Apologetic Method Matters

I recently joined Christian Apologetics Alliance (CAA) over on FB. It is a very interesting site with lots of interesting subjects, personalities, and apologetic methods. You may talk about all sorts of claims in the group. You may claim that Bayesian Probability Theorem is a good tool for defending the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You are allowed talk about how we can believe the Bible is reliable because of all the external historical evidence in its favor, not to mention its logical coherence. You may even affirm that man is the ultimate starting point for human prediction. You are permitted to pontificate for pages on the merits of Molinism and the brilliance of William Lane Craig. You can even submit the supernatural, infinite claims of Scripture to the finite, fallen, sinful, ignorant intellects of human reasons and everyone approves and applauds.

While you may be permitted to talk about everything under the sun at CAA, there is one thing you cannot talk about at CAA: You cannot talk about dead-end topics. And specifically, you cannot talk about apologetic method. So here is the question: is there any link between apologetic method and Biblical Christianity? Moreover, is there a link between Christian philosophy and Christian apologetic method? By Christian philosophy, I mean sound philosophy that is the product of Christian belief. Sound philosophy is exclusively, philosophy that is derived from Christian theology, and biblical exegesis. That is to say, sound philosophy is that philosophy which articulates and affirms a worldview that is derived from a proper interpretation of the divine revelation of Scripture.

Now, apologetic method is not an island unto itself. Apologetic method is supposed to defend a very specific set of beliefs. I refer to this set of beliefs as Christian belief. If Christian apologetics is aimed at defending Christian belief, then it only stands to reason that just any method will not do. The reason we cannot choose apologetic method like we choose hats is precisely because apologetic method is set to defend an entire worldview. Hence, since apologetic method is interested in defending an entire worldview, it is only logical that apologetic method itself must be informed by the worldview it seeks to defend. Otherwise we may be accused of being inconsistent and worse, unable to defend the worldview upon which our apologetic method is supposed to rest. You see, when your apologetic method departs or strays from your philosophy at any point, the reasons are few. You may be lacking in skill. You may not understand apologetics or philosophy or both. In many cases, however, when apologetic method displays an inconsistency with the philosophy it is supposed to defend, it is because the philosophy is indefensible. In that case, the philosophy in question will eventually reduce to absurdity, and hence, irrational. I am going to take one argument from the CAA page, and demonstrate my point.

Click this link to watch Calum Miller’s short ~18-minute presentation on “Probability and the Resurrection” workshop. Miller claims that the Baysian Probability is an excellent tool for the defense of the proposition that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. No conscientious apologist could ever allow such a claim stand without scrutiny. Method matters.

It is claimed that Baysian confirmation theory is the most influential attempt in the logical positivist tradition to provide a uniform, general account of scientific knowledge. Bayes theorem seeks to understand the probability of a hypothesis or theory given the evidence at hand and our background knowledge of the world. 

The question is asked, how probable is the resurrection of Jesus Christ given the evidence we have and our background knowledge of things like resurrections? Before I say anything about whether or not such an approach to the resurrection event adds any value to the conversation, I have to ask if the sort of knowledge we are talking about is the kind of knowledge to which Bayes’ theorem applies. When Christian belief claims that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, should its claim be understood as saying that the hearers of that message should believe that it is probably true that Jesus rose from the dead? To be very clear about this event, here is what Paul said the resurrection meant to the entire system of Christianity: and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. (1 Cor. 15:17) Not for nothing, but it doesn’t sound like Paul would entertain, even for a second, the slightest possibility that Christ did not raise from the dead. Greg Bahnsen wrote, “However, a serious difficulty arises when the epistemological significance of the resurrection is separated from its soteriological function.” The most striking evidence that Jesus rose from the dead is witnessed by Christian through the work of the Holy Spirit as He appropriates the work of that resurrection on the heart of the individual. There is no greater evidence for the resurrection of Christ for the Christian that the Holy Spirit witnessing to this revealed fact as He applies the Word of God to the human heart. Faith knows that Christ rose from the dead.

To begin with, to find Bayes’ theorem useful in defending the resurrection of Christ demonstrates that the apologist is not yet submitting his mind to the Lordship of Christ. The manner in which I interpret the evidence and how the unbeliever approaches the evidence for the resurrection is remarkable different. Bayes’ theorem requires neutral ground in human reasoning. And the problem with that is that the unregenerate mind is anything but neutral where spiritual matters are concerned. Without this neutrality, the theorem is useless. And to pretend there is such a neutrality, the Christian apologist must ignore Scripture’s denial of it.

A second problem is that the miracle of the resurrection depends upon the presupposition of the uniformity of nature. But an honest skeptic will reject the principle of uniformity. And when he does, the resurrection is no longer a miracle. It is just something that happened. This means that in order for BT to have any strength, the Christian paradigm must already be presupposed. This also applies to the idea that one must believe in the possibility of miracles from the start. If they do not, it naturally follows that any explanation, no matter how small, has a greater probability for explaining the resurrection event than the evidence presented by the evidential apologist.

A third problem, and one that is philosophical in nature, is the assigning of numbers to the probability of the resurrection. One has to ask the question if Bayes' Theorem can be applied to a one-time event like the resurrection of the God-man. There seems to be no plausible way for one to come up with a way to assign numbers to the evidence and then defend those numbers against accusation of a subjective arbitrariness. And if we cannot agree on how numbers ought to be assigned, BT seems to me to rather a waste of time in the apologetic project. Moreover, even if we could assign numbers, we would then be left defending the method and theory for why we used this or that criteria as opposed to another. The problem seems unfeasible. 

Finally, the objection of the unregenerate mind is not just epistemic. It isn’t even primarily epistemic. It is first and foremost, metaphysical. And that is seen in the fact that the objection to the resurrection is moral. Man’s mind is wicked. It is corrupted by sin, desires sin, loves darkness rather than light, and hates God. That is the straight truth where the minds of sinful men are concerned.

In conclusion, apologetic method matters. If you pretend that the minds of men have not been corrupted by sin, you are essentially pretending that Christian belief is false. If your apologetic method depends upon the neutrality of the human intellect when it comes to truth claims, and especially the truths of Christianity, then you must deny the doctrine of original sin and human depravity. You must surely deny total depravity. You must affirm that man can operate intellectually without any dependence on God whatsoever. You must reject the Bible’s description of the sinful intellect as: “futility of their mind, darkened in their understanding, ignorant, blind, hardness of heart, callous.” And if that is true, then Christian theism is denied. If the Christian apologist is not careful, by adopting just any apologetic method, he could place himself in the position of actually denying the very philosophy is claims to defend. That is why apologetic method matters. The forum over at CAA could not be more wrong in its desire to maintain neutrality in apologetic method, calling it a dead-end subject. Nothing could more important that constructing a defense of Christian philosophy that is itself a derivative of the very system it seeks to defend. I will hold out hope that over time, things will change for the better.

The Incongruity of Probability Theory in Christian Evangelism and Apologetics

In a recent article published in Philosophia Christi, Richard Swinburne came to the following conclusion: “I conclude that unless my assessment of how probable the evidence of natural theology makes the existence of God is very badly mistaken, it is very probable that Jesus was God incarnate and that he rose from the dead.” Now, isn’t that a forceful, impressive, and eloquent way to speak about what Christianity claims is the single greatest event in all of human history. Before I begin commenting on Mr. Swinburne’s astounding conclusion and the confidence with which he makes it, the reader needs to understand that I come to this subject as a theologian and biblical exegete, not a philosopher. I am an apologist, but only in the sense that I think every believer has a duty to engage in apologetics. However, my education and training are not in philosophy. My education is in theology, systematics, and the biblical languages, in hermeneutics. Therefore, what my scrutiny and criticism will lack in philosophical rigor, it will certainly compensate for in theological and exegetical carefulness.

The fundamental problem with Swinburne’s approach is that it does not appeal to Scripture for its epistemic authority, but rather to human reason. It is obvious that Swinburne appeals to human reason, to argumentation, to historical evidence as his final authority for believing that Jesus was God incarnate and that He rose from the dead. In fact, what Swinburne really believes is that it is reasonable for a person to believe that Jesus is God incarnate because the historical evidence makes it highly probable that He was. Swinburne and other non-reformed philosophers and so-called apologists continually accept the criteria of justification that godless philosophers place on them. The unregenerate rationalists and empiricists insist that all beliefs must meet their criteria in order to qualify as true knowledge. Since these philosophers use inductive logic, which is based on probability, certain knowledge is impossible. If a Christian does not challenge this strategy at the beginning, their conversation will be wrought with insurmountable objections.

The resurrection can only serve as evidence for Christian theism within the world of the regenerate. The problem with Swinburne’s view is that he and other philosophers separate the epistemological significance of the resurrection from its soteriological function. This sort of reasoning fails to adequately account for the ethical problem deeply embedded in unregenerate epistemologies. Natural theology is far too optimistic in its estimation of man’s ethical neutrality where epistemology is concerned. Scripture is clear on this point: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20) The Greek word translated “without excuse” is ἀναπολογήτους (anapologetous) and it literally means without an apologetic. There is no philosophical defense for refusing to acknowledge God, according to Romans 1:20. It is amazing to me that with great frequency, Christian philosophers actually pretend there is one. Since Scripture already says that God Himself has furnished all the proof that every unbeliever need in order to acknowledge Him, we need not waste our time trying to provide them with more proofs. Are we silly enough to think that our arguments and proofs are somehow superior to or more effective than the ones God has etched in their conscience and placed in front of their noses?

 I read Swinburne’s quote to my wife this morning and I asked her to tell me what was wrong with it. She immediately said that she did not like the sentence “it is very probable that Jesus was God incarnate and that he rose from the dead.” I asked her to explain to me why she believed the statement was wrong. Her answer was very simple but also quite profound: “because it is not true.” I asked her to elaborate. She quipped, “Jesus actually is God and actually did raise from the dead and so to say that he probably is and did these things is false.” The truth is that my wife is absolutely correct.

A major objection to Swinburne’s statement is that biblical Christianity does not teach that it is highly probable that God exists, that Jesus was probably God incarnate, and that He probably rose from the dead. Hence, Swinburne is essentially defending a belief that is not included within Christian theism. Christian theism teaches forcefully and with absolute certainty that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, that He absolutely rose from the dead for our justification, and that all those who place their faith in Him will have eternal life. Additionally, Christian theism certifies without any hint of doubt that those who reject this message of the gospel of God will surely perish and come under eternal wrath, time without end.

Another challenge concerns the reliance on probability as a valid method for arriving at what is likely the truth. What else must absolutely be true in order for probability to be true? The answer is that the validity of uniformity must be true in order for probability to be valid. We must be able to show that there is a relationship between the general and the particular. This is exactly what the unbeliever cannot do. He assumes such a relationship exists but he cannot provide an adequate accounting for it. If the world came to exist on its own, randomly, by accident, without a cause, then there is no way for us to account for any relationship between the general and the particular. Chance and uniformity are not exactly related. As we would say in the south, they’re not even distant cousins. In fact, they are opposites. Why then do Christian philosophers feel compelled to accept basic beliefs about how the world operates when these beliefs are in clear contradiction, not only with Christian theism, but also with the system with which they argue? It makes very little sense as far as I can tell.

Romans one clearly informs Christians that God has made Himself known to all men. ὁ θεὸς γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐφανέρωσεν is very clear. For God made it very plain to them. The word means to cause something to be fully known by revealing clearly and in some detail—‘to make known, to make plain, to reveal, to bring to the light, to disclose, revelation. This very same word is used in 2 Cor. 5:11, θεῷ δὲ πεφανερώμεθα, we are fully known by God. Jesus used it in John 14:21 where He promised to make Himself known to the one keeping God’s commandments. Therefore, when the unbeliever claims they do not know if God exists or when they claim that God does not exist, they lie. The question for the Christian is will we go along with that lie. Will we grant to them that which Scripture denies?

In short Swinburne’s view does not hold up under scrutiny. The very systems that use probability as a reliable test for knowledge cannot stand up under the scrutiny of their own basic claims. For instance, what happens when probability is turned on itself in a random universe? How probable is it that this world would exist in the first place? It was a one-time event. Probability does not work with one-time events. The Christ event was a one-time event. The resurrection was a one-time event. Supernatural creation of humanity was a one-time event.

In addition, probability would never be the most likely explanation for a miracle of any kind. Deceit, or delusion or exaggeration would always trump supernatural phenomena in terms of probability. It would always be more probable that someone is lying, or suffering a delusion or simply exaggerating than it would that a miracle occurred. Hence, if we concede this point of probability, the entire system of Christian theism collapses.

Christians are called to give an account for the hope that is in them. We are under no obligation to squabble with unbelievers over the existence of God or the truthfulness of the claims of Scripture. We are under an obligation to refute claims that contradict the teachings of Scripture. But that refutation does not take on the philosophical nature of unbelieving presuppositions. The refutation is Scripture. How do we refute error? We do it the same way Jesus did it: with Scripture. We don’t need to argue for why we call upon Scripture as our sole authority, outside of appealing to Scripture itself. The unbeliever cannot possibly defend their ultimate authority of autonomous human reason. They expect us to assume that human reason is completely reliable. But we all know that is not the case.

To argue that God probably exists, and that the Bible is probably God’s word, and that Jesus is probably God incarnate, and that He probably rose from the dead is also to argue that we are all probably saved and that Jesus is only probably returning one day and that divine judgment will probably happen in the future, probably. For God who probably exists probably so loved the world that He probably gave his only begotten Son! Is that the gospel? I can say with absolute certainty that this, ladies and gentlemen is not the Christian gospel. I believe it is time we begin to wrest the gospel from these philosophers that foolishly think that Christ and Aristotle can be friends. I think it could not be clearer that they are mortal enemies.