William Paley (1743-1805) is known for having proposed an analogy of a watchmaker in his groundbreaking book, Natural Theology, arguing that the immense intricacy of creation points away from a random chance combination of unrelated dead matter, but instead to an intelligent and creative assembly known as the Teological argument.. Before Paley, Bishop Joseph Butler in his Analogy of Religion (1776) presented a framework for the evidences within creation. Even David Hume, the deist, admitted that it was the best defense of Christianity he had ever read. Butler considered it most important for Christianity to "Examine most seriously into the evidence, supposing its credibility, and of embracing it upon supposition of its truth...probability is the very guide of life." (Analogy of Religion, pp. 197, 69). Well known proponents include C.H. Dodd, Bishop Butler, William Paley, J.P. Moreland, Bernard Ramm, F.R. Tennant, John Warwick Montgomery, Gary habermas, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Josh McDowell.
Some of the major characteristics of Evidential apologetics are as follows:
1) Evidentialism is empirically or experientially-based. Truth must be based upon facts and events, not just ideas or theories.
2) Evidentialists state or imply there is a distinction between fact and interpretation.
3) Evidentialists hold that theories surrounding facts must arise naturally from the facts and not be imposed artificially from outside. However, though interpretation needs to answer and arise naturally from the facts, to an extent, a certain amount of interpretation (presupposition) is necessary so that we see more of a larger, coherent picture than an assemblage of seemingly raw and unrelated data.
4) Evidentialists often point to certain facts (more than others) as being definitive in determining truth. 5) Most evidentialists plac a great emphasis upon object and the public nature of facts. In other words, they must be open to verification/falsification.
6) Evidentialists engage freely in 'defensive' apologetics, that is criticisms of anti-christians who seek to deflate the case of Christianity. This includes responding to detractors on many fronts such as philosophical, scientific, historical, and theological or biblical. For more information see John Pollock's differientation between undercutting defeaters and refuting defeaters in his book, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, pp. 38-39, 48). Also see Alvin Plantinga's, Warrant, pp. 216-221. A Defeater is simply a criticism which is intended to deal a death blow to a statement. For this case, rather than agressively presenting an positive case as would be the case with an evangelistic strategy such as the Romans Road, Evangeism Explosion or the Four Spiritual Laws- that is where the 'evangelist' takes the initiative, I steer the conversation toward a general religious nature, always observing the non-believer and revising my approach accordingly.
"In contrast to experiential and presuppositional schools of apologetics, evidential apologetics views human reasoning more positively. The human person can adequately grasp knowledge about God despite being hampered by finiteness and sin. The case evidential apologetics builds for Christianity gradually gains force as a person confronts its accumulated weight...Because of its greater confidence in reason, evidentialistic is more rationalistic" than experiential or presuppositional apologetics". (David K. Clark, Dialogical Apologetics, pg. 107). Much of the comments on Evidentialism can also apply to the Classical school wich diifers from Evidential primarly on their use of miracles as evidence. The former holds that they do not presuppose the existence of God, but are an evidence of His existence, while the Classic apologetist does. For this reason, many Evidentialists may argue for 1) the existence & validity of God and then 2) the validity of Christianity as a coherent specification of that theism.
Characteristic tenets of Evidentialism include:
1) The use of historical evidences;
2) Putting 'brute facts' into an understandable context;
3) Engaging in 'negative' apologetics;
4) Realizing the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit to convict & ready the heart of the listener.
5) Acknowledge basic ontlological and even epistemological 'common ground' while recognizing the effects of the sinful nature's tendency to suppress out of it's ungodliness the gospel.
6) The role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the non-believer to prompt & convict while granting assurance of the truth of Christianity to the life and faith of the believer.
Evidentialism, as is the case with other schools of Christian Apologetics cannot be believed to present a complete picture of the case of Christianity. Rather they are only parts of a cumulative case. Just as there are various fields of law- Entertainment law, business law, international law, bankruptcy law- so too, of the various schools of apologetics, no single school can be expected to have the whole answer, but only a part. It is unfortunate that some schools exert more energy fighting those they consider 'unworthy' and 'partial' instead of humbly acknowledging that we each only hold part of the case and we must work together dispite such minor differences which are more in presuppositiona and methodology than in substance. Let us now turn to other schools of Christian Apologetics as we seek to form a systematic method.