Students in the Real World, 3-5

Now, there are other schools of apologetics besides what we have considered above. For example, one may demonstrate the superiority of the Christian faith by examining history, culture, and literature. We may call them historical apologetics, cultural apologetics, and literary apologetics. Our materials often do not mention them when comparing the different approaches because these methods do not even attempt to set forth a rational case, but rather focus on the effects and the feelings generated by Christian ideas versus non-Christian ideas.

Practical and existential arguments are not compelling, and from a strictly rational perspective, they often contribute nothing to one's case. Just because non-Christian ideas have proved destructive to society does not mean that they are wrong. Making this point does nothing to refute the non-Christians, unless we can somehow prove that what is destructive is also untrue. And even if we make the case that the Christian ideas have contributed to the progress of science, education, and government, so what? It does not automatically mean that Christianity is right or even good.

In fact, we must take care lest in making the case that Christianity is practically and existentially superior, we reduce it in the minds of others into something that is merely practical and existential, or that we believe it only for the practical and existential benefits. If it is reduced to such a level, then it is also easy to think of it as replaceable, just as soon as something is invented that is also practically effective and existentially satisfying. If this is the basis for faith, then even the possibility that a similar belief system could be invented is sufficient to neutralize any claim to exclusivity. Non-Christian views must be excluded by logical necessity, and not just on the practical or existential level.

Our claim is that Christianity should be affirmed because it is true and rationally necessary. Only biblical presuppositionalism successfully argues for this, and therefore this is our main approach, and the only necessary one to use when engaging unbelievers. The arguments from other methods may be employed as optional add-ons to make our presentation subjectively more compelling to the unbelievers, while making it clear that we do not regard Christianity as true on the basis of these optional, inferior, and even rationally irrelevant arguments. The only logical value that they provide is to expose self-contradiction within the non-Christian systems.

In fact, because classical and evidential apologetics cannot self-sustain, and because pseudo-presuppositionalism self-destructs, biblical apologetics is the only approach that gives a safe platform for these classical, evidential, practical, and existential arguments. Precisely because we do not depend on them and do not claim too much for them, they can now be fully unleashed without destroying our case or compromising our intellectual integrity.