So these Apologists didn’t go into this, but they tried to answer the philosophical criticism, and did it in a way which tried to show three things. This is the way every apologetic has to work. First of all, if you want to speak with somebody meaningfully, there must be a common basis, some mutually accepted ideas. This truth common to Christians and pagans must first be elaborated. If there is nothing in common between them, no conversation is possible and no meaningful addressing oneself to the pagans is possible. It always must be supposed – and this is a rule for all Christian missionary work – that the other one understands what you say, but understanding is partly participating. If he speaks an absolutely different language, then no understanding is possible. So the Apologists showed that there is something in common.
Secondly, they must show that in the actual ideas of paganism, there are defects. There are things which contradict the ideas even of the pagans themselves. There are things which have been criticized for centuries, even by the pagan philosophers. One shows the negativity in the other one, as the second step of apologetics.
Thirdly, one shows that one’s own position is not to be accepted as something from outside, which is thrown at one’s head – this is not good apologetics, throwing stones – but that Christianity is the fulfillment of what is, as longing and desire, in paganism. (This is) the way in which I work that out in all my systematic theology which I call, consciously, an apologetic form of theology: the relationship or the correlation between question and answer. Only if Christianity answers the existential question in the pagan mind can Christianity be accepted and understood.
