May 11, 2022

Think About It!

May 11, 2022/ Dale Kratt

What is theistic moral apologetics, what is its aim, what is its rationale, how does it work, and how does it fit into the broader field of Christian apologetics and metaethics? I take moral apologetics in the following way.

Contemporary theistic moral apologetics is a specialized field in the broader field of Christian apologetics that seeks to work within, to draw from and contribute to the broader field of theistic metaethics. Metaethics, broadly considered, is understood to be the critical and comparative theory of various ethical systems. It is theory of theory and is understood as a 2nd order[1] discipline in the field of ethical theory and is a relatively modern development in the field of ethical thinking. Theistic meta-ethics is a God-centered metaethics.
Theistic moral apologetics seeks to critically engage non-theistic metaethical thinkers of all persuasions on all fronts at the level of technical philosophy. These thinkers might be historical and/or contemporary thinkers. This engagement typically requires answering standard objections that are often leveled against theistic metaethics as well as developing some version or element of the moral argument for the existence of God in the context of such critical engagement. This would typically be considered a venture in natural theology.
Theistic moral apologetics seeks also to critically engage 1st order ethical disputes by making explicit and laying bare the moral and metaphysical assumptions that are often unstated in such disputes and developing a reasoned case for a theistic ethical and metaphysical perspective concerning such disputes if such a reasoned case is relevant.
Christian Theistic moral apologetics also seeks to develop a distinctively Trinitarian and Christ-centered metaethical way of understanding things. Such work takes the Christian apologist beyond a generalized theism to a distinctively Christian metaethical theism. This should involve…
1. Working deliberately from the historical events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ with the clear understanding that Christianity never reduces to a mere system of morality.
2. Working deliberately from the revelation of God in the Scriptures.
3. Engaging and thoroughly thinking through Christian ethical issues and questions that are unique to the believing Christian and Christian community.
4. Engaging and thoroughly thinking through the various distinctive areas of Christian ethical practice both within the church and within the world in which the church is situated.

These tasks should be undertaken at two distinct but related levels. First, they should be developed at the level of technical philosophy and theology, as required, and secondly, they should be developed at the non-technical lay level. This second level involves taking the complex things of the first level and making them accessible for a lay audience.

Natural Theology and Christian Apologetics

Natural theology and Christian apologetics are related but nevertheless distinct enterprises.[2] While natural theology arguably reaches all the way back to ancient Greek philosophy[3] and embraces a wider range of theological positions than traditional theism, Christian apologetics must trace its origins and purposes back to the beginnings of the person of Jesus Christ. Apologetics necessarily involves the defense of the veracity of the message and meaning of Jesus and the content of the Christian faith.[4] Theistic moral apologetics, although part of natural theology, is not necessarily distinctively Christian. It can certainly serve as an important step towards a distinctively Christian theism, but it deliberately limits its arguments to Theism proper.

This limit provides certain polemical advantages. As a part of natural theology the argument boasts a wide umbrella and could be endorsed by any theist whatsoever whether they are Jewish, Islamic,[5] even non-religious or non-traditional theists. In this respect the moral argument for God’s existence is broader than Christian theism and can be appropriated by a much larger audience. This makes the argument much more versatile and serviceable across the various areas of philosophy, metaethics, and various other disciplines. As such it can be pitted readily against various versions of atheism. It is versatile in that it can be joined with other arguments for God’s existence to generate a much stronger overall cumulative case for Theism. This also gives the argument a much wider applicability.[6] In any area wherein human moral concerns are central the moral argument for God’s existence is relevant; for example, in the various human sciences, as well as the field of political and economic philosophy. The argument fits well with questions involving the nature and basis for law and justice, or the basis for human rights, or endorsing human dignity, or our understanding of aesthetics and beauty, religious experience, and even engaging in the rough and tumble of the practice of politics and economics as well.

The moral argument, if successful, also fills in a considerable amount of detail concerning who God is and the kind of God the argument might endorse. A too vaguely thin Theism will not suffice for the moral argument. The thicker character and being of God that the argument leads to is strongly relevant to the whole content and nature of the human moral domain in which our lives and experience is immersed. Furthermore, given the intense debates concerning the moral order and the moral nature of humanity, it would be unconscionable that Christian philosophers would not challenge the current various secularist moral systems of our time as well as abandon our duty to guard fidelity, the content of the faith, and the pastoral responsibilities that are a regular and ongoing part of the life of the church in the world.

[1] The distinction between 1st order and 2nd order moral theorizing is a common but important distinction in metaethics. The focus of a 1st order moral proposition is the question, what is moral? An example of a 1st order ethical/moral/normative truth would be that murder is wrong; it is immoral to murder, it is moral to refrain from murder. 2nd order metaethics focuses on the question of the nature of morality itself; what morality itself is and not particularly on the content of 1st order moral truths. Typically, metaethics concerns questions of moral ontology (the nature of morality), moral epistemology (knowledge of moral truths), moral language (the meaning of moral terms), and a cluster of related questions like the connection between morality and rationality, or morality and motivation.

[2] For useful overviews of the history and concepts of natural theology, see Russell Re Manning, John Hedley Brooke, and Fraser N. Watts, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013); James Brent, “Natural Theology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d., accessed September 11, 2021, https://iep.utm.edu/theo-nat/; Andrew Chignell and Derk Pereboom, “Natural Theology and Natural Religion,” ed. Edward N Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford, CA, Fall 2020), accessed September 11, 2021, URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/natural-theology/>; also see Charles Taliaferro, “The Project of Natural Theology,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, ed. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 1–23. C. P. Ruloff and Peter Horban, eds., Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology: God and Rational Belief (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).

[3] Werner Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford Lectures, 1936, trans. Edward S Robinson (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003/1936).

[4] See Jude 3, where Jude exhorts Christians to “…contend earnestly for the faith once for all handed down to the saints” (NASB). For a good overview of the history of Christian apologetics see Benjamin K. Forrest, Joshua D. Chatraw, and Alister E. McGrath, eds., The History of Apologetics: A Biographical and Methodological Introduction (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2020).

[5] Robert R. Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011). Reilly has shown that some of the elements of orthodox Islamic theology make it very difficult to square with a strong moral argument; particularly the tendency of reducing Allah to sheer divine will as well as a tendency, as a result of this, toward impersonalism.

[6] For a very useful summary overview of the relation of the arguments concerning God and the moral order, see Anne Jeffrey, God and Morality (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Peter Byrne and Stephen Evans, “Moral Arguments for the Existence of God,” ed. Edward N. Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, Spring 2013).

Simply Natural: Three Reasons We Need Natural Theology

February 03, 2022/ T.J. Gentry

An old acquaintance of mine recently published a book-length attack on natural theology. The book’s cover includes a painting of Thomas Aquinas, the target of the book’s attempted critique, except the author defaced the painting by blacking out Aquinas’s eyes. What is the point of the cheeky vandalism on the picture? The author concludes that Aquinas and the generations of faithful Christians before and since him who hold to a classical view of natural theology’s legitimacy as a vox Dei, voice of God, in nature are blind. There may be two books of God’s self-revelation, the Bible and nature, but the latter is not what Christians have long thought it was. According to the author, Aquinas, and by extension all classical theists are not seeing things as they really are. Instead, Aquinas and those who hold views like his are misreading and misleading others concerning natural theology. So, what is the author’s solution to the problems he has with Aquinas? What he and others of the same “extreme Calvinist camp”[i] he represents argue for is a variation of the presuppositionalism that Cornelius Van Til and like-minded representatives from within a narrow slice of the Reformed camp include in their constellation of beliefs about God, man, and salvation. I know this firsthand, as one who for two decades affirmed and taught those same views. While it is beyond the scope of what I write here to develop fully those views and why I left them (see my forthcoming book with Moral Apologetics Press entitled Leaving Calvinism, Finding Grace for more on that score), what I do hope to offer in short compass is why natural theology in its classical theist form is nothing close to an instance of the blind leading the blind. Rather, the approach to natural theology historically appreciated and taught within orthodox Christianity is illuminating and helpful, even essential to a full-orbed and robust doctrine of divine revelation. In the end, it is those who think Aquinas and those like him are blind that cannot see. Here, then, are three fundamental reasons we need natural theology as classically understood to help us better see God’s gracious revelation. I will use the acrostic SEE to frame my remaining presentation.

S - Scripture teaches that God speaks through nature and that all can and do hear the message as it resounds in natural theology. My point here is two-fold, and both are essential to a classical theist view of our topic. First, God speaks through nature vis-à-vis creation (cf. Ps. 19), the conscience (what John Henry Newman describes as the “aboriginal vicar of Christ”;[ii] cf. Rom. 1), and judicial sentiment (which is our sense of when others have done wrong to us; cf. Rom. 2). This should not be a point of real dispute, as all who read the Bible find its teaching clearly put forth on these matters. However, the second aspect of my point is that all can and do hear the message of nature, conscience, and judicial sentiment. It on this point that the divergence of opinion arises between the classical theists and those of the Van Tillian persuasion. While both groups know the message is broadcast by God, the latter conclude that the effect of sin on the mind of man reaches so far to make him deaf to it but accountable for it. God speaks, man can’t hear it, but God still holds man accountable for not receiving the message. The view of classical theism is not that the effects of the fall are without pernicious effect but that the prevenient grace of a loving God has efficaciously enabled all persons to hear and understand what natural theology communicates. This is because the fall of man into sin is not greater than the love of God for man. Yes, the fall has marred the image of God, but it has not erased it. Further, through His work of prevenient grace in natural theology (among other means), God has taken the first move in bringing man back into His family. Since God “making the first move” is so fundamental to “extreme Calvinists,” this should be a point of celebrated unity. At least it should be.

E – Evangelism and its counterpart, apologetics, issue forth from natural theology. One need only look at Paul’s message in Acts 17 as he presented the gospel on Mars Hill in Athens to find the interweaving of evangelism, apologetics, and natural theology. Undeniably, Paul’s appeal to natural theology as a segue to the proclamation of Christ’s resurrection and future judgment of the world occupies most of his message. Amazingly, out of the ten verses in Paul’s message totaling 269 words, eight deal with themes from general revelation, accounting for a whopping total of 218 of the 269 words. Here is a breakdown of how Paul uses natural theology and pagan culture in his message.

1. There is an innate human sense of the divine. (vv. 22-23)

2. God is Creator. (v. 24)

3. God is sovereign. (v. 24)

4. God is not an idol. (vv. 24-25; v. 29)

5. God is the source of all life. (v. 25)

6. God is the origin of all peoples and nations. (v. 26)

7. God is personal and directs history. (v. 26)

8. God is immanent. (v. 27)

9. Known poetry from pagan culture provides a reference to God. (v. 28)

10. God is the source and sustainer of all life. (v. 28)[iii]

We see here how Paul begins with a universal human sense of the divine, appeals to creation and conscience, and concludes with the gospel. Without natural theology where would Paul’s message have started and how would it have progressed? Thankfully for classic theists, the Bible does contain this example, and its not the exception but a frequent pattern in Pauline apologetics. I can see it. Why can’t those who think Aquinas and others are blind?

E – Ethical considerations which lay at the heart of human experience are inextricably tied to natural theology.[iv] To summarize and focus on a particular aspect of what I said above, two of the three means by which natural theology communicates God’s message have to do with ethical concerns, with morality. The human conscience and judicial sentiment are not obliterated by the fall nor are they unable to hear. Rather, in keeping with the biblical account and the philosophically rich history of human morality and its divine intimations, natural theology in its axiological (i.e., having to do with ethics) dimension is an open causeway from darkness to light, a starting place to speak to those outside the family of faith as we invite them into the living room of the Father’s home. When we recognize that a shared moral sense, even when it is darkly colored and warped in its expression, remains a part of every person as the common thread of our co-existence we begin to see the importance of the classical theist’s claim of the light available to all in natural theology. Far from leading to blindness, the conscience cannot escape the irradiant light of God’s brightness and the revelation of His goodness. While I don’t think that Aquinas should have his eyes blacked out, it does seem to me that someone else is not seeing the true picture of God that emerges from morality as expressed in natural theology.

[i] A paraphrase drawn from Norman Geisler’s book, Chosen but Free: A Balanced View of God’s Sovereignty and Free Will (Bethany House, 2010).

[ii] Letter to the Duke of Norfolk

[iii] Adapted from my previously published article, “Proclaiming Faith from the Pulpit: The Essential Relationship between Preaching and Apologetics” in Aletheias 4.1 (Spring 2019), p. 71.

[iv] Such ethical consideration are prime motivators for the work of MoralApologetics.com and like-minded ministries such as BellatorChristi.com,

Dr. Thomas J. Gentry (aka., TJ Gentry) serves as the pastor of First Christian Church of West Frankfort, Illinois, the Executive Editor of MoralApologetics.com, and Executive VP of Bellator Christi Ministries. Dr. Gentry is a world-class scholar holding 5 doctorate degrees and 6 masters degrees. Additionally, he is a prolific writer as he has published 7 books including Pulpit Apologist, Absent from the Body, Present with the Lord, and You Shall Be My Witnesses: Reflections on Sharing the Gospel. Be on the lookout for two additional books that he will soon publish. In addition to his impressive resume, Dr. Gentry proudly served his country as an officer in the United States Army and serves as a martial arts instructor.

January 27, 2022

Are You a Pure Apologist?

January 27, 2022/ T. J. Gentry

Purity is a fascinating thing. Perhaps you’ve never thought about it in terms of a definition, but according to one dictionary something that is pure is “without any extraneous or unnecessary elements.” Think of how important purity is in everyday life. What would we do without pure water, or, to think of it in a negative way, would we want to drink impure water? What about pure air? Impurities in the air cause serious problems, don’t they? On and on I could go with examples of the importance of purity in everyday life, but I want to think with you for a moment about purity as it relates to apologists. Right away, you might ask how the two relate. You likely think of purity in the moral realm, at least I hope you do, but what about purity in other areas? What about the intellect, the method, the vision of an apologist? Is there anything important to consider in these areas? I think there is, and with this in mind, I want to consider what it means to be a “pure” apologist by focusing on four areas: 1) intellectual purity; 2) methodological purity; 3) visional purity; and 4) moral purity.

Before we go further, a quick qualifier is in order concerning how I will use purity in these instances. I realize, as I am sure you do, that we all carry the vestigial remains of our fallenness in each of these areas and that absolute purity is not something we can achieve in this life. Also, I am not trying to impinge on the individuality of each apologist, deny freedom of expression and the uniqueness each of us possesses in conducting our work, or mandate an inflexible and wooden black-and-white/either-or approach. I do, however, want to challenge every apologist to consider how they might avoid, to hearken back to the definition of purity given above, bringing “extraneous or unnecessary elements” into their practice of defending the faith.

Intellectual Purity

Intellectual purity for apologists means two things, as I see it. First, making sure that we know the facts of a particular argument or position and guarding those facts by not allowing unrelated matters or secondary concerns to come into our considerations. For example, when arguing for the veracity of the New Testament, make sure to stay with the germane and reliable evidence in our favor. Don’t chase rabbit trails, fun as that may sometimes be. Staying intellectually pure in this way helps focus the argument and such focus gives it greater power. Second, intellectual purity for an apologist can relate to the discipline of regularly feeding the mind with good apologetic material. I make it a regular habit to read and reread the books by Dave Baggett, keeping my mind fresh on the details of his immensely helpful approach to making a moral argument. Remember, apologist, our commitment to ongoing intellectual development and purity is one of the ways the Lord continually renews our minds.

Methodological Purity

Methodological purity for apologists is, first, to learn and apply the basic skills of argumentation without becoming argumentative and divisive. My preference is to argue abductively (most of the time), and to do so in a very gentle and giving manner. Nothing turns a questioner away from us and our Lord more quickly than a heavy-handed, dogmatic approach when making our case. Further, if you are an evidentialist, then be an evidentialist. If a classical apologist, then be a classical apologist. Rarely is an apologist able to move in and out of different apologetic methodologies without diluting their presentations and confusing their hearers. Pick a camp and, if possible, stay in it. This helps your skill as a defender, and we all should want to be skilled. Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking your method is the only or best method. Choose your approach and hold it lightly. Do hold it, but remember the method is the vehicle, and there are numerous ways to get there.

Visional Purity

Visional purity speaks to the need to stay focused on the goal, which is the person and the glory of God. We are not given the high calling as apologists to win arguments. We are called to win people. Don’t confuse the two, or you will find yourself, as one of the elders in a church I served years ago said, “right but alone.” Also, keep your vision as an apologist rigidly fixed on the glory of God and showing Him love by loving others in the process. It’s easy to miss this last point, especially if we reduce those we engage to the status of opponents. You’ve never met an opponent; not really. You have, however, met those for whom Jesus died and for whom He longs to have a relationship. Keep that at the forefront of your minds and hearts, friends.

Moral Purity

If the enemy of our souls cannot corrupt our intellect he will go after our morals. This is axiomatic in the apologetic realm, and there is no more direct route to ineffectiveness and disqualification as an apologist than to compromise yourself morally. Seek holiness above all else and you will be far less likely to disparage the message and dishonor the Savior. Because apologists spend so much time in the rational and objective realms of evidence and logical discourse, it can be easy to neglect the development of the heart. Don’t fall prey to the sin that wants to dominate you and silence your witness. In the end, it doesn’t matter how smart you are if you are morally impure.

In closing, I hope you will consider a bit from C. S. Lewis’s third letter from Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood. In giving counsel on how to best manage the unfortunate effects of Wormwood’s charge having recently converted to Christianity, Screwtape reminds him to “aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horrors and neglect of the obvious.” Apologists I trust it is obvious we need to guard purity of intellect, method, vision, and morality. May God help us do so.

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