Teach us to care and not to care

Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised

It’s been a long time since I last posted, but work has dominated the end of the summer and there wasn’t much mental bandwidth left.

At the risk of sounding like I only think about a very limited number of subjects, someone returned my copy of Engaging Unbelief and my thoughts wandered that way again…

I’ve been pondering why a lot of apologetics leaves me cold. I think perhaps it is because frequently the writes/speakers don’t seem to care about the questions, only giving the winning arguments. (I don’t want to imply that their motivation is necessarily poor. It may be presentation, it may be the situations in which I have come across the presentations, etc. And in many cases I have a lot of respect for the people.) What I really want to feel, even as someone in ‘the choir’ being preached to, is that the speaker cares deeply about the issues and has wrestled with them, not simply that they have figured out a convincing repost.

If you remember Engaging Unbelief looks at the apologetics of Augustine and Aquinas. For them, apologetics meant going inside the story of the people you are talking to and showing how Christianity resolves the plot tensions. I think this related to what I’ve been feeling. Loving apologetics, doesn’t look from them outside & point out problems; it gets inside and wrestles with the issues alongside those already there. More risky, perhaps, but only if we’re not sure that what we believe is true.

I think this is what Francis Schaeffer tried to do. You get the impression that he truly felt the issues he was addressing. And that he wrestled deeply with the intellectual problems of those he came into connect with. Consequently, I’m more than happy to listen to his arguments, even when some of my opinions have wandered from his.

Interestingly, I have a similar response, from the other side, when reading Terry Ealgeton’s review of Richard Dawkins. When someone takes time to get inside your worldview to that extent, you have to respect it. If, after such a presentation, Eagleton offers problems with Christianity, then I would feel it valuable to talk with him about them. If people come with arguments without really engaging with the issues, then my motivation to listen is far less.

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Read more | Comments (0) | November 30th, 2006