On How to Benefit by Reading This Book
Introduction
A MEDITATION ON THE PRACTICE AND MINISTRY OF ANSWERING QUESTIONS
Questions are our friends!” That’s what I have often commended to students and pastors over the years … and then one day my three-year-old, loquacious daughter got wind of this saying, and my wife and I have never been the same!
Seriously, though, I think questions can be our friends because if something can help us discover what is true about reality, it is a friend, not an enemy; a “companion along the way.” Questions can help us get at things. Questions are means for excavating what is known and what can be known. They’re a valuable tool, whether in the crucial work of introspection or in dialogue with a fellow explorer of what is real.
A Reasonable Response is a celebration and example of the practice and ministry of answering questions. These questions are the result of correspondence that Dr. William (Bill) Lane Craig has received personally. In fact, we’ve chosen to keep the questions in their original context. Consequently, you the reader can gain an appreciation for how and why a person may have inquired about issues that they care deeply about. This is important to recognize. For example, two people may ask about whether there are good arguments for God’s existence. Even if posed as the same question, it does not follow that an identical answer should be given. For two people could ask the same question out of different needs and desires, background, degrees of care, assumptions, concerns, etc. So, we have tried to dignify the inquirers (who are real people on the other end) by keeping the context of their correspondence intact.
Why This Book?
When conceiving of this work, Bill and I felt there were various needs and opportunities for a book like this. Some of which, perhaps, have even attracted you:
First, we think that Christian and non-Christian readers want more than just “Bible answers” to ultimate questions. At the very least, interested readers want to understand what is a “Christian worldview” perspective of the biblical vision about the “big questions.” There are other books that do Q&A by offering more or less a biblical theological answer to a question. To be sure, those books have their place and do fulfill a genuine need. But we wanted to offer more than just “what does the Bible say about this topic?” So, it will not be surprising to find that some of Bill’s answers work at some cross-section of theology, metaphysics, and epistemology, for example.
Second, we find that readers crave clear, substantive, and succinct answers to challenging questions. Today there is an explosion of solid Christian thought resources from a variety of authors and organizations. We are grateful for this work. But what if a reader can be served with a substantive answer to a tough question without having to read a chapter, journal article, or even an entire book on the subject? For example, take the controversial issue of whether the God of the Old Testament committed “divine genocide” by having the Canaanites driven out of the land of Canaan. Now, this is a big question. Myriad books have been written on the topic. Entire conferences have been created to deal with this issue. But consider Bill’s answer to this question. It is a few pages long. It is clear. It gives you much to chew on and will challenge you to work through your own beliefs on the matter. If you want to study further, I have recommended resources in the introductions to each part of this book where you can learn about further contributions from Bill and others.
Third, we think it is important to value the doing of apologetics instead of just talking about apologetics. Over the last twenty years alone, Bill and many of his colleagues and friends have written some influential books about apologetics. These often offer helpful and informative frameworks for thinking about the task of apologetics and dealing with quintessential apologetics questions. But it is also valuable (and, indeed, in some cases it may be more valuable) to promote actual examples of doing apologetics as a way of learning about apologetics. That reason alone compels us to offer this book for your encouragement.
Bottom line: we present this book to you not only because of the value of the content but also because of the value of the educational opportunity. Learn to be attentive to the way in which Bill answers these questions. Consider the experience of reading or perusing this book as its own school of thought.
ON THE INTENT AND SCOPE OF THIS BOOK
Producing A Reasonable Response involved making what I would describe as some “canonical judgments” for the sake of encouraging a type of experience with this material. Yes, there is intelligent design at work … or at least, design! With all the hundreds of correspondences that Bill Craig receives, we had to choose what to feature or refrain from featuring in a book like this. We’ve tried to be choice in our choice, as I like to say. We don’t claim this to be a comprehensive compilation.
But what decisively distinguishes this corpus of writing from what can be available online? Answer: the sort of reading experience that we seek to foster with this book. The conditions for that experience are shaped by everything from the fact that you don’t have to be screen-dependent to enjoy this content, to how we have arranged this correspondence thematically and sequentially.
More substantially, this book contains what I would describe as “para-texts” along the way that act as a kind of strategic annotation to the main text, seeking to help the reader notice what’s going on in an answer to a question or to emphasize how Bill might be modeling something teachable for us in the moment. I talk more about these Insights boxes below. Later in this introduction, I offer some specific recommendations for how to maximize the learning opportunity with this book. We also provide some brief contextual remarks at the beginning of each part, attempting to shape reader expectations and encourage study of recommended resources in a particular area. In addition, the Conclusion and the Appendixes are designed to add further perspective concerning how to enact in various environments the ministry of helping to answer people’s questions. Again, this focus is motivated by the fact that Bill’s practice of answering questions can help us to strengthen our own work in this area, and if I might say, even extend it further and farther than Bill has been able to do through ReasonableFaith.org (he is a powerful clearinghouse of content, and not just that … but he is still only one man. To you the reader, I think carpe diem may be in order here!).
The correspondence in this book is arranged into six different parts.
Part One: Questions on Knowing and Believing What Is Real
Part Two: Questions about God
Part Three: Questions about Origins and the Meaning of Life
Part Four: Questions about the Afterlife and Evil
Part Five: Questions about Jesus Christ and Being His Disciple
Part Six: Questions about Issues of Christian Practice
In many ways, these parts represent broad themes in Bill’s writing and speaking. Part of what I wanted to do in this book was not only to offer to you, the reader, more of what Bill is known for, but to also help you come to appreciate his work on other (perhaps lesser known) affiliated areas of thought (e.g., those in Part Six). Yet, we also think that these six themes represent some of the more popular and consequential areas of study when considering the plausibility of the Christian worldview. As mentioned above, at the beginning of each part, we provide some introductory remarks to prepare your expectations for what can be studied and learned. There are two recommended resource lists at the end of each introduction, which are designed to (1) encourage further study within the range of Bill’s own work on a theme, and not just his books and articles, but his vast library of audio and video content (we provide helpful links to this content). But we also want to (2) encourage study in light of other people’s worthwhile work. The opportunity to gain direction about how to study further a theme of your interest is one of the benefits of this book. Each of the recommended lists categorizes resources as either
• “Beginner” (introductory, requiring a high school level of comprehension)
• “Intermediate” (requires some knowledge from a specific discipline or field and more specifically focused)
• “Advanced” (graduate degree required, carefully honed, scholarly material recommended).
We aim to strengthen readers at a variety of levels and backgrounds and so want our recommendations to be user-friendly.
WHY THESE QUESTIONS?
We do not claim that these questions embody the most important questions ever to be asked, nor do we claim that these are the only questions that one should learn to answer. It was more art than science to make some “canonical judgments” about which questions to select from the hundreds that Bill receives. Yet, it was not a whimsical process. For example, most of these judgments centered around three questions.
Is it interesting?
Is it insightful?
Is it instructive?
Any of the questions vary in differing degrees related to the above factors. For example, some are more interesting than instructive, perhaps because of the way Bill answered a question or by virtue of the way a question was posed. So, we don’t claim that all the questions rank at ultra-high levels in all of the three areas. We do think that what we offer is a meaningful sampling of interesting, insightful, and instructive answers to questions. Part of what makes these instructive is that they aren’t revised from their original contexts; we didn’t attempt to make the questions sound smarter or more stupid. We sought to keep these as natural and as authentic as possible for our publishing purposes, since human beings and not robots were involved in both asking and answering.
ON THE EXPERIENCE OF READING THESE “REASONABLE RESPONSES”
There are at least two main types of experiences when reading the main body of A Reasonable Response.
First, we experience the value of becoming acquainted with someone’s background and biography. This happens at a variety of levels. Most questions posed by inquirers in this book are communicated in some sort of relevant context. Rarely do correspondents merely ask a question. Perhaps they go public with their reasoning on some issue, or explain how and why their spiritual journey is relevant to them asking a question. This is all valuable background for the context of their leading questions in the foreground. But we also discover interesting (and maybe even surprising) aspects about Bill. For example, you can come to realize (even humorously) as a result of this book that …
• Bill not only enjoys quoting Al-Ghazali but also Hugh of St. Victor.
• He’s not some one-note wonder when it concerns knowing God. He recognizes the benefit that arguments for God’s existence can offer a sincere inquirer; but he also recognizes that such arguments are not merely for the sake of leading someone to a “generic deity.” Bill’s evangelistic: he wants to help people encounter the living Christ!
• The research professor of philosophy who has two PhDs can also be pastoral and attentive to people’s emotions and feelings as he helps them work through their questions.
• His life has been challenged by a debilitating neuromuscular disorder, known as CMT, which has also shaped his character by how he has chosen to address it with care and self-discipline.
• The scholar who has authored nearly one hundred peer-reviewed journal articles and has a wealth of knowledge on many things academic, is also thoughtful about how he thinks of marriage, productivity, and priorities (truth be told, it’s probably because of his discipline in the latter that he can accomplish the former).
During the ten years working directly with Bill to support his research and publishing efforts, I have observed up close several of Bill’s virtues, which often get played out in public contexts like this book. For example: his tenacity for truth and clarity, his childlike teachability and sheer joy to learn something new, and his enthusiasm to be “caught up” with God’s kingdom causes in the world.
Second, reading the correspondence in this book is similar to reading other letters; we get to experience only part of an incomplete process of exchanging thoughts between people. The benefit of this experience is that it does make it conducive to learning on-the-go or learning along the way. You read for the nuggets. You read for the distilled knowledge, wisdom, or insight. Reading the correspondence is not like reading a lecture (even if it is instructive), nor is it like reading an exposition of ideas from an academic course (even if there is expositing and explaining involved).
A Reasonable Response can be read from start to finish; it’s nearly like being a fly on a wall in a philosophy, theology, and apologetics course with Bill Craig. Or you could read this book in a more piecemeal fashion, whether dipping into a particular part over another or skipping from one question to another. I have found that it’s even enjoyable to randomly pick a question and enter the conversation that way; it’s like being justified to be a curious busybody of someone else’s conversation! On the other hand, perhaps one could make it a practice to contemplate one of the Q&A’s each day for the next couple of months.
To help you in noting concepts and strategies in Dr. Craig’s response to each question, I have added Insights about the suppositions and approaches Bill employs. These Insights appear in many of the responses to help you understand both the claims and their appeal when addressing inquirers who want to understand issues of theology, philosophy, and apologetics. The purpose in responding, of course, is not to win arguments, but to remove barriers that keep the inquirer from seeking further, all the while responding in a gracious and patient manner.
AN EXERCISE IN USING THIS BOOK
I encourage you to consider what it might mean to read the correspondence in this book as an opportunity to exercise other-mindedness. This will be especially valuable if you are a pastor or if you seek to practice listening for the sake of caring for someone’s soul.1 As such, I encourage you to read the correspondence as “case studies” (at the very least). You don’t need to read the whole book in this way. But I do commend it as a valuable way of reading choice selections.
Consider the following steps:
Step 1: Read a question directed to Bill.
Step 2: After you read the correspondence and understand what is being asked, pause, don’t rush to Bill’s answer, but ponder the following two questions:2
What is this person revealing about the question(s) they ask? (e.g., assumptions of their mind, “reasons of their heart,” role of their passions in the question-asking).
How would I directly respond to this person if I had an opportunity to enter into real, give-and-take communication?
Step 3: You may want to briefly document your thoughts to the two questions so that you can compare what you would say with what Bill says. In so doing, you can open up your thought process to be weighed by Bill’s approach, and then also assess his approach in light of your own take on the matter.
The experience of this exercise can be enriching if for no other reason than that it can help you move from being a passive reader to an engaged participant in the process of thinking through the various questions surfaced in any of these correspondence. You could also supplement your reading of a discussion in this book with a meditation on a passage of Scripture that would be relevant to the topic before your mind.
The genre of letters/correspondence can be useful for fostering this kind of dialogue with a text. It’s not impossible to have a similar experience when reading/listening to a lecture or reading a paper that exposits or analyzes. But I have found interviews/correspondence reading to be more engaging, and at times, even more rewarding.
The benefit of doing the above exercise with correspondence (or interviews) is that you become acquainted in a concrete way with the intended audience. Bill is not responding to the masses but to a particular inquirer. His answers are fitted for that person. We can learn something about his approach. This isn’t rocket science, but it is worthwhile to recognize. The payoff is immense. For example, it’s one thing to have a prepared, even generic case to respond to atheistic objections to theism. It’s another matter, though, to skillfully and wisely contextualize what you might say in general so that it is fitting to the particular inquirer at hand.
While reading through Bill’s answers, sometimes I had the experience of wondering, Why didn’t he say, x, y, or z to that claim? or simply wondering, It’s interesting to note what he could have said (given all that he knows about a topic) versus what he actually said. I had these questions not because I thought Bill’s replies were incomplete. I had them mainly because those questions are helpful for conceiving of a range of possible answers in light of what was actually said.
A simple yet consequential communication lesson is appropriate here: Know your audience and communicate in a way that they find compelling. This is an important word of encouragement to any public communicators, and not the least of which includes all of us who are spokespersons for Jesus Christ and His mission in this world, whether we are pastors, college students, parents, business leaders, educators, politicians, or a whole diverse range of other colorful vocations that shine through the beautiful body of Christ.
Tough questions not only require tough-minded answers, but the skillfulness to know how to say what needs to be said in order to help others come to understand this for themselves. In that regard, we should seek to have patience, to stay with people in their question-asking and communicate for the sake of educating insofar as they want to know what it is that they need to know. Ultimately, the practice and ministry of answering questions, like most anything else that is meaningful in life, is for the “whosoever is willing.”
On the Practice and Ministry of Answering Questions
In the second part of this introduction, I invite you to consider how the practice of answering questions is a ministry to others. In so doing, not only can we gain an appreciation for this very work in our own lives but also become better acquainted with Bill Craig’s contribution in public. For in many ways, no matter what image you might have of Bill’s role in public (e.g., being an internationally recognized debater), one thing is definitely true: the man knows how to thoroughly ask questions and thoroughly offer answers. Q&A is the lifeblood of his work, even if it is not always presented in that form.
ON A PROPER “HOME” FOR ASKING QUESTIONS
Bill not only knows his stuff, but he knows how to prepare; he values good questions and their integral role in acquiring understanding. He’s really a disciplined, lifelong learner at heart. I’m convinced that’s his “secret.”3 Having two PhDs didn’t indicate for him that he had arrived at all that he needed to know, even for those chosen areas of formal study!
Learning and inquiring are staple foods for Bill’s appetites, not merely because he is intellectually hungry, but because he learns and inquires as a representative and spokesperson of One greater than himself. We might say that he inquires in order to be prepared to give an answer. For him, curiosity alone is not the only reason to inquire. To inquire in order to be prepared to answer is not some mere “1 Peter 3:15 branding” over his style of ministry. No, this is deeply real for him; it cuts to the core of how he views his vocation. He does not want to be taken off guard. He wants to be on guard. This is what it means to be “prepared.” For Bill Craig, to be prepared is not primarily motivated by a fear of embarrassment or wanting to be known as a know-it-all. That is not the sort of character that nurtures preparedness. For him, being prepared is a settled confidence distilled into the manner in which he conducts himself before others as a spokesperson for the claims and cause of Jesus Christ in our Father’s world.
Bill literally believes that by virtue of the witness of his work he can bring the name of God either praise or blame by how he conducts himself. Now, that attitude is not surprising when measured by the ruler of Scripture’s instruction concerning how we are to practice our lives before others. But it is nearly a radical posture, a countercultural orientation, when viewed from the standpoint of how the work of Christian scholarship is usually construed in the twenty-first century. It’s not uncommon for Christian scholars to have a habit of living as if their scholarship (even integrated with other disciplines) is for the academy and seeks to be “Christian” yet often divorces itself from seeing such work as actually seeking to represent and advocate for Jesus’ message and ministry in academe. But such a divorce, however unintentional, would be unconscionable for Bill.
In one sense, it’s easy to see how that “divorce” would be foreign to Bill’s work since he is known as an apologist; he’s expected to defend Christian truth, right? True, but I think he is compelled to represent and advocate in the way that he does because he ultimately believes that is what is involved when being a disciple of Jesus through the vocation of a scholar.4 Consequently, I think there is this rationale for these types of questions that often run through his mind as he is working: Will I (whether by my debating, lecturing, publishing, etc.) bring not only honor to Christ but will I also help the people “back home” become more confident that the Christian tradition has a lot going for it? Or, Will I bring shame to the name of Christ and to the work of His church by doing what I do in public? How Bill conducts his life and ministry is suggestive to me that he is circumspect about such types of questions. For him, it is a sober-minded recognition that his work is as a public witness, and that witness is in the form of representing and advocating for Jesus.
I have taken the time to mention all this about Bill because it is important to recognize that questions, especially if they are from our friends, need and deserve a nurturing “home” in order to be strengthening to one’s life. That home is one’s character and is demarcated by one’s witness in the world. If one’s character is full of cynicism or suspicion of others, that will shape the conditions, outlook, and outcomes of the questions that spring forth from that character. With Dallas Willard, “to witness means to help someone come to know what you know to be true.”5 If one views life as having no bearing on one’s witness, but is instead isolated from affecting others, that will also shape how one raises questions (e.g., we will become inattentive to speaking to the questions of the “other”). For scholars and graduate students, there is great temptation to be so into our own questions for the good of our own projects (in an individualistic and isolationistic manner) that we think our inquiries will affect only us and not the ones we serve and represent. Questions can have a way of opening us to or closing us off from a world depending on our character and how we view our lives as a witness before others.
Character involves virtue and overall moral/spiritual formation. According to J. P. Moreland, our mutual friend and colleague at Biola University, “A virtue is a skill, a habit, an ingrained disposition to act, think, or feel in certain ways.” In general, virtues are what make a person advance in excellence at living well. In Love Your God with All Your Mind, J. P. goes on to survey “five groups of virtues that are especially important for cultivating a Christian mind.”6 In summary, here is what J. P. proposes:
Group #1
Truth seeking
Honesty
Wisdom
Group #2
Trust
Hope
Group #3
Humility
Open-Mindedness
Self-criticality (we might call this circumspection)
Non-defensiveness
Group #4
Ardor
Vigilance
Fortitude
Group #5
Fidelity to God
Dedication to God’s cause in the world as one’s chief end
These virtues of one’s character, and the overall moral/spiritual formation entailed, can be as a “home,” enabling a habitable environment for the nurturing of our asking and answering of questions. Our inquiring practices will be developed and formed in view of these virtues.
I suggest that if you take stock of the life and ministry of Bill Craig, you can notice how character and witness shape the practice of his question-asking and the ministry of answering people’s questions. For example, for any of his public projects, whether providing arguments for the existence of God or defending the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, all these were “birthed” out of his own personal questions or the questions (often as skeptical objections) of others. That’s what compels these projects. When he develops these projects, whether for scholarly, peer-reviewed contexts, or for non-academic readers, he’s mindful of his witness, of the stakeholders of that witness.
People have all sorts of different images of Bill and his highly visible work. For example, a dominant image for many is Bill as debater. Or, for others, Bill is known as lecturer and conference speaker. Or, Bill as published author. Still others see Bill as campus spokesperson for Christ. Regardless if you are talking about thousands in the audience for a major debate in the UK, or a group of students in a graduate philosophy of religion program at Talbot School of Theology in Southern California, Bill not only seeks to be himself, but he’s open to the opportunity for questions to shape his projects. In that sense, openness to questions is responsiveness to others. His work is not merely about “propagation” and “perpetuation” of what’s always been believed or thought. For he does believe that tradition can do real work for addressing the questions and problems of today, and, indeed, can foster new or recovered questions for us to consider. You can take any of his debates, books, or journal articles and peel them back and discover that there is a lead question that animates his work. Regardless of the size of his audience or the occasion, Bill is attuned to the question(s) at hand.
Conveying knowledge, wisdom, and insight in the form of questions and answers is as old as human knowledge. We are question-asking creatures. Coming to know an answer to a question, and observing how other people’s questions are answered, is one of the most effective and time-tested ways to learn and grow.
The Good of Questions, Connecting Us with Reality
“Questions are the gateway to reality,” says Benedictine sister Joan Chittister. For “to ask a question simply means that we want to know more about something we consider important,” she says. On the other hand, “to fail to ask a question that ought to be asked means that we are ignoring human issues for which we should be holding ourselves responsible.”7 Do you see how questions can have a kind of hold on us? It is true that we are often gripped by the questions we ask, habitually.
Question-asking can serve several goods in a conversation with someone. Writer Matthew Lee Anderson observes that questions can
1. Focus the attention of discussion participants
2. Make the familiar unfamiliar, which can help us see it more clearly
3. Expose our presumptions and thoughtlessness
4. Engender curiosity by pointing our attention to the unknown.8
To his list, I would also add that questions can help us to
5. Practice self-discipline with the range and intent of our claims by suspending our claims (even if only momentarily) for the sake of converting them into a hypothesis to be tested.
Questions can have a way of deflating an authoritarian dogmatism. Take the claim, “God does not exist because there is evil in the world!” Now, that’s hard to dialogue with. But the claim could be practically converted into a hypothesis for open consideration. Notice the invitation involved in saying, “If evil exists in the world, does it follow that God does not exist?” Now, with a proposal like that, you can work on it. It offers opportunity for consideration. It is not, in principle, a “conversation stopper.”
6. Foster “Come, let us reason” invitations so that mutuality in inquiring can be profitable. Answering questions can give birth to dialogue and then to community, the result of mutual work.
Related to my last point, Anderson discerns that
In a way, a question dignifies the world or the subject as that which is different than ourselves and as a thing that is worth knowing. It draws us out of our complacent relationship with the world and makes us attentive to its other-ness, its distinctness. The more we ask questions, the more we are able to love the object as we seek an understanding of it.9
If I acknowledge that I do not have all the answers to the questions at hand, I am more inclined to be open to dialogue, and to enter into a mutually beneficial learning experience with someone who might know something more than me (that “other” may be in the form of a book, or a real, living and breathing conversation partner!).
7. Remind us of our creaturely dependence on God and others. But in Christ is the fullness of all knowledge and wisdom.
The practice of question-asking and, indeed, answering questions, is not merely a “Christian practice,” but a human practice. That we want (or even have need) to ask questions is, to me, one of the beautiful facets of being made in the image of God; for we are designed to reason, as reality-discovering and reality-recognizing creatures. Of course, this does not mean that we know all things or even know them with certainty. Knowing an answer to our questions rarely (if ever) requires that scope or degree of knowing. Questions (unless they are a pure rhetorical device) seem to be reliable indicators of knowers who are coming-to-know something, even if only barely grasping what can be known. Thus, question-asking reminds us of our quest for understanding. And for this, we should be grateful. For in what meaningful sense would our question-asking exist if we were all just machines? That is also a question worth pondering.
8. Acknowledge that we do in fact live in a God-saturated world.
The epistemic and social stature of question-asking is valuable because this is God’s world; for it is a revelatory world; a speak-and-respond kind of reality. Reality is meant to be discovered and not merely constructed. Reality is conducive to seeking and finding; of knowing and being known. God, who is ultimate reality, is discoverable. That’s our world, and that’s where the practice of question-asking lives and moves and has its place. That’s how questions and answers are environed, even if it exists in different ecosystems.
It’s not surprising that the Q&A-energized practice of catechizing would be regarded as a prominent historical means for educating entire Christian communities. For it is an illuminating example of the practice of question-asking for the sake of formation. It reminds us that questions are not just “about issues out there” but they reflect what we care about “inside here”; they can be informing as well as forming.10
QUESTIONS AS INTEGRAL TO DISCIPLESHIP
One of the earliest recorded accounts that we have of the young Jesus is of Him being found by His parents in the temple. Do you remember that story? It is one of my favorites. In Luke 2:46, notice the posture of Jesus’ life: sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. The passage offers an impressionable image of the vocation of a student or a learner.
Asking and answering questions are integral to the life of a disciple of Jesus in at least two main ways: (1) they help us deal with doubt and (2) they can help energize the spiritual discipline of study.
Questions and Dealing with Doubt11
Raising doubts about what we believe or know is not itself problematic. In many ways, it’s what we do with such doubts or what we permit these doubts to become that matters long term. You can begin to see the role that the virtue of self-discipline plays here. In one of the questions in this book, Bill is asked about doubts. Here’s some of what he says:
Remember: Doubt is not just a matter of academic debate or disinterested intellectual discussion; it involves a battle for your very soul, and if Satan can use doubt to immobilize you or destroy you, then he will.
I firmly believe, and I think the Bizarro-testimonies of those who have lost their faith and apostatized bears out, that moral and spiritual lapses are the principal cause for failure to persevere rather than intellectual doubts. But intellectual doubts become a convenient and self-flattering excuse for spiritual failure because we thereby portray ourselves as such intelligent persons rather than as moral and spiritual failures. I think that the key to victorious Christian living is not to have all your questions answered—which is probably impossible in a finite lifetime—but to learn to live successfully with unanswered questions. The key is to prevent unanswered questions from becoming destructive doubts. I believe that can be done by keeping in mind the proper ground of our knowledge of Christianity’s truth and by cultivating the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.12
In many ways, questions need to be environed by a settled peace in order to be fruitful. Bill counsels that “the really important thing is learning to live with unanswered questions without allowing them to become destructive doubts.” Could it be that the virtue of contentment has more going for it with regard to seeking answers to questions than what might otherwise be expected?
I would contend that authentic discipleship to Jesus is a healthy way to surface and address doubts. Why? Because we can honestly and vulnerably share our doubts with others before God and learn to effectively deal with them with support and resources from the Christian tradition (yes, there is an important word to be said here about having churches that foster this kind of environment, which I’ll address below). For Jesus affords us space to deal with our doubts. The story of “doubting Thomas” is evidence of His embrace, for example. Notice that Jesus didn’t say to Thomas “deny your doubts” or “pretend that they aren’t real.” But He gave Thomas the occasion—direct acquaintance with the personified evidence of Himself, raised from the grave!—to reckon with and adjust his doubts.
For our purposes here, this is the important point to be made about doubts in the life of faith. We want to learn to deal with our doubts to the degree that we can, and we want to grow in our confidence in God. If we do not want to grow in our confidence, then we might as well settle for living some sort of bifurcated life between “following Jesus” and being “inattentive to addressing our doubts” and, like weeds, permitting them to become overgrown. This is the choice we have to face with others before God. But do we really want that? It ends up being a bifurcated kind of life because there is not a willingness on our part to recognize Jesus’ lordship over all areas of life. Clay Jones, our mutual friend and colleague at Biola University, is fond of telling students that:
When Christians hear skeptical arguments that they can’t answer, they tend to push their doubt deep down inside. The trouble is that as they hear more and more of those arguments it begins to build a wedge between them and real confidence in Jesus. Thus I find “apologetics” to be deeply spiritual because you can’t love the Lord with all your mind and secretly suspect that Christianity can’t answer the hard questions.
We should have an intentional purpose for why we are to deal with doubts. Is it to play with them, like someone being entertained in an old “curiosity shop”? Is it to just expose them or only bring them to our awareness? Is it to stew in them and merely settle for their meaningful cohabitation in our soul? The goal of dealing with doubts is to remove them insofar as they stand between a person’s interactive relationship with God and His authority in their life.13
Why this goal? Because a doubt is a way of distrusting what is the case; it very often can distract and redirect the heart (sometimes through the mind or the desires of our heart) to question what is true and what is known to be true. In fact, doubts can often manifest in the form of questions-as-objections (of course, notice that not all questions or all questioning are examples of doubts). Doubts come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are “intellectual doubts” and sometimes they are “emotional doubts” or even “spiritual doubts.” Quite often a person’s doubts about God and His trustworthiness are eclectic in nature; a combination of any or all of the above. Perhaps they are “existential doubts.” A doubt often has a felt need associated with it (e.g., a feeling of wanting to be accepted). Thus, when someone raises questions-as-objections there is often a non-articulated felt need that accompanies it. We must learn to treat the need with the objection.14 Regardless of the classification, doubts are real and they appear in both the heart and mind of non-Christians and self-identified Christians alike.
How can we lift a doubt? We can do so by offering counter-reasons and evidences to help defeat it so that it does not have the power to stand between us and the growth of our confidence in God. Through even questions of a circumspect type, we can learn to doubt our doubts. Again, this does not mean deny them, but to learn how to deprive them of their power. For example, perhaps people question whether God cares and sees them. Maybe He seems distant. If it is the case that such people are willing to open up themselves to have their doubts identified and examined, they might be able to discover reasons to doubt their doubts (e.g., evidence for how God has, in the past, made Himself known to such people; how feelings are not an adequate guide to lead our lives; how God cares for us and administers His grace through other people). But perhaps the same doubt is rooted deeply in a person’s outlook. If that is the case, maybe the doubt is empowered by the appeal of a particular worldview (e.g., atheism). For example, instead of just dealing with the specific doubt per se, an endeavor should be made to offer reasons to doubt the very viability of the worldview assumptions that might contribute to the doubt.
So, in this context, questions are as much a tool for diagnosing and clarifying as they are a means to question the power of the doubt and to help the mind and heart to be open to counter-reasons and evidences. But we also want to learn to practice questioning for the sake of discovering answers to the very questions that inform, if not empower, our doubts. In that regard, questions can be useful for both “deconstructing” a doubt and “recovering” confidence that has been lost.
Questions and the Spiritual Discipline of Study
When one typically thinks about “study” these days, perhaps the dominant image that comes to mind is one related to school, books, and the drudgery of homework (aka “busywork”). If so, that image can (re)shape how we conceive of the role of questions in the work of study. For example, we might be led to think that the place of questions in study is just to master prepared answers. Or, perhaps, as a result of this idea and image of study we construe questions as the things to be studied as an end in itself. Thus, always questioning, never answering, always seeking, never finding. But thanks be to God that the practice of study does not rest on a conceptualization that is the result of contemporary, academic experiences.
To grasp the significance of the role of questions in study as a spiritual discipline, we must first recognize the value of avoiding (like a plague!) a reductionist account of study. For example, study is not identical to reading books, attending a lecture, going to a conference, mastering a topic, doing assignments in a classroom, or performing “pure research” (whatever that is!), nor is it an activity reserved for thinkers, intellectuals, scholars, and formal students alone. Now, study may involve these matters, but it does not have to, and when it does, it is not just a reference to them alone. So, in some significant sense, I want to say that we need to ransom study from an “academic-ization” impulse; an over-reaching, over-bearing, over-defining of life, ideas, and practices in terms of academic values and functionalities.
Consequently, when you pull back all that layering, all the social constructs of what “study” has come to be primarily represented as (e.g., in the form of such ideas, dominant images, roles, and practices mentioned above), you can begin to discover how study is rather humane, dignifying, and integral to whole-life flourishing. You discover, for example, how study is a way of training our whole sight (physical, moral, and spiritual) to notice and integrate what is noticed in all of life. With J. P. Moreland, study should “be approached as a set of training activities, as spiritual and intellectual exercise. Study is a discipline that strengthens the mind and enriches the soul…. Seen as a discipline, study becomes a means of building my character, ingraining habits of thought and reflection, and reinforcing in my own soul the value of the life of the mind.”15 Isn’t that interesting, inspiring, and inviting?
The relevant Christian formational literature is keen to represent study as a spiritual discipline of “engagement” versus one of “abstinence.” The goal of the latter is to “abstain to some degree and for some time from the satisfaction of what we generally regard as normal and legitimate desires.”16 Why do we abstain? To torture, shame, and penalize ourselves into believing something? No! Among other reasons, we are learning to practice abstaining for the sake of strengthening our trust and confidence in God’s provision even without our various attachments and their trappings. So, as a discipline of engagement, study “is the chief positive counterpart of solitude,”17 since solitude “is choosing to be alone and to dwell on our experience of isolation from other human beings.”18
According to Dallas Willard, a discipline for the spiritual life is “nothing but an activity undertaken to bring us into more effective cooperation with Christ and His kingdom.”19 So, how is study a spiritual discipline?
First, in study “we engage ourselves, above all, with the written and spoken Word of God.”20 It is to engage our whole life, and not merely our “religious” or “spiritual” life, with a holy attentiveness. In such study we work to understand our life in a circumspect manner under and in subject to the authority of God. Think of it this way: your life is like a school, where you are not the teacher but the student of your life. The Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit is your Teacher and Master. To be “enrolled” in this school means to learn to be addressed by and to respond to God Almighty about your life in Him. Perhaps you can begin to see the value of being addressed by God through Scripture, for example. For the goal in studying Scripture is not mere “mastery of the text,” but ultimately being mastered by it, being formed by it; it is the practice of experiencing God speak to us as learners of His ways, students of our lives. I am here reminded of something that J. P. Moreland once told me (and I paraphrase) about when he was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary. The late Howard Hendricks used to tell his students that they should first and foremost learn to be “scholars of themselves” and then scholars of ideas. That’s good. I think it helps to convey this notion of study and the work that is involved. Perhaps it is here that we can come to hear and receive advice from Hugh of St. Victor, who wrote in his Didascalicon (1125):
Now the beginning of study is humility. Although the lessons of humility are many, the three which follow are of especial importance for the student: First, that he hold no knowledge and no writing in contempt; second, that he blush to learn from no man; and third, that when he has attained learning himself, he not look down upon everyone else.21
Second, in study we also work “to see the Word of God at work in the lives of others, in the church, in history, and in nature.”22 Notice the intentional recognition of integrating how God is at work in us and how God is at work in others. How do we do this? “We not only read and hear and inquire, but we meditate on what comes before us; that is, we withdraw into silence where we prayerfully and steadily focus upon it.”23 Notice the interrelationship between the study of the Word and works of God. This is by intelligent design. Why? Recall the goal of a spiritual discipline: it is to bring us into more effective cooperation with God and His kingdom. It is learning to be at work where God is at work in our work with others. But such work is not mere laboring or striving. It is a prayerful way of being in the world. It “is simply talking to God about what we are doing together,” says Willard.24
Finally, notice the role of meditation in the work of study. It animates study. “Study has been called a prayer to truth,”25 says A. G. Sertillanges in his classic book, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. How? Sertillanges says that “it seeks out and honors the traces of the Creator, or His images, according as it investigates nature or humanity; but it must make way at the right moment for direct intercourse with Him.”26 Given what study seeks, is it surprising that it would lend itself to the disciplines of worship and celebration of God?
So, how might questions operate in study as a spiritual discipline? Here are some brief, relevant observations about their theological character:
1. The ultimate goal of asking questions is not for idle chatter or for satisfying mere curiosities. Questions are a powerful tool for becoming acquainted with the reality of God’s Word and work in His world. In that respect, perhaps one of the more consequential questions to ever ask is this: How is God at work in my world? How can I learn to cooperate with His work?
2. Christ-shaped questions are integral to study. We ought to value (a) asking questions that Jesus would be interested in asking27 and (b) learning to ask and answer them in the manner in which He would do so.28 For part of what it means to be His disciple is to adopt His “worldview.” And, indeed, not just adopt but conform our view to His. He is our Good Teacher. We are His apprentices. Our life in the world is His schoolroom. The practice of study can help us habitually see and take stock of reality in the way of Jesus.29
3. The ministry of helping people seek answers to their questions is a service to others that God has also accomplished in human history through patriarchs, prophets, apostles, teachers, and most brilliantly, the ministry of Jesus. Consider how each is an example of God working through people’s vocations to bring answers to questions that communities of people (especially the people of God) ask throughout “redemptive history.”
4. The goal of asking questions as a Christian, at least in the context of study, should not involve us in endless discussions and disputes of ideas so that questions, even our precious questions and “projects,” become an obsession. They are an obsession when they interfere with our ability to live well by loving God and loving our neighbor. Cultivating virtues of temperance and prudence are important both for the health of our question-asking and for their place in our life. Our goal should be to inquire in order to be able to more effectively love God and serve our neighbor. That should be our ultimate goal here. To borrow from philosopher Paul Moser, we should learn to inquire not merely in the “discussion mode” but in the “obedience mode.”30
5. Study is integral to spiritual warfare. We are in a battle. The apostle Paul says that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:3–5). J. P. Moreland has argued that these “fortresses” are “speculations, theories, patterns of ideas raised against knowledge of God.”31 If so, study plays an important part in the destruction of these fortresses. At one level, it is examining what is “raised up against the knowledge of God.” But this is more than just a study of competing worldviews against Christian truth, although it may include that. It is seeing fit that all things, including those “fortresses” in my life and among my contexts of living, are altogether subjected under the authority of God and His revelation; specifically, that my knowledge of God (or at least what is depicted as that) is subjected to the reality of God. In short, through study (in the spiritual discipline sense), we can learn to deal with idolatry, which is, among other things, “knowledge raised up against God.”32
I encourage pastors, parents, educators, and others who lead in the name of Christ for the sake of His church to pay attention to the above observations and seek to help others cultivate an awareness of them in light of the discipline of study.
HEALTHY FOR THE LOCAL CHURCH
If what I say is true and beneficial about the good of asking questions and the ministry of answering them in light of our discipleship to Jesus, how might we think of the work of the local church in light of these matters? I contend that the church as a culture and community is where the mutual work of answering questions can be effectually accomplished. How? Well, an answer to that is related to another question: “Who are the stakeholders of the ministry of helping to answer people’s questions through the local church?” I try to suggest a perspective in Appendix 2. I’ll only emphasize here that the ministry of answering people’s questions is not only the job of self-identified pastors, teachers, and apologists. It is for everyone who self-identifies as Jesus’ follower. We enact this ministry through our vocations. But for our purposes here, let me suggest why the church is valuable to this ministry and how this endeavor is edifying to the church.
First, if it is helpful to dealing with people’s doubts and fostering study in the ways mentioned above, why wouldn’t this be in a church’s interest? Of all places, the local church should be an invitational, welcoming, and belonging place to discover answers to the big questions of life, belief, knowledge, and practice. If not the church, then the university as a source of moral and spiritual knowledge about reality? Good luck!
Second, the church is at least a representation of Christianity as a knowledge, wisdom, and affective tradition. I have a confession to make. I am sometimes envious of Christian Science Reading Rooms. They open their literature and guides to the public. Why? Because they at least seem to recognize a range of resources available at their disposal to address the wandering inquirer. What if a local church had that reputation in her community? What if she were known as a culture and community intent on offering content to be discussed and debated with all people? I am not saying that the local church should become a library, but it should be known for having a reputation as a place and a people where understanding about life can be discovered and experienced.
Third, by fostering contexts in our gathering (whether weekly or monthly) to regularly ask questions, we will enable our teaching and preaching to become even more open to being responsive to the questions that our members and “onlookers” are asking in our midst. What could be more negatively consequential for people’s formation, and our preaching and teaching than to be unresponsive to people’s deepest questions?33
On How We View the Ministry of Answering People’s Questions
Much has been said in this introduction about the merit of asking and answering questions. To help summarize and apply, I want to now offer some thoughts on what it might mean to view this ministry as a way of being led by God to serve others. In what manner do we serve others with helping them come to know answers to their deepest questions? I want to underscore five main features:
1. ANSWERING QUESTIONS AS GOD’S AMBASSADORS
We must be mindful of the fact that we do not “speak on our own accord” or “on our own behalf” alone. We are “sent ones”; commissioned to bear witness. And we are sent not because of our mere ability to answer or due to the prowess of our intellectual skill or accomplishment. These are tools, and not conditions for service. We are called and commissioned to be prepared “to give an answer” because we are meant to produce good works as God’s workmanship. Serving people with answers to their questions is one among many ways to work. We work as His ambassadors wherever we are in public. There is not “the public square.” There is only where my life and your life are lived before others, and that is the public with which we are to take our place and represent Him who is the Fount of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
2. ANSWERING QUESTIONS AS REPRESENTATIVES OF CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS OF UNDERSTANDING AND PRACTICE
While God is the ultimate one we represent, as His ambassadors we also stand within various Christian traditions. We do not represent members that are part of our own contemporary communities alone; we have heritage, even inheritance, to steward an ancient faith for the benefit of others. This is significant for several reasons: First, it means that we do not need to make up our answers or reinvent the wheel. To be sure there is some creative improvisation and renewed discernment involved in appropriating Christian thought and practices for learners, yearners, and inquirers of all sorts. But we need not offer (or act as if we need to) answers creatio ex nihilo. We must study and understand our traditions in order to discern how they might help to do work for us today. Second, just as our question-asking is bounded by our character and Christ’s shaping of our questions, so too, we ought to earnestly seek answers to our and other people’s questions from within the vast and diverse resources of our various Christian traditions. Scripture, as our ultimate and indispensable source of knowledge and wisdom, is not the only source, but should enable us to discern how the Spirit is at work extra-biblically. Third, we must be mindful of how we represent Christ and Christian traditions to others so as not to cause shame or ill repute to the church. A practical implication of this concerns how we even talk about other Christians and their “tribe.” I may be fully convinced of the merit and good of Lutheranism, but it does not follow that by seeking to represent “Christian tradition” to others, I must do so by merely cheerleading for my own tribe.
3. ANSWERING QUESTIONS AS DIAGNOSTIC, SOUL CARE WORK
When being confronted by someone’s questions, first we should listen well, and it may be the case that our initial answer is in the form of a further question. One of the most dignifying acts that we can offer a conversation partner along the way is to help them gain clarity and understanding of the very question they are trying to answer, including how that question is situated within one’s soul.34 How does it bear on other matters? What might the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, desire to communicate through, or in spite of, this question and its longing? Sometimes the value of interviewing an inquirer can be the best first step when helping such a person come upon answers to questions. The goal here is not to analyze and critique questions per se, but to help inquirers come to gain an understanding of the context of the question from within their own life in light of the Spirit’s work. There are at least four main “factors” from which to listen here, as we seek to help people answer their questions:
Factor 1: We listen to the actual questions as they are embedded as part of someone’s story, season, or stage of life, and as they relate to one’s vocation and overall biography, including the longings of their heart.
Factor 2: We listen for the identity-forming factors related to a question and how the need for an answer to be sought shapes the very “hearing” of an answer.
Factor 3: We listen to what the Spirit of God might be saying and doing as we listen to people’s questions, including how they process a question and answer.
Factor 4: We listen and pay attention to how the culture-shaping, reality-defining, and image-producing institutions and spheres of society (e.g., media, government, business, education, technology, family) “color” the questions, loves, beliefs, ideas, images, longings, and desires of those inquiring.35
Sometimes listening with all these factors in mind is essential in a conversation. Rarely is only one at work. Listening with all four factors might become complicated real fast if the overall conversation is not focused and intentional or if what you want to accomplish with the conversation is front-loaded with unrealistic expectations. To listen with these four is not so much about simultaneous multitasking, as much as helpful means for surfacing relevant considerations about how to intentionally listen and serve people with answers to their questions.
4. ANSWERING QUESTIONS AS EDUCATING FOR GROWTH
Answering questions is a process in a journey of understanding. If our aim is to “get people out of our hair,” we will be less likely to walk with the inquirer and more likely to miss out on the fruit to be grown by steadfast patient endurance with inquirers and their questions. Hurriedness and busyness kills nurturing. To be sure, not all inquirers that come our way will merit attention for the long term. Listening to Wisdom’s voice is essential. But to those who want to open themselves up to being led, and who act on what is discovered, we should endeavor to stay with them for as long as they are willing to journey. To answer questions as a way of educating for growth is to take the “long view” on such an endeavor; it can’t be merely “taught” in a class. It is often better “caught” in the process of journeying with people and their questions. For we are to help people move toward response and obedience to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. It is to consider these types of questions with sincere inquirers:
Where are they now in light of where they are going in their growth?
How might God be at work in the process of their inquiring and discovery?
What are the blind spots or roadblocks to their growth?
What shapes their assumptions?
How do they think of themselves and why?
What do they deeply hold to make up the good life? What do they consider worth pursuing?
What do I envision, hope, and yearn for as a preferable future for this person and their journey?
How can I strengthen them and offer my service for the journey?
How might there be further means and opportunities for their growth?
At the very least, these questions make clear that the ministry of answering questions is not for mere casual bantering back and forth with each other’s thoughts and ideas about some topic. Apologetics is not a sport; a kind of intellectual Ping-Pong. It is intentional answering for the sake of growth.36
5. ANSWERING QUESTIONS AS HERALDERS
When answering people’s questions, not only must we “go beyond” what is in the foreground and help people discover a background, but we must also help direct people’s attention to how God is at work in their lives and in the lives around them. We announce how the kingdom of God is near to them. We invite them to acknowledge this, not because we are trying to “close a deal” between them and God (for He’s really good at completing good work that He’s started), but because we owe it to our fellow human beings to let them in on the “divine conspiracy.” This is not a call to be loud and noisy with our answers, or to be “triumphalist” in our answers, but to find meaningful ways to declare, herald—yes, verily, and truly, preach—in order to bring attention to what is in their midst!37 After all, doctors, meteorologists, and pundits of society and the “good life” do this all the time; they bring knowledge (hopefully!) to bear on our life.
If we are sincerely interested in offering answers, we must not shrink from the opportunity of helping others notice how the gospel of the kingdom of God, indeed, Jesus Christ Himself, is near to us by the ministry and presence of the Spirit, and can be found whenever He is sincerely sought. To draw attention to Jesus’ authority, presence, ministry, words, deeds, knowledge, wisdom, mission, and even His very questions and answers is to herald Him. How sad it would be if we answered people’s questions but did not seek to help them pay attention to the living and risen Christ who is here, and not far off. How incomplete it would be to grant them wisdom to their questions but not invite them to be encountered by the Fount of all wisdom and understanding. In short, we might understand heralding as calling people to be confronted by the significance of the moral and spiritual authority of God for their life.
On How to Benefit by Reading This Book
If there is one benefit that I hope you experience as a result of reading even only selections of this book it would be this: that you, as a follower of Jesus, would be encouraged and strengthened with faithful confidence that people like Bill Craig are publicly offering answers to tough questions but that you too, with love and self-discipline, can also be sent out through your vocations into this world to serve people by answering their questions.
In light of what I offer above as an exercise in using this book, I think there are at least three main benefits to reading this book that will help realize the good of question-asking and the ministry of answering people’s questions. But first, recognize what is the genre of this book. Again, this book is mostly a compilation of questions and answers. The experience is similar to reading a letter. That is, as “secondary” and not “primary” readers we enter this discussion midstream, as it were. You’ve probably had this experience when you read the New Testament letters or a collection of letters from a famous author. As such, we are reminded of this hermeneutical concern: Even if our questions might be identical to those being asked in this book, nonetheless, these questions are someone else’s questions, excerpted from someone’s season of life, out of someone’s need or interest. So, in one sense, I want to counsel that we readers approach these questions with that sort of mindfulness. As a routine exercise, we may even wish to consider how a particular question in this book reflects, and is even situated, in our own soul. How does it resonate—and not just why does it resonate?
Here are three ways to benefit by reading this book.
First, read it for your own interest, insight, and instruction. In short, see this book as a gateway to discovering answers to your own questions, whether in whole or in part.
With the introductions at the beginning of each part, not only can you gain a feeling for some of the benefits in studying Bill’s answers, but there are lists of resources that can be used toward developing your own “curriculum” for self-study. To self-study with these resources, I recommend the following general approach:
Decide on a selection of choice questions that would be most relevant to your own life and its service to others (perhaps this might be a whole part in this book).
Study the correspondence on its own merit in light of the above-mentioned exercise.
Choose two or three recommended resources from the lists provided in the introduction to each part. Pick items that are both closest to your level of understanding and slightly advanced in order to give you a little challenge.
Develop a realistic schedule to learn from your chosen resources to study. Maybe learning here involves just straight reading and note-taking or listening and reflecting. Maybe the process of learning is varied and different over time. Bottom line: develop means and methods (a system) for interacting with what you are studying.
Consider an “application” project to test what it is you are learning. Maybe this is a paper that you write. Or, conceiving of a situation in your life that might benefit from addressing it with the resources you are using for your learning. Try it out. Test it. Put it to work. Experiment with it.
Take stock of what you want and need to continue to learn as a result of attempting to put it into practice.
Be earnest about being pro-growth; your growth in understanding and fruitful practice of what is being learned. I strongly recommend learning in the context of a small group of three to five people at most. See Appendix 1.
Second, read it as a model. This is not to say that you have to answer these questions in the same manner that Bill answered them in order to be effective. But wisdom would seem to dictate that it is for our benefit that we take stock of those who are exemplars in our midst. When approaching answers to the questions in this book, as earnest readers we should be asking something like, “Would I answer this question in this same way?” “What can I learn by how Bill answers this question?” In short, what is there to be gained by studying or paying attention to the manner in which these questions are answered? Here, I have tried throughout to note some “teaching-learning” examples, which are expressed in the parenthetical Insight boxes.
Third, read it as a resource. I decided to do theological and historical studies as an undergraduate, and then go on to do graduate work in philosophy, for one simple yet consequential reason: I wanted to become a more resourceful person for the people I served and would likely serve through my vocations in our Father’s world (I say a little more about this in the Conclusion). Dear reader, may I suggest that you approach your reading of this book in a similar manner? Maybe even your own questions are not exactly or entirely surfaced in this book. But it’s likely that you know someone who seeks an answer to some of these kinds of questions.
Read this book in order to benefit those you serve. This is an application of what I mean by saying, “becoming a more resourceful person.” It is viewing the goods of your life—whether your gifting, skills, knowledge, education, social status, relationships, etc.—from the standpoint of how to help serve your neighbor who needs you to be you, in the full-service capacity of blessing them in Jesus’ name. Here we now run into that perennial question, to which Jesus Himself gave due attention; the question of who is my neighbor? Philosopher and friend Dallas Willard has discerningly said that our neighbors are those “with whom we are in effectual contact.”38 What does that mean? It means that by virtue of your relationship with others you have the actual ability to do something for their good.
Thus, it is quite true to think that our neighbor is often within the sphere of our own vocation, whether our vocation be as parents, students, pastors, business leaders, etc. What a shame it would be to read—or even just consult—a book like this and not have our own attention drawn outside of ourselves toward our neighbor in need. Lance Pittluck, my pastor, says that the “poor in spirit are those who are needy and they know it.” Could it be that there are “poor in spirit” in our midst wanting to receive a word of counsel, encouragement, and wisdom in light of this book? Yes, I think this is quite plausible, unless we live our life inattentive to other people’s needs. But this would also seem to imply that we ought to read a book like this with prayerful concern for our neighbor.
Isn’t it interesting that the ministry of answering other people’s questions requires both attention to others and openness to them? (This is the point that the above Matthew Anderson quote addresses.) Simple or casual awareness is not enough. It’s a start. Again, as Willard has said, “Attention is the first act toward loving someone.” For what would it mean to have an inattentive love of our neighbor? So, we have to be open to listening to the needs of our neighbor. And, as philosopher Cliff Williams has shown, “need” comes in a variety of forms.39 To be sure, intellectual needs tend to be the most closely associated with the work of “Christian apologetics.” But even those can be colored by other needs of a more emotional, psychological, and relational variety. With Spirit-led discernment, we need to recognize where our neighbors are at—in the range of their needs—when they seek to have their questions taken seriously and answered effectually.
1. This important issue is related to pastoral care and spiritual direction. For a helpful, substantive, and accessible treatment of spiritual direction, I recommend the Web series by Biola professor Ryan Bradley at jpmoreland.com (http://bit.ly/SDBradley).
2. You might also want to experiment with a third reflection, which might be useful: Consider someone in your life or in the life of a close acquaintance or friend of yours. Do they have similar questions as those of the original inquirer? This will help you to put a “human face” on the inquiry. Imagine them in the place of the person corresponding with Bill. What would that be like? How would you respond if you were Bill?
3. In a correspondence in this book, I am reminded of one of Bill’s insights: “… we need to realize the feebleness and finitude of our human knowledge. I can honestly testify that the more I learn, the more ignorant I feel. Further study only serves to open up to one’s consciousness all the endless vistas of knowledge, even in one’s own field, about which one knows absolutely nothing. I resonate with a statement Isaac Newton once made, reflecting back on his discoveries laid out in his great treatise on physics, the Principia Mathematica. He said that he felt ‘like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. How feeble, uncertain, and unstable are our own intellectual attainments!’” (“On Protecting against Spiritual Failure,” pages 324–28).
4. For more on this, see William Lane Craig and Paul M. Gould, Two Tasks of a Christian Scholar (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2007).
5. See Dallas Willard’s “Knowledge for Life: Learning to Trust and Grow in Spiritual Knowledge,” Vineyard Anaheim Conference (April 17, 2010), http://bit.ly/WillardVA. The quote is from Vineyard Anaheim Conference notes.
6. J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul, revised and updated (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2012), 121–27.
7. Joan Chittister, Seeing with Our Souls (Oxford: Sheed and Ward, 2004), 77.
8. Matthew Lee Anderson, “Four Things Questions Can Do,” MereOrthodoxy.com (March 15, 2011), http://bit.ly/AndersonQuestions. See also Anderson’s The End of Our Exploring: A Book About Questioning and the Confidence of Faith (Chicago: Moody, 2013).
9. Ibid.
10. One might also think about the long tradition of rabbi and apprentice relationships and practices. Or, the medieval summa and its longstanding learning attitude of “faith seeking understanding.”
11. Some of what follows in this section is adapted from my articles “How the Holy Spirit Is Restoring God-Confidence Among Youth,” RedPointMag.com (5/13/2011), http://bit.ly/RedpointGodConfidence, and “Beyond an Evangelical ‘Mere Spirituality’? Reflections on the Kingdom Life and Practical Theology,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 4:2 (2011): 290–313.
12. In this book, from the question “On the Hard Yet Rewarding Work of Dealing with Doubts,” pages 311–19.
13. Here, I am drawing from some of philosopher Dallas Willard’s treatment of doubts. For example, consider his “Knowledge for Life: Learning to Trust and Grow in Spiritual Knowledge,” Vineyard Anaheim (April 17, 2010), http://bit.ly/WillardVA.
14. I am here reminded of philosopher and theologian James Beilby’s attentive observation that “while intellectual causes of unbelief occur when there are unresolved intellectual objections to Christianity, affective causes of unbelief are the result of being wounded or having unresolved personal pain associated with Christian belief. … Affective objections to Christian belief might occur even if a person has not personally experienced pain or abuse. It is often enough to look around and see others in pain or being abused. In fact, an affective objection to Christian belief might even occur in the absence of profound pain and suffering. Whenever there is a gap between expectations and reality, an affective objection is possible,” in James K. Beilby, Thinking about Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2011), 171.
15. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind, 128.
16. Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 159.
17. Ibid., 176.
18. Ibid., 160.
19. Ibid., 156.
20. Ibid., 176.
21. Jerome Taylor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, 1991), 94–95.
22. Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, 177.
23. Ibid.
24. The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 243. Willard goes on to say that “prayer is a matter of explicitly sharing with God my concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life. And of course he is concerned about my concerns, and in particular, that my concerns should coincide with his. This is our walk together. Out of it I pray.”
25. A. G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, Mary Ryan, trans. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987, 1998), 69.
26. Ibid., 29.
27. It is interesting to note that there have been some books in recent years that have tried to take seriously the role of questions in the life and ministry of Jesus. For example, some of the more interesting ones include Stan Guthrie’s book All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010); Winn Collier, Holy Curiosity: Encountering Jesus’ Provocative Questions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008); John Dear, The Questions of Jesus (New York: Image Books, 2004); Conrad Gempf, Jesus Asked (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003).
28. For more on this, see Paul K. Moser, ed., Jesus and Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Moser’s “Jesus on Knowledge of God” (586–604) and Dallas Willard, “Jesus the Logician” (605–14), both from Christian Scholar’s Review 28:4 (1999). Finally, see Willard’s Knowing Christ Today (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2009).
29. Moreover, it would not be far-fetched to read the epistles of the New Testament as examples of how to take on “the mind of Christ” and apply Jesus’ worldview to a whole range of issues, questions, and concerns.
30. See Paul K. Moser, “Jesus and Philosophy: On the Questions We Ask,” Faith and Philosophy 22:3 (July 2005): 261–83. Moser describes the modes of being human. “An obedience mode,” he writes, “responds to an authority by submission of the will to the authority’s commands. A discussion mode responds with talk about questions, options, claims and arguments” (273). His point is, who has the authority to lead our life? If Jesus has this authority because He is Lord then that should form our priorities, regarding both how we approach Him and how we live our life before others. It is not enough to merely “think Christianly” about all truth that can be sought even if “all truth is God’s truth.” For what matters is that a Christian mind and Christian thinking be obedient to Christ. What does that mean? It means we must do what He says. “In giving us love commands as supreme (love God, love neighbor), Jesus calls His followers into not just reflection but primarily a mission, the lived mission of witnessing to the good news of His Father’s self-giving love (particularly in Jesus Himself)” (268). Will we “go for broke” with Jesus, as Moser would ask?
31. For example, see J. P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 32–33.
32. Here I am reminded of how Paul Moser helps to serve the members of his own church through his creative and fruitful “Idolatry Project” (http://bit.ly/Idolanon). This project is specifically focused on surfacing idolatry-related questions in order to help people become aware of spiritual transformation in Christ. This is a formidable way to enact the ministry of answering people’s questions through the local church.
33. Please see the appendixes for more specific suggestions about fostering contexts for Q&A in the local church. I would like to also add here that if pastors and teachers in the local church are only at the church’s location all week long, and not present in their respective communities interacting with others beyond their own staff and members, this will affect the pastor’s and teacher’s ability to “double listen,” as the famed and late John Stott would say. For preaching and teaching to be relevant to how we live today, which it surely must aim to be, it must be conversant with the questions that people are asking, generally and locally speaking. It must be responsive to listening both to the “Word” and the “world” (see John Stott, The Contemporary Christian (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1992). “Our calling is to be faithful and relevant, not merely trendy,” says Stott (27). “‘Double listening’ … is the faculty of listening to two voices at the same time, the voice of God through Scripture and the voices of men and women around us. These voices will often contradict one another, but our purpose in listening to them both is to discover how they relate to each other. Double listening is indispensable to Christian discipleship and Christian mission” (29).
34. I am here reminded of “rabbinic evangelism” as articulated by Randy Newman, Questioning Evangelism (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2004), 31–38.
35. Part of what might powerfully shape people’s assumptions, and even stand as blind spots in their thinking, is how they perceive Christians. These perceptions, especially if they are at the level of frustrations and disappointments with Christians and the institutional church, should be handled with care and discernment. Perhaps part of what needs to be accomplished in this area is helping people have their social perceptions confronted by reality, whether bona fide cases of Christians who defy their perceptions or openness to how the socialization of their perceptions might be more informed by image-shaping institutions (see Bradley R. E. Wright, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You’ve Been Told (Minneapolis: Bethany, 2010).
36. Some of these questions have been adapted from Gregory E. Ganssle, “Making the Gospel Connection: An Essay Concerning Applied Apologetics,” in Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012), 3–16.
37. It seems to me that part of the challenge that is at play here is threefold: (1) Preaching has suffered at the hands of major reductionists, where preaching has come to mean (as a potent image and idea) “being preachy” or “being a babbler.” (2) Due to the (over-)specializations, and to some extent “professionalization,” of apologetics and evangelism work, there is in the mind of some a false dichotomy between the task of apologetics and evangelism. To be sure, some of their features are distinguishable but to foster a gulf between them, such that “apologists” are not to be concerned with “evangelism” (or vice versa), is regrettable, if not a distraction to our witness in the world. (3) We need a renewal of thinking and practicing regarding what it means to herald, and that not only entrusted by the vocation of the pastor but enacted by all Christians through their vocations in the world. For example, what does heralding look like for the professional (regardless of his or her industry)? What does it look like for the civic leader? How about for works in the diverse service industry? How might an enriched notion of heralding strengthen the witness of parents in their vocation? A pressing need exists for a theology of preaching that is rooted in a theology of vocational stewardship and work, of the mission of God in the kingdom of God by the Spirit of God. For more on this, see my article with Clay Jones, “The Folly of Answering Distracting Atheistic Arguments,” Christian Research Journal (July/August 2013).
38. Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today (San Francisco, Calif.: HarperOne, 2009), 86ff.
39. Clifford Williams, Existential Reasons for Belief in God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2011).