Always Ready: Chap. 14 A Two-Fold Apologetic Procedure

So far, we've concluded sections one and two of the book Always Ready by Greg Bonson, and we're coming now to section three, How to Defend the Faith, and last week we looked at chapter 13, which was The Foolishness of Unbelief.

The Transition to Chapter 14 and the Lordship of Christ Over Knowledge

We're in chapter 14 tonight, and the title of this chapter is A Two-Fold Apologetic Method. We're starting to transition now from laying the foundation of the first two sections, talking about the lordship of Christ over the realm of knowledge, and those type of things, to actually how do you put this into practice, and we'll get into a little bit of that.

It accelerates as we go through it, because we still need more and more foundational information. So, two-fold apologetic. The top of the chapter, if you're following along in the book, begins with this quotation from the scriptures, Where is the wise?

Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? And this is Bonson's opening paragraph. Paul could stake his apologetic for the Christian faith on this set of rhetorical questions, and I underline that for a very specific reason.

We'll get back to that. And then, obviously, the quotation is from 1 Corinthians 20. Wherever tonight I have just verses, you can presume that it comes from 1 Corinthians 1. But knowing that the word of the cross destroys the world's wisdom and brings its discernment to nothing.

The Foolishness of the Cross and the World’s Reversal of Wisdom

Just want to make sure that you understand, does everybody understand what a rhetorical question is? Okay, because that was not a rhetorical question. So, I'm glad you recognized that right off the bat, and you answered it.

So, no, a rhetorical question, obviously, is a question that's a literary device that is used to pique your interest, to pique your curiosity in some cases. But it's not looking for an answer, because the answer is obvious.

Where is the wise? See, there isn't any. Where is the disputer of the world? There isn't any. And some people will actually be as dishonest enough to say, well, see, that's good. And Paul didn't know.

No, it's a rhetorical question, is a literary device, and it's a very effective one as well. The unregenerate heart, which is darkened, with its darkened mind, evaluates the gospel as weak and folly. But in actual fact, it expresses God's saving power and true wisdom.

This is somewhat of a review of what we looked at last week. Notice again, the unregenerate heart, the person who has not been redeemed, he looks at the gospel and he evaluates it, and what does he see?

Oh, this is foolishness. That's what he will actually call it, this is foolishness. Who believes that? Remember, everybody remember Christopher Hitchens, famous anti-theist, okay? Do you know what his, the biggest sticking point for him was in Christianity?

Anybody happen to remember? The vicarious atonement. He just couldn't get past the idea, no, somebody else can't give their life for your sin, alright? And that was his biggest thing. I mean, there were a lot of things he objected to, but that was the biggest thing.

What do you think of as a believer when you hear of Christ's vicarious atonement? Thank God. Yeah, thank God. And I mean, I know every time I think of it, I have to contain the emotion to think of what God has done for me.

So here you have the truth of scripture, Christ died for the sins of his people, and what we consider to be the biggest blessing, and the answer, thank God. And Hitchens looked at it as, that's a lot of nonsense.

And he actually railed against it. Because he was a true anti-theist, not just an atheist. What the world calls foolish is really wisdom. I mean, just think about that. Think of all of the scripture.

The scripture contains all the words that we need to live a godly life. Everything we need for godliness and for life is contained in the scriptures. And yet, we have people who call it foolishness. When in reality, it is ultimate wisdom.

Conversely, the world deems wise what is actually foolish. And I mean, we could go on and on. Somebody just give me one example of something that the world says, look, isn't this fantastic? Isn't this great?

And it's actually foolishness. Somebody's got to come up with it. What's that? Pride? Now, I'm thinking of a specific, something that they would say is provable, or maybe like a scientific fact or something.

Yes? What? Gender. Gender. Evolution. I mean, there's so many things that you could point to that have no basis in fact. In fact, the biggest one for me is that this world just popped into existence. Yet, science will tell you nothing comes from nothing.

So, for there to be something, there had to always be something. And yet, they look at it and say, isn't this wonderful? And look at all the intelligence. Intelligence just pops into the room. That's what happens when Pastor Anthony walks into the room.

Intelligence just walks into the room. He's been breaking my shoes today, so. So, conversely, what the world deems wise is actually foolish. The unbeliever has his standards all turned around, and thus he mocks the Christian faith and views it as intellectually dishonorable.

On what basis does he view it as intellectually dishonorable? Why would they say that in certain cases?

Because of his presuppositions. Yes? Right. He views it as false information, but I forget exactly who I got this from. The irony is transparent because the idea of spreading falsehood, being wrong, is a Christian ideal.

So, it imposes on itself.

Yeah. Yeah. Just think of, usually when they try to disprove some point of Christianity, quote, scientifically, unquote, they don't have any proof. They redefine terms, and they define it out of existence.

That's what Bertrand Russell did. He just changed the definition of miracle. And, you know, we live in a closed system. In closed systems, miracles don't happen. Different miracles are impossible. I mean, if you define things in a certain way, you can make a definition say anything you want it to say.

But Paul knew that God could unmask the arrogance of unbelief. I wanted to highlight that. The arrogance of unbelief. These people who are putting themselves forward are the most arrogant people that you will ever want to come in contact with.

And display its pitiable pretense of knowledge. I love the way Bonson puts these words forward. The pitiable pretense of knowledge. So in verse 25, we read, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Again, just pointing to the wisdom of God. Although the unbeliever sees the Christian faith as foolish and weak, that faith has the strength. Notice this. I underline these words very specifically. Faith has the strength and intellectual resources to expose worldly wisdom for what it truly is.

Utter foolishness. I wanted to emphasize those words in particular. Because too often, Christians have been told that, well, yes, you know, the word of God, that increases your faith. But it's not an intellectual book.

Have you ever heard that? But that's not the case. The Bible is the ground of all knowledge. And we're going to expand upon that in a few minutes. God has chosen the so-called foolish things of the world in order that he might put to shame those who boast of their so-called wisdom.

Anybody here struggle with pride? That's a rhetorical question. All right. Any time you struggle with pride, go to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27. And there's a definition of who you are if you're a believer in Christ.

You're one of the so-called foolish things of the world in order that he might, of course, you're not really. It's so-called. In the face of God's revelation, the unbeliever is without an apologetic.

And this is a very important point. Romans 1 .20. Romans 1 .20. Anybody can quote 1 .20 or at least the essence of it?

Ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes and divine nature have been clearly perceived through what has been made so that man is without excuse.

That without excuse is actually without apologetic. In the Greek, it's the same word. It's apologetic or unapologetic. I forget which one it was. So basically, you know, one of the reasons I think that Bonson is going through this again where he's actually going to teach us how to defend the faith is to show the position that we stand in.

Too often, I think, Christians are intimidated by, quote, the intellectuals of the world. Somebody comes out and they have six degrees behind their name. And it's, oh, he's a very intelligent person. Well, unless he's a believer, he's not really an intelligent.

Well, he could be educated. But he's not necessarily intelligent because if he denies God's revelation, he's without an apologetic. So when a believer goes into a debate with a non-believer, who's got the advantage?

The believer does if you know how to use it. That's why we're told to study the scriptures so that we can always give an answer to those who ask for the hope that lies within us. His intellectual position has no worthwhile credentials in the long run.

I believe Bonson has chosen his words here very, very specifically. If you know, anybody listen to Bonson or read Bonson a lot? I know I do. He's one of my favorite. Of modern day theologians, he's one of the most influential people in my life.

What do the intellectuals of our world pride themselves on? Logic. Credentials. How many degrees I can have after my name? I'm a PhD, an FDA, you know, et cetera. Whatever it happens to be. We love to get all the, I was in a school meeting up in Albany once.

The person who was giving the lecture was a nun who was the headmistress of a Catholic school. She says, I'm sick and tired of hearing about kids with ADD and ADHD and everything else. You know what they are?

They're BAD. She got a round of applause. Anyway, we love our credentials. The world loves credentials. But his intellectual position has no worthwhile credentials in the long run because it's without wisdom.

It lacks wisdom. When he comes up against the intellectual challenge of the gospel, as Paul would present it, the unregenerate is left with no place to stand. My question to you, even just so far, is do you believe this?

You have to believe this. Otherwise, when you come against an atheist or an anti-theist or just a skeptic or agnostic, whatever they're calling themselves this day, you have to believe that you are the one who has the superior position because you have truth and true wisdom on your side.

So don't ever think that you have to take a back seat. That is, of course, if you're in the word and you know it. That's why if you're not in the word, then this doesn't apply to you. The outcome of the encounter is summarily expressed by Paul when he declares, where is the wise?

Where is the disputer of this world? And again, the way Paul puts it through, these rhetorical questions are meant as a slam to the so-called intellectuals of the world. The fact is that God makes foolish the wisdom of this world and thus the genuinely wise unbeliever is not found.

So if somebody says, here's a true wise unbeliever. I know this guy. He's an unbeliever, but he's truly wise. The answer is no, he's not. He may be educated. He may have a lot of degrees. He may have so-called worldly credentials, but there is none to be found if he is not a believer, if he has not accepted the presuppositions of Scripture.

He is not to be found. The man who can adequately debate and defend the outlook of the world, in other words, unbelief, has never lived. In other words, that's why you can't find him, because there's never been such a person.

Rejection of the Christian faith cannot be justified, and the intellectual position of the unbeliever cannot be genuinely defended in the world of thought. Notice what he says. Rejection of the Christian faith.

You can't justify it. And we're going to see why later on in this lesson. The spiritual weapons of the Christian apologist are mighty before God unto the casting down of every high imagination that is exalted against the knowledge of God.

Again, notice spiritual weapons. That's one of the things that you always want to keep in mind as we engage the nonbeliever in debate, in evangelism, in apologetics. We have spiritual weapons, and that's where we have to make sure that we keep our battle in that realm.

But what are the spiritual weapons? They're also intellectual. The unbeliever, as we saw in the last study, is a fool in the scriptural perspective, and as such, his position amounts to a hatred of knowledge.

This is typical proverbial language. What happens if you don't discipline your son? What does the scripture say your attitude is to him? You hate him. What happens if you reject the knowledge of God? You hate knowledge.

Again, this is very typical proverbial language. His intellectual attack on the gospel stems from so-called knowledge, which is falsely so-called. The apologist should aim to put his pretense of knowledge, which is at base a hatred of knowledge, to shame.

He should manifest the foolishness of this world's wisdom. Notice what Bonson is saying. He's saying that we need to take the offensive. Too often, remember, even though apologetics, we call it defending the faith, it's defense of the faith, that doesn't mean that you have to be in a defensive position all the time.

Well, who was the main coach who said the best defense is a good offense? One might have been, yeah, Vince Lombardi. Vince Lombardi. And that actually translates into apologetics. We need to take the offensive.

We need to take the battle to them, not let them set the agenda, and that's what we're going to get into next, and that's really the crux of this twofold apologetic method. This calls for much more than a piecemeal attempt.

Remember, we looked at this in the past. One of the problems is they get us, one of the schemes of those who are against us is to try to pick apart the individual issues that we have, and you're never going to win those debates because they can just take you down a rabbit trail and ultimately you'll fall through the rabbit hole.

That's why we have to take the debate and take it in the direction that we want it to go, and that's not a piecemeal attempt. Notice what he says. This calls for much more than a piecemeal attempt to deduce vague probabilities of isolated evidences for the reasonableness of Christianity.

You can use the various apologetics for what they call proofs for the existence of God, you know, the cosmological, the teleological, the ontological. I'm not saying that you can't use those, but if you get too sidetracked with trying to defend those particular things, you're going to go down a rabbit trail.

It requires instead the full-scale demonstration of the unreasonableness of anti-Christianity in contrast to the certainty of truth to be found in God's Word. Notice what he's saying. You need to take control of the battle.

And notice what he says. A full-scale demonstration of the unreasonableness of anti-Christianity. Show them how their position is completely unreasonable, and how do you do that? Who's the best person to go to when you want to understand presuppositional apologetics?

Cornelius Van Til. Of course, Jesus, but... He's just trying... He's just trying to show me up and be... He's more holy than I am. In green, this is actually a quotation from Cornelius Van Til in one of his books called A Survey of Christian Epistemology.

The struggle between Christian theism and its opponents covers the whole field of knowledge. Christian theism's fundamental contention is just this, that nothing whatsoever can be known unless God can be and is known.

See what he's saying? Our position is that nothing whatsoever can be known unless God can be and is known. How do we know God? How do we know He is? All of this comes into play. The important thing to note is this fundamental difference between theism and anti-theism on the question of epistemology.

There is not a spot in heaven or on earth about which there is no dispute between the two opposing parties. This comes back to one of the first lessons. No neutrality. There is no neutrality between the two views.

And you have to view it as that. Remember, there's common ground but no neutrality. Notice what he says again. There is not a spot in heaven or on earth about which there is no dispute between the two opposing parties.

So much for kumbaya. Let's sit down around the campfire, hold hands, and we can all contemplate our navels and we'll all live a life of peace. Right? I don't think so. Continuing, this is a different quotation from a different book, still from Van Til.

The method of reasoning by presupposition may be said to be indirect rather than direct. Okay? Indirect rather than... I'm not going to explain that now. We'll see that a little bit later as we go through.

The issue between believers and nonbelievers in the Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to facts or laws whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate.

Why can't we do that? Because there are no laws or facts that are agreed upon by both parties. They reject ours, and we reject theirs as being foolish because what they're believing in is not facts. All right?

The Christian apologist must place himself upon the position of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for argument's sake. Do you hear what he's saying? This is why he's talking about it being indirect.

In other words, you come across somebody and you're talking about the truthfulness of Scripture or whatever it is. It's okay to say, well, wait a minute, time out a second. Let's assume that what you're saying is correct for a moment.

That's a big difference from saying, okay, we'll just assume, we'll put the Bible aside, let's assume you're correct. No, you can't do that. But you can say for the purpose of argumentation, you can say, just for a moment, let's presume that what you're saying is correct.

Okay? And then you go on from there on whatever issue it is and show them the ultimate folly of it. That's exactly what he's saying here. In order to show him that on such a position, the facts are not facts and the laws are not laws.

Continuing with Van Til, he must also ask the non-Christian to place himself upon the Christian position for argument's sake in order that he may be shown that only upon such a basis do facts and laws appear intelligible.

Notice, first, what did he say at first? Assume their position for the sake of argument. Now you're saying, all right, now you assume my position and let's see what that leads to. What does that sound like to somebody?

Anybody know what it sounds like from scripture? That's exactly where we're going. Therefore, the claim must be made that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to hold and is utterly reasonable. It is wholly irrational to hold to any other position than that of Christianity.

You've heard me say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but not really, that if you're not a believer, you're insane. That's from Van Til, and I think we finish out Van Til here. Christianity alone does not crucify reason itself.

The best, the only, the absolutely certain proof of the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presumed, presupposed, there is no proof of anything. Are you following? If you...this is where you, when you get into a discussion with a nonbeliever, say, oh, wait a minute, you can't even say what's right and what's wrong or what's truth and what's not truth based upon your supposition.

You have to presuppose that there is such thing as truth. You have to presuppose there's such a thing as logic, which you cannot do on your position. The only reason that science is making the advance it is that there's such a thing as logic in this world is because even the atheist is borrowing from the Christian worldview.

Apart from that, there's no basis for it.

Yes? A quick illustration to demonstrate this.

If there was no God who defines everything that he created in the world, and there is no context for all of the things that he created, and there's no point or purpose to it, no one could know anything because nothing's defined.

I could define it any way I want. Someone else can define it any way they want, and there's no way to prove it. But when we have God, he's the ontological grounding for everything. He's the one who defines everything such that we can have certainty because it's been defined for us and revealed to us.

Apart from him revealing it to us, it's just taking a stab in the dark. Sure.

Sure. And that's why you have the double-mindedness that we see in our society today. Gender is not based in science. It's based on how you feel. What I feel is right, what you feel is right. I don't know.

Where are we going? Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself. Yes. So, the fool must be answered by showing him his foolishness and the necessity of Christianity as the precondition of intelligibility.

Proverbs 26:4-5 and the Two-Fold Apologetic Procedure

See where we're going? He's still going in the same direction here. Now, Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5, we are instructed as to how we should answer the foolish unbeliever, how we should demonstrate that God makes foolish the so-called wisdom of the world.

Everybody familiar with Proverbs 26, 4 and 5? There it is right there. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like him unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Honestly, how many people, when you first read this, say, scratched your head and said, what is he talking about? Because it seems to be contradictory, doesn't it? The NASB translates it a little differently.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be also like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he be not wise in his own eyes. I don't know that that's absolutely necessary to translate it that way, but it does help a little bit, I think.

The two-fold apologetic procedure mentioned by Van Til is described in Proverbs 26, 4 and 5. In the first place, the unbeliever should not be answered in terms of his own misguided presuppositions. See that?

In other words, don't answer, don't let the unbeliever suck you into his worldview, where you start answering based on, okay, let's answer that, you know, unless you have an ulterior motive, of course.

The apologist should defend his faith by working within his own presuppositions. If he surrenders to the assumptions of the unbeliever, the believer will never effectively set forth a reason for the hope that is in him.

He will have lost the battle from the outset, constantly being trapped behind enemy lines. Hence, Christianity's intellectual strength and challenge will not be set forth. Let me pause again. Notice how Bonson very strongly asserts this.

Christianity is the one with the intellectual strength and challenge. I don't care how many degrees the guy's got behind his name, if he's arguing from a non-believing position, he's in a position of weakness.

But then in the second place, the apologist should answer the fool according to his self-proclaimed presuppositions, according to his folly. There's the difference. There comes a time when somebody says something that's so outrageous, you may want to answer him and take him down the rabbit hole and show what that leads to.

Ray Comfort does an excellent job with this one. He's interviewing evolutionists. He says, okay, you only believe things that are repeatable and by experiment, right? The scientific method. Yes. What experiment did you do to prove evolution?

Well, when did you observe evolution? Have you been alive millions and millions of years? No, no, no. So then why would you believe it? It doesn't even meet your criteria for the scientific method. Yep.

Perfect. Perfect.

Right. But then the second place, you answer him according to his self-proclaimed presuppositions, according to his folly. In so doing, he aims to show the unbeliever the outcome of those assumptions, which is exactly right.

And you can do the same thing with the idea of, you know, the origin of all things. Ultimately, you come back, you say, you know, well, it was the Big Bang. Well, where did the elements come from the Big Bang?

Well, they were a cosmic egg. Where did the cosmic egg come from? And you just take them all the way back and say, you know. Cosmic chicken. Yeah. Well, we roasted him and ate him for dinner. So now what do you got?

Pursue to their consistent and end presuppositions of unbelief render man's reasoning vacuous and his experience unintelligible. In short, they lead to the destruction of knowledge, the dead end of epistemological futility to utter foolishness.

And by the way, that's possible every time you engage somebody, if you are learning how to do this and you know what's in the scripture. By placing himself on the unbeliever's position and pursuing it to its foolish undermining of facts and laws, thus the Christian apologist prevents the fool from being wise in his own conceit.

He can conclude, where then is the wise disputer of the world? There is none. For as the history of humanistic philosophy so clearly illustrates, God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. It is confounded by the foolish preaching of the cross.

Questions? Do you get the idea of what Proverbs 26, 4 and 5 is talking about? Sometimes you answer the fool, take him down his own rabbit trail. Other times you stop him dead. And that takes wisdom to know when to do either.

Comments? Yes, go ahead. It's kind of unrelated, but when it comes to not giving up your authority and the Word of God, how do you kind of guard against the seeming circular reasoning that it's the Word of God and we can't?

That's where you take him.

We're showing him that without the scriptures, nothing else is intelligible. And you can show him that it's only through God revealing himself through his Word that we can even have this discussion that we're talking about.

If you look at a couple of Pontiff's debates, you'll see how well he does that.

Yeah. All ultimate authorities are circular. They're going to come back to themselves. If there was an authority above God, that would be the ultimate authority, right? So the unbeliever's authority is logic and reason.

But we know things through logic and reason. How did you figure that out? Through logic and reason. Isn't that circular? So his ultimate authority, whatever the ultimate authority is, it would have to be, it's the difference between vicious circularity and virtuous circularity.

Ultimate authority is virtuously circular. In other words, there's no authority above it. So even God, he says, I could swear by none higher than myself, right, in the book of Hebrews. He didn't appeal to a higher authority.

So he appealed to himself. Isn't that circular? If it's your ultimate authority, it must be circular in that sense. Not viciously circular.

Virtuously circular. Yeah, and as Bonson calls it, I don't know if he dubbed the phrase or not, he calls it the transcendental proof for the existence of God. And basically it boils down to this, that to believe anything other than the God of the Bible leads to ultimate futility and foolishness.

And so that's the only proof for the existence of God that shows any merit whatsoever. And it's presuppositional. Anybody else? Okay.