Week Three Apologetics

1. The Apologist and Relativism
Zacharias & Vitale
CCBC-Montebelluna TH363
Rick Harrell, M.Div., M.A.
Relativism – Chapter Six

2. R. Zacharias
“Christianity is a belief grounded in freedom.”
There is freedom when belief is based on absolutes.
This is where Christianity and Secular Humanism veer apart.
Humanism hold that humans are “the measure of all things.”
Which human? Which culture? Who decides?
Christianity affirms that there is an absolute standard of morality and truth.

3. R. Zacharias
Four Distinctives that lay the framework for what “human” is:
1. Creation
Odds that life created itself – 1 in1040000th
Humans have a creator; that gives us intrinsic worth.
Humans have a creator; that gives us purpose.
”And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as
yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39

4. R. Zacharias
Four Distinctives that lay the framework for what “human” is:
2. Incarnation
 Juxtapose Gen 1:1 with John 1:1, 14
Two undeniable implications from the Incarnation
Absoluteness of Moral Law – Relativism jettisons “the universal
oughtness” for amoral decision-making – “relative to what?”
Supremacy of Love – Life isn’t avoiding suffering; it’s embracing love,
self-sacrificing, placing others first, and God above all.
“And now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of
these is love.” 1 Cor 13:13

5. R. Zacharias
Four Distinctives that lay the framework for what “human” is:
3. Transformation
It’s not just a belief “system;” it is a new life, a new birth. We don’t recruit for
a movement or proselytize for a system – we persuade toward
transformation.
“In surrendering, one wins. In dying, one lives…the funeral at which real life for
each of us begins is the burying of one’s own pride and self-sufficiency.”

6. R. Zacharias
Four Distinctives that lay the framework for what “human” is:
4. Consummation
”Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” Soren
Kierkegaard
Pantheism is self-deifying – I am a god myself.
Naturalism and Secular Humanism is reductionistic – I am animal or machine
Christianity is a defining, purposeful journey in which I am fully treasured by
and moving toward a destiny with the God Who Created.