“In your heart, you know that God exists, don’t you?” This was the question that a seminary student asked his workout partner last year while lifting weights. The lips of the burly Russian—at the time a self-avowed atheist with whom the student had been building a witnessing relationship—began quivering. At that moment, he confessed that this was, in fact, the truth. A bold witnessing move? Yes. A scriptural one? Unapologetically.

In fact, Dr. Richard Gamble, professor of systematic theology at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (RPTS), explains to students that he doesn’t “apologize” for requiring a real, honest-to-goodness apologetic encounter for his winter course on apologetics (defending the Christian faith). Why? A person has come to saving faith in Jesus Christ each of the last two years he gave this class assignment. And all Christians can do it.

“The Lord really does equip us,” says Dr. Gamble. “We really can do it.”

That is what folks excitedly affirmed to him after his lectures for laymen on apologetics at College Hill (Beaver Falls, Pa.) RPC. “Elderly men came to me each week and said, ‘I can do this! It’s clear. It actually seems quite simple.’”

The biblical model of apologetics reveals that the unbeliever’s belief system does not start by acknowledging God as Creator and Ruler of all things. Therefore, his view of life, that is, his presupposition, is fundamentally out of sync with reality, since it is out of sync with the Christian God, His created order, and the revealed interpretation of it. Motivated by the love of God, apologetics does not challenge the unbeliever’s worth, but it does question the validity of his life view in light of Scripture.

From the beginning of man’s existence, God revealed his privileged and blessed duty as well as what was absolutely forbidden. From the first day of humanity, God, not man, interpreted the significance of man’s existence and of his world around him.

A lie whispered in the form of a question challenged the truth. In subtle craftiness, Satan posed the thought that God did not speak truly, that His word did not carry absolute authority in knowing all things, and that man thinks autonomously.

Confronting Unbelief

Creation alone bears manifold witness to the goodness and glory of God. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens are not silent; they declare His majesty. Romans 1:18-28 teaches that general revelation is not some vague notion that a higher power exists, but is so sufficiently substantial that the unbeliever actually suppresses the knowledge of the Creator in unrighteousness with a feigned autonomy. The unbeliever’s “ignorance” is intentional rebellion against God, and he knows it. “Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” the Lord declared through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 9:6). Those who say in their hearts that there is no God, He declares to be fools (Ps. 14:1).

Dr. Gamble endorses the presuppositional apologetic method. This approach empowers the believer because it looks honestly at the reality of opposing world views. And, as Jude 3 intimates, contending for the faith involves soldier-like conduct. Defending and proclaiming this message requires intrepid and trusting saints.

“The apologetics course taught me to be courageously confrontational with sin and with truth,” says Noah Bailey, an RPTS middler who took the class as a freshman in 2007. He shares a recent encounter he had doing door-to-door outreach for First RP Church in Beaver Falls, Pa. Sitting on the front porch of a neighbor’s home for about 45 minutes, he “stripped away” the man’s arguments for unbelief using tools from the apologetics course. “The man began the conversation professing agnosticism, but at the end of the discussion he admitted God exists.”

The apologetic encounter involves destroying strongholds, demolishing arguments and every lofty opinion, and bringing captive every thought set against the knowledge of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). When an unbeliever is challenged to face Christ as the truth, the way, and the life, he will retreat to his mental and emotional pseudo-bulwark that he has erected against God—a sort of tower of Babel, or refuge of lies and covenant with death as described in Isaiah 28:15. The unbeliever’s arguments are more than just words. Especially if long held, they are his view of life and have formed his whole lifestyle. They likely have a tight hold, and he will try to hold them tenaciously.

Pastor Rut Etheridge (RPTS ’06) of Providence RP Church in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, Pa., shares about his recent online correspondence with an unbeliever that challenged such world views as Darwinism, naturalism, and a secular cosmology. The young man eventually declared, “I will not be ruled.” It was an honest admission of the reason he is suppressing the truth. All men want the benefits of God; not all men want God.

“Apologetics removes the unbeliever’s smokescreen of objections to Christianity,” says Pastor Etheridge, “dismantling their belief systems from within, and stepping on their turf to show the inconsistencies in their belief systems which become manifest in life application.”

Unflinchingly, yet with humility, the Christian asserts the truth to counter opinions not based on God’s interpretation of His facts. The Christian takes captive every rebel thought against King Jesus, keeping in mind that spiritual warfare is not against flesh and blood, that our weapons are not carnal, and that the battle and victory are not won by might, or by power, but by His Spirit (Zech. 4:6).

In Practice

Acts 17 gives a model for apologetic encounters. In Athens, Paul is given center stage to address the most eminent Greek philosophers who sought after wisdom. Having heard Paul preach in various places of the city, they took him to their highest hall, the Areopagus, where they spent their days discussing the latest ideas. They wanted to hear more about this new philosophy Paul was proclaiming in the marketplace.

To engage their interest in order that he might gain some to Christ, he spoke their language; that is, he framed his presentation to their setting and occupation. Yet there was no intention to find anything in common with their beliefs, or to tickle their ears by commending their religiosity, for “what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6:16). Rather, he exposed the absurdity of their idolatry in order to exalt the true God.

Paul began by dissolving the mystery of the unknown god that the Athenians worshiped. Paul proclaimed the true God. He told them that this God made the world and all things in it, and that the Lord of heaven and earth is not confined to temples, much less an altar made by men. Moreover, the works of men’s hands cannot render Him worship, for this God is the source and giver of all things, even breath and knowledge themselves. Quoting one of their own poets, whose words agree that humanity is the offspring of this God, it follows that this God cannot be depicted by any device of man.

Finally, when Paul declared God’s ultimate authority by pointing to Christ’s resurrection from the dead, he was declaring invalid the words inscribed in the cornerstone of the highest place of their idolatry, the Acropolis: “Where a man’s blood is shed, there is nothing left.” Paul was not trying in any degree to syncretize beliefs, but rather to level their lofty opinions at the foot of gospel truth.

With the conclusive assertion of the almightiness of God, Paul left them. There were likely hundreds in attendance. Some mocked; some wanted to hear more. Among others who believed, two names are recorded: Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris. That varied response may be typical of our apologetic efforts. But, as Dr. Gamble emphasized in class, some will be saved. There will be Dionysiuses and Damarises.

“How’s Comes?”

In the 21st Century, the presuppositional apologetic approach remains valid. Respectfully, boldly, unbelievers can be challenged with biblical truth in relevant terms. A primary practical tactic taught by Dr. Gamble is to simply ask the unbeliever to substantiate the reason for his opinion or perspective that excludes God. How does he know what he knows? Challenge his epistemological certainty. (Epistemology is the study of knowledge, or how we know things.) Reduce their interpretation of the world and themselves to the absurdity that it is without the Triune God who explains His general revelation in the Bible.

Inquire how one knows something to be true. Or, as Dr. Gamble often puts it tongue-in-cheek, ask him, “How’s comes?” Again and again ask that little question: “How do you know this to be true?” The inconsistencies that arise when an unbeliever builds his life upon his “autonomous” authority over God the Creator’s revealed authority become apparent. There is an inability to give an explanation for expecting continuity in life.

For instance, a world view based on empiricism can’t prove that the sun will rise again tomorrow—our world can’t be understood in certainty through the oxymoron of chance development. The Christian may ask, “But how do you know the sun will rise tomorrow?” Of course, one cannot know anything for sure outside of God’s providence revealed in Scripture, and if the unbeliever is honest, he will eventually concede: “I don’t know,” or, “I can’t know, for sure.” His take on life is a shot in the dark. It has no objective foundation of certainty, because there is no certainty outside of God. So a sardonic comedian plays off the famous saying of Descartes: “I think, therefore I am. I think.”

Exposing this lack of epistemological certainty is a platform to share the gospel, since the self-attesting Christ, the Word, is the source of understanding anything. In Him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), and Christ alone sustains all things by the power of His Word. Nothing is possible or certain without the Triune God of Scripture who providentially governs His creation.

Simply put, Christian apologetics means telling the truth. The source of all truth for man, a created being, is His Creator, who has revealed Himself in the world and revealed all knowledge in His Word and self-revelation in His Son Jesus Christ. For “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov. 9:10).

To listen to four 30-minute lectures given by Dr. Gamble on apologetics at College Hill RP Church, visit the church’s page on SermonAudio: www.reformedvoice.org/chrpchurch

Grant Van Leuven is director of development and communications at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pa. He is also a student.