This past November, I had the pleasure of presenting a paper with Dr. Matthew Sokoloski for EPS at the annual ETS/EPS conference in Boston. Our paper was entitled “Embodied Anchored Narratives,” which (as the name implies) proposes an apologetic model that takes an embodied, narratival approach to apologetics while remaining grounded in rational truths. During our presentation, there was also another EPS session being held next door which was focused on rational arguments for God. Let’s just say the other session was much better attended than our own! And, I completely understand why. Had I not been presenting at that time, I probably would have been in that session myself! The paper being presented at the same time as ours was on the ontological argument – one of my personal favorite arguments for God. In fact, I did attend the next presentation in that session, which was about an argument for God from art. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
It’s hardly surprising that a session about arguments for God would be more popular than a session about apologetic methodology. For the philosophically minded among us (myself included), rational arguments feel more exciting and more fruitful. They are spiritually encouraging and intellectually satisfying in a way that discussions about methodology are not. However, as I saw the crowd in that session, it made me think about the need for what Dr. Sokoloski and I were talking about, especially among those of us who care about the role apologetics plays in the church, and how we can best express that need.
Purposeful Apologetics
Let’s consider a question: what is apologetics for? I do not mean what is the definition of apologetics. That is pretty straightforward: it is the branch of theology that seeks to provide rational warrant for our faith. Unfortunately, we often conflate what apologetics is and what it is for. Apologetics is not for defending the faith in the abstract. Rather, we defend the faith for the sake of people. In particular, there are three specific purposes that I believe apologetics serves. We could say that apologetics exists to:
- Persuade unbelievers to come to faith
- Encourage believers not to leave the faith
- Empower believers to fully enjoy and live out their faith
All of this has traditionally been done through rational argumentation. When we present the teleological argument or historical arguments for the resurrection of Jesus or whatever else, we are generally seeking to do one or all of these three things. That approach certainly has value, and I am living proof. But I am also living proof that, especially for our late modern age, apologetics has overlooked other key elements that need to be addressed. And these overlooked elements are only going to grow in importance as humanity moves into the future. We will need more than rational arguments if we wish to pursue this apologetic mandate.
The Knowledge-Faith Gap
If you asked your average atheist why they do not believe in God, most of them would probably say, along with Bertrand Russell, “not enough evidence!” More particularly, they would likely point to all kinds of scientific evidence that they believe tends to disconfirm the claims of the Bible. For example, they might point out that we have now observed star and planet formation in other systems, suggesting the Genesis account of creation is incorrect, or they might point to Darwinian evolution to show that a divine designer is unnecessary to explain the complexity of life. Others perhaps would take a more philosophical approach, concerned with things like suffering or the plausibility of miracles. All of these are, of course, rational arguments against God and Christianity, and so we (believers) assume that what is needed is a rational response sufficient to convince them they are mistaken.
But what if these rational arguments are in fact just the tip of the iceberg?
Some years ago, I was studying with a Japanese woman, a non-Christian. I was young and excitable and foolish, and so I thought to present her with the moral argument for God. I thought I could use the argument to convince her to come to faith. She studied with me, and seemed to understand the point and even agree with it. And yet, the argument had absolutely no effect on her spiritually. She showed no more interest in becoming a Christian than before our conversation.
My Japanese friend is not alone. Holly Ordway, in her book Apologetics And The Christian Imagination, says that she had a two-step conversion. She says that she would not have been able to become a Christian had Christianity not proven intellectually satisfying. Rational arguments were a vital part of the process for her. But notice something else she says:
“I came to belief in God, but then struggled with the idea of the Incarnation. All the evidence pointed toward the crucifixion and the Resurrection as historical facts, but I found that I was unable to accept the idea of Jesus as God Incarnate. I understood the concept, but I couldn’t grasp it, even though I knew it was part of a larger argument that was extremely convincing.”1
She had the rational arguments, understood them fully, and even accepted them intellectually, but somehow, there were aspects of the arguments that she could not grasp or accept. Something about it seemed distant enough to prevent her from making a decision to follow Jesus. For Ordway, the imaginative writing of C.S. Lewis ultimately helped bridge that gap.
However, the question I want to ask here is – where did that gap come from? How is it that someone can be completely convinced of the arguments, but still feel like what they know to be true is wrong? Why is that so many Christians even, who believe in God and are committed to Jesus, feel like God is distant or even absent? Holly Ordway’s experience is not unique. What’s the issue?
Bulwarks of Unbelief
Building from the paper that Dr. Sokoloski and I presented, I want to say there are at least two issues at play – two “bulwarks of unbelief,” to quote Joseph Minich – and just like the rational challenges, these both need to be dealt with apologetically.
The first bulwark is competing narratives. From the 300s to around the late 1800s, at least in the west, Christianity enjoyed the benefit of being the only real narrative in town. The Christian story shaped everyone’s life, not just personally, but socially and culturally as well. This influence was overt in many ways, but even within its overt influence were many important subtleties. Consider the Christian calendar, for example. Easter and Christmas are obviously Christian, but their influence goes much deeper than their individual days suggest. The calendar year itself was formed around such Christian holidays, and this shaped the way people saw the world without them even realizing it. The calendar influenced their experience and understanding of time, both past, present, and future. This in turn shaped the story they saw in the world, the story in which they saw themselves, and even shaped the kinds of stories they told to each other.
These kinds of subtle influences change the way a person thinks, shaping their rational understanding of the world and thus the kinds of arguments they find persuasive. For those who lived fully within the Christian calendar, before they even encountered a particular argument for God or Christianity, they already had a narrative which predisposed them to finding certain things compelling and other things not so compelling. They had encountered all kinds of rational influences wrapped quietly in narrative form. Today, only vestiges of that narrative remain, and rather than a single grand narrative, a thousand lesser narratives have come in to fill the void. The grand narrative of Christianity has been replaced by a crude network of miniature narratives, operating haphazardly according to individual values. This has been exacerbated by global communication and especially the internet. This narratival hodgepodge is shaping not only what people find rationally compelling, but also what they want to find rationally compelling, and it does this before we have even begun to make a rational argument.
The second bulwark is embodied life. Imagine two kinds of societies: one traditional agrarian and the other modern and technological. In the first society, people work with their hands and engage with others as part of daily life and business. The farmer works his field, then sells his crops in the local market, knowing most of the people to whom he is selling, as they are part of his community. The local baker buys the farmer’s wheat, and then makes bread which the farmer’s wife uses for their dinner. At the center of town is a church, whose liturgical calendar flows out into all of society. In the second society, most people work with their fingers, sitting in cubicles at computer screens. They have little understanding of what role their job plays in society, or even what role it plays in the company for which they work. In their commute, they pass thousands of people and speak to none of them. They buy food at the grocery store from places they’ve never been and people they’ve never met. What little human contact they have is mediated heavily by computers and algorithms. To what degree there is a center of town, it is mostly a place for government offices and businesses.
These are radically different embodied ways of life. Each will shape how the people within them experience and think about the world in radically different ways. The first is conducive to seeing the world as agentic, filled with meaning and a telos that touches everything and everyone. The second is conducive to seeing the world as devoid of agency – even one’s own – and devoid of any overarching purpose. The people in each of these respective societies will have a very different view of what makes for a compelling argument. The difference has little to do with their education and more to do with the way the world presents itself. Like the first bulwark, this one is operating on their hearts and minds before anyone has ever presented them with a rational argument. In many cases, it is operating on them even when they are infants.
The importance of these two bulwarks for the apologetic mandate cannot be overstated. If the goal of apologetics is those three purposes I mentioned previously, and if these two bulwarks are truly as influential in modern unbelief as I believe they are, then we cannot be content with apologetics that addresses only rational arguments. The apologetics task must adapt to address these concerns. We need not only rational apologetics, but also what I will call “meta-apologetics.”
Meta-Apologetics
The term “meta-apologetics” could refer to a defense of apologetics itself, but that is not what I mean by the term. Here, I mean it to refer to apologetics that is more comprehensive in nature than standard rational apologetics. Meta-apologetics includes branches such as narratival apologetics, cultural apologetics, incarnational apologetics, and imaginative apologetics. It is important to note that meta-apologetics does not aim to remove or demote traditional approaches. Rational apologetics is still vital, and is needed in every branch of meta-apologetics. Rather, the goal of meta-apologetics is to address those bulwarks of unbelief that stand in the way of faith and even inhibit the effectiveness of rational arguments.
In this way, meta-apologetics really serves as a helper to traditional rational approaches. I would argue that any branch of meta-apologetics cannot properly operate without the rational anchor in place. For example, a narrative can have a powerful influence, but that influence is a sham if the story is not in fact true. Indeed, untrue stories can be very harmful! So the rational aspect makes it possible for these branches of meta-apologetics to have compelling weight. At the same time, traditional apologetics needs these other branches if it is to operate effectively in the modern environment.
The Future & Meta-Apologetics
The two bulwarks I mentioned previously are not going to change anytime soon. With the internet generally and social media specifically, competing narratives are only going to grow in both number and complexity. There is simply too much information available and even actively bombarding us. The simple, controlled narratival structure of the past is no longer an option. Meanwhile, embodied life is only going to become increasingly virtual. The coming rise of humanoid robots will usher in a world where even physical life is filled with entities that are primarily digital in nature. And we have only just begun to see what the virtual reality metaverse has in store. It is difficult to predict precisely how all of this will impact worldviews, but it seems unlikely to strengthen our view of agency in the world. I do not mean to imply that some kind of bleak cyberpunk dystopia awaits us in the future. But for apologists, we must be prepared to deal with a diverse set of barriers to faith. A large repertoire of rational arguments will not be enough.
What does this look like in practice, though? How can meta-apologetics and rational apologetics cooperate to serve the apologetics mandate?
I think a good example can be seen in Christian creativity. Modern Christian writing, directing, and artistry needs to learn the art of subversiveness. We need work that is compelling and beautiful, yet also intellectually stimulating and fulfilling. I personally enjoy reading sci-fi, and one of my favorite genres is first contact novels. In high school, I devoured Michael Crichton’s “Sphere,” finishing it in a single school day. I’ve read all of Cixin Liu’s incredible “Three Body Problem” series. I still remember watching Carl Sagan’s “Contact” for the first time, and being in awe at the concept. A recent favorite is Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary,” and probably my favorite sci-fi novel ever is Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem.” One thing I’ve noticed in all of these stories is that (a) they tend to be intellectually engaging and (b) they are thoroughly secular and even atheistic (or at least strongly agnostic). There are very few Christian writers in this genre. The only Christian first-contact novel I’ve read was “Pilgrims” by M.R. Leonard. I enjoyed it, but it is basically Catholic propaganda. Many Christian novels these days are that way – they appeal primarily to Christians and have little potential for cultural influence. I believe one reason for the discrepancy is that many Christian writers have not engaged sufficiently with the intellectual side of their faith. Many Christians are, as William Lane Craig put it, in “intellectual neutral.” If we want to be addressing these deep-seated issues which are forming barriers to faith, we need intellectually engaged and competent Christian creators producing balanced works. We need both rational apologetics and meta-apologetics.
I hope that the church will continue to produce philosophers and theologians and scientists who defend the faith from an intellectual, rational point of view. We need that now as ever. Indeed, some of our cultural problems are the product of a dearth of Christian academics in the past. Universities were overrun by skeptical, even anti-religious academics, and that has had a lasting influence in society. So yes, we absolutely need Christian academics and Christian rationality. But we also need apologetics that ventures beyond the confines of logical syllogisms, even while keeping that anchor securely in place. We need cultural apologists, we need narratival apologists, and we need apologists addressing the embodied and imaginative needs of modern society. In short, we need apologetics that is both intellectually engaged and culturally aware. Only then will we be capable of holistically addressing the modern bulwarks of unbelief.
- Holly Ordway, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2017). p.10
- Top Image:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paulus_in_Athen_19Jh.jpg
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