Developing Apologetic Habits of Thought

Price: $199

Apologetics is a the art of defending of the Christian Faith. We will be studying and practicing the art of the apologetics by attempting to develop certain apologetic habits of thought as well as recognizing that the gospel of Jesus Christ bears with it the curse-breaking Jesus’s death on the cross. My personal bent is towards the use of apologetics in evangelism, though we will study the academic debate aspects of apologetics as well. We will also be looking at the ways that lifestyle is centrally important to our apologetic. The ethos of our apologetic is built on the faith, hope, and love of a joyfully lived Christian life. As an ordained Presbyterian minister and church-planter who is now working in the film and television industry, I hope to be able to give many current and living examples of apologetics in action

Course Description

  1. What is the source of Law (Rules or Way of Good Life) (By what standard do we judge?)
      1. The first failure of Adam was an apologetic failure.
        1. Failed to protect eve
        2. Failed to defend the Word of God
      2. It’s a story-telling contest with the dragon.
        1. A contest of Laws.
        2. A contest of appeals to authority.
        3. A contest of myths.
      3. From what perspective is this objection arising?
        1. Personal/Existential? (I’ve been hurt by evil)
        2. Objective? (Reason dictates that…)
        3. Subjective? (I think its ugly) Evaluative triangle of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness)
        4. Christian? (The Bible says…)
        5. Heathen? (Eccl 3-4; Under the sun vs. over the sun) Emptiness is the only end, your limitations are a curse without a good and omnipotent god that is on your side.
  2. What is the idol at the center? (An idol is whatever you think: keeps you safe, delivers you, gives provision, provides identity)
      1. At the center of all apologetic questions is who ought to be worshipped: You owe your allegiance to:
        1. Your creator
        2. Your protector
        3. Your deliverer
        4. Your provider
      2. The question of who provides those is the question of who is the god of the system.
  3. What is the idol at the center? (An idol is whatever you think: keeps you safe, delivers you, gives provision, provides identity) At the center of all apologetic questions is who ought to be worshipped:
      1. You owe your allegiance to:
        1. Your creator
        2. Your protector
        3. Your deliverer
        4. Your provider
    1. What do we need to be saved from? and to?
    2. Saved From Sin and Death to God, self, and one another
      1. Sin comes from within.
      2. Death (in every form, at every level, and in every jurisdiction) comes from the sin of mankind)
        1. Saved to life, life abundant, and life eternal
          Restored to humanity, to freedom, (He came to himself)
        2. Returned to God
  4. If right, can they still be right?
    1. If they are right, can I still believe them?
    2. If they are right, is it still possible to be right?
    3. Are they holding themselves to the same standard as the one they are espousing?

Freud’s third chapter of “The Future of an Illusion” – If Freud is right about the motivations of religion being psychological and therefore untrustworthy, then his own motivations as psychological, become suspect and therefore untrustworthy. 

  1. What is the source of the Metaphysic? (How and why a thing is created defines what it is for.)
    1. Metaphysics: What a thing is. What a thing’s for.
    2. Source of being is the god of the system
    3. Source of being defines what things are.
    4. Source of being defines the teleology of a thing.
      As Moderns, we tend to be “subjective nihilists” Where the subject gives the object its meaning by nihilistic definition.
    5. The Bible teaches an object-subject interplay of creation via poetry and mediated poetic knowledge and meaning.
  2. Where does chaos come from? What makes the chaos go away, holds it back, or brings order from the chaos?
    1. Hesiod vs. Genesis
    2. Darwin vs. Solomon
    3. Karl. Marx vs. Revelation of St. John
    4. Freud vs. Ecclesiasties
  3. How is peace (internal and societal) achieved? What is the rivalry? Who is the scapegoat? (whose death or blood or destruction provides and/or restores peace, sanity, or innocence. What death is necessary or inevitable to have peace).
    1. The redefinition of personhood into units of the great rivalry.
    2. Rivalry in the macro through media, calendar, and revising and refocusing history.
    3. microcosm within the person has been redefined in terms of rivalry through freudian id/superego rivalry and through mind-body rivalry
    4. Walker Percy’s Apologetic to the shattered selfhood of the Modern Man.
    5. A scapegoat is always necessary to restore peace. (Levitical systems vs. Sophocles and Pliny)
    6. The book of Job vs. Modern Politics
    7. Jesus as the true and final scapegoat.

Recommended book list:

  1. Can Saul Alinsky be Saved by Rich Bledsoe
  2. Christ the Tiger by Thomas Howard
  3. Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves