1. Twelve Points That Show Christianity is True
Owning Your Worldview Considers:
By: Dr. Norman Geisler

2. Overview of this Study The Importance of Apologetics
Point 1: The Truth About Reality is Knowable
Point 2: The Opposite of True is False
Point 3: It is True that the Theistic God Exists
Point 4: If God Exists, Then Miracles are Possible
Point 5: Miracles Can Be Used to Confirm a Message From God

3. Overview of this Study
Point 6: The New Testament Documents are Historically Reliable
Point 7: The New Testament says Jesus Claims to Be God
Point 8: Jesus’ Claims to be God was Confirmed by a Unique Set of Miracles
Point 9: Therefore, Jesus was God
Point 10: Whatever Jesus Affirmed is True

4. Overview of this Study
Point 11: Jesus Affirmed the Bible is the Word of God
Point 12: Therefore it is True That the Bible is the Word of God (and anything opposed to it is false)

5. Building Foundations Apologetics Logical Foundation (Points 1 and 2)
Supernatural Foundation (Points 3 through 5)
Historical Foundation (Points 6 through 12)

6. Additional Texts By Dr. Norman Geisler
Twelve Points That Show Christianity is True
Living Loud, Defending Your Faith
When Skeptics Ask
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

7. Session Goals Think through Christian apologetics.
Define Christian apologetics.
State the importance of Christian apologetics.
Answer objections to doing Christian apologetics.
Commit yourself to Christian apologetics.

8. Session Outline What is Apologetics? Definition
Building a Case, for Building a Case
Why do Apologetics?
The Bible commands it.
The culture demands it.
The Church needs it.
Results confirm it.
Objections to Christian Apologetics

9. Definition
Apologetics is giving a reason or defense of what we believe.
It is based on the greek word apologia.
Apologia is a legal term. Think of lawyers presenting arguments in a court of law. They are giving an apologia.
Apologetics has nothing to do with apologizing.

10. …Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. 16 However, do this with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear, so that when you are accused, those who denounce your Christian life will be put to shame.
-1 Peter 3:15b-16
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, Print.

11. Building a Case, for Building a Case
Apologetics is often framed as formal arguments.
Positive arguments build a case for belief (offensive).
The nature of truth, arguments for God’s existence, historicity of the bible, deity of Christ, etc.
Negative arguments defend belief (defensive).
Defense against modern philosophies, defense of miracles, the problem of evil, etc.

12. Building a Case, for Building a Case
Apologetics is a form of pre-evangelism.
This pre-evangelism is meant to address intellectual objections to faith.
Emotional objections and rebellion against God need to be addressed
Meaningful Relationships - Positive Christian Examples - Pastoral Care - Professional Counselling

13. Building a Case, for Building a Case
Historically we have been a Christian culture. You could share the gospel with people and they:
Understood the terms being used.
Accepted the concept of absolute truth.
Recognized there were objective moral truths & obligations.
Accepted that Christianity was culturally relevant.

14. Building a Case, for Building a Case
Pre-Evangelism is critical because in order to hear, understand, and make a decision about the gospel a person must first be able to grasp the possibility of:
The existence of God
Special Revelation (the Bible)
The Supernatural (miracles)
Interaction with God (salvation)

15. Building a Case, for Building a Case
Over half of the people in the world are non-theistic.
Evangelism on its own is most effective in areas where significant theistic belief is already present.
Apologetics empowers pre-evangelism because clears intellectual hurdles and allows the conversation to move to areas of emotional or volitional objections.

16. Building a Case, for Building a Case
We must meet each person where they are in their faith journey.
We have to recognize where they are and lead them, as far as they will allow us, to the truth. Paul did this:
Acts 14: Paul uses nature to inform the Heathen/Pagan.
Acts 17a: Paul uses OT scripture to inform the Jew.
Acts 17b: Paul uses reason with the Greek.
Acts 20: Paul uses the words of Jesus with the Christian.

17. Building a Case, for Building a Case
This study (The Twelve Points) provides a framework that will assist us with:
Understanding apologetic arguments.
Grouping those arguments for reference.
Assisting us in identifying areas where people are willing to accept the Christian worldview and those areas where they have intellectual objections.

18. –C.S. Lewis: The Weight of Glory, pg. 50
“To be ignorant and simple now - not to be able to meet the enemies on their ground - would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason than bad philosophy needs to be answered.”
–C.S. Lewis: The Weight of Glory, pg. 50

19. Session Outline What is Apologetics? Definition
Building a Case, for Building a Case
Why do Apologetics?
The Bible commands it.
The culture demands it.
The Church needs it.
Results confirm it.
Objections to Christian Apologetics

20. The Bible Commands It
…Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. 16 However, do this with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear, so that when you are accused, those who denounce your Christian life will be put to shame.
-1 Peter 3:15b-16
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, Print.

21. “If you long to know the mind of God, you must learn to use your own.”
The Bible Commands It
“If you long to know the mind of God, you must learn to use your own.”
“Getting your life cleaned up is Godliness. Getting your mind cleaned up is logic.”
-Dr. Norman Geisler

22. The Bible Commands It Defend The Gospel
“It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and establishment of the gospel.”
-Philippians 1:7
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, Print.

23. The Bible Commands It Answer Every Question
“Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.”
-Colossians 4:6
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, Print.

24. The Bible Commands It Contend for the Faith
“Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write and exhort you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.”
-Jude 1:3
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, Print.

25. Confirm the Faith of Believers
The Bible Commands It
Confirm the Faith of Believers
“It also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.”
-Luke 1:3-4
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian Standard Version. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, Print.

26. The Culture Demands It
The culture accepts and embraces ideas that are incompatible with Christianity.
Relativism: No view is absolutely true.
Pluralism: All views are relatively true.
Naturalism: No supernatural view can be true.

27. The Culture Demands It The Christian believes in:
The absolute truth in defiance of relativism.
The exclusive message of salvation in face of a pluralistic push for tolerance of all ideas.
A supernatural view in a naturalistic public square of ideas.

28. The Church Needs It 80% of active teens leave the Church in their 20s.
When surveyed the primary reason stated was that they had doubts about the Bible.
People attribute this to attending secular universities.
Only 11% stated that their doubts started at university.
88% stated that their doubts started significantly earlier, but it wasn’t until they were away from their parents they could make their doubts public.

29. The Church Needs It
Surveys found that of the people who identified as “Evangelical Christians”:
Only 9% hold a traditional Christian worldview.
Only 51% of the evangelical pastors hold a traditional Christian worldview.

30. Results Confirm It Acts 17: Paul and the Athenians
We see a Biblical example of apologetics in action.
Paul engages the Greek philosophers and poets in Greek terms, not in the Hebrew terms of the Jews.
Many ridiculed Paul, but some of them came to believe in Christ.

31. Results Confirm It The Salvation of Saint Agustine
He confronted his skepticism using reason and logic.
A philosopher named Plotinus challenged him to use reason to confront materialism.
A Christian debater clarified the gospel so that he was delivered from a dualistic cult.

32. -Dr. Robert Jastrow, God and the New Astronomers, Pg. 14
Results Confirm It
“Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commence suddenly and sharply at a defined moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
-Dr. Robert Jastrow, God and the New Astronomers, Pg. 14

33. Results Confirm It
“Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shuffling…is insensibly different from zero.”
-Dr. Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space, Pg. 3
[So there must be] “an intelligence, which designed the biochemicals and gave rise to the origin of carbonaceous life.”
-Dr. Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space, Pg. 143

34. -Dr. Albert Einstein, Heeren, Show Me God, Pg. 66
Results Confirm It
“The harmony of natural law…reveals an intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings in an utterly insignificant reflection.”
-Dr. Albert Einstein, Heeren, Show Me God, Pg. 66

35. -Dr. Anthony Flew, There is a God, Pg. 183
Results Confirm It
“It is simply inconceivable that any material matrix or field can generate agents who think and act…A force field does not plan or think. So…the world of living, conscious, thinking beings has to originate in a living Source, a Mind.”
-Dr. Anthony Flew, There is a God, Pg. 183

36. -Dr. Allan Sandage, Truth [1985], Pg. 54
Results Confirm It
“The world is too complicated in all of its parts to be due to chance alone…The more one learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some kind of organizing principle — an architect for believers…”
-Dr. Allan Sandage, Truth [1985], Pg. 54

37. -Jean-Paul Sartre, National Review (June 11, 1982), Pg. 677
Results Confirm It
“I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, National Review (June 11, 1982), Pg. 677

38. -C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Pg. 45
Results Confirm It
[As an atheist] “my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Pg. 45

39. -J. Budziszewski, Objections, Obsticles, Acceptance
Results Confirm It
“What actually led me back was a growing intuition that my condition was objectively evil…Evil is deficiency in good; there is no thing as an evil “substance,” an evil in-itself. So if my condition really was evil, there had to be some good of which my condition was the ruination…I had been so wrong, for so long, so profoundly, that it seemed that almost anything might be true - even the faith that I had abandoned.”
-J. Budziszewski, Objections, Obsticles, Acceptance

40. -Dr. Francis Collins, The Language of God, Pg. 38
Results Confirm It
“Why would such a universal and uniquely human hunger [for God] exist, if it were not connected to some opportunity for fulfillment?…Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well there is such a thing as water.”
-Dr. Francis Collins, The Language of God, Pg. 38

41. Session Outline What is Apologetics? Definition
Building a Case, for Building a Case
Why do Apologetics?
The Bible commands it.
The culture demands it.
The Church needs it.
Results confirm it.
Objections to Christian Apologetics

42. Objections to Christian Apologetics
There are two major groups who oppose Christian apologetics.
The Secular Rationalist: They see reason and logic as their exclusive intellectual property. They object to the concept of rational and logical thinking applied to the supernatural concepts.
The “Just Have Faith” Christian: They see faith as the ONLY avenue to relationship with Christ. Intellectual arguments are seen as a distraction or lack of faith.

43. Objections to Christian Apologetics
OBJECTION: Only the Holy Spirit can save, not apologetics.
True, but God can use evidence to convince them they need salvation.
Almost no one believes in something they find to be irrational and without evidence.
Almost everyone who believes does so because they are convinced it is the most reasonable thing to do.

44. Objections to Christian Apologetics
OBJECTION: The Bible is like a lion. It does not need to be defended, only released into the world.
Do you believe the Qur’an or the Book of Mormon just because others claim they are accurate?
We only fear lions because we have previous knowledge they are dangerous (lion pre-evangelism).
We need to show that not only does the Bible claim to be true, but it’s claims are supported by multiple sources.

45. Objections to Christian Apologetics
OBJECTION: Paul tried apologetics in Acts 17 but failed. He later turned to preaching Jesus only.
Incorrect interpretation of Acts 17.
This objections dismisses the impact of pre- evangelism.
Paul didn’t fail at apologetics, he succeeded in pre- evangelizing before presenting the gospel.

46. Objections to Christian Apologetics
OBJECTION: We are saved by faith alone, not faith plus reason (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Correct. We are SAVED by faith alone. It does not follow that faith itself must be blind of without reason.
If rational people are presented with evidence that God exists they are more likely to accept (have faith) that God exists.
Apologetics only impacts the mind. It is the Holy Spirit that impacts the will of a person.

47. Objections to Christian Apologetics
OBJECTION: No one is saved by using apologetics but only by preaching Christ.
This is a false dilemma. Christ is the path to salvation. Apologetics can convince people that Christ is the path to salvation.
Why would we be created with reason and then tood to bypass our reason.

48. Session Goals Think through Christian apologetics.
Define Christian apologetics.
State the importance of Christian apologetics.
Answer objections to doing Christian apologetics.
Commit yourself to Christian apologetics.