In the Introduction, Dr. Craig says his book is answering the question, “What rational warrant can be given for Christian faith?” Of course, that question can be answered with apologetics. To the opponents of apologetics who say, “Nobody comes to Christ through apologetics because people are not won by arguments” Craig gives three vital roles of apologetics.
1) Shaping culture. Apologetics is necessary because Western culture is post-Christian. To the argument that apologetics will not work because we live in a post-modern culture which rejects objective truth, Craig responds, The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. Nobody is a postmodernist when it comes to reading labels on a medicine bottle versus a box of rat poison. If you’ve got a headache, you’d better believe that texts have objective meaning!
2) Strengthening believers. Craig wrote that he speaks in churches around the country, where he meets parents who say to him, “If only you’d been here two or three years ago! Our son had questions about the faith which on one in the church could answer, and now he’s lost his faith and is far from the Lord.” Craig responds: We need pastors who are schooled in apologetics and engaged intellectually with our culture to shepherd their flock amidst the wolves.
3) Evangelizing unbelievers. Paul used apologetics in witnessing to both Jews and pagans in Acts 17:2-3, 17; 19:8; 28:23-24. Is it not true that apologetics reaches only a minority of intellectuals? If this is true we still need to win them because Christ died for them also. Sometimes, however, from this intellectual minority a C. S. Lewis is won who in turn has great influence.
Craig distinguishes offensive or positive apologetics from defensive or negative apologetics. Offensive apologetics is subdivided into natural theology and Christian evidences. Natural theology proves the existence of God through the theistic arguments independent of divine revelation. Christian evidences include divine revelation in fulfilled prophecy, the claims of Christ and the historical reliability of the Gospels. Defensive apologetics addresses the objections to theism in the alleged incoherence of the concept of God and the problem of evil. Defensive apologetics would also come to the defense of Christian evidence in a defense to the objections to biblical theism. Craig states that his book uses the offensive apologetics method.