to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15 and, it's a young world after all (with apologies to Disney).
Learning to reason within ourselves and later, unbelievers, about our Christian faith is known as 'apologetics'. Sounds like we're saying 'sorry' but, no.
apologia implies not admission of guilt or regret but a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position.
An apologia and an apology usually aren't the same thing. An apology includes an admission of wrongdoing, but an apologia rarely apologizes in this sense, instead seeking to justify what was done. So, for example, in 1992 some of the books published for the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage were apologias explaining why European powers such as Spain acted as they did in the New World: because, for example, the Aztecs were a cruel people, practicing human sacrifice in grotesque ways (victims were skinned, and their skins were worn by the high priests).
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apologia
We're looking at an article titled "The 10 Best Evidences from Science that Confirm a Young Earth"
Rather ironically, the article includes a video that argues evidence is not the correct basis for defending the truth of the Christian faith. Let's see what you think.
Homework: What do you think is the most interesting point in the article "10 Best Evidences..."? Give me at least a few sentences.
Learning to reason within ourselves and later, unbelievers, about our Christian faith is known as 'apologetics'. Sounds like we're saying 'sorry' but, no.
apologia implies not admission of guilt or regret but a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position.
An apologia and an apology usually aren't the same thing. An apology includes an admission of wrongdoing, but an apologia rarely apologizes in this sense, instead seeking to justify what was done. So, for example, in 1992 some of the books published for the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage were apologias explaining why European powers such as Spain acted as they did in the New World: because, for example, the Aztecs were a cruel people, practicing human sacrifice in grotesque ways (victims were skinned, and their skins were worn by the high priests).
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apologia
We're looking at an article titled "The 10 Best Evidences from Science that Confirm a Young Earth"
Rather ironically, the article includes a video that argues evidence is not the correct basis for defending the truth of the Christian faith. Let's see what you think.
Homework: What do you think is the most interesting point in the article "10 Best Evidences..."? Give me at least a few sentences.
9 comments:
I think that the most interesting point in this video is his reasons for believing the faith, namely, presuppositional apologetics. In presuppositional apologetics the Bible is used as ultimate standard even when you are defending the Bible. I believe that this is the only way to support and defend our faith. We should not use evidentialism to defend the faith (the belief that evidence is the only reason for our faith. We should also not believe the Scriptures because it is the most probable worldview (Probablistic approach), or fideism which is purely faith. We do need to have faith and evidence, but we can't have each of them alone. The only way to support the Bible completely is presuppositional apologetics.
I like how the speaker directly addresses fideism, because many 'Christians' say that they are christian because they just are. They don't give people a reason and therefore make the faith look bad and turn many people away. The bible demands you to be prepared to answer why you believe in God. Christians must be equipped with the facts and arguments to survive in this world. Many people I meet say they are christian but they don't know why. Once you challenge them they completely fall apart.
The thing that I found the most interesting is his whole argument against evidence. He says that evidence will never convince a person, no matter how convincing our argument is. People will always find a way to refute our evidence. He says that evidence by itself is never decisive, and we can never use evidence by itself to convert people to Christianity or to change their worldview. Even people in the Bible who saw the resurrected Christ did not believe in Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. Evidence can get non-Christians thinking, but it cannot convert them. Only the Holy Spirit can do this.
I found it interesting when he said that in what world view is Christ's death and resurrection proof of the Christian faith. I find this interesting because it is right that for Christian's that is their proof but for the atheist they need to first believe if he was real or how he came about to this world through a virgin. In other words, they need a different proof first in order for them to come to believe what many find easy to believe in.
In the article, I found it interesting that people have actually found soft tissue in "old fossils". i actually heard about a story of a woman who found certified dinosaur bones with soft tissue in it. because this soft tissue proved the young earth scientist refused to accept it into their lab and publicate the news. i found interesting in the video that the speaker told of how their were more than one way of looking at things and proof for the christian faith could be counteracted by simply ignorance. So many times have there been proof that were simply discarded because of ignorance.Even in the bible there have been accounts that have shown how people did not believe even after seeing the living God. I would think that this would be enough proof for belief. If found it extremely interesting that the speaker said that worldly proof should not have to be used, people should simply believe the word of God.👍👌
The most interesting point in the video is the difference between Presuppositional Apologetics and Evidential Apologetics. Those who believe in Evidential Apologetics believe that evidence is always the final authority. Everything can be proven through sufficient evidence, even the Bible. They believe that if "unbelievers simply had enough evidence, they would believe." However, evidence doesn't always convince people. Jesus showed himself to many after his resurrection, however, some still doubted. They had all the evidence they needed and yet they still did not believe. However, Presuppositionalists believe that the Bible is the final authority. Nothing is a higher authority and can prove the truth of the Bible other than the Bible itself. I think that this is an intriguing difference as many try to step a foot in both camps.
The most interesting point brought up was the difference between presuppositional apologetics and evidential apologetics. presuppositional apologetics isn't probabilistic, the way most Christians argue, and it isn't fideism either, you can't argue that the Bible is true because the bible is true. Evidentialistic apologetics is more about the idea that we make evidence the ground truth. Most Christians use evidence to show non-Christians why the Bible is true, but no matter what evidence we put in front of them they will deny it all. One cannot depend on evidence alone to convince a non-christian of the truth value of the Bible. Presuppositional apologetics is using the Bible to defend the Bible. The speaker said that it is not circular reasoning as most people (Christians) would think. The analogy he gave was that it is possible to defend a hill while standing on top of it. We, as Christians, can stand on the Word of God while defending the inerrancy of it. 1 Corinthians 2:5 "so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power."
This speaker made a very interesting point when he said that to defend the word of God you need to use Scripture to prove that it is true. For example, he stated that many Christians expect secular people to follow all the evidence around us and that will lead them to God. However, they are looking at the world with a different lens so evidence that we see for God they can just as easily see for evolution. Although the speaker pointed out that there is nothing wrong with showing atheists the evidence for Scripture, Christians should not place their faith in science, we should place it in the unchanging Bible. As it says in Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." We should therefore put our trust in the Bible and lead non-Christians to Jesus through the Bible.
In my opinion, one of the most interesting points made in this video is the speaker's reasons for believing the faith. We can use presuppositional apologetics to back up our faith instead of evidentialism. In presuppositional apologetics the Bible is used as the ultimate standard even when we are defending the Bible. While evidentialism is the belief that evidence is the only reason for our faith. We should use presuppositional apologetics in defending our faith instead of evidentialism because we can't really prove or give evidence of faith.
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