#STRask - What Are the Top Three Apologist Pitfalls to Watch Out For?

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Question about the top three pitfalls to watch out for when you start using apologetics in conversations with others.   What are the top three apologist pitfalls—i.e., if you’ve just read Tactics, you’re ready to go, and Jehovah’s Witnesses show up at your door or your atheist coworker starts asking you about God, what are the top three things to watch out for?

Welcome to Stand to Reasons, hashtag STR-ask podcast. This is Amy Hall, and I'm here with Greg Kokel. And today, Greg, we have questions about how you do things. So I, and I think you're going to have some great ideas for people. All right. So this first. How I do things. Yeah.

you'll hear in a second. Okay. I put my pants on with my left leg in first. Okay. Not that kind of stuff. All right. So this first one comes from Josh. What are your top three brand new apologist pitfalls? Like if you've just read tactics, you're ready to go and the J.Ws show up at your door or your atheist co-worker starts asking you about God. What are the top three watch out for this things? Hmm. Well, a couple of things come to mind. They're not always so much watch out for this thing, but unless you're thinking about watch out for how you do this thing or how you come across. Actually, there's more than three. Three logical fallacies come to mind that are standard. And I've written about this recently, so this may be repetitive for people who receive our, you know, monthly stuff. And if you don't, why not? What's going on with you? Just go to sDR.org, upper right head corner, register, bottom of the page, register. You get it. All right. But the first things that come to mind is that I think that sometimes when apologists, and this I know from personal experience, making this mistake myself, when apologists get into an apologetic circumstance defending the fate, that means there's an attacker.

in asserts, certain sense, to our ideas and our convictions. There's a challenger, okay, and this sets us up into a defensive mode. And in principle, apologetics is defending, but there's a difference between giving, making a defense, and being defensive, okay? So this is just completely psychological, where we need to be careful to not, put ourselves up clearly as the opposition, but to soften our engagement as much as we can with simple techniques that will take some of the edge off. So think of it not as a gladiator event where you're, who gets to draw first blood, who gets the mic drop moment kind of

thing, gotcha kind of thing. But rather as a conversation between two people that are genuinely interested in the material. Now, of course, that may not always be the same for the person on the other side. They're genuinely interested in disproving Christianity. Well, I'm genuinely interested in demonstrating the legitimacy of the Christian worldview, but that doesn't mean that I am going to take up a kind of a hostile posture. So, I'm just going to consciously try to manifest an amicable manner, sidestep any jabs that seem to come my way or kind of low blows or snarkiness and just respond as if I'm talking to a friend. Now, I don't always achieve that, okay, and sometimes I need a little warning through the window.

Melinda used to do this more often than you do, maybe because I've got better. I don't know, but, you know, settle down big boy kind of deal. And I think the perfect manifestation of this kind of individual is somebody like John Lennox. You know, he's just such a, he's like an avuncular, you know, like this kindly old uncle that is just reflecting, you know, and not trying to win points. but in the softer manner is able to make points because he's not overstating his case, he's not being overly dogmatic and he's not being overly argumentative in the style. The content is all there. Okay, so I'm just saying that's one thing right out of the gate, posture and attitude.

And I think many apologists do make this mistake because they see this as a combat situation. which, in a certain sense, it is a contest of ideas where each is arguing for his own point. But I think the manner is really important to being, for one, to be persuasive. If we are more gentle in our approach, I think we can be more persuasive in the way we sound. If we're not inappropriately dogmatic, if there's this sense that, well, I can be wrong about this, but here's my thoughts. you know, or if there's a, if there's not hostility in our voice or a contrariness in our voice, that will bring out the best to the other side. Now, it doesn't always do that, but at least it makes our side, it's, it makes it easier for me,

if I'm that way, less stressful. It makes it, I think, more persuasive from a tactical perspective. And it's just good matters. Okay. Now, the three informal fallacies that I think we encounter the most, and this is what I wrote the mentoring letter on, maybe, I don't know, it might have come out a month or suit two ago, sometimes in the midsummer or late spring. But in any event, these three are the most common informal fallacies that I think people are going to run into. The first one is the homonym. Now, that's the formal name, but it's a simple way of putting it is just name-calling. Instead of dealing with the argument proper, you assault something about the person offering the argument. So when somebody says, well, that's intolerant, or that's bigoted, or that's racist, notice how they've changed the subject from the issue at hand, whatever it happens to be,

to some flaw in the Christian's character, or so they presume. And this is why the shift focuses on the person and its name-calling. Well, this is the most standard way that people in our culture now have learned. They've absorbed it. They've been socialized to respond to ideas they don't like, and they think it's smart. It's not smart. It's dumb. It's a fallacy.

and it's bad manners, okay? And so when somebody attacks the believer rather than the belief, that's the key, it's always fair to just point out with a question that they've changed the subject. And the question would be, I'm confused, why have you changed the subject? What do you mean change the subject? Well, we were talking about same-sex marriage or gender confusion or dysphoria or something like that. And now you're calling me a bigot or narrow-minded or intolerant. In other words, we change from the subject to my character.

So let me ask you another question. Is it possible for me to be intolerant, bigoted, whatever, and still have my view to be correct? Now, of course, the answer is sure. A person with all kinds of character flaws can still voice an accurate point of view. So the two are unrelated. Now, it may be when you ask somebody that, they will not be able to see that. And the reason is they are so thoroughly socialized into thinking that what they consider to be a bigoted view cannot be true because they characterize it as bigotry or racism or intolerance or, you know, at your whatever characterization you want or what they have wanted. But nonetheless, you cannot disprove or undermine a point of view by attacking something else.

Okay, that little principle is going to show up again, but it's a very important one. And I remember this particular way of putting it because there was someone responding to Daniel Dennett, one of the so-called new atheists who's gone now, but nevertheless, he was guilty. in his challenge to theism of all kinds of informal fallacies. He has a PhD, and this is one of them, or there is a variation where you attack the view, I'm sorry, you try to disprove the view by attacking something else. Okay, we'll come up with another example of that. But simply put, you cannot show that a view is faulty by critiquing something other than the

view itself. That's really important. And that's what's happening here with the ad hominem, okay, name calling. To the man is what the Latin means or at the man. And if you are just addressing your remarks at the person, then you are not dealing with the issue, all right? Ridicule, for example, is not an argument. Ridiculing an individual, calling him names. It's not an argument.

And so sometimes it's fair to just point that out. By the way, ridicule is not an argument. Anyway, so that's the first trip wire, so to speak, or fault that some people fall in without even realizing it. That's why it's good to be charitable. They don't realize what they've just done. That's why when you say, why did you change the subject, they don't know what you're talking about. It doesn't seem like a change to them. And so then you can carefully, graciously, charitably walk them through that.

Now, it may be that the Christian's view is wrong, but it's not wrong because it isn't. the mistaken view because somebody has called it bigotry or somebody has called it arrogance or whatever it is, some kind of hate. All right, the next one is called a straw man. Oh, I'm sorry, that's not it. The next one is called a genetic fallacy. And there's a kinship here. A genetic fallacy is when you fault a view, not on its merits, but on its source.

You fault a view, not on its merits, but on its source. Okay, so let's take the abortion issue. There is a potentially fruitful discussion about the moral propriety or impropriety of abortion. But it is not going to be helpful when the pro-abortion person, especially if there are a woman, says to the pro-lifer who is a man, well, you're a man. Yes. So what? and this is a tactic in the tactics book, the power of this phrase, so or so what? Even if their charge is true, it doesn't have anything to do with the argument.

Well, men don't have abortions, yes, so what? Now, why do I say so what? Because the question of whether abortion is right or wrong is not, is not, the answer is not dependent on the gender or the sex of the individual giving the argument because arguments don't have sexual organs. They're either good arguments or bad arguments regardless of whose mouth they come out of. And our argument isn't, I don't like abortion. Well, you don't get an abortion, so it doesn't matter you're a guy. But abortion is wrong no matter who does it.

Think of this challenge. This will be more obvious, the failure. you shouldn't beat your wife. Well, you can't say that to me because you're not married to her. You are objecting as someone not married to that woman. I'm married, so your objection doesn't make any sense or it's not legitimate. Of course, it's obvious that the problem is the beating, the abuse, not who raises the objection. And by the way, that's parallel to our concern about abortion.

our concern about abortion is abortion is wrong because it takes the life of an innocent human being without proper justification. Now, that needs to be defended, but you can't fault it simply because that argument is coming out of the mouth of a man and not a woman, all right? And it turned out that every single justice of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was a male. So, I mean, this, you know, this error, if it's allowed to stand cuts both the direction. All right? So you're a Christian because you were born in the United States. If you were born in Saudi Arabia, then you wouldn't be a Christian, you'd be a Muslim. Okay. Now, that doesn't tell you anything about the truth of Islam or Christianity. It just tells you something about

psychology or geography, but it didn't tell you anything about the issue at hand. Notice that, in this case as well, they are trying to challenge the point by attacking something else. in this case, the source or the genesis of the view. That's why they call it a genetic fallacy, which, by the way, if an atheist raised that particular point, you're a Christian because you live in the United States, and if you were living in Saudi Arabia, you wouldn't be a Christian. I mean, a fair retort at this point, to play their faulty reasoning against them is to say, well, if you were born in Saudi Arabia, you wouldn't be an atheist.

you'd also be a Muslim. Now, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, but our point here is it's not sauce for the gander, it's not sauce for the goose, okay? It doesn't legitimately undermine our view, and therefore it can't legitimately undermine atheism either. It's a fallacy called a genetic fallacy. Okay, the last one is a straw man, and this happens all the time. And a straw man, I'm thinking of it this way, a straw man's a scarecrow, okay?

Did you ever beat up a scarecrow? Probably not, but if you wanted to, it'd be easy. You'd go out and knock it down. Simple, okay? You want to deal with a real human being, that's going to be a fight, okay? And the point here, and this is where this terminology comes from, is if you mischaracterize somebody else's point of view and attack that, you've attacked a scarecrow. You've made it easy to defeat the view, but the view isn't the one that, in this case,

the Christian actually holds. you've erected a straw man and defeated the straw man and not the real McCoy, all right? And so when somebody says, for example, and I read this recently, I think it's in the tactics book, this comment, you know, I can't believe in this ridiculous Christianity because God would send people to hell just because they don't believe in him. Well, I mean, that might be a ridiculous idea, but it's not ours because our teaching isn't that we, the biblical teaching, isn't that people go to hell because they don't believe in God. In fact, James says the demons believe and they still tremble, right? So our view is not that they don't believe in God, but rather that they do evil things. They are judged according to their works in Genesis, or rather Revelation 20. And so consequently, the charge is not an accurate one.

And this happens all the time. And where people will trot out a distortion of our view that is easier to attack. And then they'll attack that thinking they've done the job with the real view. And when that happens, when you recognize it, it's fair just to. pointed out. You might say, for example, I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. You've misunderstood our view. How about this one? A person says, if you don't like abortion, don't have one. Well, it's not our view that we don't like abortions. We may love abortions. We still think it's wrong to have them. And I say we may love it because it could be a person who's pro-life is in a tough

spot where an abortion would be an easy way out. But they still think it's wrong. Or this. How about the – if you don't like premarital sex, then don't have it. Well, certainly our view isn't that Christians don't like that at some level. It's that we think it's wrong. Okay. And so in that situation, it's fair to say, well, wait, you misunderstood our view. Is that what you think we believe? Okay, just to clarification, that isn't what we believe.

That is in my view, at least. And if we're talking together, then you're going to have to deal with my view. So here's my view, just for clarity. And I'm interested in your response to that. my view is this, and then you clarify, offer your view in clear terms. Now, of course, sometimes the problem is that Christian hasn't offered his view in clear terms. There's ambiguity to it that allows it to be misunderstood and then allows a straw man to perform that they attack. So we want to be careful that we are clear about our basic view and that when we hear a mischaracterization of it,

that we addressed that. Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. And so that's just a charitable way of taking responsibility for the confusion. I'm not saying that's usually the case. Oftentimes it's not. But what's going on to a lot of degree, and all of these, to a large degree, is the power of socialization. People see this happening all the time in culture.

and they're never schooled and how to recognize nonsense when it shows up, and so they accept it and they repeat it, and they think it's smart. They think they've done a good job. They think they've done a valid job of, oh, nice shot, got that Christian, go boom. Well, you didn't get anything. You just got the mistake. Whether it's an ad hominem, whether it's a genetic fallacy, or whether it's a straw man, these are all fallacious ways of dealing with problems, and those three are the

the ones that come up the most. So my encouragement then to the broader question is be careful in your own posture, how you come across with other people, and try to be as charitable, amicable as possible, and also don't fall for either of these informal fallacies that are everywhere, an ad hominem, a genetic fallacy or a straw man. That's great, Greg. I have a few more things I'm going to add from kind of a different area of mistake, although they're also playing to what everything you said so far. But the first thing I would say, and these are things, I wouldn't say they're brand new things like Josh was asking for, but these are things I discovered when I, many years ago when I was at Biola getting my master's degree in apologetics. And we had to go out and get some practice. And these are things I discovered. pretty quickly. And over time, they've just been things that I've had to work on. But the first thing is, in your conversations, stay on track, even if it means you talk about fewer things, because what's going to happen is they're going to bring up a ton of different things and they're going to want

to bounce around all over the place. And you'll never get any point discussed if you do that. The temptation, every time someone brings something up, is to respond to it because you have all these responses and you're just raring to go. But you cannot give into that. Follow something to its conclusion before you move on to something else and just keep bringing it back. And I mean, you could even say, why don't you write that down and we'll come back to it. But I want to finish with this before we move on to something else. The other thing. Write that down. Yes, right. Yeah. So this is something I have found over and over in blog comments and and in personal conversations. So just stay on track. And it's hard. It's hard for them and it's

hard for you because you're going to want to answer. Especially if you know a few things. You know, you want to tell everybody everything. You know, I get that one. And by the way, when you do come to a fairly clean solution in terms of characterizing your view the best way possible, it might be helpful at that point to just say this. Does that make sense to you? Does that make sense to you. Now, one of two things is going to happen. If it doesn't make sense, they're going to tell you why. Now, you maybe want to follow up on that or not. Or they're going to say, yeah, it makes sense to you. Okay, well, good. If that makes sense to you, then are you happy to abandon this challenge in the future because I've just answered it? Now, this is an integrity question. And I know there's

people that have, because I know they're in public view, challengers, skeptics, whatever, that they get an answer. That is a good answer. And they just don't acknowledge that it's a decent answer. They just repeat the same question over and over and over again, you know. So, and that's even after it's been answered. Anyway, go ahead. What's your next one? Okay. So my next one is, and not everyone will have this problem, but if you're more empathetic, you might have this problem. Also, I think as our culture has moved in the direction of never, of equating, affirming people with love, this gets harder. It gets harder to tell people that you think they're wrong about what they believe. So just be prepared for that emotional difficulty. I remember for a class on Mormonism,

I had to go out and talk to these Mormon missionaries. And I was not prepared. I was prepared with all my ideas with my argument, with how to have my argument. But when these guys came in there and they were so excited and so happy and like, oh, you're, you want to hear about Mormonism and they were just so excited. And the idea of like deflating them was hard for me. I think this has gotten easier over time as you figure out how to do that. But this kind of, and again, not everyone's going to have this, but it's very hard to tell people they're wrong, like emotionally in this culture. and depending on how empathetic you are. So be prepared for that. I remember I asked my professor, it was Kevin Lewis. And I said, man, I wasn't ready for that. And he said, just picture them burning in hell. Sounds like Kevin.

Which in reality, I mean, that's the truth. And what he was saying was love isn't keeping them comfortable. Love is telling them the truth and telling them about the rescue. that from the fate that is waiting for them. So you've got to remember why you're doing this and what the consequences are if you don't do this. And so I think that's a way of combating this kind of hesitation to tell people that they're wrong. Sure. Just remember, love is not keeping people comfortable.

Right, right. Love is telling them the truth and showing them the rescue. And then next, Greg, you touched on this one, not getting defensive. And I've found this to be unbelievably helpful. When you don't get, when you're not acting in a defensive way and you don't get agitated, you can say pretty much anything, depending, of course, on who you're talking to, but you can say all these things if you say them without, you know, in a way that will bring up their defensiveness. Right. It's just so key. Without an edge on it. Yeah. Yeah. But people can tell when you

start getting agitated and defensive and they will respond the same way. But I remember when I was having Mormon missionaries come over to my apartment for a long period of time, I could say anything. I could say, well, I really don't think Joseph Smith is a prophet. I could say anything and they would consider it and respond as long as I didn't get defensive. And I think that's true for most people. There's a, I think there's a way, a little, in a sense, trick that will help you to do that. And that is to pause after the other person's point is made. I think when we get riled up, we're, you know, you can even see it.

We got the words on our lips. We're leaning forward. We're ready to penetrate. to jump in. We're not in a relaxed listening mode. Now, by the way, I understand this completely. And even if this is my attitude on the inside, and I think, oh, man, that was really weak cheese.

I got a great response to that. If you just give it a beat or two before you respond and then respond slowly in a measured fashion, it is so much more compelling. And by the way, it is helpful. too to just pause for your sake to give thought to what has just been said. And I think that the defensive person is always jumping in, borderline steamroller, interrupting, okay? That's defensiveness. All right. If you pause and you listen, I mean, even if it's the beat is just two seconds, well, let me give you

my thoughts about that after you paused, then go ahead and offer them. I think it's much easier. to avoid sounding defensive. And I don't want to get too far off this defensive point because I have another point about that. But just since you brought up listening, listening is so important. I've seen people have a set answer that they want to give. And they're quick to give that answer, but they didn't realize that the question that was being asked wasn't the question that requires that answer because they were so ready to give this pat answer that they were ready to give.

So listening is so important, and giving it a space, like you said, is good to help you think through what they're saying. Also, and there is a little bit of a dynamic, and I was witnessing last night as I saw this last night as I was listening to an online, very successful, atheistic YouTuber, questioning some Christians in a fairly amicable manner. But, and that is that the dynamic is if someone shoots an objection at you, and there is a long pause before you respond. This is part of the dynamics of live interaction if they're in front of other people. If there's a long pause because you don't know how to respond, this works in their favor. It's like, oh, gotcha, gotcha. This is the way people are thinking.

And a lot of folks, that's what they're after. They're after a gotcha moment, okay? And I think one way to take the barbs out of that is to look, is to be thoughtful, not have in your eyes kind of panic, oh, like this, but to be thoughtful and say, well, you know what, that's a good, that's a good question. I haven't really thought about that for, let me think about this for a few moments, and then maybe ask some clarification questions. And then after you get a little clarification, you might just simply say, you know what, I don't know how to respond to that right now. I have to give it more thought. And then leave it

there. It doesn't, though the consequence is the same, you don't have an immediate answer. It seems to play differently to the listeners, to the audience. And another thing, I, does that make sense? Yeah. And one thing I often hear you say in those situations, you'll say, you'll explain why you're pausing. So you'll say, well, I'm pausing because I want to figure out how best to explain this or how to answer this. And so you're kind of narrating that as you're working out how you're going to respond. So I think that's helpful. And there's, and there's some parts of this that are role-playing it now, I might say, well, there's some parts that are easy to get to, but other, the core of your question, this is a bit of an imponderable to me. So let me see if I can answer

a couple little things that might move us in the direction. Now, you might not have anything to offer. And then it's just fair to say, you know, I'm thinking about it. And I haven't thought about that one. That's a good, that's a fair question. Okay. Now, sometimes questions come up that are curious, they're questions that are curious about the divine nature and what God's up to and all that. But they're imponderables. And you don't have to answer all the imponderables to make the case for the truth of theism, because we're not going to be able to figure out everything. C.S. Lewis says, you know, lots of times I think about Christianity, and it just seems so unlikely to me. But then I remember there are all kinds of times when I thought about

atheism, it seems so unlikely to me, too. There's going to be loose ends. in every worldview. And so being able to acknowledge that and to shrug off the things that you can't speak to at the moment and say, well, that's a fair question. I'll have to think about that is a way of, in a sense, diffusing the awkward moment, the awkward gotcha moment, which some people are after, all right? I didn't have a sense that in this particular talk I was listening to that that was the attitude of the atheist.

But nevertheless, that's the way it is a lot of times. gladiator events, who can draw first blood kind of thing. So to go back to the defensive thing, I have a couple ideas of how you can keep from getting defensive. And the first one is to focus on making your point clear rather than persuading. Sometimes when we are intent on getting them to change their minds, we get more and more upset. We get more and more agitated. But if you're going to. is I want to leave this conversation with their having understood exactly the claim I'm making. And that's it. Whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do with that, he can do with that. But my goal is just to explain my position so that he can explain it back to me and he's heard my response. He doesn't have to agree with me. He doesn't have to believe in it. And that's my goal. That was very helpful for keeping the conversation less defensive and agitated. Dennis Prager calls that clarity, but not agreement.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a great rule. And you can even make that explicit in your conversation and say, look, I don't expect that I'm going to convince you today, but I do want you to understand me and we can work towards that. And then they don't feel pressured either. Right. So I think that's a very helpful way to do it. The second thing, and I think this is really important, is to remember that the way you respond is how you're representing Christ. And when I say this, I don't just mean you want to be nice so that you don't tarnish his reputation.

What I mean is as an apologetic for his character, responding to people who are upsetting you or reviling you, responding in a way that's gracious and kind, is an apologetic for the character of Christ. So remember that that is an actual apologetic that's happening while all these other things are going on. So you want to respond. Think of all the ways that God has told us of how we are supposed to act towards others. Gentleness and reverence. Yes. And no matter how they are reviling you or insulting you, you don't respond in kind because you are showing them who Christ is. And that is a way to keep you on track if you keep the reason for it in mind. Right. Excellent. Okay. We're way over. Greg. We only got through one question. but we'll do another one in the next episode. One question with lots and lots of answers to it, right?

Of course, this is something we've thought about a lot. And some of this, you just learn by doing it. You just have to learn it. Learn by doing it poorly. Yes. And don't be afraid to mess up. That's the thing. You don't expect to be where someone who, like Greg,

has been doing this for decades to be in the same place he is. You learn over time and you learn from your mistakes. So don't be afraid to make mistakes. I'm still learning from my mistake, so it's an ongoing process. All right. Well, thank you, Josh, and thank you for listening. Send us your question on X with the hashtag STR Ask or go to our website at STR.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kogel for Stand to Reason.