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Apologetics

What’s Wrong with Apologetics?

I’ve been an apologetics enthusiast ever since I watched William Lane Craig as a sophomore in high school. Like many, I grew up a little Craig-disciple echoing the oft repeated arguments I heard. I loved watching the debates, the conferences, the panels. (In fact, I wrote my high school senior thesis on the moral argument for God’s existence.) That love persisted throughout college as I chose to major in philosophy. At one point I wrote a post titled “4 Reasons Not to Dismiss Apologetics,” and the very first entries I wrote for this blog (six years ago now!) are titled, “Why I Believe in God” where I rehash a few of the standard theistic arguments. After graduate school, I even taught Apologetics at a Christian college. And through my current work, I still desire to engage in the task of defending and explaining the truth of the Christian faith. All of this to say, I have a deep appreciation for apologetics. But something has gone wrong in modern day apologetics, and I think it has something to do with the absence of a sapiential approach… Read More »What’s Wrong with Apologetics?

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4 Reasons to Go to Church and 2 Reasons Not to

Increasingly there are evangelical Christians who are growing irritated with their Christian practices. Women and men who have grown up their whole lives in evangelical culture begin to wonder if they’ve been misled their entire lives. They are tired of shallow, showy Christianity with empty platitudes and pious hypocrisy, and yet continue to dreadfully go to their Sunday services and small group Bible studies. With every Sunday, it’s one more negative experience.

What are frustrated evangelicals supposed to do about church?

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Believe the Right Things for the Right Reasons

One of my favorite passages in Plato’s Republic is in Book II immediately after Thrasymachus’ argument with Socrates concerning justice. Thrasymachus argues that justice is only the advantage of the stronger, and Socrates breaks down Thrasymachus’ argument. However, Glaucon, one of Socrates’ friends is unsatisfied with Socrates’ response and he says to him “Socrates, do you want to seem to have persuaded us that it is better in every way to be just than unjust or do you want to truly convince us of this?”  Socrates says, “I want truly to convince you if I can.” Glaucon then renews the argument of Thrasmymachus, not because he thinks it is true, (in fact he thinks it is untrue) but rather he wants the argument to receive the strongest response. Glaucon says, “It isn’t Socrates that I believe any of this myself. I’m perplexed, indeed, and my ears are deafened listening to Thrasymachus and countless others. But I’ve yet to hear anyone defend justice in the way I want, proving that it is better than injustice. I want to hear it praised by itself, and I think that I’m mostly likely to hear this from you.” He wants to put forward the strongest possible version of the argument so he can hear how Socrates might take it down.

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