To borrow a phrase from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, given to us in the Scriptures, is truth unchanged, unchanging.  Yet while this truth is unchanging, the cultural and philosophical climate each Christian finds himself in changes, sometimes dramatically, from generation to generation.  Each of us has to wrestle with how best to approach the apologetical task, given the philosophical mindset of our age.

I have read apologetics books that provide the best answers to common objections to Christianity, and proofs of God’s existence.  While I do not deny the importance of material like this, there must be a better way to expose the unbeliever to the root problems of his worldview.  Francis Schaeffer, in The God Who Is There, provides some helpful instruction toward that end:

Let us think of it in a slightly different way.  Every man has built a roof over his head to shield himself at the point of tension.

At the point of tension the person is not in a place of consistency in his system, and the roof is built as a protection against the blows of the real world, both internal and external.  It is like the great shelters built upon some mountain passes to protect vehicles from the avalanches of rock and stone which periodically tumble down the mountain.  The avalanche, in the case of the non-Christian, is the real but abnormal, fallen world which surrounds him.  The Christian, lovingly, must remove the shelter and allow the truth of the external world and of what man is to beat upon him.  When the roof is off, each man must stand naked and wounded before the truth of what is.

The truth that we let in first is not a dogmatic statement of the truth of the Scriptures, but the truth of the external world and and the truth of what man himself is. This is what shows him his need.  The Scriptures then show him the real nature of his lostness and the answer to it.  This, I am convinced, is the true order for our apologetics in the second half of the twentieth century for people living under the line of despair.

This is certainly a more nuanced and technical approach to apologetics than perhaps we are used to.  But that should not deter us from educating ourselves and going forth with boldness.  If God is for us, who can be against us?