The purpose of apologetics

Apologetics is the act of presenting the rational defense or basis of the Christian faith (or sometimes, some specific version of the Christian faith). That's what it is. However, why we should bother with it is another question. To answer that question, it is necessary to look at the things we value.

As Christians, we believe:

1. that in every person is an eternal soul. We believe that the soul persists after the death of the body, and, at some point, enters some kind of afterlife (Christians differ on the exact chronology and available states) based on the person's relationship with God.

2. in doing good to and seeking good for those we love, our neighbors, and our enemies.

3. that God loves truth and so should we.

I feel pretty good that the first two points are very near the center among Christian beliefs, since they relate to the two greatest commandments, love God and love your neighbor. The third is certainly important. I don't know that it ranks third in overall importance, but it is of particular relevance to Christian apologetics. Given the very high importance of these beliefs, it seems clear to me that the primary purpose of apologetics, then, should be evangelistic. Related to the items above, I believe the aims of apologetics should be the following, in order of importance:

1. To bring people into a right relationship with God

2. To love people, and do good for people

3. To discover truth, and convince people of the truth

Each, I think, is important by itself. I think it is better for a person to believe more truth rather than less whether or not they come into a right relationship with God. However, given a choice, I would rather work to bring them into a right relationship with God than convince them of some truth (of course, to a degree, they are interconnected). Similarly, in our own lives, we should be more concerned about things that could damage our relationship with God than about whether everything we believe is true.

Now, all this is a bit circular of course. Arguably I have ordered my purposes in a manner prescribed by Christianity before I have established any arguments that Christianity is true. And if I haven't established that Christianity is at least probably true, one might argue that my highest priority should be to prove or falsify this claim.

However, the idea that we should base our actions or priorities on true beliefs is, itself, a value that must be, at the beginning, assumed without evidence, and will be just as circular. Fortunately, I believe that neither is visciously circular. We are, after all, talking about priorities, not reasons for belief, so to assume a working set of priorities does not create a cycle of reasons. To defend my adoption of these priorities, I appeal to existentialism: I find myself already a Christian with certain beliefs, and no reason not to act on them. Without further examination, it is no more rational to not act on my beliefs than to act on them. In fact, it is arguable that it is worse to not act since, assuming I am a rational person, my beliefs should have a better probability of being true than random chance, and, assuming I am not a rational person, the entire enterprise is doomed to failure no matter what, in which case it doesn't matter what priorities I choose. See also Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, chapter 4.