By Louis Markos
In 聽Screwtape 聽Letters 聽#13, senior devil 聽Screwtape responds to the fears of his nephew and junior tempter, Wormwood, over the sudden, unexpected repentance, renewal, and re- conversion of his human patient. Wormwood feels sure that he has lost his prey, but Screwtape counsels him to do all he can to prevent his patient from doing any thing with his new spiritual resolve : 鈥淎s long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it.鈥�1
Os Guinness, a prolific author, speaker, and social critic who founded the Trinity Forum, serves as a visiting fellow at the Brooking s Institution, and is a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies, has thankfully never allowed himself to fall prey to Screwtape鈥檚 insidious methods. Indeed, near the start of 贵辞辞濒鈥檚罢补濒办: Recovering the Art of Christian 聽Persuasion, he shares with us a promise he made to God when he graduated from Oxford : 鈥淚 promised that I would always do apologetics rather than simply write about it, that I would do it before writing about it, and that I would do it more than writing about it鈥� (38).
True to his promise, Guinness has spent a long fruitful career persuading 聽individuals 聽and 聽groups 聽of 聽the 聽truth, 聽goodness, and beaut y of the gospel in a world that is both modern and postmodern. In 贵辞辞濒鈥檚罢补濒办 he has synthesized, not only all that he has read and written about apologetics for the last four decades, but all that he has learned on his feet from trying to persuade everyone, from liberal theologians to postmodern seekers to angry atheists, of the soundness of the Christian worldview and the salvific power of Christ.
What Guinness bring s to 贵辞辞濒鈥檚罢补濒办, and what makes it so unique among the dozens of excellent apologetics books on the market, is a keen sense of the proper place and role of apologetics. Apologetics, he insists, cannot and should not be divorced from evangelism ; the former must not be pursued as an end in itself but must ever prepare the way for the latter. Just as importantly, those who take seriously the Great Commission must never reduce their witness to a one-size- fits-all apologetic that strives after the same utility, efficiency, and repeatability as McDonald鈥檚 or Disney World.
If we are to reach a dying world for Christ, 聽we must spend less time polishing our presentations and more time digging into the hearts, souls, and minds of those who so desperately need the gospel. If we really did that, we would quickly realize that one of the chief obstacles to apologetics-evangelism is the fact that so many people have no idea that the y are in need of the gospel.
Of course, Guinness is not unique in noting that the lost lack a sense of their own lostness. What is unique is the way he carefully unpacks that lack in a long chapter aptly titled 鈥淎natomy of Unbelief.鈥� Having first exposed, in a non-curmudge only fashion, how our age is obsessed with technology, experts, formulas, and how-to manuals, Guinness goes on to put his finger on the core issue that keeps so many people from faith : 鈥淔or every thinker who desires to conform his thinking 聽to reality, there are others whose desire is clearly to conform reality to their thinking鈥� (80).
Behind Guinness鈥檚 analysis, there stands, by his own confession, the monumental work of Peter Berg er, Francis Schaeffer, and C. S. Lewis. I suspect that Guinness has in mind here Lewis鈥檚 penetrating insight into the difference bet ween the ethos of the Middle Ag es and that of post-Enlightenment Europe. 鈥淔or the wise men of old,鈥� Lewis writes in Chapter Three of The 聽Abolition of Man, 鈥渢he cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men : the solution is a technique.鈥�2
Building on this prideful refusal to accept the claims of reality (and its Creator) on our lives, and then folding in to it Berger 鈥檚 keen sociological analysis of modern relativism, the more on-the-g round dialogues that Schaeffer had with discontented atheists in the 1960s and 70s, and the counter-cultural witness of the Old Testament鈥檚 prophets and 聽of Romans 1, 聽Guinness constructs a 聽diagnosis for understanding the nature and process of unbelief, especially as it has been trumpeted in the work of the new atheists.
The 聽downward journey 聽toward 聽unbelief beg ins 聽with a 鈥�willful abuse of truth鈥� that seeks to suppress, exploit, and invert the truth (85). In the end, this leads to what Guinness calls 鈥�a deliberate 聽act of deception that ends in its own self-deception鈥� (89). Unafraid to call this process of self-deception by its proper theological name, sin, Guinness reveals the driving motivation behind it:
If sin is the claim to 鈥榯he right to myself,鈥� it includes the claim to 鈥榯he rig ht to my view of thing s.鈥� And since we are each finite, 鈥榤y view of thing s鈥� is necessarily restricted and simply cannot see the full picture. We therefore turn a blind e ye to all other ways of seeing thing s that do not fit ours, and especially to God鈥檚 view of things (89).
In a witty metaphor, Guinness compares apologists who tr y to win 聽over 聽self-deceived unbelievers 聽by 聽continually 聽restating 聽and repackaging their arguments to tourists who think that non-English speakers will understand them if the y repeat what the y said 鈥渕ore slowly and loudly 鈥� (114). 聽Rather than fool ourselves into thinking the rig ht method or technique will convince willful atheists, we need to 鈥渇ocus on the inescapable tension and dynamic conflict inherent in unbelief 鈥�(93.)
Once we see, really see, that, we will realize that reason alone cannot reach such people, for their willful disobedience and self- deception prevent them, despite their protestations to the contrary, from being purely neutral or disinterested. What 聽we as apologists must focus on, therefore, is not perfecting apologetical knock-out punches, but on g rasping 鈥渢he inherent tension bet ween the truth and the falseness in all unbelief 鈥� (95). Only then will we be able to discern the 鈥渄ifference bet ween what unbelievers assert the y are and who they really are鈥� (95).
According to Guinness, unbelievers deal with this tension in one of two ways : by moving toward what he terms the dilemma pole or the diversion pole. Nietzsche offers the prime example of one who chose the dilemma pole. Unwilling to sweep the tensions caused by unbelief under the rug , and willing to say true to the courage of his (anti-) convictions, he pressed onward to the logical (and dark) end of his unbelief. He even relished in taking potshots at fellow atheists who, like those from Victorian Eng land, cravenly chose the diversion pole and pretended that there was meaning and purpose in the world despite their refusal to acknowledge the only final source of such meaning and purpose. That is to say, in the face of the survival-of- the-fittest determinism demanded by their atheism, the y, along with their diversionary heirs, continued to act as if morality, beauty, and innate human dignity were real things.
Both strategies are open to 聽the 聽unbeliever; 聽however, Guinness makes it clear that far more people choose the diversion pole. For every 聽Sartre鈥攚hom Guinness describes as 聽鈥渕ore 聽consistent 聽to atheism and 聽also more cold鈥濃�攖here are 聽dozens who choose the way of Camus鈥攚ho was 鈥渋nconsistent but warm鈥� (98). And yet, Guinness notes, those who 聽gravitate 聽toward 聽the 聽diversion pole, though more numerous, are less understood. And that is problematic, for the number of diversionary unbelievers has skyrocketed in our age, 聽thanks 聽to 聽our 聽media- 聽and 聽advertising -soaked world 聽which provides unbelievers with endless distractions from pondering the consequences of 聽their 聽atheistic 聽worldview. Indeed, the 聽kinds 聽of distractions once reserved only for royalty are now widely available to the middle class and even the poor.
What then are we to do to wake up such dishonest, but comfortable, unbelievers from their slumber ? What Guinness proposes lies midway bet ween Socrates鈥� determination to be a gadfly on the lethargic horse of state and Francis Schaeffer鈥檚 method of 鈥渢aking the roof 鈥� off of unbelievers so as to force them to confront directly the implications of the godless universe the y claim to believe in.
It is time, writes Guinness, to turn 聽the tables on all those new atheists who claim that the y, and not the Christians, are the ones who are willing to look reality in the face. We must force them to really 聽stand 聽face-to -face with 聽reality, 聽not 聽by 聽making 聽apolgetical statements or preaching sermons, but by asking questions that will prod them 鈥渢o follow the logic of their ideas through to the end鈥� (125). 聽Such a process is not to be taken lightly, for its goal is to lead, but not manipulate, unbelievers into seeing the truth of their situation. Such a moment is a sobering one, for, when the y reach it, the y can no long er claim ignorance. Now, truly, they 鈥渉ave seen the truth, the y know the truth, and the y are responsible to the truth that the y now know 鈥� (128).
And when that 聽moment comes, the y must choose bet ween two very different options : 鈥�to fall on their knees or to turn on their heels鈥� (128). 聽It is not within our power to determine which of these two options the unbeliever will choose. But we can, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, help to bring him to that impasse, that moment of crisis. Following the lead of Berger, Guinness holds up as the supreme biblical example of an apologist who pushed a willfully self-deceived sinner to this crisis point, the prophet Nathan (1 Sam 12).
By reframing David鈥檚 actions in terms of a story about a rich man who stole the sole possession of his poor neighbor to feed his lusts, Nathan engaged David鈥檚 conscience, his sense of rig ht and wrong that was deeper and more essential than his petty attempts to cover up his crimes. Once David was inside the story and his conscience had made it clear to him that the rich man deserved death, Nathan was able to spring the trap on David and re veal the depth of his sin and his need for repentance. As a result, David fell to his knees鈥攁 reaction which Guinness contrasts with the Sadducees, who, when Jesus exposed their hypocrisy, blinded themselves further and took to their heels.
There is much more to Guinness鈥檚 analysis that I cannot cover in this re view, but it is all undergirded by a special kind of orientation toward the task of the apologist that 聽needs and deserves a wide hearing . The apologetics enterprise, Guinness makes clear, is not about winning , nor is it about always being rig ht. It is about nothing more or less than defending the honor of God.
Sin, Guinness argues, is about more than disobedience. Whereas faith surrenders to God鈥檚 sovereignty over our lives, sin seeks to justify itself by putting God on trial.
Faith desires to let God be God. Sin has framed God , whether by the ultimate insult that he, the creator of all things, does not exist, or that he, the white-hot 聽holy One, is responsible for the evil and suffering 聽that humans have introduced into his good creation鈥� (54-5).
Though 聽Guinness does not 聽mention 聽it, 聽I 聽cannot 聽help 聽but 聽be reminded 聽of 聽the 聽infamous paragraph 聽in 聽Richard 聽Dawkins鈥檚 The God Delusion in which he accuses God of every crime, cruelty, and per version that he can think of : a sort of anti-litany to the titles of the Messiah that are listed in Isaiah 9:6 and set to music so powerfully by Handel.
Along with Dawkins, a g rowing number of unbelievers have thrown down just such a gauntlet before the Holy One of Israel, seeking to frame God for their own crimes. In response to this blasphemy, Guinness throws down his own gauntlet, 鈥�God鈥檚namemust be cleared and his existence 聽and character 聽brought 聽to the fore beyond question鈥� (55). That, not the winning of debates, must be the ultimate goal of the apologist.
1 C. S. Lewis, TheScrewtape Letters (New York : Simon & Schuster, 1996), 57.
2 C. S. Lewis, TheAbolition of Man (New York : Macmillan, 1965), 88.
[Editor鈥檚 Note: Atheism image from Jan Matejko鈥檚 厂迟补艅肠锄测办, 1862, found at聽 .]