November 22, 2016 Show with Sye Ten Bruggencate on “Presuppositional Apologetics 101”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all happy Tuesday on this 22nd day of November 2016 and I'm delighted after a number of attempts to finally get as a guest today for the first time

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Cy Ten Brugengate and he is a Christian apologist, he's the founder of Absolute Apologetics, he's a well -known conference speaker and producer of the film

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How to Answer the Fool. Today we are addressing Presuppositional Apologetics 101 and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Cy Ten Brugengate.

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Well thanks so very much for having me Chris. By the way is my Dutch pronunciation okay?

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It's not bad, it's not bad. In Dutch it's actually Ten Brugengate but in Canadian, in Canuck, it's Ten Brugengate so that was quite good.

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Okay great. We've actually met twice I think you know that. Yes I do at the conference in Florida was the first time.

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The debate yeah and then in Arizona. No actually I was never in Arizona yet.

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No? No maybe you just met another ugly guy named Chris. I thought we'd met twice so it was the debate and then it was other some other place but I'm...

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Well what it was it was the debate that James White had in Florida with Greg Strawbridge.

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Correct. And then either before or after that it was in Jacksonville at the conference that you spoke at.

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Oh okay. The Jeremiah Cry conference. Right yeah that's it.

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That's where I first met Tony Miano and that's where I also met a number of other people for the first time.

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Jeff Pollard although I had known Jeff for years and have interacted with him by phone and by email

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I had never met him face to face until then. I met Jeff Rose once before because he was on my old radio program when it was broadcasting out of New York and but there were other men that I had just met for the first time there.

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Bobby McCreary was one. Oh dear brothers all of them. Jeff Durbin who has since been on my program several times after that initial meeting there in Jacksonville Florida and I'm looking forward to many more occasions to fellowship with those brethren and you and to hear you speak again and before I even go into our main subject at hand let me announce our email address it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com if you have a question for Si Ten Bruggencate and please give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and if you live outside of the

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USA your country of residence and we appreciate hearing from you.

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You may remain anonymous if it's about a personal or private matter perhaps you're criticizing the church you're a member of because you disagree with them theologically or something that we can understand but if if not please give us at least your first name city and state and country of residence and before we go into the theme at hand presuppositional apologetics 101

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I would like you to give us some information about your personal background the religious atmosphere you were raised in if any and how you came to know the

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Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior what what providential occurrences the

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Lord brought about sovereignly in your life to bring you to that point I was born and raised in a

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Christian home in Toronto Ontario Canada and I don't know a time when I did not know

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Jesus Christ as Lord now I'm not saying as some people suspect that I was born a Christian I don't believe that I was but I believe that I was saved at such a young age that I can't remember that time yes and there are people who criticize that they'll say if you don't remember you know if you don't know when you gave your life to the

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Lord then you're not a Christian and I normally ask them well when did you start loving your mother and if they can't tell me that I say well

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I guess you don't love your mother but I lived in a house where you know I of course my faith had ups and downs throughout throughout my life but I don't know a time when

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I didn't profess Jesus Christ as Lord by his grace yes I actually brought that very topic up very recently

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I interviewed Dr. James R White's daughter Summer White last

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Friday and she was also raised in a Christian home and she has a hard time pinpointing the actual point of her regeneration in her and in her theological journey in life but she did remember some point where the seriousness with which she held her faith radically changed but as we both said on the program it's ridiculous to insist that someone pinpoint the exact date of their conversion as a litmus test for its authenticity that's absolutely absurd when

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Doug Wilson uses the analogy of somebody who's saved from drowning and that might show up at the six o 'clock news but how arrogant would it be for that person to go to somebody who's gone to swimming lessons their entire life every week for their entire life to say well you can't swim because you weren't saved from drowning on the six o 'clock news that's very good yeah

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I like that analogy so you were raised in the in a Christian faith and you can't remember uh when it was that the

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Lord actually radically transformed you because you were so young when it happened assuming assumingly and uh this was a theologically reformed home or was it of a different theological perspective no it's definitely a reformed home but um either

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I was not paying attention in church or reform doctrine was not preached properly in the church that I grew up in and I think it's probably the former it's probably that I wasn't paying attention attention sufficiently because if you asked me 15 years ago

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I would have given you Arminian answers to a lot of questions and by the grace of God he opened my eyes to a reformed apologetic and one thing that James White says is that your theology drives your apologetic but with me it was the exact opposite I came to understand presuppositional apologetics then

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I came to understand the authority of scripture and then I came to understand reformed theology huh that's interesting and so uh from what

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I recall I I believe your discovery of Dr. Greg Bonson the late

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Dr. Greg Bonson had something to do with this uh approach to apologetic yeah absolutely

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I always had a passion for sharing my faith but I was doing it I would say in a matter that was unbiblical and um

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I had a uh website and I was it was a very evidential type website using evidence I was getting very good at the argument and people were loving this

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I was sharing this with Christians before I uploaded it and then I would start using some of these arguments with people out in the streets you know some of my friends at work and I would get them shoved down my throat and you know

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I didn't know why you know I know what now why because a lot of them are terrible arguments but at the time I didn't know why and I actually shelved my website project for about two years and never affected my faith but it affected my desire to share my faith and then about then about two years after that I I still love listening to debate and by the grace of God I um was shown the uh

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Greg Bonson Gordon Stein debate that started a lot of people off in apologetics and I listened to that debate and I knew it was different I didn't know exactly what was going on but I knew it was different and since then

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I've listened to it many times I still get something out of it every time I listen to it but after that I you know I discovered what presuppositional apologetics was

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I googled it and they found a podcast out in California by a friend of mine that gene cook jr and it was called the narrow mind and I became what they call the narrow mind addict and I've been on that show about four times and that's how

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I honed my skill in the apologetic and I met a dear friend of mine Dustin Seegers there's a pastor out in North Carolina it was at the time and we still communicate regularly and we sharpen each other with the apologetic well

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I guess now would be a good time since we've mentioned presuppositionalism a few times already would be a good time to define that and contrast it with evidentialism yeah the thing is it's too bad that they use such a big word to define you know like apologetics and presuppositionalism because people hear those words and they just seem to tune out but the best way that I can describe it is indeed with a contrast and I'll say let's say that you're going to talk to an unbeliever and you put a fossil between a believer and an unbeliever and the believer looks at that fossil and says well no it's flood you know the earth is thousands of years old just look at this fossil and the unbeliever looks at that very same fossil and says oh millions of years look at this fossil they're looking at the exact same evidence but they're coming to different conclusions now why is that it's not because of the evidence because you get phds on both sides we're examining this evidence and they're coming to different conclusions but why are they coming to different conclusions not because of the evidence but because of the beliefs they take to the evidence their foundational underlying beliefs and they will interpret all evidence according to those beliefs so that's those uh fundamental underlying beliefs are what you're called your presupposition so rather than examine the evidence

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I say that we have to examine our presupposition and and according to scripture you know what scripture says that not unless you start with christian presuppositions you can't even make sense of examining evidence so a lot of these tools that jesus christ has given us to examine evidence don't belong to the unbeliever and yet we gladly hand them over and let the unbeliever examine evidence instead of challenging their presuppositions it's like going to a gunfight and they show up with a pea shooter and they make and you hand the gun over to them or you throw your gun away but we shouldn't do that we should stick to the authority of scripture and argue biblically now someone may come to the wrong conclusion hearing you that a presuppositionalist christian does not use evidence when he is declaring the faith when he is involved in debate or dialogue or discussion but that's not true either is it no i would say that the presuppositionalist is the ultimate evidentialist in the way that all evidence points to the existence of god not just some evidence so we are the ultimate evidentialist uh so to speak however we present evidence in a different way and the analogy that i've given many times is i say where do you hear evidence most often presented out in the world you would hear in the court of law and who do you give evidence to in court you give it to the judge or to the judge and the jury now if somebody comes up to you and says i don't believe in god and you present them with evidences in that fashion i say who are you saying is the judge you're saying that the unbeliever is the judge and in what seat in that courtroom do we place the lord of glory we place god in the criminal's box we elevate the unbeliever to the position of judge and we try and convince them in their blasphemous courtroom that god exists with evidences i think that is an incorrect way to use evidences but you can use evidences in a way you know to expose your suppression of truth but sadly most of the people who do an evidential type apologetics do not use evidences in that way they try and use evidences to convince the person that god exists when scripture tells us they already know an example uh i would share of a presuppositionalist apologist who uses evidence during his debates is dr james r white who you've mentioned dr james r white when he is debating roman catholics or muslims or liberals especially if it is a liberal or apostate who claims to use the bible in some fashion as a guide to their ideology he will use evidence of what history has told us and what the bible tells us and the from the original greek and hebrew uh he will point to these things now why is this not a contradiction in terms if he is a presuppositionalist well you know i would say that i would use evidences as well with these different people groups with these different so -called faiths however when when i would do that i would first point out the fact to them what romans 1 says that they are without excuse for their sin against the god that they know exists so i think it's important to be able to deconstruct their worldviews and james white is one of the best at doing that but i think it's also important to tell them the same thing we tell that the professed unbeliever that if you die tonight you're going to meet the god that you know exists because according to romans chapter one it's just not the unbeliever that knows the god it's the roman catholic that knows the god it's the muslim that knows the god it's the mormon that knows the god and too often we just present them with evidences to deconstruct their worldview rather than confronting them with the truth of scripture because i say there's only two worldviews there's god and there's not god and all the not god worldviews i challenge in the same way i say since you deny the god of scripture how are you able to account for or know anything now it's good to be able to deconstruct their worldview however if you have to be that smart to know the intricacies of all these other worldviews then according to scripture jesus said i will give you words and wisdom that your adversaries will not be able to resist to contradict luke 21 15 and if you have to know the intricacies of their worldview to talk to them then the bible is false so it's nice to have those things in your back pocket in your back pocket to be able to deconstruct their worldview but we have to know what scripture says and we have to use the words of jesus christ because jesus did not say in john 10 27 my sheep here size really good argument well you know i'm since a lot of uh presuppositionalism is based on romans 1 i'm just if you don't mind i'm going to read romans chapter 1 if if that's all right with you oh man i would love that paul a bond servant of jesus christ called as an apostle set apart for the gospel of god which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the holy scriptures concerning his son who was born of a descendant of david according to the flesh who was declared the son of god with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the spirit of holiness jesus christ our lord through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among the gentiles for his namesake among you who also are the called of jesus christ to all who are beloved of god in rome called as saints grace to you and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ first i thank my god through jesus christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world for god whom i serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of his son is my witness as to how unceasingly i make mention of you always in my prayers making request if perhaps now at last by the will of god i may succeed in coming to you for i long to see you that i may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established that is that i may be encouraged together with you while among you each of us by the other's faith both yours and mine i do not want you to be unaware brethren that often i have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far so that i may obtain from that i may obtain some fruit among you also even as among the rest of the gentiles i am under obligation both to greeks and to barbarians both to the wise and to the foolish so for my part i am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in rome for i am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god for salvation to everyone who believes to the jew first and also to the greek for in it the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith as it is written but the righteous man shall live by faith for the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about god is evident within them for god made it evident to them for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse for even though they knew god they did not honor him as god or give thanks but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened professing to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible god for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four -footed animals and crawling creatures therefore god gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them for they exchanged the truth of god for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever amen for this reason god gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward each other men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error just as they did not see fit to acknowledge god any longer god gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper being filled with all unrighteousness wickedness greed evil full of envy murder strife deceit malice they are gossip slanderers haters of god insolent arrogant boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents without understanding untrustworthy unloving unmerciful and although they know the ordinance of god that those who practice such things are worthy of death they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them so there in that chapter you have a lot of evidence as we were saying that everything is an evidence of the existence of god and his sovereignty we have right there in the inerrant word divinely inspired by the holy ghost through the apostle paul the fact that men already know the truth of god but they suppress it are you there si yeah exactly i'm glad you read the whole chapter too because a lot of times we just focus on 18 to 21 which is you know dealing with the apologetic however the rest of the verse the rest of the chapter as well because there are people who say well for all that although they knew god and they say it's a past tense that they no longer know god but in verse 30 it says they're gossip they're they're god haters and then in verse 32 it says although they know god's righteous decrees and i'm thinking how can you know those things how can you be a hater of god if you don't know that he exists so i think in romans chapter one it says that everyone is without excuse for their sin against the god that they know exists now when you speak to someone who is claiming to be either an atheist or an agnostic or they have a religion of their own invention which of which i think that most people on the planet earth do have that kind of a they live by their own golden rule where they pick and choose what they want from various ideologies on the planet but when when they will say to you that i i disagree with you you're wrong or i don't i don't have any agreement with you on these teachings against homosexuality or the teaching that jesus christ is god and i must bow to him and worship him and serve him are they forgetting something that they suppressed or how is it that when they how do you respond to them when they may call you either totally misunderstood delusional or a liar by saying that they know these things well i say i hope you don't mind that i believe the word of god over your testimony because the bible says that they have sufficient knowledge of god for their condemnation i have a shirt on my website and it's an atheist shirt and i wear that around says i don't believe in atheists but one thing i keep in mind when somebody comes up to me and says i i really don't believe in god how do you answer someone like that because god in romans 1 says that everyone does believe in him so when they come up to you and say that it's just not an innocent statement that they're giving to you i don't believe in god they're actually blaspheming god they're calling him a liar they're saying what god said in his word is false i do not know that he exists and i'm saying well that's a blasphemy towards god and how do we deal with that people just throw out well let me give you some evidences i say but if somebody came up you know to a person's wife and says you know i think your wife is a prostitute you wouldn't say well you know last night she was making dinner for me so i don't think she was out walking the street the night before that she was at choir practice so i'm pretty sure she wasn't walking the street the night before that she was at her parents house so i don't think i don't think she was walking the street i don't think my wife is a prostitute you wouldn't say that you'd say buddy that's my wife you're talking about you better be very careful careful with your next words and here's somebody comes out and blasphemes god and we act as though nothing has happened blaspheme the lord of glory our god who we worship and we act as though nothing has happened so when somebody comes up and says something like that to me i'll say look i'll have this conversation with you i'll be happy to do that but one thing you have to keep in mind is that when you say that you don't believe in god you're actually blaspheming him and if you walk unrepentant this will this might be the worst day of your life because i'm giving you a lot of truth and people are sent to hell according to the amount of truth that they get and they suppress and scripture says you're suppressing the truth now one thing i want to make clear about romans chapter one as well is that people hear my talks quite often and they'll go out into the street and then an atheist or a professed atheist will come up to them and say i really don't believe that god exists and they say well you're lying well scripture does not say that we have to be very careful with that it calls them truth suppressors now are some of them outright lying that's possible however suppression of the truth is is a different it's a psychological process that is way above my pay scale because then you're talking about first and second order beliefs where they can believe both things but they elevate one and they suppress like scripture says they suppress the other one but greg bonson uses this analogy of you know sometimes you're playing volleyball in a swimming pool and um every once in a while there's a smart aleck who takes that volleyball and he pushes it under the water and he sits on it and he looks he says where's the ball where's the ball what always happens eventually that ball pops up so when somebody comes up to you and says they don't believe in god i say it's important to warn them that they're actually blaspheming god but when we do that and then we can expose that they're suppressing the truth but to do it with love and i think too often when people have such a powerful argument that rather than engage the person lovingly they want to tear their heads off they want to return the favor of the terrible arguments that have been shoved down our throats for our entire lives and they want to return the favor and just win the argument rather than seek to win the person right and when you have someone who professes to be an agnostic or atheist they very often if not most often need to borrow or steal from the worldviews of christians in order to maintain any kind of rational ideology that is in any shape way shape or form appealing to fellow humans such as the the whole concept of goodness and decency there should be no rules for those things if god does not exist one one example of that is something i clearly remember when i arranged a a live public moderated debate on long island between dr james r white and david silverman who is the president of american atheists the organization that madeline murray o 'hare founded and when uh basically david silverman was saying that morality is determined by what what the any given people in any particular region of the earth believe in any particular error of time that is what determines what morality is so so james basically cornered david silverman and he is a jewish atheist someone who identifies ethnically as a jew when when james said to so are you saying to me that if you were being led through the gates of auschwitz the most you could say in protest to that was i find this personally offensive and david silverman agreed yes that is the greatest objection i could give to that uh that occurrence so so that it is true that these people are suppressing the truth and they they find themselves either consciously or unconsciously borrowing or stealing from our our worldview don't they absolutely that was a brilliant exchange between uh uh dr white and david silverman i've met david silverman a number of times and he he doesn't like me very much i don't think he'd ever want to debate me he actually sat in the front row of my debate with uh matt della hunting he just stared at me the whole time so that was quite interesting but i want the listeners to understand too that i think there's a difference between dealing with a hardened atheist in a debate setting and dealing with somebody that you just meet on the street because i've been training this friend of mine in pennsylvania this woman who does regularly evangelism out in the streets with her husband and it's happened to her on two occasions where a professed atheist has gone up to her and said i'm an atheist and she said no you're not and the person just dropped his head he said yeah and you know that's not going to happen with the hardest atheist hardened atheist in the debate setting however when we confront them with the truth of scripture you might be surprised at their reaction i tell the story of um when i first become a presuppositionalist i went out for dinner with a friend of mine and we got to the restaurant and you know we went to the restroom and then we sat down for dinner and just five minutes into sitting down my friend turned to me and he said um by the thing that i hate most about you is how certain you are that god exists that's the kind of friends i have so he said to me how are you so certain that god exists now as an evidential i would have given him paper fragments i would have given the complexity i would have given him this and this but i didn't do that this time this time i answered him according to the truth of scripture i said you know how i'm so certain that god exists the same way you are but i'm following him and you're not and my friend he looked at his hands and he got up as if he had to go to the restroom to wash them so he walked away to the restroom and i asked people do you know why my friend got up from the table and walked to the restroom because he was crying now i could have had an hour you know many hour -long conversation about the complexity of the but all i did is confront them with the truth of scripture and i'm not saying that's going to happen every time but i've heard so many reports when people confront the people with the truth of scripture you know the difference it makes in their argumentation in their conversation we have some listeners waiting to have their questions asked and answered but we will get to you after the break god willing so if you could be patient we'll be getting to you momentarily and if you'd like to join them with questions of your own our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com don't go away we'll be right back with sai ten bruggenkate right after these messages so don't go away i'm chris arnson host of iron sharpens iron radio and here's one of my favorite guests todd freel to tell you about a conference he and i are going to hello this is todd freel host of wretched radio and wretched tv and occasional guest on chris's show iron criticizing iron i think i think that's what it's called hoping that you can join chris and me at the g3 conference in atlanta my new hometown it is going to be a bang up conference called the g3 conference celebrating the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation with paul washer steve lawson d .a

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carson voddie bockham conrad and bayway phil johnson james white a bunch of other people we hope to see you there learn more at g3 conference dot com g3 conference dot com thanks todd i think see you at the iron sharpens iron exhibitors booth i'm james white of alpha and omega ministries the new american standard bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study used by pastors scholars and everyday readers the nasb is widely embraced as a literal and readable bible translation the nasb offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the nasb is known for the nasb is available in many editions like a topical reference bible researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy the new topical reference bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues from compact to giant print bibles find an nasb that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com

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trust discover and enjoy the nasb for yourself today go to nasbible .com that's nasbible .com

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that's wrbc .us charles heddens purge once said give yourself unto reading the man who never reads will never be read he who never quotes will never be quoted he will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own you need to read solid ground christian books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the prince of preachers to heart the mission of solid ground christian books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world since it's beginning in 2001 solid ground has been committed to publish god -centered christ exalting books for all ages we invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com

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that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio welcome back this is chris arnzen if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours is sy 10 bruggencate he is a christian apologist he's the founder of absolute apologetics he's a conference speaker and producer of the film how to answer the fool and we are discussing presuppositional apologetics 101 on our broadcast today if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com please give us at least your first name your city and state of residence and your country of residence and we have rich from cleveland ohio who says chris thank you for your ministry can you please ask sy this question on today's radio show sy thank you for your ministry i have used your one -to -one tracks in my evangelical account encounters and first learned about presuppositional apologetics using your how to answer the fool dvd i have to admit i watched it over and over again about four times before the light bulb came on and i understood the concepts you were teaching can you speak a little bit about your future sy slash nye debate uh i'm i'm assuming that's bill nye the science guy but i can't be certain of that uh is this something that is in the works or is it simply an attempt to invite bill nye to debate you oh there it is that answered my question should this debate occur what subject would the debate focus on well that's a great question i thank him for his kind words now i tweeted out a couple days ago and it really was just for a lark because of the sound of the title i said you know i'd really be interested in the sinai summit you know hang off of mount sinai i thought it'd be very interesting although i would love to debate him i think i responded i tweeted that because i saw one of his quotes that he'd given and i thought i would really love to debate him i think that'd be that'd be great and as far as the topic goes i only debate on one topic i debate on the topic of the existence of god because there are many christians who will debate the atheists on other topics they'll debate them about morality they'll debate them about economics and things like this however as a presuppositionalist i'm saying that you need god in able in order to be able to debate anything at all so if i debate you on an other topic other than the existence of god i'm granting you things i'm giving you things that jesus christ says belong to him romans 11 36 from him through him and to him are all things and i am not going to give the tools of the lord that i adore to the unbeliever to use them to argue against the biblical position i refuse to do that so i debate on one topic i debate on the topic of the existence of god and i would love to engage bill nye but he didn't he didn't respond i said i tweeted afterwards i said so far it's bill nye the silence guy ha ha ha ha or you could also come out with a silent nye unholy nye but anyway well uh by the way thank you very much rich in cleveland ohio and guess what rich since you are a first -time questioner on iron sharpens iron you are going to receive a free new american standard bible an absolutely gorgeous edition of that that bible with an embossed cross on the cover uh it is a perfect size for uh carrying around in a briefcase or in a large coat pack pocket it's not exactly a pocket size for a shirt pocket but the print is large enough for you to easily read and uh would fit in most women's purses and pocketbooks as well it's a really excellent edition of the new american standard bible but we need your full mailing address in cleveland ohio so if you could email that to me i will have cumberland valley bible book service one of our sponsors ship that bible out to you within a week or so god willing and we want to thank the publishers of the nasb for providing these bibles for our first -time questioners and we also want to thank cumberland valley bible book service cv bbs .com

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cv for cumberland valley bbs for bible book service dot com for shipping out all of the winners in our audience their free bibles books dvds cds and everything else they win by submitting questions to our guests so thanks to you rich for participating in today's program and get us your address as soon as possible we also have a listener in slovenia joe in slovenia and i am having to enlarge the typeface of his email because i can barely read it let's see it says please ask brother sai to help me with this thought after claiming to the unbeliever that he in fact does know that god exists when he denies that fact how do i proceed without relying on evidential arguments that he will reject because he interprets the evidence by his unbelieving worldview what should i do in this case thanks so much for your efforts in the grace of christ our lord now that that's a actually a fantastic question um when i deal with people i want people to know that this type of apology is very easy you have to know what the bible says so if this person says well i really don't know um i really don't know that god exists it is i think it is sufficient to tell them well that's not what the bible says the bible says that you do know that god exists because if you get into the philosophy of the argument people are going to say well i really can't do that i can't talk to the unbeliever that's why this apologetic drives you back to scripture you tell them what the bible says about them however you know that's where i will start i will say well that's what the bible says the bible actually says you know that that you do know that he exists and how are they going to respond well i don't believe your bible i think it's a you know a book written by bronze age goat you know so i i've come up with a two -step methodology the first thing i say is well that's not what the bible says and they say well i don't believe your bible and they and um i say so you don't believe that it's true you say no i don't believe it's true look at those you know crazy things it says i say well one thing is clear though when you say that you don't believe my bible is true you are appealing to a standard of truth because you cannot say that my bible is true or false unless you believe in the standard of truth and i say where do you get that without god i think because according to scripture it says the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge and i say i realize that that you're not going to accept it as we're standing here however i'm going to i'm going to expose that truth to you the bible says the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge now let me ask you this question could you be wrong about everything that you claim to know and very often they'll say yes and sadly sometimes christians will say yes as well and i said well you've just given up knowledge and i said what do you mean i could be right about it i said well let me put it this way i say let's say you know we're standing near a road and i say if you ask me the speed of that road out there and i say it's 30 miles per hour but i could be wrong do i know it and they say well no you don't know it i mean you could be right but you don't know it i said that's exactly right you just told me that you could be wrong about everything you claim to know therefore it follows logically that you know nothing and that's exactly what scripture says the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge and then i go out and i give them a gospel presentation and very often what i'll do and i think that my um presentation of the has evolved over the years as well because rather than being duped into an evidential argument i'm duped into a philosophical argument with the person so what i'll do is i'll go to a campus and i'll start preaching christ to them i'll start preaching the gospel and then if they come up to you you know you very often you get hecklers and then they'll complain about something you're saying that i very quickly deal with that objection apologetically and then i get back to the gospel presentation i think you know if you see my older stuff it's more of the philosophical argument which i think is great to have in your back pocket but um you know that's why i said distinctly reformed apologetic too because the bible talks about goats and it talks about sheep but nowhere in scripture does it say that goats become sheep jesus said my sheep hear my voice yes and too often we're trying to convert goats we're trying to give people goat food because they're not listening to the sheep food so we have to give them a biblical argument and if they turn a lot and walk away on their heel you can't help that but the word of god is sharper than a two -edged sword and you know you don't know what they're going to be thinking about in years past instead of changing the message and having an evidential argument with them for six hours or a philosophical argument tell them what the truth of scriptures is about them and hope that the holy spirit uses to convert them and that's why it's a distinctly reformed apologetic yes i i don't i do not know how our arminian brethren who claim to be biblical inerrantists uh how they can uh reject what is clearly taught as the order of salvation in the gospel of john and other places in the scripture where we clearly see uh that the reason why the pharisees and others who were rejecting christ didn't believe was because they weren't of his sheep and you don't become a sheep by believing you believe because by god's sovereignty you already are a sheep amen and by the way thank you joe in slovenia keep spreading the word about iron sharpens iron in slovenia and we thank you for participating in today's program with your excellent question many have attributed the methodology of presuppositionalism to cornelius van till obviously you would trace it back to the apostle paul uh and christ himself but um are there any other figures in history that predate van till that you could mention that you know of that use this uh methodology of apologetics well i believe it was augustine said uh seek not to uh understand that you might believe seek to believe that you might understand so it's a presuppositional argument people often ask for examples from scripture i say well when paul was before agrippa in acts 26 verse 8 you know he didn't he said to him why do you find it incredible that god should raise the dead he didn't try and prove the resurrection evidentially to agrippa he says well god can do that so when i'm out in the street and somebody complains about a miracle you know about noah's ark he said well you didn't admit god could do that well yeah if he exists he could do that i say so your problem is not with miracles your problem is with the god of miracles so um yeah like like i said augustine and of course the apostles and you know i'm i'm greg bonson of course who was a student of van till is uh someone who i've studied mostly under and um i have all the books i don't really read them because um most books bore me out of my gourd after you know a couple chapters but what i've i've cut my teeth on the apology on the apologetic mostly on that podcast for my friend uh gene cook with the narrow mind and then also on audio lectures by dr greg bonson which are available at the covenant media foundation i downloaded hundreds of hours of his lectures thankfully they they recorded just about everything he ever said and um one thing i didn't share with you is that i'm a faculty worker eight and a half years ago i was in a boiler room i'm a boiler operator you know taking readings on boilers and children and stuff like that so when i even hear someone like greg bonson speak it's way above my head so greg bonson seemed to simplify what van till said and i'm trying to simplify what bonson said and um you know i'm trying to dumb it down to my level so sometimes i would have to listen to lectures over and over again and get one nugget out of it and then bring it down to my level and then share it with as many people as i can and uh when we have people um who get sentimental and they say that you know god could not dare condemn people to hell uh if they did not ever hear the gospel if they were from a pagan land where there were no missionaries and and so on god could never do that and he will not ever do that they are really rejecting this understanding of romans one that these people no matter where they live and where they were raised and who raised them god has placed the truth within their hearts uh already even though they are of uh the the clay that creates vessels of destruction or or the the clay that god creates the vessels of destruction from uh they even know regardless of what they will say they know these things that they are rejecting these are not innocent quote quote people who are being punished for things that they never knew well this is the this is the question that i ask people i say can you imagine such a tribe where these people have never heard the gospel and you have a sign -up sheet at the back of the church for missionaries to go and talk to this tribe i say now let's say these missionaries go and talk to these tribe and they tell them about jesus christ i say would that conversation add to their excuse or would it remove their excuse because according to what these people are saying that they think that these people would have an excuse because they've never heard the gospel so if somebody came to them and preached the gospel to them that would be removing their excuse you know it would follow that if no missionaries went there that they would have a chance when they stand before god because they just didn't know the gospel but nobody believes that if that was the case we wouldn't have missionary sign -ups at the back of the church we'd have wall building teams to build walls to stop missionaries from getting in to remove the excuse of of these unreached tribes but these people have sufficient knowledge of god for their condemnation the reason that we send missionaries to tell them about jesus christ to tell them about the only way out of the hell that each and every one of us deserves and all christians are aware of that but the world has duped us into believing that these people really don't know that god exists and i don't know who the quote was by but i i'd heard of one preacher who went to one of these unreached tribes and they talked to him about jesus christ he told him the gospel he told him about god and these tribes tribes people said we've always known him we've never known his name and it was the case that they said well you know that there's people in the western world who call themselves atheists and these are unreached tribes and their reaction to that was laughter they laughed that there were people on this earth or on this earth who would say that there is no god and i would just talk to my friend dustin who i mentioned earlier about this last night and he thinks that one of the things that you know we all live in cubicles now we're all surrounded by walls and by technology and we're not out in the open air enough to actually see what it says in romans one the glory of god and i think it's probably easier to suppress the truth when you're in a situation like that than when you're living out in in the bush so basically the natural man uh apart from a missionary specifically giving the the uh divine truth of the gospel they know enough to know that they are sinning when they violate god's truth but they need missionaries to reveal the actual gospel to them the the only hope of their salvation from this predicament they're in and isn't that even further true further proof of unconditional election or particular redemption or the fact that that god has called to himself a unique people from out of all of humanity because there have been unevangelized peoples over the centuries who never did meet a missionary so therefore it could not have been in the plan of god to save certain people am i right yeah that that's exactly right now one thing i you know i want to add to that as well is that god could save these people miraculously without a missionary but the normal means that god uses to save people is by sending missionaries because people will say well as a calvinist as a reformed person you know since god has predestined who's going to be saved and who's going to be lost why are you even on the streets why do you pray for people why do you preach and this is a question i ask them i say well does god know if you're going to have a full stomach tonight and they say well yes i say well then why do you eat you know just because god knows that there's going to be a certain state he ordains the means as well as the end and that's why we preach and that's why we pray for people because you know it would not make sense according to an armenian standpoint to actually do these things when there's nothing you can do about it instead of god ordaining all things god predestining even our you know using worms like us in their conversion you know what a wonderful god that would actually do that but according to them it's said and done and god has done everything that he can do and now it's just up to them you know then it wouldn't make any sense because their their lot in life is already predestined or you know their lot in life where they're going to end up there's nothing you can do about because you know god doesn't predestine your involvement in that then and by the way our email address if you'd like to join us on the air is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com we have uh harrison in mechanicsburg pennsylvania who says why do you think some of our beloved brethren and modern day heroes who are even in agreement with us on soteriology like such reformed individuals as dr r .c

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sproll and the late dr john gersner disagree with this methodology of presuppositionalism and prefer the evidentialist ideology for apologetics i think you're going to love my answer to this question chris and i think that when it's people who are so close in their theology have disagreement it's because iron sharpens iron and i think for instance james um dr uh bonson debated uh um dr spruill and they agreed on 95 percent of their theology their sociology and let's say they agreed on everything let's say they agreed on even their apologetic what a boring conversation that would be you know there would be no need to sharpen each other because they agreed on everything and i think you know that's an example of iron sharpening iron that they agree on so many i think there's different reasons for different people of different groups but when they believe mostly the same thing you know i think that it's a matter of iron sharpening iron sadly in that case at least one person maybe both are wrong but at least one person has to be wrong and i think you know you'll probably understand which side i fall on yes and uh on this fallen planet christ's uh church is never going to be in perfect lockstep harmony until we are in glory with him for eternity in fact if if you see a church or discover a religious group where everyone is in complete lockstep with one another you have discovered a cult haven't you absolutely yeah that's i mean that's you have certain uh certain even within christianity that adhere to one certain you know text of scripture and when you have something like that then it's very difficult what i'd say is that you cannot reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into and if it's just group think you know based on something like that it's a very difficult conversation and what i say is i don't do therapy so with groups like that i normally don't engage it you know i normally give them a gospel presentation but i'm not a therapist you know i try to reason with people biblically but i can't get into conversations like that well we have another first -time questioner on iron sharpens iron we have bruce in boise idaho who says i have relatives who believe a kind of god pantheism and jesus who was a man but became one with christ consciousness how do i presuppose how do i use presuppositional ways with them again you know i would say well that's not what the bible says the bible says you know the god now i would say that while you're denying the god of scripture and they'll clearly agree with that because they believe in something else i say well scripture says that unless you start with the god of the bible it says the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge so tell me how do you know about this god how do you know about this jesus and you'll find you know that it's a relativistic nonsense always it's something that they've come up with themselves unless they have revelation from god who knows everything then you know as i say in my talks and you can't know anything because you could be wrong you know i say could you be wrong about that god that you're professing and of course they could because you know they don't have perfect absolute knowledge like god does so you'd have to either know everything or have revelation from someone who does and that's our worldview and there's very few revelatory worldviews and people who profess something like that don't do it by revelation uh by the way bruce uh you have also since you're a first -time questioner you have also won a free new american standard bible so if you please could give us your full mailing address in boise idaho we would be delighted to receive that information so we can have cumberland valley bible book service ship you out a free copy compliments of the publishers of the nasb and also compliments of cumberland valley bible book service cvbbs .com

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cvbbs .com is their website for more details but if you could please email us your full mailing address we'll get that out to you god willing within a week or so thank you so much for participating in the program today why is it that do you think that some of our evidentialist brethren get really hostile about this issue they think that presuppositionalism is not only just a a less effective form of apologetics they think it's dangerous they think it's absolutely horrible they might even call it heretical why is it they get so worked up about this well i mean i i don't want to attribute impure motives to it but i think some of it has to do with the fact that they have a table full of books in the lobby that they're trying to sell and if what and if what we're saying is right then they're not selling those there's a fellow years ago and they called him the water doctor and um he went around and he did some research and he discovered that um he said that 75 percent of these diseases could be cured if people just drank enough water he said disease is called by dehydration now he might have been a quack i don't know but he could not get a table at a medical convention because if he was right they're not selling medication and it's the funny thing is he could not get a table at a homeopathic convention either because if he was right it was just a matter of water you know then they're not selling ginkgo biloba and i tell people i'm the christian water doctor i don't have a table full of dinosaur books in the lobby you know i say read your bible and you cannot sell read your bible and i think a lot of it is of course you know to some for some of them i'm sure that god has just not revealed it to them because one of my favorite verses is first corinthians 4 verse 7 what do we have that we have not received so i don't lord it over them but and i think a lot of people too is that you're attacking their livelihood and another thing is that if you go out and you win an evidential argument you know that people say look how smart that guy is you watch a william lane craig debate and more often than not people walk away from that debate and they say i could never do that look at how smart that guy is and i think that in some degree they like that you know they like being elevated for their intelligence somebody watches one of my debates and they say i can do that that guy's an idiot you know and that's one of the biggest compliments i get is that when somebody watches one of my debates they're not intimidated to go and talk to the unbeliever because we're all supposed to be able to do it there is no office of apologist in scripture just like i said there's no office of love love your neighborhood you know i go to my conferences and i said you know i'm gonna i'm gonna change things up a little bit i'm not going to teach you how to defend your faith in god today i'm going to teach you how to defend your faith that your parents exist i'm not an apologist i'm a parentologist and they look at me like you know like i have two heads you see why do we need some freak from canada coming down here teaching me how to defend the existence of my parents and i say well why is that crazy it's because they know their parents well why do i have to come down and teach people how to defend their faith in god because it's a relational issue it's not an evidential issue it's not a presuppositional issue if you know the god that saved you you can defend your faith and so when i go and teach at a conference i teach people how not to do it i say because if you if you are genuinely safe you can do it and i don't do it to lord over them because that's myself you know 10 12 years ago i was sitting in that very audience trying to learn all these arguments trying to outwit and outsmart the person instead of realizing that it's the gospel which is the power of god unto salvation amen and we are going to or another break right now if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com don't go away we'll be right back with sai tan brogan kate right after these messages from our sponsors chris arnson here and i can't wait to head down to atlanta georgia and here's my friend dr james white to tell you why hi i'm james white of alpha and omega ministries i hope you join me at the g3 conference hosted by pastor josh bison praise mill baptist church at the georgia international convention center in atlanta january 19th through the 21st in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation i'll be joined by paul washer steve lawson d .a

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that's g3 conference .com thanks james make sure you greet me at the iron sharpens iron exhibit booth while you're there paul wrote to the church at galatia for am i now seeking the approval of man or of god or am i trying to please man if i were still trying to please man i would not be a servant of christ hi i'm mark lukens pastor of providence baptist church we are reformed baptist church and we hold to the london baptist confession of faith of 1689 we are in nofolk massachusetts we strive to reflect paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how god views what we say and what we do than how men view these things that's not the best recipe for popularity but since that wasn't the apostles priority it must not be ours either we believe by god's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of christ in truth and love if you live near norfolk massachusetts or plan to visit our area please come and join us for worship and fellowship you can call us at 508 -528 -5750 that's 508 -528 -5750 or go to our website to email us listen to past sermons worship songs or watch our tv program entitled resting in grace you can find us at providence baptist church ma .org

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that's providence baptist church ma .org or even on sermonaudio .com providence baptist church is delighted to sponsor iron sharpens iron radio thriving financial is not your typical financial services provider as a membership organization we help christians be wise with money and live generously every day and for the fourth year in a row we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the ethosphere institute a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics contact me mike gallagher financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433 again 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the thriving difference we know we were made for so much more than lending faith finances and generosity that's the thriving story we were made to thrive i am chris arnes and host of iron sharpens iron radio here to tell you about an exciting offer from world magazine my trusted source for news from a christian perspective try world at no charge for 90 days and get a free copy of rc sproles book relationship between church and state i rely on world because i trust the reporting i gain insight from the analysis and world provides clarity to the news stories that really matter i believe you'll also find world to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a depth that simply not found in other media outlets armed with this coverage world can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community this trial includes bi -weekly issues of world magazine on -scene reporting from world radio and the fully shareable content of world digital simply visit wng .org

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forward slash iron sharpens today welcome back this is chris arnes and if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is sai ten brugenkait he is a christian founder of absolute apologetics and he is a conference speaker and producer of the film how to answer the fool and we have been and will continue to be addressing the subject presuppositional apologetics 101 if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com before i move on with some other questions from our listeners and questions of my own i want you to tell our listeners about how to answer the fool dvd yeah how to answer the fool we filmed back in 2013 my friends david shannon and marcus pittman they did incredible david shannon was the director and from the first scene that was shot to the film being available was 10 weeks i mean he just worked incredibly and he's doing a podcast now across politic and i i do some um some preceptional presuppositional clips on there so i encourage people to check that out but that was a film in its concept we were just going to be teaching the apologetic and that david used to work with todd frill actually and he was doing a lot of the street stuff he says well sai let's go out in the street together and they actually flew people to pennsylvania at a conference that i was at and i was nervous because now people are actually starting to put money into this and i was terrified that people were paying money to some of my encounters out on the street so we did that and uh you know i was quite terrified like i said and they filmed that day it was at out on the streets in pennsylvania at the temple university and david just encouraged me so greatly at the end of the day he said that this was just incredible he said that the theme of this film is going to change now we're going to do some teaching which we did you know in a different setting but a lot of it is going to be the actual encounters that you have with people on the streets and now some people see that film and it's happened to me at a number of conferences where they say you know i watched your film and i hated you and i'm so glad that you came here today but what they don't understand is that a lot of the people that i engage one -on -one with in the film were actually heckling me earlier and you know what makes it into the film is the two or three minute part of the conversation where it's quite intense they don't um you know they don't see the hour prior to that or the hour afterwards when the person sticks around and ends up giving me a hug so you know i can understand and like when people don't understand the apologetic and i guess don't really understand my heart for the loss that they might come away with that impression but it's a pretty intense film of me going around engaging people presuppositionally which i hope is biblically and also doing some teaching and you can learn more about that dvd by going to size website proof that god exists dot org proof that god exists dot o -r -g and click on store and you'll find out more about that dvd uh how to sorry i'm just gonna say we came out with a film um after that the year after that and it's a documentary based on my um my debate with matt delahunty and it's called debating delahunty and the people think that i was a little too harsh in the first film i actually cry in the second one so they can watch that and maybe get a different perspective great uh we have uh thomas and he is let's see he is from baker's field california and he is also a first -time questioner but a long -time listener and he asks uh how can we effectively use the presuppositional apologetic when doing abortion ministry on a one -to -one conversation if god permits that conversation no that's that's another great question and i appreciate that and i don't want to put anybody off when i say this however i've had people come up to me on a number of occasions and they say to me sigh i i used precept on that guy and i say don't ever tell me that again tell me that you honored jesus christ as lord amen so when we go to the abortion clinic it's not a matter of using presuppositional apologetics on them it's a matter of honoring jesus christ as lord and like i say my ministry on the streets has evolved over the years and you know because i grew up in a christian home and i don't know what it's like to be converted later in life so i would have fellow preachers out on the street and they'd be rebuking unbelievers for their sin and they'd be trying to win arguments i thought yeah rah rah rah you know i thought this was great because i didn't know any better i didn't know what it was like to walk the streets and reject jesus christ and you know as you know i've evolved in this conversation i would see people arguing exactly like i did and it turned my stomach and i thought this is not about winning arguments it's about loving people so um just about a month ago i was in kentucky and i went to an abortion clinic there and there were about 13 of the escorts and they call them death squirts there you know that's what they call the people who escort the women past the preachers into the abortion clinic and if you'll see on that that video that i went to each and every one of them and i told them that i loved them and i said i don't know what you're doing here i don't know what it is that's caused you to you know to hate god sufficiently to be able to stand here and help people you know kill an image bearer of god i don't know why that is but i love you and i hope that god grants your repentance and i think that's what we need to do it's not so much winning arguments with these people out there is that we have to preach the love of jesus christ to them we have to teach them what they're actually doing when they're going to this abortion clinic because sadly a lot of the abortion ministries are very pragmatic they want to compare the people to hitler and i say if you compare them to hitler and they say well i'm not going to kill my baby because you know you're calling me hitler i'm just like hitler what have you done you haven't changed their view you know because of a gospel presentation because of the sanctity of life you just change their view because now they think they're like hitler and if they find out that they're a christian you could see in my friend mark's film babies are murdered here there are women who go into abortion clinic know that you're christians and they point to the the bump in their stomach and they put their thumb across their neck that they're going to kill it and they do it gleefully a lot of them are you know i would say that they're not victims when we go there we preach the love of jesus christ to them and i think that is the effective way to do it and of course there's it's good to know certain statistics you know when people deal with these things when they know where you're coming from then you could deal with some of their objections but i think you have to make no mistake about what they're doing and the fact that you love them and i there's a conversation that jeff durbin had recently outside of the abortion clinic in tempe and this woman had a sign and jeff expressed his love towards this woman and you could see her put her sign down and you know she was of course she kept to her position but you could see that she was humbled by that and i think that's what we need to do because our presupposition is that god exists and that his word is true and we have to be the example you know use jesus christ and the disciples as an example to go and love people and i think that's the presuppositional argument by the way thank you thomas uh and since you are a first -time questioner as well you are also receiving a free new american standard bible shipped to you by cumberland valley bible book service so thank you very much for contributing to our discussion today with your excellent question uh to make things clear when you're talking about presuppositionalism aren't you specifically addressing the general revelation that god has provided for his existence and for truth to all humanity and that specific revelation in the scripture about the gospel still needs to be communicated to us by other men like for instance in romans 10 13 through 15 for whoever will call on the name of the lord will be saved how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed how will they believe in him whom they have not heard and how will they hear without a preacher how will they preach unless they are sent just as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things how do how do you make presuppositionalism compatible with that that text i think people make the mistake of saying that apologetics is pre -evangelism because i would say that a proper apologetic is hand in hand with evangelism it's part of your evangelism for instance when i go out and talk with somebody i say that unless you start with god you can't know anything at all i'm exposing their sinfulness because what's the first aspect of the of the gospel is that we are created in the image of god and that we're sinning against him and a lot of people on the street deny that they're sinners they say well i don't sin so what i do is i show them you know by by saying things that they cannot account for without the god of scripture and yet they do every day the next breath they take everything that they do every thought in their head depends on the god that made them so that's the kind of thing that i expose to them to expose their sinfulness and then i preach the gospel to them to show them the way out of the hell that every one of us deserves it's not an intellectual conversation and then we get to evangelism what i tried to do is i try to expose their sinfulness when i show them what they're using that they can't account for without god and we have arnie in perry county pennsylvania who says do you think that one of the greatest things that can be drawn from presuppositionalism is that it prevents our discussions with unbelievers from going off into unproductive and fruitless rabbit trails that they will continually attempt to take us on to derail the conversation from the gospel itself absolutely i think that is absolutely the case the thing is there are presuppositionalists who are who are novices and they look at the argument they look at it as a philosophical argument and they will talk um you know about six hours about the theory of knowledge epistemology you know just like the evidence does talks for six hours about the complexity of the eye the presuppositions can also go off on rabbit trails however if it's a truly biblical presupposition then we say that unless you start with god you can't make sense of that discussion now of course you know it's different when you're having a discussion with somebody on the street you know and there's a big crowd around you you know that's i think different than a one -on -one conversation that you might have with somebody you know at a restaurant with a friend of yours like i will explain more things more specifically in that situation and i'll kindly expose them that the fact look i'll answer your question but you have to you have to understand that you're actually borrowing from god when you make that question but here let me let me explain that to you and that's different i think than the situation when you're out in the street you know or in a debate where it's more of a hostile setting so i think you know there's different ways that you can approach that the presuppositionalism we have alfredo who is originally from panama currently residing in kentucky he says i noticed that you put your opponents in a position where they question their reasoning couldn't they also question our reasoning as we read scripture additionally which books elaborate more on concepts of truth knowledge morals and logic from a presuppositional standpoint i have bonson and oliphant yeah absolutely and the books by Cornelius van

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Til as well and one of the ones that i recommend is jason lyles the ultimate proof of creation now the thing is of course you know they're going to try and turn the argument back onto us of course they have when they give up rationality they have no basis for doing that but i don't mind addressing that i would say look you would admit that the god of the bible can reveal things to us such that we can know them for certain yes he could do that if you exist you would admit that the god of the bible could reveal things to us through a book if you wanted to yeah if he exists sure he could do that i say well that's my worldview so you might not accept that you might reject it however according to my worldview i can know things for certain through a book or through however god wants to reveal it to me but according to your worldview you can't know anything at all and that's what the bible says you know so um that's one of the things i'll say at the campus i say could you be wrong about everything you claim to know and they'll say to me well i can but so can you and i was actually going to get a shirt made up i'll say you don't go to harvard you go to princeton you don't go to you go to so can you here's the problem if you say that you could be wrong about everything what's the very next thing out of your mouth it's a knowledge claim about me you say yes i could be wrong about everything and i know that you can as well i say if you say you could be wrong about everything you have to stop there because now you're in the realm of absurdity you can't tell me what i could be wrong about if you could be wrong about everything and that's the kind of thing that i expose and like i do in the film and people don't like it because you know the example that that i've heard as well you know let's say you're walking down the street and you see a bricklayer and he's working on his 500th row of bricks and he's way up there and he's laying you know his 500th row and you look up and you see that the last brick that he put in is crooked and you yell up to him you say hey mister that brick it's crooked and he waves and he thanks him he takes his trowel and he knocks that brick straight he says yeah thanks a lot i appreciate that but let's say you go down that same street and you see that the first row of bricks is crooked and he's on his 500th row and you yell up to him and say hey mister that first row of bricks down here is crooked what's he gonna do you're trying to tell me my job you know and he'll think that you're crazy why is that the case because if you're right then the whole wall has to come down and that's what we do as presuppositions we're not talking about the last brick that they install we're not talking about the top row we're saying that unless you start with jesus christ you cannot make sense of anything and that will get some people a little bit upset with you well by the way alfredo if you give us your full mailing address in kentucky you are also receiving a free copy of the new american standard bible compliments of the publishers of the nasb and also shipped out to you compliments of cumberland valley bible book service so please give us your full mailing address since you are a first -time questioner and you're going to get that bible absolutely free thank you very much for participating in the program today we have rj in westchester county new york who wants to know if you have ever heard of the book presuppositionalism a biblical approach to apologetics by paul s nelson i i know that i have in fact i'm going to be interviewing him at some point because his co -pastor at sovereign grace baptist church of silicon valley california highly recommended that i interview paul on this book but uh do you know of this book so i believe i believe that i even have that book now a lot of times we'll say do you know the book i'll say yeah i have it but i probably haven't read it and there's a couple reasons for that because like i say and i'm not going to say this about paul because i haven't read it but a lot of them just bore me out of my gourd and so you know i'm i'm not much of a reader but another thing is that i'm i want to write a book eventually and what i find is that when i read these different authors that i tend to write like them i tend to think like them and i don't want to do that i don't that's one of the things um you know i'll talk to somebody about epistemology if you ask me you know when i first started doing this i did not know what epistemology meant and if i start right reading these books and i start thinking like them i start writing like them and i think that i you know i lose the the audience that that i want to most appeal to is the people that at my level i don't want to make it too complicated i remember this one book this author a presuppositionalist and in the preface of the book he was apologizing for how much he had dumbed down the argument and he was using words in that book that i'd never heard before you know i hope that's not the case with this book you know you know but eventually i do want to put a book out there and when i ask people to pray for me for that as well because that's one of the reasons i left my job almost nine years ago to write a book but since that time i've discovered i'm not a writer so that you know that throws a bit of a wrench in the works but i still would like to get a book out on the apologetics because a lot of the books out there are teaching people how to do presuppositional apologetics and i want to focus more on the why because if people don't know the why they're not going to be interested in the how why don't you go through some of those uh pillar reasons why well like i said one of the reasons is that if we engage people in a way that's unbiblical we're actually blaspheming god and they're talking people are talking about a god that i don't believe because in scripture for instance the romans 839 one of my favorite verses in scripture where paul says nothing can separate me from the love of the father and we hear that you know we're in church and tears streaming down our face what a beautiful comforting verse nothing can separate me from the love of the father and then the very next day we go to work and we say you know i could be wrong but if i'm wrong i die rot in the ground worms in my body but if i'm right i get to go to heaven and be with god forever if you're right you die rot in the ground worms in your body but if you're wrong you go to hell what have you got to lose and i say in scripture it says nothing could separate me from the love of the father but if we reduce god to a bet like we do in pascal's wager then you cannot say nothing could separate me from the love of the father you'd have to say nothing could separate me from the love of the father if he exists so a lot of times when these people are trying to use these arguments to try and convince them that god exists they're not talking about the god of scripture because the god of scripture according to him you have to start with him to know anything at all so i say any conversation that merely concludes god and doesn't start with him is not a biblical conversation because there are people who are not reformed who will try to use this apologetic and they'll say well you need logic you need morality and you mean all of this therefore god i say that is not a presuppositional argument we say the god of the bible the god everyone knows exists therefore logic therefore morality therefore science and we say if you deny that god you cannot account for any of them so we don't conclude god we start with him do you think that uh some of our brethren especially those who have been a very who have been very effective apologists who would identify themselves as evidentialists do you think that very often they are unconsciously acting as presuppositionalist apologetic well absolutely um i was watching one debate in particular with a friend of mine he says si i want you to sit down and watch this debate with me it's my favorite debate i said you don't want to watch it with me then because it's not going to be your favorite debate afterwards we actually watched this debate and it was very interesting because you could hear the crowd murmuring and getting uncomfortable and really getting into it when he was arguing presuppositionally you know he had his foot it was actually against richard dawkins he had his foot on his neck and then he left lifted it off i think that's you know too often the case is that when people do not understand the biblical the reform presuppositional apologetic then they'll get into a place in that argument where they just can't account for it i saw this one debate you know with somebody who was not reformed and he was arguing presuppositionally and then the topic of evil came up and the wheels just fell off because if god is not sovereign even over that then the presuppositional argument is useless you know if the scripture is not true about god's sovereignty over all things then presuppositionalism doesn't make sense and that's what you'll see is that if people do not come from a reform perspective you know they could try and employ the apologetic but eventually especially if you're dealing with somebody you know with the intellect then it's not going to go well for them now uh you made the the earlier about the books about dinosaur bones i happen to be a lover of paleontology have been since i was a very small child and i am fascinated when i hear creationist scientists uh dispel some of the myths and lies that have been created by evolutionists don't you think that evidence has its place in the arena of debate and dialogue when you're talking about uh disproving the lie that are that are being taught about our creation when you're not proving the existence of god with these things but you are saying excuse me sir all of this data that you claim to be a list of facts are really just fables and this is why and and you point to this fact of evidence in that fact and so on and you determine from what we know that those enemies of the bible are really either speaking in ignorance or are just lying through their teeth isn't that appropriate to use that kind of evidence absolutely and this is the question that i ask christians who like these books and i do like a lot of these types of books but i say why do you like them it's because you're a christian and to use that as an apologetic you know i think those people are not going to like those very same arguments because they're not christians now there is there a place to remove intellectual debris with evidences absolutely but do not do it in a way that puts them in the judge's seat because as christians we're not fighting for a seat at the table jesus christ owns the table and i'll say look i'm a christian and i will show you how what you're saying there is actually nonsensical but i'm going to do it from the truth from the authority of my word of god's word i'm going to do it from that authority i'm not going to try and convince you that god exists by debunking these arguments is there a place for debunking them absolutely and i think it's you know good to equip christians out there to show the folly of these arguments but if you use it to try and prove to that person that god exists you're denying what scripture says and you're actually calling god a liar so i think that there is a way to do it and i love when people do it well and you know i'll even do that on the streets as well when people talk about the age of the earth you know i will answer presupposition i don't do it very often but you know i will answer them in a presuppositional fashion so i think that there is a place for it but we just have to do it in a way that does not take the unbelievers word over god's word that we have to do in a way acknowledging the fact that they know that god exists and sure present evidences but do it in that manner and i tell people that i'm not particularly beholden to a certain term of presuppositionalism or evidentialism i want to reach the lost and if you could show me a way to use evidences in a way that glorifies god i'm all ears but usually the people that are critical of presuppositionalism and i say that to them they never come back to me i would love to sit down with these ministries and say let's work out in a biblical apology that's according to scripture where we can use those evidences in a way that honors god and i say you know go for it and of course i believe that there is a place for that i can't believe how fast time is flying by we are now ready for our final commercial break if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa i've had to remind at least half of you who have written questions to do that so please include your location of residence when you write in a question and we're going to be back after these messages from our sponsors so don't go away we have more to come with psi 10 bruggencate chris arnzen here and i can't wait to head down to atlanta georgia and here's my friend dr james white to tell you why hi i'm james white of alpha and omega ministries i hope you join me the g3 conference hosted by pastor josh vice and praise mill baptist church at the georgia international convention center in atlanta january 19th through the 21st in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation i'll be joined by paul washer steve lawson da carson vody balkan conrad and bayway phil johnson rosaria butterfield todd friel and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what g3 stands for gospel grace and glory for more details go to g3 conference .com

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that's solid rock remodeling .com solid rock remodeling bringing new life to your home welcome back this is chris arnzen if you just tuned us in our guest for the last uh or the previous 90 minutes in the next half hour to come has been and will be sai ten bruggenkate he is a christian apologist he's the founder of absolute apologetics he's a conference speaker and producer of the film how to answer the fool and we are addressing the theme presuppositional apologetics 101 it's easy for you to say and uh if you'd like to join us on the air well with a question before we run out of time we've got about 25 minutes left our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and if you could give our listeners some more whys of presuppositionalism sai well i think the main why is because i think that other methodologies deny what scripture says and the why that we do it this way is because it's uh it's an apologetic honoring to jesus christ now a lot of times people will say what does this mean that everyone i talk to is going to be converted no that that's not the case but we hope that uh the holy spirit will honor an apologetic in which god is spoken of you know as he actually is so you know that really i would say is the only reason it's consistent with scripture and that is why we do it that way because we're talking you know i speak at some conferences and i have people come up to me with tears in their eyes and they say that's the god i believe in because all these other you know forms of argumentation you know there's a lot of problems with like you reduce god to a probability you end up uh you know calling him a liar and blaspheming his name and one of the other problems is you have to be brilliant and i say you know if you're arguing with somebody out on the street and you're talking about rock layers and you study your rock layers and you wiped the floor with this guy and he goes home what's he going to do he's going to go home and google rock layers i mean you want him to repent and put his trust in jesus christ and he's home googling rock layers i say congratulations so i say this is a biblical christ honoring apologetic and like i said we talked about sheep and goats earlier some people are going to turn on their heel and walk away when you're talking but that's not your problem we don't change the message so i would say the only reason to do this is because it's a biblical argument and the interesting thing about that is it's a powerful argument and you would expect that because the other arguments you know you're trying to apologize for god what he says in his word but a presupposition doesn't apologize for god you know what we do is get out of his way we show people the greatness of god and we say that if you deny that you can't make sense of anything you're doing so i would say that the main and only reason is because it's god honor it exalts him and it's consistent of course you know there are other reasons not to do the other ones because a lot of them the arguments are not logical a lot of them are terrible arguments so i would say you know this honors jesus christ as lord and that's why we should do it we have christopher from suffolk county long island new york who wants to know if gordon clark was a presuppositionalist i knew that i know that he and cornelius van till were at odds with each other about a lot of issues but was presuppositionalism one of them well um i think that they reconciled that prior to their passing of course it wouldn't be afterwards well i'm sure that they're reconciled now but um yeah greg bonson who i study under mostly he did this uh one talk where he talked about the differences between gordon clark and cornelius van till and he actually did not call um gordon clark a presupposition he called him a fideist and um gordon clark actually embraced that term according to greg bonson and that's somebody who just has a faith position and they start from there now the thing is i think because there were differences in the apologetic methodology and and that there was some friction between the camps but i actually think that you know i'm definitely a van tillian presuppositionalist but i think that i i move a little bit towards gordon clark in some of those issues and i'll give you an example uh greg bonson was at a conference and he was at actually an evidential type university and somebody asked him the question and he said how do we know that the contrary is impossible because what he'll say is that god exists by the impossibility of the contrary and what he would normally do in all of his lectures and is prove try and prove philosophically that you can't make sense of anything else and that's what he would try to do and but in this and people are critical of him because of that because they say there's so many contrary world views you couldn't disprove all of them and i think you know some people believe that you can i'm in a camp where i don't think that you could disprove them all philosophically but if they ask greg bonson how do we know that the contrary is impossible and greg bonson said because the bible says so and that is more of a clarkian type answer and you know i think that's what he always believed but he tried to you know teach that more in a philosophical level but i think i'm sympathetic to the clarkians on that area i think there's other areas where they do make mistakes and you know i would probably agree with greg bonson that they're not presuppositional but even greg bonson with their differences he praised the gordon clark's contribution to the apologetic field when all is said and done when it comes to the average christian defending the faith isn't is not one of the great values of presuppositionalism is that you really uh when it when it is boiled down to its essence you really only need to know for certain what the gospel is because you could have all kinds of liberals and enemies of the gospel who claim to have scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge that are far beyond your scope of understanding who could silence you or make a fool out of you if you are trying to use these other sciences and field of knowledge fields of knowledge to prove your point theologically yeah i would say not just strictly the gospel though because when i'm out on the street and i have an encounter you know if i'm arguing at a university all day then when i get home the primary thought in my head is i need to read my bible more you know and that's what i say this drives you back to scripture now just knowing the gospel is not sufficient i think to argue with somebody who objects to the trinity you have to know biblical scriptural verses to be able to support that for instance a roman catholic they might agree with you on the gospel but then you'll have to expose to them how their church actually teaches something that is contrary to the gospel and so if you just know the gospel i think that you know you're running into difficulty with that but i would say that on top of the gospel you have to know scripture yes i would agree with you but well i was really referring to the bare minimum of even a new believer somebody who is fresh out of the waters of baptism uh who is uh he goes back to work he tells people he's become a christian and they start drilling him with questions it's the gospel that primarily he needs to know he knows he needs to know the condition of man and the only cure for that condition amen um another like i said i've listened to hundreds of hours of bonds but one of the examples that he gives that i really like he says let's say somebody came up to you and started speaking german to you and you didn't know a lick of german and he asked you a question in german and you tried to sputter out uh if you know you know what you're talking about you would look like an idiot you know so he said in that situation you have to humbly say sir i don't really know what you're saying could you please explain that to me you know and then if you are humble that way then you can say well actually the bible says this about you and let me tell you what you need and then get into a gospel presentation so you don't i mean it's nice to know how to refute all those different arguments with scripture but you're right it comes down to a gospel presentation because that is what god uses to save people we have cj in lindenhurst long island new york who wants to know are there any presuppositionalist apologists that you know of that are not reformed theologically yes okay who are they well i would i would say uh frank turk for instance you've had him on your show before and uh he's uh written a book and i think he borrowed a lot of the arguments from uh from presuppositionalist frank turk is a presuppositionalist well i would say in in his latest book you know borrowing from god or i don't even remember the title it's very presuppositional but the thing is really they can't be because they're not consistent with it um like the other fellow um you know his name doesn't his name escapes me at the moment but he i went to as a ohio and he claimed to be a presupposition so there are people you know who claim to be presuppositional but you know they're not reformed and like i say it just i would say that they're not really presupposition so in a way yes there's people who try to employ the argumentation as frank turk does but you know then he'll go on defend somebody like andy stanley who uh you know tries to get away from the truth of scripture and i'm sure that you've seen that kerfuffle with yeah and you know that i thought was disappointing that's clearly not from a reform perspective and so where he's very presuppositional in some of his books and you see that the wheels fall off in other areas yeah do you think that he is unconsciously a presuppositionalist on occasion because i'm pretty sure that uh at one time anyway i asked him directly about that and he openly said he disagreed with presuppositionalism i'm almost certain as a presupposition i would say they all are but i would also say that all christians are calvinist because the thing is when i discuss these issues of reform theology with somebody who's not reformed if i don't mention the terms they agree with it yeah they agree with it wholeheartedly you mention the terms and they start to back off but you know everybody believes that salvation is by faith in christ alone you know and i'll ask them that what makes you different from the loss what you did or what jesus did everyone will say what jesus did that's a reform position yes if you go my website proof that god exists dot org slash tulip dash test you can see an actually a test where i go through and i show that all christians believe in limited atonement but the thing is when you explain it to the minister that's why i think we'll see our minions in heaven because they they say that salvation is by faith in jesus christ alone but when you ask them to lay it out it just doesn't look that way do i believe that they honestly believe that salvation is by faith in christ alone absolutely it's just that they're inconsistent in their argumentation yeah what you said reminds me of quotes by spurgeon and j .i

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packer that are very similar which basically if you uh boil them down to their commonality they were both saying that all genuine christians when they pray reveal that in their heart of hearts they're calvinists yeah like packer said you know on our feet we may have differences but we're on our knees we're all right we all pray to a sovereign god because it wouldn't make any sense to pray to a god who's not sovereign over all things we have a pastor sterling vander worker in greensboro north carolina good friend of mine yes he has mentioned that in previous uh emails to the program he says for my favorite canadian sigh may the lord bless you in your efforts in evangelism thanks for your faithful work may the lord help your misplaced hope in the toronto maple leaves go wings you know the interesting thing about sterling vander worker is he's a jeweler yes i know that yes yeah but for sterling i just thought that was amazing yeah yeah but i thought that was pretty interesting you know his name did come first he didn't come from a long line of jewelers no i no i well i you know i don't know that actually i don't know why he was named sterling i'm sure it's a biblical reference but well i think that the most important question anybody can ask is why do they call them the toronto maple leafs and not leaves just like maybe it's just like people maybe i guess different people groups and leafs are maybe more than just the maple leaf well thank you for that uh word of encouragement as well as ribbing for our guest sterling vander worker and uh if you could uh i don't have it in front of me so email me the name and location of your church again so i could give you a plug i always like to plug like -minded pastors on this program as often as i can fellowship in greensboro shepherds fellowship in greensboro north carolina if anybody listening is ever visiting greensboro or already lives there look up shepherds fellowship and we hope that you are blessed there uh what uh what are the key things that every christian should first be bringing up in a dialogue with someone who uh says that they oppose the not only the christian faith but perhaps the existence of god i think like i like i go back to my two -step approach i examine whatever they say and i say well that's not what the bible says um i was at this event um a couple years back and it was at on a good friday and i was with a group of open -air preachers and there was one of our friends who was up on the box and he was preaching and they had this um heckler uh come up to him and he was saying you're crazy you believe in a in a book that says a donkey talk you believe in a book this is a man was dead for three days came back to life you guys are crazy and the preacher he was just getting pale and one of the rules in open -air preaching is you don't steal the person's heckler because they often make a nice crowd so i went up and i stood beside him i put the other microphone on to see if he wanted any help in the emotion to me he said so i get up here you know so i got up on the box and i said to this fellow i said i said look i know you think we're crazy i do believe in a book this is a donkey talk i do believe in a book this is a man who was dead for a few days came back i do believe that but i would say you would admit that god can do that and he says yeah if you exist and you know like i said before i said so your problem is not with miracles it's with the god of miracles so what i say is what you do is listen to the person and this is this is something that i've had trouble with as well because i've had so many of these conversations thousands of them that i know exactly what the person's going to say and they'll have three words out of their mouth and i know exactly where they're going and oftentimes i'll cut them off and i won't let them go there and it does not look very good and i think that's one thing as christians that we have to do is listen to their entire question even though you've heard it a thousand times then give them a biblical response so you know it's it's not something that you just you know it's not a cookie cutter thing i would say go out there and talk about the god that saved you i mean there are some ministries who say don't go out there and give you give your personal testimony and that's one of the favorite things that i hear when people step up on the box i think the reason that they caution people against that is so many people want to get up on the box and just talk about themselves but if they talk about the god who saves and talk about the greatness of god i think that's how we should start our conversations until you get objections amen and by the way uh our friend pastor sterling says the name came first the profession providentially came later okay and once again that's shepherd's fellowship in greensboro north carolina our friend alfredo in originally from panama now living in kentucky frankfort kentucky uh offers another comment i think that atheists and opponents of the faith dislike or hate presuppositional apologetics because it renders them powerless and shuts them down in all areas once they admit they have no full knowledge all their claims have a probability of error and therefore they don't know anything fully same with morality morals without a holy god are arbitrary and everyone sets up his or her own morality and no one has the last word or is able to judge anyone do you have any comments yeah i would say that um i would advise people not to google my name because you can see that i am widely hated by atheists out there and it's and you know of course you know i'm quite capable of being a jerk i admit that however i think a lot of it is because this is an apologetic that you cannot answer as jesus said in luke 21 15 i will give you words and wisdom that your adversaries will not be able to withstand or contradict and that's what this apologetic is and like i say you're talking about the bottom row of bricks so they will you know react in a certain way because they're left without excuse you know and that's what scripture says they're without an apologetic and that's what that's what this apologetic does it talks about the glory of god it talks about the glory of jesus christ and shows the person that if you don't start there you don't have an answer and and that's why we were commanded to do with gentleness of respect with gentleness and respect because we're not talking about the complexity of the eye we're destroying worldview and the example i gave is that the the atheist is coming by in their airplane and you're firing holes in it and if you do a biblical apology like that airplane is coming down and if you're a jerk about it they're not coming to you for a gospel presentation they're ditching in like hindu or like scientology anything but jesus christ and that's why we know we have to do this with gentleness and respect because this apologetic is devastating we have uh bb in cumberland county pennsylvania who wants to know do you think that our evidentialist apologetic friends are relying too much on human reason and forgetting the miraculous aspect of the word of god itself which is the power of god unto salvation yes no absolutely you know they hit the they hit the nail on the head and the thing is it's not that i fault them so much because that was me i was doing the exact same thing and why is that because you look on the internet you know i tell people once they've heard one of my sessions don't go to the internet and google apologetics because in a high 90 percent of christians teach you to do it in a way that's not biblical you know like um our friend we talked about earlier i won't mention his name again however in a promotion to one of his conferences he says we're going to teach you how to defend the truth that god exists and we're not going to use the bible to do it and i say you cannot you cannot proclaim the the certainty of christianity by giving up christianity see that is our foundation and too often people want to make the unbeliever the judge you know so um as far as people from from another position um i don't i don't know the motivation uh behind them but um you know i hope to come alongside them because you know one of the examples in the study guide for the film i talk about sometimes you see somebody walking around looking for their eyeglasses and they're on their forehead you say uh excuse me buddy uh they're on your forehead oh thanks a lot might be a little bit embarrassing but the thing is if they turn around and get angry at you for pointing that out i can't help that so one of the things is you know the fact is i'm a nobody i'm a factory worker from canada so i can call out and i did in the film as well some of the um you know which i hope our dear brothers in the lord you know just trying to point out that their glasses are on their forehead and hopefully that they come and embrace me and say well let's talk about this but sometimes you know um they do tend to get their back up and um you know i would just i would prefer if they would just come to me and uh you know maybe they're thinking that i'm not doing that as well but you know i'm softening up as i get older as well well before we run out of time i want to give you uh four or five minutes to really unburden your mind and heart so that our listeners know the the most important things you want etched on their hearts and minds before they leave this program i want to encourage people to talk about the god that saved them to talk about the greatness of god read their bible and to understand the method of salvation because in second timothy 2 24 to 26 we see that repentance is the gift of god in ephesians 2 verse 8 and 9 we see that faith is the gift of god in philippians 129 we see that belief is the gift of god these things are all the gift of god so when you talk to these people you have to do it in a way not to convert them because you can't convert even one person we have to talk to them in the way in the hope that the holy spirit opens their eyes because the holy spirit does not work in a vacuum he condescends to use worms like us to save people he doesn't have to do that he can save people miraculously but by the grace of god in relationship with us he uses us to save people and when we talk to them we have to talk to them in a manner that's loving and one thing that i encourage people i say if you see a conversation between a believer and an unbeliever and if you walk into that conversation at any point and it does not look like the believer wants the unbeliever to be saved they're probably doing it wrong now i believe that there is a place for rebuke and apologetics but the problem is i think that too often people when they engage unbelievers they're too much into the rebuke rather than loving people of course we have to preach the gospel to them we have to tell them of their condition why they need jesus christ but i think we have to do it in a much more loving fashion so i encourage people when they engage unbelievers do it from the truth of scripture understand how god saves people and preach the gospel now when it when you uh when the rubber meets the road when it comes to us being out there engaging in discussion and evangelizing and proclaiming and defending the gospel and the word of god we cannot as human beings prove that god exists or prove that the bible is the inspired inerrant word of god and isn't that one of the reasons why presuppositional apologetics is so important because what we can do is we can disprove the lies said by atheists and agnostics about the bible we can show where the bible has uh had fulfillment of prophecy as in jesus christ as far as fulfilling the messianic prophecies in the old covenant and so on and there are many other things that the the bible had uh foresaw before they occurred like the destruction of the temple in jerusalem uh in 80 70 and on and on and on we could go but we could we could refute the lies and attacks against the bible we cannot as human beings we use logic and reason to prove that god exists and the bible is his word can we well i agree with that partially because i would say that we can in fact prove that god exists and that his word is true but it's we can't persuade the person you can give a logical proof one of the famous examples that greg bonson gives he says nothing exists or god exists he says something exists therefore god exists so he'll give a logical proof but the unbeliever will not agree with the premises you know so i think that there is a way and like in scripture the apostle paul proved that jesus was the christ and he did that with scripture now would somebody say well you can't prove anything in the bible we have to accept it by faith well that's not the scripture says over and over it talks about paul proving things i believe that we can prove these things but our proof is scripture our proof is in his word and i think there's of course god will use philosophy in that but with grounding in scripture i believe we can prove these things but not in a way that the unbeliever is going to be happy with it of course because they don't they don't affirm our presupposition but we should not uh lose heart and give up on our evangelistic efforts because people keep rejecting us over and over and over again uh because we we can only plant the seeds and water them it's god that gives the increase correct well as as reformed people there are two types of people sheep and goats now the sad thing is what does scripture say about what these words do to goats it fattens them for the slaughter right now before we go to a university we pray that god uses us to save souls but god might be saying no i'm sending you there to fatten goats today you know and and we're here well they're not listening to us we're getting all upset say well that might not been our purpose that day now we hope that god uses us to bring sheep into the fold you know but that might not be the case and i think it's arrogant of us to assume how god is going to use this so if people turn and walk away nothing happens outside of god's plan and god works all things for the good of those who love him even our bad apologetic encounters well it's been such an honor and privilege to have you on the program psi today and i look forward to having you return frequently to our program i know your website is absoluteapologetics .com

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absoluteapologetics .com and you could also go to proofthatgodexists .org