You can’t win in sport without playing offence and defence. In defence, we cover up our weaknesses to protect us from attack. In offence, we seek to exploit the weaknesses of our opposition. Employing this analogy, there are two types of apologetics: defensive and offensive. We defend the Christian faith by countering arguments people make against it. In offensive apologetics, we demonstrate the weaknesses of other worldviews. While no slouch in defence either, Tim Keller taught why and how to play offence.
Why We Need to Go on the Offensive
As a public advocate for Christianity, Keller taught that everybody has beliefs—they are unavoidable. Even the atheist who claims to have no religious beliefs, makes many unprovable core assumptions about reality and how to live in it. These beliefs need to be exposed and examined. One of Keller’s most famous phrases was to “doubt our doubts”.
People need to see that they have beliefs (even if they claim they don’t) and that those beliefs exist in a ‘marketplace of ideas’. It should be noted that one of Keller’s major influences, C. S. Lewis, argues in Mere Christianity that it is a small market: there are really only three viable worldviews on offer—Materialism, Pantheism and Theism. People will not come to believe in Christianity until they start to doubt their existing beliefs.
How to Be Offensive
Keller modelled good offence in his content and manner. Regarding content, Keller’s taught his audience that, while we can’t absolutely prove any belief system, we can examine it to see how it compares with the others. Keller gave three criteria for evaluation: How consistent are my beliefs (the criterion of coherence)? How consistent are they with what we know (the criterion of evidence)? How consistent are they with our experience of life (the criterion of liveability)? Keller encouraged his listeners to consider whether their belief system provided justification and resources for maintaining the default Western cultural assumptions of, and desires for, meaning, morality, truth, identity, human rights and so on. For a belief system to be successful, it must be coherent, supported by evidence, and liveable. It’s hard to see how a belief system can be true if it does not pass all three tests.
Keller also modelled good offence in his manner. He did this with an irenic spirit, first-class listening skills, and a desire to win the person not the argument. A dedicated exponent of ‘reflective listening’, Keller explained that his goal was to play his opponent’s argument back to them so well that they thought they could not have said it better themselves. Refusing any straw man strategy, he marshalled the strengths of their arguments. He knew that only after they felt understood would they be willing to understand the gospel.
Only then would Keller employ a tactic originally learned from Francis Schaeffer who called it “taking the roof off their house”. He would expose his audience’s beliefs to the rain, so to speak: to the tests of coherence, evidence and liveability. He wanted to help them see that their beliefs comprised a house they could not live in.
Make Them Want It to Be True
Keller learned from Blaise Pascal that before someone believes Christianity to be true, they have to want it to be true. This is why Keller’s strategy in apologetics was to lead with offence. Only as people come to see that everyone has and needs core beliefs; feel truly understood as they explore and share their beliefs; and are given the opportunity to test those beliefs by the criteria of coherence, evidence and liveability would they be willing to come to doubt their current beliefs and consider Christianity as a more attractive alternative. Only then would they have the desire to go on to explore the positive evidence for the truth of Christianity and have their questions answered by defensive apologetics.
In the game of apologetics, Keller played hard but fair. He was the type of player that the opposition always respected, who played the ball, not the person. Who would have thought that such a nice guy could teach us so much about how to be offensive!
