Pietism and Apologetics

 Pietism is a school of thought that originated in Lutheran Christianity in Germany of the 1600's.  It emphasizes obeying God's commands and Biblical Doctrines.  But in my own experience, I've seen a unique Pietist approach to Apologetics.  More than once, I've heard the same self contradictory thinking.  

 

In more than one way, they essentially say that apologetics is a bad thing.  Then they say that we simply need to see the evidence of the Gospel changing lives.  There are a few problems here.  Out of one side of their mouths, they argue that the Gospel doesn't need evidence to support it.  Then, in the same breath, they lay out evidence to support the truth of the Gospel.  But a bigger problem is that the evidence isn't all that good.  Think of how this logic works.

p1)Christianity makes people become good

c)Therefore Christianity is true

 

 

There are problems galore here.

1)Many young people claim morality is subjective.  So they don't think that being good is even really a thing.  Pietism has nothing to say about this.  You'll end up just doing normal Apologetics.

2)Other systems like Hinduism, Secular Psychology and more have shown clear effectiveness in making people live better.  Now Pietism has to claim Christianity does so but better than these.  This type of argument will diverge into science, logic, etc.  All of this is what Pietists were trying to avoid.

3)There have been many evils done in the name of Jesus.  The New Testament warns a great deal about this.  If it isn't obvious that the good outweighs the bad, then you'll end up making historical arguments.  You'll have to argue that Christianity defeated slavery or something like that.  Either way, it isn't obvious and requires using the historical method to prove what you believe.  If you could do that, then you could also use that same method to prove the Resurrection of Jesus.

4)It doesn't really prove the point you want it too.  An atheist can discover truths and learn things that help her be a better person.  The Pietist has to argue that these atheistic methods work even though they are based on a lie.  But if that's the case the Pietist admits, then the opponent can claim the same things about Christianity.  What if the Gospel makes people live better, but it's just a good lie?  You're getting backed into a corner of needing to abandon Pietism and do Classical Apologetics.  Atheistic ideas made their way out of France and into Germany in the 1800's.  What happened?  Liberal theology was born.  Pietism was so weak in refuting the atheists that it just embraced a metaphorical Resurrection and even a metaphorical existence of God.

 

 

 

Other Stuff

They tend to combine Pietism with other views when arguing against apologetics.  They may take an anti-intellectual approach.  This has communist roots and is present in many churches.  Essentially, the communists claimed that all social systems, including religion, are a brainwashing scam to keep us poor.  Christians sometimes take a buffet approach to communist ideas.  They'll tend to favor the idea that the university and education are a form of deception and trickery.  So they don't want to distort the Gospel with rigorous thinking.  One can't help but wonder if this is just a cover for intellectual laziness.  The same people often will talk your ear off with all of their "interesting ideas."  But somehow this doesn't count as intellectual.  I guess it boils down to whether you have glasses on or not.

Or they may combine Pietism with Fideism.  This is tough because Fideism explicitly opposes any and all evidence for Christianity.  Or they may resort to the old adage that Apologetics never saves anyone.  This is Kierkegaard's primary argument for Fideism.  He claimed you would need to wait until you are 90 years old to accept Christ.

The fact of the matter is many people are living proof that this isn't true.  David Wood's video testimony can be found online and is one example of this.  He came to Christ through apologetics.  Futhermore, social science has demonstrated that evidence is the primary tool in conversion.  People convert based on the testimony of people they know and trust.  While this isn't unfalsifiable evidence, it is still evidence.  We base many of our decisions on this every day.  Each time you buy gasoline, you are risking the survival of your car and yourself on whether the fluid is really gasoline.  But you know and trust the companies you buy from.  Further research shows that people gain more reasons for faith after conversion.  They come to see the value of the moral doctrines, etc.  Apologetics just seeks to give reasons that are even harder to falsify, thus strengthening the faith of believers.  That is what is so evil about these communist lies.  We are not trying to brainwash or trick you.  We are trying to give you something that will make your faith very strong.  Why are we labeled as enemies of Christ for doing this?  It seems Satanic.

And of course Fideists argue that evidence takes away the need for faith.  They say that proof makes it impossible to choose what you believe.  Here they fail to make a distinction between the obviousness of the proof and the strength of it.  For example, it's hard to believe there's an elephant in your lap right now because the proof is so obvious.  You could convince yourself, but it takes work to go insane.  Alternatively, the Pythagorean theorum is supported with a mathematical proof that is so strong that it's, well, mathematical.  It's impossible to falsify.  But it's compicated and not at all obvious.  So it's much easier to disbelieve even though you can know for a fact that it is true.  It's up to whether you want to honestly know the truth or not.