Is Evidential Apologetics Dead? - Part 2

In all the conversations I have seen regarding whether evidential apologetics are no longer useful, something strikes me as odd. One reason evidential apologetics seems under attack is because the notion of "bomb-proof certainty" has been abandoned. It is often stated that certainty is one of those enlightenment ideas that should be given up in favor of epistemological modesty and an embrace of mystery and ambiguity.

Part of the reason for this is criticism from skeptics who insist many of the traditional "proofs" of this or that are not adequate. But I tend to think there is a bit of category confusion going on here. There is a lack of definition of what is meant by the term "proof".

I tend to think of proof in terms of three types - mathematical, scientific and legal.



A mathematical proof is one in which there is one and only one answer to a given problem. There are clear rules (base 10 arithmetic, for example) which limit the possibilities. Given those constraints, 2 + 2 will always equal 4. Quantum theory and chaos theory aside, we take for granted this sort of proof. Our banking system would utterly collapse without it. Given certain assumptions, basic mathematical equations can be solved with "certainty".

The problem is, God is not a math problem. We can't set up an equation to represent God, define a particular set of rules to limit the possibilities and carefully work out the problem in accordance with agreed upon axioms and properties. In that sense, to say we cannot "prove" God's existence with certainty would be a true statement. I think many modern skeptics think of "proof" in a casually "mathematical" way and want things presented in manner that leaves one and only one answer. Many would-be apologists for the faith may have the same misconception. But it doesn't work that way.

More often, for modern folk, something like a scientific proof is unconsciously expected. A scientific proof generally requires a labratory, a place where the number and type of variables can be controlled, where an experiment can be carefully set up, repeated and repeated again, to establish the validity of an idea. If the experiment is repeatable (such as showing that water boils at 212 degrees at sea level) then the hypothesis is validated.

But once again, God cannot be subjected to scientific experiment. We cannot climb up to heaven, snip of a sample of His robe and carbon date it. He can't be squeezed into a test tube. To say that God cannot be "proven" in the sense of a repeatable scientific experiment would be a reasonable statement.

I ran into these kinds of confusions in an apologetics class, although it wasn't clear to me at the time what was going on. It was suggested that traditional "proofs" for the existence of God were inadequate because they did not completely rule out other "possibilities". I remember thinking at the time the instructor was setting a standard so high one could not "prove" that the sun was in the sky - there could be other "possibilities", but how likely would any of those other possibilities be? It is possible to set up unattainable terms for discussion, such as the nonsense question, "If God is omnipotent, can He create a stone so big He cannot lift it?" The answer of course, is that God, if He exists, would not bother to answer such a question. It is sort of like the question "have you stopped beating your wife?", a kind of language trap, nothing more.

But there is a third type of "proof" that should be considered, and it is a type that Old and New Testament writers rely upon, a type that has informed our legal system for centuries. It is this type of "proof" the church would be wise not to abandon, and to which I will turn next.