“Cultural Critique Column”
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In my long career in philosophy, I have developed various knacks or skills (or in jazz lingo, chops) that make rational arguments more fruitful and enjoyable. I lay claim to none of these but have picked them up through my academic education and personal study and teaching. One of the most significant skills in argument is bracketing — knowing what to insist on and what to put aside in a rational conversation. This skill aids all argumentation, but I will center on bracketing in Christian apologetics. We can put some issues on hold while doing apologetics without losing the argument or dodging difficult issues.
Apologetics. Apologists contend for the truth, rationality, and pertinence of the Christian worldview so that men and women will name Jesus Christ as Lord. Christianity is more than a worldview, but it has a worldview. Christianity is a belief system that, when embraced, ushers repentant sinners into the hands of a faithful Savior, the living Christ. That belief system is true, and that truth is what sets us free from the penalty of sin now, from much of the power of sin, and from the presence of sin in the world to come (John 1:12–13; 8:31–32; Romans 8).
Being an apologist comes with being a Christian, since God is an apologetics God, the Bible is an apologetics book, Christ is an apologetics Christ, and the church is an apologetics church. The saving truth of the gospel of God must be made known to an ignorant, needy, and rebellious world. Apologetics is essential to this magnificent mission (1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3). The apologist needs to know the Bible, how to be filled with the Holy Spirit in witness, and the arguments for the objective truth of Christianity. But she also needs to offer these arguments in real-time situations with many different kinds of people — people who may be unwilling to hear a lecture. Rather, they more likely would prefer to discuss issues relating to religion. Bracketing is essential for this.
What Is Bracketing? Three Examples. Bracketing means to hold something in abeyance for the sake of the case one is making. To bracket an issue is not to make a judgment about its truth or falsity, but to put it to the side for the time being to keep afloat a profitable discussion and hopefully win the argument. Bracketing is not an evasion of an important issue, but rather a strategy for engaging issues in the right way and in the right order. To bracket wisely requires the skill of intellectual discernment regarding what matters in an argument. Some illustrations highlight this.
The Crusades. Someone claims that Christianity is untrue because it was behind the injustices of the Medieval Crusades. Any religion that justifies the cruelty and oppression of the Crusades is a religion to be rejected. Those who so accuse are usually ignorant about the Crusades of history but wax indignant about what they know little of. In fact, the term “the Crusades” is often a thought stopper. These two words can substitute for the possession of any knowledge of history or religion!
I cannot take it up here, but the First Crusade was instigated to help Jews and Christians in Palestine who were being persecuted by Muslims who had conquered the area and taken land from Christians many years earlier. Most of the crusaders were not out for money or power but on pilgrimage to defend the victims of Muslims. They did so at great expense and at great risk. The Muslim element is always left out of popular comments about the Crusades. One could go on, but please consider reading Rodney Stark’s God’s Battalions1 or Robert Spencer’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)2 to set the record straight.
The apologist may make this case to show that Christianity has been falsely charged concerning the motivations and results of the Crusades. But perhaps one’s interlocutor will not budge, claiming that the Crusades were a signature evil in Western history. This claim is palpably and demonstrably false, given the estimated one hundred million people killed at the hands of Marxist states in the twentieth century. But if one wants to continue the discussion, the matter may be bracketed without the apologist suffering any intellectual loss. One may say:
I disagree with your take on the Crusades, but let’s bracket that. Even if your claim is true, it does not count against the truth of Christianity. This is because the Bible does not endorse violence or coercion in advancing its message. Whatever bad came out of the Crusades cannot be attributed to Christianity proper, but only to the false teachings of the church at a point in time. The Bible advocates persuasion in evangelism, not coercion or threats.
By bracketing one issue — since the unbeliever could not be convinced otherwise — another issue may be engaged, and one that is profoundly important. Consider another example.
Creation and Evolution. In a discussion about biology and the possibility of design in nature, an unbeliever says, “You Christians think the world was created in six literal days and that the universe is only about ten thousand years old. You also claim that the first human was created without an ancestor. That is ridiculous. I don’t care what you say about detecting design through fine-tuning or molecular machines, since your creationism is unsupportable.”
To that, the apologist replies with something like this:
Some Christians believe in a young earth and young universe and deny that humans have a common non-human ancestor. Some believe in an old earth and universe and deny a non-human common ancestor. Some believe in an old earth and universe and affirm a common non-human ancestor. That is a matter of biblical interpretation and the evidence of good science. I have my own view, but let’s bracket that question for now. The deeper question is this: Is there solid and scientific evidence of design in nature? Let us look at that first and then consider biblical teaching and theological possibilities concerning the other questions.3
Biblical Inerrancy. Let us consider one more example, which, for some, may seem controversial — biblical inerrancy. This doctrine affirms that the Bible is without error (or inerrant) in all that it affirms, and not merely on spiritual matters. Stalwart evangelical thinkers of the previous generation, such as Carl F. H. Henry (1913–2003), Norman Geisler (1932–2019), and Francis Schaeffer (1912–1984), explained and defended this view convincingly, and I have long advocated it.4
One of my students at a theologically conservative seminary, whose doctrinal statement affirms biblical inerrancy, said in my class that Luke made a historical mistake. I warned him of the severity of this charge and gave him resources to address that matter. I was heartened when he changed his mind and thanked me. Ministers especially need to have confidence in the truth of the Bible for their teaching, preaching, counseling, and apologetics (2 Timothy 3:15–17). However, the question of biblical inerrancy may be bracketed in some contexts.
I will not bracket the doctrine of biblical inerrancy in a seminary classroom, but it can be held in abeyance for a time when one is having a dialogue with a nonbeliever about Jesus. When we speak of Jesus as Lord and Savior, a skeptic might question the basic historical reliability of the Gospels by saying the message has been lost through all the translations made over time (manuscript corruption) or because the Gospels contain miracle stories that cannot be true (anti-supernatural bias). To this, the apologist need not start from the premise that the Bible is inerrant. Rather, the objections should be answered in order to convince the skeptic that the Gospels are generally reliable as history.
I will not give those arguments in depth but consider two points. First, the New Testament manuscripts have been accurately transmitted over time given their number, age, and quality. Second, the miracle stories should not be discounted if (1) there is independent evidence for a supernatural God from natural theology who could work miracles (there is), and if (2) they read as history from a literary perspective (which they do). Thus, the apologist might say something to this effect to the skeptic who says, “You Christians cannot be serious about thinking the whole Bible has no mistakes.”
There are many important questions regarding the truth of the Bible, which is a big and complex book. We can bracket the big question of the total truth of the Bible for a moment. Why don’t we break them down point by point? A good place to start is with the story of Jesus in the four Gospels. Did you know that…?
By making this case, the apologist answers objections that open the way for the skeptic to take the Gospels as generally accurate accounts of Jesus’ life. But by overcoming these two objections (and ones like them), we can start to argue for Jesus’s identity as Lord and Savior, even before making the case that everything in the Gospels or everything in the rest of the Bible is true. We do this by isolating several texts that speak to Jesus’ unique identity. Notice I wrote “before” making the case for the total truth of the Bible. One may confess Christ as their Lord and be saved before believing in the inerrancy of the Bible, although one should come to that belief eventually, given adequate study. To sum up, one may bracket the question of inerrancy while giving a constructive argument for the general reliability of the Gospels, which will have apologetic force.5
Many other examples of constructive bracketing could be given, but our point is that bracketing an issue slows down the pace of an argument and allows the conversation partners to avoid unnecessary entanglements. The apologist should switch ground without yielding ground. What is bracketed can be addressed later. Develop your chops. I encourage you to master the art of bracketing. Savvy apologists do. —Douglas Groothuis
Douglas Groothuis, PhD, is the author of Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (InterVarsity-Academic, 2022) and, most recently, Beyond the Wager: The Christian Brilliance of Blaise Pascal (InterVarsity Academic, 2024). Access his website at DouglasGroothuis.com.
NOTES
- Rodney Stark, God’s Battalions: Defending the Crusades (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2010).
- Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2005).
- On the evidence for design, see Douglas Groothuis, “Darwinism and Design,” “Evidence for Intelligent Design,” and “The Fine-Tuning Argument for Design,” Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity-Academic, 2022).
- A classic modern statement of this doctrine is “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” (1978), International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, accessed October 18, 2024, https://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_1.pdf.
- On the historical reliability of the New Testament, see Craig L. Blomberg, “Jesus of Nazareth: What Historians Can Know about Him,” in Groothuis, Christian Apologetics.