Apologetics trivia, with the argument and the verse.

Which apostolic verse is most often cited as the biblical mandate for Christian apologetics?

1. Romans 1:16
2. 1 Peter 3:15
3. 2 Timothy 3:16
4. Hebrews 11:1

"But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect."1 Peter 3:15

"A defense" translates the Greek apologia — a reasoned answer in court or to questioners — and it's where the discipline gets its name. Notice the qualifier: gentleness and respect. Christian apologetics is meant to be persuasive, not combative.

What is the Greek word translated "defense" in 1 Peter 3:15 — the word from which "apologetics" is derived?

1. Martyria
2. Kerygma
3. Apologia
4. Logos

"Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."1 Peter 3:15

"Apologia" is a courtroom word — a reasoned answer given when called to account. It is the same word Paul uses for his speeches in Acts 22 and 26. Christian apologetics is therefore not a polemical sport but the reasoned giving of an account of the hope that is in us. The same root produces "apology" in English, though the original meaning is almost the opposite of saying sorry.

Paul on Mars Hill (the Areopagus) in Athens engages the philosophers by appealing to what local feature?

1. A statue of Zeus
2. An altar inscribed "to the unknown god"
3. The temple of Athena
4. A copy of the Septuagint

"For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you."Acts 17:23

Paul's Areopagus speech (Acts 17) is the New Testament's classic example of cross-cultural apologetics. He begins where his hearers are — quoting their own poets (Epimenides, Aratus) and pointing to their own altar — and ends with the resurrection of Christ, the point on which his hearers split into mockery, deferral, and faith. Cornelius Van Til and others have debated whether Paul concedes too much "common ground"; most apologists read it as a model of contextualised proclamation.

Which Old Testament psalm opens with the famous line "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'"?

1. Psalm 1
2. Psalm 23
3. Psalm 14
4. Psalm 119

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good."Psalm 14:1

Psalm 14 (paralleled by Psalm 53) frames atheism not as an intellectual position but as a moral one — "in his heart." The Bible's diagnosis of unbelief is not primarily epistemological but ethical and spiritual: a wilful suppression of what God has made plain (Romans 1:18–21). Apologetics that treat unbelief as purely intellectual miss this scriptural emphasis.

Which classical argument for God's existence reasons from the orderliness and purpose evident in nature?

1. The cosmological argument
2. The ontological argument
3. The moral argument
4. The teleological argument

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made."Romans 1:20

The teleological argument — from Greek telos, "end" or "purpose" — reasons that the design and order in the universe point to a Designer. William Paley's watchmaker analogy (1802) is the classic modern version. Contemporary advocates point to fine-tuning of physical constants; critics (notably Hume and Darwin) propose alternative explanations. Romans 1 gives the biblical warrant: creation does testify, even if fallen minds suppress what it shows.

In Romans 1, Paul argues that unbelievers are without excuse because they have suppressed what?

1. The teachings of the apostles
2. The truth about God revealed in creation
3. The Old Testament prophecies
4. Their inherited tradition

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."Romans 1:18

Romans 1:18–32 is the apostolic theology of general revelation: God has made himself plain in the creation, so that human beings everywhere "knew God" but did not honor him as God. Reformed presuppositionalism (Van Til, Bahnsen) takes this passage as foundational — every human being already knows God and suppresses that knowledge. Classical apologetics (Aquinas, modern evangelicals) reads the same passage but argues for evidential and rational supports that surface what creation already declares.

The "minimal facts" approach to defending the resurrection — associated with Gary Habermas — argues from a handful of historical claims granted by the majority of New Testament scholars across the spectrum. Which of the following is one of those minimal facts?

1. The Gospel of John was written by John in AD 50
2. Jesus' disciples sincerely believed they saw the risen Jesus and were transformed by it
3. The Shroud of Turin is the genuine burial cloth of Christ
4. The Quran corroborates the resurrection

"He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God."Acts 1:3

Habermas' "minimal facts" approach restricts itself to claims accepted by virtually all scholars (including skeptical ones): Jesus' death by crucifixion; the disciples' sincere conviction that they had seen him risen; the conversion of the persecutor Paul; the conversion of the skeptic James; the empty tomb (well-attested though more contested). The apologetic argues that the best explanation of these data is the one the witnesses themselves gave: he rose. Alternative theories (hallucination, fraud, legend) struggle to account for all five.

C. S. Lewis' famous "trilemma" in Mere Christianity argues that, given Jesus' own claims, only three options remain. What are they?

1. Prophet, priest, or king
2. Teacher, healer, or revolutionary
3. Lord, liar, or lunatic
4. Real, imagined, or legendary

"I and the Father are one."John 10:30

Lewis' point: given the magnitude of Jesus' claims (to forgive sins, to be one with the Father, to judge the world), the "great moral teacher but not divine" option is not actually on the table. Either Jesus was who he said he was (Lord), deceived himself (lunatic), or deceived others (liar). Modern scholars sometimes add a fourth — "legend," the view that the claims were placed in Jesus' mouth later — which sharper apologists have answered with arguments from the earliness and Jewish-eyewitness character of the Gospel sources.

The Kalam cosmological argument, prominently defended in our generation by William Lane Craig, runs: "(1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause. (2) The universe began to exist. (3) Therefore, the universe has a cause." From what historical school does this argument originate?

1. Greek Stoicism
2. Medieval Islamic theology
3. Reformation Lutheranism
4. Enlightenment Deism

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."Genesis 1:1

"Kalam" is the Arabic term for medieval Islamic scholastic theology. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) developed this argument most prominently, against the eternity-of-the-world view of Aristotelian philosophers. Christian apologists adopted it because the conclusion — that the universe has a transcendent cause — coheres with Genesis 1 and with Big Bang cosmology. Premise 2 is now better supported scientifically than at any point in history; the contested premise in most debates is whether the cause must be personal.

In presuppositional apologetics (Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen), what is the chief argument for the truth of Christianity?

1. Christianity has the most adherents historically
2. Without the triune God of Scripture, nothing — logic, science, ethics — would be intelligible
3. The Bible can be empirically verified at every point
4. Christian conversion produces measurable psychological benefits

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."Proverbs 1:7

Presuppositionalism argues a "transcendental" point: the unbeliever cannot account for the very tools (logical laws, scientific induction, moral absolutes) he uses to argue against Christianity. The Christian worldview alone provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility. The approach is debated within evangelicalism — classical apologists (William Lane Craig, R. C. Sproul) prefer evidential arguments, while presuppositionalists (Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame) treat such arguments as helpful but never as standing on autonomous neutral ground.