William P. Broughton

The Historical Development of Legal Apologetics with an Emphasis on the Resurrection William P. Broughton

The Historical Development of Legal Apologetics This book will indicate that legal apologetics has a history that is co-extensive with Christianity itself. It is unified by faith and reason and requires a fact-based defense that seeks probable judgment rather than absolute certainty but nevertheless would be conclusive in a court of law. It will provide a comparative examination of the legal model as a form of evidentialism and alternative models or "schools". There are many clear contrasts among apologetic approaches, for example evidentialism is definitely J. W. Montgomery's approach and presuppositionalism is definitely the approach of Cornelius Van Til. However this book is not only about the differences between evidentialism and presuppositionalism since there are other models to consider, each of which adopts a model different from both the evidentialist approach and the presuppositional approach. This work concludes with an assessment of how closely a Montgomery-type legal apologetic accords with the specific needs of the historical era in which it has emerged and ascended from the 1960's to the present. Apologetics is the response to the central claims that the faith faces from inside and outside the Christian religion. The resurrection of Jesus' is assaulted from many quarters. Furthermore large scale secularism and pluralism has resulted with the development of large scale multi-culturism in our society. Legal apologetics focuses squarely on proving the factual reality of Jesus resurrection and is an apologetic which is particularly well suited to our times with its emphasis on factual evidence. BILL BROUGHTON received his B. A. from Concordia University in Montreal Canada, his M. Div. from McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and his D. Min from Trinity Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana. He is a retired pastor in the United Church of Canada and lives in Arnstein Ontario with his wife Bonnie.