The Conversion of an Evolutionist: Chief Obstacles
Priorities in Presenting the Faith: an apologetic of evangelism (Part 2)
In Part 1, Dr. Whitcomb recounted his eagerness to win the lost to Christ immediately after his conversion at Princeton University. To his chagrin, he found the effort very frustrating. He constantly searched for some new answer or proof that would bring about repentance, but found little success. But he did encounter a mentor who showed him how to communicate the gospel more effectively. Part 1 concluded with these words:
All of this forced me to take a new look at some basic factors of Christian apologetics that I had seriously neglected. I have come to believe that my initial ignorance concerning these biblical principles also characterizes many frustrated and fruitless Christian workers today.
My problem was basically two-fold. I had underestimated the depth of man’s rebellion against God, and I was unaware of the absolutely crucial part which the Word of God must have, through the convicting and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, in bringing sinful men to Christ.
In our efforts to make the Bible and Christianity attractive and acceptable to men, we find ourselves immediately confronted with two stupendous obstacles: man’s fallen nature and the Satanic forces which surround him. Though these facts should come as no great surprise to one who is even superficially acquainted with Christianity, it is astonishing to me how few of the better known evangelical works on Christian apologetics today give them serious consideration.
One is almost led to believe when reading such books that what we really need to win intellectuals to Christ (in addition to the Gospel) is an arsenal of carefully developed arguments against various false religious and philosophical systems. We also seem to need an impressive array of evidences from, say, archaeology and history, that the Bible and Christianity are true.1
But if we are to be truly honest with the biblical perspectives on this question, we must admit that we have too often been guilty of building our systems of apologetics upon other foundations than the one set forth in Scripture. Instead of giving us the impression that men are eagerly waiting for proof that Christianity is true, we find the Bible exposing men’s hearts as sealed shut against any and all merely human intellectual pressures for conversion.
The basic problem of the non-Christian is not merely academic and intellectual; it is moral and spiritual. The Bible indicates that all unbelievers (including so-called honest doubters) are enemies of God, under divine judgment because of their deliberate distortion of all reality to fit into their own spiritual frame of reference.
There is not the slightest desire in the natural man to seek Him, find Him, and acknowledge Him for Who He is — “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts” (Psalm 10:4). On another occasion, the Holy Spirit informs us by the pen of David that — “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God” (Psalm 14:2). But what did He see? “They are all gone aside, they are all together filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (quoted in Romans 3:10-12).
Not only does the unbeliever not seek and practice truth, he consistently suppresses whatever truth he does receive: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold [suppress] the truth in unrighteousness … they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20).
In fact, the Scriptures make it clear that fallen men, so far from being open to arguments about God’s claims upon them, are in a state of enmity against Him, because “the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).
Christian apologetics has been traditionally concerned with giving rational answers to the challenges of unbelievers concerning God’s special revelation in Scripture. But what kind of minds are we appealing to? To what extent have sin and spiritual rebellion against God affected man’s rational capacities?
Ponder these statements: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others”(Ephesians 2:1- 3). “Walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts” (Ephesians 4:17-18).
But is the human “mind” not capable of detaching itself from the so-called “heart” and drawing its own conclusions about God independently of the downward direction of our fallen nature?
The answer is — no. Mark our Lord’s explanation of the unbreakable relationship between the mind and the heart — “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts” (Matthew 15:19; cf. Mark 7:21). The Scriptures offer us no hope of bringing about a fundamental change in a man’s thinking about God apart from a profound change in his “heart”, the moral and spiritual center of his personal being.
In addition to the obstacle of the human “heart-mind” being in utter opposition to the truth of God, there is the obstacle of Satan, “the god of this world”, and his demonic forces. This leads me to realize that when I speak to an unbeliever about Christ, I am not really speaking to one person but to two or more persons, all but one of whom is invisible.
The apostle Paul spoke of this fact several times. He explained that — “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).
He knew that Christians formerly “walked … according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” (Ephesians 2:2). He recognized that — “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
In the parable of the sower, our Lord also spoke of this obstacle to the reception of His Word when he identified the birds that devoured the seed — “When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side” (Matthew 13:19)
A system of Christian apologetics that underestimates the power of Satan in the minds of unbelievers may not exactly be guilty of reviling angelic majesties as Jude warns us, but by ignoring the extent of Satan’s power, it is unable to follow Michael’s example and to say effectively: “The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 9). What we desperately need today is an apologetic with power.
If the Biblical picture of man’s enmity against God and control by Satan is correct, then how can Christians ever persuade men to turn from sin and Satan to the true and living God? The biblical answer, of course, is that they cannot. The Scriptures do not say that it is difficult for the unbeliever to accept spiritual truth. They say that is it impossible. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Corinthians 2:14). When our Lord once made a similar pronouncement concerning an entire segment of society, “his disciples … were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?” His answer provides for us the key to all truly effective Christian apologetics today: “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26). It seems quite obvious, then, that God never intended that Christians should win the lost through purely philosophical and academic arguments, or even that they should by this means remove the mental obstacles within unbelievers so that the Word of God might penetrate their hearts.
More tomorrow.
Dr. John Whitcomb is well known as a theologian and apologist. Among his many books are The World that Perished and The Genesis Flood (with Dr. Henry Morris). This series of articles is reproduced with permission.
You can contact Dr. Whitcomb via his website at: www.whitcombministries.org
Listen to Dr. Whitcomb’s sermons: www.sermonaudio.com/sermonsspeaker.asp
- For example, John Warwick Montgomery boldly asserts: “Non-Christian positions must be destroyed factually and the Christian religion established factually. Any lesser procedure is the abrogation of apologetic responsibility to a fallen world.” (Once upon An A priori, in Jerusalem and Athens, edited by E R Geehan [Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co, 1971], p. 388.) [↩]