Dialogical Apologetics: A Person-centered Approach to Christian Defense

Dialogical Apologetics: A Person-centered Approach to Christian Defense. By David K. Clark. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993, 245 pp., $14.99 paper.

Anyone who desires to do apologetics one-on-one will find much help in this book. Clark has taken the academic discipline of apologetics and brought it into real life by showing how to engage in interpersonal dialogue on apologetic issues.

The book has two parts. Part 1 deals with theoretical issues concerning apologetic methodology. Chapter 1 covers the relationship between faith and reason. Clark shows that much of the confusion in the faith-reason debate revolves around equivocal uses of the terms "faith" and "reason." Those who pit faith against reason usually define faith as a way of knowing. Likewise, some define reason as "thinking that operates independently of God" (p. 13). Clark gives a more neutral definition of reason: "the human function of mentally processing experiences and ideas" (p. 13). And he appropriately defines faith biblically as trust. In his words, faith is "the whole soul committed to God in Christ" (p. 22). Defined in these ways, there can be no conflict between faith and reason.

Subsequent chapters in Part 1 deal with aspects of religious epistemology. Clark rightly rejects classical foundationalism. However, he also rejects Reformed epistemology, the view that belief in God is properly basic. Instead, he opts for "soft rationalism" that lies between classical foundationalism's demand that all beliefs be supported by evidence and Reformed epistemology's insistence on the proper basicality of belief in God. Contra Reformed epistemology, he thinks that religious experience is inadequate for grounding religious belief, urging that "we should confirm a claimed experience of God by connecting it to a wider web of belief." Why? "[B]ecause prior beliefs can contaminate experience," thus leading different people to give conflicting interpretations of their religious experiences (p. 92). Apparently, Clark does not believe that an experience of God can be self authenticating.

Clark's soft rationalism leads him to adopt a "cumulative case" approach to apologetics, whereby competing worldviews are tested by such criteria as consistency, coherence, comprehensiveness, and congruence. Using such criteria, the apologist seeks to show that Christian theism provides the best explanation for wide ranges of data in areas like cosmology, anthropology, ethics, religious experience, and history. In chapter 5, Clark sets out a helpful taxonomy of apologetic methods, identifying his approach as a species of classical apologetics.

Part 2 addresses the "dialogical" aspect of apologetics. Clark seeks to show how one can take the theory elaborated in Part 1 and put it to use in the context of personal dialogue. Clark discusses the "dimensions of dialogue" that include the classical categories of rhetoric (logos, pathos, ethos), as well as cultural factors. Chapter 6 deals primarily with logic and argument. Its most helpful feature is the discussion of Toulmin's model for argument assessment (pp. 136-139).

Chapter 7 describes the role personal attitudes play in persuasion. Clark reminds us that effective apologetics involves more than presenting a good argument. We must also understand the influence antecedent attitudes may have on the assessment of arguments and develop skills for promoting attitude change. The same can be said for the influence of culture (chap. 8). Clark addresses the problems of cross-cultural communication and the prejudices and stereotypes held by both the apologist and the unbeliever that can hinder effective dialogue. The apologist must learn to undress the gospel from his own cultural forms and communicate it in the forms of his dialogue partner. This implies cultural relativism (not ethical relativism) in which one recognizes legitimate cultural variety and seeks to judge the customs of another culture from within that culture.

Chapter 9 provides a concrete strategy for dialogical apologetics. Clark gives suggestions for overcoming obstacles to dialogue and for effectively presenting arguments. One strategy Clark outlines is the use of "mystifying answers" to "dissertation questions." If someone asks, "What do you do?," the apologist can spark interest by answering, "I help people understand the most important book ever written" (p. 217). According to Clark, such answers can "get a person thinking about how the gospel would benefit him" (p. 218). I would agree with this to a point. After all, what could be more beneficial to an unbeliever than to have his sins forgiven? However, I wonder if Clark says enough to guard against unbelievers coming to Christ for the wrong reasons. Didn't Christ say to those who came to him only for bread, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate . . . his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26)? I don't think Clark would disagree, but he could have made this clear.

Such questions notwithstanding, Clark has made a unique and eminently beneficial contribution to the discipline of apologetics. I hope every apologist (and evangelist!) will read this book and take its lessons to heart.