Archive for August, 2007:
Apologetic Approaches
In my last post, Extreme Apologetic Approaches, I began to explore how much neutral ground Christians and non-Christians have. After reading more, I think putting Van Til as an extreme was incorrect. Chuck Beem’s comment really challenged me to explore this, and I found Colin Brown’s view of Van Til not wrong in as much as unbalanced. Van Til did believe a Christian apologist could, and should use extrabiblical evidence. I would like to explore two apologists, Francis Schaeffer and John Frame, who may provide better approaches than natural theology or Barth.
Much could be said (and has been said) about Francis Schaeffer, but I will limit myself to a few ideas of his. Francis Schaeffer believed that God and nature must not be divorced when discussing apologetics. He saw this as the problem with natural theology and supernaturalism. Natural theology holds to nature and seems to unduly elevate philosophy and reason. Furthermore, the God proven in this system of thought is quite impersonal. However the use of only the supernatural seems to deny God’s immanence (His closeness, interaction with, and presence in creation) and leaves no place to dialog with the nonbeliever. Schaeffer’s approach may be summarized as a series of hypotheses from the Bible, the observable world, and a sufficient explanation of the world. These hypotheses form Schaeffer’s Christian worldview.
Schaeffer believed God is necessary as a basis for morality, law, and truth, but common ground exists for the Christian and Non-Christian. The non-Christian will always have some flaw in their worldview. It may be that their worldview does not provide a sufficient explanation of a given issue, or it may be that the worldview flatly contradicts itself. This is because all truth is a part of God. Thus to try to explain the world without God is to argue without a basis for truth. Non-Christians can experience things like love and beauty, thanks to the common grace of God. Non-Christians also understand the tenets of logic. The non-Christian and the Christian can cheerfully dialogue on such topics, because of a shared understanding.
I have been reading John Frame’s book Apologetics to the Glory of God. In the area of neutrality, Frame argues that an apologist “may use extrabiblical data in apologetics, but not as independent criteria to which Scripture must measure up” (21). Furthermore, Frame says
“the use of extrascriptural evidence…may be seen as part of a godly use of Scripture itself. It is an obedient response to Scripture’s own view of the world. In Scripture’s teaching, nature points to God; so the obedient Christian apologist will show the unbeliever the various ways in which nature reveals God, without claiming neutrality and without allowing the use of non-Christian criteria of truth” (25).
Frame believes the apologist should argue from agreed upon presuppositions, but should not be limited by them. Frame believes that the non-Christian has a flawed view of nature.
To ask anyone to step outside of his or her worldview and defend their worldview is an impossibility. Would an empiricist ask a rationalist to empirically prove rationalism? The idea is absurd. I cannot step outside of my presuppositions, but I can focus on the presuppositions where a Christian worldview and another worldview agree. On of the foremost goals of any two distinct worldviews should be first to find commonality on which they can interact.
Suggested Reading:
Apologetics to the Glory of God by John Frame
The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer
What in the world does “missional” even mean?
Part of our vision for this blog is that it would be a medium for all of us to be a missional presence online.
But what does that mean?
For some, being missional equals being “seeker sensitive,” or discussing only the very basics of the gospel. For others, it means crossing the globe to bring the gospel to a culture very different than one’s own. Since this term can be used a myriad of different ways, I will seek to define it for all future use on this blog, and hopefully leave out many of what I perceive to be the past misuses of this term. I’ll begin with the difference between “evangelism” and being “missional.”
At my alma mater, one of the local churches regularly hired open-air evangelists to “preach” in the middle of campus. I never figured out to whom they were preaching, since most students took a wide path around them. Read more »
God isn’t fair
You and I crave fairness. We want what we feel we’ve earned. “It’s only fair.” How many times have we heard or said that?
Fairness was a big deal for me in growing up with two siblings. If one of my brothers received a gift, I immediately thought, “Where’s mine?” I just spent time yesterday with my 22-month-old nephew, and one of the prevalent words he screamed the entire afternoon was “Mine!” This idea of selfishness and desire seems ingrained in our hearts.
Because fairness is important to us, we tend approach our interactions with God along the same lines. We see those we know that have what look like blessed lives, with circumstances going their way: good job, no relatives have died “before their time,” healthy kids, married, etc. And invariably we ask God, “Where’s mine? How come I don’t have that?”
But is this how God works?
New Domain Name and URL!
Good news! This blog is now also at “www.seminarianblog.com.” The old “http://bradedwards.wordpress.com” is still a valid address for this blog because we didn’t want to break/invalidate all the links made by other websites and bloggers, but since it now includes several contributors, we purchased a new domain name.
If you already have us linked, no need to change the link if you don’t want to. You can still get here just fine.
Enjoy!
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