There are a lot of approaches that can be taken. Different ones are better in different circumstances, and we don't have to take only one approach toward a given individual. I want to recommend several approaches, among others that could be used, with links to relevant posts.
Just as there isn't any easy way to answer every objection to Christianity, there isn't any easy way to argue for the religion as a whole. The same is true of other worldviews. There is no easy way to answer every objection or argue for your beliefs as a whole if you're an atheist, Muslim, or Hindu. About a decade ago, this is how I began my contribution to an e-book written by a few of us on the Triablogue staff:
We live in a complicated universe. No worldview has an easy answer for every question. There are advantages to complexity, though. The depth of human relationships makes life more enjoyable in some ways, but more difficult in other ways. The complexities of language are an advantage in some contexts and a disadvantage in others. Life involves a lot of tradeoffs. One thing is gained at the expense of something else. Any belief system can be made to look bad by inordinately focusing on some elements of it while neglecting others. (The Infidel Delusion, 5)
Having said all of that, we need to make decisions about where to begin in a discussion with a non-Christian. I can't cover all of the ground here, but I want to recommend some resources.
If you're interacting with an atheist or agnostic, for example, you could appeal to philosophical and scientific arguments for God's existence. You could also appeal to video evidence for miracles, especially if you're interacting with somebody who claims that there is no such evidence or that such evidence would be significant to him. To make a case more specifically for Christianity, you should familiarize yourself with the reasoning behind the traditional Christian arguments for the religion and be prepared to provide an overview to others. See here. You can appeal to prophecy fulfillment based on common ground with the non-Christian, namely evidence from the modern world and evidence from the ancient world that non-Christians often accept. You can also argue for Jesus' resurrection from non-Christian sources, in the sense of either people who were non-Christians prior to seeing Jesus risen from the dead or people who remained non-Christians, but corroborated the resurrection to some extent.
Those are just several examples. You can find more in our archives. And we have a lot of material that can be used to go beyond the earliest steps in arguing for Christianity. See here, for example, on arguing for the superiority of the Christian system of miracles over competing systems.
Thanks Jason. Generally speaking this looks like a fairly traditional evidentialist approach. Clearly this classical approach has many merits. Maybe you've written about it somewhere, but what's your take on presuppositionalism / TAG a la VanTil & Bahnsen, and to a different degree Frame?
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of forms of presuppositionalism, and I have different degrees of familiarity with different forms. I agree with some aspects of presuppositionalism, disagree with some, and am undecided about others. If a person categorizes certain arguments as presuppositional (e.g., the argument from reason, the moral argument), then I think there are some good presuppositional arguments for theism. But theism isn't equivalent to Christianity. I see no reason to think that something like Trinitarianism or the canonicity of Jude is a necessary presupposition. I'm not aware of any good argument that the Christian worldview, Christianity, the God of Christianity, scripture, or some other such entity is a necessary presupposition. Others on this blog, like Steve Hays, Paul Manata, and Peter Pike, have written on issues like these before. Peter's article here, for example, makes some good points about problems with certain forms of presuppositionalism.
DeleteWhen you're addressing a subject like what I was addressing in the original post in this thread, you have to take into account factors like the nature of the culture you're interacting with. What sort of knowledge of the relevant issues do people typically have? What are their interests, how have people typically responded to particular types of arguments in the past, what time constraints are normally involved, etc.?
Even if an atheist, for example, is assuming something in his worldview or argument that requires theism in some sense, it doesn't necessarily follow that you should be focused primarily on that issue or even bring it up at all. Let's say the discussion is about Jesus' resurrection. That's the issue everybody in the discussion is focused on. That's what they're most interested in. There's no reason to expect them to have comparable or greater knowledge of and interest in the presuppositional issue underlying the discussion. And you have highly limited time to interact with the people involved. In that kind of situation, I think it's best to be highly selective in what you address, and focusing on historical or other arguments for Jesus' resurrection would typically make more sense than trying to shift the focus of the discussion to the presuppositional issue in question. You could take a varied approach, in which you briefly mention the presuppositional argument while remaining primarily focused on something like making a historical argument for Jesus' resurrection. I do that sort of thing at times, and I think it often has merit. But factors like the ones I've mentioned above (e.g., time constraints) have to be taken into account.
I should add that I have some books and articles by people like John Frame and James Anderson that I got at Steve's recommendation, which I haven't read yet. I intend to get to them eventually, so I will be reading more from the presuppositional perspective in the future. And I often interact with presuppositionalists in other contexts, like here. So, I'll be learning more about presuppositionalism over time, and maybe I'll change my mind on some things.
That's a well reasoned response, thanks.
DeleteJason thanks for such an important post. 'The Infidel Delusion' is an excellent resource. I am glad you are reminding people of it's fine value.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Delete