The Grand Coherence, Chapter 1: The Task of Apologetics

This post is part of the book The Grand Coherence: A Modern Defense of Christianity. For all the links in the book, see this introductory post. To listen to this chapter, go to this link: Chapter 1.

Is the Christian religion true? On what grounds are we entitled to believe that it is? How strong is the evidence for it? This book seeks to answer those questions using reasoning and argument, and concludes that the Christian faith is true. That makes this a book of apologetics, and me an apologist.

Christian apologists like me never seem to be completely successful. We always leave some people unconvinced. I think Christian apologetics can nonetheless do a lot of good. It can break down the certainty of unbelief, remove intellectual stumbling blocks to faith, educate and fortify half-made believers, edify and gladden the devout, and transmit tradition. It is often useful, too, in refuting the heresies that corrupt the Church from within, because orthodoxy is the most rational and coherent version of the Christian faith. But we never win over all the opposition.

I think that’s because apologetics deals specially in the public case for Christianity, but it takes a mix of public and private evidence to convince people. Public evidence is more or less equally available to all the educated people in a given generation. Private evidence is known directly to a specific individual, and very imperfectly communicable to others. For example, some Christians have witnessed, or claim to have witnessed, miracles. But it is reasonable for the public to doubt accounts of miracles, because miracles are inherently improbable or exceptional. Reports of miracles are public evidence, sometimes very important as in the case of the Resurrection of Jesus, but to have heard about a miracle is quite a different matter from having seen one. Other Christians have experienced answers to prayer, felt moments of supernatural joy and beatitude, or been rescued from trouble by fortunate coincidences that seem like the aid of God, or a guardian angel. Such private evidences for the faith may be overwhelming to those who directly experience them, but are less likely to, and in a sense don't deserve to, convince anyone else.

It is the task of the apologist, meanwhile, to deal specially in public evidence, such as written records, known historical and scientific facts, logical arguments, and appeals to mundane experiences familiar to all or most, rather than special supernatural ones. Unlike the Christian teacher of uninstructed Christians, the apologist can cite no Christian text as authoritative. I will not treat the truth of the Bible, for example, as an assumption that I can expect the reader to accept. The Bible and all other Christian traditions here need to be defended. 

Paradoxically, apologists have nothing new to say in the most important matters, yet to be effective, they must be quite modern and up-to-date. Apologists must be modern because their business is public evidence, and public discourse is constantly changing. Not only do new relevant facts come to light, but the whole way people define and process evidence, and what they find obvious, likely, plausible or absurd, is always changing. Again and again, what is commonplace is one generation or century becomes controversial in the next, and vice versa. Styles of argument go in and out of fashion, as do cultural reference points. So apologetics, to remain in health, must be rebuilt again and again in the latest style. 

Christian doctrine itself, meanwhile, stays the same as the world changes. It does keep getting explained and applied, and in that sense it expands a little, but in all the essentials it was present from the beginning. Well-instructed and devout Christians can see all the beliefs that comprise their faith taught or adumbrated in the New Testament and/or the Old Testament interpreted in the light of the New. Cases where an early Christian thinker taught what later was determined to be a heresy, but is held blameless because the Church hadn't yet authoritatively settled the matter, exist, but are very rare. It's not characteristic of the Church to promulgate new doctrines, or to withdraw or retract any doctrine, and even authoritative clarifications are rare. So the apologist must be very ancient and very modern, very trendy and very traditionalist, so as to meet people where they are and lead them to Christian truth. That’s why I think it’s worth writing a new apologetic book when there are good ones already, notably those of G.K Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, to whom I am deeply indebted, but whom I think I’ll be able to improve on in some ways, simply because I’m alive today and they've been dead for decades.

The book proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 studies probability and how we know things, motivating the study by the question of why people agree on so many things but disagree about religion. Chapter 3 presents the evidence that the Resurrection really happened, and applies probability math to the peculiar case where one of two very improbable things, namely, the resurrection of Jesus or a massive, ingenious conspiracy to fake the resurrection of Jesus with no motive, must be true. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 explore belief and knowledge in more depth, showing how we must let evidence have its say, but also try to develop a coherent worldview in which all our beliefs are consistent and in reflective equilibrium, and how basic inductive reasoning depends on recognizing the reality of ideas. I also begin to lean heavily into the natural sciences starting in chapter 5, looking at the emergence of modern science through figures like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Chapter 7 shows how recent developments in physics, such as the Big Bang and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, have tended to harmonize it with long-standing Christian doctrines like creation and the fall. Scientific resistance to Christianity today comes, above all, from biology and theory of evolution, which are the theme of chapter 8. Chapter 9 sums up the many arguments against scientific materialism that have been made along the way, adds more, and in short, refutes the false ideology that is Christianity’s chief rival today, and thereafter the book sets aside modern biases and tries to help the reader look at the world with fresh, objective eyes. 

The next few chapters deal with hot topics that are stumbling blocks to faith. Chapter 10 suggests a reconciliation of Genesis 1 with scientific natural history, to dispel the doubts of those who fear Christianity can't be true because of its teachings about the world's origins. Chapters 11, 12 and 13 defend Christian sexual ethics in a modern way, by using sociobiology, also known as evolutionary psychology, as a key to the natures and instincts of the sexes, and then combining that with the Golden Rule to deduce novel arguments for chastity and marriage and against the alternatives.

Finally, the book turns to the positive case for the Christian worldview as a whole. Chapter 14 explores the tragic riddle of the world as pre-Christian mankind encountered it, a wisely ordered and beautiful world, yet beset with evil and decay. In short, Creation and Fall. Chapter 15 shows that Jesus is the world champion of ethical teaching and conduct, and explores the logic of why Jesus being the exception to human moral fallenness tips the balance in favor of the claim that He was also the exception to the permanence of human mortality. Chapter 16 studies the history of the Christian Church, which though comprised of sinners yet stands out as the great exception to the tragic pattern of moral decay that pervades human history. It also notes a curious pattern whereby the apologist’s task seems to have remained equally difficult in every age, as different arguments for the faith wax and wane in persuasiveness, as if God has been making sure that humans are free either to believe or to disbelieve the good news of the Gospel. Chapter 17 asks what redemption could mean, what outcome could possibly answer the riddle of the world and satisfy the yearnings of the human heart, and shows why no external change could make us lastingly happy without a moral change within ourselves which we do not seem to be capable of achieving on our own. Yet Chapter 18 shows how the promises of God in scripture answer the impossible yearnings of the human heart. 

Chapter 19 brings the public argument for the faith to a climax by wrestling with the question of why God became man, but in a sense unsuccessfully, for here we encounter a mystery, which my arguments can at best adumbrate and suggest. Here we approach the limits of what public evidence and arguments can do. I don’t think apologetics alone can fully explain the faith or make converts to it, but I think it can open the mind to faith, so that a little bit of private evidence, such as a few answered prayers, a divine visitation or two, or just the tiniest little miracle, can finish the job. When people are ready, God won’t withhold that. And Chapter 20 studies prayer, to help readers who really want to know to get that little bit of private evidence that, combined with the public evidence, can establish a complete conviction of Christian truth.

Finally, Chapter 21 explains why my allegiance is to the Eastern Orthodox Church in particular, rather than any of the numerous other Christian churches on offer today in a tragically divided Christianity. But while my own Eastern Orthodox commitments are no secret, they are not the theme of this book. A reader who skips this first chapter will hardly be able to guess my specific denominational allegiance until Chapter 21. I seek to follow C.S. Lewis in defending “mere Christianity,” the common doctrinal heritage of all Christian churches, not to take sides in intra-Christian disagreements. I think what Christians share is much more important than what they disagree about.

One warning before we proceed: the argument will involve some math. I think that’s appropriate, because we are trying to figure out what’s true, so mathematical probability is relevant. I hope, nonetheless, to reach readers without strong math skills. Unmathematical readers will need to pick their way through the mathematical bits of the book, and try to understand what I’m doing and claiming, even if they can’t check my calculations, but they may need to take some things on trust. I beg their patience. I think they’ll do fine in the end.