Apologetics 101

Yesterday, as I worked out with Roy, my fitness trainer, we started out for a walk, which to me at first glance, looked impossible. Sure enough, my ego ruptured as I stopped halfway up the hill, sucking air like a fish out of water. Oh, how I wish I could have slid unnoticed down a storm drain out to sea. Being the perfect guide, Roy reminded me that we were going at my pace and this glitch was just something we were working on improving. Problem solved.

As we advance on the spiritual journey our road ahead is covered with glitches. There are areas of knowledge in defending our faith that seem impossible to understand. We want to be pleasing to God in every way. Walking strong and tall for his cause, taking prisoners for Christ as we stroll in his light. But sometimes we have to slow down, evaluate our own spiritual fitness, and jump into learning basic truths and what those opposed to them, are arguing. We must also rely heavily on our spiritual trainer, Jesus Christ, to encourage us on our way.

Apologetics, AKA defending faith, is one of those areas in our faith journey in which each one of us could use some training. This information is hard to get a firm grasp on. The concepts are dry like jogging in the desert while stuffing your mouth full of saltines. But we’re going to try to change that in the coming weeks by dissecting four principles of belief which are attacked by atheists. These principals relate to how our logical minds work as outlined by R.C. Sproul in his challenging book, “Defending Faith.” He outlines these following principals: 1.) The law of non-contradiction; 2.) The law of causality; 3.) The basic reliability of sense perception; and 4.) The analogical use of language.

Take a swig of water ’cause here we go! The non-contradiction argument assumes the truth in the Bible is valid and cannot be contradictory. Atheists want you to believe differently.

They argue that all truth is relevant; the Word of God contends that there is a Truth that transcends the universe—a truth that is the norm and fountain of all truth. This is where Aristotle jumps in with his “Aristotelian logic…The law of non-contradiction states that it is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same subject.” (A cannot be A and non-A at the same time). He argued that “logic is a necessary tool for human thinking and communication, as well as a means for us to comprehend the rational structure of the universe. Denying this law would be like saying the paper you are reading is not a paper but a duck. RC Sproul put the argument to bed by saying: “If the only way one can escape from belief in God is by denying logic, then so be it.” When you THINK about it, you really can’t argue with the irrational statement that logic is relative, because that thought is illogical! So we made it through the first argument… see ya next time!