In my previous post “Educating the local church (Pt. V): introducing critical scholarship” (written almost two weeks ago!) I asked whether or not there is an ideal approach for introducing people in our local churches to critical scholarship. For some this is a stupid question: Why use teaching in this context to introduce ideas that might shipwreck someone’s faith? For others this remains a question that needs to be asked. As we have seen all it takes is a silly book like The DaVinci Code and suddenly we find people believing that Constantine formed the canon of Scripture at the Council of Nicaea. Shouldn’t the local church be proactive about educating people so that they are not easily deceived by erroneous claims?
The flip side of this coin is the danger of what I call “quick-and-easy apologetics”. I am fine with apologetics. Apologists have strengthened my faith in many areas over the years, even when I come to disagree with a wide variety of their arguments. I don’t know how useful apologetics function as a means of converting people, but I have found that writers ranging from C.S. Lewis to Michael Licona have caused me to think afresh about my beliefs in ways that encouraged me to be a “thinking Christian”. But “quick-and-easy apologetics” can be the dangerous side of apologetical works. Sometimes apologists are desperate to provide an “answer” and often the answer is overly simplistic, or even worse, wrong in such a way that it is obvious that the apologist wanted to provide an answer more than the apologist wanted to provide a careful, thoughtful response.
Let me provide an example: When I was in college I read a lot of apologetics. One of my favorite books was Josh McDowell’s The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. It seemed to have answers to all the objections. At first, I found the arguments convincing. Then I began to read critical scholarship on a variety of subjects and it became evident that the “evidence” was not as water-tight as I had suspected. Fortunately, I realized that it remained my responsibility to continue to ask hard questions about my faith and to be diligent to seek honest answers. But I have known people who were shaken when the “answers” proved to be weak and insufficient. Rather than continuing their intellectual journey they either (a) resorted to a blind fundamentalism that stopped asking questions or (b) lost their faith to various degrees. I don’t blame McDowell for creating a large book full of answers that he finds sufficient (if this is so), books like McDowell’s can be flawed at this point.
I think it was within the pages of McDowell’s book that I came across C.S. Lewis’ “trilemma”, which states that you cannot say Jesus was a “great moral teacher” if you deny his claims to be God because:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
(Mere Christianity, 52)
This made a lot of sense to me at the time. It may have been while reading something written by Bart D. Ehrman that an objection was presented to me that was obvious in retrospect: “What if Jesus did not say anything about being God? What if this is something his later followers attributed to him?” (Excursion: Ken Brown’s 2009 post on this topic titled, “What’s Wrong with C.S. Lewis’ Trilemma? Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?”)
Suddenly the simplicity of this argument became its weakest point. If Jesus did not claim to be a god then we can reconsider the possibility that Jesus was a good Jewish teacher who was eventually executed for some reason. Lewis’ answer presupposes something that we can’t presuppose: that the words in the Gospels are the exact words of the historical Jesus. If we are to use Lewis’ trilemma we must provide good reasons for believing that Jesus spoke of himself as divine. This is not an easy task.
I chose this example because it is easy to understand. My desire to teach the church about thinks like critical scholarship has nothing to do with wanting to weaken their faith. It has to do with respecting them and knowing that if I don’t talk to them about challenges to their faith, and if I settle with giving them easy answers, there is a strong chance that someday, somewhere they will hear something unsettling and I will not have prepared them to reason through the claims they face.
I understand why some may not want to address matters related to critical scholarship in the context of the local church, but (1) I am sure that challenges to their faith will arise whether from family, co-workers, of The History Channel and (2) if these challenges wound the faith of our brothers and sisters, and we think the small bandage of “quick-and-easy apologetics” does the job, we may find that our desire to provide an answer–any answer–exposes them to great wounds in the future.
I understand that many Christians live in a world of bliss where they avoid challenges to their faith, but let me remind pastors and other leaders in the church: there are many people–especially youth and college age–who are members of your church who are asking difficult questions. These people are not fools. They know when their questions are being brushed aside. They may know when the answer being given is being given for the mere sake of providing an answer, any answer. If they don’t know immediately, it will come to light later. To fully care for a church means shepherding both those who live in bliss and those who are wrestling with the deep questions of our faith.
Will you give them answers that feed them for the moment or will you teach them how to think for themselves so that when they go to college, or watch The Discovery Channel, or read a book that levels criticism at Christianity they will know how to assess and filter arguments? This is an important question to consider.
Thoughts?
____________________
Prior posts:
Pt. II: the concerns of pastors
Pt. III: what do congregations need to know?
Pt. V: introducing critical scholarship
This is a great post, Brian. And thanks for the link! BTW, I also have a follow-up post that highlights the issue you raise at the beginning about apologetics being more useful to those who already believe than as a form of evangelism. In this case, for those who already DO accept the reliability of scripture (even if not in the strictly historical sense), the trilemma can be a valuable reminder to take Jesus more seriously than we are sometimes prone to do, even if it does not constitute “proof” of Jesus’ divinity: http://corthodoxy.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/narnia-and-the-trilemma/
Ken
Thanks! I agree that the trilemma is useful for those who accept Scripture as reliable and/or authoritative. I don’t know if Lewis had such an audience in mind when he presented his argument, or if people who use his arguments are conscience of the need for this piece, but your point stands.
Brian, I cannot stress enough how important it is for churches to allow the consideration of scholarship.
The C.S. Lewis’ Trilemma was sold to me as a “trump” argument many times. The problem is, if you leave it there (that is, if you believe the trump has settled it) the you are building your faith on a house of cards! When the trump card gets exposed, everything else can topple with it.
I heard too many,quite frankly stupid, answers to my questions that just did not wash. These answers from people who really should have known better than to treat me with what in hindsight seems like contempt. We owe it to those we love to honestly explore and not to build houses out of cards.
pstyle
I agree. I think we need to trust the Spirit as well. We need to be confident that other Christians can think, even if they need a bit of guidance. And we need to be ethical and truthful, which means avoiding simplistic answers if possible.
Hi Brian. Your post reminds me of a valuable lesson I learned from Lesslie Newbigin a few years back as I’ve had opportunity to discuss issues of faith with those outside mine. I found out that the Muslim community was already pointing out the flaw you found in C S Lewis’ Trimemma, something most Christians I knew were unaware of and unable to handle when encountered. Newbigin stated (I wish I could remember the book to reference) “it is not profitable to argue one’s faith assumptions in the arena of another’s faith assumptions.” What I found valuable in that statement was to help people see that every position one takes has underlying faith assumptions. If one can more substantiated over another with agreed criteria – that is where the legitimate force of apologetics lay.
I too, had used Josh McDowell’s books (at the time it was a two-volume set) in a religious studies course at the secular university I attended years ago. The professor knew the Christian message better than most Christians in the class (she was what came across as a Jewish agnostic). But she did not believe it. When she discussed the resurrection of Jesus, she tried to argue by first stating a question: “who would be the most ‘objective’ when relating this story?” With that front-loaded question, the only answer seemed to be “those who did not have a vested interest in it.” That is when I pointed out that the only person who would relate an experience of a resurrection like Jesus’ if it actually happened would be one who actually believed what he/she saw. Anyone else would have to write it off as “I had a little too much to drink last night.”
That conversation, even if I exposed her “objective” argument as a faith commitment itself, still troubled me though. If Jesus did actually rise from the dead, why didn’t he just knock on Pilate’s door and say “here I am! Not what are you going to do about it?” That could have settled the matter once for all. But Paul relates he only showed himself to believers. He also relates his own experience as “one untimely born” as he embraces Messiah Jesus on the Damascus road with a little “arm-twisting.”
It’s when we see Jesus’ response to Thomas’ doubt that maybe there is a different reason for why God does things the way he does. Jesus responds to Thomas by saying “you believe because you see; blessed are those who believe who will not have your opportunity to see.” I think something else is being put forth as an invitation. Apologetics the way I had defined it will never be adequate for this. But helping people see what Newbigin was saying will put us all on a footing to proclaim good news as we help others see just how good it is in comparison to what they want to put their faith in.
Mark
Thank you for the wise insights (and it helps to have Newbign as part of the conversation since he was as insightful a man as anyone)! This is exactly the point: something like the trilemma is useful in contexts where presuppositions about Scripture are shared. In the example you gave, evangelism among Muslims, the presupposition is not shared and therefore the argument is ineffective. But I think you add something that we need to consider in addition: Christianity is not about twisting someone’s theological arm until they confess belief in Christ. We can’t out-intellect people when we believe conversion is a work of Christ revealing himself through his Spirit first and foremost. We proclaim and we witness, but the Spirit converts. We don’t need to cheapen our message either direction–either assuming our apologetical arguments can convert or thinking we have to “protect” people from the questions. Our Pneumatology comes to the forefront in discussions like this one.
“Why use teaching in this context to introduce ideas that might shipwreck someone’s faith?”
I have and continue to struggle with this – it hits more at the core of the question of how I can serve the church as someone who is a scholar (and naturally a bit sceptical about things).
The answer that I work with right now is that it is better for them to struggle with hard questions with me (someone who works through them but remains within the faith) than with someone outside the faith. This was certainly true in my own experience – observing men and women who engaged difficult questions but remained within the faith taught me that it Christians could do it, too. Simple, I know, but I had a long way to go at the time.
Of course this simply shifts the problem as the question then becomes what questions we should embark upon.
Bryce
I would rather be present to think alongside a Christian struggling with doubts than to pretend the questions don’t exist or to pretend that the questions are “off-limits”. I want people to feel comfortable around me knowing that it is OK to ask questions and OK to doubt. You are correct that there is the difficulty of asking, “What questions are most important to introduce to a church?” I think some churches are asking already. I’ve seen pastors like Greg Boyd do multi-week series where people in the congregation can submit their questions and he discusses them. My guess is that in each context the questions that the congregations need to ask or are asking already will become evident in time.
Here’s how I view this stuff.
Jesus existed, near universal researcher agreement, He definitely was murdered by the Romans and His initial followers in Jerusalem definitely thought He was bodily resurrected.
Those 3 ideas are firm.
Then add in the anti Jesus ANE Jews and Romans definitely did not do a good job of denigrating the validity or existence of Christ or the canonical Gospels(it would have been reasonably easy to do so back then, consider they could have pointed out Jesus wasn’t David’s kin and proven it pre 70 AD, all these latter day objections such as He wasn’t born in Bethlehem or lived in Nazareth were proveable centuries later in Roman records), that is strong impirical evidence they couldn’t and the level of hatred then and now is also good evidence Jesus is really at opposition to the “kosmos” even today.
Plus, they made many of the same false allegations the Gospels say they did(i.e. Jesus was a sorcerer, Jesus was a bastard, Mary was a whore,etc). That’s in the various post 70 AD Jewish writings.
Now add the explosion of the faith when it was exactly NOT what Jewish or Gentile culture dreamed of for various reasons, add in the Neronian era martyrs such as James, Peter and Paul.
Add in Jesus’ predictions of the judgment and destruction of Jerusalem and 70 AD.
This all totals to a strong probability( as Lincona would say) Jesus is resurrected.
Since that’s my view, I assume God would preserve for us a record for Christ , what He desires of us, etc. That to me includes textual comparisons for uniformity/consistency of the record to protect the message, etc.
If God can and did raise Jesus’ dead body and I think He has, I think He can and did preserve a valid record teaching us the things He wants us to grasp to change our lives. That’s why I don’t have problems believing they’re valid records.
Amen times a thousand!
My old church, Calvary Fellowship (in Eugene), went through a ton of dramatic stuff simply because our pastor asked a few questions (like, is inerrancy a needed doctrine?). It was sad from my perspective to see brothers and sisters in Christ suddenly “rebuke” me for attending this church because of the pastor. I eventually decided to stay with the “false teacher” because I felt as though I was in an environment where I could have my questions discussed. I don’t like being spoon-fed answers and I don’t think God would want us to be spoon-fed the answers.
I think of Proverbs 25:2; “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” The way I see it, God wants us to explore and discover and seek and ask and knock and be, quite simply, curious little children. Perhaps this Proverb was not intended for intellectual matters, but I’m inclined to believe that it is certainly applicable. With that in mind, it seems clear to me that loving God with all our minds demands rethinking the answers given by our pastors, Sunday school teachers, and favorite Christian authors. Although they mean well, they might be damaging us more in the long run.
I’m with you, Brian; apologetics are fine insofar as they aren’t, as you say, “quick and easy.” Those kinds of apologetics require no thinking for oneself; only regurgitation. I, too, have hidden behind the Lewis Trilemma, but only in certain contexts. I like what Mark brought up about assuming certain things in certain contexts; it’s safe to assume that Jesus declared Himself God amongst most Bible-believing Christians. Outside of that context, though, we have to adjust. Having a sense of our surroundings is key if we want to be able to communicate with the non-Christian communities, let alone if we want to evangelize.
One final thing: My old pastor had tried teaching a class covering the history of Christian Thought. To start the class, we read up on epistemology and studying how we come to know the things that we know (or the things that we think we know). Even though I have taken a few classes on early Christianity in a liberal-university setting (oddly enough, taught by a believing professor), it was still a bit over my head, which seems to suggest that there is a long road ahead of us if we wish to train the church to think in terms conducive to discussion rather than “Q & A.” Perhaps that’s our problem right there – that we think in terms of “question” and “answer,” when it should be something like “question” and “response”?
Glad to have fellow believers engaging in these discussions, though. Let’s me know that I’m not the only one thinking there’s a problem with the way modern-day Christianity addresses intellectual dilemmas.
I think the biggest problem of apologetics is simply ethics. Most apologists are misrepresenting (i.e. lying about) the actual situation and how strong the evidence is for their own dogma and competing claims. But it’s also a serious problem for those in the church who actually take it seriously and want to delve deeper, like I did.
In my case, I was raised in a fundamentalist, Charismatic church and attended a Christian school that taught Creationism, revisionist history (like you get in a Chick tract), and ridiculous biblical apologetics. Imagine my astonishment later in life as I, naively thinking biblical inerrancy to be the basis of Christianity, begin pursuing higher criticism and theological studies. Or my astonishment as I studied science and realized everything my school and my Christian elders had taught me was a lie. And let’s not even go into the charlatanism and circle-jerking (excuse the term) that goes on in the Charismatic world of faith healing, prophecy, and so on.
My intellectual honesty and moral integrity will no longer allow me to even identify myself as an Evangelical or Pentecostal Christian any more. I suppose I could try anew to become a religious person and convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity for its historical credentials or some version of progressive Protestantism that is compatible with my basic beliefs. But I’m not a particularly religious or superstitious person. I don’t particularly need a religion, so I’m not looking to join a new one, and the only one I was raised in and comfortable with is no longer an option.
Of course, since all my friends and family are still drinking the Kool-Aid, it’s an uncomfortable place to be in. At the same time, I still love the Bible and keep pursuing critical studies of it. I easily know more about Christianity than any of my real-life friends and family (including those in ministry positions) do.
“Rather than continuing their intellectual journey they either (a) resorted to a blind fundamentalism that stopped asking questions or (b) lost their faith to various degrees.”
Like Lewis’s trilemma, you have presented a biased and incomplete set of alternatives in this statement. I have lost my faith AND I continue my intellectual journey.
Jeremy
I would have stuck with the pastor who allowed me to ask questions too. (And this word “inerrancy” is becoming more trouble than it is worth in my estimate.) We should be allowed to explore our thinking, even when it is difficult. There is no doubt that things like epistemology may be extremely difficult to teach in a congregational setting. I’ve seen the topic ruin the day of seminarians who are training for ministry and who have gone to school, in part, to think! But your pastor is on to something: how we understand our own process of rationalization is very important and it impacts everything from truthful testimony to biblical literature.
Paul
I imagine Thanksgiving is a fun time of year! I was raised a lot like you and I have family who buy into a very simplistic Christianity as well. Like you I’ve waffled between traditions with historical stability like Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and to a lesser degree Anglicanism. As a former Pentecostal there is much I appreciate about the movement, but like you I no longer belong. I am happy to call myself “evangelical” because I think this word describes and ethos or attitude where Christ is Lord and we are to proclaim this Christ rather than a list of doctrines (i.e., you can be an evangelical Catholic or an evangelical Methodist, but I’m not sure what to make of an evangelical Evangelical sometimes…it almost sounds like a running back that doesn’t play for a team, but has joined a group of running backs instead). On the other hand progressive Christianity can be appealing in some contexts (especially if the resurrection of Christ remains a confession and a starting point), but other forms cannot compete with the NFL for me. If I am going to spend my Sunday with a group of people who do not believe Jesus is the risen Lord, but rather a good model for living, I think I will think about him on Monday and spend Sunday watching the games!
Beau
Good observation, subconsciously I added as a Christian to the end of that sentence. It is possible to continue your intellectual journey after losing faith.
I would add that I think there is a difference between Lewis’s and McDowell’s uses of the trilemma. First of all let me say that I do believe Book 2 (the part with the trilemma, Jesus, satan, etc.) is the weakest part of Mere Christianity.
That said, though, when discussing Mere Christianity. we should keep in mind that most of it was originally delivered as a radio address. Lewis is briskly going through a whole lot of different topics, and given the format it is difficult to answer every possible objection and comprehensively cover all his bases. Also, it seems that Lewis is addressing the trilemma toward someone who thinks the Gospels are basically a trustworthy record of what Jesus said but has hangups with the supernatural/theological stuff in Christianity. This probably would have described a lot of people in Britain in the early 40s – society was at least nominally more Christianized than many western countries today, so even people who didn’t consider themselves Christians were more likely to have some affinity with it.
And while he never wrote a comprehensive defense of the Gospels’ reliability, we see in some of his other writings that he was aware of the issue of the Gospels’ reliability and sometimes commented on it.
McDowell is the one that coined the term “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” and the one who spends many pages on the trilemma in a book that’s supposed to be comprehensive and develops it into a systematic knock-down argument. It seems to me that he hangs more on the trilemma than Lewis did.
Joel
Indeed, the argument is weaker and over-exposed in our context compared to that of Lewis. I’m not complaining that Lewis used it. He used a lot of arguments for Christianity, some very good and helpful. It is more of the modern application of the argument that concerns me.
C S Lewis was right. Jesus is God and He claimed to be.
Anybody reading John’s Gospel, for example,can see this. The Jews thought he was making himself to be equal with God. They got that right.
The trilemma posed by Lewis is not a useless trump-card.
Those who have a problem accepting the Bible as reliable need to have that issue addressed separately.
The problem, Merv, is that to consider the Gospel of John as a historical record of Jesus’ words is a position no Bible scholar I can think of takes. Any serious critical study of the texts simply deflates that notion. In John, what we have is the adulating words of early Christians placed in the mouth of the object of their veneration. We do not see the humble, parable-telling preacher of the Synoptics in John, and to insist that we must (for some unclear reason) think otherwise is simply reliance upon ignorance to shore up dogma.
I find your comments quite amazing, Paul, in respect to Biblical scholars and their historical view on John’s Gospel – I think of Dr D. A. Carson of Trinity in Illinois as one prime example. The late Dr Leon Morris of Melbourne and the late Professor FF Bruce from Manchester wrote great commentaries on John and were held in high repute by many as two of the world’s best NT scholars – these are just three of a number I could mention. Incidentally, John did not have to write his gospel in the same way as the synoptics for it to be authentic.
D.A. Carson is simply an evangelical apologist who dismisses any internal (textual, form critical, etc.) evidence that disagrees with his dogma that the Gospel of John was written by the disciple John himself. The other two I am not familiar with.
Paul D says “D.A. Carson is simply an evangelical apologist who dismisses any internal (textual, form critical, etc.) evidence that disagrees with his dogma that the Gospel of John was written by the disciple John himself.”
With respect Paul, you might read a little more of Carson’s works, if anything to become better acquainted with his work. He has done his share of work in the languages and issues relating to the ANE world. He is not nearly as closed-minded and ill-informed as you make him to be. As to Morris and Bruce, well in Johannine studies they are a couple of the more widely read academics. One need not agree with everything they say but they have won the respect of those both inside and outside of the church.
It is sometimes helpful to read views and research that differ from one’s own. Christian academia is much more diverse than we often realize. A perusal of the program of the recent ETS/SBL/AAR conference in Chicago reveals an interesting mix of academic pursuits. You can find it here: http://www.etsjets.org/
ETS was in Milwaukee not Chicago! Duh.