We live in a world where many people view religious people as archaic, superstitious throwbacks to a pre-scientific era. The world tends to think of religion as a thing of the past - at least those religions that make claims about truth and absolutes. But these beliefs are nothing new. Indeed, atheism, physicalism and materialism have been around since before the Greek philosophers wrote. And paganism and pantheism have been around even before that. The modern scientific error may have added some new doctrines to the non-believers religion, but the religion of non-belief is an old one indeed.

And because Christian (and other) faith has been under assault for millenia, there have been those Christians in the past who have risen to the challenge of answering the critics and skeptics. "Apologetics" is that branch of religious study that endeavors to "give an account of the hope that is within" as Peter admonished Christians to do. This paper will attempt to provide a foundation for and review of basic Christian apologetics.

But before we turn to methods of apologia, we should first clarify what the purpose and constraints of apologetics are.

In practicing apologetics, we must keep in mind the two-fold purpose of apologetics:

• Remove false and unnecessary obstacles to belief
• To debunk and expose bad philosophy and poor thinking

Having stated our purpose in pursuing apologetics, we must also keep in mind the limitations of apologetics:

1. We must recognize that people are not converted by argument - they are converted by the Spirit of God. It is not the purpose or goal of apologetics to bring people to faith.
2. We must recognize that the things we are saying will upset people - because we are challenging their basic worldview - the way they interpret everything that happens to them. There are two consequences of challenging people on this level:

   1. Some people will cling to their belief system - even when shown to be erroneous or weak - with a great zeal (it is interesting to note that the people most reluctant to step away from their beliefs and objectively evaluate their worldview are usually atheists and the supposedly truth-seeking empiricists and evidentialists).

      There was a man who had come under the impression that he was dead. His family took him to psychologist after psychologist in an attempt to uproot the mental distortion. He was subjected to psychotherapy, gestalt therapy, Jungian analysis and on and on. Nothing worked. Then one practical psychologist decided direct confrontation was the best approach. He asked the man, "Are you dead?" "Why, yes" the man replied. "Well, do dead men bleed?" the doctor queried. Smiling, the man said, "Of course not, everyone knows dead men don't bleed." The doctor promptly removed a safety pin from his pocket, unfastened it and proceeded to prick the man's finger - drawing a prominent drop of blood. "Well I'll be!" the man exclaimed, "Dead men DO bleed!"

      This is exactly how many non-believers will respond to the exposition of the failures of their atheistic worldviews. We should not be frustrated with this response. Remember: the goal is to remove obstacles, not convert people.

   2. We may develop a tendency to rely on our intellect rather than on God. The ability to disrupt a person's basic way of looking at the world can create pride or conceit - it is, like all knowledge, a form of power. We must carefully guard our hearts to not become callous to the existential despair of those we are dealing with.

      While knowledge and intelligence are useful in the sharing of our faith, we must never come to rely on these secondary tools rather than on God. The non-believer must rely completely on these flawed pillars of understanding - and part of our apologetic approach is to demonstrate just how flawed they really are - but the Christian recognizes the limitations and humble status of human understanding, and ultimately relies on faith (while acknowledging the limited utility of human reason).

3. We don't have all the answers. There will be issues at which we may simply shrug our shoulders and admit that we don't know. Our belief is not based on whether we can answer all the questions or prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. For instance, suppose a crime is committed. A careful collection of the evidence reveal your fingerprints at the crime scene - a place you would not normally be, you have no alibi for the period during which the crime is committed, and a sufficient motive is established to make you a reasonable suspect. All the circumstantial evidence points to your guilt. Yet you know you did not commit the crime. Will your inability to contravert the evidence make you believe you are guilty? Of course not. And our inability to answer every question should not cause us to doubt what we already know. Further, as we will see, our belief system is in much more consistent agreement with the evidence than any other provided - so our inability to answer a few questions does not weaken the overall strength of the position.

With these things in mind, there are some additional things we must keep in mind in practicing apologetics:

• People who talk more than they listen end up answering questions no one is asking.

  We must remember that we are practicing apologetics to help people come to belief, not to win arguments or feel superior. Compassion and love should motivate and direct us.

• Most people are not going to believe.

  Perhaps one of the most frustrating - yet most evident - aspect of the Christian faith is that, as Jesus said, "wide is the way...that leads to destruction" and "narrow is the way...that leads to eternal life". In our attempts to share our faith during our earthly lives, we will encounter many more people who simply cannot submit to the lordship of Christ than those who will. The duty of apologetics is to simple demonstrate that the reason people refuse to believe is not an intellectual problem, but a spiritual one. People don't avoid belief in Jesus because it is unreasonable or irrational, but because it requires a commitment that most are simply not willing to make.

  Jump to part 2, Types of Christian Apologetics