Defending Your Faith: An Overview of Classical Apologetics with R.C. Sproul

There is one thing all unbelievers have in common—unbelief. But there are many types of unbelievers. There are those unbelievers who cling to a false religious system. Yet while others have no well thought out reasons, there are many who are quite confident in their unbelief appealing to certain philosophical and scientific arguments. How well are you prepared to answer the various kinds of people with their questions and criticisms? Beginning this series titled Defending Your Faith, Dr. Sproul introduces us to the ancient Christian apologists and the challenges they faced as they sought to give a reasoned defense of the Christian faith.

Is it necessary to defend your faith? First Peter 3:15 tells us that it is. But is defending the faith a matter of giving historical and archaeological evidences for the dependability of the Bible, or giving rational arguments using the tools of philosophy? Supposing you had all of your evidences and arguments prepared, are they really going to work on the unbeliever? Dr. Sproul looks at Christian apologetics as he helps us understand how to fulfill the mandate in first Peter.

Dr. Sproul, explains that, even though only the Holy Spirit can change a person’s heart and mind (bring them to repentance), we see the very important dimension of apologetics in what he calls “pre-evangelism” and also what he calls “post-evangelism.”

How do you know whether something is true? Do you test it by observation? Think through it logically? In this lesson, Dr. Sproul considers important questions from epistemology, the study of knowledge. As he sets forth four logical premises that are necessary for all reasonable discourse, he shows that many atheists violate basic logic in order to deny God’s existence.

The truth is rational. So is God’s Word. Nevertheless, some people go to great lengths to undermine the truth claims of Christianity, even denying the existence of absolute truth altogether in order to escape the authority of the Bible. In this lesson, Dr. Sproul explains a fundamental principle of logic that is necessary if we are to develop a meaningful framework for understanding reality. This principle, called the law of contradiction, annihilates all notions of relativistic thinking.

Throughout history, the law of causality has been used to argue for the existence of God by reasoning from the appearance of this world back to an adequate or sufficient cause that would explain this world or this universe. The law itself states, "Every effect must have an antecedent cause." So we would ask, "Does God have a cause?" Dr. Sproul delves into this section of apologetics by preaching on behalf of our God who is a self-existing, eternal being who is independent, yet eternal.

This message takes a look at the critical analysis of causality that was offered by the eighteenth century Scot's philosopher, David Hume. Under his analysis, he said this: that what we observe when we see things happening around us are what he calls relationships that are customary—customary relationships. In "Reliability of Sense Perception", we find that you must admit that your senses do not have a perfect perception of reality and therefore must admit the truth that nothing can move in this world apart from the power of God.

Since God is transcendent, is it even possible for us finite creatures to say anything meaningful about Him? Can we describe the Lord with our words, or are our attempts merely descriptions of our own subjective feelings? In this lesson, Dr. Sproul introduces the fourth basic building block for knowledge: the principle of the analogical use of language.

The theologian Karl Barth claimed that God is “wholly other” from us. Indeed, if God truly were completely different from us, it would be impossible for us to describe Him. But since the Lord has created us in His image, we share a common ground with Him that enables us to speak meaningful about our Creator. In this lesson, Dr. Sproul continues to explore the adequacy of human language to describe God.

How do you answer a person who says that the Trinity is an illogical concept? Does the Bible teach contradictions? Before answering that, it is best to make sure we mean the same thing when we say contradiction. In this message, Dr. Sproul reminds us of the fine, but often misunderstood distinctions between “Contradiction and Paradox.”

Can we penetrate the depths of the concept of the Trinity? What about the incarnation of Jesus, where there is one person with two complete natures? We are now introducing a category about which Dr. Sproul would say that it’s safe to say the Scripture has many mysteries. In “Mystery”, we find that it is possible to know our God on an intimate level yet bow to the truth that a perfect knowledge of Him is too high for us and beyond us.

Can God be known in any sense apart from Scripture? As the Apostle Paul teaches in his epistle to the Romans, the Lord clearly demonstrates His existence and His character in all that He has made. In other words, no one can justly claim ignorance of God’s existence. In this lesson, Dr. Sproul defines the idea of “natural theology,” demonstrating that it is the foundation of our accountability before God and our responsibility to seek Him in His Word.

Although the idea of natural theology is confirmed in Scripture, numerous theologians and apologists reject the notion of natural theology to this day. Several are even willing to claim that something that is true in the sphere of science can simultaneously be false in the realm of religion. In this lesson, Dr. Sproul repudiates these assertions by showing that nature can never reveal something about God that contradicts His Word, for He is the author of both.

In Kant’s critique he touches on the concept of classical synthesis and gives a comprehensive critique of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. His was an attack against Thomas Aquinas’ view of natural theology. Here Dr. Sproul outlines Kant’s critique in detail and further shows that Kant’s critique leads one into a philosophy of irrationalism and to relativism, which sadly pervades our culture today.

Does God exist? If your answer is yes, then, can you prove it? Many Christians don’t know where to even begin to do this. Continuing the series “Defending Your Faith,” Dr. Sproul looks at some of the different approaches to apologetics and how each of them attempts to show God’s existence as he embarks on the Herculean task of making “The Case for God.”

Dr. Sproul spends this lecture giving us a presentation on how the classical method would proceed to try to establish proof for the existence of God. To do so he follows a method that, in its basic form, was first established by St. Augustine. Using this method, Dr. Sproul looks at “Four Possibilities” for the existence of reality and then tests them to see if they meet the test of rationality or fail the test of rationality.

Dr. Sproul takes the time to repeat the four principles from the previous lecture and look at each one in greater detail. The first is that it is an illusion, the second one is that it is self-created, the third is that it is self-existent, and the fourth is that it was created by something ultimately that is self-existent. In “The Illusion of Descartes”, Dr. Sproul introduces René Descartes, the father of modern rationalism and shows how Descartes’ inquires explain and correlate to using the process of elimination on the four principles.

How do you prove to unbelievers the reality of Genesis 1:1? One way to do so is by showing them the irrational alternatives. In this message, Dr. Sproul exposes some of these irrational alternatives people resort to when denying the Creator as he explains the nonsense of "Self-Creation."

What are the chances that something other than God created the universe? Many people in the field of science have reduced the idea of creation to religious fable. And there are many in the church who are intimidated by seemingly powerful scientific arguments. But, as we see in this message, these scientific arguments have anything but power. In this second part of "Self-Creation," Dr. Sproul exposes the myth of chance.

How can God always be? Is the idea of a God who always was a nonsensical notion? When the finite mind collides with infinite categories and questions like this, wonder can turn to struggle, struggle to doubt, and then finally to unbelief—unbelief because of the seemingly impossible nature of the proposition: God always was. But as Dr. Sproul explains in this message, God’s existence is not only possible, it is necessary.

If you ask an atheist how the universe came into being, the most likely answer will have something to do with a Big Bang a long, long time ago. However, Dr. Sproul exposes that the atheist has more homework to do before settling with naturalistic explanations of existence, as he continues his thought on the necessity of God’s existence in this message, “Necessary Being.”

There is so much about God that is beyond our comprehension. But does this make God unknowable? If not, is it possible that some of the philosophers caught a glimpse of our Creator? Continuing this series of “Defending Your Faith,” Dr. Sproul explores the possibility of there being any resemblance between the God revealed in the Bible and what the philosophers have discovered in nature.

Here we look at some of the considerations that we find in the New Testament with respect to the moral argument. Kant gave his famous moral argument for the existence of God, saying that every single person in the world has an inherent sense of right and wrong. We find that people don't want God but they still want morality, but what Kant is saying here is that you can't have both.

"Without Christ, without hope," this statement is one that we draw from the writer of Ecclesiastes' verse, "Vanity of vanity—all is vanity." In this portion of the series Dr. Sproul talks about the meaning behind this Old Testament verse, mainly—that if there is no God, then, of course, what we encounter is futility of futility.

Answers to questions concerning the existence of God are continually demanded by atheists. Why is that? Is it that not all of the atheist’s questions have been answered? Actually, they have all the answers they need, and they understand them. So if there is a God, then why are there atheists? In “The Psychology of Atheism,” Dr. Sproul explains that it is not a lack of information that is keeping the atheist from believing, it is something else.

Wouldn't it be right to say that the proper starting point in apologetics is the defense of sacred Scripture? In Part 1 of "The Bible and Apologetics", Dr. Sproul shows that the first thing to do is to establish the existence of God. Here the study moves on to the subject of how we defend the church's confidence and belief in the authority and inspiration of the Bible.

Do I trust my judgment and the corporate wisdom of psychologists and psychiatrists over the Bible as a source of ultimate truth? In part 2 of "The Bible and Apologetics", Dr. Sproul deals with the sacred Scriptures and the question of whether the content of this Book is omniscient, infallible, and completely incorruptible and righteous. Is the Bible incapable of lying, erring, and of having defects of any kind?

In part 3 of "The Bible and Apologetics", Dr. Sproul attempts to show that there is in fact a linear argument that moves progressively through various stages. Follow as he also illustrates in simple terms how the question of Christ's authority and the authority of the Bible are related.

Jesus Himself makes a claim that no human teacher ought ever to make unless it's a true claim. He says, "I say nothing on My own authority, but what the Father reveals to Me I declare to You." In Part 4 of "The Bible and Apologetics", the question presents itself, "Was Jesus' teaching on the writer of the Pentateuch and other historical questions correct?" Dr. Sproul spends time going through the claims of many theologians about Jesus and how His two natures come into play with his teachings.

In the last of this series of discussions regarding the integrity and authority of the Bible, Dr. Sproul discusses some interesting arguments that have been advanced in church history to defend Scripture. In this lecture, he delves into Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, where Calvin himself gave some rather unusual arguments for the authority of sacred Scripture.

There are many people in the world who will concede that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historical person who lived in the ancient world of Palestine, and some even have given Him prophet status. But the testimony of Scripture doesn’t allow us to stop there. The Bible says that Jesus is more than a prophet, and as Christians we must be prepared to explain that. What really makes Jesus unique was His beginning, or, should we say, lack of it. Dr. Sproul looks at this thought as he gleans from the Gospel of John chapter one, in “The Deity of Christ.”

Dr. R.C. Sproul answers audience questions relating to the series “Defending Your Faith”.