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

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

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platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

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wiser and better.

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.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity

living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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,

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, 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.

By the way, is my Dutch.

Pronunciation.

Okay?

It's not bad.

In Dutch, it's actually Ten Bruggenkater, but in Canadian, Canuck, it's Ten Bruggenkate, so that was quite good.

We've actually met twice, I think you know.

That.

Yes, I do.

At the conference in Florida was the first time.

The debate, yeah, and then in Arizona.

No, actually, I was never in Arizona yet.

No?

No.

Maybe you just met another ugly guy.

Named Chris.

I thought we'd met twice.

It was the debate, and then it was some other place,.

Well, it was the debate that James White had in Florida with Greg

Strawbridge.

Correct.

And then, either before or after that, it was in

Jacksonville at the conference that you spoke at.

Oh, okay.

The Jeremiah Cry conference.

Right, yeah, that's it.

That's where I first met Tony Miano,

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

Jeff Pollard, although I had known Jeff for years and have interacted with him

by phone and by email, 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,

but there were other men that I had just met for the first time there.

Bobby McCreary was one.

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, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z

-e -n at gmail .com if you have a question for Sai Ten Bruggencate.

And please give us your first name, at least, your city and state of

residence, and if you live outside of the USA, your country of residence.

And we appreciate hearing from you.

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 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,

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 Lord Jesus

Christ as your Lord and Savior.

What providential occurrences the Lord brought about sovereignly in your life to bring you to that point?

Canada.

And I don't know a time when I did not know Jesus Christ as Lord.

Now, I'm not saying, as some people suspect, that I was born a

Christian.

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 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, I guess you don't love your mother.

But I lived

in a house.

Yes, I actually brought that very topic up very recently.

I interviewed.

Dr. James R. White's daughter, Summer White, last 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 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.

Doug Wilson uses the analogy of somebody who's saved from drowning, and that might show up at the same

time.

Arrogant would it be for that?

That's very good.

Yeah, I like that analogy.

So you were raised in a Christian faith, and you can't remember

when it was that the Lord actually radically transformed you, because you were so

young when it happened, assumingly.

And this was a theologically reformed home, or was it of a different theological perspective?

No, it was

definitely a reformed

home.

But if you ask me if I knew Arminian answers,

and one thing that James White says,

then presuppositional apologetics, then I came to understand the authority of scripture,

and then I came to understand reform.

Huh, that's interesting.

And so from what I recall, I believe your discovery of

Dr. Greg Bonson, the late Dr. Greg Bonson, had something to do with this approach

to apologetic.

Yeah, absolutely.

I always had a passion for sharing my faith, but I was doing it, I would say, in a manner that was

unbiblical.

And I had a

website, 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 didn't know why.

You know, I know now why, because

it never affected my faith.

And then about a

year ago, I

called a narrow

-mind addict, and I've

been

on that show about

four times, and that's how I honed my skill,

and still communicate.

Well, 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, and

I'll say,

let's say that,

and the unbeliever looks

at that very,

now why is

that?

But why are they coming to different conclusions?

Not because of the evidence, but because of the beliefs they take, foundational, underlying

beliefs.

And they will interpret fundamental

underlying beliefs are what you're called your presuppositions.

So rather than examine the evidence, I say

they can't even make sense of it.

So a lot of these tools, and yet we

gladly hand them over, and let the unbeliever examine evidence, and you

hand the gun over to them, or you throw your gun.

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 many

times, and who do you

give evidence to in court?

If somebody comes up to you and say, who are you saying is

the judge?

We elevate the unbeliever to the

position,

I say that is an incorrect way.

You can use evidences in a way, you know, to badly most of the people,

apologetics, do not use evidences in that way.

They try and use evidences to con...

An example 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,

from the original Greek and Hebrew.

Uh, he will point to these things.

Now, why is this not a contradiction in terms of he is a.

Presuppositionalist?

I would say

that I

would use evidence, but I

think it's also important, the same thing we tell the debate tonight,

you're going to meet just not the unbeliever, that is

the Mormon that knows the Egod, and

too often we just present them with evidences to

deconstruct

115.

And if you have to know the intricacies of the

sheep

here,.

Really good argument.

Well, you know, since a lot of presuppositionalism is based on Romans 1, I'm

just, if you don't mind, I'm going to read Romans chapter 1, if that's alright with you.

Oh man, I would love that.

Paul, a bondservant 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 requests, 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 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

worshiped and served 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

gossips, 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, Cy?

Yeah, exactly.

I'm glad you read the whole chapter, too, because a lot of

times we

just

focus

dealing

with the

apologetic.

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 I think that most people on the

planet Earth do have that kind of, they live by their own golden rule

where they pick and choose what they want from various ideologies on the

planet, but when they will say to you that, I disagree with you, you're

wrong, or 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, I

have a shirt,

but one thing I keep in mind, Romans

1 says that everyone does believe in Him.

So when they come up to you and

say, 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 agree, the

night before that she was at choir

practice, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't walking the street, and 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's a prostitute.

You wouldn't say that.

You'd say, but one

thing you have to

keep in mind is

that when you say that you don't believe in God, and if you walk away from this

conversation, and if you die unrepentant, because I'm giving you a

lot of truth, one thing

I want to make clear about Romans chapter 1 as well, is that people, and they'll go out

into the street with them and say, I really don't believe that God exists,

and they say, well, you're

lying.

That is way

above my pay.

Elevate one, and they suppress.

But Greg Bonson uses this analogy of, you know, sometimes you're playing volleyball in a swimming pool, and 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.

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 blind.

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 way, shape, or form appealing to fellow humans,

such as the whole concept of goodness and decency.

There should be no rules for those things if God does not exist.

One example of that is something I clearly remember when I arranged 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 Madeleine Murray O 'Hare founded.

And when basically David Silverman was saying that

morality is determined by what the majority of 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 James basically cornered David Silverman, and he is a Jewish atheist,

someone who identifies ethnically as a Jew, when James said to him, 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

occurrence.

So it is true that these people are suppressing the truth, and they will find themselves

either consciously or unconsciously borrowing or stealing from our worldview, don't they?

He doesn't like me debating.

He actually sat and stared at me the whole time.

It was quite interesting.

But I want the listeners to understand, too, that I think there's a difference

sitting down.

My friend

turned to

me and he

said, Cy,

the thing that I

hate most

about you, I said, you

know how

I'm so

certain?

Same way you are.

And so he walked away to

the table and walked to the rest.

You know, many hour -long conversations.

I'm not saying that's going to happen every time, but I've heard

so many, you know, the difference it makes in their.

Argumentation.

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 chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Cy Tenbruggenkate 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 Friel, to

tell you.

About a conference he and I are going to.

Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV and

occasional guest on Chris's show, Iron Criticizing

Iron.

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. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.

We hope to see you there.

Learn more at g3conference .com,.

G3conference .com.

Thanks, Todd, I think.

See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's booth.

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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 Sai Ten 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.

We are discussing Presuppositional Apologetics 101 on our broadcast today.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

We have Rich from Cleveland, Ohio, who says, Chris, thank you for your ministry.

Can you please ask Sai this question on today's radio show?

Sai, thank you for your ministry.

I have used your one -to -one tracks in my evangelical 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 Sai slash

Nye debate?

I'm assuming that's Bill Nye, the science guy, but I can't be certain of that.

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?

I tweeted out a couple.

I'd really be interested

in

the Sai Nye Summit.

I only debate on

one topic, because there are many

Christians

and things like this.

I'm giving you things that Jesus Christ, and

I'm not going to give to the unbeliever to use them to

argue against the biblical Nye, but

he didn't respond.

Or you could also come out with a silent Nye, unholy Nye.

Anyway, well, 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 Bible with an embossed on the cover.

It is a perfect size for carrying around in a briefcase or in

a large coat pocket.

It's not exactly a pocket size for a shirt pocket, but the print is large enough for you to easily

read and 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, cvbbs

.com, cv for bbs for biblebookservice .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's actually a fantastic question.

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 about them.

However, that's where I will start, that you do know that he

exists.

There are crazy things it

says in it.

I say, well, one thing is clear, though, when you say that you don't believe my Bible

is true, because according to

Scripture, it says the fear of the Lord is the

beginning of knowledge.

And I say, I

realize that often

they'll say yes, and so I could

be right about it.

Let's say we're standing near a road.

Oh, I mean, you

could be right, you

could be wrong about everything you claim to know.

Therefore, it follows logically that you know nothing.

And then I go out, and I give them a gospel presentation.

And very often what I'll do, and I think that my over the years as

well, because rather than being duped into an evidential argument,

gospel, and then

if they come up to you, you know, you're very honest about something you're saying, that I very quickly deal with that

objection apologetically.

If it's more of the philosophy you have in your back pocket,

we're formed apologetic too, because nowhere

in Scripture does it say that goats become sheep.

Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice.

And too often, we're trying to convert goats.

We're trying to give people goat food because they're not listening to the biblical argument.

And if they turn, 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 Scripture says about them,

and hope that the Holy Spirit use it to conform to apologetic.

Yes, I do not know how our Arminian brethren, who claim to

be biblical inerrantists, 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 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 Til, 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 Til that you could mention, that you know of, that use this methodology of apologetics?

When Paul was before, he said to him,

he didn't try and prove the resurrection, but he says, well God can do

that.

So when I'm out in the street and somebody says,

well yeah if he exists he could do

that, I say, so your problem

is Greg Bonson of course, who studied mostly under,

most books, but what I've, I've cut my teeth on the

apologetic mostly and then also on audio lectures

at the Covenant Media Foundation.

I downloaded hundreds of hours of his lectures, thankfully they, one

thing I didn't share with you is that I'm, 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 simply

get one nugget out of it.

And uh, when we have people, um, who get sentimental and

they say that, uh, 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 so

on.

God could never do that, and he will not ever do that.

They are really rejecting this understanding of Romans 1, that these people, no matter where they

live and where they were raised and who raised them, uh, God has placed the truth within

their hearts, uh, already, even though they are of, uh,

the, the clay that, uh, creates vessels of destruction or, or the,

um, 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.

Can you imagine such a tribe where these people have never heard the gospel and

you have a sign -up

sheet at the back?

Because according to what these people are saying,

so if somebody came to them and preached the gospel to them, that would be removing their excuse.

No missionaries went there that they would have, but nobody believes

that.

We have missionary sign -ups at the back of the church.

We have wall building teams to build walls, to stop missionaries from getting in, to remove the excuse of, of these

unreached, sufficient knowledge of God for the missionaries to

tell them about

went to

one of these unreached

tribes and they talked to him,

always known him.

We've never known his name.

And these are

unreached tribes.

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, 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, then when you're living out.

So basically the natural man, apart from a missionary

specifically giving the, the 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 only hope of their salvation from this predicament they're in.

And isn't that even 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 un

-evangelized 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's

because people will say, well, as a Calvinist,

and this is a question I have, well then why do

you eat?

God knows that as well as the end.

And that's why we preach, and that's what we pray from an Arminian

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 said and done, and God has done everything, you know,

then it wouldn't make any sense.

Amen.

And by the way, our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air, is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We have 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. Sproul and the late Dr. John Gerstner, disagree with

this methodology of presuppositionalism and prefer.

The evidentialist ideology for apologetics?

I think you're going to love my, and I think

have disagreements.

And I think, for

instance,

Dr. Vonson,

and they agreed on 95%, I think

there's different groups, but when they believe mostly the same

thing, sadly in that case, at least

one person has to be wrong, and I think, you know, you'll probably understand.

Yes, and on this.

Fallen planet, Christ's Church is never

going to be in perfect lockstep harmony until we are in glory with him for eternity.

In fact, 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?

Christianity that adhere to one certain, something like that,

out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, and if it's just groupthink, you know, based on something like that,

it's a,.

I can't get into a conversation.

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, in Jesus, who was a man but

became one with Christ consciousness.

How do I use.

Presuppositional ways with them?

Again, it's

nonsense, always.

It's something that

they've come

up with, them to know anything, because you could be wrong.

You know, I say, could you be wrong about that God that you're professing?

You know, they don't have perfect, have to either know everything,

very few revelatory worldviews, and people who profess something

like that.

By the way, Bruce, 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.

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 you think that some of our evidentialist brethren get

really hostile about this issue?

They think that presuppositionalism is not only just 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?

Books in the lobby that they're

trying to

sell.

He went around,

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...

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...

And I tell people, I'm the Christian water doctor.

I don't have a table full of dinosaur books in the lobby.

They read your Bible, and you cannot sell, read your Bible.

And I think a lot of it is, of course, you

know that we have not received, so how

smart that guy is.

You watch a William

Lane Craig debate, and more often than not, people walk away from that

debate, how smart that guy is.

And I think that in some degree, they like that.

It's one of my debates, they're

not intimidated to go and talk to the

unbeliever because there's no office of

love your neighbor is.

I'm not going to teach you how to defend your 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 parent.

Why do we need some freak to defend the existence of my parents?

And I say, well, why is that crazy?

Why do I have to come to you?

It's not an evidential 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 are genuinely saved, you can do it.

And 12 years ago, I was...

Amen.

And we are

going to another break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail

.com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Cy Tenbruggenkate right after these messages from our

sponsors.

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Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I hope you join me at the G3 conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church at

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go

is Saiten Bruggenkait.

He is a Christian apologist, 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 chrisarnsen at gmail dot

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.

Back in 2000, he

just

worked and I do

some.

But that was a film in its

concept.

We were just going

to be I

was nervous because now people are actually starting to paying

money to watch some of my encounters out on the street.

So we did that.

And and David just encouraged me so greatly at the end of the day.

He said that is going to change now.

We're going to do some teaching, which we did.

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 watch 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 stand

my heart

for engaging

people.

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 RG and click on store and you'll.

Find out more about that DVD.

How after that the year after that, and it's a

documentary based on my my debate with Matt Delahunty

and it's called debating

Delahunty.

Great.

We have Thomas and he.

Is let's see he is from Bakersfield, California.

And he is also a first time questioner, but a long time listener.

And he asks, 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

not I used

to preach for

amen.

So when we go to the

abortion, my ministry

on the streets has evolved like to

be converted later.

It's about loving

people.

So I

call them

death

squirts,

a video that I went to each and every one of them, and I told them that I loved

them know what it is that's caused

and here.

And I think that's what we need to do.

It's not so much preach the love of Jesus Christ to them.

And we have to teach them because sadly, a lot of the

abortion ministries are very practical, my

baby because you know, you're calling me Hitler.

I'm just like Hitler

to be of life.

You just change the view because now they think their

babies are murdered here.

They point to the cluster neck that they're going to a

lot of them are, you know, I would say that they're not coming from then

you could deal.

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 fine woman and you could see her put her sign down.

And you know, she was because

our presupposition is that God and we have to be the example, you

know, you Jesus propositional argument.

By the way, thank you, Thomas.

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.

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 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 you make.

Presuppositionalism

compatible

with that text?

A proper apology.

I'm exposed 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 take everything that they

do, every thought, expose their sinfulness,

and then we get to a van.

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

precepts.

I will explain more things when

you make that question.

So I think, you know,

there's different ways that.

You can...

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.

The thing is, of course, I don't

mind addressing

that.

You would admit that the

God of the...

So you might not accept it, you might reject it.

However, according to my worldview, I can know things

for certain.

And I was

actually going to

get a...

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.

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 why

people don't like it.

Because, you know,

the example

that...

Hey, mister, that brick, it's crooked.

Yeah, thanks a lot.

I appreciate that.

But let's say you go down that same street and you see that the first one is 500th row and you yell out to him

and say, hey, mister, that first row of bricks down here, it's crooked.

You're trying to tell me my job.

If you're right, then the whole wall has to come down.

And that's what we do as presuppositionists.

We're not talking about the last brick that they install.

We're not talking about...

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 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 do you.

Know of

this book?

Do you

know of the book?

What I

find

is that when I first

started writing, the

audience that I want to most appeal to is the people at my level.

I remember this one book, and in the press, he

dumbed down the argument, and he was using words in that book that I'd never

heard

before.

Almost nine years ago to write a book, but since that time, I've discovered I'm not a writer.

Because a lot of the books out

there on 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 pillar.

Reasons why?

Well, like I said, one of the reasons is that it's unbiblical.

We're actually blaspheming.

Separate me from the love of the Father.

Nothing can separate me from the love of the Father.

Then the very next day, we go, if I'm wrong, I die rot in the ground.

If you're right, you die rot in the ground, worms eat your body.

But if you're wrong, you go to hell.

It says, nothing can separate me from the love of the Father.

But if we reduce God to, then you cannot say, nothing can separate me from the love of the

Father.

You'd have to say, nothing can separate me from the love of the Father.

They're not talking about

him to know anything at all.

So I say, any conversation is not a biblical conversation.

Because there are people who use this apologetic, and they'll say, well, you need logic, you need

morality, and you need all of this, therefore God.

I say, that is not a presuppositional argument.

Do you think that 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 presuppositionalists,.

Apologetics?

With a friend of mine, he says, Si, it's

not going to be your favorite debate afterwards.

And getting uncomfortable, he

was arguing presuppositions, and he had his foot on

it.

Then they'll get

into a place where there's

one debate, the topic of evil came up,

and the wheels just fell off.

Because if God is

not sovereign,

people do not come from where they can employ the apologetic, but eventually, especially

if you're dealing with it,.

It's not going to go well for them.

Now, you made the joke 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 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 disproving the lies 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 you point to this fact of evidence and 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, and to use that as an apology, is

there a place?

We're not

fighting,

and I will show you, I'm not

going to try and convince you that 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'll even

do that on the streets.

I don't do it very often, so I think that there

is a place for it, we just have to do it in a way that does not take the unbeliever's word over God,

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, I'd love to

sit down with these ministries and let's work out a biblical apology that's according to Scripture, where we can use those

evidences.

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 Cy Ten Bruggenkate, our email

address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you

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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.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guests for the last or the previous 90

minutes and the next half hour to come has been and will be Sai Ten

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 addressing

the theme Presuppositional Apologetics 101.

It's easy for you to say.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question before we run out of time, we've got about 25 minutes left,

our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

And if you could give.

Us, our listeners, some more whys of presuppositionalism,

Sai.

And the why that we do

it

this

way, a

lot of

times

people

will

say, no, that's

because

all these

other, you know,

the interesting thing about the other arguments, you know,

doesn't apologize for God.

You know, what we do is

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 Til were at odds with each other about a

lot of issues,.

But was presuppositionalism one of them?

I think that they reconciled the problem.

He did this, and he

actually did not call

him a theist.

The thing is, I think

because

philosophic

Archean

type

answer,

and you

know, I

think

that's

what he...

When all is said and done, when it comes to the average Christian defending the

faith, is not one of the great values of presuppositionalism

is that you really, 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 were trying to use these other sciences and fields

of knowledge to prove your point theologically.

Yeah, I would say not just...

When I'm out on the street, and I have an encounter,

and that's what I say, this drives you back to scripture.

Now, just knowing the gospel,

so if you just know the gospel...

Yes, I would agree with you, but I was really.

Referring to the bare minimum of even a new believer, somebody who is fresh out of

the waters of baptism, who is...

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 needs to know the condition of man and the only cure for that condition.

Like I said, I've listened to hundreds of hours of bonds, but one of the examples...

The Bible says this about...

So you don't...

I mean...

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?

Okay, who are they?

Well, I would say...

Frank Turek is a

presuppositionalist?

Well, I would

say in his latest

book, you

know, borrowing from...

who claimed to be presuppositional, but, you know, they're not reformed.

And like I say, it just... I would say that they're not really presuppositional.

So in a way, yes, there's people who try to employ the argumentation, but, you know, then he'll go

on and defend...

Yeah.

Yeah, do

you think that he is unconsciously a presuppositionalist on occasion?

Because I'm.

Pretty sure that at one time, anyway, I asked him directly about that, and he openly said he

disagreed with presuppositionalism.

I'm almost certain.

Because the thing is, when I discuss these issues of reformed 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...

Everyone will say what you mentioned.

Yes.

And if you go to my website,

proofthatgodexists .org,

that's why I think we'll

see...

Do I believe that...

Yeah, what you said reminds me of quotes by Spurgeon and J .I. Packer that are very similar, which

basically, if you 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.

Right.

We have

Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Good friend of mine.

Yes, he has mentioned that in previous 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 and apologetics.

May the Lord help your misplaced hope in the Toronto Maple Leafs.

That's a low blow.

Go Wings.

You know, the interesting thing about Sterling Vanderwerker is...

Yes, I know that.

Yes. It's amazing.

Yeah. Yeah.

His name did come first.

He didn't come from a long line of jewelers.

Well, I don't know that, actually.

Well, I think that the most important.

Question anybody can ask is, why do they call them the Toronto Maple Leafs and not

leaves?

Maybe, I guess.

Well, thank you for that word of.

Encouragement, as well as ribbing for our guest, Sterling Vanderwerker.

And if you could, 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. Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro.

Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina.

If anybody listening is ever visiting Greensboro or already lives there, look up Shepherd's

Fellowship, and we hope that you are blessed there.

What are the key things that every Christian

should first be bringing up in a dialogue with someone who

says that they oppose not only the Christian faith, but perhaps the.

Existence

of God?

If he wanted any

help.

So I

got up on

the

box.

I do

believe

that.

Listen to the person,

and I know exactly where

they're going, and oftentimes I'll cut them off, and I won't let them go.

I think that's one thing as Christians that we have to do is listen to their entire

question, and give them something that you just, you know,

it's not a cookie cutter.

It's about the God that saved you.

I mean, there are some ministries who say, don't go out there and give your personal talk 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 saved them, talk about...

Amen.

And by the way, our friend Pastor Sterling says, the name came first, the profession providentially

came later.

And once again, that's Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Our friend Alfredo, originally from Panama, now living in

Kentucky, Frankfurt, Kentucky, 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, Cy?

Yeah, I

would say

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, 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 that's why we at Plexi VI,

we're destroying the atheists coming by in their airplane.

And if you do a biblical cue for a gospel

presentation, they're ditching in like Hindu, or in like Scientology, anything but Jesus

Christ.

And that's why we know -.

We have Bibi 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?

It's not that I fault them so much, because that was me.

I was doing the exact same thing,

not biblical, that we're not

going to use.

You cannot use Christianity.

See, that is our foundation, the unbeliever, the judge,

to come

alongside them.

Because, you know, one of the examples in the study got me,

but they're on embarrassment.

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, maybe they're thinking that

I'm not doing

that.

I'm softening

up as I get

older as well.

Well, before we run out of time, I want to give you four or five minutes to really

unburden your mind and heart, so that our listeners know the most important things

you want etched on their hearts and minds before they leave this program.

26, we see that.

We see that in

Philippians 1, 29, we see that belief.

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 a way in the hope that the Spirit does not work in a vacuum.

He condescends to use worms

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 often

people, when they engage unbelievers, they're too much into the rebuke, rather than loving

people.

Tell them of their condition, why they need Jesus, in a much more loving fashion.

So I encourage people, when they engage unbelievers, do it from the truth of Scripture.

Understand how God...

Now, 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 had fulfillment of prophecy

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 Bible had foresaw before they occurred, like the

destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, and on and on and on we could go.

But we could refute the lies and attacks against the Bible.

We cannot, as human beings, use logic and reason to prove.

That God exists and the Bible is His Word, can

we?

We can, in fact, prove that God exists and that His Word is true.

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 of

philosophy in

that, but not

in a way that the

unbelievers, because they.

Don't affirm our presupposition.

But we should not lose heart and give up on our evangelistic

efforts because people keep rejecting us over and over and over again, because we can

only plant the seeds and water them.

It's God that gives the increase, correct?

Well, as Reformed people,.

There are two types of people, sheep and goats.

Now, the sad thing is, what the water?

Right.

Now, before we go to a

university,

God might be saying,

no, I'm sending

you...

Well, it's been such an honor and privilege to have you on the program side today, and I look forward to having you

return frequently to our program.

I know your website is absoluteapologetics .com,

absoluteapologetics .com.

And you could also go to proofthatgodexists .org,

proofthatgodexists .org.

I really hope that you return to the program soon, and I look forward to our next time of

fellowship face -to -face, brother.

I'll definitely...

Give me your mailing address, I'll have it sent out to you.

Thanks very much, brother.

And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write questions to Sai Chen

Bruggencate.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner.

I look forward to receiving your questions for our guests tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

God bless.