Taking Presup to the Streets with Ricky Roldan

Presuppositional Apologetics and the Need to Translate It for the Street

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala. And today I have another guest with me, but before I announce that guest, I want to direct your attention to a previous episode that I had with Joshua Pillows, where we talk about some really interesting stuff.

We talk about presuppositional apologetics broadly and generally, and then we narrow in the discussion with respect to responding to various objections. One specific objection known as the Stroudian objection, which is understood by many people to be a very strong criticism of presuppositional argumentation, transcendental argumentation, things like that.

And that was a very, very practical discussion. I actually thought it would be more abstract and difficult for people to follow because what the heck is a Stroudian objection? Who the heck is Stroud? And so I thought it was going to be a little bit more complicated, but we ended up having a great, like down to earth sort of discussion where we unpack some stuff that I think is very, very easy for folks to glean some really helpful tips in terms of understanding the nature of presuppositional apologetics and the nature and uniqueness of Van Til's transcendental approach.

So you definitely want to check out that episode. Well, today I have Ricky Roldan on who is a gentleman that I've met through the Facebook page that he has, Reformed Presuppositional Apologetics, I think that's what it's called.

And it's an awesome Facebook page where I've benefited greatly from Ricky and from other people who have been on there. They're just a great group of guys where you can just learn and ask your questions.

And there's so many different resources there. You definitely want to check that out. But when you're introduced to Ricky, you will learn very quickly why he's just someone that I had to have on. Now, here's the thing.

You guys have heard me talk about transcendental reasoning, presuppositional apologetics, antithesis, neutrality, autonomy, all these philosophical, you know, jargon, which is important by the way. But Ricky is really good at taking those things because he's very knowledgeable in those areas, but he's very good at taking it to the streets, kind of taking those concepts and really just speaking about them in a way that the average Joe could understand.

And that's what we need to do. We need to be able to bridge the gap between academia and the person on the street, okay? And so I think Ricky is an excellent person to do that. He's a godly man, knows his scripture, and he has definitely been an encouragement to me over the, would I say years or at one year?

I don't know, maybe I'll get him on. Let's see. Let's get Ricky on. There we go. How's it going, Ricky? What's up, man? How long have we been, you know, Facebook message and phone calls? It's been a few years.

Yeah, it's been a few years, right? I'm kind of thinking, like, I don't remember when we first started.

Well, you first started calling me when you was kind of like, you know, Van Til, Clark, and That's right. Worked through those things together, so. Okay. I was in the same boat, you know, so.

That's right, that's right. And most people who study presuppositional apologetics, they definitely run into the Clarkian version, and it becomes very interesting. And, you know, a lot of people sway back and forth, but when you get things all sorted out, you know that Van Til was right, and that's the way to go.

That's right. That's right. So why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself? Perhaps something that I didn't mention, maybe a little bit of background information, and then we'll jump right into our discussion.

Sure. So basically, you know, I was raised in a Christian home. My father was a minister. And hold on, I got this little, some kind of, all right, something popped in my window. So I was raised in a Christian home.

You can, in the name of Jesus. Yes. You know, bro, you're supposed to rub, you're supposed to rub the oil on the four corners of your screen, bro, so that doesn't happen. You don't get no viruses.

All right. Perfect. All right, all right, good, good. Go for it. Yeah, so basically my father was a minister since I was, since I can remember. He started off as a Pentecostal minister in my young elementary years.

Long story short, you know, he became reformed, part of the PCA when I was little. Okay. So I was a preacher's kid. He was studying, working full-time, and studying to be a minister, to be ordained in the PCA at the same time.

So, and from there, you know, I did my own thing. I was rebellious, you know, I ran the streets, and wanted to rather, you know, hang out with my buddies and do stupid stuff. So one of those things, you know, the preacher's kid, they say, oh, they're the worst.

So it was like, well, in my case, yeah. But there's always that lingering, you know, teaching that they always doing little devotionals at the house and everything. So that always stuck in my head. But I finally became Christian around when I was 20 years old and, well, I say that that's when I know I made that conscious decision to say, hey man, I gotta pump the brakes and I have to put my life in the hands of Christ.

It was one night I was reading the book of Romans. It's funny, because I only went to the Bible because I met some guys at a concert. Okay. Christian concert, they invited me, some friends from a local area, which later I became part of their group, Remnant Militia, a Christian hip hop.

But they were talking about the rapture and all this stuff. And I knew being in the PCA church that, you know, we were not dispensational or whatever. So I was like, oh yeah, mind you, I didn't care. But I was like, you know what, give me a week and I'm gonna prove you guys wrong.

Right. So here I am, thug off the street, opening the Bibles and I'm going to Revelation. Revelation was taking me a lot to Romans. Okay. So I'm reading Romans and, you know, all this stuff about, you know, like Romans three, four, five, just kept going and going.

And I was like, man, I am a wretched sinner. And that's the night I broke down and I gave my heart to the Lord. And from there I started wanting to preach the gospel to my buddies in the street, you know, my hangout, the corner where, you know, we did our thing over there and they thought I was nuts, you know, because one day to the next, you know, they're like, what are you smoking?

Let me get some of that, man. I'm like, nah, man, I'm being for real. And from there, you know, just kept studying. And in about 1996, I started the Urban Reform Ministries. Okay. And my thought process was this, man, because, you know, being, growing up in a reformed church, you hear a lot of, you know, academic terminology and theology, listening to my dad teach and him giving me R .C. Sproul videos.

And then my mom, like, you know, the person in our culture, it's not gonna run over to a Christian bookstore. And pick up Van Til, you know, Gordon Clark or R .C. Sproul or, you know, Lorraine Bittner, Burt Call for Hodge and, you know, Bavinck.

And they're like, they're not gonna do that. I'm glad though, these days things have changed. Things have progressed to where we're able to now to have these things, even the urban culture is wanting to dive into these things.

Sure. And I give that credit to, of course, God, the Holy Spirit, but through using the Christian hip hop music throughout the years, Calvinist rappers coming out and talking about these words and, you know, election and predestination and what is this, limited atonement, what's going on with that?

And it caused people to dive into that. And there's been a, how you say, an awakening within the urban culture Sure. For reform theology, which I find to be, you know, a great thing. But when I was doing it, you know, I was like the only person in the urban culture doing reform stuff, you know, reform in my lyrics and in the concerts and the preaching and the debating at concerts and things like that.

And my thought was that, that I wanted to take the heavy language, the terminology, learn it, absorb it. Sure. But when I used to study in the beginning, I had the Bible, I had a dictionary, a thesaurus, a Bible dictionary, you know, add all these books out to make sure I knew what these words meant.

And I thank God for R .C. Sproul because I was a Ligonier junkie. I still am, you know.

Well, real quick. Did you pick up the R .C. Sproul, the life? There's like a biography that just came out. I did. Yeah.

I was waiting for that to come out. Yeah. But what I appreciate about Sproul's books is that he would have certain words highlighted throughout the book. Sure. And you could go to the back of the book and he tells you what all these words meant.

And that was super helpful for me in my walk and in my study in the Reformed faith. So my thing was, I wanted to absorb it, learn it, and then bring it to the urban community and teach it in a way where we can understand.

Now, I don't mean by that, that the urban culture or the urban citizens, as I call it, like people like us is that, oh, we're just dumb. We don't know these words and we don't know how to read. That's not what I'm getting at.

But my point is getting that interested in wanting to learn these things. How does that relate to me? How does that relate to my everyday life and my struggles in the urban community? Things like that.

So I brought that up to my session in the PCA. They loved it. They were like, oh, this is part of, this needs to be done. Sure. So long story short, I started the Urban Reformed Ministries doing blogs.

And before all this great technology that's happening now, all we had was websites with checkrooms back in the day. I was always on the Puritan board. Yes. I was always on the Puritan board talking to elders and ministers and professors.

And I learned a lot from them going back and forth and asking questions. To this day, I still ask questions. So basically that's what my heart is, is to bring the gospel first and foremost to the urban context and bringing reformed theology to the urban context.

Teaching the words, but also giving the definitions and just explaining it in a way, easy to understand. That's why you see me on online and I'll do those things. I'll, might be a small paragraph. Some guys be like, man, you throw everything into two sentences.

I said, well, yeah, well, that's what I'm trying to do. Sure. It's not like I'm being lazy. I'm trying to bring it, condense it down to where it's understandable, but also it gets the point across. You know what I'm saying?

Well, I I've been doing it ever since, man. Started the reformed presupposition apologetics page. Sure. That's been growing. People have been learning and I just doing my thing, man. That's all. Well, definitely.

People should definitely check out the podcast and really the Facebook page. There's just so much there. Even in the file section, when I finally learned what the, there you go. See, your logo is cooler than mine.

Oh my goodness.

It's like, dang, bro. Shout out to Arturo Hurtado. Okay. He made it for me. All right, very good. Yeah. Redeem Project Radio. Looks awesome, man.

How to Simplify Presuppositional Language for Ordinary Believers

Yeah, it just resonated very much with something you just said. When I had interacted a little bit with Dr. John Frame on Facebook, and no, we're not, we're not buddy-buddy. I just, every now and then I'll, he doesn't seem too happy.

He's retired and seems bothered when people reach out to him.

That's true. I had these conversations with him too. He's like, dude.

He'll go, I don't want to go into a big back and forth, but let me answer your question. Then he'll give me like two paragraphs and he goes, there you go, you did it. I already wrote more than I wanted to.

And I got a little bit, a little nugget out of him where I was like, all right, I'm not going to ask you. So I won't bother him until next year. We'll see. Well, you have to, you have to strategically, you know, bother him at one point and then wait a couple of months and then bother him again.

But he said, he said one of the things that he wished that presuppositionalists got better at is that when we do presuppositional apologetics, we don't always have to bring the unbeliever through the history of epistemology to make our point.

And that really is the issue of simplifying. I think a lot of presuppositionalists have gotten their steady diet of Bonson videos and Bonson lectures, and those things are super important in laying that foundation.

But I think we need to do a better job in learning how to take off the training wheels of Bonson's language and contextualize the concepts where we are. Now, would you say that when you became a Christian, that that, because I know you read a lot of Van Til, Bonson, you listened to the lectures and things like that.

How quickly did you find the necessity to contextualize these lofty concepts that you were learning in the specific context that you found yourself in?

Yeah, well, listening to them, examples will pop up in my head, and I'll just write them down. And how do I simplify that? How do I take that in and simplify it to where it can be understood by the layman?

And we're all pretty much laymen who don't have any, bunch of degrees on our walls, things like that. But yeah, it's pretty much it. I would think about what you're saying. Sometimes I'll rewind it, listen to it again, rewind it, listen to it again, many times over.

Or when I'm reading, I'll read it again. If I don't understand it, I go back, try to read it slowly and get the picture and then condensed it. Because sometimes, as you know, when you're reading books, theology books, they tend to, and I don't mean this in a mean way, but it's just the nature of academia, that they beat around the bush.

They'll make the point here in the first paragraph to say, okay, this is the main topic of the chapter, and then, and then at the end, it's the conclusion, but there's a lot of things in the middle.

That it's filler. You have to sell books. I mean, you gotta have content, you know? Right, right. It does not exist.

Yeah. 200 pages, you know, working stuff.

It just says, yeah, pages are blank. A pamphlet. Yes.

So, you know, just doing things like that, understanding words and looking it up. And that's why I tell people, and I tell it to my son, who's getting into all this, sometimes it's like, I don't, you know, all these words, I said, remember, you use, you know, the dictionary, and once you understand the word, now you can understand how it's being used in the context of what they're talking about.

That's very important. You know, definitions are vital to understanding context of what somebody's trying to say. And that's pretty much it, man. I believe that the Lord has called me to do this. Because sometimes, let's be real, sometimes there's a struggle, you wanna give up.

You're like, ah, man, you know, this, this, that. But then there's that tug that said, no, you gotta keep going. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep doing this. And may the Lord use it how he wishes, whether it reaches a few, a lot, one, two, it's, there's a reason why, you know, God is using these things.

Why Presuppositional Apologetics Fits an Urban Context

Now, when people get into apologetics, it can be very intimidating for a lot of people because of the vocabulary, because of the kinds of people who do it, like very educated people, things like that.

I remember you said something to me a while back, a couple of years ago, I think. And you said to be careful of the temptation of comparing yourself with people who are learned in the eyes of the world.

And you said something to that effect. And it stuck with me. I don't know if you might not remember you said that, but how do people overcome, like someone from an urban context that you don't have the fancy terminology.

I mean, someone's really like street, but they love the Lord and they wanna defend the gospel. Like how does someone overcome once they're exposed to this world of apologetics? How do they overcome that intimidation factor of comparing themselves with other people?

Well, I can only give you an example from my experience. I know what it is. Just always remembering the beginning, remembering what I'm doing, remembering why I'm doing this in the first place. Sure. There is that temptation to, and it happens a lot.

And this is no knock. I don't wanna step on nobody's toes, but I've had friends in the urban context and they just kind of like, just leave it to the side. They leave it. And now they're more, they're different.

I get it. Listen, to each his own, but there's that temptation to not wanna deal with the urban community. It's too hard. This is too hard stuff. And people in this culture are hard headed. You gotta be more aggressive and it's true.

It's a different, people think that this is just a bunch of guys who wear baggy pants, big shirts and listen to rap music. No, there's a lot more to it than that. There's an identity. There's a culture within, it's a subculture within the American culture that actually, and what I like about it is that it brings all races and nations together into one culture, right?

I'm Latino. I got a Puerto Rican culture, within the American culture that includes the hip hop community. But within the hip hop communities, black, white, Asian, European, African, I've gotten emails from Australia, South Africa, Russia, Israel, when I was heavily into the Christian hip hop scene.

And I said, man, look how beautiful that is that it just unites. Now we can just get them all to understand that, bring them into the Christian arena of hip hop you know, so they can have music that is more edifying to their minds and to their soul and to their heart.

You know, so the urban Christian community, it's hard because there's a lot of things we have to deal with, right? You gotta deal with all kinds of cults, false religions, mysticism, that's all engulfed within the urban community.

So apologetics is super important in our ministry because there's a lot of different, you know, I say punches, you gotta know how to bob and weave and block because they're coming from all over the place.

You know, it's not just, you know, how do we do with Islam or Mormonism? It's stuff that don't even exist anymore. That's been dying out, you know, that I was dealing with when I was younger, you know, younger in the faith.

Sure. Now, how has the Bible informed your apologetic and how you engage people in the context that you're in? So how do you contextualize your apologetic and your knowledge of the Bible to the specific context that you're in?

Because again, when we speak of presuppositional apologetics, I mean, that's a big old fancy terminology, but we really believe it's biblical apologetics. How do you meld those things together and apply it in your specific context?

Well, depending on who I'm speaking to, depending on what I'm discussing with who, what are they into to kind of find out what is their views? You know, they're Christian, not Christian, or they're in a sub-Christian category, like in a cult or a false religion, atheism and narcissism, it just depends.

So you're dealing with a guy and he's like, yo, Ricky, man, I don't trust that Bible stuff. You know, Bible's written by a bunch of white people who trying to oppress us, you know, how do you deal with like, granted, within the urban community, it's not people are dumb, they're people who are smart.

They just don't articulate it because of just where they are, you know what I'm saying? Like people ask Or they're scared to. Ignorant questions, informed questions, questions where it's, you need to be able to like think on your feet.

Like if you're just chilling with a dude and the guy's like, yo, I don't, you know, they come up with the, well, let's take the wacky example, okay? Man, the Bible is written by, you know, a bunch of white people who trying to hold us down.

That's why I can't believe the Bible. How do you engage someone who says something like that?

Yeah, well, first of all, I correct them on their world history, on the history of Christianity, explain to them this, you know, it's not written by a bunch of white people, you know, but, well, that Christianity is a white man's religion and things like that, kind of remind them of all the, you know, Africans and the early church Christians or many were, haven't even seen a white person before, you know, and, you know, in Africa and Egypt and things like that.

So I kind of just, I'll throw that in there real quick to make them like, go look that up. But then I'll just get into the issue about the Bible. You said the Bible, I'll explain to them what inspiration means.

I'll explain to them that, you know, yes, it's written by men, but it's ultimately inspired by the Holy Spirit. What does inspired mean? You know, things like that.

And then How do you know that, bro? How do you know? Yes. As a bunch of white preachers told you, you see what I'm saying? Like that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do a little role play and interact with some of that.

Because I think in my, I mean, I don't do apologetics a lot in an urban context, but I have interacted with people from that context. And so you'll get stuff that's like a curve ball. Like you're like, oh, that's a random, you know.

I'll give you a good example of one.

That's kind of not around anymore as much. Okay. But in the nineties, which by the way, you know, the urban context thing, I kind of say, well, anybody who's in the urban community, whether you're skate rats or hip hop or heavy metal and these sub genres or even academic world.

Because I know, I tell people I'm bilingual. I know how to speak to the academics and I can speak to, you know, those Speak academically. You could mix them together. I can, you know, sit there and use the big words when I have to, when I'm dealing with people, especially my denomination.

And they're like, I didn't know you knew that. And they're like, ah, there you go. So, but one, this religion is called Holy Tabernacle Ministries. Okay. And it was a subset of the 5 Nation of Islam, which I dealt with a lot in the nineties.

I've gotten to debates with them on the street when they're in winter and where I live in Florida. I used to go on the weekends and preach the gospel on the street to whoever who would listen. But in my way were the 5 %ers who will come, you know, with the bow ties and their bean pies and their newspaper, the last trumpet, you know, the Islamic 5 %er newspaper, Farrakhan and things like that.

And we will get into debates and even fighting for people's attention. That's how rough it is. To the point where you have to watch your back because mind you, I'm in the hood. So you gotta be careful.

So Holy Tabernacle Ministries will claim that we are reptilians. Mind you, this is a serious religion.

Did you say reptilians?

Reptilians in human form, right? That's gangster right there.

That's that crazy stuff, dude.

So we are originally, according to this religion, which again, with many 5 %ers were mixed within this, that we're actually for the planet Titan and that we are reptilians in human form. And seven, in the end, God will return in a spaceship, seven spaceships will come and take us back to planet Titan, which is the real heavens.

So I had to deal with people like that on the street, online and around my circle. And one time I went to, this guy knew me, he came up to me while I was there on the weekend, talking about Christ and telling them how Islam was garbage and that's the way we had to talk.

Listen, let me tell you something, brother. Within the hood, ain't no time for all this watered down beat around the bush, nicey-nicey politically correct evangelism. We got no time for that because the Muslims are ripping apart Christianity with no shame.

So, and not that you wanna stoop to a level, but you have to be aggressive and now they will drown you out. They would, you know, vocab alone, I'm sure he can relate to what I'm saying. So a guy came up to me, I knew in school, he was like, listen, Rick, my teacher is gonna prove that Jesus never resurrected.

Now these were regular five percenters. Okay. But some of them were into the Holy Tabernacle Ministries too, where they had little pamphlets. So they invited me, they wanted me to come because they wanted to prove to me that Jesus never resurrected using Paul in Corinthians 15.

Oh, that's interesting. That's like, I'm gonna show you a magic trick. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. That's a very good way to disprove the resurrection, but okay.

In my head, I'm like, okay. So I show up a few days later, is at the person's house, the teacher's house. And I sit there and they're passing out their, you know, passed out Bible. I have my own Bible.

I had the Reformation Study Bible. Okay. Back then when it first came out. And you go on through 15. So he goes to that one verse where it says, if Christ is not raised, this is all in vain. So he did it.

He just went to one verse and said, see, even the Christian's hero, the apostle Paul said that Jesus never resurrected, that the Christianity is in vain and yada, yada, yada. He went on and on. And the guys were like, oh, you know, I could see them kind of looking at me and I'm sitting there.

It's like 10 of them all around me. I'm the only Christian there. And I'm like, okay. And I'm like, you know, can I go? Can I respond to that? You gotta be respectful. I'm in their house. You know, I'm not trying to be crazy.

So I say, yeah, go ahead. And I went, got up with the Bible and I said, okay, let's read from verse one. Mm-hmm. So I read the whole context and I showed where he was being, you know, sarcastic when he was saying that.

And that his point is that Jesus did raise from the grave. And I was, you know, I showed them that in the context, that Jesus is the first fruits and we will be raised. And I started preaching the gospel and the guy got up, the owner of the house, the teacher, got a nine millimeter and put it to my head while I'm talking.

So he takes the nine millimeter, cocks it, puts it to my head. And I'm like, okay. He's like, I should just make you submit to Allah or kill you here on the spot. And I tell you some, this, I was overwhelmed with, I don't even know how to explain it beyond.

I know it was the Holy Spirit, but it was this confidence of courage just came. I was like, pull the trigger because I'm not submitting to nobody but Christ. Wow. In front of the people, they're like, and one of my, the friend who invited me was kind of trying to, hey man, calm down.

What are you doing? He felt embarrassed. Sure. Because I proved them wrong. Just reading the context of the verse. And he shoved me out the door. He's all right. He put the gun down. He kicked me out the door and shoved me.

I fell on the ground and got in my car and I'm driving and realizing what just happened. I was like, I was driving home. I had to pull over because that courage and confidence went away. It like lifted.

Oh my goodness. I just. I was like, all I did was like, oh, oh. Oh my goodness. I said, I went and told my, you know, wife and my parents, yo, this just happened to me. They were like, no, don't go over there no more.

No, don't do that no more. You're going to get killed. I said, I can't, I can't stop. I'm not, I'm not scared of them. So that's, that's an example of apologetics and polemics within a urban context like that.

How do you do apologetics with a gun to your head? That's a, that's a technique. I don't think, oh wait, actually Bonson did. Bonson did teach us how to avoid the gunshot. If you remember, I can teach you how to dodge bullets.

You know, I could teach you to move. I don't know if you remember that in his lecture. I could teach you to shift to the side or I can teach you how to take the gun out of the person's hand. Unfortunately, he was using it metaphorically.

So I don't know if that would have worked, but how do you, how do you priest up a guy with a gun to your head?

Well, I'll tell you, you know, when, when when I first started doing the actual apologetics. Okay. Within, I wasn't priest up at the time. I was very classical. I was Ligonier. I was, you know, R .C. Spro, John Gerstner.

There was my two guys, you know John Gerstner was R .C. Spro's mentor. Right. And he had videos I would watch on classical apologetics. And that's the method I will use. And I wish I knew what I knew now back then.

Because when you're online dealing with atheists and false religions, it's like, I used to get frustrated a lot because here I am trying to get the person to at least understand that there's a higher being, you know, by using the cosmological argument, you know the resurrection evidence, all these things.

But I always found that they had something to say about it. They always, they always said, well, that, you know that doesn't prove there's a God and this and that. Then finally, when I started understanding years later that's about five, six, seven, even 10 years later I'm starting to hear about what this presupposition through Gordon Clark.

And so a few guys I knew were Clarkians, Clarkians. What is that? Oh yeah. Dr. Clark. Oh, I know Dr. Clark. The first, one of the first books I've read was what do Presbyterians believe? And it was his commentary on the Westminster confession of faith.

And I will study that. Like I read that book like 10 times, you know, I say, yeah I know, but I didn't hear of this scripturalism and Clarkianism, presuppositionalism. I was like, what in the world is that?

And they were explaining it to me. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. Then I started to realize, wait a minute I'm doing apologetics without using my sword. You know, I have a sword that God gave me to use and to yield.

And here I am putting it down and my shield of faith because I have to be neutral to talk to the atheists because then he's, that's the mentality I had. He's not going to talk to me if I start with God if I start with the Bible, because I'm just, I'm using what I'm supposed to prove.

Right. So that's just circular, you know that's the mentality I had until I started to realize it's not all even about that. It's about being faithful to the verse that tells me you know, give a reason for the faith that is in you not in a faith that's general first then you can get to the faith that's in you.

It was like, wait a minute, that's backwards. I start, I have to start in mind I didn't understand the starting points, approximate point. I didn't, I still wasn't there yet. But, but, but what hit me in my head reading that scripture was I'm not defending the God of the Bible.

I'm defending a general deity to eventually get to the God of the Bible. Then as I started reading Clark, became a Clarkian for many years and now my axiom, my axiom is the Bible is the word of God written.

And I will use that axiom and the atheists, well, but you can't use the Bible. Nope, wait a minute, that's my axiom. Your axiom is yours. And you say, you don't have to justify it. Well, my axiom is the Bible is God's word written and I will argue from it, things like that, right?

But then I started reading, started understanding Bonson and asking questions a lot to, to Sai. You know, I would bother Sai every day. What about this? What about that? What about that? He would, he would direct me to Bonson books and things like that.

And I saw this Jeff Durbin guy. I'm like, who's this Jeff Durbin? Looking him up. He was a Ninja Turtle and Mortal Kombat. And I'm like, Ooh man, that sounds like a cool guy. Who's this Jeff Durbin? He was a Ninja Turtle.

Ninja guy, yeah. I started watching his debates, his street evangelism. I was like, man, it's just started to hit home. You know? And when I started reading more of Bonson, Van Til, Dr. Love, I was like, wait a minute.

And this is not a, I'm not going to turn this into a critique to Clarkianism. Sure. I'm just trying to tell you my transition. What I understood, wait a minute. Yes, the Bible is God's word written, but I had to, I had to eventually conclude that.

I had to come to that acknowledgement. And how did I do that? By reading the God's word. Sure. How do I know the Bible is God's word written? Because God said that the Bible is his word written. And I used to ask the Clarkian, wait a minute.

How do you justify that? Oh, we don't have to, it's an axiom. But you had to come to that conclusion. Yeah, but that's, then they go off on a tangent. No, no, something ain't right. Then I started understanding presuppositions and that the God of scripture is self-authored.

You know, he is, and I knew that already because of Reformed theology, but it just didn't, it didn't click until I started understanding presuppositional from the Bantilian view and Bonson, and understanding that God is supreme and he is self-justifying his word.

I said, so that's, because Clarkians like to say, well, whatever your justification is, that becomes your ultimate authority. That's why we have to use axioms. So, well, the difference is that my starting point is also my justification.

So there is no infinite regress of ultimate justifications because the God of scripture is my justification.

Right, nor is it a fideistic starting point.

Nor the fideistic because there's an objective. I believe this, that, you know, the transcendental argument is not only a subjective truth for Christians because we affirm the word of God as the inspired and fallible word of God that's self-attesting, self-authenticating, but also, right, that it's God's living word.

You know, it doesn't come back void.

You see, one of the things that attracted me to the presuppositional approach is, I mean, I say this and you still get pushed back. When I use the presuppositional approach in conversation, not so much in a debate, because you are trying to be more formal and you wanna be at that academic level and you use the terminology and stuff like that.

It just seems to me to be so honoring and glorifying the magnificence of God as a foundation. And you say that to other Christians and then you're critiqued because of your apparent piety. It's like, oh, well, the presuppositionalists, they just wanna, they sound very pious, but it's still irrational.