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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

What I've Learned About Apologetics Since Coming to College

Right before coming to college as a freshman, I went to CIA (Cross-Examined Instructors Academy). I was ready and confident with answers. I knew the material, I had done presentations at high schools, and gone through the entire "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist" seminar at a church. During welcome week, at the organization fair, I challenged two different clubs with opposing worldviews and went out to eat with the student presidents of those clubs during the following week. During both of those lunches, I was not confronted with an objection that I had not been trained to answer. The questions and objections were popular ones. However, during those lunches and the other countless conversations I've had about the validity of Christianity, with people that hold to opposing beliefs, I learned and am still learning a lesson that I do not think one could have taught me. That lesson being when doing apologetics outside of a presentation, it is an extremely relational process, and more times than not, the core of intellectual doubt is typically emotional doubt.

The Problem that leads to a Process
Whether it be the meals I've had with skeptics or the random every day conversations, skeptics always seem to have some intellectual problems that they will try to bring up. The most typical slogans I hear and have been told are "A good God wouldn't allow suffering and evil", "The evidence for evolution is overwhelming," "There is no evidence for God," and "Jesus did not rise from the dead, if he did he is a zombie not god." (Someone actually told me that.) Whatever the intellectual problem may be, they are there and being talked about. However, what I have realized is that most of the time underneath the intellectual doubt, there is some type of emotional or volitional doubt. I was talking to someone very close to me who was arguing that the Bible's account of Creation did not match science. Her argument was very intellectual, flawed, but intellectual to say the least. After I presented the answers I had studied out and had been trained to give, her argument collapsed. Suddenly the look on her face changed. She was mad and sad. Her emotions were taking over. All of a sudden she screamed at me, "If God is so good, why is there suffering, why would God allow pain in my child's life and all over the world!?" I had just reached the core to her unbelief. It was emotional, she didn't understand that pain and suffering in the world. Something she was going through or had gone through was the reason to her doubt. Her emotional problem was leading to a volitional disbelief (emotional and volitional normally go hand in hand). She did not want an intellectual answer to the question she asked me. She wanted someone to hurt with her, to weep with her. This has been a common conversation for me. The problem of evil coming up after they realize their intellectual arguments are flawed is common. It takes time and care to get over emotional problems. This has led me to realize that apologetics outside of presentations is an extremely relational process that demands love, gentleness, and respect.

The Church is Crucial in this Process
The more I talk to people about the validity of Christianity, the more I realize that most of the time those people are not quick to throw all emotional doubt on the table the first time there is a conversation. However, some are quick to tell their emotional problem, but most cope with a proposed intellectual reason. After the intellectual argument is over, and the emotional problem comes out, I must stop thinking like a philosopher or historian and start thinking like a counselor. I must weep those who weep. This is difficult for me to do. Learning to weep with those who weep has been a learning process that I think I'll be learning the rest of my life. Furthermore, the church must realize that we play a crucial role in this process. The church is called to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We are called to step into others suffering and experience it with them, as Christ did with us. However, unless the church can get to the emotional problem, the process will not be able to start up. The church has to take apologetics seriously so that we can see what the core of the unbelief is. This is exactly why J. Warner Wallace says, "we need more one-dollar apologists." We need to be apologists to relate with everyone. Sometimes it is mainly intellectual, but I think more times than not that isn't the case. 

The Challenge
This challenges everyone. The typical apologist has to constantly work on the relational process. Love, gentleness, and respect have to be constant reminders. In fact, I think everyone needs to work on this, not just apologists. The church is challenged to know apologetics so that they can relate with people who claim intellectual doubt. Then, we all must work on weeping with those who weep. The challenge will always be there, and the learning should never end.

Since coming to college, I have learned many things about apologetics. My intellect is growing and I'm learning more and more all of the time. I have learned that most of the time there is an emotional or volitional problem and the core of doubt. I have learned and still learning to weep with those who weep. This relational process is great and demands our attention, our love, our gentleness, and respect. People deserve those things from us. Because in the end, apologetics is about evangelism. Take this seriously. Be a case-maker today.



3 comments:

  1. Thanks for your articles Ryan! I will continue following!

    I've noticed the same phenomena within my community in Dallas. I had an extended dialogue with a professing atheist taking care of her mother who was suffering with bed ridden cancer. During our conversation she would continually allude to the emotional pain that was being caused as her primary case against a "good God." Every time I would break down the good vs. evil argument to an argument for a good God, she would dismiss the argument and go straight back to the emotional pain. There is no doubt in my mind that all she needed was someone to weep with her while she weeped. God bless ya brother. Keep up the Kingdom work.

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    1. Justin,
      Thank you for the comment. I think you are right. She needed someone to weep and suffer with her. In order to do that, we must learn to stop talking (I love talking, so that is super hard). Sometimes the best thing we can do when someone is suffering is simply sit with them in silence and accept the fact that we may not know what it is like to experience what that person is going through. Job's friends were awesome until they opened up their mouths! Thank you for your comment! Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

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  2. We all should understand that if there is a source of evilness, then there is also one for goodness. People tends to focus on only the bad trying to find an excuse for not seeking the good. If we want to know where truly love, kindness, sacrifice, hope and peace comes from, it will lead us to God. That makes a great difference in our lives when dealing with cancer or some other evilness.

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