Why Do Christians Defend the Bible Like the Unbeliever?

Why do Christians defend their Bible in a manner similar to the unbeliever? Instead of asserting the Bible as infallible and the preserved Word of God, contemporary apologetics often begins with Christians on the defensive. The apologist typically counteracts the critic’s evidential defeaters using a similar set of evidential arguments, leading to a back-and-forth of secular reasoning. This approach, unfortunately, has become the normative method for defending the Bible in modern apologetics.

Several concerns arise about the efficacy of this apologetic methodology. First, arguments centered around grammar, syntax, and diction are inherently secular. If the Bible is not presupposed to be the Word of God, then any linguist, whether Christian or not, is equally qualified to engage in such debates. In this context, the apologetic merely mirrors secular discussions, resulting in arguments that can never definitively establish that the Bible is the Word of God. Instead, these debates may only lead to a relative degree of uncertainty about the text’s reading, but they fall short of affirming the divine nature of the Scriptures.

Similarly, arguments from history present significant challenges when the Bible is not assumed to be the Word of God. History, by its nature, is messy and often contradictory. It rarely aligns neatly with contemporary expectations, and historians must interpret and sometimes manipulate data to fit particular narratives. The credibility of historical claims depends heavily on the historian’s character and biases, as true neutrality in historical reporting is rare. In fact, history itself does not “choose sides”—it simply records past events. The idea that modern scholars have all the necessary data to make definitive conclusions about historical events is often an illusion, as many details have been lost to time. The gaps and irregularities in historical records only make the task of affirming the Bible as the Word of God more difficult, if not impossible, when history is the primary focus.

When we turn to philosophy, the situation is no less complicated. Unlike theology, which is anchored in specific doctrines, philosophy often lacks definitive boundaries. Philosophical inquiry can be useful for theologians, but only when it assumes that the Bible is the Word of God. Without this assumption, philosophy’s open-ended nature leads to speculative and anthropocentric systems that, at best, are self-contained but disconnected from divine revelation. Philosophy, like linguistics and history, cannot determine the Bible’s status as the Word of God if this truth is not presupposed from the outset.

This brings us back to the central question: Why do Christians argue for the truth of God’s Word in the same manner as the unregenerate? Why do they not begin with the self-authenticating, self-interpreting, and self-attesting nature of Scripture, along with the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit to the believer? Christians should not seek to defend the faith by first trying to establish its truth through evidential reasoning. Instead, they should assert the Bible’s divine authority and present arguments based on Scripture’s internal witness.

Historically and anecdotally, evidentialist arguments defending the Bible’s preservation and inspiration have been largely ineffective since the 1970s. While these discussions may appeal to the academic elite, they have not successfully advanced the authority of Scripture within the Church. If the Bible is not presupposed to be the infallible Word of God from the outset, then linguistic, historical, and philosophical arguments are ultimately inadequate substitutes for the Bible’s own self-attestation.