Apologetics for Christian Students

NOTICE:
This is an outdated and unofficial item. The article was released as a draft/preview to Captive to Reason. For the current and official version of the article, please download the book from the online library.

The following is an edited email correspondence. I hope that it will encourage high school and college students to study my works on theology and apologetics.

I am a Junior philosophy major at an university in Texas. The school is associated with the Disciples of Christ Church (an incredibly liberal church), and the philosophy department is made up of six atheist professors.

Last semester I took a class on modern epistemology and found myself somewhat disappointed by the lack of Reformed Christian materials in that area. It was a rough semester for me being constantly bombarded by my professors.

Your essays have given me hope and courage once again. They are straightforward, easy to read, and in no way sugarcoat or compromise the truth. My summer reading so far has been so exciting and full of joy.

Praise God for the amazing gifts he has given you as well as your boldness to stand up for the truth. I just wanted to let you know how extremely valuable I have found your books.

Five minutes ago I ordered the paperback copies [here] of your Systematic Theology, Ultimate Questions, and The Light of Our Minds. I stumbled upon Apologetics in Conversation from Monergism.com a few weeks ago and have since been reading your essays virtually every day.

What other books of yours would you recommend I get?

Thanks so much for doing what you are doing.

Thanks for your message.

First, I recommend that you MASTER the approach, and the very way of thinking, that I outline in my books. Just by doing this, you will become forever invincible to any unbelieving professor or philosophy that you will encounter.

Remember that a complete and effective approach to biblical apologetics demands that you become increasingly knowleageable about your own biblical worldview. So studying reliable systematic theologies and biblical commentaries is a big part to becoming a better apologist.

Besides those books of mine that you listed, I recommend that you also read, Presuppositional Confrontations, The Sermon on the Mount, Prayer and Revelation, Commentary on Ephesians, and Commentary on Philippians, perhaps in this order, but that’s up to you.

Then, since you are a philosophy major, I also recommend Gordon Clark’s Thales to Dewey in addition to my usual recommendations on apologetics.

Thanks so much for writing me back!

I just can’t explain to you what a blessing your books have been to me so far this summer. You are definitely the master apologist I pray and dream to become, and I say that not to feed your ego but rather to give GOD the glory for it.

I also find it kinda funny that you use "moron" in your work and provide justification for doing so. I actually got in trouble in my existentialism class for calling Nietzsche a moron in my final paper. I did my paper on Nietzsche's view of Jesus (he believed he was an awesome teacher who never claimed to be a savior, God, or Lord). I used scripture and wrote about how Nietzsche was not at all justified in making his claims about Jesus and how his entire worldview did not hold any water. Needless to say, the professor didn’t like my paper and my use of terms like "moron."

I will definitely get those books you recommended.

Thanks.

The Bible is the ultra-rational infallible Word of God, so anyone can more or less become a master apologist when he firmly stands on it and faithfully argues from it. As I wrote in Presuppositional Confrontations (PDF, p. 31):

Christians today are too quickly embarrassed by the intellectual challenges thrown at them by the unbelievers. Although we are not divinely inspired like the prophets and the apostles, if we will wholly depend on the revelation of Scripture, we will indeed be the master philosophers of this world. Because we have revelation as the foundation of our philosophy, unbelievers are not in fact competing against our own wisdom, but the very wisdom of God. Thus if we will only learn to apply divine revelation with skill when answering their challenges, there can be no real contest, but we will be able to destroy every unbelieving argument, and embarrass the gainsayers.

Any believer can become invincible against unbelief because of the inherent superiority of the biblical worldview. You just need to learn how to unleash the overwhelming rational power of divine revelation in writing and in conversation.

Now, in some contexts, it is doubtless biblically acceptable to call someone a moron, or to call someone like Nietzsche a moron in a paper. As I show in my article, "A Moron by Any Other Name," passages like 1 Peter 3:15 have been universally misapplied, in a way that would condemn even the prophets and the apostles, and also Christ himself. The error also results in a weaker confrontation against unbelief.

If you have argued your case, and calling Nietzsche a "moron" is the proper conclusion of your presentation, then it would be irrational for a professor to reject it. "Name-calling" is a fallacy only if it is unsupported by rational argument, but if a derogatory label is the product of a valid argument, then it is a logical conclusion, not a fallacy. The argument must be refuted before the label can be rationally rejected. Still, calling him "moron" might not be the only way to state your conclusion, so you will have to exercise wisdom as to whether this is the best way to say it in a college paper.

In any case, as I show in the same article, there is indeed a proper application of 1 Peter 3:15, and that is when you are dealing with authority figures. College professors would qualify (as would parents, government officials, employers, etc.), so even as you seek to boldly confront unbelief in the university, take care that you do not challenge your professors in an unbiblical manner, and even unnecessarily jeopardize your grades (but some offenses are necessary and unavoidable, and in these cases, you must not compromise even if it damages your grades).

I see what you mean by respecting authority figures. It definitely is important.

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Comments:

The biblical system is inherently rational and invincible. You don’t need a whole lot of add-ons to patch it up or to support it. It cannot be successfully attacked, but it contains all the needed ingredients to destroy all other worldviews.

So if a person understands the content and the structure (as in the relationships between its various parts) of the biblical system, and if he is able to grasp the content and the structure of his opponent’s worldview, he will always be able to seize a decisive victory in every debate.

There is no chance that this person will lose, or even fail to decisively win, against anyone in all of human history — or against all of them combined. He will be able to crush the devil himself in debate, for the devil is not greater than the mind of Christ. This is the person that you can become, and must strive to become, through diligent study and persistent prayer, and by God’s grace.

On this matter, parents can help their children by starting to teach them early about biblical doctrines and about rational thinking. The non-Christian world will not wait until they are in high school before teaching them evolution or trying to desensitize them to homosexual relationships.

One of your advantages as parents is that you have ready access to your children while they are yet young, so you should teach them to think biblically now. And teach them the whole package — the whole Christian life — that is, including biblical reading (Scripture and Christian literature), spiritual habits (prayer, meditation), and such traits as compassion, boldness, contentment, and humble service. One reason that you should teach your children biblical apologetics in the first place is to preserve faith, and training them in all aspects of the biblical lifestyle will do much to further this end.

Recommended:

Protecting Your Faith

PDF vs. Paperback

Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology

Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions

Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations

Vincent Cheung, Apologetics in Conversation

Vincent Cheung, The Sermon on the Mount

Vincent Cheung, Prayer and Revelation

Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians

Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Philippians

Vincent Cheung, The Light of Our Minds