are available addressing multifarious topics of contemporary concern.

Issue Specific Sites: • http://www.arn.org/ o Access Research Network – provides information on science, technology and society with particular interest in Intelligent Design •

http://www.closertotruth.com/ o Closer to Truth explores cosmos, consciousness and God. The format is primarily video of interviews, lead by a skeptic, with leading thinkers in the areas of science, philosophy and religion. Not all of the videos are

132

friendly to the Christian worldview, that is, some are from the atheistic perspective •

http://www.discovery.org/ o Discovery Institute – research into Intelligent Design

•

http://ehrmanproject.com/ o The Ehrman Project – responding to the objections raised by Bart Ehrman. And thus is focused on textual issues, for example, the reliability of the Bible. o Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ehrmanproject/videos

•

http://prolifetraining.com/ o Life Training Institute – offering a reasoned pro-life defense.

Podcasts and Other Media in Support of Apologetics: • iTunesU o iTunesU, where the “U” stands for university, is a searchable database through ITunes of seminary, university, and college lectures. Often these are recordings of regular class lectures or special lectures. The database is searchable and most resources are free; there is a large collection of lectures that relate to apologetics, Christian theology, and Philosophy of religion that would be helpful to anyone seeking to learn more and lead small groups. o https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itunes-u/id490217893?mt=8  This is not the exact web address because iTunesU is built into the ITunes program, but it will open the Apple website with more information about iTunesU o Related to iTunesU is the podcast section of iTunes. Multiple ministries provide a subscribable podcast (e.g. William Lane Craig, Stand to Reason, and Ravi Zacharias) that can be downloaded and listened to whenever. This can be an invaluable resource to anyone studying apologetics since professional level material is available for free. •

MP3 Religious Debates, Christian Apologetics Talks, Catholic EWTN o This site has a host of MP3s from different apologists and debates. o http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/audio.htm

•

Truthbomb Apologetics o A blog that has a particular page linking multiple ebooks/PDFs of books that pertain to apologetics and/or philosophy of religion. o http://truthbomb.blogspot.com/2009/07/free-apologetics-e-booklibrary.html

133

•

Unbelievable? o A Saturday radio program in the UK that looks at two perspectives on issues of apologetics and theology; it is available as a podcast. The host, Justin Brierley often has guests on both sides of the issues and moderates a dialogue. o http://www.premierradio.org.uk/unbelievable.aspx

134

APPENDIX B Introduction to Apologetics, Course Syllabus, Sample Lesson Plan & Sample PowerPoint Course Description: This course/class is an introduction to apologetics. It is designed to equip the student to defend his or her faith against the major objections faced in culture and from antagonists like the New Atheists. Special attention will be given to a method that is congruent with a Pentecostal worldview. Course/Class Objectives: • Understand biblical material and mandate for apologetics. • Articulate brief history of apologetics. • Gain knowledge of New Atheists’ objections. • Ability to articulate one’s own worldview and assess other worldviews. • Be able to articulate and understand the major apologetic defenses of the faith. • Comprise a personal method of apologetics. Required Texts (Potential): Boa, Kenneth D., & Robert M. Bowman Jr. Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith. Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2006. Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3d edition. Wheaton IL: Crossway Books, 2008. Geisler, Norman L., and Frank Turek. I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004. Groothuis, Douglas. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011. Sire, James. A Little Primer On Humble Apologetics. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006. Methodology: • Lecture • Discussion • Reading Assignments (schedule available on first class) • Reflection Journal • Writing Assignment (details available on first class) • Exam(s) Course/Class Outline: 135

I. Apologetics: What is it and why do it? A. Simple definition B. Biblical mandate 1. 2 Cor. 10.3-5 2. 1 Pet. 3.15 3. Jude 3 C. Purpose 1. Offensive 2. Defensive 3. Strengthen believers D. History 1. Early Church 2. Medieval Thinkers 3. Reformers 4. Modern & Postmodern

II. Objections: What we face A. New Atheism 1. Who are they a. Dawkins b. Dennett c. Harris d. Hitchens 2. Objections a. Faith i. Wishful thinking ii. Not reasonable b. Religion is evil i. Bible condones/commands evil ii. Religious people commit evil c. The Bible i. Fiction ii. Too erroneous d. Science disproves God i. Natural selection ii. Design/I.D. is pseudoscience e. Problem of evil i. Too much evil for a good God B. Cultural Trends 1. Postmodernism a. Relativism i. Morality ii. Truth b. Pluralism i. Tolerance/Intolerance 2. Worldview Analysis

III. How do we respond 136

A. Method 1. Ambassadorial-Dialogical Apologetics a. Character i. Humility ii. Integrity b. Knowledge i. Role of Holy Spirit ii. Noetic affects of sin c. Wisdom i. Conversational ii. Socratic B. Answering the challengers 1. New Atheists a. Faith i. Biblical definition ii. Theological understanding b. Religion and evil i. Does the Bible command evil? ii. What about religious who commit evil? c. The Bible i. Reliability ii. Authenticity d. Science vs. God? i. Theological origins of science e. Problem of evil i. Atheistic world view depraved of good answer to evil or foundation for good 2. Culture a. Relativism i. Self referentially absurd b. Hypocrisy i. Honesty ii. Character (1). Humility (2). Integrity

137

Sample Lesson Plan: Required Assignments: • N/A Objectives: • Introduce Apologetics • Familiarize students with objections to Christianity • Introduce “New Atheist” • Present objections offered by Dawkins, Harris, & Hitchens • Develop a method of apologetic response • Engage ideas of “postmodern context” • Define a postmodern apologetic method • Offer a practical defense of Christian Faith Key Terms: Empiricism Apologetics Evidentialism Noetic Problem of Evil

Epistemology

Evidence

Meta-narrative “New Atheists” Objectivity/Neutrality Postmodernity Theological Rationalism Tolerance

Outline: IV. Apologetics: What is it and why do it? A. Simple definition B. Biblical mandate C. Purpose V. Objections: What we face A. New Atheism 1. Who are they 2. Objections B. Cultural Trends VI. How do we respond A. Method 1. Ambassadorial-Dialogical Apologetics B. Answering the challengers 1. New Atheists 2. Culture

138

Sample Group Work Assignment:

Group Members: ________________________________________________________________________ As a part of being Christian, we are faced with many challenges to our beliefs. Those who are not believers often take issue with our view of life – how we understand the world to be and work. Listed below are a four objections/challenges that are often given against Christianity; briefly answer one of the objections with your group. (You will be presenting your answers to the class.) 1. The Bible is not completely authentic or accurate. The Bible is full of errors and contradictions.

2. There’s too much evil and suffering in the world for there to be a good God. The coexistence of God and evil is a logical contradiction. How can there be a good God when there is so much suffering in the world?

3. There is no such thing as absolute truth. All truth is relative.

4. Aren’t all religions basically the same? Christianity can’t be the only way! All roads lead to the top of the mountain.

139

APPENDIX C Apologetics Resources: Beckwith, Francis J., & Gregory Koukl. Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998. The authors present reasoned arguments against relativism both at the popular level and academic. A chapter is devoted to practical application. ———, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland, (eds). To Everyone an Answer: a Case For the Christian Worldview: Essays in Honor of Norman L. Geisler. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004. Multifarious authors contribute to five broad areas (1) faith, reason and the necessity of apologetics; (2) God’s existence; (3) Christ and miracles; (4) philosophical and cultural challenges to Christian faith; (5) religious challenges to Christian faith. Boa, Kenneth D., & Robert M. Bowman Jr. Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith. Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2006. Boa and Bowman examine common methods of apologetics and the thinkers associated then they offer the best case for Christianity from those thinkers and perspectives. Chamberlain, Paul. Can We Be Good Without God? A Conversation About Truth, Morality, Culture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996. Written as a group discussion, Chamberlain addresses how morality is grounded. Each voice represents a different viewpoint: relativist, humanist, evolutionist, and theist. Chesterton, G. K. Orthodoxy. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009. Chesterton’s work is an apologetic classic. He offers a particularly good critique of naturalism Clark, David K., & Norman L. Geisler. Apologetics in the New Age: A Christian Critique of Pantheism. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004. As the title suggests, Clark and Geisler offer a refutation of the New Age ideals most clearly seen in pantheism. Copan, Paul. That's Just Your Interpretation: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge Your Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001. ———. How Do You Know You're Not Wrong?: Responding to Objections That Leave Christians Speechless. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005. ———. When God Goes to Starbucks: A Guide to Everyday Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008.

140

———. True For You, But Not For Me: Overcoming Objections to Christian Faith. Revised edition. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2009. The previous four titles are similar in structure and intent. They present common objections to the Christian faith and offer a thoughtful response. Both careful thinking and practical application come to bear in these texts. They are particularly helpful in giving brief and accessible answers to popular questions against Christianity. ———. (ed). Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2009. Apologetic specialists offer their best responses to the common objection found in the “New Atheists.” ______________, & William Lane Craig, (eds). Passionate Conviction: Contemporary Discourses On Christian Apologetics. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2007. The broad themes of apologetics (God, Jesus, Comparative Religions, Postmodernism and Relativism, and Practical Application) are addressed by different Christian thinkers. Cowan, Steven B., (ed). Five Views On Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000. Counterpoint book where the method of apologetics is the topic of discussion. This text is theoretical in focus but shows how differing apologists engage the task of defending the faith. Craig, William Lane. Hard Questions, Real Answers. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003. Popular questions that assail Christians are addressed. Two chapters are devoted to the problem of evil. ———. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3d edition. Wheaton IL: Crossway Books, 2008. Craig’s seminal work on apologetics written at an academic level and designed to provide a comprehensive apologetic for Christianity. ———, & Chad Meister, (eds). God Is Great, God Is Good: Why Believing in God Is Reasonable and Responsible. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009. This is a collection of essays responding to the common “New Atheist” challenges. ———, & J.P. Moreland. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003. Craig and Moreland attempt to construct a thorough-going philosophical positive case and exposition of the Christian faith. The text is more of a philosophy of religion for Christianity than overt apologetics, however arguments for Christianity’s truthfulness abound. ———. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Malden, MA: Blackwell

141

Publishing, 2009. Collection of articles arguing for the existence of God, each from a different author and presenting a different argument. This is a very high level text that requires academic training in philosophy to fully comprehend. Dulles, Avery Robert Cardinal. A History of Apologetics. 2nd edition. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2005. Dulles’s book is one of the best introductions to the history of apologetics. Geisler, Norman L., and Frank Turek. I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004. The authors offer a comprehensive case for Christianity as more reasonable than atheism. They address the major issues concerning the positive case for faith. Geisler’s and Turek’s book is a great introduction text to apologetics. Groothuis, Douglas. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011. As titled, Groothuis’s magnum opus constructs a cumulative case for the Christian faith. Chapters are devoted to the major loci of apologetics. This is a phenomenal text for an apologetics course since it covers all the major apologetic concerns in one volume. ———. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2000. Groothuis takes a negative view of postmodernism in this book and offers a refutation of it from a biblical and Christian philosophical perspective. It is particularly good at pointing to the potential pitfalls of postmodernism. Hahn, Scott, & Benjamin Wiker. Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2008. Hahn and Wiker take an educator’s approach to responding to Dawkins. Keller, Timothy. The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Reprint edition. New York, NY: Riverhead Trade, 2009. Keller divides his presentation into two sections the first addresses the most common objections of atheists and the second section makes a positive case for Christianity. Keller’s work would serve very well and introductory text for apologetics—it is very accessible. Koukl, Gregory. Tactics: a Game Plan For Discussing Your Christian Convictions. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009. This is a practical guide for how to defend the faith and dialogue with hostile nonChristians. Koukl offers many very accessible examples of how to navigate through conversations and handle hostile objectors with grace and poise. ———, & Ronald Tacelli. Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to

142

Questions of Faith. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2009. Kreeft and Tacelli address the common topics of apologetics: existence of God, Christ, Morality, and other religions. The newest edition added the “Catholic” in the title and a small chapter “Twenty Catholic Capstones to Christian Apologetics” – the book is not a defense of a specifically Catholic faith. As the title suggest, also, it is a handbook, each chapter is a brief exposition of answers to common objections to Christianity. Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2001. Although not a trained apologist, Lewis’s work has become a classic among apologetic books. He offers a very good moral argument for God’s existence. Licona, Michael, & William A. Dembski, (eds). Evidence For God: 50 Arguments For Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2010. Collection of articles from different thinkers on the apologetic issues surrounding philosophy, science, Jesus, and the Bible. McGrath, Alister. The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. New York, NY: Galilee Trade, 2006. McGrath traces the intellectual history of atheism and makes a case for its eventual dissolution. ———. Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running On Empty? Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011. ———, & Joanna Collicutt McGrath. The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine (Veritas Books). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2010. The McGraths address Dawkins’ God Delusion, however not as a point by point rejoinder but to his general philosophical and theological errors. Moreland, J.P. Scaling the Secular City: a Defense of Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1987. Moreland’s contribution to apologetic text, which tackles the major issues presented by skeptics. Nash, Ronald H. Faith and Reason. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994. Nash presents a strong philosophy of religion but also offers good chapters on God’s existence, the problem of evil and miracles. ———. Is Jesus the Only Savior? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994. Nash presents arguments against inclusivism and pluralism. ———. The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? 2d edition. Phillipsburg, PA: P&R Publishing, 2003.

143

The case against the accusation that Christianity is a copy religion from pagan and mystery religions – one of the few that attempts such a comprehensive defense. Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004. Pearcey does not make a positive apologetic, rather she addresses the cultural milieu and its impact on thoughtful Christianity both as a challenge intellectually and morally. Sire, James W. Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All? Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1994. Sire explores the nature of belief and makes a case for the Christian way of being. ———. Why Good Arguments Often Fail: Making a More Persuasive Case For Christ. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006. Sire looks at arguments for Christianity that do not work and then offers a few that do work. ———. A Little Primer On Humble Apologetics. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006. This little book should be required reading for anyone wanting to do apologetics. Sire looks at how we can practice apologetics with Christian virtue, not how to win arguments. Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Rev. edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 2010. The existence of God is the best explanation for the way the world is—this is Swinburne contention and the case he makes. Zacharias, Ravi. (ed). Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith That We Defend. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008. Collection of articles by various apologists addressing the nature of the questions facing Christianity. ———, & Norman L. Geisler, (eds). Who Made God?: and Answers to Over 100 Other Tough Questions of Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. The answers to the tough questions have been written by different thinkers and they address the major questions of skepticism, atheism, and theology.

Miracles/The Supernatural Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000.

144

Geisler, Norman L. Miracles and the Modern Mind: A Defense of Biblical Miracles. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004. Geivett, R. Douglas, & Gary R. Habermas, (eds). In Defense of Miracles: a Comprehensive Case For God's Action in History. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1997. Habermas, Gary R., & J. P. Moreland. Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence For Immortality. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004. Moreland, J.P. What Is the Soul? Recovering Human Personhood in a Scientific Age. Atlanta, GA: RZIM, 2002. Rowe, William L., Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction. 4th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2007

The Problem of Evil291 Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. Reissue edition. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Kreeft, Peter. Making Sense Out of Suffering. Ann Arbor, MI: Charis Books, 1986. Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2001. Leibniz, G.W. Theodicy: Essays On the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1998. Poole, Garry. How Could God Allow Suffering and Evil? Revised edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Swinburne, Richard. Providence and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 1998.

Reliability of Scripture                                                                                                                 291

The remaining sources I have not annotated since they fall under a specific heading which helps to locate where the text fits into the apologetical discussion. It needs to be noted that some of these text come from a less conservative Christian stance (that is, some do not take a confessionally Evangelical view of Scripture) but are still very helpful in understanding the main issues associated with each heading.

145

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. 2d edition. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007. Bruce, F. F. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003. Geisler, Norman, & William Nix. From God To Us: How We Got Our Bible. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 1980. Metzger, Bruce M., & Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2005. Orr-Ewing, Amy. Is the Bible Intolerant? Sexist? Oppressive? Homophobic? Outdated? Irrelevant? Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006. Patzia, Arthur G. The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon. 2d edition. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011. Wegner, Paul D. The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004.

Historical Jesus Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008. Bock, Darrell L., The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006. Borg, Marcus J., Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2008. Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasa. New York, NY: HarperOne, 1991. Edwards, James R. Is Jesus the Only Savior? Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005. Evans, Craig A. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008.

146

Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence For the Life of Christ. Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, Inc., 1996. ____________________., & Michael R. Licona. The Case For the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004. Komoszewski, J. Ed, M. James Sawyer, & Daniel B. Wallace. Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2006. Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Anchor Bible, 1991. Swinburne, Richard. The Resurrection of God Incarnate. New York, NY: Oxford University Press 2003. Wilkins, Michael J., (ed). Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996. Witherington III, Ben. The Jesus Quest: the Third Search For the Jew of Nazareth. 2d edition. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1997.

Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. 10th Anniversary edition. New York, NY: Free Press, 2006. Craig, William Lane, & Quentin Smith. Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 1995. Dembski, William A., (ed). Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1998. ———., (ed). Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001. ———., & Charles W. Colson. The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2004. ———., & Michael Ruse, eds. Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

147

Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory In Crisis. 3d edition. Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1986. ———. Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe. Original edition. New York, NY: Free Press, 2002. Gonzalez, Guillermo, & Jay Wesley Richards. The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed For Discovery. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007. Jastrow, Robert. God and the Astronomers Second Edition. New and Expanded Edition. New York, NY: Readers Library, 2000. Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin On Trial. 20th Anniversary Edition. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2010. Manson, Neil A., (ed). God and Design: the Teleological Argument and Modern Science. London: Routledge, 2003. Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence For Intelligent Design. Reprint ed. San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2010. Moreland, J. P., (ed). The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence For an Intelligent Designer. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 1994. Rana, Fazale. The Cell's Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator's Artistry. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008.

Atheist Perspective Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Boston, MA: Mariner Books, 2008. Dawkins, Richard. The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True. New York, NY: Free Press, 2011. Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Dennett, Daniel C. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York, NY: Penguin, 2007. Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2005.

148

Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York, NY: Vintage, 2008. Harris, Sam. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. New York, NY: Free Press, 2011. Hawking, Stephen, & Leonard Mlodinow. The Grand Design. New York, NY: Bantam, 2010. Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York, NY: Twelve, 2009. Stenger, Victor J. God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008.  

149

BIBLIOGRAPHY Archer, Kenneth J. “A Pentecostal Way of Doing Theology: Method and Manner.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9, no. 3 (2007): 301-14. Althouse, Peter. “Eschatology.” In Handbook of Pentecostal Christianity, Edited by Adam Stewart Dekalb, IL: NIU Press, 2012. Beilby, James K. Thinking About Christian Apologetics: What It Is And Why We Do It. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011. Blamires, Harry. The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? Vancouver: Regent College Pub., 1963. Boa, Kenneth D., & Robert M. Bowman Jr. Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith. Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2006. Bowdle, Donald. “Informed Pentecostalism: An Alternative Paradigm.” In The Spirit and the Mind: Essays in Informed Pentecostalism. Edited by Terry L. Cross and Emerson B. Powery. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000. Clark, David K. Review of Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics, by R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29, no. 3 (September 1986): 326-29. ———. Dialogical Apologetics: a Person-Centered Approach to Christian Defense. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Pub. Group, 1999. ———. “Postmodern Evangelical Apologetics?” In Alister E. McGrath & Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement, Edited by Sung Wook Chung. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003. Clark, Kelly James, Richard Lints, and James K.A. Smith. 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance For Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press, 2004. ———. “A Reformed Epistemologist’s Response” (To Craig, “Classical Apologetics”). In Five Views On Apologetics. Edited by Steven B Cowan. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2000. ———. “Closing Remarks.” In Five Views On Apologetics. Edited by Steven B Cowan. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2000. Cowan, Steven B. “Introduction,” In Five Views on Apologetics, Counterpoints, Edited

 

by Stanley N. Gundry and Steven B. Cowan. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000. Craig, William Lane. “Closing Remarks.” In Five Views on Apologetics, Counterpoints, Edited by Stanley N. Gundry and Steven B. Cowan. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000. ———, and J.P. Moreland. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2003. ———. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd Edition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008. ———. “Richard Dawkins on Arguments for God.” In God is Good, God is Great: Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible, Edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009. Cross, Terry L. “A Proposal to Break the Ice: What Can Pentecostal Theology Offer Evangelical Theology?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10, no. 2 (2002): 44-73. ———. Answering the Call in the Spirit: Pentecostal Reflections on a Theology of Vocation, Work, and Life. Cleveland, TN: Lee University Press, 2007. ———. “Can There Be a Pentecostal Systematic Theology? An Essay on Theological Method in a Postmodern World,” Unpublished paper presented to the Theology Interest Group, 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies [2001]. ———. “The Divine-Human Encounter: Towards a Pentecostal Theology of Experience,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 31 (2009): 3-34. ———. “The Rich Feast of Theology: Can Pentecostals Bring the Main Course or Only the Relish?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 16 (2000): 27-47. Dabney, D. Lyle. “Saul’s Armor: The Problem and Promise of Pentecostal Theology Today.” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 23 (2001): 115-46. Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. ———. The God Delusion. Boston: Mariner Books, 2008. ———. “Why Darwin Matters.” The Guardian. 08 February 2008. www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/09/darwin.dawkins1.

151

Dayton, Donald W. Theological Roots of Pentecostalism. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. 2007. DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Christian Worldview Integration Series. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011. Feser, Edward. The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2010. Ganssle, Gregory E. “Making the Gospel Connection: An Essay Concerning Applied Apologetics.” In Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics. Edited by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2012. Geisler, Norman. S.v. “Apologetics, Types of.” In Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999. Gould, Stephen Jay. “Nonoverlaping Magisteria.” Natural History no. 106 (March 1997): 16-22. www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html. Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer On Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1996. Groothuis, Douglas. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2011. ———. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. ———. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Vintage, 2008. Haught, John F. God and the New Atheism: a Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2009. Johns, Cheryl Bridges. Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy Among The Oppressed, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 2, Edited by John Christopher Thomas, Rick D. Moore, and Steven J. Land. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Johnson, Phillip E., and John Mark Reynolds. Against All Gods: What's Right and Wrong

152

About the New Atheism. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2010. Kenneson, Philip D. “There’s no Such Thing as Absolute Truth, and it’s a Good Thing Too.” In Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World. Edited by Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1995. Koukl, Gregory. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009. ———. “Tactics: Applying Apologetics to Everyday Life.” In To Everyone an Answer, Edited by Francis J. Beckwith, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2004. Kwan, Kia-Man. “The Argument form Religious Experience.” In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, Edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Land, Steven J. Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion For the Kingdom. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, Lewis, C. S. God in the Dock: Essays On Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1994. Markos, Louis. Apologetics for the 21st Century. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010. McGrath, Alister. “Evangelical Apologetics.” Bibliotheca Sacra 155, no. 617 (Jan 1998): 3-10. ———. Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers & Skeptics Find Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012. ———. Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running On Empty? Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2011. McKim, Donald K. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Meister, Chad. “God, Evil and Morality.” God is Good, God is Great: Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible, Edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009 Moore, Rickie D. “The Prophetic Calling: An Old Testament Profile and its Relevance for Today,” The Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 24 (2004): 16-29. Moreland, J.P. Kingdom Triangle: Recovering the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul,

153

Restore the Spirit’s Power. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007. ———. Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997. Nash, Ronald H. Faith and Reason. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994. Naugle, David K. Worldview: The History of a Concept. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002. Neumann, Peter D. “Spirituality.” In Handbook of Pentecostal Christianity, Edited by Adam Stewart Dekalb, IL: NIU Press, 2012. Noll, Mark A. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1994. Olthuis, James H. “On Worldviews.” In Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science. New York, NY: University Press of America, 1989. Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Chritsianity from its Cultural Captivity. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004. Phillips, Timothy R., and Dennis Okholm. “Introduction” In Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World. Edited by Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1995. Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Raschke, Carl. The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004. Reed, Baron. S.v. “Certainty.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2009. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/certainty/#KinCer. Reppert, Victor. “Confronting Naturalism: The Argument from Reason,” Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering the New Atheists and Other Objections. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2009. Richie, Tony. Speaking by the Spirit: A Pentecostal Model for Interreligious Dialogue. Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2011. Schaeffer, Francis A. Escape From Reason. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006. Sire, James W. A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006.

154

———. The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, 4th Edition. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2004. Skirry, Justin. S.v. “René Descartes (1596-1650): Overview.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Jason Waller 13 September 2008 http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/ Smith, James K.A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Cultural Liturgies, Volume 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009. ———. “Is The Universe Open For Surprise? Pentecostal Ontology and the Spirit of Naturalism,” Zygon 43, no. 4 (December 2008): ———. The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, 2nd Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012. ———. Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2010. ———. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church, The Church and Postmodern Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. Sproul, R.C., John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley. Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. Stewart, Adam. “Holiness Movement.” In Handbook of Pentecostal Christianity. Edited by Adam Stewart. Dekalb, IL: NIU Press, 2012. Steup, Matthias. S.v. “Epistemology.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2005 edition. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/. Taylor, James E. S.v. “The New Atheists.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 29 January 2010. http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/. Thomas, John Christopher. “Pentecostal Theology in the Twenty-First Century.” Presidential Address at the Society of Pentecostal Studies. Pneuma: The Journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies 26, no. 1 (Spring 1998): Van Til, Cornelius. Christian Apologetics 2nd Edition, Edited by William Edgar. Philipsburg: P&R Pub, 2003. ———. The Defense of the Faith, Edited by K. Scott Oliphint. Philipsburg: P&R Pub., 2008.

155

Walsh, Brian J. and Richard Middleton. The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1984. West, Greg. “We don’t need apologetics; we just need to experience Jesus.” (blog) 30 November 2012, http://www.thepoachedegg.net/the-poached-egg/2012/11/wedont-need-apologetics-we-just-need-to-experience-jesus.html Wolf, Gary. “The Church of Non-Believers.” Wired. November 2006. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “Can Belief in God be Rational if it Has No Foundations?” In Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, Edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1983. Zacharias, Ravi. Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of The Christian Message. Atlanta, GA: W. Pub. Group, 2000.

156