Defending The Gospel Through The Centuries

By John Warwick Montgomery

Dr. Montgomery traces the history of apologetics from Paul on Mars Hill to CS Lewis at Oxford. Learn how Christians have defended the faith as each age has leveled attacks upon it and how relevant the master apologists of the past are to our contemporary witness for Christ and the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Reformation Publications
• Release date: Mar 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781945500480

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Defending the Gospel through the Centuries

By

John Warwick Montgomery, Ph.D., Th.D., M.Ph.L.

Study Guide

An imprint of 1517. The Legacy Project

Defending the Gospel through the Centuries

Copyright © 1999, 2015 by John Warwick Montgomery

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Table of Contents

About the Lecturer

I. Backdrop for Apologetics

A. Historical Summary of the Last Three Centuries

B. Eighteenth Century

C. Nineteenth Century

D. Twentieth Century

E. The Church’s Reaction

II. Contemporary Arguments Against Apologetics

A. Protestant Liberalism

B. Neo-Orthodoxy

C. The Westminster School

D. Lutheran Orthodoxy (or Dead Orthodoxy)

E. Bultmannian Objections

F. Fundamentalist Pietism

III. The Bible’s Own View of Apologetics

A. THE WORD

B. THE WORD Defended in Scripture

C. The Church Comes Back to This Same Scheme Again and Again in History.

IV. A History of Apologetic Effort

A. The Patristic Era

B. The Medieval Period

C. The Renaissance

D. The Reformation

E. The Seventeenth Century

F. The Eighteenth Century

G. Three Cold Winds

H. The Nineteenth Century

I. The Contemporary Age

Appendix A

Conjectural Syllabus of Pascal’s Lecture

I. His Pitiable State.

II. Man’s Greatness.

I. Search for the Light

II. The Demonstration.

Appendix B

Bibliography: Apologetics Book List

A. Negative Works

B. Positive Works

About the Lecturer

JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY is considered by many to be the foremost living apologist for biblical Christianity. A renaissance scholar with a flair for controversy, he lives in France, England, and the United States. His international activities have brought him into personal contact with some of the most exciting events of our time; not only was he in China in June 1989, but he was in Fiji during its 1987 bloodless revolution, was involved in assisting East Germans to escape during the time of the Berlin Wall, and was in Paris during the ‘days of May’ 1968.

Dr. Montgomery is the author of more than forty books in five languages. He holds ten earned degrees, including a Master of Philosophy in Law from the University of Essex, England, a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a Doctorate of the University in Protestant Theology from the University of Strasbourg, France. He is an ordained Lutheran clergyman, an English barrister, and is admitted to practise as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of the United States. He obtained acquittals for the ‘Athens 3’ missionaries on charges of proselytism at the Greek Court of Appeals in 1986.

Dr. Montgomery is Professor Emeritus of Law and Humanities. University of Luton, England; Professor of Apologetics and Vice-President for Academic Affairs—UK and Europe, Trinity College and Theological Seminary, Indiana; Distinguished Professor of Law, Regent University, Virginia; and Senior Counsel, European Centre for Law and Justice. Biographical articles on him appear in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in France, Who’s Who in Europe, and Who’s Who in the World.

I. Backdrop for Apologetics

It has to be recognized that apologetics is not a universally valued task. Virtually nobody today pays much attention to it. Thus it is necessary to establish the crying need for a dynamic use of a viable apologetic.

A. Historical Summary of the Last Three Centuries

1. In the Eighteenth Century, Revelation was killed (Deism)

2. In the Nineteenth Century, God was killed (Nietzsche)

3. In the Twentieth Century. Man has been killed (Sartre, Kafka).

B. Eighteenth Century

Deism was the prominent philosophy of the day. In Deism it was felt that revelation was unnecessary. Natural Law and Reason were sufficient. In these it was possible to see the creator and to deduce a moral code, so Scriptures were not needed. Why did this position gain prominence over Christianity? Because the Church had been asleep and insensitive to the moral and social issues of the times. It had identified itself with the status quo. Unfortunately for the Church, however, changes were taking place. In France this was through revolution and in England through social legislation. As the rich toppled in these situations, so did the Church. Deism was pushed because everyone was so disenchanted with Christianity. For example, the philosophes in France strongly identified themselves with the striving of the common people. Deism, however, was a weak philosophy. Its Book of Nature approach was hopelessly naive, and this paved the way for the Nineteenth Century.

C. Nineteenth Century

The moral law that was writ so plain in nature tor 18th Century man didn’t appear that way to 19th Century man. He looked around and saw’, not order, but chaos and survival of the fittest. He was one step further removed from the prepositional truth of Scripture, and thus was less influenced by its concepts. But, it was believed, simply because God doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean that man doesn’t have worth. In the evolutionary’ scheme, it was