In my work as a teacher I have noticed a recent surge in Free Will Baptist students who are interested in apologetics. Anecdotally, I can count a handful of students who have graduated recently from Welch College and have gone on to earn (or are earning) master’s degrees in apologetics. While a number of variables may contribute to this sudden interest, these students are heirs to a certain kind of theological thinking concerning apologetics. Specifically, they join a line of Free Will Baptist apologists concerned with offering an apologia for the hope that is within them (1 Pet. 3:15).
In recent years, Free Will Baptist/Reformed Arminianism has become synonymous with the name F. Leroy Forlines. And while many think of Forlines as a/the Reformed Arminian theologian, Forlines has also offered helpful contributions to the area of worldview thinking—a kind of apologetic method, if you will. Forlines himself does not use the term apologetics often in his writing.[1] Yet his theological method is inherently bent towards apologetics. Much like presuppositionalist John Frame, Forlines’s approach is less of an “apologetic system” and more of an overall posture about applying biblical truth to unbelief.[2] After all, he wrote his systematic theology specifically for a “postmodern world.”[3] That is why this new book, The Apologetics of Leroy Forlines, is such a welcomed volume.
The content in this book from Forlines is not original material, though. Instead, J. Matthew Pinson, long-time mentee of Forlines and Welch College President, has collated the material from Forlines’s previous work, The Quest for Truth. In many ways, this book is to apologetics what Forlines’s Classical Arminianism is to soteriology. The chapters include content concerning “upper-story knowledge”—an epistemological term Forlines borrows from Francis Schaeffer—as well as two chapters on revelation, one on God’s special revelation and another on issues concerning inspiration and authority.
Chapter six, possibly the most explicit apologetic material from Quest, discusses at length the process of testing worldviews. The seventh chapter addresses anthropology, while the final chapter addresses how to communicate the gospel message in our postmodern context.[4] While Pinson could have included some of Forlines’s other writings here, pulling specifically from Quest allows for cohesion in this new volume.
What is especially unique about this book is Pinson’s introduction to Forlines’s apologetic thinking. In some ways, this introductory essay (which is situated as the first chapter) is worth the price of the book. Pinson rightly contextualizes Forlines’s thought in the larger world of apologetics. He appropriately notes how Forlines’s apologetic approach is consistent with that of Carl F. H. Henry, E. J. Carnell, Ronald Nash, and Francis Schaeffer.[5] For those who have read Forlines, the association should come as no surprise.
Forlines has embraced what some have called a soft-presuppositionalism.[6] Within apologetic methodologies, presuppositionalism often stands at odds against classical and evidential apologetics. If classical and evidential apologetics deal more with proofs and are optimistic about the ability of human reason, presuppositionalism interacts more with worldviews and emphasizes the noetic effects of sin on human reason. This term, soft-presuppositionalism, is one within a larger taxonomy that I find helpful concerning Forlines’s overall approach—as does Pinson.
Yet other taxonomies may place Forlines in a different category. Brian Morley, in his book Mapping Apologetics, places John Frame and Cornelius Van Til in a “presuppostional” camp and E. J. Carnell, Gordon Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer in a “combinationalism” group.[7] For all of the strengths of Morley’s assessment, Frame, Carnell, and Schaeffer have too much in common to warrant such a strong distinction. For this reason, I find the soft/hard distinction found in Joshua Chatraw and Mark Allen’s Apologetics at the Cross to be more helpful—especially in reference to Forlines’s overall approach.
For too long, presuppositionalism has been tied far too deeply to Calvinism. We might expect this, with Presbyterian theologian Cornelius Van Til fathering the modern movement. Nevertheless, while this method is certainly consistent with larger Reformed thinking, I’m thankful that this new volume helps to reclaim this method of apologetics for those within Reformed Arminian circles. Young, aspiring apologists within Free Will Baptist circles will now have a handy volume to help formulate their thinking on this subject.
Pinson also notes Forlines’s specific context. Much of his work has had postmodernism and secularism as its chief concern; his apologetic method is no exception. For Forlines, postmodernism and secularism seek to lay an ax at the root of divine truth. For this reason, one must be adamant and sure about his or her understanding of special revelation. Yet Forlines does not have an overly optimistic or simplistic understanding of human reason.
He rightly addresses the noetic effects of sin on human thinking, noting how that reality influences our approaches to apologetics and evangelism. Forlines, then, does not place a high value on the “proofs” or “evidences” of classical/evidential approaches. All in all, while I’ve read a significant portion of Forlines corpus, I still found Pinson’s assessment of Forlines’ apologetic to be helpful and instructive.
My
hope for the use of this book is two-fold. First, I hope that non-Free Will
Baptists will appreciate the uniquely Reformed approach of Forlines’s
apologetic. Second, and maybe more importantly, I hope that Free Will Baptists
will recognize and appreciate this apologetic method that complements their
overall theology. Historically, we’ve treated apologetics (and theology) as a
smorgasbord, concerned more with what works rather than what is true. Forlines,
instead, begins with theological truth: epistemology, anthropology, and the
nature of revelation. From this theological foundation Forlines moves toward
his apologetic method. Free Will Baptists and others alike will do well to take
note. For these reasons, I heartily recommend this book.
[1]J. Matthew Pinson, “The Forlinesean Apologetic,” in The Apologetics of Leroy Forlines, F. Leroy Forlines and J. Matthew Pinson (Gallatin, TN: Welch College Press, 2019), 3.
[2]John M Frame, “A Presuppositional Apologist’s Closing Remarks,” in Five Views on Apologetics, ed.Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 357–-58.
[3]F. Leroy Forlines, The Quest for Truth: Theology for a Postmodern World (Nashville: Randall House, 2001).
[4]For more on this, see Christopher Talbot, “Communicating the Gospel: The Church’s Mission and Ministry,”in The Promise of Arminian Theology: Essays in Honor of F. Leroy Forlines, ed. Matthew Steven Bracey and W. Jackson Watts (Nashville: Randall House Academic, 2016).
[5]Pinson, “The Forlinesean Apologetic,” 30.
[6]See Joshua D. Chatraw and Mark D. Allen, Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017).
[7]See Brian K. Morley, Mapping Apologetics: Comparing Contemporary Approaches (Downers Grove, IVP Academic, 2015)
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