Apologetics Questions (From book, notes, and others)

Question 1

How does Van Til define apologetics?

Answer 1

Apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life.

Question 2

What does Van Til believe about neutrality?

Answer 2

There is no neutrality. Cannot prove the gospel simply by appealing to evidence or logical demonstration

Question 3

Why is Van Tillian apologetics called presuppositionism?

Answer 3

Unless one supposes God, it is impossible to make intelligible predications

Question 4

What is the sense of deity?

Answer 4

All men are in contact by God’s revelation. Creation in the Imago Dei, and the creation itself. Self-consciousness presupposed God-consciousness

Question 5

What is antithesis?

Answer 5

The covenantal and ethical chasm between believers and unbelievers.

Question 6

Why covenantal (presuppositional apologetics)?

Answer 6

Must proceed on the basis of reality and not the basis of illusion. Not what opponents assume is appropriate, as other approaches typically do

Question 7

What passage is essential for Reformed apologetics?

Answer 7

Romans 1:18-23, as all men know God exists (not just “a God”)

Question 8

How can man be said to be irrational?

Answer 8

We sinfully and deceptively convince ourselves that what is actually true about the world is not true….

Question 9

Where should apologetics begin?

Answer 9

With the Triune God, because any defense without the Triune God is a defense of a false theism.

Question 10

Where do we find in Scripture that all people know the true God, yet suppress this knowledge?

Answer 10

Romans 1:18-20, as it says that all people know God

Question 11

Argument for the Resurrection

Answer 11

1. Jesus was a historical person
2. Tomb empty after 3 days
3. Best explanation is that he was raised from the dead.

Question 12

Innerancy

Answer 12

As coming from God, the Bible is inerrant.
- “Inerrant in all its real affirmations”

Question 13

How do we know that the Bible is reliable?

Answer 13

• Ultimately, we know from the witness of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures
• Manuscript evidence
• Early writings
• Quotations of Church Fathers, etc….

Question 14

What is Classical Apologetics?

Answer 14

Emphasizes the use of logical criteria.
- Starts using logical proofs for theism and then moves to Scripture afterwards
- Aquinas is seen as the foundational person in this apologetic method
- Reason is a more neutral ground on which to start.
- Faith and logic. Conclusions that follow from certain premises.
- The Ontological argument from Anselm or Aquinas Unmoved Mover Argument
- Aimed with showing why the faith is reasonable.
- Unbeliever made in the image of God and shares in that world with beleivers.

Question 15

What is the Ontological Argument for the existence of God?

Answer 15

1. God is being greater than nothing that can be conceived
2. God exists as an idea in the mind
3. A being existing in reality greater than what we can conceive in the mind
   Get more….
   - Aquinas

Question 16

Unmoved Mover Argument for the Existence of God

Answer 16

1. Unchanged Changer 2. Effects must have a beginning 3. God is self-caused 4. God cause of all things.

Question 17

Evidential Apologetics

Answer 17

Seeks to ground the Christian faith primarily on empirically and historically verifiable facts
- Argue that high degree of probability based upon the facts. Use the evidence of creation, inspiration, and divine identity of Christ
- Proponents: Joseph Butler is the pioneer. Most recent is John Warwick Montgomery

Question 18

What is Fideism?

Answer 18

Faith as something private and internalist, not about externals. Subjective and about feeling
- Proponents: Kierkegaard and Lutheran Pietism, Neo Orthodox

Question 19

The Problem of Evil

Answer 19

The problem of evil is something that can only really be discussed by theists, as other accounts for evil’s existence tend to downplay it. Problem of evil assumes God’s existence

Question 20

What is Privation?

Answer 20

The idea that evil, strictly speaking, does not exists. Only God exists. Many Reformed went this route

Question 21

What are Thomas’s five ways to demonstrate God’s existence?

Answer 21

1. From motion
2. From cause/ effect
3. From contingency/necessity
4. From gradations of being
5. From design

Question 22

What is the Ontological Argument for God’s existence?

Answer 22

The ontological argument reasons from the idea of God as the greatest, most perfect, or necessary being to the existence of that God.
- First formulated by Anselm of Canterbury

Question 23

What is the cosmological argument?

Answer 23

Reasons from the existence of the world to the existence of God
- Made most popular by Aquinas, though William Lane Craig is a very prominent voice in this more recently

Question 24

What is the teleological argument?

Answer 24

Reasons from the evidence of design in the world to the existence of God as the one who created things with a specific purpose or goal

Question 25

What is the moral argument?

Answer 25

Reasons from the objectivity and absolute character of moral judgments to the existence of a transcendent God as the ground of morality.

Question 26

How do evidentialist usually argue from creation to God?

Answer 26

They rework the teological argument, usually saying that the factors had to be just right for their to be existence. This is evidence for God

Question 27

Is there a place for evidence in apologetics?

Answer 27

Evidences are valid, yet should not be left to the interpretation of individuals who reason to serve their own desires. Should emphasize how God interprets these facts in Scripture