Part Twenty: What Makes for a Successful Apologist—When Is Our “Job” Completed?

This blog article concludes my twenty-part series on applying the Socratic Method in apologetic encounters; that is, putting the burden of proof on non-Christian skeptics in order to challenge them to justify and defend their religious and philosophical worldviews. In this last blog article, I will explain what makes an apologetic encounter successful. Or to put it another way, how do we know when we’ve done all we can in apologetic evangelism.

The goal of apologetics—as an avenue of evangelism—is to encourage unbelievers to seriously consider the evidence for Christianity, in particular the truth and reliability of Scripture and what it reveals about Jesus Christ. Apologetics makes it plain that choosing Christianity is not a leap of blind faith. It rests on a solid foundation of historical and other facts. On the flip side, we also encourage unbelievers to see that other religions are false because they lack the textual, historical, prophetic, and other evidences that validate Christianity.

Unfortunately, however, demonstrating the truth of Scriptures and the divine nature of Jesus Christ does not automatically result in an unbeliever becoming a Christian. People can choose to make a willful decision to reject Jesus in spite of the best evidence. People can and do make emotional and moral commitments to unbelief. But these are not rational reasons. They are “don’t-bother-me-with-the-facts” kind of responses.

Nevertheless, on a purely intellectual level, if we’ve been successful in our apologetics, unbelievers will comprehend the truth of Christianity and conclude that if divine revelation exists at all, Christianity is it. By applying their God-given reasoning abilities to religious matters, people searching for religious truth can check-out the facts and verify Christian truth-claims before ever committing themselves to becoming a Christian.

I need to emphasize here that I am not saying that evidence alone will lead one to make a faith commitment to Christ. No one makes such a decision unaided by the Spirit of God; it is always the work of the Holy Spirit to convict and convince the unbeliever of saving truth. Nor can a person who doesn’t have the indwelling Holy Spirit experience the subjective confirmation that Christians do (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 2:14; 1 John 4:13).

The job of apologetics is completed when we bring skeptics to the point where they admit (if only to themselves) that their real basis for disbelief is not intellectual. When we remove intellectual obstacles (real or imagined) to faith, we create an environment favorable for the work of the Holy Spirit. At that point, we have been successful in our apologetic task.

This series of blog articles is adapted from my book The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending Your Faith; A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, which can be purchased at most outlets. The Combat Manual provides the Christian position on the issues discussed in this series and the evidence to support them.