Tag: Norman Geisler

Norman Leo Geisler, 1932-2019: indefatigable and prolific Christian apologist

Norman L. Geisler (1960s)

In July of this year I wrote that in 1978:

At Gabe [Monheim]’s suggestion, I bought Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance for ten dollars at (a now long-gone) Christian Publications bookstore on 8th Avenue between 42nd and 43rd, smack-dab in then-den of iniquity called Times Square. . . . I also picked up Norman Geisler’s Christian Apologetics , Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict, and creationist critiques of evolution. This was my introduction to the intellectual side of Christian faith.

Despite the “connectivity” we enjoy these days, I didn’t know until the other day that Norman Geisler, the great classical Christian apologist—his CV is here—had passed away only a week before my July post.

A reflection of both his intellect and humor may be found in the title of one of his many books: Should Old Aquinas Be Forgotten? Why Many Evangelicals Say No: The Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas Considered. This conservative Protestant critic of Roman Catholic theology not only grew up among Catholics, but earned his doctorate in philosophy from Loyola University, a Jesuit institution. He coined “Triple-A Theism” to encapsulate his philosophical alignment with Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas. 

On April 4, 1980, after reading Christian Apologetics cover to cover, I wrote to Geisler, then a Professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary:

Dear Dr. Geisler,

Since your Christian Apologetics was decisive in establishing the intellectual side of my spiritual commitment, I write to you now believing you will once again be able to help me overcome certain difficulties in defending and developing a theistic philosophy. The difficulties, which I will state shortly, were occasioned by my reading of George Smith’s Atheism: The Case Against God (Kensington, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1979). I believe Smith’s case as a whole is well-stated . . . but can be answered only by challenging the positivistic rationalism which informs nearly all his arguments. While I am trying to do this now for my concerned Christian friends and my own philosophic development, I believe I will need the assistance of seasoned thinkers such as yourself in doing so.

The difficulties center on the notion of God. . . . First, if God is unlimited, but we know only of the limited and definite, then if we ascribe meaningful attributes to Him, we diminish Him, for He is unlimited and infinite. If we ascribe “unlimited” traits to Him—omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.—make Him unknowable, and our talk of Him is literally nonsense.

In short, we can have no notion of an infinite being, supreme in every way; what we have a genuine notion of cannot be God. The second difficulty . . . concerns one famous way out of the foregoing dilemma . . . : what we cannot know literally, we cannot know analogically.  If the supreme being evades characterization by knowable terms, we cannot have a knowable “analogical” notion of Him. Legitimate analogy presupposes a prior successful effort at definition and cannot constitute the heart of that effort. I do not believe you addressed this aspect of the problem of analogy in your Philosophy of Religion.  Can you give me a non-theistic example of analogical predication (not analogical articulation of what we already have a notion of)?

Any response to this letter will be most appreciated.  While awaiting it, I will peruse pertinent sections of your writings again to see if by carelessness I have missed the essentials of your forthcoming reply. [I did. See below] Also, if you are familiar with the Smith book, and know of any critical reviews of it (maybe even – dare I hope? – one by yourself), would you please let me know?  Thank you so much.

Yours in the Lord,

Ten days later Norman Geisler penned this response: Continue reading “Norman Leo Geisler, 1932-2019: indefatigable and prolific Christian apologist”

Evidence that demands a worldview: or how apologetics requires a metapologetics

Image result for evidence that demands a verdictThe new edition Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, edited with his son Sean, recently caught my eye on Amazon. The first edition did that over 40 years in Christian Publications’s bookstore in Manhattan (8th Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets).

Gabriel Monheim (1936-2015: this pic is circa 1979-80), who preached on Wall Street, recommended it to me in 1978. The occasion was my asking questions that someone (certainly an ex-Marxist graduate philosophy student) might have about the Bible.

The McDowells’ 700+-page tome is a compendium of orthodox Christian answers to (mainly) historical and archaeological objections to belief in the Bible as the Word of God written and to the many propositions that this belief logically commits the believer. That is, it’s a contribution to apologetics.

Mainly, but not exclusively. To address new versions of perennial philosophical objections the McDowells have added six chapters: “The Nature of Truth,” “The Knowability of Truth,” “Answering  Postmodernism,” “Answer Skepticism,” “Are Miracles Possible?,” and “Is History Knowable?”

Complementing this approach to apologetics for me are the works of Norman  Geisler (PhD, Loyola, 1970; b. 1932), whom I met at the 1982 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Geisler starts with defending theism, grounding his premises in principles that one cannot coherently deny. He then defends the historical reliability of the Bible. On its basis he argues for the deity of Jesus. Whatever Jesus teaches is true, and He taught the divine inspiration of the Old Testament and promised an inspired New Testament. Image result for norman geisler

Geisler’s apologetical method is commonly labeled. “evidentialist.” It’s also categorized as “classical” as distinct from the “presuppositional” approaches of Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) and Gordon H. Clark. (1902-1985).

Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) preaching on the steps of Federal Hall, Wall Street off Broad Street, NYC, 1978; in front of him, stands a former student and my friend, Eric Sigward (1946-2021). 

But facts bear an evidential relationship to each other only if certain background conditions obtain. They connect (a) facts to each other causally and (b) each of them to our evidence-weighing minds (c) within a world created by God. That’s the worldview that grounds the premises of sound classical apologetical arguments. It would take me years to accept that from Van Til (above left: on the steps of Federal Hall, Wall & Broad, NE corner, 1978, the year I began hearing Monheim preach just across Broad on my lunch hour; the man resting his chin on his left fist is my old friend Eric Sigward. ). My reading and interacting with Greg L. Bahnsen (1948-1995) made the decisive pedagogical difference.

God has (as it were) encoded these conditions into every human mind (Genesis 1:27; John 1:6; Romans 1:18-20), even minds that reject the Bible. The worldview expressed in the Bible, and only that one, explicates them. The Bible confirms as divine revelation what every human knower tacitly and spontaneously works with, but can justify (when justification is called for) only on the basis of the Bible.

When apologists argue with an unbeliever about, say, the authorship of Isaiah, they should be prepared, at a moment’s notice, to foreground the conditions of intelligible discourse.

Continue reading “Evidence that demands a worldview: or how apologetics requires a metapologetics”