Targeted Apologetics

With so many young people leaving
the church, it would be nice to get
inside their heads to see what’s going
on. If Christian parents and church
leaders could understand their concerns,
they might be able to focus their
teaching in a better way to address
their deepest struggles.

Young people give many reasons for
their exodus—boring services, hypocrisy,
irrelevance to daily life, and so on.
A research group decided to dig a little
deeper, however, and found that other
issues often open the door to their
rejection of the faith. This survey, published
in Already Gone (2009), found
that doubts surfaced before high school
among 44% of former churchgoers who
no longer believe the Bible.

When asked to explain why they
doubt the Bible, young people offered
answers like “it contradicts itself,” “science
shows the earth is old,” and “evolution
shows the Bible can’t be trusted.”
In a culture permeated by evolution,
it’s not surprising to see this worldview
assailing young people’s faith. After all,
the Bible teaches that “the world” (the
world’s way of thinking) has always
been opposed to God (1 John 2:16).

As a professional behavioral scientist,
I wanted to do further research to get at
the root of these young people’s doubts,
especially about the Creator. Why would
they reject creation in six 24-hour days,
and embrace evolution over billions of
years? I believe hard data can help us
target our efforts to help young people.

The Study

In the summer of 2016 my ministry
surveyed a broad cross-section of
nearly 300 young people, ages 14 to
24, asking an open-ended question:
“Regardless of whether you believe in
evolution, what is the best evidence
that evolution is true?” The answers
were varied, but we were able to sort
them into ten categories. Interestingly,
we found that just four categories
make up 72% of the reasons for belief
in evolution.

These are the arguments pertaining
to human evolution (25%), Darwin’s
theory proper (mutations, natural
selection, etc.) (21%), fossils and
so-called transitions (15%), and the
apparent consensus of scientists and
science regarding the theory of evolution
(11%). Amazingly, evolution
is supported by a shaky four-legged
stool: human evolution, Darwin’s theory,
fossils/transitions, and the idea
that scientists support evolution.

I believe we need a well-rounded
strategy for reaching young people.
They need to see how, when we start
with the Bible, scientific data confirms
the Bible in each area of science,
but it does not confirm evolutionary
ideas. Interestingly, Christians and
non-Christians did not give significantly
different answers in the survey.
The frequencies of the “best evolution
evidences” were very similar for both.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

Learning how to address every single
perceived evidence for evolution
is intimidating (if not impossible).
Identifying the topics that most concern
young people helps, but it’s still
a challenge. The science and interpretations
of biology are complex and
ever-changing. How can we effectively
equip young people if the target keeps
changing?

The answer is that the details may
change, but the big picture does not.
The Bible says the Creator has already
made Himself “clearly seen” to people,
but they suppress this visible truth
because they don’t want to follow Him
(Romans 1:18–20).

Instead of focusing on the particulars
of an evolutionary argument
(which may change), we need to help
young people see how it’s not the “evidence”
that convinces scientists on
each point. They need to understand
that both sides are looking at the same
facts—the same fossils, biological processes,
stars, rocks, etc. All these exist
in the present and don’t tell us how
they got here.

The problem is not so much the
things we observe, but our starting
point for interpreting unique events in
history, which no one can observe in
the present. We can start with either
man’s fallible ideas or God’s infallible record.
And it turns out that the Bible is
necessary to get to the correct answers
about our origins—that’s what young
people need to understand.

You should learn how to do this
for every major “best evidence” that
concerns typical young people. Take
human evolution, for example. Young
people often cite things like “similarities
between humans and apes” as evidence
for evolution. But outward similarity
doesn’t prove a common source,
any more than the similarity of a Ford
to a Chevrolet means it came from the
same factory.

We need to show young people
that, if you start with the
Bible, you can only conclude
that God made humans
separately from animals.

We need to show young people that,
if you start with the Bible, you can
only conclude that God made humans
separately from animals. Any similarities
simply reveal a common Designer,
who left His fingerprint in creation. If
you start with man’s fallible
ideas—that everything arose by slow natural
processes over millions of years, only
then will you conclude they had a
common ancestor.

The key to reaching young people,
I believe, is to emphasize how starting
points influence every conclusion
about the “evidence.” Starting with the
Bible leads to reasonable explanations
of the data. That’s what we would
expect from a book inspired by the
holy and true God.

Paul summarizes this point well in
his letter to the intellectual Greeks at
Corinth: “For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal but mighty in God
for pulling down strongholds, casting
down arguments and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge
of God, bringing every thought
into captivity to the obedience of
Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

Paul explains that strongholds, arguments,
and high things exalt themselves
against the knowledge of God.
The Greek word translated arguments
means “imagination, reckoning, computation,
or reasoning.” Our secular
media and education system promote
a way of reasoning that starts by vigorously
opposing the knowledge of God.

The good news, Paul says, is that
God gave us the spiritual weapons necessary
for overcoming (pulling down)
these strongholds and high things. We
need to point out the importance of
starting points (aka personal bias) in
interpreting the facts around us, especially
when it comes to the history of
life on earth.

We need to emphasize to young
people the fact that God is honest and
good, and the beginning of all knowledge
(Proverbs 2:5–6). He witnessed
what happened in the past, and He
tells us in Genesis 1 that He made the
universe out of nothing. Later He sent
a global Flood to judge mankind’s sin.
Since these unique events will never
be repeated, scientists can’t observe or
test them today. We need God’s Word,
the Bible, to know about these past
events. Human reasoning without
God’s Word can’t uncover such nonrepeatable
events.

Notice that Paul opened his debate
with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers
in Athens by unapologetically
asserting the certainty of creation
(Acts 17:16–34). He integrated truths
from Genesis into his evangelical
outreach: there is a “God who made
the world” who “gives to all life [and] breath” and “made from one blood
every nation of men to dwell on all the
face of the earth.”

As we examine and refute each
“evidence for evolution” with young
people, we need to show them how
starting with the truths of God’s Word
is essential if we ever hope to make
sense of the things we see around us.
The “high thing” of evolution over millions
of years crumbles in the light of
God’s Word. The two views—believing
God and believing in evolution—are
irreconcilable.

The choice they will need to make,
as all people must, is whether to trust
God, who gives us so many compelling
reasons to do so.

https://answersingenesis.org/apologetics/targeted-apologetics/

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