defenses of Christianity, in its entirety, in its essence,
or in some one or other of its elements or presuppositions, 
as against either all assailants, actual or
conceivable, or some particular form or instance of
attack; though, of course, as good defenses they may
rise above mere defenses and become vindications.
Apologetics undertakes not the defense, not even
the vindication, but the establishment, not, strictly
speaking, of Christianity, but rather of that knowledge 
of God which Christianity professes to embody
and seeks to make efficient in the world, and which
it is the business of theology scientifically to explicate. 
It may, of course, enter into defense and
vindication when in the prosecution of its task
it meets with opposing points of view and requires
to establish its own standpoint or conclusions.
Apologies may, therefore, be embraced in apologetics, 
and form ancillary portions of its structure,
as they may also do in the case of every other
theological discipline. It is, moreover, inevitable
that this or that element or aspect of apologetics
will be more or less emphasized and cultivated, as
the need of it is from time to time more or less felt.
But apologetics does not derive its contents or
take its form or borrow its value from the prevailing 
opposition; but preserves through all varying circumstances its essential character as a positive 
and constructive science which has to do with
opposition only--like any other constructive science--
as the refutation of opposing views becomes
from time to time incident to construction. So
little is defense or vindication of the essence of
apologetics that there would be the same reason
for its existence and the same necessity for its work,
were there no opposition in the world to be encountered 
and no contradiction to be overcome. It
finds its deepest ground, in other words, not in the
accidents which accompany the efforts of true
religion to plant, sustain, and propagate itself in
this world; not even in that most pervasive and
most portentous of all these accidents, the accident
of sin; but in the fundamental needs of the human
spirit. If it is incumbent on the believer to be able
to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is
impossible for him to be a believer without a reason
for the faith that is in him; and it is the task of
apologetics to bring this reason clearly out in his
consciousness, and make its validity plain. It is,
in other words, the function of apologetics to investigate, 
explicate, and establish the grounds on which
a theology--a science, or systematized knowledge
of God--is possible; and on the basis of which
every science which has God for its object must
rest, if it be a true science with claims to a place
within the circle of the sciences. It necessarily
takes its place, therefore, at the head of the departments 
of theological science and finds its task in
the establishment of the validity of that knowledge 
of God which forms the subject-matter of these
departments; that we may then proceed through
the succeeding departments of exegetical, historical,
systematic, and practical theology, to explicate,
appreciate, systematize, and propagate it in the
world.

</P>
<P ALIGN="JUSTIFY">
<B>2. Place Among the Theological Disciplines. </B>
It must be admitted that considerable confusion
has reigned with respect to the conception and
function of apologetics, and its place among the
theological disciplines. Nearly every writer has
a definition of his own, and describes the task of
the discipline in a fashion more or less peculiar to
himself; and there is scarcely a corner in the theological 
encyclopedia into which it has not been
thrust. Planck gave it a place among the exegetical
disciplines; others contend that its essence is historical; 
most wish to assign it either to systematic
or practical theology. Nosselt denies
it all right of existence; Palmer confesses 
inability to classify it; Rabiger 
casts it formally out of the encyclopedia, 
but reintroduces it under
the different name of " theory of
religion." Tholuck proposed that it should be
apportioned through the several departments;
and Cave actually distributes its material through
three separate departments. Much of this confusion 
is due to a persistent confusion of apologetics
with apologies. If apologetics is the theory of
apology, and its function is to teach men how to
defend Christianity, its place is, of course, along
side of homiletics, catechetics, and poimenics in
practical theology. If it is simply, by way of
eminence, the apology of Christianity, the systematically 
organized vindication of Christianity in
all its elements and details, against all opposition
or in its essential core against the only destructive
opposition--it of course presupposes the complete
development of Christianity through the exegetical,
historical, and systematic disciplines, and must
take its place either as the culminating department
of systematic theology, or as the intellectualistic
side of practical theology, or as an independent
discipline between the two. In this case it can be
only artificially separated from polemic theology and
other similar disciplines--if the analysis is pushed
so far as to create these, as is done by F. Duilhe
de Saint-Projet who distinguishes between apologetical, 
controversial, and polemic theology, directed 
respectively against unbelievers, heretics, and
fellow believers, and by A. Kuyper who distinguishes 
between polemics, elenchtics, and apologetics, 
opposing respectively heterodoxy, paganism,
and false philosophy. It will not be strange, then,
if, though separated from these kindred disciplines
it, or some of it, should be again united with them,
or some of them, to form a larger whole to which is
given the same encyclopedic position. This is done
for example by Kuyper who joins polemics, elenchtics, 
and apologetics together to form his " antithetic dogmatological " 
group of disciplines; and
by F. L. Patton who, after having distributed the
material of apologetics into the two separate
disciplines of rational or philosophical theology,
to which as a thetic discipline a place is given at the
outset of the system, and apologetics, joins the latter 
with polemics to constitute the antithetical disciplines, 
while systematic theology succeeds both 
as part of the synthetic disciplines.

<P ALIGN="JUSTIFY">
<B>3.Source of Divergent Views.</B>
Much of the diversity in question is due also,
however, to varying views of the thing which
apologetics undertakes to establish; whether it be,
for example, the truth of the Christian religion, or
the validity of that knowledge of God which theology