I have said before on this blog that the evangelical Christian belief in “the testimony of the Holy Spirit”—that true believers can perceive the presence of the resurrected Jesus living within them—is the Achilles Heel of evangelical apologetics. Now I have proof!
Evangelical apologists do NOT want to discuss this belief with counter apologists and other skeptics. They absolutely do not want to discuss this topic when debating the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Why? They know that it reveals their unmistakable bias: If they believe that they can feel the presence of the ghost/spirit of Jesus living within them, how can this not affect their objectivity when reviewing the historical evidence for the alleged resurrection of this same man? Evangelical apologists know that if they admit that they can perceive the presence of a ghost/spirit living within them, the entire world will see them for what they are: irrational and hopelessly superstitious!
I recently emailed more than 50 evangelical scholars, theologians, and apologists and asked them this one question:
Dear _______. Hello. I am conducting a survey among evangelical scholars, theologians, and apologists regarding the belief in the inner presence of Christ. Here is the question: Do you perceive the presence of Jesus within you, yes or no? Thank you.
Not one single response has been received!
I wonder why…
Here is the list of evangelical apologists I contacted. I obtained the names from two websites. I could not find the contact information for some of them. Some of the people on these lists are dead, so unless there is a miracle, I won’t be hearing from them. Some names appear on both lists:
- Greg Bahnsen
- Greg Beale
- Jeremy Begbie
- Henri Blocher
- F. F. Bruce
- Edward Carnell
- Don Carson
- Gordon Fee
- John Frame
- Timothy George
- Marc Goodacre
- Stanley Grenz
- Wayne Grudem
- Colin Gunton
- Richard Hays
- Carl Henry
- Michael Horton
- Tim Keller
- George E. Ladd
- Peter Leithart
- John MacArthur
- George Marsden
- I. Howard Marshall
- Bruce McCormack
- Alister McGrath
- Scot McKnight
- Al Mohler
- John Warwick Montgomery
- Doug Moo
- Leon Morris
- Richard Mouw
- Nancy Murphy
- Roger Nicole
- Mark Noll
- Harold Ockenga
- J. I. Packer
- Rene Padilla
- Eugene Peterson
- John Piper
- Alvin Plantinga
- Vern Poythress
- Phil Ryken
- Charles Ryrie
- Fred Sanders
- Francis Schaeffer
- Ron Sider
- Jamie Smith
- R. C. Sproul
- John Stott
- Carl Trueman
- Cornelius Van Til
- Kevin Vanhoozer
- John Walvoord
- David Wells
- Dallas Willard
- Doug Wilson
- Ben Witherington
- Nicholas Wolterstorff
- Tom Wright
- Ravi Zacharias
- Gregory Beale, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society
- Craig Blomberg, New Testament scholar at Denver Seminary, author of How Wide the Divide? An Evangelical and a Mormon in Conversation
- Greg Boyd, theologian, author and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
- William Lane Craig, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, author of The Kalam Cosmological Argument
- Millard Erickson, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society
- Gordon D. Fee, theologian, succeeded F.F. Bruce as editor of the New International Commentary on the New Testament, author of How to Read the Bible for All its Worth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart).
- Sinclair Ferguson, former editor of Banner of Truth Trust
- John Frame, theologian noted for his work in epistemology and presuppositional apologetics, author of The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God
- Norman Geisler, co-founder of Southern Evangelical Seminary, co-author of General Introduction to the Bible
- Graeme Goldsworthy, Australian Anglican theologian
- Paula Gooder, British theologian and Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral.[1]
- Wayne Grudem, co-founder of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, author of Systematic Theology
- Gary Habermas, author, lecturer, and debater on the topic of the Resurrection of Jesus
- Kenneth Kitchen, Egyptologist, author of On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- Andreas Köstenberger, editor of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
- Richard Longenecker, professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College
- John Warwick Montgomery, writer, lecturer and public debater in the field of Christian apologetics
- J. P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology
- Nancey Murphy, professor of Christian philosophy, author, and ordained minister.
- Thomas C. Oden, father of Paleo-Orthodoxy; theologian associated with Drew University
- J. I. Packer, theological editor for the English Standard Version, author of Knowing God
- Alvin Plantinga, University of Notre Dame, philosopher, Warrant and Christian Belief
- Frederick K. C. Price, founder and head pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center (CCC).
- Andrew Purves, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
- Bong Rin Ro, theologian and missiologist
- Moisés Silva, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society
- R. C. Sproul, Reformed theologian, founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries
- Elaine Storkey, British philosopher and theologian, author of numerous books on Christianity, feminism, gender, and women.[2][3]
- John Stott, former Rector of All Souls Church, Langham Place
- Miroslav Volf, professor at Yale Divinity School
- Stephen H. Webb, professor at Wabash College
- Ben Witherington III, Amos professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University
- Nicholas Wolterstorff, professor emeritus of philosophical theology, and Fellow of Berkeley College (Yale); author, Lament for a Son
- Edwin M. Yamauchi, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society
- Ravi Zacharias, apologist, author
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
It’s such a disconnect from what on hears in the typical Sunday service or bible study. But if one wants to play in academia, on has to put on airs of objectivity.
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If I were to ask the same questioners if they perceive the vacuum of Jesus, the silence may very well be the same. Anyone can write sensationalistic articles and post them on the web as factual. So what? Most intellectuals don’t answer loaded questions, whether they are religious or not.
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‘The vacuum of Jesus’? The phrase means nothing at all, unless you’re using it as a synonym for faith itself.
The presence of Jesus, however. is one that evangelicals and others bandy about all the time, based on some nonsense from the Bible. You might think some of these apologists would admit to it.
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Christian blogger and author, Hendrik van der Breggen: First, not responding to a question in a survey is not the same as an answer of no (nor yes). It’s simply not a response. I suspect many scholar-apologists are too busy with students and life in general to answer an unknown blogger’s email survey that appears out-of-the-blue in their inbox.
Second, it seems to me that to, as you say, “perceive the presence of Jesus within you” is not the goal of evangelical Christian apologetics. Rather, the goal is to have people come to believe that Jesus is Lord (God come to earth as a human being), that Jesus resurrected (physically), and to follow Him. So even if the non-response were taken as a “no,” that wouldn’t be a problem for evangelical Christian apologetics, at least not its goal.
Third, if you think (as you do on your blog post) that an apologist’s having a subjective perception of the presence of Jesus within him/herself somehow precludes the possibility for an apologist to be reasonably objective or non-biased in discerning the truth of Christianity in the first place (and thus the apologetic project can’t get off the ground at the get-go), I think you are mistaken. Perhaps this comment from page 193 of my book (in the chapter “The virtues of a critical thinker”) may provide some insight here:
“In the pursuit of knowledge of truth and the communication of knowledge of truth, critical thinkers should also distinguish between psychological objectivity and rational objectivity. Psychological objectivity involves a lack of subjective involvement, a lack of commitment, a detachment from reality. Such objectivity, if possible, seems appropriate only when there is no investigation or no interest, and thus should not be a part of an education that encourages students to make a subjective commitment to seek and embrace whatever is true, excellent, praiseworthy, and good. Rational objectivity, on the other hand, acknowledges our subjective involvement as appropriate—we are, after all, subjective beings—and it calls us to exercise those epistemological virtues by which we discern objective truth (regarding what is real). How? By calling us to honesty, by calling us to take into account positive evidence and negative evidence, by calling us to reason carefully, by calling us to acknowledge and limit the intrusions of personal and cultural bias (as much as humanly possible), and by calling us to respect the true and good insights arising from our communities of investigation (i.e., the various academic and scientific disciplines).”
(As I note in my book, this important distinction between psychological objectivity and rational objectivity is from J. P. Moreland, “Four Degrees of Postmodernism,” in Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics, edited by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, 17-34 [Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012]. See especially pages 26–28.)
Can personal and cultural biases be overcome or at least acknowledged and managed so they don’t distort our perception of reality? Can one achieve a reasonable degree of rational objectivity? I think so.
Therefore, the survey question you mention shouldn’t be a problem for evangelical Christian apologetics, let alone its so-called “Achilles Heel.”
I hope my answer is helpful.
Cheers.
P.S. In my book I have a couple sections on critical thinking tools (truth, logic, and language) and philosophy of knowledge (skepticisms, interpretation, modest foundationalism). You might find these to be of interest.
Gary: I have read many, many books on this subject, Hendrik.
I’m sorry, but I am not interested in reading yet another book (yours). Imagine you attempting to evangelize a Mormon or Muslim regarding his beliefs and being told to go read a book first. You don’t need to read a book to know that Mormonism and Islam are false, do you? And I don’t need to read any more books to know that your superstition is false, Hendrik. I only need to apply good critical thinking skills to the central claims of your particular superstition (traditional Christianity).
I am an evangelist. An evangelist for Reason, Science, and good critical thinking skills. Just as the Sower in the Christian parable, I cast the seed of truth wherever I can, hoping that it will take root. I have sown the seed here on your blog with you. I hope you will one day see that superstitions are unhealthy for humanity, no matter how comforting they may be for you personally.
Take care, Hendrik!
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