WHY DEFEND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS

Christian Apologetics is that branch of Christian theology that answers the question whether “Christianity is believable”.
Apologetics has become necessary because Radicals and philosophers and critics have launched an intense attack on religious beliefs within the past four centuries and that the Christian faith has been the most attacked due to a number of historical reasons. What has made these criticism against the Christian faith worse has been the massive publicity these criticisms have enjoyed from the media and published books that have become bestsellers even in countries where the readers are non Christians thus giving the Christian faith an adverse publicity.
Again, there exists an atmosphere where the bible and what it teaches is being attacked everywhere making Christian students perplexed as a result of a barrage of questions hurled against their faith and they not finding answers to these questions.
Since such students have never faced such questions before they do not have answers and they begin to think that once they have no answers there are none. The result is a Christian who is torn apart within himself with one part of him knowing that he got saved by the message of the Bible and another part of him doubting whether everything on the Bible can be trusted.
Apologetics therefore becomes a panacea to helping such people whose faith has been shaken and have subsequently become perplexed. The Christian Apologist can pass information to the doubting person so he can better face those who question his faith and the Bible.
Other reasons for Apologetics has been the flourishing of anti-Christian philosophies such as Humanism where Man has been raised to the position of God and which this Humanism theory has taken control of the present mode of thinking , education and even theological education.

The cumulative effect being that young believers go through educational institutions and acquire ideas that make it difficult for them to overcome challenges of distrust and doubt about the word of God.
An Apologist comes in handy to help such people by giving them answers to answer a good number of their problems and to teach them the basis of the humanistic philosophies that has been the root cause of the mistrust for the word of God.
BIBLICAL BASIS FOR APOLOGETICS
Christian Apologetics is fully a biblical activity. For example first Peter 3:15 tells us that making a defence of our faith is part of our spiritual activity. Second Corinthians 10:3-6 also enjoins us to use the divine weapons received from God to demolish sophistries and the arrogance that tries to resist the knowledge of God thus capturing every thought, and making it submissive and obedient to Christ. Again the book of Job, psalms 14, and 19, Romans 1:20 and Acts 17 are examples in the Bible where an Apologetics approach was used to preach to sceptical unbelievers. Thus the practice of Christian Apologetics is fully supported by the Bible.
Even though the bible places emphasis upon faith and belief and condemns “deliberate scepticism and unbelief, it does not speak against reason and investigation especially if it is done sincerely as an aid to honest inquiry. The Bible has several examples to support this supposition.
1. Moses was given a sign by God to show that He God has sent him.(Exodus 4:1-7)
2. Daniel asked that he and his colleagues be tried for ten says on vegetables.(Daniel 1:12-15)
3. That Jesus’ miracles recorded in the gospels were to demonstrate who He was and not to bring health per say.
Apologetics and Polemics are cousins which seek to refute criticisms against the Christian faith. However while Apologetics is meant to refute criticisms levelled against the Christian faith by people outside the Christian faith, polemics deals with attacks by people within the Christian faith.
History of Christian Apologetics
From the evidence in both the Old Testament and the New Testament Christian Apologetics is not a recent undertaking. The examples given above to illustrate the Apologetics approach and other examples in the bible show that Christian Apologetics has been practiced for a long time. It started from the time of the Jewish Fathers who have to refute criticisms from pagans who were not comfortable with what the Old Testament teaches about man’s sinfulness as recorded in the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3 and the need to obey God’s commandments given through Moses as means to live to please God. This was contrary to the Universalist philosophy held by the pagans that God accepts all despite their beliefs and practices such as idol worship. A book titled Contra Apion written in the first century by an army officer and historian called Flavious Josephus also gives such evidence of the practice of Apologetics by the Jewish Fathers.
The establishment of the New Testament Church and the preaching of the gospel of salvation through faith alone also brought up a new brand of heretics and critics who were empowered by the pagan philosophies, availability of writing materials and the rise of professional scribes who made the voices of the critics to be heard. The critics were aroused by the writing of the New Testament books and epistles which unveiled the divine message that was partially covered in the Old Testament. The New Testament books and epistles made clearer man’s sin and his total depravity as a result of sin which exposed the errors and biases and prejudices of the critics who could no longer maintain and spread their universalism, Humanism and accomodationism theories and philosophies. Most of the critics included people who were converts from other faiths to Christianity who wanted to combine their heathen beliefs with Christian belief. They wanted to maintain their sensuous freedoms in Christianity hence using their literary and theological skills they tried to popularize their varieties of perverted teachings of self justification. For example, the false teachings of some judaizers in Galatia caused Paul to write the epistle to the Galatians. The book of Galatians was an apologetic book to defuse and refute false Christian doctrine being preached to destroy the sound teaching preached earlier by Paul in Galatia.

MODERN CREATIONISM AND APOLOGETICS
The Catholic Church in her attempt to have ecclesiastical as well as temporal power during the dark ages used high handedness to silence her dissenters. This created a lot of hatred for Christianity and when the reformation eased the people from the Catholic burden they decided to oppose and reject everything Christian. The rejection met with the rise of a host of anti Christian thinkers and philosophical movements. Scholars and some scientists begun to look for errors in the bible to use as weapons to show Christianity as a religion in error. The bible’s account on the creation of the world which was widely accepted by scholars was the first target but was so difficult to overthrow to challenge the authority of the bible. As soon as Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution things changed. It met with infidels who had degrees in theology taking over theological institutions and what is taught. Compromises were made and evolution was mixed with creation which destroyed biblical foundations. Consequently, it was difficult in the 21st century to find a qualified theologian openly defending the bible story of creation.
However this situation led to the birth of modern creationism and Apologetics which set in motion among evangelicals the writing of books, magazines and articles which started to diminish the influence of rationalist and radicals on Christians.
The unchanging purposes of Apologetics are;
1. To refute all accusations that is levelled against the bible and the Christian faith.
2. To demonstrate that only the bible and Christian way of life work in the actual life, and that only the bible and the Christian faith provide permanent peace and happiness.
3. To remove sincere doubts in the hearts of believers and unbelievers so that the hindrances to the growth and establishment of faith are eliminated.
4. To provide sufficient evidence for achieving the above goals.
USES OF APOLOGETICS
1. It is a man ward operation- it is not an activity directed towards the bible or to defend the bible since the bible is capable of defending itself. It is rather to help those who are perplexed or distressed due to doubts. An understanding of this helps the apologists to employ the methods with the proper motives.
2. Apologetics has limits- It can never be used to prove that the bible is the word of God. What it does is to point out the bible’s unusual character in matters of unity, accuracy, consistency, historicity, and life changing power. Accepting the bible as the word of God comes only by faith in which apologetics can play a very supportive role, thus aiding a person to see that the attacks against the bible are not valid.
3. Apologetics helps to remove barriers to the creation and establishment of faith.
4. Apologetics enables us to use the rationalist demands to make objective statements of faith.
5. That it is only the proclamation of the gospel that faith can be established not apologetics. Our business is not to establish the divinity of the bible before we preach the gospel but to help those who wish to abandon their unbelief which has been there due to lingering but sincere and honest doubts to believe.
6. Apologetics demands a willing reception because it is only a cure for sincere doubts.
7. Consequently it helps seekers most than deliberate scepticism.
8. It is not scientism which uses scientific approach or methods to prove everything. It depends on several disciplines to provide assistance to genuine doubters.
Practical values for studying Apologetics- They help in the conservation of one’s own faith, better ability to combat or refute criticisms against our faith, ability to recognize refined enemy tactics and strategies and aid to witnessing to our faith.
These were some reasons given as reasons why people will not have interest in apologetics;
People who had never had any doubts about the bible
People who had never faced any question or attacks from scornful critic
People who run away from challenges
People who believe the bible contain errors
Those who have no sensitivity towards the pains and problems of others
False apologists who love prestige but who have never mastered the subject
The writers gave the following reasons as basis for opposing apologetics;
They do not trust reason
Because of fear
Wilful blind opposition
Check Trinity Theology.org for more facts.