Doxa Apologetics is a ministry dedicated to the recovery of biblical apologetics. The term “biblical” is loaded, for each and every Christian apologist would make some claim that their approach to apologetics is biblical. Yet, simply affirming that one’s apologetic is biblical does not make it such. To be biblical, one’s apologetic approach must be derived from Scripture, must conform to the teachings of the prophets and apostles, and be found in some measure in the examples given of apologetic encounters in the pages of Scripture. It isn’t enough to merely argue that one’s approach doesn’t violate Scripture, or that one’s approach can be parsed and derived from one word in 1 Peter 3:15, “reason;” importing a perspective grounded in Greek philosophy, derived from Aristotle being baptized by Aquinas, and labeling it biblical.
Such an approach neglects the whole of Scripture, let alone the whole of 1 Peter 3:15, which carefully instructs the foundation of one’s reasons, in exhorting one to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” The Christian begins to give reasons (or an “account,” as the Legacy Standard Bible puts it) not from a place of neutrality but from a place of worship. The language of worship drips off the word “sanctify.” To sanctify is to “regard as holy.” It embodies the truth that Solomon said a thousand years before: “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). The apologist’s very reasons flow from a mind and heart that is centered on Christ, that holds Him as Lord, not from a posture of arguing up to God but rather arguing because God, therefore “repent and believe.”
The goal of Christian apologetics is the glory of God; it is “doxa.” Thus, the Christian apologist’s primary goal is to bring the unbeliever into a relationship with God, in which he glorifies God. He does this by confronting unbelief with arguments and reasons, exposing its foolishness of suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness, for the purpose of ministering the gospel to the unbeliever. Worship is the foundation of apologetics, it is the goal of apologetics, and worship is the posture of the apologist.
Scripturally, the issue being addressed apologetically is always idolatry. The prophets of God confronted the prophets of Baal and/or the people of Israel who were unfaithfully worshiping the multitude of gods worshiped by the people of Canaan. Paul was “provoked” in Athens by all the idols, addressed the people’s ignorance, and called them to worship the God who made heaven and earth, revealed in the person of Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. Central to every apologetic confrontation in Scripture is idolatry.
Yet, idolatry is rarely the issue raised in an apologetic conversation. Modern/Postmodern people are far too sophisticated to be idolaters. One may object that it is fairly difficult to find temples full of idols and altars to pagan deities in contemporary society. Such a statement misses the very root cause of unbelief. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that unbelief isn’t simply rejecting the God who is known, but rather is an “exchange” of “…the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (Romans 1:23). Everyone worships and worship of the true God is central to the apologetic endeavor.
Author and professor David Foster Wallace noted this fact in his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, stating, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody Worships.”[1] Wallace provides a list of contenders for human worship. He includes what he terms “some sort of god or spiritual type thing,” mentioning Allah, Yahweh, or the Wiccan mother-goddess.[2] Wallace then includes human appetites and desires such as “money and things,” one’s body and beauty, sexual allure, power, intellect, etc.[3] The issue isn’t if one worships, but what one worships.
Eve faced this issue in her temptation in the Garden of Eden. The serpent came to her and proposed to her that if she would eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, telling her, “…the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…” (Genesis 3:5). Eve, in response to the temptation of self-deity, set aside the revelation of God and relied on her senses and her reason, considered the words of the snake in the grass, and took and ate, giving some to her husband. In so doing she foreshadowed the philosophical approaches of empiricism and rationalism, relying not on the knowledge of God but upon her autonomous reason based on what she observed and thought.[4]
An approach to apologetics that reflects biblical fidelity is not one based upon the model of Adam and Eve, who fell into sin and failure. Rather, the model of apologetics that the Christian follows is that which is exemplified by Christ. In the context of the want of wilderness, not with the fullness and plenty of the garden, but in fasting and hunger, Jesus is confronted with the serpent of old, Satan himself, who comes to Him with an offer not unlike that given to Eve. The climax of the temptation of Christ came in the offer of all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, with Satan saying, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9).
Amazingly, when answering Satan in each temptation, the first two and the climactic final one, Jesus didn’t cite Aristotle. He didn’t give a version of Aquinas’s five ways. Jesus didn’t point out the complexity of the human eyeball, making an argument for the necessity of God. Jesus, as the master apologist, when confronted by humanity’s most dangerous foe, cited Scripture. His apology was to use the very words Jesus himself, as the Son of God, had spoken to Moses in giving the law, quoting Deuteronomy to the devil.
It is important to note that the primary issue for Adam and Eve, and for Jesus’ temptation, was worship. The answer given to the tempter was, “You shall worship the LORD your God, and serve Him only.” This is the very point where Adam and Eve failed as they sought their own deity. It is the point where all unbelief is found, namely in autonomy, in the abandoning of the revelation of God as the foundation for knowledge, and instead exalting human reason, human experience, and human will as an authority over the revelation of God. Autonomy is idolatry.[5]
Biblical apologetics, in contrast to most current approaches in the field, does not present arguments to appeal to the autonomous idolater. A biblical approach rests on that which is superior, that which is sure, that which is beyond doubt, the very certain revelation of God. Doxa apologetics is about this recovery, making a distinct argument upon the necessity of beginning where those in Scripture began, with God and His person.
Nowhere in Scripture do we find an argument being made that Yahweh exists. Rather, Yahweh is presupposed, and it is from His person, His revelation in creation and in Scripture, that the prophets, the Apostles, and Jesus reasoned against unbelief. Thus, Doxa apologetics is a presuppositional apologetic approach. Like Van Til, John Frame, Greg Bahnsen, and others, the foundation of the defense being made is God, the Trinity, and His revelation.
May you join with us in defending the faith as worshippers of God, confronting the idols of unbelief, for the glory of God and the joy and salvation of those who are yet to believe. Blessings!
[1] David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life, Kindle (New York, NY: Little, Brown & Co, 2009), 98-100.
[2] David Foster Wallace, This Is Water, 102.
[3] David Foster Wallace, This Is Water, 103-111.
[4] See Greg L. Bahnsen, Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, ed. Joel McDurmon (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2008), 61–62. “Adam and Eve viewed the Word of God as one hypothesis to be set alongside the word of Satan. They decided that they were in a position to determine which of the hypotheses was actually true. They exalted their own reasoning above the Word of the Lord, and in doing this they ceased to submit humbly to the authoritative Word of God. They attempted to usurp the epistemological lordship of God, and the result was their fall into sin and punishment.”
[5] Consider Edward T. Welch, “Motives: Why Do I Do the Things I Do?,” ed. David A. Powlison, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Number 1, Fall 2003, 22 (2003): 52, “Autonomy means that we call the shots. Idolaters want to make the rules rather than submit to the lordship of the living God. This was the essence of Adam’s original sin. Even though God had clearly spoken, Adam wanted to devise his own guidelines. In idolatry, we want to establish our own parallel universe, separate from God’s.”