From the Greek roots apo and leg (apologia), the

term apologetics can be translated as “speech with

cause.” In the Christian context, apologetics is important

in science and religion discourse because it

aims to provide religious faith with credibility. Particularly

understanding of divine action in the world has

progressively diminished due to new, scientific explanations

accounted for in terms of supernatural agency.

Apologetics increasingly incorporates scientific material

in recognition of the universal scope of scientific

knowledge in contrast to theology’s alleged

lack of empirical basis. It is a hybrid form of theology

that aims to provide credibility for divine revelation

under the light of human reason. In theological

account for foundational elements in doctrine

under the perspective of a religious conversion,

while providing a systematic way for that doctrine

to be understood. It “is the theoretical and methodical

exposition of the reasons for believing in

In historic Christian theology, apologetics has been

characterized by skilled, often impassioned rhetoric.

In the New Testament, the word apologia is

translated as a defense of the hope that inspires the

believer to remain upright (1 Peter 3:15), and for

Paul and Luke, apologia is employed in situations

of mission or conflict. This usage expands on the

Old Testament usage, where it possesses sapiential

qualities (Wis. 6:10). In neither case does it connote

a legal or even a rigorous philosophical justification

In early Christianity, apologetics arose as a

theological response to political crisis and as the

theoretical expression for ecclesial community.

Early Christian apologetics focused primarily on

the significance of the person and work of Jesus

Christ in arguments with Jews (as in Justin Martyr’s

Dialogue with Trypho) and later with pagan culture

through varying critical incorporations of Platonist

and gnostic ideas (as in Origen’s Contra Celsum or

Tertullian’s On Prescription Against Heretics). Theological

arguments turned toward civil authorities

regarding the toleration of Christianity until the

time of fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine.

Early Christian apologetics reached a high

point with Augustine of Hippo’s City of God, and

especially The Literal Meaning of Genesis, which is

often cited in modern attempts to cohere a reading

In the medieval period, apologetics was diverted

by the encounter with early Islam, evident

through Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles.

As a result, a theological distinction in religious

was forged and intensified in a full development of

theology as a scientific discipline. Through tensions

resonant in early Protestant appeals to natural

theology, Calvinist apologetics emerged as a

formidable stream of thought that is still manifest

in several modern theological schools. Against traditional

Aristotelian metaphysics and natural theology,

John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion

(1536) stressed the complete sovereignty of

God’s Word over the instrumental causes of natural

The rise of science and technology in Europe during

brought about a stricter, empirical notion of objectivity,

which had a pivotal impact on theological

apologetics. Combined with a new reluctance on

the part of theologians to refer to Christian revelation,

the rise of the natural sciences led to diminished

religious grounds for natural philosophy. In

this new situation, the religious engagement with

Enlightenment reason led to a diversity of theological

responses to the new sciences. Since the seventeenth

century, apologetic writing has stressed a

harmony between science and religion, by selecting

or neglecting different aspects of scientific and

religious knowledge. Only in the late twentieth

century has attention turned to uncovering a

method of selection that might fruitfully anticipate

ongoing discoveries, updates, and new evaluations

Five historical questions are particularly important

in illustrating this pattern: Copernicanism, the

rise of physico-theology, Darwinism, biblical criticism,

and scientism. In each case, the initial theological

reaction to new scientific learning was confusion

and disagreement, followed by concord and

First, echoing Augustine’s hermeneutic that

the biblical text is revealed in a way accessible to

the uneducated, Galileo Galilei’s Letter to the

Grand Duchess Christina (1615) was a classic attempt

Catholicism compatible. No recourse to a natural

proof for the existence of God was offered in the

Second, adopting contrary positions, in the

spirit of William Derham’s 1713 work Physico-theology,

thinkers like Samuel Clarke, John Ray, Nicolas

Malebranche, and Rene Descartes speculated

on which fundamental natural principles (mechanics

or mathematics) ground a proof for God’s existence.

Isaac Newton’s position was the pivotal argument

from design and is found in writings such

as the Opticks (1704), rather than the crucial Principia

Third, after the mid-nineteenth century, Darwinism

took this range of opinion and expanded it

further into two discernible currents in the English language

world. Initially, there were those who incorporated

selection and adaptation into theological reflection

(Asa Gray, Charles Kingsley, Aubrey Moore). Then,

there were those who sought to confront and to

critique evolution altogether (Charles Hodge,

Fourth, advancing beyond the various attempts

by philosophers Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Ernst

Schleiermacher, Georg Wilhlem Hegel, and theologian

John Henry Newman to reestablish a synthesis

in knowledge, was scientific historical biblical

criticism (David Strauss, Hermann Reimarus, Albert

Schweitzer) and its impact upon biblical hermeneutics.

This research and that which followed it

quickly eclipsed nineteenth and early twentieth

century defense of a historically precise text (Pope

Fifth, from the middle of the twentieth century,

a growing chorus of critique against scientific

reductionism or scientism has developed within

the natural sciences, as positivist assumptions of

earlier scientific investigation have been shown to

Still common in the thought of evangelical Protestants,

conservative Catholics, and orthodox Judaism,

theological apologetics resembles much historical

literature in its continuing reference to

Christian doctrines such as incarnation, resurrection,

creation, and immortality of the soul. However,

in other quarters, apologetics has evolved beyond

the focus on doctrine and has transformed

itself to accommodate the specialization of knowledge

and the secularization of university life. This

is reflected in the natural theology offered in the

prestigious Gifford Lectures offered at Scottish universities

1950, apologetics has been designated as “fundamental

theology.” Ecumenism and interfaith dialogue

have also shaped the importance and impact

Late twentieth-century apologetic literature

with a scientific accent and doctrinal focus is represented

in the writings of the scientist-theologians

Stanley Jaki, Alister McGrath, Arthur Peacocke,

John Polkinghorne, Robert John Russell, and

Thomas Torrance. A less precise theological reconstruction

of apologetics exists. It transposes Christian

doctrine philosophically through a capacious

theoretical commitment. This method is present in

the writings of scientists such as Pierre Teilhard de

Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead, contemporary

Bracken, and Holmes Rolston III, as well as the

theologians Wolfhart Pannenberg and John Haught.