Aletheuo Apologetics
Episode 3: What is Apologetics?
Created By Elliot Lui
When making this series, some people asked me what apologetics means, so I found it necessary to make a video to provide a definition for it. This video is about what is apologetics, what the Bible says about apologetics, who should know about it, and the 3 common views on apologetics: Classical, Evidential, and Presuppositional.
For each of these videos, I would also include some additional materials or writings that was not included in the video to supplement the topic of the video. Here are the supplements for this episode:
Circa Biblical Times
The field of Apologetics is not some field that w formed later on when Christianity was formulated. Reason has been used in Biblical times to defend their beliefs. Paul was a prominent apologist who incorporated reason in his ministry when he defends himself and spreading the gospel around the Roman Empire. If you see how Jesus talks to the objections of His time, you can see a use of logic being involved in his speech, not only speaking it, but He spoke it very well. He spoke with authority and people were amazed by His teachings and those who opposed Him were silent. All of this shows that the use of apologetics has been done since the very beginning.
An Example for the Differences of the 3 methods:
I don’t know how well I did in terms of explaining the 3 different views in apologetics, but maybe an example would be appropriate to show what the distinction is:
Topic: Miracles
Classical: First, let me argue on why we are living in a theistic universe, then I will show you that miracles can happen in this universe.
Evidential: The fact that there has been miraculous things that happened in history that our human mind cannot understand shows that there is a God.
Presuppositional: No matter what type of evidence I give you, you are going to say that Miracles are explainable or it is a trick or something, so let’s start with what you think about the world. What is your worldview and presuppositions?
Remember the Last Part of 1 Peter 3:15
There are people who knows about apologetics and apply apologetics, but may forget the most important thing in using apologetics. That is the last part of 1 Peter 3:15: “do it with gentleness and respect.” Don’t use it like it is to show how smart your are or to demean the other side. Apologetics should be done with the desire to show the other side the truth about God and Christianity. Is it ok to mock a different worldview? It depends. It depends on how the person presents it. If someone is presenting a worldview and tries to ignore certain objections to it through suppressing the truth, then it should be mocked, because the person is defying his own thinking and logic in order to continue to believe in his worldview. Overall we should do apologetics as mature people and to avoid nonsense argument methods, like yelling louder, or twisting words, etc.
Clarification with my last statement
I said that apologetics does not lead a person to Christ. What I mean that the belief of Christianity is in both spirit and truth. The person does need to be convinced that Christianity is true, but a person also need to be converted and to actually willfully want to commit to Christ. Someone can think that Christianity is true, but would not want to believe in God because of their own pride and they suppress the truth to continue living the way they want to live. It is through believing in the Gospel itself that would make them right in God.
Be sure to comment either here or on the video if you have any comments, questions, concerns, etc.
Until next time,
An Asian Believer, Elliot
Tagged: Aletheuo apologetics, apologetics, classical, evidential, presuppositional
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