In Chapter 1 of Defending Your Faith, R.C. Sproul argues that it is the Christian's duty to defend the faith. And so it is (1 Peter 3:14-16; Jude 3). But I wonder, how should one do that? Is appealing to logic necessarily the best way to go about it? As Sproul says himself, apologetics by itself has no saving power apart from the Holy Spirit's work in someone's heart. But it does have the power to prove false accusations against Christians and Christianity wrong, which can also build up other Christians who see no logical basis for their faith. It can also lead an unbeliever to Christ...by only if the Holy Spirit intervenes.
Some would argue that, when we defend the faith, we should argue from the perspective that the Bible is true and just assume that it's a given. That's certainly valid in some cases; the Word of God has power to save without our defense.
But what if you are in a debate with someone who doesn't want to believe? Sproul would say, in this case, that we should prove God's existence and the authority of the Bible to this person. Doing so makes the task of apologetics a lot easier, because if you can prove the Bible to be true and God to be real, you can argue Christian truth from the Bible.
But Sproul also points out that, even if you prove the Christian faith true to someone, they may simply be unwilling to be persuaded. People have hard, rebellious hearts. The Bible says that we cannot understand the things of God by ourselves. We can't expect everyone to be saved by an apologetic debate. All we can really do is preach the Gospel, show it to be rational and true, and let God work in the hearts of those He wills.
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