Thinking Christian

This post is about the classification of Christian apologetic methodologies. I’m sure some may find the subject a bit boring and irrelevant, but it is a topic that is worth some thought for the purpose of gaining clarity in studying the similarities and differences between the methodologies.

The main schools of thought in Christian apologetics can be classified in several ways, but I propose the following as a useful way to categorize various schools of thought.

The basic distinction between two schools of thought:

-Evidentialism
- Presuppositionalism

As the names imply, Evidentialism is mainly concerned with the presentation of evidence for Christianity, whereas Presuppositionalism’s main focus is on the presuppositions of Christian and non-Christian worldviews. This is often coupled with the claim that non-Christian worldviews lead to contradiction, epistemological futility, etc.

Further refinement within the category of Evidentialism:

- Historical Evidentialism
- Cumulative Evidentialism

Historical Evidentialism focuses on presenting the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus, the reliability of the Gospels, etc. Cumulative Evidentialism is likewise an approach that focuses on presenting evidence, but it recognizes that the case for Christianity is a cumulative case that can start with arguments for the existence of some kind of a creator-designer, or with some other kind of philosophical argumentation. This can then be combined with the historical case for the resurrection and the NT reliability.

With regard to the category of Presuppositionalism, I would find it useful to distinguish between:

- General Theistic Presuppositionalism
- Biblical Presuppositionalism

Not many broadly Presuppositional apologists would even recognize the validity of the category of General Theistic Presuppositionalism.  But I use it as a label for a view that insists on the necessity of holding a broadly Theistic worldview, without necessarily going so far as to argue that the Biblical revelation is somehow necessary as a presupposition of a coherent worldview. Biblical Presuppositionalism would be a view that insists on making this set of initial presuppositions more explicitly Christian and Biblical.

With theses basic categories in mind, we can propose a third main category, namely, Combinationalism. By Combinationalism, I mean a view that combines insights and elements from both Evidentialism and Presuppositionalism. For example, General Theistic  Presuppositionalism and Cumulative Evidentialism could thus be taken together as one form of Combinationalism (this would be pretty close to my actual view).

One could get further clarification by adding terms like “strong”, “moderate” and “weak” to the various elements of these approaches, according to the degree of emphasis.

I very much doubt that this is the perfect way to classify the apologetic methodologies, but in some ways, it seems very logical and practical. It would be an interesting exercise to place each author on apologetics into one of these categories.