Always Ready: Chap. 28 Apologetic Tools

Reformed Rookie

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:39

All right, we're continuing along in the book. We're in section five.

00:45

We started this a couple of weeks ago, Answers to Apologetic Challenges.

00:51

Tonight, we come to chapter 28, Tools of Apologetics. And this is really getting down.

00:57

We've already examined in the last couple of weeks the heart of the matter. What was at the heart of apologetics?

01:04

And now we're going to look at the tools of apologetics. All right, and this is our introduction.

01:10

This is how Bonson begins chapter 28. He says, an army cannot be expected to wage a successful battle if its soldiers are unfamiliar with the various weapons they have at a disposal for dealing with the enemy.

01:26

Likewise, a builder cannot conduct a repair on a house if he does not know what kinds of carpenter and plumbing tools are available to him and how to use them.

01:36

In the same way, Christians who want to defend the faith should prepare for answering the criticisms of unbelievers by familiarizing themselves with the tools of reasoning and argumentation that can be enlisted in apologetics.

01:51

It just really makes sense. I mean, Bonson always comes up with great analogies and all.

01:58

Obviously, what good would a weapon do a soldier if he did not know how to use it?

02:06

What good is any plumbing tool or carpenter tool if the person using it doesn't know how to use it?

02:15

It's the same thing. We can talk about the tools of apologetics, and that's what we've been doing, actually, for the first four sections of this book, the basis for it, the foundations, and then what's the philosophy and the theology behind it.

02:33

But now it comes down to how do you use it? How do you actually engage in this?

02:39

And that's what this chapter is really all about. He says, one will often find that unbelievers, both educated and uneducated, take the offensive against Christianity before they have become familiar with what they are talking about.

02:58

All right? This is important. Well, what does this have to do with the tools of apologetics?

03:04

One of the first tools is acknowledging and recognizing that this is what they're doing.

03:11

All right? For example, in the place of research and honest assessment of available evidence concerning some aspects of the

03:23

Bible, many unbelievers have substituted personal conjecture about what seems likely to them.

03:30

Now, if you've ever done any apologetics, any evangelism with somebody who fancies themselves to be an intellect, you would be amazed at how often they say, well, it just seems likely, or it's probably.

03:45

We have to assume, all right? Soon as you start hearing those words, your antenna should go up and say, wait a minute.

03:54

This person is not operating on a reasonable level or even on a logical level.

04:02

It's what they call prejudicial conjecture, if you want a nice fancy term for it.

04:11

For instance, since the Bible was supposed to be written so many hundreds of years ago, it just seems likely to many unbelievers that we cannot trust the text of the

04:21

Bible, which we have in our hands today. How many people have ever heard that argument?

04:27

How can we trust the Bible? It was written hundreds of years ago. We don't even know who wrote the Bible. So it seems likely that there's going to be errors in it.

04:40

This kind of ignorant criticism seems intellectually sophisticated to some unbelievers, which is important to understand, because people will reason this way and think they are being intellectual.

04:59

All right? The Christian apologist must always be aware and point out this type of fallacious reasoning to his adversary, because it is fallacious reasoning, and we'll talk about that.

05:16

The first prejudice is the assumption that the biblical text is no different from any other written document, which we find in our natural human experience through history.

05:29

Notice, that's what Bonson says. The first prejudice is the assumption. What you will find, more often than not, somebody who is taking this argument, they're just assuming it.

05:42

They're not going by empirical data. All right?

05:48

What are they assuming? That the biblical text is no different from any other written document. But that's just an assumption, which, of course, begs the fundamental question over which the believer and unbeliever are arguing.

06:03

You're arguing that the Bible is different. They say, no, it's not, so that proves it. Why is it not reliable?

06:11

Because it isn't. They won't say it in exactly those terms, but that's what it boils down to.

06:18

All right? And that is not only a prejudicial conjecture, it's also a logical fallacy called begging the question.

06:31

OK? Oh, by the way, this is another one of those chapters. I can't fit the whole chapter in one session, so we're going to go on next week and finish it off.

06:42

And we're going to be looking at 15 logical fallacies, because we need to be able to identify logical fallacies and point them out.

06:51

That's one of the greatest tools of apologetics we have, is when somebody makes an illogical statement, a logical fallacy, you need to be able to identify it.

07:02

And if you can tell them what the logical fallacy is, it's even better. Not just point out that, well, that's a logical fallacy, but be able to say, well, that's a logical fallacy of appealing to emotion.

07:14

If you can say that, it has much more weight than just a logical fallacy.

07:22

The second indication of prejudice is that the unbeliever does not offer any concrete evidence that some medieval monk tampered with the text before us today.

07:38

It'd be one thing if they came up and said, well, here, we have this work done by XYZ scholars, and they can show that this text was altered by this monk at this.

07:47

But they don't. Why don't they? Because they can't. They don't have that type of evidence.

07:55

So you have two indications. One is just that they're assuming. And then the other thing is they're making dogmatic statements without evidence, which is interesting, because usually the people that you're arguing against are those who say, well, we want to take the scientific approach, and we need empirical evidence.

08:17

But they're not willing to submit to empirical evidence for their own defense.

08:23

In fact, they don't even mention it. This kind of remark is simply and arbitrarily advanced as a hypothesis to be endorsed for its likelihood rather than its empirical credentials.

08:44

So what are we learning so far? As soon as you hear somebody saying, well, the likelihood is, or it should, we have to assume that this is what happened, you can put a stop to that right away by saying, well, show me the beef.

08:58

Remember Clarapella? Where's the beef? Just because somebody says something doesn't mean it's true.

09:06

Have them show you the evidence. Notice also one of the results of if you understand this and look for it and bring it to their attention, you're putting them on the defensive.

09:23

And that's one of the things that you want to make sure. You don't want to just constantly be on the defensive. You want to be on the offensive.

09:29

And it's very easy if you understand these tools that Bonson is mentioning. The third indication of prejudice in the criticism of the unbeliever, this is the third one, is that he or she has not account of the actual evidence which is publicly available regarding the text of scripture.

09:58

What Bonson is saying here, and this is a very important point if you're engaged in apologetics, there is an abundance of evidence to show the reliability of scripture.

10:11

If the critic had taken time to look into this subject, he or she would not have offered the outlandish evaluation that the biblical text is unreliable.

10:24

It's a known fact, and I'm going to give you just a couple of examples that Bonson has.

10:30

But just before we get into that, it's a known fact that archaeologists and those who are offering textual criticism will secretly go in and look at the pages of the scripture, but not wanting their colleagues to know that they're consulting with the scriptures, because they know the reliability.

10:56

So when they're looking for something in the Middle East, they read the biblical text and use the text to find out where to dig, et cetera, all kinds of things such as that.

11:09

And there's just a couple of quotations and things here.

11:16

The overall authenticity and accuracy of the biblical text is well known to scholars.

11:21

Bonson quotes Frederick Kenyon here, and this is what he says. The Christian can take the whole

11:28

Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds it in the true word of God, hand it down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.

11:41

Such assessments from competent scholars could be multiplied easily. In other words, he's just given us one quote saying, no, you can take it to the bank that you have the authentic word of God.

11:54

And he says, which only goes to show the prejudice that operates in the thinking of unbelievers, who offhand criticize the

12:02

Bible for very likely having a dubious text. Now, Time magazine, no friend of Christianity, OK?

12:13

Time magazine, and this is about a 20 or 30 -year -old article because it was written at the time that Bonson wrote the book.

12:23

In the lead article entitled, How True Is the Bible, had to admit, and this is a quotation from Time.

12:33

After more than two centuries of facing the heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the

12:39

Bible has survived. What does he mean by that? Means that every time they tried to test the

12:46

Bible, the Bible was found true, and is perhaps the better for the siege.

12:55

In other words, with all those critics coming against it, the facts of the

13:03

Bible and the scholarship that went behind it was even brought to the forefront so that there's actually more proof as a result of the criticism than there was before, right?

13:15

So even on the critics' own terms, which is historical fact, the scriptures seem more acceptable now than they did when the rationalists began the attack.

13:29

The simple point which I want to make here is that apologists need to be prepared to expose the prejudicial conjectures of unbelievers when they appear.

13:41

This is the whole title of the book, Always Ready. But I want to say something again.

13:48

I'm going to sound like a broken record. Well, Reinald is coming back.

13:54

I can say broken record again, right? People don't understand what I mean when I say broken. Like a scratched CD, all right?

14:03

But it's important for us to develop a skill.

14:09

Remember, I said it last week. I'll say it again. The discipline of apologetics is both an art and a science.

14:18

It's a science because there are definitely rules of logic and reasoning that must be employed for it to make any sense at all.

14:27

But it's also an art in that it takes practice. The more you have to educate yourself and then actually practice it, and then you can become more and more aware.

14:44

The second type of criticism you come across are unargued philosophical bias.

14:53

All right, now this is another tool which the apologists may use in arguing with those who are critical of the biblical message is to expose the philosophical pre -commitments of the critic, which have been taken for granted rather than openly argued and supported, all right?

15:12

In other words, this is one of the tools. Notice the tools of apologetics are different than most other tools, all right?

15:22

Because the tool is learning how to expose the falsehood of what is being said, which means you have to get a certain expertise yourself.

15:36

So rather than openly argued and supported. Here's yet another broad indicator of how unbelievers fall short of being rational in their approach.

15:48

That's going to be one of your biggest tools is pointing out how what they're reasoning is actually irrational and illogical.

15:59

Those who claim to be scientific, those who claim to be intellectual and whatnot are themselves irrational and illogical.

16:10

Yes? One of the things when somebody says, oh, you can't trust the Bible, it's written by go -herders and ancient guys,

16:19

I go into question mode and say, OK, what method did you use to evaluate the scriptures to come to that conclusion?

16:28

They haven't done any real study. They're just listening to somebody else and taking it by faith that they did their homework.

16:36

So then I'll tell them, well, Dr. Simon Greenleaf, who is Royal Professor of Law and History at Harvard University, when he read the

16:44

New Testament, he deemed that that would be admissible in a court of law. And he's the Royal Professor of Law and History at Harvard University.

16:52

And that type of verification is available in abundance.

16:58

You just have to look for it. Consider this.

17:05

This is Bonson talking. Even if enough external corroborating evidence were available from textual criticism, archaeology, and related sciences to authenticate all of the ordinary data, linguistic, cultural, chronological, which we find in the literature of scripture, there would still remain important features, indeed the most important features, of the biblical narrative over which conscientious unbelievers would intellectually stumble.

17:39

Now, what does he mean by that? That's a mouthful. What he's saying, suppose you could come up with and answer every single textual criticism, every single archaeological issue, and you could answer every linguistic, and cultural, and chronology, and you answer every one of them with out -and -out proof, that wouldn't be enough for them.

18:04

And why? Why does he say that it would still be, they would intellectually stumble?

18:11

Why? Because we not only read of Hittites, high places, houses, military battles, migrations, and marriages in the

18:18

Bible, we also come across healings, floating axe heads, fiery chariots, water turned to wine, virgin birth, and resurrections.

18:31

You following? So why is that an issue? When unbelievers read of miraculous events in the

18:37

Bible, their first inclination is to say that such things cannot happen, thus disbelieving the written report of them.

18:47

All right, you follow? So even if the text is verified, the culture it comes from is verified, it's documented, they'll say it's got to be false, because why?

18:57

Because it's reporting that a miracle took place. And we know miracles don't happen.

19:05

You see how they're doing it backwards? That's why he calls it unargued philosophical bias.

19:13

There's a philosophical bias that these things cannot happen. To conduct their thinking in a fully rational manner, however, unbelievers who doubt the biblical narrative of miracles ought to pause to recognize and scrutinize their controlling premise.

19:34

We know that miracles are impossible. So why don't they believe some of the texts of scripture, even though we know it's accurate and all?

19:47

Because miracles are impossible. And notice what they say, we know that. We know that.

19:53

Now that is a bullseye. We know. You actually pray that one of them will say that.

20:02

Why? Because that's such a dogmatic statement. You can come back with, there's a dogmatic statement

20:07

There's 15 different ways to answer that question. How do you know that?

20:15

And once it's out, they can't get it back. Unbelievers, I had to put this in, feel that they know.

20:28

That such events cannot take place. Having a scientific outlook, they are convinced that all of nature operates in a predictable, law -like fashion.

20:40

Why don't miracles take place? Because they don't. Because they can't. Because we can't explain it rationally.

20:53

Miracles would run counter to the regularities of our ordinary experiments, would not be predictable.

21:03

And they protest that. And then notice what Bonson says, to which the apologist ought to reply, isn't that just the point?

21:15

See, just when they think they're making a good point in their mind, you just turn around, well, isn't that the point?

21:25

If miracles were not extraordinary, they wouldn't be miracles. The unbeliever's bias against extraordinary events needs to be challenged for its rational foundation.

21:42

It's not rational. Even in their world view, it's not rational. Does the unbeliever know that all of nature operates in a law -like fashion?

21:56

How can you know that? Because, and especially, you can point to all kinds of things that we just can't explain.

22:07

Question? Sure. Sure, absolutely.

22:34

I can remember being in circumstances where I wished the last five minutes hadn't existed. That's happened to me a number of times.

22:43

So does the unbeliever know that all of nature operates in a law -like fashion? And obviously, or that there can never be exceptions?

22:56

That's a lot to know. Involving, as it does, insight into the very nature of reality and the metaphysical limits of possibility.

23:06

When they make statements like that, notice what Bonson points out. This person is actually saying he has insight into the very nature of reality, metaphysical limits of possibility.

23:17

At this point, unless you're dealing with a philosopher, they are, whoever you're dealing with, is way over their head.

23:27

And if you are familiar with the presuppositional method, you can tie them into knots.

23:35

Now remember, I say that, but what is our goal in showing them the error of their ways?

23:44

Not to win the argument, but to bring them to Christ. So whenever we do that, we don't want to go, aha, pull out our swords and go, through, gotcha, right through the heart.

23:55

No, we want to show them the error of their ways and bring them to Christ. What justification does the unbeliever have for his or her views here?

24:16

If instead the Christian worldview is true, well, let me just back up. What justification does the unbeliever have for his or her views here?

24:24

That's what we're talking about. What justification do they have? None. There is no justification for their view, because they're making statements that they can't possibly know by empirical data.

24:42

If instead the Christian worldview is true, miracles are not a philosophical problem in advance.

24:51

Why? Why are miracles not a problem in the

24:57

Christian worldview? Very simply, an all -powerful creator and governor of the world could certainly do things which are out of, and act out of the ordinary and contrary to the regularities of human experience.

25:14

That's not a problem for us. In fact, it's part of our faith. And it's one of the reasons why we rejoice, because he reached down and gave us a new heart, saved us from our sin, and caused us to believe.

25:28

All right? Like raising the dead. And we know that the dead are, in fact, raised.

25:40

Even Josephus testified to that. The fault here is not that the critics of Christianity have philosophical presuppositions, which they bring to the evidence and use in their reasoning.

25:59

Notice what Bonson's saying. That's not the fact that they have philosophical presuppositions.

26:06

That's not the issue. This is inevitable for anyone, whether believer or unbeliever.

26:13

It's inevitable. We come to the table with presuppositions. The notion that we can be characterized by philosophical neutrality in scholarship and argumentation is naive and unrealistic.

26:28

Indeed, Bonson says he'd argue it's impossible. In fact, we had several lessons just on the myth of neutrality.

26:36

So we understand, when we're sitting down and dealing with somebody who's holding these philosophical ideas, we know that we're both coming with presuppositions.

26:48

And that's one of the things that we need to be prepared for. How do we deal with that? See, so the problem is not that unbelievers have their presuppositions, but rather they frequently do not recognize those presuppositions for what they are, and offer no warrant or defense for them.

27:10

Especially over against the conflicting presuppositions of others, like Christians.

27:18

It is part of the task of apologetics to disclose the character and the function of these conflicting presuppositions in the argument between Christians and non -Christians.

27:31

So in other words, we come armed. See, that's one of the things. If we're ready for this, we are at a big advantage.

27:40

Because the unbeliever doesn't even know what his presuppositions are. We come not only knowing our own presuppositions, but we recognize what their presuppositions are with just a few questions.

27:54

With just 10 questions or less, you can find out what almost anybody's presuppositions are, if they answer honestly.

28:05

And if they don't answer honestly, that will manifest itself very quickly as well. The debate must not, of course, end at that point.

28:17

Remember, we've discussed this before. Just because we have different presuppositions doesn't mean the debate is over or we can go no further.

28:26

We can, all right? As though we are left with irresolvable intellectual standoff between ultimate philosophical perspectives.

28:37

The next step involves argumentation and comparison. This is one of the most important tools we have.

28:45

Argumentation and comparison is one of the tools of apologetics.

28:52

OK? And again, this is the nitty gritty, learning how to ask the questions and answer the questions.

28:59

All right? And we're at a better position than they are.

29:09

Jason, what's one of the cardinal rules of cross -examining somebody when you ask a question?

29:17

That's it. Never ask the question you don't know the answer to, all right?

29:22

We can come to the table, ask the question, because we know what the answer is going to be.

29:28

You see? So it involves, the next step involves argumentation and comparison regarding the opposing presuppositions or worldviews of the believer and unbeliever, thus taking us closer to the heart of philosophical apologetics as discussed in previous studies.

29:51

This is why we spend so much time, and I know some of you are getting a little antsy, saying,

29:59

Bonson's laying, he's long -winded. He's laying things out. We're going over things, because you have to get all of that groundwork before you come to the actual tools.

30:10

And that's what he's referring to, taking us closer to the heart of philosophical apologetics as discussed in the previous chapters.

30:19

We're in chapter 5. We've already had four sections. Only the

30:28

Christian worldview makes sense out of the logic, science, morality, et cetera, to which both sides to the dispute appeal.

30:38

Now notice, both sides are going to appeal to the same bodies, but not to mention that this alone makes sense out of the very process of reasoning at all.

30:52

Only the Christian worldview can account for reasoning and logic and has a consistent worldview.

31:08

Then we have one last. This is going to be a brief section, key intellectual sins.

31:14

This is the third tool of apologetic that Bonson lists in this chapter, and that's to look for key intellectual sins.

31:23

Bonson says this. At other times, the apologist needs to challenge not simply the nature of the unbeliever's presuppositions, but the fact that those presuppositions are either arbitrary or inconsistent.

31:40

Indeed, these are precisely the two key sins for any scholar, arbitrariness in his thinking or incoherence between different aspects of his thinking and living.

31:54

You follow? Arbitrariness or incoherence, conflict between them.

32:01

And actually, we're going to expand more on this next week. We're going to do two sections next week.

32:08

One is talking about tension that exists in his worldview, and then we'll get into logical fallacies.

32:21

If people are allowed to believe just anything they wish to believe out of convenience, tradition, or prejudice, they have abandoned the course of rationality, which calls for having a good reason for the things we believe and do.

32:39

Notice what he says. They've abandoned rationality. I believe this because I believe it.

32:46

There's got to be a reason. Jesus, in all of his teachings, says he gives reasons to believe in him.

32:55

He says, even if you don't believe me for what I say, believe me for the works that you see. He's always giving us reasons to believe.

33:05

On the other hand, if people are allowed to assert or rely upon certain premises, only later to abandon or contradict those same premises, then they have violated the fundamental requirements of sound reasoning.

33:23

So you have the arbitrariness or the conflict. And like I say, next week, we'll pick up a little bit more.

33:30

I think we got four or five points there. And then we'll get right into the logical fallacies.

33:38

Any questions on tonight's? Tonight was very basic. And this is where we really got into the basic tools of apologetics.