Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers (c. 120-220) who defended their faith against critics and recommended their faith to outsiders were called apologists.[1]
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The term apologetics etymologically derives from the Classical Greek word apologia. In the Classical Greek legal system two key technical terms were employed: the prosecution delivered the kategoria (κατηγορία), and the defendant replied with an apologia. To deliver an apologia meant making a formal speech or giving an explanation to reply and rebut the charges, as in the case of Socrates' defense.
This Classical Greek term appears in the Koine (i.e. common) Greek of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul employs the term apologia in his trial speech to Festus and Agrippa when he says "I make my defense" (Acts 26:2). A cognate term appears in Paul's Letter to the Philippians as he is "defending the gospel" (Philippians 1:7 & 16), and in 1 Peter 3:15 believers must be ready to give an "answer" for their faith. The word also appears in the negative in Romans 1:20: unbelievers are αναπολόγητοι (anapologētoi) (without excuse, defense, or apology) for rejecting the revelation of God in creation.
The legal nuance of apologetics was reframed in a more specific sense to refer to the study of the defense of a doctrine or belief. In this context it most commonly refers to philosophical reconciliation. Religious apologetics is the effort to show that the preferred faith is not irrational, that believing in it is not against human reason, and that in fact the religion contains values and promotes ways of life more in accord with human nature than other faiths or beliefs.
In the English language, the word apology is derived from the Greek word, but its use has changed; its primary sense now refers to a plea for forgiveness for a wrong act. Implicit in this is an admission of guilt, thus turning on its head the "speaking in defense" aspect of the original concept. An uncommon secondary sense refers to a speech or writing that defends the speaker or author's position.
As the world's religions have encountered one another, apologetics and apologists from within their respective faiths have emerged. Some of these apologetics respond to or fight back against the arguments of religions and secularism; others are pure defence.
Christian apologetics is a field of Christian theology that presents a rational basis for the Christian faith, to defend the faith against objections and misrepresentation, and to expose error within other religions and world views. Christian apologetics have taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Saul of Tarsus, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, and continuing today with the efforts of many authors and speakers from various Christian traditions, such as Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, Greg Bahnsen, James White, John F. MacArthur, Hank Hanegraaff, Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, C.S. Lewis, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, Hugh Ross and Scott Hahn. Apologists base their defense of Christianity on historical and archaeological evidence, theological and philosophical arguments and scientific investigation.
While there are various types of arguments including ontological, cosmological and teleological, it is the opinion of many Christian apologists that the Gospel is the best defense and living a life according to the tenets of Jesus' teachings is the best argument. To quote one Christian apologist, "the best argument is one that is made without words."[2]
Jewish apologetic literature can be traced back as far as Aristobulus of Paneas, though some discern in the works of Demetrius the chronographer (3rd.century BCE) traces of the style of 'questions' and solutions' typical of the genre. Aristobulus was a Jewish philosopher of Alexandria and author of an apologetic work addressed to Ptolemy VI Philometor. Josephus's Contra Apion is a wide-ranging defense of Judaism against many charges laid against Judaism at that time.[3]
Apologists for Islam have defended the Quran using rationalist and empiricist arguments, and using cosmological and embryological arguments in an attempt to prove God's existence. Islamic apologists have also challenged both Jewish and Christian beliefs. The late South African Islamic apologist, Ahmed Deedat, was a prolific popular writer who debated Christian evangelists by arguing over discrepancies in the Bible.
One of the earliest Buddhist apologetic texts is The Questions of King Milinda, which deals with ethical and intellectual problems. In the British colonial era, Buddhists in Sri Lanka wrote tracts that rejected Christianity. In the mid-19th century, encounters between Buddhists and Christians in Japan prompted the formation of a Buddhist Propagation Society. In recent times A. L. De Silva, an Australian convert to Buddhism, has written a book, Beyond Belief, designed to refute the arguments of Christian evangelists. Gunapala Dharmasiri has challenged the Christian concept of God from a Theravadan Buddhist perspective.
Hindu apologetics was an inevitable consequence of the confrontation with Christianity during the British colonial period. A number of Indian intellectuals had become critical of the British tendency to devalue the Hindu religious tradition. As a result these Indian intellectuals, as well as a handful of British Indologists, were galvanized to examine the roots of the religion as well as to study its vast arcana and corpus in an analytical fashion. This endeavor drove the deciphering and preservation of Sanskrit. Many translations of Hindu texts were produced which made them accessible to a broader reading audience.
A range of Indian philosophers, including Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo Ghose, have written rational explanations regarding the values of the Hindu religious tradition. More modern proponents such as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have also tried to correlate recent developments from quantum physics and consciousness research with Hindu concepts. The late Reverend Pandurang Shastri Athavale has given a plethora of discourses regarding the symbolism and rational basis for many principles in the Vedic tradition. In his book The Cradle of Civilization, David Frawley, an American who has embraced the Vedic tradition, has characterized the ancient texts of the Hindu heritage as being like "pyramids of the spirit". Such individuals have tried to construct an intellectual defense of Hinduism during a phase when the fundamentalistic elements of other faiths have sought to denigrate the ancient religion in an effort to gain converts.
The publication, Hinduism Today, was founded on January 5, 1979, by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. It is a nonprofit educational activity of the Himalayan Academy. Based on its website, one of its chief aims is to dispel the misinformation and misrepresentation of Hinduism and to preserve the true essence of its teachings. It also endeavors to nurture the renaissance which appears to be transpiring within Hindus worldwide. As a publication written in English, it has also served to unify the disparate branches of the Hindu diaspora. The archives of the Hinduism Today publication appear to be a solid and faithful storehouse of Hindu theory and practice; they seem to be an ideal starting point for those interested in this ancient religious tradition. Moreover, the publication also seems to be energetically carrying the torch of Hindu apologetics in the field of comparative religion.
There are apologists who specialize in Mormonism, including several well-known Mormon apologetic organizations, such as the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (a group of scholars at Brigham Young University) and the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (an independent, not-for-profit group), which have formed to defend the doctrines and history of the Latter Day Saint movement in general and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in particular.
Some pantheists have formed organizations such as the World Pantheist Movement and Universal Pantheist Society to promote and logically defend belief in pantheism.
Similar to religious apologies, this form of writing often appears historically in literature. Dissimilarly, however, literary apologies defend either poetic and aesthetic qualities, or the author's ability to write about the subject directly following the apology. Plato's Apology may be read as both a religious and literary apology; however, more specifically literary examples may be found in the prefaces and dedications, which proceed many Early Modern plays, novels, and poems. Eighteenth century authors such as Colley Cibber, Frances Burney, and William Congreve, to name but a few, prefaced the majority of their poetic work with such apologies. In addition to the desire to defend their work, the apologetic preface often suggests the author's attempt to humble his- or herself before the audience.[4]
Tertullian was a notable early Christian apologist. He was born, lived and died in Carthage. He is sometimes known as the "Father of the Latin Church". He introduced the term Trinity (Latin trinitas) to the Christian vocabulary[5] and also probably the formula "three Persons, one Substance" as the Latin "tres Personae, una Substantia" (itself from the Koine Greek "treis Hypostaseis, Homoousios"), and also the terms Vetus Testamentum (Old Testament) and Novum Testamentum (New Testament).
In his Apologeticus, he was the first who qualified Christianity as the vera religio ("true religion"), and symmetrically relegated the classical Empire religion and other accepted cults to the position of mere 'superstitions'.
Early uses of the term (in the first sense) include Plato's Apology (the defense speech of Socrates from his trial) and some works of early Christian apologists, such as St. Justin Martyr's two Apologies addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman Senate.
An additional early use of the term, is Augustus Caesar's apologia or defense of his accomplishments as Roman Emperor inscribed outside of his tomb, at his death in 14 AD on pillars of bronze, called The Deeds of the Divine Augustus (in Latin: Res Gestae Divi Augusti). They were widely copied and distributed throughout the Roman Empire. It is regarded as one of the more important apologias of the ancient world.[6]
Arngrímur Jónsson was an Icelandic scholar who wrote the book Brevis commentarius de Islandia in Latin as a "defense of Iceland" where he criticized the works of numerous authors who had written about the people and the country of Iceland.
John Henry Newman (February 21, 1801 – August 11, 1890) was an English convert to Roman Catholicism, later made a cardinal, and beatified in 2010. In early life he was a major figure in the Oxford Movement to bring the Church of England back to its Catholic roots. Eventually his studies in history persuaded him to become a Roman Catholic. When John Henry Newman entitled his spiritual autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua in 1864, he was playing upon both this connotation, and the more commonly understood meaning of an expression of contrition or regret.
At the end of the 19th and the beginning 20th century a group of conservative American economists and social scientists became known as the American Apologists. Their different theoretical orientations notwithstanding, they were apologists for the status quo and rose to defend the new industrial age and condemn unions and populist causes.[7]
They included Simon Newcomb at Johns Hopkins, John Bates Clark at Columbia, James Laurence Laughlin at Chicago, Charles F Dunbar and Frank William Taussig at Harvard, Arthur T. Hadley and William Graham Sumner at Yale, and controlled the American university system in the East. This was backed by the cleansing of socialist reformers from American higher education after the Haymarket affair, an 1886 incident in Chicago.
Udo Schaefer is a lawyer and author of Making the Crooked Straight;[8] and prominent Bahá'í apologetic.
In a famous speech called Red Jacket on Religion for the White Man and the Red[9] in 1805, Seneca chief Red Jacket gave an apologist argument for native American religion.