A note from the author (11/5/2023): I originally wrote this back in September. I took it down because I was afraid it might be too negative and sound like I was attacking other apologists. Truth be told, I was a little annoyed when I wrote it. But I just re-read it and decided it's worth posting after all. So here you go.
Knowledge of what is is different than knowledge of how to. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who want to make a living by giving advice to other people on how to without having a lot practical experience.
If you want advice from somebody about how to invest in the stock market, you should talk to somebody who has been successfully investing in the stock market for a long time. You shouldn't go to somebody who has only read a lot of books about investing or taken college classes on investing but hasn't actually put that knowledge into practice.
Would you want to learn how to do brain surgery from somebody who had never performed a brain surgery but who had only read about it or came up with what he thought was a great idea? Would you want fishing advice from somebody who has only watched fishing shows on TV but has never gone fishing?
If you want parenting advice, you should go to somebody who has succesfully raised good, moral, well-adjusted, and successful children. I don't care if somebody has a PhD in psychology. If they haven't successfully raised children of their own, then their knowledge is only theoretical. It doesn't necessarily mean they have nothing to contribute, but they are not the best person to go to for advice, especially if you have access to somebody with real experience who has been successful.
Speaking of which, Brett and Erin Kunkle are the real deal.
The internet is full of people who want to give life advice, relationship advice, and all sorts of advice, but haven't lived long enough or had enough experience to really be qualified. Just today I stumbled across a 25 year old kid who called himself a life coach. That is ridiculous. He may have gained some insight from people who mentored him or from the short life he has lived, and maybe he has something to offer, but nobody should go to somebody that age for life advice. He doesn't have enough life experience to justify putting himself in that kind of position. If you want a life coach, go to somebody in their 60's or older, who has already lived out the majority of their lives. And go to somebody who has done so succesfully--who has had good relationships, done well in life, and is thriving.
Everything I've said so far is leading up to the real point I want to make in this blog post. There are a lot of people who are trying to make a living by being professional apologists. Apologetics is about defending your worldview, your beliefs, or whatever cause you want to promote. There are some apologists who actually do that, but many of them don't. Instead, they make their living by teaching apologetics to others. Their audience is other Christians, and they insulate themselves from real criticism.
The problem is that unless they have real world experience defending their beliefs and interacting with people who disagree with them, and unless they have had success in doing so, they aren't qualified to teach others how to defend their faith. A lot of people think they are qualified to teach because they've read a lot of books, watched a lot of lectures and debates, and they have developed a lot of theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is important, but it's not adequate to being a good apologist. Being a good apologist is something you learn by being in the trenches, dialoging with people, finding out what's pursuasive and what isn't, getting feedback from critics, etc. There's a trial and error aspect to communicating. As you go back and forth with people, you find out where your weaknesses lie. You may have weaknesses in communicating clearly, or you may have weaknesses in the content of your defense. You may have all the right answers and all the best arguments which you learned from books, but you are unable to have a productive conversation with people because they won't listen to you, or you can't control your emotions, you lack the people skills necessary to keep people interested, or you dont know how to communicate your knowledge in an accessible way.
This is something I've been thinking about for a few years. Since I have social anxiety, I don't engage in apologetics much in real life. Most of my interactions happen on the internet. They have happened on this blog, other people's blogs, and on YouTube, but the vast majority of it has happened on discussion forums. A few years ago, I was pretty active on Reddit. The longer I was there, the more I started noticing that I was mostly all alone. There were a few Christians trying to do apologetics on there, but I didn't see many people who were really good at it--who knew there stuff, were articulate, could respond well to objections, and could engage hostile people with grace and maturity. I began to wonder, "Where is everybody?" That's when I started thinking about this. There are a lot of people who presume to teach others how to defend their faith, but they aren't in the trenches doing it themselves. They are doing apologetics without an opponent.
I believe you can learn something from anybody. Everybody knows something, and most people know something most other people don't. But if you are going to seek out people to learn from, seek out people who know what they're talking about. If you want to learn how to defend your faith, learn from people who actually defend their faith, who listen to what their critics say, and who respond to their critics. And seek out, especially, people who are successful at it.
That last part is the hard to define, though. How do we measure success? At what point can we say that our apologetic method is effective? Success and effectiveness can be measured in different ways. A Christian can be considered successful if they were obedient in sharing the gospel even if nobody converts. Success is measured by their obedience and in overcoming whatever fear and anxiety they had about sharing the gospel. Success can also be measured by whether you got your point across in a way the other person could understand, even if the other person doesn't agree. Success can be measured by whether you maintained civility when dialoging with somebody about a controversial and emotionally charged subject. In the case of formal debates, success can be measured by your win rate. Yes, as crass as that may sound, that's how you measure success in debating. When it comes to apologetics, the purpose is to persuade, and the primary way we ought to measure the effectiveness of our apologetic is by whether it successfully persuades others.
By that criteria we might as well admit that most of us are not effective at all. In that last 25 years, there have been maybe a handful of times when somebody has contacted me and told me I changed their mind about something. But aside from somebody telling you that, you probably have no idea how many people you have influenced. People can be influenced who were just on the sidelines watching.
I have been talking so far about effectiveness in "doing apologetics," and by "doing apologetics," I mean communicating reasons to think your point of view is true to other people and responding to their questions and objections. Doing apologetics well requires having a good vocabulary, having good communication skills, having good people skills, and having some degree of cleverness. However, you can't even get off the ground if you don't have some knowledge. By stressing practical knowledge, I do not at all mean to diminish the necessity of theoretical knowledge.
In the case of theoretical knowledge, though, you should be mindful of who you go to for information. Do you go to your dentist for advice on how to fix your car? Do you go to your mechanic for dietary advice? Do you go to a doctor for legal advice or a lawyer for medical advice? If you want good theoretical knowledge, you should go to people who are experts in the subject you are interested in.
Apologetics is a multisciplinary field. It draws from other fields like history, science, philosophy, and theology. There are some apologists who are experts in one of these fields. William Lane Craig, for example, is an expert in philosophy. But most professional apologists are not experts in any particular field, and they quite frequently butcher some of the subjects they address in their literature and talks. I'm not saying you shouldn't bother reading apologetics literature at all. I think you should if you want to get into apologetics. What I am saying, rather, is that you should not rely solely on apologists for your information about science, philosophy, history, or theology. If you want to master some subject in apologetics that involves cosmology, then you should read literature from actual cosmologists. If you want to master historical arguments about Jesus, you should read literature from professional New Testament historians.
You shouldn't just read literature from people who agree with you either. If you were to get a PhD in physics, you'd be forced to read literature from people who subscribe to string theory and people who reject string theory. If you want to get a PhD in ethics, you'll be forced to read literature from people who subscribe to consequentialism and people who reject consequentialism. Part of becoming educated in a particular subject involves hearing all the voices of all the people who are experts in that field. If you want to become a good competent apologist, you should strive to become as well-equipped as you can on whatever subject in apologetics you want to specialize in. It's good to know a little bit about everything, but realistically, you're never going to be an expert on everything.
My advice is only aimed at those who want to excel at apologetics. If you want to dip your toe in, sure, just read a few apologetics books. But if you want to become a good apologist, you need to be mindful about who you learn from. When it comes to theoretical knowledge, go to people who are experts in their field. Think of apologetics books as introductions to various topics, not as authoritative sources. When it comes to practical knowledge, go to people who are actually engaging in apologetics and doing it well, not people who are simply teaching other people to do apologetics without doing it themselves. And by "doing it," I don't mean just writing blog posts or books or making youtube videos. I mean interacting with people who disagree with them, subjecting their arguments to scrutiny. And if you decide you want to become a professional apologist (i.e. make a living at it), please don't become somebody who does apologetics without an opponent. If you do, you will be doing yourself and your audience a disservice.
"The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him." Proverbs 18:17
No comments:
Post a Comment