Is Apologetics Counter-Productive? An Evaluation and Critique of Myron Penner’s The End of Apologetics1 Dr. John J. Johnson Virginia Union University Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A. Abstract: In The End of Apologetics, Anglican priest Myron Bradley Penner argues that the discipline of apologetics, especially rationalistic, evidentialist apologetics, is very much a fruitless enterprise. The purpose of this paper is twofold: one, to point out what I take to be the errors in Penner’s position regarding the Christian apologetic endeavor. These errors concern the differences between Christian evidences and Christian “proofs;” the “secular” reasoning process versus the Christian reasoning process; and the pre-modern versus postmodern understandings of knowledge. My second goal is to show that much of what Penner advocates is actually useful for the apologist, and can be used to forge a more powerful apologetic presentation. Penner’s emphasis on things like church tradition and personal experience of Christ can only add to, not diminish, the apologist’s efforts. In The End of Apologetics, Anglican priest Myron Bradley Penner argues that the discipline of apologetics, especially rationalistic, evidentialist apologetics, is very much a fruitless enterprise. In fact, he goes as far as to say that Kierkegaard (from whom he takes his anti-apologetic starting point) may have been right when he suggested that apologetics was actually counter-productive, and, according to Penner, “apologetics itself might be the single biggest threat to genuine Christian faith that we face today.”2 Penner’s argument is largely based on the oft-heard mantra that we live in a post-Enlightenment world, and that the very idea of using arguments to persuade people about religious truth is an approach that had validity in the Middle Ages, but not for us in the twenty-first century. There certainly is some truth to this charge. Some of the classical theistic arguments of, say, an Aquinas or an Anselm do not appeal to the modern mind in the same way they once did. Penner also has a point when he chastises Christian apologetics for having a tendency to devolve into “big business,” with prominent apologists writing book after book, slogging it out on the lecture circuit, and endlessly engaging 1 Myron Bradley Penner, The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context (Baker: Grand Rapids, 2013). 2 Ibid., 12. 1 with the so-called New Atheists3 in public debates. Certain Christian apologists, like certain atheists, may come across as too cocksure, when in fact neither side can prove that their position is undoubtedly true. Penner is right again when he insists that apologetics sometimes tends to downplay the effectiveness of Christian witness and lifestyle as a tool for evangelism. Of course, most of today’s theologically and biblically-trained apologists insist that there is more to spreading the gospel than rational argumentation, but sometimes the importance of maintaining a steady Christian witness through personal behavior can be obscured. However, there are several points in Penner’s thesis that I find problematic. One, most academically trained Christian apologists realize that they are offering evidences, not proofs, that Christianity is true. Penner admits this is the case, but does not, I think, take the distinction seriously enough. Two, Penner draws too sharp a distinction between “secular” reason and “religious” reason. Three, which is closely related to two, is that the evidentialist approach to apologetics that Penner rejects out of hand has deep roots in the Bible itself. Four, Penner is too quick to assume that the “modern” worldview has been replaced by the “postmodern” one. This may be true in the rarified ivory towers of academe, but it certainly is not true in the real world of everyday life, and this is where much of Christian apologetics is directed. Five, Penner objects to any type of apologetic that “tears down,” rather than builds up. But this tearing down (i.e., “offensive” apologetics) has a distinguished pedigree in the Christian tradition. Six, Penner’s rejection of evidentialism ultimately offers no way in which to adjudicate between rival religious truth-claims and must either lead him to religious pluralism or religious fideism. Finally, and more positively, Penner’s position and that of evidentialists are not really contradictory, and in fact can be complementary. In fact, the combination of evidentialism with Penner’s approach can 3The “unholy trinity,” so to speak, are Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. See Dawkins’ The God Delusion (Mariner Books, 2008), Dennett’s The Blind Watchmaker (W.W. Norton and Company, 1996), and Hitchens’ God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve, 2009). 2 present a powerful apologetic witness to the world that should satisfy Christians on both sides of the apologetic divide. Why Does Penner Reject Apologetics? For Penner, Christian apologetics are not really Christian at all, in that, for the apologist, “[w]hat is at the bottom of our Christian belief…is not a set of practices—a way of life, a confession, etc.,—but a set of propositional asseverations that can be epistemically justified. And that is what it means for them to have faith. It is little wonder that postmodernism is, as Lyotard reminds us, such a threat to modern apologists that they must do all they can do to stand against it.”4 If this were the case, I would be in full agreement with Penner, but I do not think that most apologists think the Christian message can be reduced to mere argumentation, as will be shown below. Penner’s second problem with apologetics is that, in adopting the logical weapons of modernity, its sells its theological soul in the process. Penner stands with Kierkegaard, whom Penner believes was not a fideist, as is sometimes alleged by his critics, but rather one who rejected “the entire modern epistemological paradigm that produces modern apologetics, because it attempts to ground faith in genius or secular reason. Modernity thereby empties faith of its Christian content and robs it of its authority.”5 Crucial to Penner’s apologetic program (if apologetic is the right word, given his disdain for the term), is what he calls the distinction between the “religious genius” and the “apostle.” The religious genius is someone like evidentialist William Lane Craig (Penner’s “opponent” throughout much of the book), who is able to intellectually defend the Christian faith. The apostle, however, is not a trained scholar, but rather someone called by God to deliver an authentic message from the Lord. Thus Penner writes, 4 Ibid., 42. 5 Ibid., 58. 3 [a] genius is born, Kierkegaard points out, while an apostle is called. Whereas genius is a quality that distinguishes a person from other human beings comparatively—by being more rational or brilliant or intelligent—the apostle’s constitutive identity comes from the call of God. Subsequently, the apostle’s message is one that no one else can improve upon or add to because it is dependent on God’s action alone…. The apostolic message does not have authority because it is demonstrably rational or exceptionally brilliant but because it is a word from God.6 There is much truth here. The biblical prophets do indeed confront their hearers with the word of the Lord, and it is at their own peril that the listeners reject it. Penner firmly dismisses the idea that the apostle’s message is based on human reason. “However much human reason might be necessary to understand the apostolic proclamation (insofar as it qualifies as revelation), reason has no role to play whatsoever in grounding the apostle’s claims.”7 Penner does not rule out all appeals to objective evidence; he is not advocating an anything-goes approach to doctrine. But, he is against the idea that religious geniuses can present arguments that are objectively true for all Christians, in all places. As for the creeds and doctrines of the Church, Penner says they “are fallible, human expressions (interpretations) of the truths Christians have won for themselves in their various contexts.”8 Again, most would not argue too strenuously here with Penner. The creeds are imperfect attempts to capture the full truth of God, which is of course impossible for mortals. This also reflects Penner’s desire to shift away from a correspondence view of Christian truth (i.e., one that says Christian truth-claims are based on objectively true facts) to a view of Christian faith that is based on personal edification. Thus he says, “What matters about truth is that it builds me up, is true for me, and is the kind of thing that connects me to my deepest concerns as a self.”9 Penner is not advocating unbridled religious relativism here, though. For him, Christian edification is not purely subjective, but is 6 Ibid., 51. 7 Ibid., 52. 8 Ibid., 121. 9 Ibid., 110. 4 found within the Christian community itself, not in arguments about the objective truth of Christianity. Regarding “how Christian truth claims are verified, I find the issue is inextricably bound up with the nature of Christian truth-telling. The proof of Christian witness is always in the pudding. The pudding in this case is our lives as witnesses—our overall patterns of action and behavior (including our thoughts, feelings, and suppositions).”10 This is an important point, and one that I partially agree with. I will be returning to it at the end of this essay, in an attempt to join what Penner says here with what I perceive as the missing component (namely, evidentialist apologetics) in his approach. Where I do agree with him is when he stresses the importance of not having to choose objective truth over personally edifying, Christian community-based truth. Indeed, he claims that this avoidance of the one extreme or the other is at the very heart of his apologetic endeavor.11 Do Christian Apologists Really Think They Can “Prove” Christianity Is True? Penner does not insist that apologists believe they can prove every Christian doctrine beyond a doubt, but he thinks they come far too close to that position at times. But do modern apologists think Christian faith consists only of intellectual arguments? Blaise Pascal, though certainly not one of the modern apologists that Penner has in his sights, still captured the essence of what many modern apologists do. First, “he admitted that his argument fell short of absolute proof.”12 This strain of thinking, I am going to argue, is present in virtually all modern apologists, especially William Lane Craig, particularly when we look at how he goes about setting forth the case for the historical reliability of the resurrection (more on this below). Second, Pascal thought that intellectual arguments, though not foolproof, could still lead one to 10 Ibid., 124. 11 Ibid., 129. 12 James K. Beilby, Thinking About Christian Apologetics: What It Is and Why We Do It (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2011), 68. 5 the practice of the faith, and provide an intellectually respectful reason for doing so, or at least a reason that prevented anyone “laughing at those who follow it.”13 It is my contention that modern apologists follow Pascal’s lead, and do not assume that apologetics provides proof that Christianity is true, as Penner implies when he says that apologists who defend the “objective, propositional truth of Christianity… believe humans grasp the full and complete truth about things as they really are.”14 For most apologists in Craig’s school of thought, they rely only on good evidence that may convince an open-minded person to take seriously the Christian message. John Warwick Montgomery, who in some ways can be seen as taking the apologetic mantle from C. S. Lewis and in the 1960’s and 1970’s paving the way for much of the evidentialist apologetics that would follow in succeeding generations, was fond of pointing out that apologetics offered evidence, not proof. For once outside the realms of mathematics and formal logic, we cannot really “prove” much at all15 (the shadow of Descartes looms large here of course). And Alister McGrath, commenting on Aquinas’s cosmological argument in its fivefold form, states “[n]ot for one moment does he [Aquinas] suggest that these arguments constitute proofs for the existence of God.”16 In fact, modern apologetics is not only about providing intellectual reasons that Christianity true. John G. Stackhouse, Jr., writing about the reasons people reject Christianity, puts some of the blame on poor Christian behavior, and insists that the Christian apologetic task is to complement our proclamation of the gospel and our resistance to evil with winsome public demonstrations of God’s care for the earth, for the financially and socially needy, for beauty and joy, and for the intellectual life…. As valuable as theological and 13 Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. W.F. Trotter (New York: Dutter, 1958), 82, n 289. 14 Penner, End of Apologetics, 114. 15 See Montgomery’s helpful discussion of this matter in his Human Rights and Human Dignity (Edmonton: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology, and Public Policy, Inc., 1986). 16 Alister McGrath, Intellectuals Don’t Need God and Other Modern Myths (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 37. 6 philosophical apologetics undoubtedly are, it seems unlikely that many people would consent to sitting still for them if all these other confirmations were absent.17 Are There Two Kinds of Reason, Secular and Biblical? In his above-mentioned quotation, Penner says that modern apologists are wrong because they appeal to “secular reason” for their arguments. But I would suggest that there is only one kind of reason that God has endowed us with, human reason. Our faculties of reason do not change when we walk from a church into a laboratory. Our focus may be different, but we are still using the only mind that God has given us, be it in a holy or in a mundane setting. I think Penner is here confusing faith and reason, which are indeed two different things. But we have only one kind of reason bestowed upon us by our Creator. Douglas Grootuis makes this point when he comments on 1 John 3:11-24. Here, John insists that a sure sign that someone is truly Christian is that he or she loves other Christians. But, if a supposed Christian shows no love for other Christians, then when “you observe someone who, while claiming to be Christian, does not love Christians, you may infer that this person is not born again.” He makes his point clear when he writes that John is using simple logic here, and that there “is nothing contextual or relative about it. The apostle does not use some special ‘religious logic.’”18 Now, some might say that a different religious reasoning is required to understand the things of God. And there are passages of scripture that do teach precisely that (e.g., 1 Corinthians 2:14 speaks of how the things of God are only understood by those who can discern them through the Spirit). But, that God makes appeals to our reason in scripture is quite clear from the biblical record. “Biblically, the existence of an efficacious human reason is assumed. For example, in Isaiah 1:18 God appeals directly to 17 John G. Stackhouse, Jr., “From Architecture to Argument: Historical Resources for Christian Apologetics,” in Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, ed. Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L Okholm (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1995), 50-51. 18 Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2000), 177. 7 human reason, and this represents a pattern throughout scripture. The nature of reason, however, is not explicitly described.”19 When we look at the New Testament (NT) witness to Christ and his resurrection, the lack of bifurcation between any alleged secular and religious reason becomes even more pronounced. The resurrection is the foundation of the early church’s kerygma, and the apostles believed that it was an event open to rational inspection; no special grace from God was required to understand it. In his classic work on historical apologetics, Avery Dulles admits that while the apologetic of the first- century church was different from the more elaborate apologetic of the Church Fathers, the first-century church was still an apologetic church. The gospel the church was preaching ran into opposition, and to answer “such objections, and possibly also in anticipation of foreseen objections, the Christians spoke about the signs and evidences they had found convincing” [italics mine].20 When teaching about the resurrection, the writers of Acts and the Pauline literature knew that such “claims were of course contestable and had to be backed up by some kind of reasoned [italics mine] defense.”21 Or, take Paul’s speech to the Athenians in Acts 17, his Mars Hill sermon. Here, he appeals to the reasonableness of the Athenians. He does not assume that he possesses a “Christian” reasoning process, and they a “pagan” one. Quite the opposite. They have used their reason to arrive at a belief in the “unknown god” (v. 23). Paul never says that their reasoning process is flawed. In fact, Paul seems to think that they will be able to comprehend that this unknown god is really the true God of the Jews. Paul may have had the “mind of Christ” in him, 19 W. Corduan, “Reason,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 915. 20 Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999), 1. 21 Ibid., 2. 8 but he seems to assume that his reasoning process works about the same as that of the pagan Greeks he addresses. Paul assumes that “Christian truth is public truth—truth for the marketplace that can be assessed according to universal criteria by which a thinking person . . . is willing to consider it openly, seriously, and humbly.”22 Here on Mars Hill, Paul actually makes eight assumptions about his Greek audience, ranging from their innate understanding that there is some sort of divinity in the universe (the “unknown god” of verse 23) to the fact that God overlooked humanity’s time of pagan innocence, but now expects repentance based on the facts revealed in Christ.23 But is not humanity fallen, are there not passages in the Bible, especially in the NT, that teach that our reasoning process has been marred by sin? Yes, indeed, one such passage being in Romans 1, where the apostle talks of God abandoning those who sin to even greater sin because their minds are already clouded with it. And yes, that bondage can damage the reasoning process if left unchecked. This is what leads to the sexual immortality and idolatry that Paul talks about here. But at just what point in a person’s spiritual degeneration this abandonment by God occurs is hard to say. Paul obviously did not think that the people he preached to, be they Jew or Greek, had reached this theological point of no return. This brings to mind the traditional split between Calvinists, who insist that the fall has led us into a state of total depravity (meaning not that every act we do is depraved, but that the fall has infected every aspect of our being) and those who, like Roman Catholics, see the fall as damaging to our rationality, but not fatally so. But, even among Calvinists, evidentialist apologetics have never been totally rejected, even though 22 Groothuis, Truth Decay, 178. 23 Ibid., 178. 9 some Christians maintain that caricature. Even those with a “Reformed” bent (Augustine,24 for example, and of course Calvin himself25), do not reject the evidential approach out of hand; they only insist that reasoned arguments alone are not enough to bring one to saving faith. Or consider a committed Calvinist like Jonathan Edwards. Writings of Edwards attempt to balance God’s appeal to both our hearts and our minds. Norman Geisler says, “All truth is given by revelation, either general or special, and it must be received by reason. Reason is the God-given means for discovering the truth that God discloses, whether in his world or his Word. While God wants to reach the heart with truth, he does not bypass the mind along the way.”26 The Holy Spirit is required for conversion. Still, “the work of the Spirit presupposes the Bible and the historical Jesus Christ. If faith is largely a creation of the Holy Spirit, it still remains true that you could not have the faith apart from the facts. In sum, the Holy Spirit is the sufficient cause of belief while the facts are a necessary cause of belief.”27 Even William Lane Craig admits as much, so it is a bit odd that Penner takes him to task for his evidentialist approach. In his book, Penner points out that Craig is a Christian because he believes the Holy Spirit has opened his eyes to the truth of Christianity. But, because he knows implicitly that Christianity is true, he feels confident making rationalistic claims for the faith.28 Penner is fair to Craig, I think. He knows that Craig does not insist that the Holy Spirit “needs” evidentialist apologetics to bring about personal conviction. But, Penner seems bothered by the 24 Augustine of course spends several hundred pages of his City of God engaging in offensive apologetics to show the utter absurdity and wickedness of Roman paganism. 25 Despite what many today think, Calvin did at times appeal to evidentialist arguments, though of course one’s calling to a Christian life was primarily the work of God. See Steven J. Wykstra, “Not Done in A Corner: How to be a Sensible Evidentialist about Jesus,” Philosophical Books 43 (2002), 99. 26 Norman Geisler, “Rationalism,” in his Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Academic, 1998), 634. 27 A.J. Hoover, “Apologetics,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 70. 28 For Penner’s analysis of Craig’s position that faith can come through the Spirit or through apologetic method, see The End of Apologetics, 22-36. 10