The following questions are only intended as examples of the type of questions that will be asked during the apologetics exam. Questions to be answered during any particular apologetics exam may include any of these and others.
- What is apologetics?
- Name an empiricist philosopher. What can you tell us about empiricism?
- Who wrote: Critique of Pure Reason? “I think, therefore I am.” The Republic?
- Which philosopher most influenced Aquinas?
- What do you know about “Butler’s analogy”?
- What is epistemology?
- What is presuppositionalism?
- What effect has Kant had on contemporary Christianity?
- Van Til wrote: “We dare not maintain that [God’s] knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point.” Robert Reymond calls this “an incredible statement” and contends that Van Til’s analogous knowledge becomes no knowledge at all. What do you think?
- Jack Rogers said: “For Van Til and Warfield the emphasis is on Scripture as a system of truth yielding information. For the Westminster divines the emphasis is on Scripture as a focus on Christ offering salvation.” What do you think?
- A scientist says: “You deal with faith and we deal with facts. We have certainty; you do not.” What do you think?
- Robert Jastrow writes that science and theology find themselves on common ground with the acceptance of the Big Bang Theory. What do you think?
- What would you say to someone who says, “Pastor, let’s have an ecumenical worship service with the Baptist, Episcopalian and Roman Catholic Churches in town”?
- I am a Jehovah’s Witness and I come to your door. What will you say to me?
- Why send missionaries to India to convert the Hindus? They are content with their religion.
- How can you believe in a God who causes so much evil in this world?
- Evaluate B. B. Warfield’s approach to apologetics: on the basis of a great “mass of evidence” one can conclude that “the doctrinal teaching of the Bible writers is trustworthy.”
- Describe your own approach to apologetics.
- Contrast the use of evidence in evidentialist and presuppositional apologetics.
- What is the Reformed view of the sensus Deitatis?
- What is meant by the noetic effect of sin, and how does this influence the apologetic task?
- How can the evidentialist prove the existence of the God of the Old and New Testaments?
- Is logic invented or discovered?
- In what different senses does Van Til teach that the unregenerate know/do not know anything?
- What is the difference in the anknupfungspunct (point of contact) between the believer and unbeliever in evidentialism and presuppositionalism?
- Discuss the apologetic significance of Paul’s address on Mars Hill (Acts 17:17-31).
- Discuss the apologetic significance of Romans 1:18-23.
- Discuss the apologetic significance of 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.