Apologetics Pt 5

Apologetics: Offensive Apologetics

I did a very short blog series on defensive apologetics recently (see them here – pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4). However, just like any good sports team, there’s not only a defense, but an offense as well. Defensive apologetics is looking to defend against objections that people may bring against Christianity. Offensive apologetics takes the game to these people and seeks to give them reasons to believe in Christianity and actually gives the person who isn’t a Christian opportunity to defend against the offense that we bring!

I find these arguments fun, stimulating and they encourage me in my faith. They have given me great confidence in what I believe, and confidence to actually step up and talk about Jesus to my friends.

So over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at a few different arguments for the existence of God. It’ll take a few blog posts to cover each one, as there are a few side issues that need to be explored for each argument.

Throughout these posts, if you have any specific questions, or want to interact with the material in any way, please leave a comment and I’ll either respond with a comment myself or even address important issues in a blog post.

A couple of clarifying points before I start posting though – these arguments are useful, but we aren’t trying to win an argument, we’re trying to win people. It’s good to have reasons (arguments) for the hope that is in you, but we must always present them with gentleness and respect (1 Pet 3:15).

A quick summary of the arguments we’ll look at:

1. The Cosmological Argument – proves God’s existence from the beginning of the universe
2. The Teleological Argument – proves God’s existence from the design of the universe
3. The Moral Argument – proves God’s existence from the morality that we know exists
4. The Argument from the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus – proves God exists from the historical evidence about Jesus’ resurrection

Arguments (1) to (3) are deductive in nature. This means that if the premises for the argument are true, then the conclusion logically follows necessarily. This means that when we structure the argument, we will use premises and a conclusion. If you or your non-Christian friend agrees with the premises, they must admit to forsaking logic itself if they want to deny the conclusion! Argument (3) is an inductive argument, which, simply put, attempts to make the most likely possible conclusion from the evidence. With all four arguments we have a cumulative case for the Christian God’s existence. I hope you enjoy learning them!

Dave