Types Of Defense

By Author: Johnon Philip
Total Articles: 90
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Christian apologetics is that discipline of study in which one does everything that is academically possible to defend the Christian faith. A thorough defense of the Christian faith requires a good acquaintance with several subjects including the current sciences and historical sciences, and this is a very demanding task. However, before these secular qualifications, one must have a primary spiritual qualification : one must already have submitted his life to the Lord Jesus to enter into a personal relationship with him.

Since the attacks against the Bible come from numerous fields of academic study, some sort of classification will help us to make the discussion manageable. We will, therefore, classify all apologetic activity into two categories :

1--Philosophical Apologetics
2--Rational Apologetics

A good number of objections raised against the Christian faith originate from the different philosophical and religious thoughts that are current in the world. Philosophical apologetics aims at refuting all these philosophical objection.

Since this is the age of science, a large number of objections ...
... are based upon the physical or non physical sciences. Rational apologetics aims at refuting these objections. Also, many of the objections result from faulty logic, or due to deliberate misinterpretation of statements in the Bible. Refuting this kind of allegations needs a good understanding of logical fallacies, and for the sake of simplicity we will assume that this activity is also a part of rational apologetics.

The above classifications are used only as a rough guideline because it is not always possible to separate one form of apologetics from another. Also, there is a great deal of inter dependence between these two categories of activities. Further, refutation of objections and accusations is only a one part of Christian apologetics. The full realm of apologetics covers many more activities, including an examination of the rational content of our faith and also a defense of such content.
Practically any person can enjoy the writings or speeches of an apologist, but not everyone can become a good defender of faith. The skill and training required to become a good apologist are so taxing that among Christian communicators only a minority opt to be trained in this discipline. However, the difficult requirements in entering this vocation does not rule out the possibility of involvement form non experts in this field. In fact, today so much published material is available to the interested person that any individual can use apologetics in a useful way. Many of them can master some of the basic principles and then help seekers. Others can make themselves familiar with good books and writers in this field, and then introduce these to the seeker. A genuine seeker needs only correct directions, and this can be provided by anyone who has any interest in the defense of the Christian faith.

The main aim of this writing is to impart the necessary minimum foundation to anyone who is interested in apologetics. (It will not make them specialists, because that is not possible without a thorough study of several other subjects.) The first thing to learn in this connection is, 'how to handle difficulties in the Bible'.

Difficulties in the Bible might arise due to our faulty understanding of the Bible, logic, or the sciences. An analysis of numerous presumed difficulties shows that most of the difficulties fall into certain definite categories. This is good news for the apologist, because if the difficulties follow a certain predictable pattern of behavior then an understanding of those patters will help in solving problems more efficiently and accurately.
Dr. Philip is the founder of Free Courses, a net school. He also has Free Apologetics Courses where numerous free courses are available.