1 Commending The Christian Faith To Our Generation
DEFENSE OF THE FAITH
There are two purposes of Christian apologetics. The first is defense. The second is to communicate Christianity in a way that any given generation can understand.
Defense is proper and necessary because in every age historic Christianity will be under attack. Defense does not mean being on the defensive. One must not be embarrassed about the use of the word defense. The proponents of any position who are alive to their own generation must give a sufficient answer for it when questions are raised about it. Thus, the word defense is not used here in a negative sense, because in any conversation, in any communication which is really dialogue, answers must be given to objections raised.
Such answers are necessary in the first place for myself as a Christian if I am going to maintain my intellectual integrity, and if I am to keep united my personal, devotional and intellectual life. In the second place, these answers are necessary for the sake of those for whom I have a responsibility.
It is unreasonable to expect people of the next generation in any age to continue in the historic Christian position, unless they are helped to see where arguments and connotations directed against Christianity and against them as Christians, by their generation, are fallacious. We must prepare Christian young people to face the monolithic twentieth-century culture by teaching them what the particular attack in our generation is, in contrast to the attacks of previous generations.
I find that everywhere I go—both in the United States and in other countries—children of Christians are being lost to historic Christianity. This is happening not only in small groups in small geographical areas, but everywhere. They are being lost because their parents are unable to understand their children, and therefore cannot really help them in their time of need. This lack of understanding is not only on the part of individual parents but often also of churches, Christian colleges and Christian missions. Some Christian colleges (and I am not talking of “liberal” colleges) lose many of the best students before they graduate. We have left the next generation naked in the face of the twentieth-century thought by which they are surrounded.
So then, the defense, for myself and for those for whom I am responsible, must be a conscious defense. We cannot assume that because we are Christians in the full biblical sense, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, automatically we shall be free from the influence of what surrounds us. The Holy Spirit can do what he will, but the Bible does not separate his work from knowledge; nor does the work of the Holy Spirit remove our responsibility as parents, pastors, evangelists, missionaries or teachers.
COMMUNICATION OF THE FAITH
Having said that, however, Christian apologetics should never be restricted to guarding against attack. We have a responsibility to communicate the gospel to our generation.
Christian apologetics is not like living in a castle with the drawbridge up and occasionally tossing a stone over the walls. It is not to be based on a citadel mentality—sitting inside and saying, “You cannot reach me here.” If the Christian adopts this attitude, either in theory or in practice, his contacts with those who have accepted twentieth-century thought will stop. Apologetics should not be merely an academic subject, a new kind of scholasticism. It should be thought out and practiced in the rough and tumble of living contact with the present generation. Thus, the Christian should not be interested only in presenting a nicely balanced system on its own, like some Greek metaphysical system, but rather in something which has constant contact with reality—the reality of the questions being asked by his own and the next generation.
No one can become a Christian unless he understands what Christianity is saying. Many pastors, missionaries and Christian teachers seem to be helpless as they try to speak to the educated people and the mass of people about them. They do not seem to face the fact that it is our task to speak to our generation; the past has gone, the future is not yet here. So the positive side of apologetics is the communication of the gospel to the present generation in terms that they can understand.
The purpose of “apologetics” is not just to win an argument or a discussion, but that the people with whom we are in contact may become Christians and then live under the lordship of Christ in the whole spectrum of life.
It is important to remember, first of all, that we cannot separate true apologetics from the work of the Holy Spirit, nor from a living relationship in prayer to the Lord on the part of the Christian. We must understand that eventually the battle is not just against flesh and blood.
However, the biblical emphasis that knowledge is needed prior to salvation will influence us in attaining that knowledge which is needed to communicate the gospel. Historic Christianity has never separated itself from knowledge. It insists that all truth is one, and we must live and teach this even if twentieth-century thought and theology deny it.
The invitation to act comes only after an adequate base of knowledge has been given. This accords with the reason John gave for writing his Gospel: “Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing ye may have life in his name.” The word sign is related to the historic events of the life, death and resurrection of Christ as put forth in this Gospel. In twentieth-century language we could translate sign as “space-time proof”: “Many other space-time proofs therefore did Jesus.” Note first that these space-time proofs which, by their very nature, are observable were set forth as having taken place in the presence of the disciples who observed them. And not only that, but that they were written down in verbalized form. This means, of course, that these space-time proofs can be considered on the basis of the normal use of language as set forth in grammars and lexicons.
The order in these verses is important. First, these are space-time proofs in written form, and consequently capable of careful consideration. Then, second, these proofs are of such a nature as to give good and sufficient evidence that Christ is the Messiah as prophesied in the Old Testament, and also that he is the Son of God. So that, third, we are not asked to believe until we have faced the question as to whether this is true on the basis of the space-time evidence.
The same kind of groundwork of true knowledge is set forth in the prologue to the Gospel of Luke: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us” (there are things which have happened in history, in the space-time before “us”), “even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses” (this history is open to verification by eyewitnesses) “and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus” (what is open to verification can also be communicated verbally, in writing) “that thou mightest know the truth concerning the things (or words) wherein thou wast instructed.” There is no leap in the dark, for it is possible to “know the truth.” Only when we have understood this introduction are we ready for the rest of the Gospel of Luke, beginning in the next verse: “There was in the days of Herod, King of Judaea, a certain priest . . .” We know from the prologue that Luke is dealing with a framework of historic truth, and we are to place Herod, Zacharias and Christ within this space-time framework.
Knowledge precedes faith. This is crucial in understanding the Bible. To say (as a Christian should) that only that faith which believes God on the basis of knowledge is true faith, is to say something which causes an explosion in the twentieth-century world.