Foundations of Christian Apologetics: Reason, Evidence, and the Defense of Faith

Christian apologetics — the reasoned defense and articulation of the Christian faith — has a long intellectual history stretching from Justin Martyr and Augustine through Aquinas, Pascal, and C.S. Lewis to contemporary philosophers and historians. It engages some of the most fundamental questions in philosophy of religion: Does God exist? Is the Christian God specifically credible? Are miracles possible? Is the New Testament historically reliable? Understanding the landscape of these arguments, and the major positions within it, is the starting point for any serious engagement with apologetics. By the end of this course you will be able to describe the major apologetic schools (evidentialist, presuppositionalist, Reformed epistemology, natural theology), explain the primary arguments for God's existence (cosmological, teleological, moral, ontological), describe the major historical arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, and engage clearly with the standard objections to each. What you will learn: - The history of Christian apologetics: major figures and shifts from the early church through the twentieth century - Natural theology: the cosmological arguments of Aquinas and Leibniz, the teleological argument, and the fine-tuning argument in contemporary form - The moral argument: from Kant through C.S. Lewis to contemporary formulations by figures such as William Lane Craig - The ontological argument: Anselm's original formulation, Kant's objection, and its modal revival in analytic philosophy - Evidentialism versus presuppositionalism: the fundamental methodological divide in apologetic approach and what is at stake in it - Reformed epistemology: Alvin Plantinga's argument that belief in God can be properly basic and what this means for apologetic method - Historical apologetics: the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus considered as a historical question, including the minimal facts approach - The problem of evil: the major forms of the objection (logical and evidential) and the principal theodicy responses The course is structured as a sequence of readings organized by argument and school, with reflection prompts that ask you to formulate each argument in your own words and identify its strongest objection. Comparative tables help you track the methodological differences between schools. This course is designed for Christians who want to think more carefully about the rational basis of their faith, for students of philosophy of religion, and for anyone interested in serious theological and philosophical argument. No prior philosophy or theology background is required, though intellectual patience with abstract argument is helpful.