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I made a small error, I am fallible too, absolutely fallible, I am, and I thought I was making an error, I made a mistake, and I want to apologize, when I did this triangle, I got two things confused, when Dr. Frame talks about knowledge, he says knowledge is based on presupposition, situation, or evidences, and the third thing would be, the, oh goodness, see this is not in my notes, huh, yeah, but it's existential, existential, existential, so this was actually not what I was wanting to get into though, so this is, I got confused, the three things that make up an argument, an argument should be valid, an argument should be sound, and an argument should be persuasive, that was the three things, so excuse me, excuse me for that confusion, the presuppositional evidence and existential, that's a different, that's a theory of knowledge, a tri-perspectival theory of knowledge, but the, when we talk about an argument, an argument should be valid, an argument should be sound, and an argument should be persuasive, so let's, for a moment, let's just talk about this, what makes something valid, valid means it follows the laws of reason and logic, for instance, if I said, all men who wear black shirts are jerks, Ross is wearing a black shirt, therefore Ross is a jerk, now is that a valid argument, it is, because it follows the laws of logic, but is it a sound argument, the answer is no, because it is based on a false premise, all men who wear black shirts are not jerks, now Ross may be, he's not, but you understand the point, yeah, the one I used for you earlier, the pink shirt was a little different, all men who wear pink shirts, anyway, so a valid argument is an argument that follows the laws of reason and logic, now all men who wear black shirts are jerks, Ross is wearing a black shirt, therefore Ross is a jerk, that is a valid argument, but it's not true, because it's not based on sound premises, right, so an argument should be valid, and it should be sound, meaning the premises should be true, and it should be persuasive, that was, I was a little, I got in my head two things, if you ever listen to Dr. Frame teach, he does a lot on the tri-perspectival view, where it's a lot of pyramids, a lot of triangles in his teaching, and I just got my triangles crossed, tri-perspectival, meaning that we see everything from three perspectives, and I really don't have time to get into how that works, but that's all, if you read his systematic theology, if you read Dr. Frame's work, he really makes that triangle, he really pushes it to its extreme, and I think based somewhat on the idea that God is Trinity, that God is three in one, you know, and so there's a lot there that he, and I tend to like the number three too, if you've ever heard one of my sermons, there's a good chance I had three points in that sermon, it just happens to be how my mind works, so I kind of relate to Dr. Frame in that regard, but when it comes to arguments, he said all arguments should be valid, should be based on reason, all arguments should be sound, based on truth, and all arguments should be persuasive, you know, intending to persuade, not just simply, you know, like we said, the argument earlier, the Bible is the word of God, the Bible says it's true, therefore the Bible is the word of God, that's valid, and it's sound, yeah, and it's sound, because those are true things, but is it persuasive, not necessarily, not for the unbeliever, it's persuasive for us, that's all I need, but for the unbeliever, it's not necessarily, you know, where we would start, you know, the Bible says it's the word of God, the Bible's true, therefore the Bible's the word of God, you know, that is a true argument, but it probably isn't, it is, it's what he talks about in the first chapter, remember he talks about the circular argument, it's a very tight circle, so we simply, the argument is simply expanding the circle, but it's still a circle, right, just like the person who says my reason, I arrive at truth based on reason, well how do you know your reason is true, because I trust my reason, well why, because it's true, again, it's still a circle, it's just a different type of circle, alright, so what I have given you is a gift, you may thank me later, actually who you should thank is Dr. Fred Zaspel, Books at a Glance is an online program that you can become a member of, I talked about this last week, where they do summaries of Christian works, and they have summaries of John Owen, they have summaries of all kinds of great Christian literature, $9 .99 a month, if you can afford it, do it, but I reached out to Dr. Zaspel, I told him about our class and our program, and he has given me permission to give you guys hard copies of the literature, as long as I don't charge for it, which I certainly never would, he's given me permission to give these out, now I will not be putting these out digitally, so if you're watching this video, and you are a student, and you want to copy this, you're going to have to come to my office to get the copy, because of my commitment to Dr. Zaspel, I don't want this to become something that gets spread out, this is a hard copy only, and it's one per student, okay, and what this is, is these are the chapters of your book summarized by a scholar, okay, so what we're going to do is, you should have read the chapter, which I hope you did, what we're going to do is, we're going to read the summary in class, and we're going to talk about the summary, and I have went through and highlighted and underlined some parts, that's not from books at a glance, that's from me, the highlights and the underlining is what I did, sound good, alright, cool, alright, so this week we looked at methodological considerations, we talked about apologetics as proof, you know, we offer proof, we then defend, and then we offend, and we're going to look at all of those eventually, faith is trust that is founded and supported by sufficient evidence, nothing can be more certain than the word of God, so it is not blind or irrational faith to trust what God says, do you guys remember what example he used in the book, Abraham, remember he said Abraham trusted what God said, God said, go from your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, why did Abraham go, because he trusted in the word of God, what is Abraham to us, he is the example of faith, I'm looking forward to it, I'm teaching on Genesis in our Sunday morning study, and we're getting to Genesis 12, and we're going to look at the life of Abraham and study the life of the one who was called the friend of God, the man of faith, how did he demonstrate his faith, took his son up a mountain with a knife in his hand, ready to do all that God asked of him, right, so Abraham is a man of faith, so it's not blind or irrational to simply trust what God says, there is a quote in the book that isn't in this, I went through and I really like this quote, I got it marked here, I marked a lot of stuff, if you ever look at something I read, you'll know I read it, because it's marked all up, I thought I had marked it specifically to mention it, but I can't find it, sorry about that, okay, maybe I'll find it later, let's go on in this, the Bible not only provides theological statements, it often provides authoritative reasons for accepting them or seeing their logical consistency, I thought that was a very helpful part of the chapter, what did he talk about, what were some of the things he gave as examples of that, the resurrection, remember he talked about the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, what did he say, he said, Paul claims that we should believe the resurrection because of what, because it was the preaching of the apostles, he doesn't say we should believe the resurrection because 500 people saw it, he doesn't say we should believe the resurrection because without it there's no Christian faith, he didn't say we should believe the resurrection because of any of those things, he said we should believe it because it's what was taught by the apostles, but then he does give us those other underlying evidences, there were 500 people who saw it, there is no Christian faith without it, but the reason why we should believe it is because it is the apostolic teaching, and so he begins with that ultimate presupposition of this is the truth, but he doesn't leave it there, again evidences are not wrong, it's just you have to start with the right foundation, the right foundation is this is the truth and it's what's proclaimed, what are some of the ways that we see the truth being worked out, 500 people saw Jesus alive, honestly if you tell an unbeliever that, you know what they're going to do, they're going to scoff, well I don't believe 500 people really saw Jesus alive, you only believe that because the Bible says so, well of course I believe it because the Bible says so, I already told you that, I already told you I believe the Bible, well I don't believe the Bible, well can we still not have a conversation, I'm not going to give up my foundation just because it's different than yours, it's like two guys jousting on top of, you remember the old show American Gladiators, and they had two guys up on a stand and they both would hit each other with the sticks, well just because he starts to fall off his foundation doesn't mean I'm going to stop standing on mine, I'm going to stand on my foundation whether he can stand on his or not, moving on it says although we want our arguments and reasons to persuade others, people are not always persuaded by solid arguments, is that the truth, absolutely, people are not always persuaded by solid arguments, apologists need to offer arguments that are consistent with Bible teaching, that are true and logically valid and that take into account the individuality of the inquirer, that's again the three things, they're valid, they're true, they're sound, and they are considering the person, that goes to persuasive, you know, if I was at UNF and I were talking to philosophy students, I would probably have a different conversation with them than if I was at the Callahan Fair having a conversation with people who just got off the zipper, now I'm not in any way saying that the people at the college are smarter or have a better world view than the people that just got off the zipper, in fact, probably quite the opposite, the world view of the people that are at the college are probably so twisted into knots, untying those knots would take many, many, many moons, but you understand the conversation would be different, so we consider the individuality of the inquirer when we have the conversation.
Simply being exposed to general revelation can be more effective sometimes than constructing syllogisms and reasoned arguments. Theistic arguments may bring to the surface the truth that people are suppressing.
I love this part of the chapter, because he made a very good point, he said sometimes it's not about arguing, but pointing, we point the people to Jesus, we point the people to creation, we point the people to what they already know is true, it's not about out arguing them, because I've got to tell you, there are some atheists out there who argue really well.
I mean, if you've ever gone and watched any of the videos of guys like Christopher Hitchens and stuff like that, he was pretty good at arguing, I mean, he did the thing with, what's his name, your buddy, Doug Wilson, him and Doug Wilson went on a tour, Doug Wilson's a Christian pastor, and him and Christopher Hitchens before he died went on a tour of colleges where they would debate the belief in God, and if you ever want to hear good interactions between a believer and an unbeliever, that's a good one to look up, it's Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens.
Yeah, there's a whole documentary you can watch. No, the monster God debate is between Brian Zahn and Michael Brown, that's about atonement, that's between two guys who are supposed to be believers, even though I got a lot of questions about Brian Zahn, he really, I shouldn't have said that publicly.
Yeah, Brian Zahn, he's out there, he's loving every minute of it. Okay, but simply being exposed to general revelation is sometimes very effective. Honestly, how many people have really come to the end of themselves by looking at the stars, or at the vastness of the ocean, or the birth of a child, or the death of a child?
Sometimes those things can bring a person to the end of themselves, and be more than any argument ever could, because they already know God exists, it's just what's going to cause that suppression to release.
Telling people about Jesus can often convince them of the truth of God's existence in the gospel, since they already know deep down that God exists. This is a pretty interesting thought, in the book, I think it's better, obviously better flushed out than just one sentence here, but the idea of the book is this, sometimes we just take them to Jesus, take them to Christ.
He's ultimately the one that you've got to deal with. Honestly, just studying the life of Christ has converted many men, because God has used that to change their heart. Some people go to the Bible to try to disprove the Bible and end up as believers, in spite of themselves.
I'll give you a good example, it was Nabeel Qureshi, who is in American Gospel, those who have seen the American Gospel film, and he says that, he said, I left Islam and became a Christian because I studied the life of Muhammad and the life of Jesus.
Nabeel Qureshi, don't ask me to spell it, is that Qureshi? I know it starts with a Q, but he says, I left Islam because I studied Muhammad and I became a Christian because I studied Christ. I mean, there is no better apologetic for the Christian faith than the one that came and died for us.
So I think that's a methodological consideration there. How do we appeal to the person through our Savior, pointing them to Christ? Oftentimes, well, how can I argue this person out of their unbelief?
You can't, we've already established you can't, but you can point them to the truth and pray that God would open their heart. You first have to be confident in the truth, though, that's another thing we've been talking about, you being confident enough to not say, hey, I know, we're both neutral, we're going to come at this from neutral ground.
Hogwash, you're not both neutral. He's a rebel and you're a Christian, be one. Don't be afraid to be one. Next week in our study, we're going to look at objectors and objections that we will face. We're going to finally really start getting down to what are some of the arguments we're really going to be dealing with in the real world.
And one of the first things I'm going to mention is you will find that when you get out and really do evangelism and really get out in the world, that the objectors you will face the least are atheists.
The people you're going to face the most are either going to be people who are in Christian cults or they are false Christians, nominal Christians, or people who are in other religions. You will rarely run into somebody who says, I don't believe in God.
You're more likely to run into somebody who has a wrong understanding of who God is. The point of contact between the apologist and the nonbeliever is not agreed upon epistemic standards. It is the metaphysical fact that people are created in the image of God and that they already have some knowledge of God.
What's he saying there? You can't go to the unbeliever and say, okay, we're both going to be neutral. That can't be the starting point. You can't agree upon epistemic standards, standards of epistemology, because you both have different epistemologies.
You both have different understandings of the world. You can't say, I'm going to adopt your understanding of the world. That's not going to help. You can't do that. Unbelievers suppress their knowledge of God through ethical rebellion.
Such sinful living is anti-theistic rationalization. Excuse me. Such sinful living and anti-theistic rationalization is itself irrational. Truth will introduce tensions into the unbeliever's system.
I like that last sentence. That's why I set it apart. Truth will introduce tension into the unbeliever's system. Think about it. His whole system, his whole worldview is based on any number of factors, but the primary factor is he knows who God is and he does not want that knowledge.
He is suppressing that knowledge. So whether he is an ardent atheist or whether he is a don't care agnostic or he's the two Mormons on your front door trying to talk you into believing in Joseph Smith, they're all coming from the wrong worldview.
And when you begin to introduce the truth, that is going to introduce tension into their system. Was this helpful? The summary? Well, here's what you have. I was so gracious as to give you next week's summary.
So here's what I want you to do. I want you to use this as your cheat sheet. Read this before you read the chapter. If you haven't already read chapter four, read this before you read the chapter. Then read the chapter.
Then read this after and maybe make your own notes. You see how I've done. I've gone through and highlighted and underlined. I think this is very helpful. Help me. Well, I don't again. Yeah. All right.
So you have this week's. You have next week's. You're reading for next week is chapter four. And next week we're going to talk about objectors and the objections that we face. Any questions about tonight?
You have a good time? Learn something? Good. It was easier. Well, it's going to. I hope it's going to get easier every time. The reading was. Yeah, I think so, too. He's starting it. We're starting to get into the more what we might less philosophical, more nuts and bolts.
Practical. Yeah. Yeah. Let's pray. Father, mercy's. We thank you for this class. We ask that you bless us as we go from this place. Keep us safe. Lord, help us to do well in our studies. And most of all, Lord, that we would draw closer to you through the study of your word in Christ's name.
Amen.