On Apologetics, I
A five part series on how to defend the Christian faith
This series is from our Midweek (Wednesday evening) Classes at Stillwater Church, where I serve on staff. Each part of this series will include the class notes and a video link to watch each class on Stillwater’s YouTube channel. In some of the videos, I made some minor corrections to myself in the comment section. If you choose to watch, read, or study apologetics with me, I pray it blesses you!
Why Does Apologetics Matter & Why Share These Studies On My Substack?
Some of you may be asking these questions, and they are great questions. The answer to the first question is answered near the beginning of my first study on this topic, which can be found below. Before you get there, a brief answer is that truth matters, truth should inform and shape our lives, and we should defend truth because Scripture tells us to. Additionally, the study and practice of apologetics has greatly impacted my life and faith. As someone with a curious brain and a drive to know God as fully as I can, I have wrestled through many of the big questions surrounding the existence of God, who God is, why evil exists, if the Bible is trustworthy, and why Christianity is the best worldview/lifestyle. These topics, among many others, are what I teach and work through in these studies. I pray this series encourages and equips you to know the truth, to live the truth, and to defend the truth boldly in love.
Part 1 On Apologetics: An Introduction & Aquinas’ Second Way
Below will be the notes for part one. Feel free to follow along with the video!
“The Christian God is not, first and foremost, an object of study, but of worship. That is why gatherings that attempt to study the things of God apart from the worship of God will always be limited in their utility. Of course we need to study God. As a Christian, however, I don’t believe we can know the truth about God apart from the worship of God. Those who attempt to study the things of God while attempting to maintain critical neutrality put themselves at an epistemic disadvantage. In other words, they cut themselves off from certain ways of knowing.”[1]
Slide 1: What is Apologetics and Why Does it Matter?
“My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.”[2]
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
Apologetics is giving a defense for the hope that Jesus Christ has given you, with a heart made right before the Lord and a love for all people to know his hope as you do.
To share the Gospel, you must know it. To know the Gospel, you must have repented and believed in it. To defend the Gospel, it must be within you.
You cannot take up a defense for a hope that is not within you, nor can you participate in the Kingdom of God if you have not yet repented and believed in the One who brought it forth.
Evangelism & Apologetics are a theology and a practice.
Poor theology leads to poor evangelism and apologetics.
What did Jesus say are the most important commands?
To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.[3]
Evangelism and Apologetics done well fulfills the two greatest commands given by Christ our Lord.
Slide 2: Biblical Basis for Apologetics
The word “apologetic” comes from the Greek word, “apologia,” which means to defend or to give a defense.[4]
Apologia is best used and defined for us in Scripture by the Apostle Peter, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”[5]
Slide 3: Apologetics as a Theology
Apologetics is a branch of Christian theology which seeks to provide a rational justification for the truths of Christianity.[6] We will practice this in weeks to come by answering some of the most common objections to the Christian faith, some of which you may struggling with.
Christian Apologetics is not simply answering questions, debating, or evangelism. Nor is apologetics, “if they say this, you say this.” Although, each of these things can be fruit bore of Christian apologetics when properly applied.[7]
Christian Apologetics, simply put, is the defense of truth.
Remember, apologetics done well fulfill the two greatest commands given by Christ our Lord.
You and I are called by St. Peter, therefore called by the Holy Spirit, therefore called by God to give a defense for the hope that is within us, by first honoring Christ as Lord in our hearts and when we give a defense of truth, doing so with gentleness and respect, because the other person you are engaging with is made in the image of God who may step toward coming to faith or rejecting it based on your defense.
Slide 4: On the Existence of God with St. Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas’ Second Way: Efficient Cause- ST.1.Q2.A3.C.6
Aquinas’ five ways for proving the existence of God are not meant to blow you away; they are meant to be a philosophical and theological exercise of the mind to rationally prove God’s existence.
Instead of approaching understanding all things, even God, from the bottom up (take, for instance, the periodic table), Aquinas seeks rather to answer the basic questions of “what is & why?” Or, “why is there something as opposed to nothing?”
Therefore, since there is something as opposed to nothing, we must examine what caused there to be something as opposed to nothing.
“The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.”[8]
Another way of saying this would be like “if X is the efficient cause of Y, then X is responsible for bringing about Y and its effects.”
So, for example, this morning I decided to have an energy drink, which contains caffeine. My consumption of the drink that contains caffeine is what keeps me from getting a caffeine headache and gives me energy to go about my day. My consumption of caffeine is the efficient cause of my lack of a headache and my energy for the day.
Now, that energy drink has an efficient cause of existence, as do I. That energy drink was caused in a factory. I was caused by my parents, and they their parents, etc.
Aquinas rightly notes that nothing in existence is the sole cause of itself, but also that the chain of efficient causes cannot regress into infinity, because existence itself cannot bring itself into existence, for there is nothing that exists that has brought about its own existence. Therefore, Aquinas asserts that because of the reasoning of Efficient Cause, there must be an Uncaused Cause, which he deduces to be none other than God.
If God exists, then He is the cause of our existence. If He is the cause of our existence, then we exist on purpose and for a purpose, for we are something as opposed to nothing. So the question remains, why am I something? Or, why do I exist as opposed to not exist?
If God is the cause of our existence, then the effect of our existence ought to be us glorifying the one that caused us to exist.
If God is our Uncaused Cause, then the effect of our existence ought to drive us to worship Him. He created us on purpose, for a purpose, and He not only created us, but sustains our very breath.
“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And although you were previously alienated and hostile in attitude, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His body of flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.”[9]
[1] Dr. David Watson, Academics, Religion, and Airplane Etiquette (Substack, 2025).
[2] Hosea 4:6a NRSV
[3] Matthew 22:37-40
[4] Craig, William Lane, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd Ed, 15.
[5] 1 Peter 3:15-16 ESV
[6] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 15.
[7] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 15.
[8] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, ST.1.Q2.A3.C.6.
[9] Colossians 1:13-23 NASB 2020