A reason for the hope

Always ready

Peter wrote to Christians scattered across Asia Minor, the "exiles of the Dispersion" (1 Peter 1:1). Their neighbours slandered them "as evildoers" (1 Peter 2:12), and some suffered for doing right. To them he wrote:

But in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you. But respond with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who slander you may be put to shame by your good behavior in Christ.

1 Peter 3:15-16

The order matters. Before the answer comes the heart, with Christ set apart as Lord: apologetics begins in worship, not in cleverness. Then comes the answer, which every believer, not only the scholar, is to have ready. Then the manner, which is part of the command. John Wesley gives one reason for gentleness: "For anger would hurt your cause as well as your soul" Wesley. Last comes a life: a clear conscience and good behaviour stand behind the words.

The hope Peter means is not a theory. It is the "living hope" into which God has given us new birth "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). The motto of this course, Ratio spei, comes from this verse in the Latin Vulgate, which renders Peter's "reason" as ratio and his "hope" as spes: the reason for the hope.

Apologia: a defence in court

The word behind "defense" is apologia (ἀπολογία), most often the answer a person makes in court to a charge. The governor Festus says that it is not the Roman custom to hand a man over before he can "defend himself against their charges" (Acts 25:16), and Paul, standing before King Agrippa, uses its verb: he is glad "to defend myself against all the accusations of the Jews" (Acts 26:2). In chains, Paul calls his work "my defense and confirmation of the gospel" (Philippians 1:7) and says that he is "appointed for the defense of the gospel" (1:16). An apologia is not an apology in today's sense, saying sorry; it is a reasoned answer to a charge.

In the second century Christians were called atheists, because they would not worship the gods, and rumours of crimes at their meetings went round. Some answered in writing: Justin Martyr, who addressed the emperor around 150–155, Athenagoras around 177, Tertullian around 197. Such writings are called apologies, and their writers the apologists, after this word (The early apologists). The branch of theology that shows why the Christian faith is true and worthy of belief, and answers what is said against it, is apologetics.

The American theologian John Frame sees three sides to its work, each of which includes the others: proof, giving reasons that the faith is true; defence, answering objections to it; and offence, bringing out the weaknesses that unbelieving thought carries within itself John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God. These three serve whatever one's method. But apologetics also has limits, and Paul names them:

My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

1 Corinthians 2:4-5

Faith rests on God's power, not on an argument. Jesus said that when the Spirit comes, "He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). Apologetics can clear stones from the road for the gospel. It cannot take the place of the gospel, nor of the Spirit, who alone makes a person new.

Many roads

Apologists do the same work but differ over where to begin. This course walks five roads in turn:

These roads also criticise one another. Even within the Reformed tradition, Warfield and Van Til parted ways over the ground on which believer and unbeliever meet. Warfield held that they share a reason able to weigh the evidence, and that the Spirit gives faith not apart from the evidence but along with it; some books class him as a classical apologist. Van Til held that they live in the same world of God's making but share no neutral starting point, since every mind either submits to God or makes itself the final judge. This course hears each road in its own words, with its strengths, the others' criticisms of it and its reply; it picks none, and treats them as complementary. The story begins in Classical and evidential apologetics.

In conversation

Apologetics has a firmness that does not back away. Jude urges believers "to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints" (Jude 1:3), and Paul says, "we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). But what is taken captive is thoughts, not people. The same Paul writes:

And a servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, and forbearing. He must gently reprove those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

2 Timothy 2:24-25

Apologetics is for people inside the church. "Have mercy on those who doubt," says Jude (Jude 1:22). Questions come to believers too, and they are nothing to be ashamed of (Is it okay to doubt?). It is also for our neighbours. Paul tells the Colossians to act wisely toward outsiders, and adds: "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone" (Colossians 4:6).

In a conversation this means listening first. The same question may come from the mind or from a wound, and knowing how to answer begins with knowing what is being asked. It is fine to say that you do not know and will find out (see Sharing the gospel in the New Believers course). Matthew Henry puts this whole lesson in a sentence: "We should be able to defend our religion with meekness, in the fear of God" Matthew Henry. The goal is not to win. We bear witness to our hope and leave it to God to open the heart. The next lesson, Faith and reason, asks how faith and reason belong together.

Practice