this two-dimensional shape is a triangle.
Hypothesis: “A proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.”19 An example of this is the hypothesis that Jesus physically rose from the dead. This proposition adequately explains why the Apostles and hundreds of others would not only proclaim that they were eyewitnesses to his Resurrection but would also be willing to suffer and die as martyrs for this conviction. The alternative hypotheses to the Resurrection, incidentally, cannot adequately account for this phenomenon.
Different Approaches to the Truth
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning: The deductive approach to apologetics involves starting with general principles and working toward a specific conclusion. If the premises are true and logic is valid, the conclusion is inevitably true.
Also called “top-down” logic, deductive reasoning moves from one or more general statements (premises) to reach a logically certain conclusion. When properly formed (i.e., valid), if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. The earlier examples of arguments don’t have necessarily true conclusions even though their premises are true because the conclusion necessarily goes beyond the premises, which is the very reason why we use those arguments. But a valid deductive argument only makes explicit what is already contained in the premises.
All As are green.
All Bs are As.
Therefore, all Bs are green.
If the premise(s) is false, the logic can still be valid, though the conclusion would likewise be false. For example, it could be that, in fact, some As are red, in which case the first premise (“all As are green”) would be false.
All Catholics are hypocrites.
William is Catholic.
Therefore William is a hypocrite.
The Inductive Approach: The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is known to countless readers as a genius for figuring out obscure and complex crimes on the basis of drawing conclusions from minute and easily overlooked details. He exemplifies the inductive reasoning approach. The popular television show Monk is another example of inductive logic at work.
Examples of inductive reasoning in apologetics would include:
1. Tabulating all the times Simon Peter is mentioned by name in the New Testament (195 times), and then comparing that statistic to the number of times the next most often mentioned Apostle is named (John, 29 times), suggests that Simon Peter was the most prominent figure among the Twelve Apostles.
2. Noting that things continually come into and go out of existence and are therefore contingent (i.e., unnecessary) and do not have to exist because at one point they did not exist. But yet they do exist. This suggests that there must be a being, which we call God, who must necessarily exist in order to explain the existence of this vast number of contingent, unnecessary beings.
3. Examining all the details of the life of Jesus Christ as they are presented in the pages of the New Testament — his miracles, teachings, reading the secrets of the heart, claims to be God, claims to forgive sins, and rising from the dead — so as to draw the conclusion that he is in fact truly God and not merely a man.
The Apophatic Approach: From the Greek ἀπόφασις (apóphatis), meaning “denial.”20 The apophatic approach uses negation to arrive at a clearer understanding of the truth. By asserting things that are not true, you can clear away erroneous and misleading claims that deny or obscure the truth. Examples of true statements that are expressed negatively in order to eliminate erroneous alternatives:
• God is not evil; He is not limited; He is not subject to change.
• God is not the author of evil.
• Human beings do not have the natural ability to save themselves from damnation.
• The Holy Spirit is not merely an impersonal “force.”
• Receiving Holy Communion is not “cannibalism.”
• The Holy Bible nowhere claims to be the sole, sufficient rule of Faith for Christians.
The Kataphatic Approach: From the Greek καταφατικό (kataphatikó), meaning “affirmative.” The opposite of apophatic, the kataphatic approach affirms certain truths that make other truths clearer. Examples of such affirmations in an apologetic setting:
• God is all good (omnibenevolent), all knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent).
• Everything God creates is good.21
• The Bible declares that Tradition is necessary and important.
• Jesus is Lord.
• Unaided by Divine revelation, the human intellect is capable of arriving at the fact that God exists.
Demonstrative and Probable Evidence
Every apologetics encounter involves an appeal to evidence of some sort. Evidence (i.e., facts, data, information, artifacts, documentation, testimony, etc.) is the “raw material” of apologetics. The method of argumentation is the blueprint or schematic that conforms that raw material into an instrument that conveys truth. In apologetics, this instrument also functions as a monument or sign that points toward those true conclusions that are warranted or even necessitated by the evidence.
For example: Your coworker insists that Jesus never existed and that the “Jesus myth” is simply the result of centuries of stories, folklore, and fables that began with the chicanery of the earliest Christians who sought (successfully) to dupe people into believing in a “Jesus” who never really existed so that they could garner power, wealth, and influence.
You respond to this claim with an appeal to evidence in the form of historical documents written by Jewish and pagan authors who, being contemporaries or near contemporaries of the Apostles, corroborate the fact that Jesus actually existed in a particular place and time. You then show how the corroborating evidence provided by those non-Christian sources matches the chronology and geography of the descriptions of Jesus’ life and times in the Gospels. Your truth-claim (i.e., Jesus really did exist and was not a myth) is based on historical evidence presented with an argument from authority (i.e., those authoritative Jewish and pagan writers [whose own existence is unquestioned] verify that Jesus actually existed) that entails the following deduction:
If someone as spectacular and intriguing as Jesus really existed, some contemporary witnesses would have written about him.
Some contemporary witnesses did write about him.
Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus really existed.
The alternative conclusion would be that even though various contemporary authors (who did not know each other) did write about Jesus as a real historical person, he did not really exist and they wrote about him for … what? For no reason? Multiple contemporaries
