The Evangelical Dictionary of World Religions

‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844–1921; his name means “slave of the glory [of God]”) was born ‘Abbás Effendí in Tehran, Persia (now Iran). His father, Bahá’u’lláh (1817–92), founder of the Bahá’í Faith, believed himself to be the divine herald of all true religion about whom Siyyad Ali Muhammad (1819–50), the Bab (meaning “gate”), had prophesied. During his childhood, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá witnessed intense persecution of his father as well as suffering some himself; when he was eight or nine years of age, his father was imprisoned for promoting and defending the Bahá’í Faith. After Bahá’u’lláh was released from prison and placed under house arrest in Akko, Israel, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá traveled with him and became his father’s most trusted ally as an adult. As a result of this strong alliance, Bahá’u’lláh appointed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (in his will and testament) to succeed him as the foremost leader and exponent of Bahá’í after his death. Yet, unlike his father, who believed himself to be a manifestation of God, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá repeatedly stated that he was merely a servant of God.

As the authorized interpreter of Bahá’í, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá proclaimed that “love is the greatest law” and that humankind’s greatest need is international cooperation. His Tablets of the Divine Plan served to establish Bahá’í leadership in North America, and his Will and Testament set forth plans for a worldwide administrative order of the Bahá’í Faith. He began a world tour in 1912, during which he dedicated the grounds for the Bahá’í temple in Wilmette, Illinois. His major teachings included the fundamental oneness of the human race; condemnation of all forms of prejudice; the basic unity of all religions; advocacy of the independent quest for truth, unfettered by superstition or tradition; the essential harmony between science and religion; gender equality; the abolition of extreme wealth and poverty; universal compulsory education; and the institution of a world tribunal for adjudicating disputes between nations.

See also ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION

Bibliography. J. G. Machen, The Christian View of Man; R. Machuga, In Defense of the Soul: What It Means to Be Human; H. D. McDonald, The Christian View of Man; J. P. Moreland and D. Ciocchi, eds., Christian Perspectives on Being Human; A. Pegis, At the Origins of the Thomistic Notion of Man.

S. J. Rost

ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION. Anthropology is the study of human thought and behavior in societies worldwide. It is very similar to sociology. Traditionally the difference between anthropology and sociology was that anthropologists studied faraway, non-Western societies, while sociologists studied modern Western society. Over the years, this difference has broken down as anthropologists turned their attention to Western societies and sociologists applied their techniques worldwide. Today the main difference is in the preference for specific methods. Historically anthropologists concentrated on qualitative research, using such techniques as participant observation and life-history interviews, while sociologists relied on quantitative research, involving survey research and statistical analysis of the data. More recently scholars in both fields have tended to use similar methods, with anthropologists preferring qualitative methods while sociologists concentrate on quantitative methods.

Although the study of society by anthropologists remains wedded to the method of participant observation and to grassroots events, it has nevertheless become highly diversified. This is an adaptation to the fact that not only have societies changed, but with this change our analytical and theoretical approaches have multiplied.

Modern anthropology originated in the wake of the philosophical movement known as Romanticism. It has its origin primarily in the work of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who encouraged the study of diverse cultures within an overall framework of universalism. In North America, Herder directly influenced the work of the founder of American anthropology, Franz Boas (1858–1942). In Britain, Herder’s influence was felt through writers like Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), who encouraged a new empathy for the past. Later British anthropology developed in close contact with German anthropological thinking through the influence of scholars like Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) and Diedrich Westermann (1875–1956). The latter was a former missionary who, along with a missionary circle in London, founded the International Institute of African Languages and Culture (now the International African Institute). From 1926 to 1939, Westermann edited the influential journal Africa. He and both British and German colleagues worked with concepts of culture change and functionalism that showed great sympathy for non-Western peoples and societies as well as a solid appreciation of their history.

With the outbreak of war, Westermann’s name was removed from the title page of the journal Africa, and all memory of the contribution of German scholars to British anthropology seems to have been eradicated. Instead, Malinowski, a Pole, was elevated as the “inventor of fieldwork,” something he actually admitted learning from German scholars, especially Jan Stanislaw Kubary (1846–96), who was of mixed German and Slavic descent. Now a new school of British social anthropology that ignored history and decried “culture” as an American preoccupation emerged, with Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) at its head. Later the acknowledged leader of British social anthropology was E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1902–73), who, unlike Radcliffe-Brown, was an excellent fieldworker, social-structuralist, and historian. After laying a solid foundation, the British school of thought, with its heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was superseded by new approaches developed in North America and France. In America, anthropologists like Victor Turner (1920–86), Clifford Geertz (1926–2006), and Marshall Sahlins (1930–) developed what may be called symbolic approaches to religion. Turner elaborated the analysis of the semantic structure of dominant symbols with their emotive and cognitive poles. Geertz concentrated on the conceptual aspects of religion and is best known for his method of “thick description.” Finally, Sahlins treated religion as part of a cultural design that gives order to practical experience, customary practices, and the relationship between the two.

The classic study of religion by an anthropologist is E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937). In this imaginative work based on solid fieldwork, he developed an understanding of the internal logic of Azande witchcraft beliefs. This work became the model for later studies by John Middleton (1921–2009), Mary Douglas (1921–2007), and others as they sharpened the contrasts among witchcraft, sorcery, and divination and attempted to correlate these with forms of social organization and kinship ties.

The idea that religion provides order and meaning was carried forward, almost to the point of obsession, by French structuralists like Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009), and in the English world by Edmund Leach (1910–87). Leach’s analysis of metaphor takes religion out of what he sees as its cognitive quagmire back into the world of ecstatic and charismatic religions. As societies changed and ideas of globalization replaced simpler views about the so-called third world, so also did the study of religion change. The analysis of processes became important, replacing earlier views of static, nonliterate societies. At the same time, interest in new religions in the West encouraged further study of millenarian or nativistic movements in the non-Western world. Here the work of Anthony F. C. Wallace (1923–2015) on revitalization movements led the way. Wallace’s study of the religion of the Seneca Nation provided a detailed picture of the forces that threaten to destroy a society and the stages of the subsequent revitalization process. More important, Wallace understood the often fragile boundaries between religion, politics, and the military.

More recently anthropologists have shown that modernization does not produce, as is so often assumed, “rational” individuals whose behavior loses symbolic dimensions. Actually the opposite is usually the case. Winston Davis (1939–), Irving Hexham (1943–), Karla Poewe (1941–), and others have argued that industrialization often furthers the growth of new religions and magical practices in urban settings. An exemplary study of religion is Kenelm Burridge’s (1922–) In the Way. It is one of the few anthropological works on missionaries that also attempt to understand their Christianity.

Today anthropology provides a dynamic approach to the study of religion that frees scholars from the tyranny of armchair reflection and concentration on the publications of groups by challenging people to discover what others actually believe and how they practice their beliefs. In today’s emerging multicultural world, where cross-cultural understanding is increasingly important, the anthropology of religions offers ways out of the impasse created by lack of contact between different groups. It also provides methods for approaching intercultural communication and vivid insights into how we understand others.

Bibliography. R. N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-Industrial Japan; K. Burridge, In the Way: A Study of Christian Missionary Endeavors; Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth; M. L. Daneel, The God of the Matopo Hills; Daneel, Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches; W. Davis, Dojo: Magic and Exorcism in Modern Japan; Mary Douglas, Explorations in Cosmology; Douglas, Natural Symbols; Douglas, Purity and Danger; E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande; C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures; I. Hexham and K. Poewe, New Religions as Global Culture; Hexham and Poewe, Understanding Cults and New Religions; S. Kakar, Shamans, Mystics and Doctors; E. Leach, Culture and Communication: The Logic by Which Symbols Are Connected; C. Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology; I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion; G. C. Oosthuizen, Pentecostal Penetration into the Indian Community in Metropolitan Durban, South Africa; Oosthuizen, Post-Christianity in Africa; K. Poewe, The Namibian Herero: A History of Their Psychosocial Disintegration and Survival; M. Sahlins, Culture and Practical Reason; B. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa; A. F. C. Wallace, Religion: An Anthropological Approach; F. B. Welbourn, East African Rebels.

K. Poewe

ANTINOMIANISM. Definition. Antinomianism, which means “against law” (from Greek, anti + nomos), refers to the belief that one is not obligated to adhere to moral laws in general. Klaus Bockmuehl defines antinomianism as “theoretical, conscious, intentional lawlessness” (85). Adherents of antinomianism, as well as philosophies and movements that engender antinomian thinking, are found in both Christian and secular contexts. Historically within the Christian community, the charge of antinomianism has been leveled against those who contend that believers are not obligated to adhere to the Old Testament (OT) moral law because they are under grace. It is argued that Christians live in accordance with the prompting and convicting work of the Holy Spirit, not the moral legal code.

In contradistinction to an antinomian approach to the moral law, OT scholars Walter Kaiser and Christopher Wright offer a balanced approach to the authority of the OT. In their writings, they argue that the OT law is, with qualification, applicable today. They appeal to 2 Timothy 3:16, which presents a serious challenge to antinomianism, stating explicitly that all Scripture is profitable for doctrinal and moral instruction. Scholars generally agree that this passage refers to the OT, which would include the law. Evangelicals such as Wright and Kaiser agree that Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law but insist that civil and moral prescriptions are still authoritative as moral guides even though they are not means of grace and do not facilitate justification. Jesus and Paul both used the OT in their preaching and teaching to advance moral principles, but also to demonstrate the sinfulness of humanity.

New Testament. The New Testament (NT) provides some of the earliest examples of antinomian thinking within the Christian community. The apostle Paul’s writings indicate he encountered and responded to antinomian thinking and behavior. In 1 Corinthians 5:1–6, Paul addressed sexual immorality in the church, specifically incest. He was greatly troubled by both the presence of the kind of immorality being practiced (for even gentiles didn’t engage in such behavior) and the church’s toleration of it. It is possible the Corinthians were influenced by two converging streams of influence: an incipient gnosticism (see Yamauchi), which would incline them to view matter as evil, and an antinomian or libertine attitude toward the moral law. Thus a dualistic view of the material and spiritual world could lead one to conclude that the body, being material, was of no importance. So, logically, one could ignore moral restrictions on what one did with one’s body. In Romans 5:20–21, Paul points out that where sin abounds, the grace of God equally abounds. Paul’s point is that no sin can be great enough to elude the power of grace. However, in Romans 6:11 Paul anticipates that some will exploit his teaching on grace by embracing an antinomian application that advocates the unrestricted practice of sin, thinking that in so doing they will cause grace to increase. Such antinomian thinking implicitly nullifies the moral law in favor of increasing grace by unrestrained sinful behavior.

The Early Church. In the early church, the rise of gnostic sects brought about a more definitive antinomianism. First, gnosticism considered the material world evil, so it made no difference spiritually what one did with the physical body. Some adherents of gnosticism took this view to its logical conclusion by indulging their physical passions. Second, gnosticism taught that the God of the OT was the Demiurge, an inferior god not to be equated with the true God. Furthermore, the Demiurge was the source of the OT Law. Since gnostics rejected the Demiurge as the true God, they took an antinomian approach to the OT law, thus rejecting the effect (law) by rejecting the cause (Demiurge).

Antinomian Controversies. During the Reformation, Martin Luther’s teaching on justification by grace through faith alone eventually led to what would become the antinomian controversy. Luther taught that the law was essential for salvation in that it revealed the sinfulness of humans (Rom. 7:7). However, the law was not binding on Christians in either a judicial or ceremonial sense, given that civil authorities were responsible for overseeing and implementing laws for the welfare of society. Luther believed the law was of great spiritual value in that it elicited from people an understanding of their guilt before God. Johann Agricola, a former student and teaching colleague of Luther’s, eventually proposed the antinomian thesis that the law played no role in justification. He believed it was the gospel, not the law, that should bring about an awareness of sin and the need for repentance. However, he didn’t discount the law as a viable tool for civil stability. In response Luther published Against the Antinomians.

In seventeenth-century Massachusetts, an antinomian controversy erupted as a result of Puritan dissenter Anne Hutchinson, who took a critical stance against the teachings of other preachers, who were teaching that good works are an evidence of one’s election. She contended that in no way can good works validate one’s election; only by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit could one be assured of salvation. Thus believers are not bound to the law. Neither Agricola nor Hutchinson opposed the moral teachings of Scripture, but they did stand against the application of the law as a means by which conviction of sin or justification was in any way facilitated.

Around the same time, a vigorous division arose between preachers who taught that sanctification, or works of righteousness, gave evidence of one’s true conversion. However, opponents of this teaching took Luther’s understanding of imputed righteousness as the sole basis for assurance of salvation, viewing sanctification, or works of righteousness, as merely acts of thanksgiving. They argued that an emphasis on external works as evidence of one’s justification minimized or ignored the promise that one’s faith saves, and such faith is the sole source of assurance. Those preachers who taught this minimalist view of sanctification were accused of being antinomian.

Bibliography. K. Bockmuehl, “Keeping the Commandments,” Evangelical Review of Theology; M. Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church, 1532–1546; J. F. Cooper, “Hutchinson, Anne Marbury,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America; N. Geisler, “Antinomianism,” in the New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology; E. Harrison, “Antinomianism,” in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics; W. Kaiser Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics; R. Linder, “Antinomianism,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology; A. H. Newman, “Antinomianism,” in the The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; Simone Petrement, A Separate God: The Origins and Teachings of Gnosticism; C. J. H. Wright, Walking in the Ways of the Lord; Edwin Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism.

S. J. Rost

ANTINOMIANISM, NON-CHRISTIAN. Antinomianism, which means “against law” (from Greek, anti + nomos), refers to the belief that one is not obligated to adhere to moral laws in general. In the non-Christian context, examples of antinomianism are found in existentialist philosophy such as that advocated by Jean-Paul Sartre, which taught, “Be true to yourself,” which opens the door for self-expression and self-gratification. The thesis that God is dead, advocated by Friedrich Nietzsche, entailed the absence or demise of any absolute or final moral authority, a conclusion similar to Dostoyevsky’s statement that if God doesn’t exist, anything is permissible. Other expressions of antinomianism include hedonism, the love of pleasure without restraint; ethical relativism, popularized by Joseph Fletcher; and the rampant libertinism in France and Britain in the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, producing such notable practitioners as John Wilmot and Marquis de Sade.

Bibliography. A. H. Newman, “Antinomianism” in the The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; Edwin Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism.

S. J. Rost

APOLOGETICS. The term apologetics derives from the Greek word apologia, which originally signified a speech in someone’s defense in a court of law. Christian apologetics constitutes the science and practice of arguing on behalf of historic Christianity’s truthfulness and/or the advisability of accepting it, rebutting objections to historic Christianity, and arguing against systems of belief that are incompatible with historic Christianity.

This article first summarizes the reasons for cultivating Christian apologetics, then reviews common objections to Christian apologetics, and, finally, surveys apologetic methodologies.

Reasons for Cultivating Apologetics. That Scripture commands Christians to engage in apologetics, at least in a rudimentary sense of the term, constitutes by far the most important reason why Christians ought to employ apologetic reasoning in seeking to persuade others to embrace the historic Christian faith. Biblical Christians, after all, are committed to the propositions that one ought to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30; cf. parallel in Luke 10:27) and that “this is love for God: to keep his commands” (1 John 5:3). They ought, consequently, to require no further motive for cultivating Christian apologetics than the scriptural injunctions, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15 NRSV), and, “Contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3 NRSV).

Nevertheless, at least three further considerations also warrant the study and practice of Christian apologetics. First, numerous persons refuse to consider the gospel seriously unless they are presented with evidence for its truthfulness. Simply in order to gain a hearing for the gospel, therefore, the Christian must frequently resort to apologetic reasoning. Like Paul, one must “become all things to all people,” so that by all means one might win some (1 Cor. 9:22). Paul himself presented apologetic arguments in support of Christian faith, as in his famous speech in Athens, in which he reasoned in a manner that the Stoics and the Epicureans there could understand (Acts 17:16–34).

Second, responsible persons rightly weigh the evidence for and against beliefs proposed to them for acceptance, especially when those beliefs, if accepted, would necessitate a radical reorientation of their thought and lives. The Christian evangelist seeks, among other things, to awaken the unconverted to the enormity of the guilt they have incurred precisely by shirking their responsibilities to God and their neighbor. It behooves the Christian evangelist, therefore, above all other persons, to avoid the impression that he or she advocates shirking one’s responsibility “not [to] believe every spirit, but [to] test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1).

Third, numerous Christians find themselves weighed down by a burden of doubt, continually tempted to apostatize on account of specious objections to Christianity, which Christians properly trained in apologetics can answer convincingly. Those who pray that God would deliver them and other Christians from temptation and who seek to do good “especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Gal. 6:10) thus possess ample reason to study apologetics and “build each other up” (1 Thess. 5:11) through apologetic reasoning. Even if Scripture did not command Christians to cultivate apologetics, therefore, zeal for the conversion of the lost, concern for the integrity of the gospel, and compassion for doubting saints would mandate its study and application, nonetheless.

Objections to Christian Apologetics. Nevertheless, some Christians do shun apologetics, even seriously objecting to its use in evangelism. Such persons argue, first, that “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). That is, if the Holy Spirit regenerates a hearer of the gospel, the person will necessarily believe, but if the Holy Spirit does not regenerate the hearer, the most compelling arguments will not suffice to persuade that person to accept Christ. Since only the Holy Spirit can move a person to faith—it seems to those who repudiate apologetics—arguments as to why one ought to believe are superfluous.

Second, Christian opponents of apologetics argue, apologetic reasoning appears positively irreverent inasmuch as it replaces the “demonstration of the Spirit’s power” with “wise and persuasive words” (1 Cor. 2:4). Scripture explicitly states, such persons correctly observe, that “since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). In view of this, it seems to many that the employment of apologetic argumentation in evangelism brazenly usurps the Holy Spirit’s prerogatives, empties the cross of Christ of its power (1 Cor. 1:17), and causes the faith of Christians to rest not in the power of God but in the wisdom of human beings (1 Cor. 2:4).

Indisputably, therefore, one can mount at least a superficially powerful case against apologetics on the basis of Scripture. Three considerations, nevertheless, suffice to dispel this case’s patina of plausibility. First, applying the argument from 1 Corinthians 12:3 to the uselessness of apologetic reasoning, if pressed to its utmost implications, entails the absurd conclusion that gospel preaching itself is superfluous, for gospel preaching is no less impotent to save in the absence of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit than apologetic argument. If the impotence of apologetic argument, minus the Holy Spirit, proves the enterprise of apologetics itself to be worthless, therefore, it proves the preaching of the gospel worthless as well.

Second, the verses cited above against the propriety of apologetics—namely, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 21; 2:4—need not imply that apologetic reasoning constitutes an intrinsically irreverent means of calling persons to obedience to the gospel. When Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 1:17, for example, that Christ sent him to preach “not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power,” he may mean merely that God commands him to forsake the elaborate artifices of Greek rhetoric in order to focus attention on Christ. When Paul avers, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:4–5), likewise, he may intend merely to disavow the kind of oratory that would inspire faith in the orator rather than God. Paul’s statement that it pleased God to save not through wisdom but through the foolishness of the message preached, moreover, may indicate merely that God chose to save through faith in a supernatural revelation rather than through knowledge gained by philosophical inquiry into nature. Undoubtedly, Paul seeks to emphasize in these and kindred passages God’s exaltation of the helpless over the mighty. “God has chosen the foolish things in the world,” he writes, “to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:27–29 NRSV).

None of this implies, however, that a humble and sincere appeal to facts, such as the evidence of design in nature or of fulfilled prophecy, can have no place in the faithful proclamation of the gospel. One may be assured, in fact, that God not merely allows but encourages such apologetic argumentation because in numerous instances God places apologetic arguments on the lips of prophets, apostles, various scriptural authors, and Jesus himself. In 2 Chronicles 25:15, for example, an unnamed prophet argues with Amaziah that he was foolish to take up the worship of the Edomites’ gods because those gods had proved incapable of delivering the Edomites from Amaziah’s own hands. The author of Psalm 115, likewise, argues for the absurdity of idol worship on the basis of the idols’ evident disabilities: having mouths, they speak not; having feet, they walk not; and so on (cf. vv. 4–8 and Ps. 135:15–18). Indeed, Isaiah portrays God as challenging the imaginary deities of the gentiles to an argument about the identity of the true God and proposing the ability to foretell the future as a criterion of true divinity (Isa. 41:21–23; cf. 44:7; 45:21; 46:10; 48:3, 5, 6).

In the New Testament (NT), moreover, one finds all the gospel writers appealing constantly to the argument from prophecy. Both Paul (Acts 13:31; 1 Cor. 15:5–8) and Peter (Acts 2:32; 3:15; 10:41) appeal to the evidence of eyewitness testimony for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Paul, moreover, argues by analogy from the conceivability of a seed’s rising from the earth as a plant to the conceivability of a physical resurrection of the dead; and Jesus himself appeals to the evidence of his miracles as proof of the message he preaches. “Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father,” he declares. “But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:37–38). Presumably, God would not employ an approach to persuading unbelievers that he himself condemns as ineffectual or worse. Christian critics of apologetics can hardly be correct, therefore, when they condemn apologetic argumentation as unscriptural.

Apologetic Methodologies. Christians, then, may and, in view of the rationale for Christian apologetics offered above, ought to employ apologetic reasoning in their efforts to win others to Christ. In order to do so consistently and systematically, it seems, they must adopt some apologetic methodology: some definite view, that is, as to what they can reasonably expect to prove by apologetic argument and what kinds of argument they ought to employ. The principle apologetic methodologies employed by Christians today are five: the classical, the exclusively historical, the pragmatic, the presuppositional, and the method associated with “Reformed epistemology.”

Practitioners of classical apologetics typically distinguish between at least two stages in any thorough justification of the Christian faith. One must, classical apologists believe, establish, on the basis of natural revelation, God’s existence and certain of his attributes, such as justice, honesty, and benevolence, before one can reasonably argue for the truthfulness of Scripture on the basis of the evidence of miracles and fulfilled prophecy. If God does not exist, advocates of this method reason, miracles cannot occur; if one cannot prove that God exists, therefore, one can never construct a compelling historical argument for a miracle’s occurrence.

Naturally, classical apologists do not believe that the evangelist ought to expend hours discussing arguments for God’s existence with someone who already believes in God. They do hold, however, that in order to construct an argument for Christianity that is sound in the abstract, one must, among other things, argue philosophically for the existence of God and his possession of certain attributes. In order, that is, to construct a science of Christian apologetics, whose task is to supply logically rigorous proofs of Christianity, on whose findings practical apologists/evangelists can draw in their efforts to engage particular unbelievers, one must, according to classical apologists, address both philosophical and historical questions.

Practitioners of the second widely employed apologetic methodology—that is, the exclusively historical approach—do not necessarily disagree with the convictions of classical apologists about the exigencies of apologetics as a science. They tend, rather, to view apologetics in exclusively practical terms and to hold, correctly, that contemporary persons tend to be neither patient with nor receptive of arguments founded on abstract, philosophical reasoning. Advocates of the exclusively historical approach conclude, accordingly, that effective, practical apologists/evangelists ought to confine themselves to historical arguments such as that from fulfilled prophecy or that from the empirical evidence for Christ’s resurrection.

To the objection that no amount of argument for the occurrence of a miracle can establish that it occurred in the absence of evidence that God exists, exclusively historically minded apologists respond that the miracles themselves constitute sufficient evidence for God’s existence. Just as one need not prove that Homer existed before one can reasonably establish, on the basis of the Iliad and the Odyssey, that he held certain views, adherents of this school argue, one need not establish that God exists before one can reasonably argue from God’s causation of miracles to his endorsement of Scripture.

Proponents of the exclusively historical method, then, advocate a one-stage apologetic, which, to the extent that it is actually persuasive, does achieve its objectives more directly and efficiently than a thoroughly classical apologetic. However, whether in the long term the church can afford to do without the academic, scientific apologetics of the classical school and whether merely historical arguments can be widely persuasive in cultures saturated with atheism constitute serious questions for anyone who might advocate supplanting the classical method entirely with the exclusively historical approach to apologetics. Some apologists whose approach is methodologically akin to the historical method broaden their apologetic arsenal or repertoire to include philosophical, scientific, and other sorts of arguments, all of which the apologist treats as evidence for the Christian faith. Both the practitioners of the exclusively historical method and those who include other types of factual arguments are often called evidentialists.

Advocates of the third widely practiced apologetic method, the pragmatic, typically harbor deep skepticism about the ability of human beings to demonstrate rationally that God exists or that Christianity is true. Accordingly, eschewing the kind of arguments employed by the classical and exclusively historical schools, practitioners of the pragmatic method attempt to prove that, among all conceivable worldviews, only Christianity can consistently be lived. That is, non-Christian outlooks on life invariably contradict one or more of the presuppositions that human beings must adopt in order to lead happy, reasonable, and morally responsible lives.

The popularity of this approach surged in the 1960s, when rationality itself became widely suspect and when Christianity competed for the loyalty of youth with existentialism, Marxism, Eastern religions, and the drug culture—all of whose ideals, if consistently applied, lead to despair. As pragmatic apologists themselves would admit, their approach to apologetics supplies no means of securely establishing the conclusion for which they argue—namely, that only Christianity can be lived. For even if one could demonstrate that every existing worldview leads to hopelessness, one could not thereby prove that some livable alternative to Christianity might not emerge in the future. The pragmatic approach to apologetics presupposes, therefore, the indispensability of a nonrational element in a human being’s decision to accept the gospel: the necessity of some kind of leap of faith. The question of whether one could responsibly adopt the pragmatic method as one’s sole approach to apologetics hinges largely, it seems, on whether this is a reasonable assumption.

Enthusiasts for the fourth widely employed apologetic methodology, presuppositionalism, resemble adherents of the pragmatic school in that they consider demonstrative, noncircular proof of Christianity’s truthfulness to be impossible. Presuppositionalists, however, do not generally follow pragmatic apologists in arguing for Christianity exclusively on the basis of other worldviews’ putative unlivability. Rather, they argue that reality is ultimately intelligible only to one who presupposes the truthfulness of Christianity. In other words, whereas pragmatic apologists focus on the existential difficulties of worldviews that compete with Christianity, presuppositionalists highlight the logical inconsistencies of non-Christian outlooks with themselves and/or with intuitively obvious aspects of reality. The pragmatic and the presuppositional schools of apologetics, therefore, share fundamentally the same vision of the relation between the Christian faith and human reason. They differ strikingly, however, in how they apply that vision to the practice of Christian apologetics.

The fifth and newest widely endorsed method of Christian apologetics, finally, is the approach associated with so-called Reformed epistemology. Adherents of this school agree with the bulk of classical and exclusively historical apologists that non-Christian systems of belief need not be either internally inconsistent or flagrantly out of harmony with obvious truths. Proponents of Reformed epistemology differ from classical and exclusively historical apologists in that they consider proof that Christianity is at least probably true dispensable to reasonable Christian belief. According to Reformed epistemology, rather, one can responsibly consider Christian belief properly basic—that is, in no more need of justification than claims that are self-evident, evident from the senses, or incorrigible, claims such that one cannot help believing them.

One can reasonably ascribe proper basicality to Christian belief, in the view of Reformed epistemology’s supporters, because such belief at least conceivably constitutes the product of a properly functioning human faculty: the sensus divinitatis, or “sense of divinity.” This term, borrowed from John Calvin, refers, in the literature of Reformed epistemology, to a faculty capable of apprehending the truthfulness of the Christian faith. When one’s eyes, whose purpose it is to apprehend the visible, function properly, virtually all persons hold, one can reasonably believe that what one sees in front of one is actually there. The theorists of Reformed epistemology conclude, by parity of reasoning, that when a human being’s sensus divinitatis functions properly, one can reasonably believe Christianity, which it apprehends as true, to be true as well. It is important to note, however, that Reformed epistemology’s defenders do not profess to be capable of proving that human beings possess a sensus divinitatis.

Each of the five currently favored apologetic methodologies thus possesses its distinctive advantages and defects. The classical method, whose practitioners include Norman Geisler (1932–) and William Lane Craig (1949–), possesses the advantages of thoroughness and rigor. It suffers, however, from the defects of being cumbersome and, in a culture skeptical of abstract philosophizing, arguably outmoded. The exclusively historical method, employed, for example, by Gary Habermas (1950–) and John Warwick Montgomery (1931–), possesses the signal advantage of being direct and concrete. It suffers, however, from a corresponding lack of depth and comprehensiveness.

The pragmatic method, whose most distinguished practitioner was Edward John Carnell (1919–67), possesses the virtue of addressing non-Christians in terms of their own worldview in a way that is indubitably relevant to life. The pragmatic method, nevertheless, according to its own self-understanding, proves no distinctively Christian claims. Presuppositionalism, the apologetic methodology most closely associated with Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987), possesses the virtue of modesty inasmuch as its practitioners do not claim to be capable of proving Christianity true by any noncircular argument. Yet it is correspondingly audacious in its assumption that all non-Christian worldviews are, more or less, absurd. Reformed epistemology, finally, whose foremost proponents include Alvin Plantinga (1932–) and Nicholas Wolterstorff (1932–), appears charitable in its allowance that non-Christian worldviews may be self-consistent, yet also presumptuous in its ascription to every human being of a sensus divinitatis capable of apprehending the truthfulness of Christian belief. None of the widely embraced apologetic methodologies, therefore, appears utterly unproblematic. Each, however, possesses notable assets, which a skillful apologist can exploit to great advantage in apologetic/evangelistic argument.

Conclusion. The discipline of Christian apologetics, then, constitutes the science and practice of warranting Christian belief, rebutting objections to it, and arguing for the falsehood of non-Christian religions and worldviews. Certain scriptural passages, especially in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, have, admittedly, given rise to widespread doubt concerning the advisability and even the lawfulness of apologetic argument on Christianity’s behalf. Inasmuch as God explicitly commands Christians to cultivate Christian apologetics in 1 Peter 3:15, however, and includes apologetic argumentation within the inspired text of Scripture, it seems certain that Scripture does not even implicitly proscribe the employment of apologetic reasoning.

Methodologies of Christian apologetics include the classical method, the exclusively historical approach, the appeal to pragmatic considerations, the presuppositionalist approach, and the apologetic method associated with Reformed epistemology. Notwithstanding the lack of consensus among contemporary Christian apologists about questions of methodology, their work remains highly relevant to the needs of the church in the context of a hostile culture and necessary to the progress of evangelism in a religiously and ideologically pluralistic world.