Monday, August 6, 2012

Explaining why

Tim Keller explains why Christian apologetics (something he does very well in The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism) is especially important in our age:
Apologetics is an answer to the "why" question after you've already answered the "what" question. The what question, of course, is, "What is the gospel?" But when you call people to believe in the gospel and they ask, "Why should I believe that?"— then you need apologetics.

I've heard plenty of Christians try to answer the why question by going back to the what. "You have to believe because Jesus is the Son of God." But that's answering the why with more what. Increasingly we live in a time when you can't avoid the why question. Just giving the what (for example, a vivid gospel presentation) worked in the days when the cultural institutions created an environment in which Christianity just felt true or at least honorable. But in a post-Christendom society, in the marketplace of ideas, you have to explain why this is true, or people will just dismiss it. ....

We need to be careful of saying, "Just believe," because what we're really saying is, "Believe because I say so." That sounds like a Nietzschean power play. That's very different from Paul, who reasoned, argued, and proved in the Book of Acts, and from Peter, who called us to give the reason for our hope in 2 Peter 3:15. If our response is, "Our beliefs may seem utterly irrational to you, but if you see how much we love one another then you'll want to believe too," then we'll sound like a cult. So we do need to do apologetics and answer the why question. .... (more)
In Defense of Apologetics – The Gospel Coalition Blog

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