Markos Apologetics for the Twenty-First Century

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2465-3
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 272 Seiten

The vibrant and persuasive arguments of C. S. Lewis brought about a shift in the discipline of apologetics, moving the conversation from the ivory tower to the public square. The resulting strain of popular apologetics-which weaves through Lewis into twentieth-century writers like Francis Schaeffer and modern apologists like William Lane Craig, Josh McDowell, and Lee Strobel-has equipped countless believers to defend their faith against its detractors. Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century uses Lewis's work as the starting point for an absorbing survey of the key apologists and major arguments that inform apologetics today. Like apologists before him, Markos writes to engage Christians of all denominations as well as seekers and skeptics. His narrative, 'man of letters' style and short chapters make Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century easily accessible for the general reader. But an extensive and heavily annotated bibliography, detailed timeline, list of prominent apologists, and glossary of common terms will satisfy the curiosity of the seasoned academic, as the book prepares all readers to meet the particular challenges of defending the faith today. 

Louis Markos (PhD, University of Michigan) is professor of English and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. He is the author of twelve books and has published over 120 book chapters, essays, and reviews in various magazines and journals. He lives in Houston with his wife, Donna, and their two children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Markos, Louis

Leseproben

PREFACE

Since the dawn of Christianity, philosophers and theologians from Paul to Augustine to Aquinas to Luther to Pascal have sought to defend the faith from its detractors and to demonstrate that Christianity both “makes sense” and has the power to explain the nature of God, man, and the universe. People who make such a defense are known as apologists (from the Greek word for “defense”), and though no generation of believers has been without them, the twentieth century saw a vast increase in the number of working apologists, an increase that has continued unabated into the third millennium. In this book I will survey both the major apologists and the major arguments that have come to the defense of historical, orthodox Christianity over the last century. Throughout the book, my focus will remain on the more popular (as opposed to academic) strain of apologetics that finds its greatest single source in the work of C. S. Lewis, that is written in lay terms, that does not require previous training in philosophy, theology, or biblical studies, that seeks to find common ground between believers and nonbelievers and between different Christian denominations, and that maintains a pragmatic, this-worldly edge.

After an introductory chapter in which I define what apologetics both is and is not, discuss how the triumph of secular Enlightenment modernism has fueled the recent explosion of apologetics, and give reasons why C. S. Lewis remains the most successful apologist of the twentieth century, I will move swiftly into a six-chapter survey of Lewis’s major apologetic works and arguments. I will begin in chapter 2 by tracing Lewis’s attempt to demonstrate that both our yearnings for something that transcends the natural world and our built-in understanding of the moral code (what he calls the Tao) are observed phenomena that cannot be explained solely by recourse to natural, physical, or material processes. Having established the centrality of the Tao to Lewis’s apologetics, I will go on in chapter 3 to present Lewis’s argument that our inability to follow the Tao leads directly to the Christian solution. I will discuss here as well Lewis’s most famous apologetical argument: Christ could have only been one of three things—liar, lunatic, or Lord. In chapters 4 and 5 I will present Lewis’s answers to the problem of pain and to the modern denial of miracles. In the former, Lewis will help us understand our status as fallen creatures; in the latter, he will help us see that miracles, far from violating the laws of nature, reveal God’s greater design. Just as skeptics argue that the presence of pain and suffering in our world contradicts the Christian teaching that God is a God of love, so do they argue that such a God could never confine a person to hell. Chapter 6 will be devoted to explicating Lewis’s argument that, given the nature of God and his gift to us of free will, the existence of hell is not only theologically but psychologically necessary. Finally, in chapter 7 I will consider how Lewis championed the mythic elements of Christianity as arguments its universal truth and power. Specifically, I will analyze Lewis’s belief that Christ was the myth made fact and will demonstrate, through a brief look at the Chronicles of Narnia, how Lewis was able to unite reason and imagination in his fiction.

Chapters 8 and 9 will be devoted to studying the two major apologetical works of G. K. Chesterton, a man whose witty and literate defenses of Christianity exerted a lasting influence on Lewis. First I will consider how, in , Chesterton contrasts the gloominess and self-contradictory beliefs of modernism with the robust health and paradoxical truths of Christianity. I will then turn my attention to Chesterton’s wholly unique survey of Christian history, . Through a close reading of this classic work, I will show how skillfully Chesterton critiques modern evolutionary thought, presents Christ as the culmination of the ancient world, and defends the church’s defense of orthodoxy. Chapter 10 will shift the focus to a third British apologist who shared the wit, imagination, and wide learning of Lewis and Chesterton—Dorothy Sayers. In , Sayers offers an intriguing analogy between the triune nature of God and the human creative process that both substantiates the reality of the Trinity and sheds light on the origin of evil and free will.

Chapters 11 and 12 will move the book back across the Atlantic to consider the work of two key American apologists who set the stage for most of the apologetics that would follow. An overview of the apologetics trilogy of Francis Schaeffer will help explain his argument that after the Enlightenment, science, logic, and reason became divided from religion, revelation, and faith. Josh McDowell’s highly influential , as well as his influential and very American apologetical style, will be the focus of chapter 12. I shall show how McDowell, in all his works, puts a heavy emphasis on biblical reliability, the claims of Christ, and the testimonies of experts and converts.

In the second half of the book, I will shift my focus from specific apologists to general apologetic themes and arguments. Rather than analyze single works, I will borrow more generally from the work of such key apologists as Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, Gary Habermas, Alister McGrath, J. P. Moreland, Phillip E. Johnson, William Dembski, Francis Collins, Don Richardson, Alvin Plantinga, and N. T. Wright. Chapters 13, 14, and 15 will all offer different perspectives on the arguments for the existence of God. I will begin by focusing on more classical arguments borrowed from the worlds of philosophy and logic. Next I shall seek out arguments from the world of modern science, particularly the discovery that the universe is not eternal but was created at the big bang. Finally, I shall wrestle again and more fervently with the issue that turns the most people away from God: the problem of pain.

Chapters 16, 17, and 18 will take up one of the key concerns of apologetics: the defense of the Bible as an accurate witness to the work of the divine in the world. First, I will present arguments for the overall reliability of the scriptural record. Second, I will consider specifically the historicity of the Gospels and the claims of Christ. Third, I shall survey the many arguments that have been marshaled to the defense of the most important historical claim of Christianity—that Jesus Christ, after lying dead for three days, rose bodily from the grave on Easter morning.

In the final six chapters of the book, I will zero in on some of the recent developments in apologetics. Thus chapter 19 will contrast Christianity with other world religions and argue for the exclusivity of the gospel, while chapter 20 will expose both the errors and dangers of the growing interest in the Gnostic gospels, an interest evidenced in the success of and controversy over Dan Brown’s novel, . That the issues raised in chapters 19 and 20 are such pressing ones bears witness to the rapid growth of postmodern thought in America. In reaction to that growth, chapter 21 will consider new approaches that apologists have taken to reach postmoderns who yearn for spirituality but are strongly suspicious of religion, especially “institutional” religion.

Chapters 22 and 23 will enter into two of the major apologetical battlefields of the last decade—the arguments that the intelligent design movement has leveled against Darwinism and then the rise of a new and more aggressive form of atheism. Finally, in chapter 24 I will take a close look at the conversion to deism of the octogenarian atheist philosopher Antony Flew and the book he wrote to document his conversion: .

Although this book was conceived and written as a single, unified manuscript, it does incorporate some ideas and passages from my previously published work. Several years ago I published two works (the first a lecture series, the second a book) that discuss, among other things, the apologetic arguments and approaches of C. S. Lewis: (The Teaching Company, 2000), and (Broadman & Holman, 2003). There is, of necessity, some overlap between several portions of those two works and several portions of chapters 2–7 of this book. Readers who wish to explore further the apologetics of C. S. Lewis are encouraged to consult these works. Portions of chapters 11, 19, and 24 have also appeared before, in altered form, as, respectively, “Apologetics for the 20th Century: The Legacy of Francis Schaeffer,” in volume 22, Number 2 of ; “An Open Letter to Lovers of ,” in the November/December 2007 issue of ; and “Holy Probable: A Review Essay of by Antony Flew,” in the May 2008 issue of .

I have dedicated this book to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, but I would like to acknowledge as well the kind support and encouragement of a number of administrators at Houston Baptist University: Robert Sloan ...