I recently heard Dinesh D’Souza speak in St. Louis, and he spurred me to consider our methods of defending the Christian faith. His book What’s So Great About Christianity is one of the best apologetics for Christianity in a long time and has been compared to Lewis’s Mere Christianity. It does update many of Lewis’s arguments and is magnificently written. Like Lewis, D’Souza is well read in the fields of philosophy, Western history, literature (though non can match Lewis here), and Scripture. He is an excellent scholar and polemicist, and hits the heart of the matter so precisely and succinctly on so many issues the book is almost a complete education in defending the faith.
One thing I heard him say last night (and in his debate with Christohper Hitchens) is that he does not appeal to Scripture but argues from the same canons as the atheists—reason and science. In fact, he told the audience that Christians must learn to be bilingual. We must learn not only to speak our native Christian tongue to each other but also to those who don’t accept the authority of the Bible. Scripture verses don’t carry much weight with secularists and individualists so we must speak their authorities—science and reason—back to them. By reason I think he means something like rational arguments based in disciplines such as science, ethics, and justice and by science he means empirical study of nature and its findings.
While we ought to appeal the authorities of "natural revelation" (science and reason), I think that D’Souza is “shooting himself in the foot” by limiting himself to these. If Scripture is the true story of God’s world then the truth of that story will resonate with people when they hear it (even though they may attempt to deny it). In fact, the Holy Spirit may convince them that Christianity is best explanation of life as we experience it and is the only solution to the problem of guilt. We don’t want to speak “Christianese” to uncomprehending post moderns, but the gospel story is, I think, the best and most universal apologetic.
Catholic philosopher Étienne Gilson said: “On all the points covered in common by philosophy and by revelation, rationality stood on the side of revelation much more than on that of philosophy: a single God, creator of heaven and earth, ruler of the world and its providence, a God who made man in his own image, and revealed to him along with his last end the way to attain it. Where in the splendid achievements of Greek Philosophy could one find a view of the world as clear and as perfectly satisfactory to the mind as the one revealed to man by Holy Scripture?”
I think D’Souza would do better to say that we appeal to reason and science and use them within the framework of the biblical worldview. This worldview is revealed from heaven and received by reason. From there, I think we do well to show that the book of Scripture and the book of nature cohere and complement one another rationally and mysteriously. Thankfully, D'Souza is better in actual practice than his stated policy would seem to allow. But, I think, we do need to be unapologetically proud of our special revelation even when rationalists mock it as unverifiable superstition.
4 comments:
I concur with Dr. Heckel on this. To NOT use Scripture, whether the audience uses it as an authority, is a tactical error, in my opinion. Whether a person may or may not hold the Bible in authority and truth does not change its inherent value as pure truth and ultimate authority. Everyone, according to Scripture, knows the truth. Even the demons in Hell know the truth. A person uses their head to justify and rationalize what is going on in their heart. That's why Jesus' interactions with people is so amazing - he cut past the head and went to the heart. I believe that we need to emulate that idea to effectively spread the Gospel.
On the same ideas though... it is good and very useful to talk the language of the atheist. Here's why: Because the Bible is true, the world around us will support the records that it makes. For example: worldwide flood. Corresponding scientific observation: fossils of shrimp on the top of the Himalayas.
The atheist relies on evolution to explain the world around us. If evolution is true, then the scientific community would have no problem finding and presenting evolutionary evidence. However, they have to have gaps in the evidence line and they even have to use bombastic extrapolations to come up with all the different "Neanderthal Man" type things. All of which are false. All of which have been proven false up to 30 years ago. All of which are still being taught in mainstream secular textbooks as "fact." To talk in the language of the secular scientist is to show him - using his own reasoning - why the ideas that he holds on to do not work.
-CLytle
I'm not sure if we should not use Scripture or if we should instead prove the validity of Scripture. I actually think it depends on the context on whether proving Scripture's inerrancy is the course of action versus speaking to atheists on their own terms.
The reason that Evolutionism (yes, I made it up) is being taught in schools is because it has been accepted. The true history of redemption and the church has been made so unpalatable to mainstream education that it is not given another thought in scholastic circles.
Good comments guys!
Regarding Tim's comments, shouldn't we approach unbelievers both ways? We can address their problems w/ biblical authority by defending its claims with logic and empirical evidence. At other times, we may simply assume its trustworthiness and speak w/ confidence. The latter way shows the biblical world-view in action.
Charles Spurgeon once said that Scripture is like a lion. You don't defend it, you just open the cage and let it defend itself. Like the lion, Jesus has a way of "cutting to the chase," or right to the heart like Colton says.
I have to concur with Dr. Heckel. The Bible doesn't need to be proven or defended... The Bible is authority.
Let's say I have a physics student that says that one of Newton's laws is wrong. I can't convince him otherwise, so I take him to see Stephen Hawking, who can tell him about how it works and everything about how its right. If the student doesn't except what Hawking says, I don't need to prove the knowledge and credibility of Stephen Hawking to the student - that won't make any difference. The student has already chosen to accept or deny what Stephen has to say - and it makes him no difference who Stephen Hawking is.
Its the same way with the atheist... the atheist has already chosen to accept or deny God's Word. It makes no difference what you can say about how accurate it is, they have already chosen. But what I prove or disprove about the Bible as authority DOES NOT change the inherent quality of authority it has. Just like in the Stephen Hawking example, the authority is already authoritative.
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