Review of Christians Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith by Douglas Groothius

In chapter Seven, Why Truth Matters Most: Searching for Truth in Postmodern Times, Groothius states that this chapter develops a general apologetic for the significance and value of both objective truth and truth seeking.

Truth, Self-Deception and Virtue

The pursuit of truth requires that we must shun sloth---one of the classical vices. Moreover, studiousness should be cultivated instead of mere curiosity. In the pursuit of truth, we must avoid self-deception. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself---and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not fool other scientists” (Richard Feynman).

The Will to Disbelieve

Groothius notes atheists who willingly rejected the truth of theism, such as, Aldous Huxley, Thomas Nagel, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Conversely Blasie Pascal wrote, “I should, therefore, like to arouse in man the desire to find truth, to be ready, free from passion, to follow it wherever he may find it, realizing how far his knowledge is clouded by passions. I should like him to hate his concupiscence [lustful desire] which automatically makes his decisions for him so that is should not blind him when he makes his choice, not hinder him once he has chosen.”

Truth and Humility

When the quest for truth is successful, the virtuous person in humbled, not puffed up with pride.  However, intellectual tentativeness about objective truth---held under the guise of “humility” --- is sometimes advocated by evangelical writers. John Stackhouse affirms an attitude quite foreign to the great apologists of Christian history by claiming that Christianity cannot be known to be true “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Stackhouse goes further, that “no human being knows anything for certain” (Humble Apologetics, 232). Stackhouse asserts that he knows that no human being knows anything for certain. If Stackhouse is certain of this proposition, then it is not clear how he could know the proposition to be true. Groothius makes corrections to the postmodern “hermeneutic of suspicion.”

Apathy and Tolerance: Enemies of Truth

Another enemy of the truth is sloth.

In the world it calls itself Tolerance; but in hell it is called Despair. It is the accomplice of           the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin which believes nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it would die for (Dorothy Sayers, Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, 152).

Journalist for the Atlantic Monthly, Johnathan Rauch notes that apathy is manifested in tolerance and unconcern. Rauch finds apathy in his “Christian friends who organize their lives around an intense and personal relation with God but who betray no sign of caring that I am an unrepentantly atheistic Jewish homosexual” (“Let it Be,” 34).

Diversion: Truth on Hold

Blaise Pascal unmasked diversion as an attempt to escape reality, and indication of something out of kilter in the human condition. An obsession with entertainment is more than silly or frivolous. It is, for Pascal, revelatory of a moral and spiritual malaise.

The postmodern person seeks diversion an overstimulation ---a desperate bid to elude mortality by keeping higher realities out of sight.

Silence and Truth

Diversion and the omnipresent noise and clutter of contemporary culture erect barriers to the serious and disciplined pursuit of truth. In the silence of rational reflection, truth may disclose itself to the receptive soul.