6. Pointers to Faith

6



Pointers to Faith

Approaches to Apologetic Engagement

American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) spoke of “a meteoric shower of facts” raining from the sky. These facts are like threads that need to be woven into a tapestry, clues that need to be assembled to disclose the big picture. As Millay pointed out, we are overwhelmed with information, but cannot make sense of the “shower of facts” with which we are bombarded. There seems to be “no loom to weave it into fabric.” We need a way of making sense of this shower of information. Christianity gives us a way of bringing order and intelligibility to our many and complex observations of the natural world, human history, and personal experience. It allows us to integrate them, and see them as interconnected aspects of a greater whole.

We want to see the big picture that makes sense of all we observe. More importantly, we want to know where we fit into this great scheme of things. No wonder British philosopher and writer Iris Murdoch (1919–99) spoke of “the calming, whole-making tendencies of human thought,” by which she means the ability of a big picture or “grand narrative” to integrate our vision of reality. The Christian faith is about grasping the big picture, enabling us to see a larger and nobler vision of reality than human reason can disclose.

Clues, Pointers, and Proofs

In the previous chapter, we argued that the Christian faith was fundamentally reasonable. It cannot be proved by reason; but then, neither can anything that really matters. Older generations, needlessly submitting to a rather aggressive rationalism, argued that we should believe only what could be proved absolutely. That viewpoint is now held by very few people. For most, such vigorous rationalism simply confines us to a very narrow category of beliefs, which may be logically clear but are existentially deficient. They just can’t provide a basis for a meaningful life. Reason, as the great Italian poet Dante noted back in the fourteenth century, has short wings.

But this doesn’t mean beliefs that cannot be proved absolutely are unreasonable. Far from it. When it comes to theories of life or “worldviews,” the evidence available to us just isn’t good enough to prove that any of them—including atheism—are right. In the end, we have to make these decisions as a matter of faith. Otherwise we must declare every worldview to lie beyond resolution. We believe our worldview is the best way to make sense of things, but we realize the matter ultimately lies beyond proof here in this world.

For the Christian, this situation has to be seen against the backdrop of belief in heaven. “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7 NIV). For now, we walk through a shadow land, but one day the sun will rise, and we will see things as they really are. “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near” (Rom. 13:11–12). These phrases from Paul invite us to think of the Christian life as walking in the dark. The dawn is nearer than when we first began this walk, but it has yet to happen. In the meantime we have to cross an unknown landscape, hoping we will arrive safely at our destination. We cannot fully see the road ahead of us; nevertheless, we trust in the Lord to guide us home. As Paul famously puts it, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Yet we are not being asked to take things on blind trust. The world is studded with clues about human nature and identity. Reality is emblazoned with signs pointing to the greater reality of God. We need to connect the dots and see the overall picture. We need to weave the threads together and see what pattern they disclose. These patterns are there to be used by the apologist to help others begin to realize how Christianity has the power to make sense of what we think, see, and experience—and to encourage them to discover Christianity’s deeper power to transform human life.

It is not only the external world that might point to God. What of our inner experience? Christian apologetics has the capacity to connect, powerfully and credibly, with the dynamics of inner human subjectivity—in other words, with the feelings and emotions that lie at the heart of so many of our concerns, which so excited the Romantic poets and other writers such as Blaise Pascal and C. S. Lewis. What has the Christian faith to say about these? How can we view our inner experience through its theoretical lens? The Christian tradition has explored this question from its origins. In his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo relates how his reading of “the Platonists” led him to explore his own inwardness, and there he encountered “an immutable light, higher than my mind.”

In this chapter, we shall consider some of these pointers or signs and explore how they can be used in apologetics. C. S. Lewis spoke of right and wrong as “clues to the meaning of the universe.” A clue is something that suggests, but does not prove. Clues have a cumulative significance, pointing to a deeper pattern of meaning that gives each of them their true meaning. One clue on its own might be nothing more than suggestive, a straw in the wind. Yet a cluster of clues begins to disclose a comprehensive pattern. Each clue builds on the others, giving them a collective force that transcends their individual importance.

So how can we best make sense of such clues? What can they prove? In a criminal trial, the jury is asked to decide which explanation of the clues makes the most sense of them—whether that of the prosecution or the defense. They are not expected to accept that guilt or innocence has been proved, merely that they believe they can reach a conclusion “beyond reasonable doubt.” Apologetics works in much the same way. No one is going to be able to prove the existence of God, as one might prove that “the whole is greater than the part.” Yet one can consider all the clues that point in this direction and take pleasure in their cumulative force. God’s existence may not be proved, in the hard rationalist sense of the word. Yet it can be affirmed with complete sincerity that belief in God is eminently reasonable and makes more sense of what we see in the world, discern in history, and experience in our lives than its alternatives.

So what sort of clues are we talking about? And how can the apologist help people see them, reflect on their importance, and discern the deeper pattern behind them? In this chapter we shall consider eight clues to the mystery of life. Each can be studied on its own and can form the basis of an apologetic talk or argument. We’ll begin by considering one of the most intriguing questions in the natural sciences: Where did the universe come from?

Clue 1: Creation—The Origins of the Universe

A central theme of the Christian faith is that God created all things from nothing. Everything owes its origins and ultimate identity to the creative action of God. The universe has not existed from all eternity, but came into being in an instant. Christian writers have taken a variety of positions on how this fundamental belief is to be understood. Augustine of Hippo, for example, argues that God created the universe instantaneously but endowed it with a capacity for subsequent development. Others argue that God created the world in its present form. Yet the common thread uniting all Christian writers on this theme is that God brought the universe into existence.

Although New Atheist propagandists regularly declare that scientific advance and progress has eroded the case for belief in God in the last century, the facts are otherwise. The relation of science and faith changed decisively in the later twentieth century. The first decades of the twentieth century were dominated by a scientific belief in the eternity of the universe. It had always existed. Religious language about “creation” was seen as mythological nonsense, incompatible with cutting-edge scientific knowledge.

This belief played an important role in the great 1948 London debate between two leading philosophers—atheist Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Christian Frederick C. Coplestone (1907–90). Russell believed that this scientific consensus was more than sufficient to put an end to the whole God debate once and for all. The universe is just there, and there’s no good reason to think about what brought it into being. At least on this point, Russell won the debate.

But everything has changed since 1948. During the 1960s, it became increasingly clear that the universe had an origin—the so-called big bang. This idea was met with fierce resistance by some atheist scientists of the day, such as the great atheist astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, who was worried that this idea sounded uncomfortably religious. He wasn’t alone in worrying about this. At a meeting in Leningrad in December 1948, Soviet astronomers affirmed the need to fight against the “reactionary-idealistic” theory of the universe having an origin. Support for this theory would, the Soviets claimed, help the cause of “clericalism.”

Happily, this prejudice against the idea of the universe having an origin was overwhelmed by the evidence in its favor. But the fact remains: the new understanding of the origins of the universe resonate strongly with the Christian doctrine of creation. The universe had a beginning.

If the Russell-Coplestone debate were to take place again today, its outcome would be very different at this point. In fact, a replay of the Russell-Coplestone debate was staged between two leading philosophers in 1998 to mark its 50th anniversary, featuring Christian William Lane Craig and then-atheist Anthony Flew. Craig, the philosopher whom many now regard as Coplestone’s natural successor, developed the following line of argument, which we noted earlier (p. 85):

Major premise:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Minor premise:

The universe began to exist.

Conclusion:

Therefore the universe has a cause.

Unusually, here the minor premise is at least as important as, and possibly even more important than, the major premise. Craig’s minor premise, accepted today by virtually every scientist, would have been equally comprehensively rejected in 1948. Flew experienced considerable difficulty at this point, and was unable to deploy with plausibility the strategies used by earlier generations of atheist apologists. Since this debate, Flew moved away from atheism. Although it would not be correct to say that Flew adopted the full richness of the Christian vision of God, there is no doubt that before his death in 2010 he came to accept the existence of a creator God who sustains the universe.

This fundamental shift in the scientific consensus has changed the tone of the debate about God. It reminds us how science changes its mind about things—often very important things. The cosmology of the early twenty-first century is much more sympathetic to Christian belief than that of a century ago. But there is more to it than this. There is now a growing realization that the universe came into being fine-tuned for life. The fundamental constants of nature have values that seem to have been selected in order to allow life to develop. Is this just a cosmic accident? Or is it what would be expected if God had chosen to work in this way?

Clue 2: Fine-Tuning—A Universe Designed for Life?

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the phenomenon of “fine-tuning” in nature. The term “fine-tuning” is often used to refer to the scientific realization that the values of certain fundamental cosmological constants and the character of certain initial conditions of the universe appear to have played a decisive role in bringing about the emergence of a particular kind of universe, one within which intelligent life can develop. Many recent scientific studies have emphasized the significance of certain fundamental cosmological constants, the values of which, if varied even slightly, would have significant implications for the emergence of human existence.

Nature’s fundamental constants turn out to have been fine-tuned to reassuringly life-friendly values. The existence of carbon-based life on earth depends upon a delicate balance of physical and cosmological forces and parameters. Were any one of these quantities slightly altered, balance would have been destroyed and life would not have come into existence. Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society, has argued that the emergence of human life in the aftermath of the big bang is governed by a mere six numbers, each of which is so precisely determined that a miniscule variation in any one of them would have made both our universe and human life, as we know them, impossible.

A recent discussion of this question by Robert J. Spitzer is helpful here. Spitzer suggests we imagine all the parameters of the universe—such as the speed of light in a vacuum, the gravitational constant, electromagnetic coupling, and the masses of the elementary particles—are represented by the settings of the dials of some kind of “cosmic control panel.” The findings of modern cosmology imply that if the settings of these dials were to be nudged even very slightly, we would not be here to discuss their significance. For example, if gravity or the weak force (two of the four known forces of nature) were to be varied in strength by one part in 1040, the expansion of the universe would either be too explosive for galaxies or the universe would have collapsed. If a certain combination of the constants of gravity, electromagnetism, and the ratio of electron to proton mass were varied by about one part in 1039, no main sequence stars such as our own sun would be able to form. If a precise nuclear resonance of the carbon atom did not align with the resonance of beryllium and a colliding helium nucleus (yet without aligning with a corresponding resonance in oxygen and helium), then there would be almost no carbon, the basis of life as we know it. Most dramatically, leading mathematician Roger Penrose has calculated that the entropy of the universe is such that our universe seems to exist in an absurdly precise state compared to the available range of possible values. So what are the apologetic implications of this remarkable fine-tuning?

The phenomenon of fine-tuning is widely conceded; all debates concern its interpretation. Atheist cosmologist Fred Hoyle was one of those to first appreciate the importance of these observations and their obvious theistic implications. It is, he wrote, as if “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and . . . there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” Hoyle was an atheist, unsympathetic to the idea that God created the universe. Nevertheless, his comment points to the deep unease contemporary cosmology has created for those not willing to believe in God. Might the evidence be better explained by the idea of divine creation than by happenstance? Hoyle certainly hoped not—but it rather looked that way to him.

One way of trying to avoid the obvious theistic implications of fine-tuning is to postulate a “multiverse.” This viewpoint argues that our own universe is only one option among many others. The observable universe is thus to be contextualized within an unseen, infinitely larger, and eternal multiverse. Our own universe may be fine-tuned; but none of the others need be. We’re just lucky. Someone had to hit the jackpot. No wonder Richard Dawkins favors this approach!

But there are obvious problems with the multiverse hypothesis, as Spitzer rightly points out. First, the distinction between universe and multiverse is largely semantic. There is still just one true universe in this hypothesis, if the term “universe” means the entire domain of interconnected physical reality. If the hypothetical multiverse is not connected in any way to the particular universe that we actually observe, it is difficult to see how any laws of physics derived in our domain could possibly apply to the multiverse as a whole. This means we cannot use observations of our own world to draw any conclusions about the multiverse at all. But if the multiverse is structurally interconnected, many problems encountered with the big bang theory are simply displaced, reappear in a modified form, or even become more difficult for atheists.

So what is the apologetic significance of this? The observation of fine-tuning is consonant with Christian belief in a creator God. It proves nothing; after all, this might just have been an extremely improbable accident. Nevertheless, it resonates strongly with the Christian way of thinking, fitting easily and naturally into the map of reality that emerges from the Christian faith. The capacity of Christianity to map these phenomena is not conclusive proof of anything. It is, however, highly suggestive. It is one among many clues, accumulating to give an overall “big picture” of reality. It is one among many threads that can be woven together to yield a patterned tapestry. Fine-tuning is a clue to the meaning of the universe, insignificant in isolation but richly suggestive when set alongside other such clues.

For the Christian, there is a deep conceptual resonance between the Christian theoretical framework and the way the world is, as uncovered by the natural sciences. We shall consider this further as we reflect on a third clue to the meaning of the universe: the deep structure of the world.

Clue 3: Order—The Structure of the Physical World

Our instinct to discern order within the world is expressed clearly in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. The natural sciences are also based on the idea of the regularity of the universe. Without an ordered cosmos, the scientific enterprise would be impossible.

My own time as a scientist impressed upon me the privilege of being able to investigate a universe that is both rationally transparent and rationally beautiful, capable of being represented in elegant mathematical forms. One of the most significant parallels between the natural sciences and Christian theology is a fundamental conviction that the world is characterized by regularity and intelligibility. As one modern cosmologist has noted, “The God of the physicists is cosmic order.” There is something special about the world—and the nature of the human mind—that allows patterns within nature to be discerned and represented.

One of the most significant parallels between the natural sciences and Christian theology is a basic belief that the world is regular and intelligible. This perception of ordering and intelligibility is of immense significance both at the scientific and religious levels. As physicist Paul Davies points out, “In Renaissance Europe, the justification for what we today call the scientific approach to inquiry was the belief in a rational God whose created order could be discerned from a careful study of nature.”

God has created an ordered world, an order capable of being discerned by humanity, who have in turn been created “in the image and likeness of God.” Why can human beings discern this ordering? Why are we able to represent it so elegantly using mathematical equations? As theoretical physicist John Polkinghorne pointed out, this is much more significant than is usually appreciated:

We are so familiar with the fact that we can understand the world that most of the time we take it for granted. It is what makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been a disorderly chaos rather than an orderly cosmos. Or it might have had a rationality which was inaccessible to us. . . . There is a congruence between our minds and the universe, between the rationality experienced within and the rationality observed without.

So why is the universe so intelligible to us? How can we account for its rational transparency? Why is there such a deep-seated congruence between the rationality present in our minds and the rationality we observe in the world? Why is it that the abstract structures of pure mathematics—which are supposed to be a free creation of the human mind—provide such important clues to understanding the world? The great mathematician Eugene Wigner once famously asked: “Why is mathematics so unreasonably effective in understanding the physical world?” His question needs to be answered. But science cannot answer it. In fact, science depends precisely upon this “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics. It uses it as a tool—without being able to offer a theoretical account of why it is so reliable in this way.

Polkinghorne’s point is that the Christian faith offers a map of reality that allows us to make sense of these observations. Both the “reason within” and the “reason without”—the rationality of the human mind, and that embedded in the deep structure of the universe—have a common origin in a deeper rationality, the “mind of God.” The natural sciences regularly raise important questions that transcend the capacity of the scientific method to answer them. Such questions are often of the greatest interest and importance but go beyond the realms in which science itself is competent to speak. Science is obliged to assume the intelligibility of the world—to depend upon it for its methods. The Christian faith is able to offer an answer to this question of the intelligibility of the world that arises from science yet goes beyond the unaided power of science to answer, and offers a “map of meaning” that makes this profoundly comprehensible.

C. S. Lewis also reflected on why human rationality appears to be so congruent with the structures of the natural world.

No account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid, that theory would, of course, be itself demolished.

The human use of reason to investigate the world thus depends on the rationality of the world. Lewis’s argument is that both creation in general, and human reason in particular, bear traces or imprints of the creative ordering of God. The same God who brought the world into being also created the human mind, with a God-given analogy and congruence between both these his creations and his own divine nature.

Why is this approach helpful apologetically? There are a number of points that need to be made here. First, this approach emphasizes the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of things—to chime in with what is observed in the world, or the deeper picture of reality that emerges from the natural sciences. Second, it offers an important point of contact with the natural sciences. Although science and faith are sometimes presented as being in conflict, it is better to think of faith as offering a deeper context to the scientific method. In other words, it offers an explanation of why science works.

This is of particular importance in relation to the idea of the “God of the gaps,” an idea that is sometimes found in older works of apologetics. This approach tries to defend the existence of God by an appeal to gaps in scientific explanation. I must confess that I have never been impressed by this approach. Oxford theoretical chemist Charles Coulson (1910–74) was a vigorous critic of this way of thinking, arguing that “either God is in the whole of Nature, with no gaps, or He’s not there at all.” Christian apologetics ought not to become preoccupied with looking for temporary explanatory gaps in the scientific view of the world. God is the one who gives meaning to the whole universe, who alone is able to explain why there is anything at all and what it means. Apologetics is about showing how the “big picture” possible through Christianity makes sense of the world.

Clue 4: Morality—A Longing for Justice

One of the great themes of classical philosophy is what is sometimes called the “Platonic triad”—truth, beauty, and goodness. These are ideals that most people recognize as significant and important. The apologist is able to use each of these as a gateway to faith. Each ideal, when properly and carefully applied, can become a window through which the truth, beauty, and goodness of God can be discerned.

Classical apologetics tends to focus on questions of truth. There is much wisdom in such an approach. The human mind seems to have a God-given capacity to make sense of things and to realize we are part of something much bigger. We realize our human processes of reasoning can be seen as participations in and reflections of an objective rational order, established by God and reflecting God’s nature and character. Humanity is created in God’s image and thus reflects—however dimly!—the rationality of God. We are able to grasp the deeper structure of the universe, including the existence of God, because we have been created to do precisely that. Augustine of Hippo is one classic Christian writer to develop this approach, based on the core biblical insight that we bear God’s image (Gen. 1:27).

The image of the creator is to be found in the rational or intellectual soul of humanity. . . . The human soul has been created according to the image of God in order that it may use reason and intellect in order to apprehend and behold God.

As Augustine, Pascal, and Lewis appreciated, recognizing we are made in the image of God provides a powerful theological foundation for Christian apologetics. It means we are able to use the deep human longing for truth, beauty, and goodness to help people orient themselves toward their ultimate origin and goal—the living and loving God.

Our concern in this section is with “the good”—in other words, with the foundations of a sustainable vision of what is good and how we are to live by it. In a recent radio discussion, a British journalist explored the nature of morality with well-known militant atheist Richard Dawkins. Justin Brierley (JB) asked Dawkins (RD) whether his Darwinian perspective on things offered a reliable foundation for ethical values. The following section of the interview was especially interesting from the standpoint of Christian apologetics:

JB:

But when you make a value judgment, don’t you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say the reason this is good is because it’s good, and you don’t have any way to stand on that statement?

RD:

But my value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past.

JB:

So therefore it’s just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.

RD:

Well, you could say that.

But it doesn’t in any case—nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.

JB:

Okay, but ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.

RD:

You could say that, yeah.

[82]

The interview probed one of the most important questions that regularly arises in debate: is morality dependent upon a transcendent norm or ground—such as God? In debate, many atheists dismiss this question as ridiculous. How dare anyone suggest that atheists are immoral because they do not believe in God! But that is not the real issue. The big question is whether an objective morality can be sustained without belief in God. For Christians, God alone offers an objective foundation for moral values, which is not subject to the whims of the powerful or the changing moods of public opinion. Leading atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz puts the point well:

The central question about moral and ethical principles concerns this ontological foundation. If they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, are they purely ephemeral?

A historical example will make the force of this point clear. In 1933, the Nazis seized power in Germany and promptly set about using the law to impose totalitarian rule. New laws were brought in that enforced Nazi ideology, so the Nazis could claim they used legal means to impose their ideas. The only way of challenging the Nazi approach was to argue that there existed a higher moral authority than the German state. The situation in Germany at this time highlights an issue that cannot be ignored—namely, whether there are transcendent grounds for concepts of morality and justice that are not merely the product of human convention.

The disturbing questions raised by the rise of the Third Reich and its aftermath have not gone away. Indeed, they have been raised again by a “pragmatic” approach to morality, such as that associated with influential philosopher Richard Rorty (1931–2007). On this reading of things, humanity creates its own values and ideas, and is not accountable to any external objectivity (natural law) or internal subjectivity (conscience) for the outcome of this creative process. “We figure out what practices to adopt first, and then expect our philosophers to adjust the definition of ‘human’ or ‘rational’ to suit.” Rorty argues that a consequence of this communitarian or pragmatic approach to truth must be the recognition that

there is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves, no criterion that we have not created in the course of creating a practice, no standard of rationality that is not an appeal to such a criterion, no rigorous argumentation that is not obedience to our own conventions.

Truth and morality thus have to be recognized to reflect social conventions, which are created by human communities. Yet if Rorty is right, what ultimate justification could be given for opposing Nazism? Rorty finds himself unable to offer a persuasive justification for the moral or political rejection of totalitarianism. This being the case, Rorty admits he has to acknowledge:

When the secret police come, when the torturers violate the innocent, there is nothing to be said to them of the form “There is something within you which you are betraying. Though you embody the practices of a totalitarian society, which will endure forever, there is something beyond those practices which condemns you.”

For Rorty, the truth of moral values depends simply upon their existence and acceptance within society. This view has been severely criticized as adopting an uncritical approach concerning prevailing social conventions. As Richard Bernstein points out, Rorty appears to have done little more than reify social practices, and treat these as being synonymous with truth, goodness, or justice.

All these concerns point to the need for a transcendent ground of morality. Otherwise, we are trapped in the shifting sands of influential power groups, with morality being redefined to suit the needs of those with influence. Apologetic arguments that appeal to morality tend to fall into two slightly different groups: those that appeal to the intellectual advantage of belief in God as a foundation for moral values, and those that appeal to the practical value of belief in God in securing the stability of moral values. Both hold it is reasonable to believe God exists, in that this belief offers what seems to be the best explanation for the existence, nature, and our knowledge of objective moral truths.

For example, in Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis sets out why our notions of right and wrong can act as “clues to the meaning of the universe.” His moral argument for the existence of God could be summarized like this:

Premise 1:

Everyone believes that there are objective moral truths.

We cannot conduct moral debates without them.

Premise 2:

Objective moral truths are quite unlike “laws of nature” or “natural” facts.

The former are about what we “ought” to do; the latter about what we observe in the world around us.

Conclusion:

The best explanation of our deep intuition of the existence of objective moral truths is that there is an intelligence behind or beyond nature that implants the knowledge of right and wrong in us and acts as the foundation for the objectivity of our moral judgments.

[87]

Lewis’s approach, like most statements of this argument, does not have the logical force of a deductive proof. It is much better understood as a further demonstration of the intrinsic reasonableness of the Christian faith. If there is a God, this provides a firmer foundation for the deep human instinct and intuition that objective moral values exist, and provides a defense of morality against more irresponsible statements of ethical relativism. God, for Lewis, is made known through our deep moral and aesthetic intuitions:

If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe—no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves.

Belief in God is thus convincing and plausible on the one hand, and useful on the other. It doesn’t make us good; but it opens the door to that possibility. As Lewis points out, “no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.” If we are to be good, we must first know what “good” is—and then be enabled to achieve it. And that, as Lewis rightly saw, depends upon a realization of our true situation and its limitations. We still need to be healed and helped if we are to be good. Yet discovering and experiencing the grace of God is an important step along the road to true morality.

So how can we use such approaches apologetically? It is important to note that apologetics can work either by developing arguments in favor of Christian belief or by developing critiques of non-Christian approaches. Francis Schaeffer once famously declared that all non-Christian perspectives ultimately turn out to be incoherent and contradictory. While this claim may be slightly overstated, there is nevertheless an important element of truth in it. The “argument from morality” is an excellent example of this. Can the idea of stable, objective moral values be sustained without belief in a transcendent reality such as the Christian God?

It is clear that the argument from morality can be used effectively to reinforce the basic claim that the Christian faith makes sense of things, extending the approaches noted earlier. But the approach is perhaps better used as a critique of non-theistic worldviews. For example, can atheism defend the idea of moral truths?

At a popular level, atheist apologists react with anger to such probing of their ideas, suggesting that it amounts to suggesting they are immoral. It doesn’t. It’s not denying that atheists have moral values. It’s asking how these values are justified. For example, consider a fundamental criticism of Rorty’s approach to ethics—that Rorty seems incapable of offering a criterion that stands above human practice, by which the latter can be judged. Atheist philosopher Iris Murdoch argued that a transcendent notion of goodness was essential if defensible human notions of “right” and “justice” were to be maintained. If she’s right, our longing for justice is itself a deep clue to the meaning of things.

Clue 5: Desire—A Homing Instinct for God

Many arguments for the existence of God involve an appeal primarily to reason. Others involve an appeal to experience, finding their plausibility within the human heart as much as in human reason. As Pascal once famously commented, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not understand.” The best known of these arguments is the “argument from desire.” Although this takes various forms, it is most commonly framed in terms of a deep human awareness of a longing for something that is not possessed but whose attraction is felt. Christian apologists argue that this deep sense of yearning for something transcendent is ultimately grounded in the fact that we are created to fellowship with God, and will not be fulfilled until we do so.

One of the most rigorous theological treatments of this topic is found in the writings of Augustine of Hippo. For Augustine, God has created human beings and placed them at the height of the created order, so that they might fulfill their purposes through relating to God as their creator and savior. Without such a relationship, humanity cannot be what it is meant to be. As Augustine put it in a famous prayer to God: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they finds their rest in you.”

The two most significant apologetic applications of this approach were developed by Blaise Pascal (1623–62) and C. S. Lewis (1898–1963). Pascal argues that the human experience of emptiness and yearning is a pointer to the true destiny of humanity. It illuminates human nature and discloses our ultimate goal—which, for Pascal, is God.

What else does this longing and helplessness show us, other than that there was once in each person a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?

Nothing other than God is able to fill this “abyss”—a profound, God-shaped gap within human nature, implanted by God as a means of drawing people back to him.

This infinite abyss can only be filled with something that is infinite and unchanging—in other words, by God himself. God alone is our true good.

Pascal’s idea here is often expressed in terms of a “God-shaped gap” or “God-shaped vacuum” within human nature. Although Pascal did not actually use these phrases, they are a good summary of his approach. Pascal argues that the Christian faith offers a framework that interprets the widespread human experience of “longing and helplessness.” This interpretation has two elements: first, it makes sense of the experience; second, having identified what it is pointing to, it allows this human experience to be transformed.

C. S. Lewis develops a related approach that has an obvious importance for Christian apologetics. Lewis acknowledges the importance of frustrated aspirations for many: “There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality.” So how is this to be interpreted? Lewis notes two possibilities he regards as flawed: first, to assume that this frustration arises from looking in the wrong places; second, to conclude that further searching will only result in repeated disappointment, so any attempt to find something better than the world can offer is a mistake. There is, Lewis argues, a third approach—to recognize that these earthly longings are “only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage” of our true homeland.

Lewis then develops what some might call an “argument from desire,” which could be formalized as follows:

Now this is not really an argument for the existence of God, in the strict sense of the term. For a start, we would need to expand Lewis’s point to include the Christian declaration that God either is, or is an essential condition for, the satisfaction of the natural human desire for transcendent fulfillment. Yet even then, this is not an argument to be understood as a deduction of God’s existence.

Yet Lewis saw this line of thought as demonstrating the correlation of faith with experience, exploring the “empirical adequacy” of the Christian way of seeing reality with what we experience within ourselves. It is not deductive, but—to use Peirce’s term once again—abductive. Lewis clearly believes the Christian faith casts light upon the realities of our subjective experience. Augustine of Hippo wove the central themes of the Christian doctrines of creation and redemption into a prayer: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Lewis reaffirms this notion, and seeks to ground it in the world of human experience, which he believes it illuminates.

Lewis thus contends that Christian apologetics must engage with this fundamental human experience of “longing” for something of ultimate significance. The Christian faith interprets this as a clue toward grasping the true goal of human nature. Just as physical hunger points to a real human need that can be met through food, so this spiritual hunger corresponds to a real need that can be met through God. Lewis argues that most people are aware of a deep sense of longing within them that cannot be satisfied by anything transient or created: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Now this proves nothing. After all, I might have a deep desire to meet a golden unicorn. But that doesn’t mean unicorns—whether golden or not—actually exist. That’s not Lewis’s point. Christianity, he points out, tells us that this sense of longing for God is exactly what we should expect, since we are created to relate to God. It fits in with a Christian way of thinking, thus providing indirect confirmation of its reliability. There is a strong resonance between theory and observation—between the theological framework and the realities of our personal experience.

So how can this approach be developed and applied apologetically? Its essential feature is an appeal to human experience—to the subjective world of feelings, rather than to objective analysis of the natural world. Yet these subjective experiences are important to people, not least because people feel they are deeply significant. Not everyone recognizes this kind of experience when it is described; nevertheless, its presence is sufficiently widespread to act as the basis for an important apologetic strategy. Three points need to be made about this approach.

This “argument from desire” is not a rigorous, logical “proof” of God’s existence; it works at a much deeper level. It may lack logical force, but it possesses existential depth. It is about the capacity of the Christian faith to address the depths of human experience—the things that we feel really matter. It builds on the sense of restlessness and dissatisfaction within human nature and shows how this is a clue to our true nature and destiny. As Lewis argued, if nothing in this world is able to satisfy these deep longings and yearnings, maybe we must learn to accept that our true home is in another world. To use an image from Renaissance poet Francis Quarles (1592–1644), our soul is like an iron needle drawn to the magnetic pole of God. God can no more be eliminated from human life than our yearning for justice or our deep desire to make this world a better place. We have a homing instinct precisely because there is a home for us to return to. That’s one of the great themes of the New Testament.

This desire is an important point for reflection on the nature of western society. Political philosopher Charles Taylor concluded his recent extended analysis of the emergence of a “secular age” with an assertion that religion will not and cannot disappear because of the distinctive characteristics of human nature—above all, what French philosopher Chantal Milon-Delsol calls a “desire for eternity.” There is something about human nature that makes us want to reach beyond rational and empirical limits, questing for meaning and significance.

A further point needs to be made here: the Christian idea of humanity bearing the image of God has important implications for the role of the imagination. Both Lewis and Tolkien emphasize how our imaginations open up worlds that reflect hints of our true identity and destiny. Often, we dream of beautiful worlds—not because we want to escape from this world, but because something deep within us causes us to long for this kind of reality. As we shall see in what follows, this also has relevance for Christian apologetics.

Clue 6: Beauty—The Splendor of the Natural World

Many find themselves deeply moved by a scene of natural beauty—for example, a great mountain range, a glorious sunset, or wooded valleys. So how can we help someone move from a love of what God has created to a love of God the creator? Perhaps the first and most obvious point is that we need to help people see the world in a different way—as a signpost, not a destination. The beauty of the world is a pointer toward the greater beauty of God, which it reflects as the moon reflects the greater light of the sun, or as a beautiful diamond scintillates as it catches the beams of the sun.

This is a leading theme of the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards, who provides a rigorous theological foundation for an apologetic approach based on an appeal to the beauty of nature. For Edwards, God desires his beauty to be known and enjoyed by his creatures and thus chooses to communicate that beauty through the created order so all might see, acknowledge, and respond to it. Nature is meant to disclose the beauty of God, functioning as a school of desire in which humanity may learn how to perceive God’s glory and respond in faith and awe.

Yet we need to think more about the notion of beauty. To appreciate a rational argument, I need to think it through; it’s not immediately obvious. Beauty, however, is quite different. Beauty is something we appreciate immediately. When we see a beautiful scene, person, or work of art, we instantly know there is something special about it. We do not need to be persuaded that something or someone is beautiful; something deep within us seems to tell us. An apologetic based on beauty is not initially about argument; it is about appreciation. The arguments begin when we ask what the beauty of nature points to—if anything.

Maybe our realization of the beauty of nature means nothing whatsoever. It could all be an accident, something arbitrary and meaningless. Then again, it might be what C. S. Lewis terms a “clue to the meaning of the universe.” In a variant of the argument from desire, Lewis contends that our longing for beauty will be utterly frustrated if we think we will find true beauty in anything that is created or finite. It’s like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. For Lewis, things in this world are signs—they point to where we may find what they signify, but they don’t deliver true beauty themselves. If we think they will, we will end up miserable and confused.

The human quest for true beauty is, for Lewis, an important point of contact for the Christian gospel. It is a central theme of arguably his most important shorter work, the 1941 sermon “The Weight of Glory”. Lewis argues that we possess an instinct for transcendence, stimulated by beauty—“a desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now.” For Lewis, beauty evokes an ideal that is more real than anything we encounter in this transitory world. It stirs up a sense of longing—such as we considered in the previous section of this chapter—for a half-remembered realm from which we are presently exiled. It is a desire “for something that has never actually appeared in our experience,” yet is constantly suggested and intimated by our experience.

The human quest for beauty is thus really a quest for the source of that beauty, which is mediated through the things of this world, not contained within them. Those things “in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them: it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.” That is why that quest ends in frustration or despair. “Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us.” We catch a glimpse of that indescribable something of which beauty is the messenger, mistakenly believing it to be the message itself.

Lewis thus argues that we must learn to see nature as a signpost to the greater beauty of God. The “authoritative imagery” of the Christian tradition addresses the longing we know and experience, while promising to reveal what presently lies concealed—“what we do not yet know and need to know.” It interprets this quest for beauty as “a longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside.” This experience of desiring beauty is really a summons “to pass in and through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.”

Nature thus turns out to be “the first sketch … only the image, the symbol,” of that greater reality to which it points. Nature is thus a “good image of what we really desire,” which people mistake for the thing itself. Beauty reveals truth by pointing to a realm beyond the visible world of particulars. It allows us to see beyond a door that is presently closed, to anticipate opening it and crossing its threshold.

We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

Similar ideas are found in writers such as Jonathan Edwards and Hans Urs von Balthasar. All beauty in the created order, both in the heavens and on the earth, is derived from the radiance of Jesus Christ, who is the image of the beautiful God, the source of all beauty.

So how do we use an appeal to beauty in our apologetics? For Lewis, the answer is simple: beauty bypasses rational analysis, appealing to something far deeper within us. A lawyer friend of mine and his girlfriend decided to get married. They went to a jeweler to buy the ring. They had a checklist of things they wanted—what sort of setting, what type of precious stone, and so on. Then they saw a ring they both fell in love with. It didn’t fit their checklist. But they knew it was right, and went home rejoicing at their purchase.

The apologetic implications of this story are not difficult to discern! Sometimes the important thing is to allow the gospel to persuade people by itself. The merchant in the parable who recognized the beauty and value of the “pearl of great price” did not need to be persuaded of its true worth (Matt. 13:45–46). The pearl persuaded him by itself. We may help people to grasp the gospel’s beauty, just as a jeweler might hold a diamond up to the light so its facets scintillate and its beauty can be appreciated. But the beauty is already there; the jeweler is simply showing it off to its best advantage.

Clue 7: Relationality—God as a Person

The Genesis creation accounts emphasize the goodness of God’s creation. Yet there is one point at which God judges that a change needs to be made. It is not good that Adam is alone (Gen. 2:18). We see here a recognition of the relationality of human beings. We have been created to exist in relationship—with one another, and with God. The biblical depiction of the paradisiacal Garden of Eden represents Adam and Eve in harmony with each other and with God. To be authentically human is to exist in relationship—as we are meant to.

The fundamental need of human beings to exist in relationship has been long recognized. When Aristotle, one of the great philosophers of the classic age, famously declared that human beings were “political animals,” he really meant they had a natural tendency to live together in communities—such as the classic Greek city-state. Yet for most people, the most important way of understanding our need for relationships is not expressed in political terms, but in the intensely personal language of love.

“The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.” Thus wrote famous French playwright Victor Hugo (1802–85). Knowing we are loved gives us the secure base we need to get on with our lives. We need to know that we matter to someone. Vast numbers of dull academic articles and trashy romantic novels have been written on the same basic theme: Why is it that rich and powerful people are so unhappy? Love is what really matters to people, not wealth or power. We can’t live without meaningful personal relationships.

Many stories could be told to illustrate this point. My favorite concerns American philosopher Paul Elmer More (1864–1937). As a younger man, More was fascinated by Plato’s notion of the Ideal—the reality that lies behind any appearance on earth. Yet the more he reflected on Plato’s “world of Ideals,” the less it appealed to him. It seemed bleak and sterile, lacking a capacity to relate to people. For More, Plato’s was a chilly and impersonal world, in which no words are spoken and the tenderness of love is unknown. Yet Christianity speaks of God entering into our history and allows us to abandon the cold and unfeeling world of ideals in favor of a world charged with the thrilling personal presence of God. That difference matters profoundly. No wonder More became a Christian later in life. No human being can rest satisfied with an abstract and impersonal world. We need to relate to others—including God.

Christianity is a fundamentally relational faith. We must never think of the gospel in purely rational terms—for example, believing that there is a God, as if faith was simply assent to a list of propositions. There is indeed a definite content to faith, in that we believe certain things to be true about God and about ourselves. But there is far more to faith than this. We must never forget that the core biblical idea of faith is fundamentally about trusting a God who shows himself to be worthy of that trust, in word and deed. The ideas of faith, hope, and love are deeply interconnected. We trust in a God who loves us and gives us hope for the future.

The relational aspects of faith can be seen in countless biblical passages. Think, for example, of the call of Abraham (Gen. 15, 17). At the heart of these biblical narratives lies the idea of human trust in divine promises. It is about the forging of a trusting, obedient relationship between Abraham and God. Or consider the calling of the first disciples by the shores of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 1:16–20). Jesus invites the fishermen to follow him—to enter into a relationship with him.

Throughout Scripture, God is understood to be a person—not an impersonal force—who loves us and wants to enter into a relationship with us. The language we use to refer to our relationship with God is analogous to the terms we use to refer to our relationships with other people, such as “love” and “commitment.” For example, Paul uses the term “reconciliation” in his letters to refer to both the restoration of the relationship of estranged people and the restoration of fellowship between God and humanity through Christ.

The essential apologetic point made here rests on solid theological foundations: we have been created in order that we might relate to God, and we are restless and unfulfilled until we do so. We have been created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27), so there is an inbuilt correspondence—not identity!—between God and each of us. We are defined as human beings by our God-given capacity to relate to God as our creator and redeemer. It is in coming to faith in God that we become whom we are meant to be. Authentic existence is not to be had through possessions, status, or power, but through embracing and being embraced by the loving and living God.

This immediately links up with a theme we have already explored earlier in the chapter—namely, the argument from desire. Yet this is a desire for a person, not for an impersonal object or force. God is one whom we know, not just know about. There is indeed a “God-shaped gap” within us, which points to our need to relate to God so we may become what God wants us to be. Without God, we are empty and unfulfilled.

Clue 8: Eternity—The Intuition of Hope

Some biblical passages are difficult to translate into English on account of the richness and complexity of the original Hebrew or Greek. As they say, things get lost in translation. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes takes the form of an extended meditation on our place in the flow of time. One of its sections has proved particularly difficult to render in English. In creating humanity, God has “put a sense of past and future into their minds” (Eccles. 3:11). Yet this phrase does not quite convey the sense of the passage. Perhaps another way of translating this would be to say God has “planted eternity in their hearts.” We already possess a sense of the brevity of human life, and a deep-seated intuition that there is more to reality than the brief slice of time and space allocated to us. Our transient existence in this world suggests the possibility of something greater and better beyond it. We have a hunch we were made for more than just this life. But what? And how do we take hold of it?

This sense that our true destiny lies beyond this transient world is heightened by several factors. One is a deep intuition that this is not where we belong. Augustine of Hippo, writing in the fifth century, spoke of the haunting memory of paradise, which we can never shake off. Even in the midst of a busy life, we are reminded of another world, another way of existing. Voices seem to call to us from the ends of the earth, pointing to something deeper and better than anything we presently possess or know. As poet Matthew Arnold (1822–88) put it in his poem The Buried Life, written at the height of the Victorian age:

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets

But often, in the din of strife

There rises an unspeakable desire

After the knowledge of our buried life.

The memory of the garden of Eden seems imprinted on our souls, rising to challenge and refresh us when we lose sight of our true identity and goal.

A similar idea was expressed in 1969 by American musician Joni Mitchell (b. 1943) in her famous song “Woodstock.” We are, she declared, “made of stardust.” Yet this does not mean we are reduced to our material components—as if we are defined by the fact that we are made up of the chemical elements of the universe. There is something different about us, something that makes us stand out. We need to recover our sense of identity and purpose. How? Mitchell’s answer is as dramatic as it is powerful: “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

This notion of hope is deeply embedded within western culture. In her recent study of cultural attitudes toward heaven, journalist Lisa Miller noted individuals and societies seemed to be hardwired to believe in “a place that embodies the best of everything—but beyond the best . . . what’s most beautiful, most loving, most just, and most true.” This might, of course, be nothing more than a delusion, a piece of wishful thinking that shields us from the darker realities of life. Or it might represent a clue to our true identity and significance. For Miller, we have a “radical hope” that keeps us going, even in situations of despair. It is easy to see how this can be correlated with the Christian vision of hope, grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the firm and confident expectation of finally being in the presence of God in the New Jerusalem.

The apologist’s task is to connect with this deep intuition of the human heart and show how the Christian faith makes sense of it and offers a real hope that is firmly grounded in the reality of God. We begin with that sense of hope and ask to what it might point. We then explain the nature of Christian hope, and show how it brings this fundamental intuition of the human heart to fulfillment. Maybe God has planted the idea of eternity in our hearts as a clue to the true meaning of the universe. Maybe we are meant to think such thoughts and experience such longings because that’s the way God created us.

This is not really a logical argument. It’s much more a demonstration of the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of the human situation and show us how our intuitions can find true fulfillment in Christ. It is about interpretation of the human situation as preparation for its redirection and transformation.

Weaving Clues Together: In Search of a Pattern

We noted earlier the comment of American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote of “a meteoric shower of facts” raining from the sky. These facts, she suggested, are like threads that need to be woven into a tapestry, clues that need to be assembled to disclose the big picture. As Millay pointed out, when confronted with such a shower of facts, we need a “loom to weave it into fabric.” What is the pattern behind the facts?

In this chapter we have considered eight clues to the meaning of the universe. Each of these is significant in its own right; their true importance, however, lies in the overall pattern they disclose. They are like threads in the tapestry of faith. Christian theology is the loom that allows them to be woven together so their true significance can be appreciated and understood. While each thread may be appreciated individually, they have a greater significance when they are woven together to form a coherent and beautiful pattern.

Some of these clues concern our observations of the world around us; some of them concern our world of inner experience. Yet whether we consider the thoughts of our minds or the longings of our hearts, we discover that the Christian faith is able to make sense of these clues and position them within the greater picture of reality as disclosed by the gospel. This capacity to connect with our experience and make sense of it is a surefire indication of both the rational truth and existential adequacy of the Christian faith.

Philosopher John Cottingham recently offered a fine account of why the Christian belief in God is so intellectually robust and spiritually satisfying:

It provides a framework that frees us from the threats of contingency and futility that lurk beneath the surface of supposedly self-sufficient and autonomous secular ethics. It offers us not a proof but a hope that the “cave” of our human world (to use Plato’s image) is not utterly sealed and closed, but that our flickering moral intimations reflect the ultimate source of all goodness.

In much the same way, Cottingham argues, our aesthetic intimations reflect and point to the ultimate source of beauty. The gospel makes sense of these “clues,” while at the same time redirecting them toward their true origin and goal.

The approach developed here can be explored more rigorously by using the theological framework developed in the opening chapters of Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (1509–64). Calvin argues here that we possess intuitions or perceptions of God, grounded either through reflection on the world around us or an inner awareness of God’s presence within us. He treats these as valid, yet incomplete. They are pointers to something greater. Calvin then argues that a full knowledge of God, grounded in divine revelation, is able to engage these perceptions to allow them to be understood properly and to allow them to be reinterpreted, redirected, and hence ultimately fulfilled by redemption through Christ.

The apologetic approach adopted in this chapter is thus to identify clues about the meaning of the universe—whether drawn from our observations of the world around us or from the deepest subjective feelings and yearnings of humanity. Taken together, these are significant pointers to the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of life. Yet these clues also need to be appreciated and applied individually. Each of these clues is important in its own right and sparks its own apologetic strategy and approach. Let me explain what I mean.

Let’s take just one of these clues, the ordering of the universe, and see how we can work its angles apologetically. How might we explore this clue and help people to grasp its possible significance? How can we appeal to the regularity and ordering of the universe, and help people to see how this points to its origin in God? Let me offer an example, which is part of a lecture I gave for the British Broadcasting Corporation, transmitted in March 2010. In this short lecture, I worked the angles of this “clue,” opening with an incident from classical antiquity:

The story is told of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristippus, who found himself washed up on the shore of the island of Rhodes. He knew nothing of the place. Was it inhabited? As he walked along the shore, he found some geometric patterns marked out in the sand. “There is hope!” he declared. “There must be people here!” Aristippus had seen features of the natural landscape which seemed to him to point to human intelligence. The patterns stood out as having been designed and drawn by people like himself. He was not on his own.

I then noted how the universe seemed to show regular patterns of its own—such as fine-tuning. And just as Aristippus reasoned from intelligent designs on the Rhodian shore to the existence of intelligent agents who designed them, I argued from the order of the world to the existence of a creator. Here is how the lecture ended, as I reflected on possible explanations for the strange ordering and patterns of our universe:

One such answer is that we find our true identity and meaning through coming to know God. This is now the answer—or, at least, part of the answer—that I myself would give. It is not one that I always adopted. While I was a student at Oxford many years ago, it gradually came to capture my thoughts and imagination.

It is an answer that continues to thrill and excite me. For me, discovering God was like finding a lens that helped me see things more clearly. Faith offers a bigger picture of reality. It doesn’t just make sense to me; it makes sense of me as well. C. S. Lewis once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not just because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.” I do not find that believing in God contradicts science, but rather that it gives me an intellectual and moral framework within which the successes of science may be celebrated and understood, and its limits appreciated.

Let me end with a reflection of Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most significant contributors to the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Newton’s scientific and mathematical breakthroughs—such as his discovery of the laws of planetary motion, and his theory of optics—placed him at the forefront of new scientific understandings of nature. Yet for Newton, what could be seen of nature was as a pointer to something deeper, lying beyond it, signposted by what could be seen. As he wrote towards the end of his life: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” That ocean is still there, its unplumbed depths inviting us to go deeper and go further.

Notice how I developed an approach that is apologetic, not evangelistic. I did not set out to convert, but to entice, intrigue, interest, and ultimately convince. What is the best explanation of this clue? And what are its implications for human existence? We can all agree that much more needs to be said. But in many ways, apologetics can be thought of as getting a serious conversation under way by getting our audience—whether it is a single person or a roomful of people—interested and intrigued by the deep questions we are exploring. Apologetics begins the conversation; evangelism brings it to its conclusion.

Moving On

In this chapter, we have considered “clues” to the meaning of the universe that lie scattered around us. Many of them will be known to our audiences. Yet they may not have worked out what these clues mean. Our task as apologists is to connect all of these dots, placing the clues in their proper context.

Yet there is another point that needs to be noted here. In an earlier chapter, we emphasized the importance of our audiences. Each audience is different! Some may value rational argument. Others, however, may value an approach that works at a deeper level—for example, the appeal to beauty, or a sense of human longing for something of ultimate significance. We are not limited to arguments appealing to human reason, but are able to engage every aspect of human nature—including human imagination, feelings, and intuition. In the following chapter, we shall consider a series of gateways to faith, assessing their significance and how each might best be used.

For Further Reading

Craig, William Lane. “In Defense of Theistic Arguments.” In The Future of Atheism, edited by Robert B. Stewart, 67–96. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Dubay, Thomas. The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999.

Evans, C. Stephen. Natural Signs and Knowledge of God: A New Look at Theistic Arguments. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Feingold, Lawrence. The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters. Rome: Apollinare Studi, 2001.

Haldane, John. “Philosophy, the Restless Heart, and the Meaning of Theism.” Ratio 19 (2006): 421–40.

Hart, David Bentley. The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.

Keller, Timothy J. Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters (New York: Dutton, 2009).

McGrath, Alister E. Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011.

Peters, James R. The Logic of the Heart: Augustine, Pascal, and the Rationality of Faith. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.

Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Polkinghorne, John. Science and Creation: The Search for Understanding. London: SPCK, 1988.

Spitzer, Robert J. New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.

Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “The Migration of the Theistic Arguments: From Natural Theology to Evidentialist Apologetics.” In Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment, edited by Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright, 38–80. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.

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