By: Steve Hays
PART 1: A POSITIVE APOLOGETIC
The natural mind sees
God in nothing,
Not even spiritual
things;
The spiritual mind sees
God in everything,
Even natural things.
—Robert
Leighton
PART 2: I’m Glad You Asked!
I. Insight & Hindsight
Why
am I writing this? Over the years, I’ve
had a number of college and seminary students approach me to ask me how I’d
field this or that objection to the faith. In responding, my answer was naturally
shaped by the form of the question. And this is fine as far as it goes. But that doesn't really represent how I’d
frame the questions and prioritize the issues if I were offering a positive
defense of my own faith. And so I’d
like, for once, to take the initiative in setting the terms of the debate from
my own point of departure.
Secondly,
I’m at a point in life where it is worthwhile to take stock of my reasoning. I became a Christian as a teenager, and I’m
now a middle-aged man. So I’ve passed
through the most of the major phases of life, in consequence of which my
outlook is pretty settled.
In
addition, I’ve read widely and deeply in the fields of philosophy, theology, apologetics,
philosophy of religion, science, philosophy of science, Bible criticism,
comparative religion, comparative mythology, and atheism. I doubt that there
are any major arguments pro or con that I’m not acquainted with, so I don't
anticipate any intellectual revolutions in my thinking. Having sifted through all this material, it’s
time to distill it down to a few core questions and answers if not for the
benefit of the reader, certainly for my own.
In
that regard I need to say in advance what I do and do not intend to cover in
this essay. On the one hand, I don’t
plan to rehearse all the traditional arguments for the Christian faith. This omission doesn’t necessarily imply a
rejection of such reasons. Many of the
arguments I’m leaving out of consideration enjoy considerable merit.[1]
But I don't want to swamp the reader in a sea of technicalities. I'd like to keep this essay at the level of
popular reading and personal reflection.
So I’m confining myself to arguments that I myself find especially appealing
and compelling. The treatment is admittedly idiosyncratic.