Apologetics

Apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith. Confessional apologetics — in the Reformed stream most fully — differs from generic evangelical apologetics in one decisive way: it starts from Scripture and the Lordship of Christ rather than from neutral reason. The believer does not meet the unbeliever on supposedly common ground; rather, the believer challenges the unbeliever's presumed neutrality. This is presuppositionalism, developed most fully by Cornelius Van Til and his students.

Classical and evidential approaches — ordered proofs of God's existence, appeals to historical evidence for the resurrection — remain valuable tools within the Reformed tradition, but they are subordinate to the deeper claim that there is no neutrality: every person is either in Adam or in Christ, and every argument either presupposes the Christian worldview or borrows from it while denying it.

These questions treat apologetic method (presuppositional, classical, natural law), cultural and political theology (two kingdoms, cultural mandate), internal controversies within Reformed circles (Arminianism, hyper-Calvinism, the federal vision, the new perspective on Paul), the problem of evil and false gospels, and comparative religion (Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholicism, Judaism, atheism, and more). The gospel is bold; its defense should be too.