Faith and Reason

Understanding and interpreting the relationship between faith and reason allows one to determine the more appropriate Apologetic method. Presuppositionalizm claims “the Christian should presuppose the entire Christian worldview and reason from this conviction with unbelievers (G. p62)”. This method is best defined that with faith comes reason. As a believer, one’s methodology for asserting and defending one’s faith should come solely through God’s Word because one is well versed on the moral, logical and spiritual implications of being a Christian. Establishing the presupposed relationship between one’s actions and how God will judge one is similar to a cause and effect type relationship. To an Apologetic, I would imagine that this particular method would be most appealing since it relies so heavily on one’s knowledge and understanding of Christ.

The Evidentialism method relies heavily on explaining major Biblical events through historical observation. This provides the more concrete evidence that many non-believers are looking for. Since non-believers tend to demand fact-based evidence, Evidentialism has the capability to provide reason to faith. This method is also the easiest for a non-believer to argue as Christian events may be dismissed as a fabrication of an actual event.

Lastly, the Experientialist strategy believes that Christian truths must be experienced. For example, in order for one to know what love is, one must have experienced love and must know how it feels to be in love. Simply learning about love and learning about the feelings commonly associated with it is not enough. Personally, this Apologetic method appeals the most to me, as I often need to relate experiences of others to my own life in order to establish a more personal connection with them. The Experientialist strategy relies heavily on being able to connect past experiences of Christians to present experiences of today. I also believe that this method would be easiest way to...