What is the Purpose of Apologetics?
What is the purpose of apologetics? The goal of apologetics is not just the persuasion of the unbeliever, but it is just as important for the believer.[1] Defending the faith is needed inside the church too. There are many people who make an initial confession of Christ, but then fall away because of doubt.
One example is Charles Templeton (1915-2001), the famous evangelist who turned agnostic. In 1945, he evangelized nightly to crowds of up to thirty thousand. In 1957, he publicly declared himself an agnostic and resigned from the ministry. Why? In his own words:
I had always doubted the Genesis account of creation and could never accept the monstrous evil of an endless hell, but now other doubts were surfacing and, having no one to discuss them with, my personal devotions began to flag.[2]
In short, Templeton had doubts about the soundness of the Christian faith, and with nobody to turn to for answers (at least that is how he felt because he was famous), he lost his foundation. Therefore, people inside the church need apologetics as well.
And it is not just those whose faith is in crisis, but all Christians: “every Christian harbors within himself a secret infidel. At this point apologetics became, to some extent, a dialogue between the believer and the unbeliever in the heart of the Christian himself.”[3]
Therefore, apologetics “is an intellectual discipline that is usually said to serve at least two purposes: (1) to bolster the faith of Christian believers, and (2) to aid in the task of evangelism.”[4]
Different Purposes for Apologetics
There are different audiences who need apologetics:
Which apologetic approach should one take when speaking to a Jew, Muslim or Hindu? Wouldn’t a good place to start be by comparing different religious beliefs and then perhaps discussing evidence for the resurrection of Christ? Which approach is best when talking to a Jehovah’s Witnesses? Wouldn’t it be by looking at how to do proper hermeneutics and showing how the Watchtower Society forces their meaning upon the text? Or what about the best approach for witnessing to ‘religious indifferentists?’ Wouldn’t it be a good idea to start with some kind of moral argument about how America has lost its moral fabric, what a terrible thing this has become, and how there certainly must be some absolute moral underpinning of society that we have neglected (i.e., God)? The approach should vary depending on the audience.
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- For an opposing view, Feinberg said he thought apologetics was for the persuasion of the unbeliever and not the establishment of the Christian truth. See Cowan, Five Views on Apologetics, 345. ↑
- Charles Templeton, Farewell to God (Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, 1996), 6. ↑
- Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1999), Kindle loc. 278-9. ↑
- Cowan, Five Views on Apologetics, 8. ↑