A common objection to apologetics (a defense of an idea or worldview, in this case Christianity) that circulates frequently among Christian circles is the cliche conversation-stopper "No one can be argued into the kingdom". Some Christians treat this statement as some sort of universal refutation of any attempt to prioritize apologetics, whether employed in evangelism or the church itself. Other Christians cower as soon as they hear this almighty rebuke of trying to ever use reason to lead someone to Christ.
I will expose why this is an idiotic, untrue, and useless objection that should be forever removed from anyone's worldview.
First of all, many people have come to God and Christianity in particular mostly or solely because of logic.
C.S. Lewis, author of the legendary title Mere Christianity, shared how the moral argument was responsible for jolting him into the realization that one of his chief arguments against God made no intellectual sense. He complained about the injustice and cruelty of the universe and believed that such an existence contradicted the notion of a god, but then he saw that if there is no God there was no justification for believing that there is such a thing as injustice or evil. Simply put, without good, there can be no evil. Oh, there can be good without evil, but the opposite cannot be true. And if there is no God, there is no reason to believe in any objective good. Lewis detected this major flaw in his reasoning and corrected it by eventually moving to theism along his journey to Christianity.
Hugh Ross, a very intelligent astrophysicist, has recounted how facts and reason attracted him to Christianity. On a website founded by him I read of his backstory:
"While in college, Hugh committed himself to faith in Jesus Christ. After his study of big bang cosmology convinced him of a Creator's existence, curiosity led him to test religious 'holy books' for scientific and historical accuracy. Only the Bible passed the test, therefore persuading him of Christianity's validity. Later, Hugh was surprised to discover how many people believed or disbelieved in Christ without checking the evidence. Prompted by family, friends, and colleagues, he founded Reasons to Believe in 1986, to bring scientific evidence for Christianity to light [1]."
Antony Flew, who unfortunately died in 2010, graduated from atheism to a form of deism because of the teleological argument and overwhelming support for belief in a higher power based on design. Now, he did not quite become a Christian or someone who acknowledged a personal god, but the role of proof and evidence and reason in persuading him that at least some sort of deity-like creator existed is undeniable [2].
Saint Augustine had to struggle with multiple worldview phases for many years before he became a Christian. But as recorded in his book Confessions, philosophy and knowledge played a MAJOR role in bringing him eventually to Christ. As someone who can relate to some of the philosophical phases Augustine entered, I celebrated at the testimony of another Christian who did not shun but welcomed philosophy and valued reason greatly.
And, as the creator of this blog, I should add that while I initially became a Christian wholly on experiential and emotional grounds (though I assumed that if I searched for proof for God and Christianity I could always find it, but it wasn't until almost three years ago that I began to steadily ease into rationalism), my worldview has become so rationalistic that I simply would not be a Christian if it was not evidentially obvious that Christianity possesses not only the best explanatory power but also total coherency, external confirmation, verifiability, and reason. If I had the same mindset as I do now (which I may never have developed if I hadn't become a Christian to begin with) but I wasn't a Christian, I would scoff at the ridiculous anti-intellectualism and widespread ignorance infecting the church. I might have witnessed the overt absurdities and inconsistencies and complete irrelevance and inability to reason found among many Christians and then falsely concluded that Christianity itself is also absurd, inconsistent, irrelevant, and devoid of reason. The fault of my possible rejection of God and Christ would still have rested with me for not being objective enough to come to God on my own because of the unavoidable rational facts, but the Christians around me would have failed entirely in their intellectual and Scriptural obligation to not only reason with others like me for the sake of our salvation but to pursue objectivity and objectivity alone in their own lives as well.
There are still many others I could mention here. Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, Josh McDowell, and even the Apostle Paul all became Christians because of direct encounters with objective facts, evidence, and truth, not mystical and subjective (and therefore unverifiable and unfalsifiable) personal experiences or because they emotionally wanted Christianity to be real. J. Warner Wallace has this to say on the issue:
"I’ve often said I am not a Christian because it works for me. There are many days when the Christian life is the most difficult life I could choose to lead. It requires me to think of others first, to remember my true positon relative to a Holy God and deny my selfish desires. I’m also not a Christian because I was raised in a Christian home. I wasn’t surrounded by practicing Christians as a child. I’m not a Christian because I was trying to fix a problem or because I was hoping for Heaven or afraid of Hell. None of these things animated me. I had a great life before becoming a Christian. I am a Christian today because I investigated the reliability of the Gospel accounts and determined Christianity was true. It’s really that simple. I’m a Christian for the same reasons I’m a not-Mormon. One system can be verified, the other only falsified [3]."
Even if none of these clear examples of people persuaded or encouraged by reason did not exist, the repeated emphasis in the Bible on reason and the commands to wield it nullify any objections to apologetics a Christian may have. For Biblical proof of why reason-based apologetics are necessary, see my post The Necessity of Reason [4]. If you are a Christian, apologetics is not optional but mandatory. If you are rational person, apologetics is inescapably necessary and indescribably precious. What is the only thing standing between you and complete uncertainty about anything? Knowledge. What is the one thing that provides stability in the intellectual fog of skepticism which allows you to grasp and comprehend that knowledge? Reason. Christians, we cannot afford to exclude logic and the intellect any longer. We must reclaim it and release the power of truth and objectivity.
Can we "argue someone into the kingdom"? Not necessarily in the way some people mean by the phrase, but other people can definitely reason their way into the kingdom and can greatly benefit from what knowledge and logic we may share with them. The objection is idiotic because it claims we cannot argue someone into the truth while trying to argue its opponents into an alleged truth, untrue because many people have indeed relied on reason and argument alone to reveal reality, and useless because even if true it does absolutely nothing to advance the "kingdom" anyway. All it accomplishes is the perpetual frustration of rationalists like me and the disgust of those outside the church who have yet to sprint straight into the intellectual fortress that encompasses Christianity.
[1]. http://www.reasons.org/about/who-we-are/hugh-ross
[2]. http://www.strangenotions.com/flew/
[3]. http://coldcasechristianity.com/2015/verifiability-is-a-christian-distinctive/
[4]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-necessity-of-reason.html
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