INTRODUCTION TO APOLOGETICS

We now embark on a journey into the world of apologetics. Everyone chooses their eternal destination whether they like to admit it or not. Apologetics attempts to steer people into making the correct choice.

Many different choices arise for a person to choose from when this subject rears it’s sometimes ugly head. Indeed, many different religions compete for your attention like items from a restaurant menu. Atheism and agnosticism also appear for your viewing pleasure.

Apologetics attempts to steer you to Christianity by presenting many different forms of evidence. However, Christianity is not presented as just another choice we make while shopping at the supermarket. Indeed, Christianity proclaims itself as the antidote, not a lifestyle choice or element of a well-thought-out world view. In Holman’s Quicksource Guide to Christian Apologetics we read, “Like the antidote, it can be painful and inconvenient. It can be socially unacceptable. But most of all, it can be offensive.” What this series of blog posts will attempt to show is that Christianity is also the absolute truth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

This series on apologetics will be divided up into eight or nine (give or take a few) different sections. This first section will look at arguments for the existence of God.

We will investigate the cosmological argument for the existence of God first (specifically Kalam’s Argument), then the argument from efficient causality and also the argument from time and contingency.

In addition, we will look extensively at the argument from design, the argument from miracles and the argument from consciousness.

We will conclude this section on the existence of God on the moral argument. In addition we will take a light-hearted look at Pascal’s Wager.

FUTURE SECTIONS

Future sections of this blog series will deal with the nature of God, the problem of evil, God and grace, the reliability of the Bible, the resurrection, God and eternity, Christianity and other religions, objective truth, and finally, we will sum it all up with the bottom line.

THE ARGUMENT FROM AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

One argument we will look at in this post is one put forth by Peter Kreft in his “Handbook of Christian Apologetics.” The argument from aesthetic experience simply states that, “There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Therefore there must be a God. You either see this one or you don’t.”

CONCLUSION

Just so you know, I am not trying to reach Christians with these posts on apologetics. So don’t be surprised if you don’t see conclusive arguments proving Christianity at the beginning of this series. My first objective clarifies that a personal God exists. Once that is established we will press on to prove the personal God of Christianity is that God.