The Need for a Vigorous Apologetic in the Present Battle for the Christian Faith: Part 2 -- By: Wilbur M. Smith

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 100:400 (Oct 1943)
Article: The Need for a Vigorous Apologetic in the Present Battle for the Christian Faith: Part 2
Author: Wilbur M. Smith


The Need for a Vigorous Apologetic in the Present Battle for the Christian Faith:
Part 2

Wilbur M. Smith

(Concluded from the July-September Number, 1943)

{Editor’s note: Footnotes in the original printed edition were numbered 30–43, but in this electronic edition are numbered 1–14 respectively.}

What Should Christians Do, Facing Such a Situation?

Is there anything that evangelical Christians should do, and can do, in the face of these apparent unbroken successes of modernism, even atheism in our generation? There are some honest believers who fold their arms and say we are living in days of apostasy, and we must accept such a situation-and what can we do about it?-Nothing. Personally, we have no patience with an attitude of laissez-faire like this. We remember the Apostle Paul said that we were to defend the faith, and he knew all about the apostasy of the last days. In fact, he said that we were to “cast down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor 10:4, 5),1 and that he himself was “set for the defence and confirmation of the faith.” On the other hand, we become equally impatient with these religious iconoclasts who go about seeking to destroy faith in God and in His Word, but who insist that we who believe must not impose our views upon others. Such for instance is the attitude of Dr. Durant Drake, Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College,

whose textbooks are so widely used in so many of our universities. At the conclusion of his popular volume, Invitation to Philosophy, Drake says “In the meantime we shall believe as our emotions and our hopes compel us. And no one can rightly condemn us so long as we refrain from becoming dogmatic and trying to impose our beliefs upon others and so long as we are honest enough to recognize that the question remains open and that no man really knows.”2 We believe millions of men do know that Christ died for their sins, and rose again from the dead. We believe the Apostle Paul knew; that the martyrs knew; we believe that Luther and Calvin knew God, and so do we, through Jesus Christ. But what I most object to in Prof. Drake’s statement is that believers ought not to try to “impose their beliefs” upon others. These unbelievers never hesitate to thrust their unbelief upon others-they do not mind publishing books, delivering addresses, writing articles against the Christian religion, sneering in their classes at miracles, laugh...

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