APOLOGETICS APPLICATION PAPER – PART 1 SUBMISSION FORM

Make sure you read and understand the Apologetics Application Paper Instructions document (available in Blackboard) before you attempt to complete any part of this form.

Do not change any aspect of this form; and do not delete anything from this form. Instead, just type your content in the spaces provided, below. Before typing your content, you should review the entire document to be sure you understand what is required.

Type your name here:

Type the submission date here: 

Instructions for this submission 

The purpose of Part 1 is to provide you with a few major building blocks that can be incorporated into your final paper. In the sections provided below, you will name the worldview you will be writing about, you will list a few sources you will use in your research, and you will begin building the foundation for what will become the first two major sections in the body of your final paper.

1. Worldview Selection

The Apologetics Application Paper Instructions indicate three choices: secular humanism, scientific naturalism, or postmodernism. Of these three, which will you write your paper about?

Type your selected worldview here: 

2. Preliminary List of Sources

Not including your course textbooks, list 3–4 sources that you will use in the paper. At this stage of the project, you should focus on sources that help you understand and evaluate the worldview you have selected to write about. You should do your best to focus on “scholarly” sources (see the Apologetics Application Paper instructions for a definition and explanation of what “scholarly” means). Format each according to current Turabian and LUSD requirements for a bibliography.

The remainder of this form will help you begin working on what will become the first two major sections of your final paper – the summary and evaluation of the worldview you are writing about.

The Apologetics Application Paper Instructions indicate that the basic outline for your final paper should follow this structure:

I. Introduction

II. Summary of the Worldview

III. Evaluation of the Worldview

IV. Evaluation of Christianity

V. Defense of Christianity

VI. Conclusion

In what follows, you will be crafting the building blocks that will eventually become sections II and III in that outline.

II. Summary of the Worldview

This section will form the building blocks of what will become the first major section in the body of your final paper (section II in the outline above): Summarize the worldview by using the main categories of belief discussed in Chapter 4 of Groothuis’s Christian Apologetics. In that section, Groothuis describes the Christian worldview using several major categories of belief. However, instead of discussing Christianity, you will use this section of the paper to describe the beliefs of the worldview you are writing about using those same categories of belief.

Below is a bullet-list naming several of the most important categories of belief that Groothuis mentions. Under each of the categories of belief named below, type a brief description (one or two sentences) of the beliefs in that category for the worldview you have selected to evaluate. (You will have the opportunity to revise, expand, or change these ideas in the next stage of the project.)

· ULTIMATE REALITY (For the worldview you selected above, what is ultimately real?):

· SOURCE OF ULTIMATE AUTHORITY (For the worldview you selected above, what is ultimately authoritative?):

· EPISTEMOLOGY (For the worldview you selected above, how do we gain knowledge?):

· HUMAN BEINGS (For the worldview you selected above, what are human beings?):

· SOURCE OF MORALITY (For the worldview you selected above, where does morality come from and what is its nature?):

· (you may expand this list, if you wish, by adding other significant beliefs, following the other categories of belief that Groothuis mentions)

III. Evaluation of the Worldview

This section is focused on helping you build what will become the second major section of the body of your final paper (section III in the outline above): Evaluate your selected worldview in order to show that it fails to provide a rational, livable, comprehensive system.

In Chapter 3 of Groothuis’s Christian Apologetics, he provides a list of 8 criteria that can be used to evaluate a worldview. The criteria Groothuis names are as follows:

1. explains what it ought to explain (Are there significant features of life or reality that this worldview cannot explain?)

2. internal logical consistency (Are there internal logical contradictions in the worldview?)

3. coherence (Do the various elements of the worldview fit together to form a coherent system?)

4. factual adequacy (Do the beliefs of the worldview conflict with facts we already know from other fields of study?)

5. existential viability (Is it possible to actually live out the worldview in a morally and philosophically consistent way?)

6. intellectual and cultural fecundity (Does the worldview inspire cultural and intellectual discovery, creativity, and productivity?)

7. radical ad hoc readjustment (Has the worldview had to readjust its core claims in order to accommodate new, compelling counter-evidence?)

8. simpler explanations are better than complex ones (Does the worldview offer simpler explanations about important features of reality, or more complex explanations?)

From the 8 criteria listed above, select several that you think will be most helpful in evaluating your selected worldview; and in the bullet list below, list those criteria along with an explanation briefly describing how / why the worldview fails that test. You will have the opportunity to revise, expand, or change these ideas in the next stage of the project.

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