Christian apologetics
In the modern period, Christianity was defended through the efforts of many authors such as John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis, as well as G. E. M. Anscombe.
According to Edgar J. Goodspeed in the first century CE Jewish apologetic elements could be seen in works such as The Wisdom of Solomon, Philo's On the Contemplative Life and more explicitly in Josephus' Against Apion.
[12][13] Aquinas also made significant criticisms of the ontological argument which resulted in its losing popularity until it was revived by René Descartes in his Meditations.
[14] Blaise Pascal outlined an approach to apologetics in his Pensées: "Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true.
Among Catholics there are Bishop Robert Barron, G. K. Chesterton,[17] Ronald Knox, Taylor Marshall, Arnold Lunn, Karl Keating, Michael Voris, Peter Kreeft, Frank Sheed, Dr. Scott Hahn, and Patrick Madrid.
Evangelical Norman Geisler, Lutheran John Warwick Montgomery and Presbyterian Francis Schaeffer were among the most prolific Christian apologists in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st, while Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til started a new school of philosophical apologetics called presuppositionalism, which is popular in Calvinist circles.
[22] In the 2nd century, apologetics was a defense or explanation of Christianity,[23] addressed to those standing in opposition and those yet to form an opinion, such as emperors and other authority figures, or potential converts.
[24] The earliest martyr narrative has the spokesman for the persecuted present a defense in the apologetic mode: Christianity was a rational religion that worshiped only God, and although Christians were law-abiding citizens willing to honor the emperor, their belief in a single divinity prevented them from taking the loyalty oaths that acknowledged the emperor's divinity.
[25] The apologetic historiography in the Acts of the Apostles presented Christianity as a religious movement at home within the Roman Empire and no threat to it and was a model for the first major historian of the Church, Eusebius.
[27] In addition to Origen and Tertullian, early Christian apologists include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus.
[29] Some scholars regard apologetics as a distinct literary genre exhibiting commonalities of style and form, content, and strategies of argumentation.
"[31] The verse quoted here reads in full: "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.
"[33][34] Other scriptural passages which have been taken as a basis for Christian apologetics include Psalm 19, which begins "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,"[35] and Romans 1, which reads "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Some scholars who have engaged in the defense of biblical inerrancy include Robert Dick Wilson, Gleason Archer, Norman Geisler and R. C. Sproul.
This view stresses experience that other apologists have not made as explicit, and in the end, the concept that the Holy Spirit convinces the heart of truth becomes the central theme of the apologetic argument.
These arguments present a case for the historicity of the resurrection of Christ per current legal standards of evidence or undermining the pagan myth hypothesis for the origin of Christianity.
The agnostic type of form-criticism would be much more credible if the compilation of the Gospels were much later in time.... Herodotus enables us to test the tempo of myth-making, [showing that] even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core.
[66] There are two main schools of presuppositional apologetics, that of Cornelius Van Til (and his students Greg Bahnsen and John Frame) and that of Gordon Haddon Clark.
In his book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner argues that only God knows the future and that Biblical prophecies of a compelling nature have been fulfilled.
[68] Apologist Josh McDowell documents the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Christ, relating to his ancestral line, birthplace, virgin birth, miracles, death, and resurrection.
[71][72] The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge...
"[78] One of the most influential examples[79] of a Christian-evolutionary synthesis is the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, which was intended as apologetics to the world of science,[80] but was later condemned by the Catholic Church.
They apply a literal interpretation to the primordial history in Genesis 1–11 – such as the long life spans of people such as Methuselah,[82] the Flood,[83][84] and the Tower of Babel.
