BTheol Christian Apologetics 2 ā Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which early church father wrote 'Apologies' addressing Roman emperors to defend Christians against pagan accusations?
- Origen
- Tertullian
- Justin Martyr (Correct answer)
- Irenaeus
Correct answer: Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr (c. 100ā165 AD) wrote his First and Second Apologies to Roman emperors, becoming one of the earliest Christian apologists.
Question 2: Pascal's Wager is an apologetic argument that appeals primarily to:
- Logical necessity
- Scientific evidence
- Pragmatic self-interest and probability (Correct answer)
- Historical testimony
Correct answer: Pragmatic self-interest and probability
Pascal's Wager argues that given uncertainty about God's existence, it is rational self-interest to wager in favor of belief because the potential gain (eternal life) outweighs the loss.
Question 3: The 'minimal facts' approach to defending the resurrection, associated with Gary Habermas, relies on:
- Only the Gospel of John
- Facts granted by virtually all critical scholars, regardless of worldview (Correct answer)
- Church tradition alone
- Archaeological evidence exclusively
Correct answer: Facts granted by virtually all critical scholars, regardless of worldview
Habermas's minimal facts method uses only those historical data points about the resurrection that the vast majority of critical scholars accept, even non-Christians.
Question 4: Which philosopher argued that belief in God can be 'properly basic,' meaning it requires no further justification from evidence?
- David Hume
- Immanuel Kant
- Alvin Plantinga (Correct answer)
- Bertrand Russell
Correct answer: Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Plantinga developed Reformed Epistemology, arguing that belief in God can be properly basicārational without being inferred from other propositions.
Question 5: The 'problem of evil' is considered an internal critique of theism. The logical version argues that God and evil are:
- Compatible if God has sufficient reasons
- Logically contradictory and cannot coexist (Correct answer)
- Only apparently contradictory when examined closely
- Related as Creator to creation
Correct answer: Logically contradictory and cannot coexist
The logical problem of evil, as formulated by J.L. Mackie, argues that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God and the existence of evil are logically incompatible.
Question 6: Alvin Plantinga's 'Free Will Defense' responds to the problem of evil by arguing that:
- Evil is an illusion created by limited human perception
- God could not create free creatures who always choose good without contradiction (Correct answer)
- God uses evil to test human faith
- Evil is necessary for the development of virtue
Correct answer: God could not create free creatures who always choose good without contradiction
Plantinga argues it is logically impossible for God to create genuinely free beings who are guaranteed always to choose good, so God's allowing moral evil is not logically inconsistent.
Question 7: Which type of apologetics emphasizes accumulating multiple independent lines of evidenceāhistorical, philosophical, and scientificāinto a cumulative case?
- Presuppositional apologetics
- Fideism
- Cumulative case apologetics (Correct answer)
- Evidentialism
Correct answer: Cumulative case apologetics
Cumulative case apologetics, associated with thinkers like Basil Mitchell and Richard Swinburne, argues that many independent strands of evidence together make Christian theism more probable than not.
BTheol Christian Apologetics 2
Which early church father wrote 'Apologies' addressing Roman emperors to defend Christians against pagan accusations?