What I Discovered about Reason & Evidence in Apologetics

After eight years in seminary, I created the world’s first assessment that helps people see exactly what convinced them Christianity is true. And this little assessment completely changed my perspective on apologetics. Let me tell you why.

Backstory

Apologetics means defending the Christian faith. And in 2020 I was finishing a Doctor of Ministry degree in apologetics. I had to come up with a project that would make a unique contribution to this field. The one idea that really stuck out was creating an apologetics survey that would help people discover which apologetic approach convinced them Christianity was true. So that’s what I decided to do.

But then there came a time when I actually needed someone to take it. I figured, why not me. The funny thing is, I was the one who created it and programmed it. But I actually remember being really nervous to take it. And I didn’t know what to expect. Would it work?

Well, when I saw the results, I realized that not only did it work, but it was telling me something about my own faith journey.

Now I’ve taken a lot of assessments before. I’ve taken assessments to find my spiritual gifts. I’ve taken an assessment to help me understand my personality type. I’ve taken leadership assessments. But I’d never taken before an assessment like this that lets me see exactly what convinced me Christianity was true.

What Convinced Then

Now what first convinced me was reformed epistemology. This means I suddenly had an awareness of God. I sensed God was calling me to himself. And I had a strong conviction that I was a sinner. Next for me was psychological apologetics. This means I realized that if I wanted to live a satisfied life, I needed to live the way that God intended me to live. And another high score for me was experientialism. I remember experiencing God after I gave my heart to him, and this also helped convince me that Christianity was true.

I thought, this is really interesting, because none of these three really involve much evidence and reason.

What Convinces Me Now

Then I moved to the second part of my report, which told me what keeps me convinced today, I saw that classical apologetics, evidentialism and rationalism were at the very top. And these are all based on evidence and reason. When I saw that, I thought, well, that’s also interesting, because those became more important to me over time.

Same Pattern With 1,000 People

After I took it, I had 1,000 other people take it, and I was surprised to see that most people had the same results as me. Evidence and reason-based apologetics don’t seem to play a major role in most people’s conversions:

But they do become important later on:

Now, why is that?

Well, I’ve thought about this, and it could be that it’s just part of the normal Christian maturity process.

Maybe once a person becomes a Christian, they feel the need to explore the evidence to confirm their beliefs. Or maybe as we walk with the Lord longer, we inevitably have doubts. And these doubts make us reach out and look for answers.

But for whatever reason, most Christians feel that reason and evidence, play a bigger part in keeping them convinced today.

Here are two big takeaways from all this.

Takeaway #1. The Majority Don’t Need Hard Evidence At First

Number one, relax. You probably don’t have to argue your way through the gospel when witnessing to your friends or family members. One out of 10 People might need hard evidence, but the vast majority of people don’t.

Here’s the problem. We want to tell our friends and family members about Christ, but then we worry they’re going to ask us that one question about philosophy, or history, or the Bible. And we’re not going to know how to answer. So we freeze up and we never talked to them.

But the important thing to know is most people didn’t need to work through a list of tough questions in order to believe and that frees us up just to talk to them about Jesus.

Takeaway #2. Apologetics Is Needed To Build The Faith Of Believers

Believers should be much more interested in apologetics for themselves and for others in the church. Because evidence and reason-based apologetics are what keep most people convinced today.

What this tells me is every church needs apologetic classes, not just as a way to train people for evangelizing but as a way to strengthen the faith of their existing believing congregation.