Ravi Zacharias
“Communicating Truth in a Pluralistic Community”
Summary of the Seminar
At the door Versailles University, Paris, it is written: “It is great to have freedom of thought, but it is greater to have the right kind of thinking.” A survey was held for the students about this campus motto. Surprisingly, 51% of them disagree with this, 31% say they don’t know about this, and the rest of the students say they don’t want to know about this. As a apologist, Ravi has travelled around the world to answer questions from different kinds of people. There were seminars, open discussions, broadcasting, to name a few of the activities of RZIM in the apologetics field.
It is no secret that some people ask questions which they don’t want to truly hear the answer. In fact, apologetics is answering the questions of life. Putting it plain, what people pursuit in their life is the truth that they believe in. As Sir Winston Churchill once said that the most valuable pursuit is the truth, and because it is overly valuable, it is often covered with lies. Pontius Pilate asked Jesus what truth is, but never expected the answer. He was too full with his own agenda.
There are two components in testing the truth:
-correspondence theory of truth
-coherence theory of truth.
Correspondence theory of truth assures that when somebody makes a statement, it is harmonized with the reality. As for the coherence theory of truth, the answers of the questions must be consistent if put together. Take for example the statement of Jesus which said that he is the way, the truth, and life. Does that statement fulfill both of the theories of truth?
When Jesus testified about himself, actually he was fulfilling all the prophecies in the Scripture. There are 66 books in the Bible which have correspondence of truth with the reality (because the Bible is also the book of history and geography) and also have the aspect of coherence with one another.
Go to the book of Daniel (600 B.C.) prophesied about the coming of the Christ. Also, go to the book of Joel. They all refer to the coming of an individual of Christ. Since the Bible is the historical and geographical book, it must be able to be tested whether this is truth or not. If the Bible is truth, it will fulfill the aspects of logical consistency, empi
There are four basic questions of human beings which will finally form the worldview:
The origin of all the universe
The meaning of life
The morality
The destiny of life
Atheists have been focusing on the theory of origin, which is theory of Big Bang. They cannot deal with the other basic questions of life: the meaning of life, morality, and the destiny of life. But how can you build your worldview by solely depend on an unidentified answer on the question of the origin of all the universe?
For us, Christians, we build our worldview based on the Word of God. We believe that we are not the product of evolution. God has a plan for each of us. He has created us according to His image to fulfill His calling for us. Our morality is based on His Godly character. He has prepared heaven for the people that He called so that after the death, we can always be together with Him.
We, Christians, need to be learning so that we will not suffer conceptual bankruptcy. There must be process of thinking that cause an idea to come to our minds. Process of thinking will require us to raise questions of life. Therefore, we need to be sure that God is the ultimate answer of all our questions. If we refuse to learn, we can miss the chance to point people to Christ. Therefore Paul asked for three things when he was imprisoned: clothes, books, and parchment. The first is to warmth the body; the second and the last is to warmth the soul and the spirit. They are required for giving us a sound and healthy mind, body, and soul.
The 4 steps of apologetic, which are: identification, translation, persuasion, and justification will help us to evangelise people around us. Identification means to identify ourselves with our audience. Translation require our ability so that our audience could understand our message according to their language and cultural context. In the persuasion stage, we may be using historical anecdote, illustration, and stories to convince our audience. But remember that we are not the one who can change others, it is the Holy Spirit that works through us to help the other person to change. Apologetic is talking about the defence of the Christian faith, not only to expose the truth to become clear, but we need to bring it in a manner that is acceptable for our listeners (not only the substance that matters, but the manners as well).
In the realm of philosophy, the levels are divided into three: arguments, stories / arts, and application. See Acts 9: 22, 17:17, 18:4, 19: 8-11 as the references of how Paul would perform his defense on his Christian faith.
