Quotes About Apologetics

Jesus obviously does not answer many questions from you or me. Which is why apologetics is always such a questionable enterprise. Jesus just doesn't argue.

I wonder how appropriate it is to try to 'argue someone into the kingdom.' Many apologists hotly deny any such charge, but I don't believe them. The tenor of almost all apologetics literature makes it plain that this is their intent.

it appears that inherited (I should say stale) evangelical apologetics has almost completely displaced any serious attempt to seek the most likely meaning of gospel texts in their own right, in their ancient contexts.

I once sheepishly asked a prominent Evangelical apologist, with his PhD in New Testament, if he had ever chanced to read Strauss's Life of Jesus Critically Examined. He had not. Things began to become clear to me. He didn't know that all his trusty arguments had been thoroughly refuted many decades before he was born.

But how can we effectively represent Christ, who in sacrificial love gave his life for others, if we don't deeply care about those he died for? And since "God is love" (1 John 4:8), doesn't it follow that the one great distinguishing characteristic of Christians everywhere should be a self-sacrificing love for people? Doctrine, apologetics, spiritual gifts, and prophecy charts are all great, but God is love. Without love, everything becomes meaningless (1 Cor. 13).

I chiefly concern myself with those who seldom get a hearing, & I don't feel it is incumbent on me to balance their voices with the well-crafted apologetics of the powerful. The powerful are generally excellently served by the mainstream media or propaganda organs. The powerful should be quoted, yes, but to measure their pronouncements against the truth, not to obscure it.

There are no logical contradictions in the Christian faith. If there were even one logical contradiction at the center of the Christian faith, the Christian faith would be necessarily false.

Clearly, not uncritical apologetics but penetrating and thoughtful criticism is alone capable of bringing out the treasures of experiences and teachings.

This might suggest that any successful exercise of apologetics, like indeed that of Lewis, must contain a strong confessional element which convinces precisely because it persuades through the force of an imaginative presentation of belief.

There is much more to apologetics than affirming the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of things. Apologetics, we must recall, engages the mind, emotions and imagination. It appeals to beauty and morality, as much as to rationality.

Christianity does not displace scientific accounts of the world; rather, it lends them ontological depth and clarity, and in doing so, discloses a greater vision of reality – a vision that gives both intellectual resilience and existential motivation to the task of apologetics.

although apologetics is 'a reasoned defence', its basis is necessarily imaginative, for reason cannot work without imagination.

Norman Geisler, R. C. Sproul, and Francis Schaeffer

Indeed, the dirty secret of Christian apologetics is this: there is no human argument that is guaranteed to overcome unbelief.

apologetics is also application of Scripture to unbelief. Unbelief is no respecter of persons. Both Christians and non-Christians wrestle with doubt and suspicion. A biblical apologetic targets unbelief wherever it may be found, strengthening the faith of Christians and calling unbelievers to repentance and faith in Christ. The

I see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend.

The Christian theologian will never find a contradiction between the propositions of faith and reason, because it is his job to interpret them out of existence.

No one can be an unbeliever nowadays. The Christian Apologists have left one nothing to disbelieve.

C.S. Lewis is the ideal persuader for the half convinced, for the good man who would like to be a Christian but finds his intellect getting in the way.

Also, to build a million-member church, the pastor must have the evangelistic power of Billy Graham, the expositional ability of Charles Spurgeon, the apologetic answers of Josh McDowell, the teaching focus of John MacArthur, the organizing skills of Bill Bright, and the persuasive ability of Ronald Reagan.

In a post-Christian, skeptical age, love on display is the most convincing apologetic.

historical arguments; traditional apologetics breaks down here. Since man is here dealing with God and this by definition means with the invisible, impalpable, uncontrollable, only one attitude is appropriate and required : believing trust, trusting faith.

The apologist is most entrusted with apologetics when capable of arguing his opponent's position better than his opponent.

Apologetics is not listed as a spiritual gift for teachers, preachers, or evangelists, as though only some ought to become apologists. Rather, all Christians are called to be ready with an answer (1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3). We all make a case for Christianity in some fashion or another—but are we doing it well?