Why Christian Apologetics Is Not A Discipline

Years ago at an apologetics conference I heard Winfried Corduan say, “Apologetics is not a discipline, it’s a practice.” This was something I had been saying for a while, so it was refreshing to hear him say it. It was similar to what Gary Habermas had told me a few years before. I asked him if he could recommend a school or program for getting a Ph.D. to do apologetics. He said to get a Ph.D. in a discipline, like history, and then do apologetics from that field. This made sense. However, it seems that many apologists today want to just “do apologetics” without being a specialist in a field. Being an expert just in apologetics is to not be an expert at anything.

With the rise of many apologetic programs in schools (a good thing) it has become popular to think of apologetics as its own discipline. It is not. There is no such thing as “just apologetics.” When someone defends the faith, he is doing it from a certain vantage point, such as history, science, or philosophy. So one is always doing a type of apologetics: historical apologetics, scientific apologetics, or philosophical apologetics. If one wants to be a good apologist, then he needs to become an expert in a particular field. This is not to say that a person cannot be a general apologist on some level; but he will not be an expert. Plenty of people have either received a degree in apologetics or have been self-educated enough to be able to be a general apologist. But as the saying goes, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” The point is, apologetics is simply not a discipline in itself. It always uses an actual discipline from which to apply to apologetics.

This phenomena of people thinking apologetics is its own field has had the effects of (1) some apologists being sloppy/incorrect in their work, and (2) giving apologetics a bad name (at least partly because of the first point). An example is to simplify complicated notions to easily defeat them. (I don’t think this simplicification is on purpose. I think it’s out of ignorance.) Many apologists learn that statements and theories can be self-defeating. But if the apologist does not have much more than that to analyze something, then everything looks to be self-defeating! To use another popular statement, “If all one has is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.”

An example of this oversimplification often occurs when apologists want to argue against Immanuel Kant. When I teach Intro to Apologetics or History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, it is typical of students to want to defeat Kant by claiming that he is self-defeating since he said that we can’t know reality in itself. The response is, “Kant is saying we know that we can’t know, which is self-defeating.” That is certainly his conclusion, but his epistemological system cannot be reduced to “You can’t know reality.” While I am far from Kantian, it must be recognized that his system is more complicated than reducing it to a self-defeating statement. To truly analyze him one must understand and interact with his reasons for saying that reality is unknowable. It is not self-defeating to say “I cannot know x.” There are plenty of things I don’t know about, and it is certainly not self-defeating to say so. But this type of analysis does not usually arise out of a pop-level apologetic analysis because Kant’s argument is a philosophical one and requires philosophical training. Thus, to deal with him, one must do philosophy.

Of course, we can’t be an expert about everything. For example, philosophers who want to argue for the resurrection usually have to study the historical material from other scholars. The same is the case with science. However, to be a first-rate apologist, one really needs to hone in on a particular discipline, and maybe even one part of that discipline.

This is not needed to be a generalist. But a generalist is not an expert and must always rely on the fruit of someone else’s labor. Notice, though, that there are a few apologists that most generalists draw on. William Lane Craig is often a go to guy for God’s existence, because he is a philosopher. Gary Habermas is a go to guy for the resurrection because of his academic work in that area. Hugh Ross is a go to guy for astronomical evidence because he is a professional astronomer. Generalists are indebted to these specialists.

Again, we cannot all be specialists on every topic. But if we are going to be good apologists, we need an area of specialization. I have a lot of people ask me what they should major in. Apologetics is certainly an option (at the masters level). I always ask them what they want to do. If they want to do lay level apologetics or work at a university as an apologist of some sort, then apologetics is a good option for a major. However, if they have any inclination to do academic work, I advise them to pick an area of interest and do apologetics from that vantage point. If they are students at Southern Evangelical Seminary and want to be in academics, I advise them to major in philosophy as most apologetic issues are inherently philosophical (the existence and nature of God, the problem of evil, God-talk, etc.). In addition, they can go on and get a terminal degree in philosophy and teach. Schools don’t usually have teaching posts advertised for apologetics (I have seen one), mainly because it is not a discipline. One has to have 18 graduate hours in a discipline to teach something, and apologetics classes that are designated as such are not hours in a discipline.

In short, apologetics is not a discipline, it’s a practice.