Saturday, June 18, 2011

Apologetics is Bad (Part Three)

It seems to me that an additional clarification is in order. During the early church, 'apologetics' was very different from what it is today. Back in the early years, defenders of Christianity dealt largely with misunderstandings of Christian doctrine which led to Christian persecution. I have no problems with that type of apologetics. As we have seen and shall see again in this post, my issue is with the starting place of 'modern' apologetics.
 
Check out Parts 1 & 2 if you haven't yet!
 
2a. "And you can know [the gospel] is true, too, because God is knocking at the door of your heart, telling you the same thing. If you are sincerely seeking God, then God will give you assurance that the gospel is true." (Craig)
 
2b. It seems to me that Dr. Craig is assuming that God actually is 'knocking' on person X's heart. What if person X does not feel that knock? It does not seem like it is fair to make this type of judgement.
 
The second statement seems entirely unfair. What if I were to tell Dr. Craig that I am sincerely seeking God, and yet I do not have assurance that the gospel is true? Would it be just for Dr. Craig to tell me that I'm not actually looking honestly? It seems to me that Dr. Craig is encouraging other apologists to make judgement calls concerning other people's mindsets when they have no reason to do so.
 
My last qualm with Craig's statement is that someone from any religion/belief system could make a version of the same statement.

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