“No, I’m philosophizing Christianly.[1] Together, let’s uncover the
worldview you’re defending (wittingly or otherwise).”
When an epistemologically self-conscious Christian makes a point that discomfits someone who’s not epistemologically self-conscious, it’s not long before the latter questions the former’s motive. “You’re not interested in the truth of the matter; you’re trying to sign me up for something, you special pleader you!” Since the Christian’s motive is not neutral, they suggest, it’s not pure. It’s suspect.
Christians who engage in apologetics are philosophizing—they’re pursuing wisdom at the highest level of generality—but they do so in dialogue with unbelievers (or inconsistent believers). The apologist may, if it’s called for, employ the analytical tools on display in articles published in peer-reviewed journals labeled “philosophical.”
Qua apologist, however, he is not necessarily trying to negotiate the conceptual terrain at the highest level of analytical exactitude. That is partly because the latter is not necessary for the apologist’s task, which is to present the excellent message or “news” (εὐαγγέλιον, evangelion) of Jesus Christ and demolish the objections to it, if any, that his auditor may throw back at him.
There’s a time and place for analytical depth and scholarly excellence, but the motive of apologetic theoria is to be found in polemical give-and-take of apologetic praxis. The Christian “lover of wisdom” (for whom Christ is the Wisdom of God) does not do apologetics “for its own sake” or to impress his fellows in the common room. He’s trying to get the other guy to recognize his need for peace with God and hopes God will use his (the apologist’s) effort to remove obstacles to that recognition. God has, of course, already ordained the outcome; it’s a discovery process for both parties.
The apologist approaches his audience, be they friends, strangers, or enemies, as created divine image bearers who, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, are living in God’s world. He doesn’t bracket that anthropology unless it helps show the folly to which the alternative anthropology is ordered. That is, he does not join them in pretending that they’re all playing roles on a stage constructed on the presupposition of neutrality toward God. (The other guy may pretend this, but not the apologist, at least not integrally.)
The Gospel comes first: you can have peace with God (εἰρήνην πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, eirēnēn pros ton Theon) only through the atoning work of Christ. (Romans 5:1) (If you say you don’t care a fig about such peace, then perhaps we should have a conversation about what you do care about.) The philosopher who pretends neutrality toward God will attempt to control the conversation (dialogue, polemic) according to norms he believes we all agree upon. If, however, they’re genuine norms, ones we ought to honor, he cannot account for them without surreptitiously appealing to principles that make sense only on the Christian worldview.
To “the Greek” of the Apostle Paul’s day, represented today by various species of secularist, that message is moronic (μωρίαν, mōrian; 1 Corinthians 1:18). If you presuppose the truth of that message and what it entails and expect to be taken seriously, your auditor will look at his watch and hope he has somewhere else to be; maybe he’ll pick this up with you at a later date as did the Greeks on Mars Hill (Acts 17:32). If peace with God is your goal, however, then your abstract theorizing is not rightly ordered. It’s up to the apologist to demonstrate the consequences of that disorder for the thinking of his audience. Paul meant business, and so do I:
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom (σοφίᾳ, sophia), lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly (μωρία, mōria) to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”[2] Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1:17-25, ESV).
Merry Christmas!
For further reading
-
- Bill Vallicella on Cornelius Van Til: An open mind and heart, January 23, 2019
- Philosophy: its descent from loving wisdom to studying problems, January 28, 2019
- Christ, our philosophical GPS, February 5, 2019
- Do atheists have an excuse?, March 15, 2019
- Christian worldview apologists don’t beg questions. We ask them. February 20, 2020
- Christian worldview apologists don’t beg questions. We ask them. Part 2, May 12, 2020
- The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God Revisited: Toward a Response to Bill Vallicella, October 31, 2023
Notes
[1] Anthony Flood, Philosophy after Christ: Thinking God’s Thoughts after
Him, Amazon, 2022. Posts on this site of ancestors of some of its chapters are listed immediately above.
[2] Paul is recalling this portion of Isaiah’s prophecy: “behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom (חָכְמַ֣ת, hakemat) of their wise men (חֲכָמָ֔יו, hakemaw) shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden” (Isaiah 29:14 (ESV)