Doubt

Note: Last Updated 6/4/2025.

George MacDonald:

     “I’ve brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn’t believe what I told him and so I’ve brought him.”

     “Yes — I see him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy. Aren’t you glad you’ve got him out?”

     “Yes, grandmother. But it wasn’t very good of him not to believe me when I was telling him the truth.”

     “People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn’t seen some of it.”

(George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin, [Philadelphia: David McKay, 1920], Ch. XXII, pp. 147-148.)

Timothy Keller:

     The faith that changes the life and connects to God is best conveyed by the word “trust.” Imagine you are on a high cliff and you lose your footing and begin to fall. Just beside you as you fall is a branch sticking out of the very edge of the cliff. It is your only hope and it is more than strong enough to support your weight. How can it save you? If your mind is filled with intellectual certainty that the branch can support you, but you don’t actually reach out and grab it, you are lost. If your mind is instead filled with doubts and uncertainty that the branch can hold you, but you reach out and grab it anyway, you will be saved. Why? It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch. 

     This means you don’t have to wait for all doubts and fears to go away to take hold of Christ. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have to banish all misgivings in order to meet God. That would turn your faith into one more way to be your own Savior. Working on the quality and purity of your commitment would become a way to merit salvation and put God in your debt. It is not the depth and purity of your heart but the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf that saves us.

(Timothy Keller, The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, [New York: Dutton, 2008], p. 234.)

Timothy Keller:

Jesus asks the disciples, “Do you still have no faith?” That could actually be translated as “Where is your faith?” I love that way of phrasing it. By asking the question in this way, Jesus is prompting them to see that the critical factor in their faith is not its strength, but its object.

     Imagine you’re falling off a cliff, and sticking out of the cliff is a branch that is strong enough to hold you, but you don’t know how strong it is. As you fall, you have just enough time to grab that branch. How much faith do you have to have in the branch for it to save you? Must you be totally sure that it can save you? No, of course not. You only have to have enough faith to grab the branch. That’s because it’s not the quality of your faith that saves you; it’s the object of your faith. It doesn’t matter how you feel about the branch; all that matters is the branch. And Jesus is the branch.

(Timothy Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, [New York: Dutton, 2011], p. 55.)

Doubting.

Augustine of Hippo:

Dost thou wish to understand? Believe. For God has said by the prophet: “Except ye believe, ye shall not understand.” …If thou hast not understood, said I, believe. For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand; since, “except ye believe, ye shall not understand.”

(Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, 29.6; trans. NPNF1, 7:184.)

Mark 9:24b:

I do believe; help my unbelief.

(New American Standard Bible: 1995 Edition.)

Francis S. Collins:

     Doubt is an unavoidable part of belief.

(Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, [New York: Free Press, 2007], p. 33.) 

Paul Tillich:

The affirmation that Jesus is the Christ is an act of faith and consequently of daring courage. It is not an arbitrary leap into darkness but a decision in which elements of immediate participation and therefore certitude are mixed with elements of strangeness and therefore incertitude and doubt. But doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. Therefore, there is no faith without risk. The risk of faith is that it could affirm a wrong symbol of ultimate concern, a symbol which does not really express ultimacy (as, e.g., Dionysus or one’s nation).

(Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology: Volume II: Existence and The Christ, [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957], p. 116.)

Frederick Buechner:

…doubt is not the opposite of faith but an element of faith, in other words goes hand in hand with it. I have faith that there is an all-loving, all-powerful God in spite of the fact that I have no sure way of knowing that there is. Not knowing for sure means that maybe I am wrong.

(Frederick Buechner, The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections, [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996], p. 168.)

Os Guinness:

…doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the same as unbelief. Doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief so that it is neither of them wholly and it is each only partly. This distinction is absolutely vital because it uncovers and deals with the first major misconception of doubt — the idea that we should be ashamed of doubting because doubt is a betrayal of faith and a surrender to unbelief. No misunderstanding causes more anxiety and brings such bondage to sensitive people in doubt.

     The difference between doubt and unbelief is crucial. The Bible makes a definite distinction between them, though the distinction is not hard and fast. The word “unbelief” is usually used of a wilful refusal to believe or of a deliberate decision to disobey. So, while doubt is a state of suspension between faith and unbelief, unbelief is a state of mind that is closed against God, an attitude of heart that disobeys God as much as it disbelieves the truth. Unbelief is the consequence of a settled choice. Since it is a deliberate response to God’s truth, unbelief is definitely held to be responsible. There are times when the word “unbelief” is used in Scripture to describe the doubts of those who are definitely believers, but only when they are at a state of doubting that is rationally inexcusable and well on the way to becoming full-grown disbelief. Thus the ambiguity in the biblical use of unbelief is a sign of psychological astuteness and not of theological confusion.

     So it is definitely possible to distinguish in theory between faith, doubt and unbelief (to believe is to be in one mind, to disbelieve is to be in another and to doubt is to be in two minds.) But in practice the distinction is not always so clear-cut, especially when doubt moves in the direction of unbelief and passes over that blurred transition between the open-ended uncertainty of doubt and the close-minded certainty of unbelief.

     But the overall thrust of the biblical teaching on doubt is plain. A variety of words is used but the essential point is the same. Doubt is a halfway stage. To be in doubt is to be in two minds, to be caught between two worlds, to be suspended between a desire to affirm and a desire to negate. So the idea of “total” or “complete” doubt is a contradiction in terms; doubt that is total is no longer doubt, it is unbelief.

     Of course, we may call our doubt “total doubt” or charge it with unbelief. But only if our purpose is to stop doubt short and see that it does not become unbelief. When the father of the demoniac boy cried out to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” he was condemning his own doubt as unbelief. But his words have become a doubter’s prayer for good reason. Jesus, who never responded to real unbelief, showed by answering his prayer and healing his son that he recognised it as doubt. The distinction between doubt and unbelief, though not hard and fast, is valid and useful. Its importance, however, is not that we know when doubt becomes unbelief. Only God knows that and human attempts to say so can be cruel. But it means that we should be clear about where doubt leads to as it grows into unbelief.

(Os Guinness, God in the Dark: How to Understand and Resolve the Dilemmas of Doubt, [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996], pp. 17-19.)

Os Guinness:

     Here are three tips for followers of Christ who wish to have a view of doubt that strengthens faith: (1) Remember the character of doubt; (2) learn to resist its confusion, and (3) uncover and confront doubt’s real causes.

     First, remember the character of doubt. Contrary to widespread misunderstanding, doubt is not the same as unbelief, so it is not the opposite of faith. Rather it is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief. To believe is to be of one mind in accepting something as true; to disbelieve is to be of one mind in rejecting it; to doubt is to waver somewhere between the two, and thus to be of two minds. This important distinction uncovers a major misconception of doubt—the idea that a believer betrays faith and surrenders to unbelief by doubting.

     This twoness or doubleness represents the deepest dilemma of doubt. The heart in doubt is a divided heart. Here is the essence of the biblical view of doubt, which is echoed in human language and experience from all around the world the New Testament words for doubt—for example, dipsychos, diakrinō, distazō, dialogizoma, and meteōrizomai—have this sense of doubleness. So also do many other languages. The Chinese speak of a person with “a foot in two boats” and the Navajo Indians of “that which is two with a person.”

     An all-important difference exists, therefore, between the open-minded uncertainty of doubt and the closed-minded certainty of unbelief. Because faith is crucial, doubt is serious. But because doubt is not unbelief it is not terminal. It is a halfway stage that can lead on to a deepened faith as easily as it can break down to unbelief.

     The doubleness or indecision of doubt can be described from the outside with high-noon clarity. But from the inside it is foggy, gray, and disorienting. The world of doubting feels like a world with no landmarks and no bearings. Thus a second tip for those who want to develop a view of doubt that strengthens faith is: Learn to anticipate and resist the confusions of doubt.

     Followers of Christ are not simply fair-weather believers. They are realistically committed to truth, people who “think in believing and believe in thinking” as Augustine expressed it. They are, therefore, like experienced pilots who can fly in bad weather as easily as in good, by night as well as by day, and upside down as well as right side up. Faith’s rainy days will come and go and dark nights of the soul may threaten to overwhelm, but safe flying is possible for those who have a solid grasp of the instruments (God’s truth and promises) and a canny realism about the storm and stress of doubt.

     Many common confusions about doubt can be cleared away with help. For example, doubt is confused with unbelief, which reinforces doubtfulness by adding guilt. Others divorce faith from knowledge. Knowledge becomes assigned strictly to the realm of certainty and faith to uncertainty. There is the confusion of thinking that, because God is the answer to all doubt, only answers that are theologically correct “God-talk” are sufficient. Such confusions are an aggravation of the doubt, not its real source.

     The first two tips for handling doubt are vital but obviously preliminary. Without remembering the character of doubt, any outbreak of uncertainty can call faith into question before doubt ever specifically doubts anything. Without resisting doubt’s confusion, the symptoms can sidetrack a serious investigation of the root causes. But when these two steps have been followed the real job remains—the believer must tackle those root causes. The third tip for those who want to strengthen faith through doubt is that they must resolve the specific challenges that underlie it.

     Any attempt to draw up an exhaustive catalog of doubts would be overwhelming and depressing. But anyone who listens to doubters and studies doubt in the light of the Scriptures soon finds that there are “family resemblances”.among doubts. It is, therefore, possible and helpful to discern a broad overview of the main types. Of course, these broad “families” are only generalizations. Doubting is specific, and doubts strike everyone differently. But, when used with sensitivity and compassion, the categories are anything but a straitjacket. They help people to see where they are, how they got there, and—most importantly—how they can get out.

     It has been my privilege to talk to hundreds of individuals who have experienced different kinds of doubt and differing levels of pain and confusion. No one who understands the pain and perils of doubt can be blithe about it. Loss of trust in God is truly life’s ultimate loss. But such is the nature of faith in God through Christ, affirmed by countless Christians through history, that there can be a constructive side of doubt.

     True, there is no believing without some doubting. But since belief strengthens as the Christian understands and resolves doubt, we can say that, if we doubt in believing, we nevertheless also believe in doubting.

(Os Guinness, “I Believe in Doubt: Using Doubt to Strengthen Faith”; In: R. C. Sproul, ed., Doubt & Assurance, [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993], pp. 32-35.)

Note: See further: Knowing, §. 3. Epistemic Certainty.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Apologetics, Discipline of

Note: Last Updated 6/4/2025.

C. S. Lewis:

     One last word. I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that Faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate. For a moment, you see, it has seemed to rest on oneself: as a result, when you go away from the debate, it seems no stronger than that weak pillar. That is why we apologists take our lives in our hands and can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments, as from our intellectual counters, into the Reality — from Christian apologetics into Christ Himself. 

(C. S. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics;” In: C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1970], p. 103.)

C. S. Lewis:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

(C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory;” In: C. S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes A Toast: And Other Pieces, [London and Glasgow: Fontana Books, 1965], pp. 94-95.)

M. de Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet):

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him [Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer].

(Voltaire, “A L’auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs;” In: Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Tome XIII, Poésies, Tome Second, [Paris: P. Dupont, Libraire-Éditeur, 1825], Épitre CXCVIII, p. 386.)

Note: Because we cannot function as individuals or societies without necessarily presupposing Him.

Blaise Pascal:

Order. Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.

(Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer, [London: Penguin Books, 1966], # 12 (187), p. 34.)

Cardinal César de La Luzerne (1738-1821 A.D.): 

Our goal is less to make you see how true religion is than to make you feel how beautiful it is. [Notre but est moins de vous faire voir combien la Religion est vraie, que de vous faire sentir combien elle est aimable.]

(César de la Luzerne, Instruction Pastorale sur L’Excellence de la Religion, [Lyon: Giberton et Brun, 1838], p. 5; trans. Avery Cardinal Dulles, A History of Apologetics, [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005], p. 226.)

George MacDonald:

The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is—not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. 

(George MacDonald, “The Fantastic Imagination;” In: George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts: Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakspere: Enlarged Edition, [London: Sampson Low Marston & Company, 1895], p. 319.)

C. S. Lewis:

Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is ‘wishful thinking’. You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.

     In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it Bulverism. Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third —‘Oh you say that because you are a man.’ ‘At that moment’, E. Bulver assures us, ‘there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.’ That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

(C. S. Lewis, “Bulverism;” In: C. S. Lewis, God In the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1970], pp. 272-273.)

Henri Blocher:

     1. We must first of all stress the theme of the “heart” as the organ of thought. If we classify the texts of the Old Testament describing the functions attributed to the heart, those which are intellectual in nature are the most often evoked. The heart is the core of the thinking person. In the book of Proverbs, we often find the expression “who lacks understanding,” as one of the ways in which the fool is characterized. Literally, it is “who lacks heart.” The translation “understanding” is not inaccurate here, though the Hebrew word (there are two forms, lev and levav) is elsewhere translated “heart.” The notion has now evolved in meaning. For us, the heart is the seat of affections. This was not the case in previous times when it referred to courage (“Rodrigue, do you have heart?”). In the Bible, the heart is first the locus of the intellect, then of the will, and clearly later, that of emotion. In the Gospels, if the inspired authors who record the words of Jesus specify that loving God with “all your heart” is to love him with “all your mind” (for example in Mark 12:30), it is because in Greek, “heart” especially evoked “courage.” It was necessary to add the latter term related to the mind so that the Greek readers might fully understand. In Jeremiah 31:33, the prophet proclaims to the Israelites that God “will write his law on their hearts.” In Hebrews 10:16, which quotes this passage, after the word used to translate “heart” the inspired writer adds the Greek term for “understanding” (in 8:10, the reversed word order confirms their equivalence). This detail is significant, for the heart is not only the seat of understanding; it is also the locus of the will, while emotions, too, play a role. This fact precludes reason from being considered a separate entity. In a sense, we might say that there is no “reason” only people who reason. There are only “hearts,” or “interior beings,” who are complex networks of intellectual, volitional, and affective functions. Confronted with their world, confronted with the data of experience, humans endowed with a heart seek at once to distinguish objects and their components, to grasp them together, to seek the connections linking them. These are the two main functions of the mind and they are inseparable: to discern and to understand; namely, to identify necessary relationships. We comprehend and our reason is satisfied when we are not content to see that two things follow one another, but see why it was necessary that they follow one another. It is this necessary connection that reason seeks. When reason has seized it, it has acquired a knowledge that stands out from the present moment. It knows that the sequence will occur again, since A necessarily brought about B.

     2. A second biblical given, and of paramount importance, is the theme of the darkening of the mind in the life of the unbeliever, or his inability to comprehend the things of God. The theme is found in several passages: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV). Paul also speaks of the “darkened understanding” of unbelievers (Ephesians 4:18 ESV), or of “their foolish hearts [being] darkened” (Romans 1:21 ESV). If the mind were an autonomous faculty, it does not follow that merely being an unbeliever, or a worshipper of Jupiter or Baal, would affect the mind. We have here then the formal pronouncement that the mind bears the consequences of the choices of the heart in matters religious.

     3. Another biblical theme is of a piece with the preceding one, to wit, the doctrine according to which God must impress an orientation on the heart of man for him to think aright, for his intellect to be sound, for him to appreciate what should be appreciated. Already, in the Old Testament, the foundational proverb affirms that “the fear of the LORD is the principle of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). Often this verse is rendered “the beginning of wisdom,” but “principle” is more exact. It is not simply a matter of starting from scratch, but of the principle which presides for the duration.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 28-30.)

Henri Blocher:

     Right motivation matters. Do we engage in apologetics for the pure pleasure of the interplay of ideas (for the back and forth of argument can often resemble a ping-pong match)? Do we try to crush the “adversary” only to show off our own superiority? Or even do we aim only toward a utilitarian purpose, such as expanding church rolls by recruiting new members? I doubt that endeavors driven by such motives will bear much fruit for the kingdom, or that they will enjoy the favor of divine blessing.

     There are three reasons for seeking out with perseverance the most persuasive reasons for believing (i.e., to engage in apologetics). Considerations which are carefully weighed, closely examined, based on the known facts and the coherence of cause and effect, render the decision for faith responsible. Such is their primary function. Certainly, God, in his free mercy, can suddenly awaken faith in an individual, without there being a rational conscious process on his part (though we can suppose unconscious preparations at work): God can touch, it seems, through just emotions. However, in general, he wishes to raise his sons and daughters, his covenant partners, to be responsible. He prefers that they become committed to faith in an intelligent and deliberative manner (like the Bereans in Acts 17:11; see 1 Corinthians 10:15 and 14:20). Otherwise, whom do they really believe and what do they really believe? Any manipulator is capable of moving emotions. Serious arguments make all the difference between faith and credulity. Biblical faith is the opposite of credulity.

     The second function of apologetics is to put into practice love for our neighbor. Nothing less. If Christ’s love draws us toward our neighbor, filling us with the desire to have him see at last the Truth of Grace, we will not want to manipulate him, which would only serve to diminish him. We will not be content to present him with the Act of Christ and the offer of Salvation matter-of-factly. We will try to persuade him, because, loving him in God’s way, we desire his good. We will seek to enter into his thought processes and to suggest reasons which will shake him, reasons which will break down his mental strongholds and disabuse him of his fallacies (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5). If we make no effort in this vein (adapted, adjusted, to each person), we hardly love him, and rather we love him amiss.

     The third function should stimulate in us the strongest motivation: by seeking persuasive reasons for faith, we give glory to God. It is a matter of demonstrating that we love him with all our mind. We want to focus, as a lens does the rays of the sun, the brilliance of his Name—this splendor that all his works reflect (Psalm 8), this witness to his power and his divinity which the heavens and the earth proclaim (Psalm 19; Romans 1). By the same token, we want to erase the stain which unbelief represents, for he who does not receive the testimony of God makes God a liar (1 John 5:9-10). The philosopher Bertrand Russell used to claim that were he to be questioned by the Sovereign Judge at the Last Judgment (a doctrine which he derided, of course, as a myth), he would justify his refusal to believe in these terms: “Not enough evidence! Not enough evidence!” Now, therein lies an impudence which apologetics must combat! The God whose grace has taken hold of us is the God of Truth, who possesses in himself the principle of revelation, to wit his logos or Word: he wants to express and to reveal who he is in his magnificence—which is his glory. He has also created us in his image with the capacity to recognize him: our understanding of his revelation serves to mirror his glory. However weak and defective our minds may be, however dented and rusted the mirror, we begin to glorify God when we seek out the reasons in support of his existence.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 3-5.)

George MacDonald:

When I am successful in any argument, my one dread is of humiliating my opponent. Indeed I cannot bear it. It humiliates me. And if you want him to think about anything, you must leave him room, and not give him such associations with the question that the very idea of it will be painful and irritating to him. Let him have a hand in the convincing of himself. I have been surprised sometimes to see my own arguments come up fresh and green, when I thought the fowls of the air had devoured them up. When a man reasons for victory and not for the truth in the other soul, he is sure of just one ally, the same that Faust had in fighting Gretchen’s brother—that is, the Devil. But God and good men are against him. So I never follow up a victory of that kind, for, as I said, the defeat of the intellect is not the object in fighting with the sword of the Spirit, but the acceptance of the heart.

(George Macdonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, [New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1873], Chapter IV: The Coffin, pp. 46-47.)

Henri Blocher:

     What transpires when we enter into “apologetic” dialogue, when we propose an apologia to individuals who do not yet adhere to the gospel? We do not put ourselves on the same footing as the natural man left to his own devices, we do not adopt his presuppositions. We speak according to the truth that God has made known to us, by his grace. We emphasize the true structure of things: we highlight the witness that reality bears to its creator. As a result, it becomes more difficult for natural man who is in conversation with us to suppress and divert this witness, as he usually does. Where he would evade something, we bring it to his attention. At that point, one of two things will occur: either he will suppress even more, not wanting to understand, digging in deeper his heels—and our arguments are not going to overcome his hardness of heart!—or the Holy Spirit will use the arguments that we employ and will impress upon him the structure of reality such as God has created it, whereupon his defenses will break down, the distorted perspective will dissolve, and he will become open to other ideas, notably to the idea of God. This is what the New Testament calls metanoia (conversion), which is “another way of thinking” (the word comes from the root of the word "intellect, reason"). Herein lies the essence of apologetic argumentation. We must not think that arguments alone suffice. If our interlocutor barricades himself behind presuppositions that are contrary to those of God, our arguments will make little headway with him. He can very well close himself off from them. If it pleases God, though, they can still serve as a tool of the Holy Spirit.

     …1. As the degree of perspective distortion differs among individuals and from place to place, we must always adapt ourselves to the interlocutor. Our first objective is to “surprise” him. With respect to the system he has established (the spiritual-intellectual lockbox which keeps a lid on his feelings of insecurity), we must awaken what he has suppressed and unsettle him. This is what we hope can destabilize the distorting system by which he holds truth captive. Where there is little distortion, we can get a foot in the door and raise questions, as does Paul in Acts 17. The apostle makes use of the assertion—albeit somewhat veiled and pantheistic: “We are his offspring” (Acts 17:28 NIV). He builds on it to query his interlocutors as to their idolatry: If you recognize that humanity is God’s progeny, why do you make gods out of stone and wood? Paul points out the contradiction, and he does so in taking into account the audience he has before him. Addressing Stoics, he cites the words of a Stoic poet.

     2. Another practical consideration: What is it that may cause our interlocutor to feel, when we present our arguments before him, that it would be difficult to continue in his distortion of reality? He assimilates this thanks to that uncanny ability which our mind has to “touch” the mind of the Other. When we speak to one another, a kind of connection is established, a spiritual connection. We mimic in our own thought patterns the thoughts of the Other, which touch us. It is in this same way that our words in conversation do not remain simply external to our interlocutor, but awaken in him what he had tried to suppress. However, this phenomenon of spiritual communication, which exists between individual humans, is greatly facilitated, nay multiplied, when there is a positive affective environment, for it is the heart of man as an entire being who thinks. When it is a trusted friend who presents this brand-new thought, it penetrates more deeply, it is more difficult to dismiss, than when it is a stranger or a disagreeable personality. Personal relationships, therefore, have a large part in apologetics.

     Such is the promise that God makes to the apologist, to the humble and courageous disciple who seeks to persuade with serious arguments the brother or sister in our common humanity. Liberated at once from rationalism and irrationalism, the mind renewed by the Word can touch the mind of a conversational partner—something which the Holy Spirit can use in turn to liberate him through the knowledge of Truth for Life anew.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 32-33, 33-34.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria