Common to apologetics discussions is the notion of “good answers” vs “bad answers.”

If you’ve been on the internet for any significant period of time, you’ve come across creators, comments, and debates where someone throws around the phrase “that’s a bad answer” or “that doesn’t answer the problem.” But for whatever reason, no one has stopped to ask: what do we mean by “good answer”?

This has always baffled me. If both parties (assuming good intent) desire to be as objective as possible, then why has this notion of “a good answer” not been unpacked or precisified? It seems like the most obvious and fundamental step to take. And yet, mainstream apologetics never stops to first provide clarity.

Here’s what we don’t want: a good answer being one where the person receiving the answer feels satisfied.

Why? Because that turns something objective into something psychological. If our goal is to track the truth, then why is our litmus test for rationality someone’s psychological state, rather than the merit of the reasons given? That is clearly not the right way to go.

Ultimately, we don’t care about the psychology of answers, but the epistemology of answers.

Epistemology concerns anything to do with giving reasons for a belief. In apologetics, epistemology is the cornerstone of what we do. So the question becomes: what is the right epistemology of answers? And to that, we turn to a fun little concept called “ad hocness.”

You’ve probably heard this term used a lot. “That’s ad hoc!” someone declares, as though the rest of the discussion is now moot. However, there’s quite a bit to say about this concept, and it’s much more nuanced than many make it out to be.

Ad hocness occurs when the explanation given to save the truth of one’s belief(s) cannot be ascertained from the principles within that person’s already-held framework.

In other words: when resisting having one’s belief(s) defeated, if what’s appealed to is not already expected within their system, it’s said to be ad hoc.

Now, you can already see how most who throw around the term do not use it in this rigorous of a manner. Keep note of that.

Let’s use a simple example to flesh this out.

You and a friend decide to hang out for the day. During your time together, you notice how whenever you went to get something to eat, they ordered only vegan options.

Your friend never told you they were vegan. More than that, this is the first time you’ve seen them take interest in vegan options.

You think to yourself, “Why on earth would they eat like this?”

So you do your best to come up with an explanation, and this is what you find:

Background data: your friend is known for loving animals.

New data: they ate vegan options.

So:

Main hypothesis: your friend loves animals.

Assumption: your friend is vegan.

Data: your friend ate vegan options.

Now ask yourself: does the assumption play nicely with the main hypothesis? I think the answer is obviously yes.

Given our account of ad hocness, this setup would survive the charge. Why? Because there are principles internal to the ethics of someone who loves animals that include the commitment to not eat them.

That satisfies our criteria for being a non-ad hoc explanation, which implies we have a good answer to the question originally posed.

Thus, this gives two straightforward definitions of what counts as a good vs bad answer for our apologetic purposes:

Good answer: an explanation that decreases ad hocness.

Bad answer: an explanation that increases ad hocness.

Notice how these definitions lack conditions for persuasion or the feeling of being satisfied?

Instead of dancing like a jester every time someone tells you “that doesn’t satisfy me,” you don’t crumble under the weight of someone’s personal incredulity, instead, you hold them accountable to good epistemology.

Your job isn’t to nurture someone’s feelings. Your job is to be in accordance with reason.

So here’s a formula you can follow to generate any rationally-grounded answer:

The T.A. Method:

Step 1: Target what needs to be answered.

Step 2: Ad Hoc Check.

Step 1: Target

Ask yourself: what needs explaining? Identify the objection.

Some examples include:

• Unnecessary suffering is a problem for Christianity.

• Jesus never claimed to be God.

At this stage, you’re not defending anything. You’re simply isolating the problem.

Step 2: Ad Hoc Check