I’ve been pondering recently some of the limitations of evidentialist apologetics.  The problems become readily apparent when unsympathetic sceptics (Hitchens, Dawkins, Atkins et al) insist that apologists provide detailed and irrefutable evidence for this or that Christian claim (everything from the existence of God, say, to the reality of ‘miracles’).  But it seems that the a priori commitments of convinced atheists are such that no evidence would satisfy them.  They are either unable or unwilling to imagine their way into thinking about things from a theistic perspective.

Debates that proceed on purely evidentialist lines therefore tend to reach impasse pretty quickly.

A complementary (I don’t say necessarily alternative) line would be to take a world view approach.  This would deal less with evidences, and more with the assumptions and implications of contrasting views of the world.

Much good work has been done in recent years in comparing the Christian world view with other world views (I think of James Sire, Albert Wolters, and Arthur F. Holmes, for example).  Holmes takes us right back to the Scottish theologian James Orr, whose aim in his book The Christian View of God and the World was to show

that there is a definite Christian view of things, which has a character, coherence, and unity of its own, and stand in sharp contrast with counter theories and speculations, and that this world-view has the stamp of reason and reality upon it, and can amply justify itself at the bar both of history and of experience.

Arther F. Holmes, Contours of a World View, IVP, p13.