Eli Ayala vs R.C. Sproul's Criticisms of Presup

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In this episode, Eli will interact with some of the criticisms of presuppositionalism put forth by the late great R.C. Sproul. #sproul #ligonier #presup #apologetics

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All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today we are going to be interacting with the late, great
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Dr. R .C. Sproul. I am venturing to go into the realm in which angels fear to tread, okay?
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I don't do this lightly as I greatly respect Dr. Sproul. I consider myself, well,
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I consider him a mentor. I've learned so much from Dr. Sproul and his work, and I think he was a theologian par excellence.
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And so, obviously, I'm not going to be coming at this in any cavalier sense. For those who have no idea who
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R .C. Sproul is, we can welcome you out from under the rock that you've been living under, okay?
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Just a little bit about R .C. Sproul. R .C. Sproul was a very prominent theologian, a pastor, an author within the
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Reformed tradition, okay? I think he played a really significant role in popularizing Reformed theology, okay, in a lot of ways, through his writings, his teaching ministry, and the founding of Ligonier Ministries, which
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I highly recommend. Obviously, I'm going to be critical of the apologetic and the critiques that Dr.
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Sproul had of presuppositional apologetics, but that's not to say that his ministry is not useful.
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I listen to the Ligonier app all the time. My wife listens to the Ligonier app. There are awesome lectures and classes that cover various topics from church history to systematic theology.
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I highly, highly recommend the Ligonier app. And so, again, one of the ways through Ligonier and through his teaching that Dr.
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Sproul has greatly contributed to the spread of Reformed theology, especially to kind of the lay level, okay?
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Sproul's emphasis in his teaching has been on a wide range of topics, from the holiness of God, the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture.
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And I think these teachings that he chose to focus on very much resonated with Christians who really are looking for a deeper understanding of their faith.
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And so I think he was able to bring these important theological concepts, you know, systematic theology, church history,
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Reformed theology, in his mastery of communication.
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I think Dr. Sproul was able to kind of take complex issues and give it to the masses, okay?
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He was able to teach in such a way that he literally painted a picture in your mind, so you kind of got the point of what he was saying.
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And so, to that end, I think Dr. Sproul is someone that is to be greatly respected, even for folks who don't agree with Reformed theology.
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I mean, let's just be honest, as a teacher, he was an excellent communicator.
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Now, I want to say this too, okay? I've listened to hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours worth of R .C.
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Sproul lectures, and I've listened to hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of Dr. Bonson's lectures.
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And I think both of them are excellent, excellent, excellent teachers.
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But in my opinion, okay, this might be blasphemous to those who are presuppositionalists, but in terms of being a teacher,
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I think R .C. Sproul was the better teacher, the better communicator than Dr. Bonson, although I absolutely love
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Dr. Bonson, and I think he was an excellent teacher as well. There's something about R .C., the way that he communicated, he kind of conveyed the energy and excitement that he had for theology and theological truth that kind of very much was communicated to those who would listen.
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And I think he did that in a way that perhaps Dr. Bonson didn't. They're very different teaching styles. Now, all of that said, okay, in my view, okay, despite R .C.'s
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numerous positive contributions, I find his specific critiques of the presuppositional approach, and I say this respectfully, lacking in accuracy, and I won't say it's lacking depth.
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I think he does try to grapple with some key issues that I think are relevant in the apologetic methodology debate, but I don't think he gets it quite right.
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Even in the book he co -authored with John Gerstner and Arthur Lindsley, the criticisms that are launched in that book
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I think seem very misguided, and they address a lot of issues that Dr. Van Til addressed specifically in his writing.
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So I think there is a weakness there. With respect to the book that he co -authored, if folks are interested, it's called
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Classical Apologetics, and then I think the subtitle there in the title was A Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics or something like that.
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With respect to the quality of the criticisms offered in that book, I'm going to echo Dr. Bonson's sentiments with respect to that book, that if there is an adequate critique of the presuppositional approach, it's not found in Sproul's book and Gerstner's book and Lindsley's book,
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Classical Apologetics. This is just honest. If there is an adequate critique, I don't think it's captured well in that book in my estimation.
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Now, let's examine some of Dr. Sproul's specific criticisms of presuppositional apologetics and attempt to kind of provide some context and maybe some commentary, and again,
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I do this respectfully. I'm going to be playing some video here. There's actually two videos
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I want to play that kind of, you know, R .C. is expressing.
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One is in response to a question or a series of questions, and then another one's kind of within the context of teaching in a classroom.
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He offers kind of his criticisms there, and then I want to interact with that, but before we do that, I want to welcome everyone.
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Thank you so much for coming in, and let's take a look at the comments here. We have Rogue Calvinist.
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We have Cedric and Myron, Jess, Marie, Sedgwick, welcome, and Martin Luther, Martin Luther.
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Let's see here. Let's see what he has here. We'll address here. Okay, so Martin says, hey, how should we as believers who are presuppositional read and understand
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Dr. Bonson in light of the lawsuit occurring right now? This is a genuine question. Yeah, thank you so much for that question.
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I can't get into the details of the lawsuit and the details of what all of that entails because that's going to divert from the entire topic of what
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I'm addressing. Here's the thing. I very much think that we should wait to see all the details come out before drawing any conclusions.
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Okay? Obviously, we don't want to—if there's a lawsuit, we must be evidentialists.
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If there is a lawsuit or accusations made by Dr. Bonson or anyone in the Bonson family, I think we need to be patient and wait for all of the data to come out instead of drawing hasty conclusions.
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But be that as it may, suppose the accusations, which we're not going to get into here, suppose they're all accurate, the truth that is taught in Bonson's lectures and his books and things like that don't change because of other issues.
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Now, obviously, that's going to cause us to see Dr. Bonson in a different light if the accusations are correct and the details of all these things come out.
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But I think that we should wait patiently until all the details come out and then begin to try to see the situation through a biblical lens.
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So I think that's how I could respond to it without getting too much into detail there.
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So I hope that's sufficient. And I'm sorry if folks are listening like, what is he talking about? So there you go.
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All right? And you're welcome. It was my pleasure. I know that's a tough. It is a tough question. But there you go. All right.
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Well, without further ado, I want to start playing Dr. Sproul. And again,
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I'm going to say this real quick. I am going to look into the camera right now as a hardcore, sold out, presuppositionalist.
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I am, I am a huge R .C.
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Sproul fan, OK? So, let me see his lesson on apologia, now
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I'm hooked and really enjoy it. Thank you. Let's see. Hariborn Music says, hey Eli, your academy lessons on apologia.
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I took your academy lessons on apologia. Now I'm hooked, man. Really enjoy your content and expression.
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Thank you so much. First time here for live. Don't know R .C. Sproul at all, which is a shame. That is a shame.
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OK? That is a shame. OK. I would not point you to R .C. for accurate critiques of presuppositionalism, but I would highly recommend you check out his stuff, download the
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Ligonier app right now if you have your phone with you. And there is some priceless theological teaching there.
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So I highly recommend him in that regard. But thank you so much for those kind words. Just as kind of an extra point here,
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I did record lectures at Apologia Church, five -part lecture series on practical precept.
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But I'm also recording my version of that course that actually includes my PowerPoint presentation and much longer presentation.
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So if folks chucked out the stuff on apologia but you're wanting to go a little deeper and have visual kind of aids as I work through the material, that's going to be recorded soon and will be available on the website.
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And excellent way to support what I'm doing as well, helps me pay the bills. So that's definitely useful when folks sign up for that.
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So I appreciate it. If you're interested in that, you can check out the Revealed Apologetics website and I'll let folks know when those videos are up.
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All right. So without further ado, let's jump right in. OK. And boom, we're going to start and then
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I'm going to stop and give commentary. And of course, this is all this is all in goodwill, as I'm going to keep saying it.
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I absolutely love I absolutely love R .C. Sproul, but let's check out his criticisms of presuppositional apologetics.
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I'll make sure I have the right video here. Boom. OK. Doop doop.
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All right. Let's go. Nope. We're going to we're going to fast forward that until we get to the
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Dr. Sproul part. There we go. That was a little commentary there by the person who created this specific video.
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There we go. Let's say it's going to start here. Wait. So you can't hear it.
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That's helpful. Thank you. OK, if you can't hear the video, the audio is playing on your headphones,
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I think. Oh, no, it's not. Let me see here. I. I think. OK, so let me try something.
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I'm sorry. This is what happens when we go live. So I'm going to remove this when I remove this.
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OK, and I'm going to stop the screen and I'm going to present
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I could read lips. We're not going to make your lips. That would be terrible. So we're going to share the screen here.
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And I think there is a also share the audio. OK, so I think I have to turn that on.
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So window boom. And if you guys can give me a thumbs up or an acknowledgment that you can hear it once I start playing it.
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OK. All right. So we're going to start again. Ready? I'm going to come back over here. And if someone could let me know as soon as they could hear it, ready?
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Someone indicate in the comments if you can hear that still mute.
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OK, let's see here. We're going to remove it again. So sorry. Let's see if we can fix this quickly.
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Stop screen. I'm going to present share screen. Share screen.
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Also share tab. OK, I have that on there. Select the tab.
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Boom. Share audio. Let's see here.
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To share audio, share a tab instead. OK, so maybe I'm doing it wrong.
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Let's see here. All right. How about now? Ready? This this is this is it.
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This is the luck. This is the lucky one. OK. Let me be careful. I'm a Calvinist. I can't say lucky.
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Otherwise, someone will make a long video in response. Let me see here. Dr. Sproul, after Dr.
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Myers talk back here in the room, you mentioned, boy, that's that's great apologetics.
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And there's a question here asking an apologetical method question. Can you explain the difference between presuppositional and classical apologetics?
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And maybe elaborate on what you meant by even Dr. Myers talk and how you thought that that was was well presented, apologetical argument within a framework of the different schools of thought of approaching apologetics.
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There are different schools of thought with respect to apologetics. I can think of at least three right off the bat.
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There's presuppositionalism in the different schools of that. There's axiomatic presuppositionism that follows
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Gordon Clark. And then there's the other presuppositionist school called follows Cornelius Van Til.
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And then there's a second approach to apologetics, which is called evidentialism. All right. Now, before he goes into the other methodologies,
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I think this is key and I think this is very important. And I appreciate that Dr. Sproul mentioned the distinction between various schools of presuppositional thought so that this is very true.
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So when we talk about presuppositional methodology, you do have different streams. And this is very important, especially if you're trying to offer critiques of presuppositionalism.
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You're going to have to be specific. Are you critiquing the Vantillian stream? Are you critiquing the the
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Clarkian stream? For example, even Francis Schaeffer is often placed within the context of, quote, unquote, a presuppositional approach.
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And so we're going to have to define our terms. This is important because there are those who will critique
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Van Til. They think people think they're critiquing Van Til when in actuality they're critiquing
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Gordon Clark. This happened to me when I was debating negation of P, a debate that I did some years ago on my
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YouTube channel, a gentleman by the name of Negation of P. Very good debate discussion. We had a very respectful interaction.
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But a lot of his criticisms against what he perceived to be presupp was criticisms against a
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Clarkian form of presuppositionalism, which places a great emphasis on unprovable axioms as one starting point of which we then logically deduce the rest of our worldview from those unprovable axioms.
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So that's not quite what Van Til argued for. And it's and it's makes the world of a difference.
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On the one hand, Gordon Clark believed you couldn't prove your axiom, whereas Van Til starting with kind of an ultimate presuppositional starting point, he believed you could objectively prove the truth of your starting point.
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So on the one hand, one is more fideistic. You start with a starting point.
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It can't be proven, but then you build a system out of that. It answers the hard philosophical questions and it's consistent.
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And so you're saying this is the best worldview, whereas Van Til says, no, our starting point is actually objectively provable via a transcendental argument.
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So that's that's a key difference there. So I very much appreciate his acknowledgment of the differentiation between different presuppositional schools.
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Now, this can get confusing, and I think this is one of the reasons why Dr. Scott Oliphant from Westminster Theological Seminary is not is not a big fan of the terminology of presuppositional apologetics.
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I agree with him. The term presuppositional is too ambiguous. Now, I'm not sure his substitute title for the methodology is going to stick.
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He calls it covenantal apologetics. I think that's a little better, but I don't know if it's going to jive with people.
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Presupp is kind of just in the the the language associated with the method.
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So I think it's going to stay that way. But I understand the frustration. OK, let's continue here. Some and and then the third view that I espouse, which is called classical view of apologetics.
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There are lots of differences, Chris, and it would be unfair to try to define them absolutely in the short term.
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But the fundamental differences in presuppositional apologetics argues this way, that the only way you can come to a sound conclusion of the existence of God is that you must begin with the assertion of God's existence.
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You must presuppose the existence of God in order to have a sound argument for the existence of God.
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Evidentialism sees that. OK, so here is a couple of things here.
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So so R .C. summarizes the presupp approach as he says, the only way this is presuppositionalism to him, this is what he thinks we're saying.
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The only way you can come to a sound conclusion. OK, for the existence of God is that you must begin with the assertion of God's existence, you must presuppose the existence of God in order to have a sound argument for the existence of God.
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And I think describing presuppositionalist arguments in this way, I think is is lacking in precision and clarity.
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I think, OK, it doesn't actually actually capture the essence of what presuppositionalists are saying. It's it's not it's not accurate.
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OK, now when we dive deeper into the discussion, it's going to become very evident that the terminology that Dr.
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Sproul uses is going to be based upon his misunderstanding of of what presuppositionalism is all about.
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I'm not going to say that he purposefully uses certain terms so as to set up a straw man.
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I don't think he's doing that on purpose. I think it's the language he uses. And I'll point this out later in the second video, because he kind of uses more precise language with respect to what he thinks we're saying.
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I think it's very much based on his misunderstanding of presuppositionalism. Now, essentially, our stance is that the triune
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God and his revelation established the necessary framework for argumentation itself.
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OK, we believe that the Christian God and his revelation provides what we call the necessary precondition, what must be the case first in order for something like argument to make sense.
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OK, now, with respect to the structure of the transcendental argument, it generally follows the pattern, something along the lines of X is the necessary condition for Y, Y, therefore
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X. OK, and so we're basically saying, you know, something is the precondition for this other fact.
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OK, and we're arguing that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of whatever fact you want to put in its place.
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So we're not simply asserting, as you as you'll see, he thinks we're asserting. We're not simply asserting in terms of argument structure.
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OK, God exists, therefore God exists or anything along those lines. That's not what we're saying.
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Now, we also made reference. He said that the only way you can come to a sound conclusion of the existence of God is that you must begin with the assertion of God's existence.
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You must presuppose the existence of God in order to have a sound argument for the existence of God.
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So I think the concept here of sound argument, when he uses that language, I think things get a little muddled.
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Now, a sound argument relies on true premises. And so this is the distinction between what we talk about in logic, the difference between validity and soundness.
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OK, so soundness of an argument deals with whether the premises are true. Now, we acknowledge as presuppositionalists that unbelievers or non -presuppositional apologists, for that matter, can construct arguments with true premises and have arguments that have valid structure.
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The conclusions follow from the premises. However, our question as presuppositionalists, it really goes beyond a surface level issues.
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We're actually talking about things at the paradigmatic level. So what foundational truths about reality must be the case in order to justify the very fact of argumentation itself?
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What is the precondition for argument itself? Now, furthermore, I think this is important.
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It's not our position that men come to a conclusion of God's existence. Notice what he says here.
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He says the only way you can come to a sound conclusion of the existence of God is that you must begin with the existence of God.
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OK, it's not our position that men come to a conclusion of God's existence in like some chronological method of reasoning.
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Right. No one is arguing that in order to come to the conclusion of God, you have to start with God.
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Rather, the presuppositionalist is going to say, and I think in agreement with Scripture, that all men already know
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God. This is what the Bible teaches. OK, and this knowledge of God, we're arguing, is innate.
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OK, it's not merely mediated to man the moment he begins to look at his created surroundings.
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OK, all men know God either within the context of covenant keeping or covenant breaking.
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OK, now, with respect to the specific argument that we're making, the transcendental argument, and I mean this kind of in the logical sense,
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Vantill, Dr. Bonson or any other presuppositionalist worth their salt, but they're not presenting anything of the sort of which the conclusion of the argument is also stated in one of the premises.
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OK, we're going to have to make the important distinction. We'll talk about this a little bit later. We're going to have to make the distinction between the presupposition of an argument, what we presuppose when we argue and the premise that is stated in the argument.
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OK, that's going to become important later on. OK, so I hope that makes a little sense. All right.
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Let's see here. Let's continue on. Let's let them finish here. That as circular and which, of course,
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I can begin with the assertion of God's to a sound conclusion of the existence of God is that you must begin with the assertion of God's existence.
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You must presuppose the existence of God in order to have a sound argument for the existence of God.
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Evidentialism sees that as circular, which, of course, they don't have that critique of presuppositions being circular in its reasoning process is not something that one must prove or display, because, for example, in Van Til's defense of presuppositional apologetics, he not only admits, in fact, he wouldn't like the word admit, but he agrees that it is circular.
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But he says, in defense of that, that the nature of all our argument is circular, that the starting points and the conclusions are all bound up one with another.
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And what he means by that, I see two problems with that. One is if you admit that your method of proving the existence of God is circular and commits the
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Petit Principia fallacy in logic, that you've already surrendered the rationality of your position.
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And OK, so did you hear what he heard, what he said there? He said Van Til admits that the presuppositional form of argumentation, which, again, is the transcendental argument.
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He admits circularity and commits or this is what he said, let me let me phrase it the way that Dr.
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Sproul said. He says, if you admit this is the two problems he has. Well, one of the first of the two problems he has with with presuppositionalism, he says that if you admit that your method of proving the existence of God is circular and commits the
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Petitio Principia fallacy, this is begging the question right in logic, then you've already surrendered the rationality of your position and you've given the unbeliever an excuse.
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OK, now I want you to pay attention to this. OK, I agree with Dr. Sproul when he says, if you admit that your method of proving the existence of God is circular and commits the
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Petitio Principia fallacy, this idea of begging the question, engaging in kind of some form of fallacious circular reasoning or fallacious circular argumentation, then, yes, you have surrendered rationality.
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But notice what he says here. He says, if you admit that your method of proving the existence of God is circular and commits the Petitio Principia fallacy, is that what
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Vantill admitted? Did Vantill ever admit that he's committing the
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Petitio Principia fallacy? Absolutely not. OK, to quote,
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I think it's Dr. Oliphant, he quotes here, and this is found in his notes in the commentary he provides in Dr.
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Vantill's Defense of the Faith. He says Vantill's affirmation of circular reasoning should be seen in the context of the point he makes in various places about indirect arguments.
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Notice that Vantill's presuppositional argumentation is a form of indirect argumentation.
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Any Petitio Principia, this kind of begging the question, OK, any Petitio or circular argument, any
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Petitio Principia fallacy is by definition a direct argument containing premises and a conclusion.
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OK, Vantill's indirect method moves out of the context of a strict proof or direct argument and into the context of the rationale for any fact or law assumed to be or to be true.
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And thus circularity is inextricably linked to the transcendental approach and is not meant to be in reference, strictly speaking, to direct argumentation.
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So in order for Vantill's argument to be to commit the fallacy of a Petitio Principia, it has to be a direct argument.
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But as you know, if you're familiar with presuppositionalism and you're familiar with Dr. Vantill is that he did not use the transcendental argument in a direct way.
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Now, you can formulate, for example, and you guys have seen me doing on this channel, you can formulate a transcendental argument utilizing premises, premise one, premise two, conclusion.
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OK, and then, of course, you're going to defend one of the premises transcendentally. But the
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Petitio Principia, by definition, is engaged in direct argumentation.
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And when we give direct argumentation premise, premise conclusion, if we were to put
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Vantill's argument in that form, you will see very clearly that it is never formulated by any presuppositionalist worth its salt in such a way where the conclusion is actually in the premise, that you just won't find that, that there's and this is where I was talking about that we need to make the distinction between the presupposition of an argument and the premise of an argument.
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Now, if I give a direct argument and my conclusion is also in one of the premises, then, yes,
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I'm engaging in circular argument. But you need to make the distinction also between circular argument and circular reasoning.
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Circular reasoning is not always fallacious. And I think Vantill is correct.
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When you're dealing with ultimate paradigmatic matters, OK, things that are, quote unquote, in someone's paradigm, self -evident or within the
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Christian paradigm, you know, God being self, his authority being self -attesting, you're going to have an element of circularity.
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But that circularity is not the sort of circularity in which the conclusion of an argument is stated in the premise of the argument.
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That's just never presented in presuppositional argumentation. And even the argument structure of a transcendental argument doesn't commit that.
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So I think he is on the way he's explaining or expressing his problem with presuppositionalism is already predicated upon a misunderstanding of what
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Vantill is arguing. And if someone was using a more direct argument, it just doesn't fit that category.
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There is no argument constructed in which the conclusion is in one of the premises. So I think he's wrongheaded here. Let's continue.
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And you've given the unbeliever an excuse to reject your position because you have made a logical violation in the process.
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Well, Vantill acknowledges circular reasoning, but he defends it by saying, as I mentioned, that it's a particular type of circular reasoning.
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And in this case, he commits a second informal fallacy, the one of equivocation, because the meaning of the term circular changes in the argument.
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He could have just as easy. No, it does not. OK, the meaning of circularity changes within the argument.
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You mean the argument that you accused of being a Petitio Principi, you mean an argument with premise, premise, conclusion, what presuppositional argument that's given in a direct fashion uses the word circular and then changes the meaning of the word circular.
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This just doesn't happen. OK, he doesn't equivocate. I think Vantill, although he can be difficult to understand, does explain what he means by circularity.
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And it is explained by Vantill and his students what he doesn't mean.
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And what he doesn't mean is circularity in any fallacious sense that has been suggested here. And so I think that's important to to keep in mind.
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So he said that all arguments are by nature linear, that if I start with a rational starting point and come to a rational conclusion, that's not circularity, that's linearity.
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It's the same thing if I begin with an empirical premise and come to an empirical conclusion. I've just remained consistent with my methodology and there's no sin in that.
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The problem with the against that evidentialism says that we present concrete empirical evidence for the existence of God, arguing from nature and so on, and also from history and the like, and that that will give you a probability quotient of conclusion that would satisfy even somebody like David Hume in terms of the astronomical probability quotient that you achieve.
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But that even those arguments based on empirical investigation and so on and inferences drawn from them will not get you to formal certainty that that can only be arrived at through a logical proof that is irrefutable and then but classical apology.
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Right. And that's what we're asserting. The transcendental argument does, in fact, do right. We're arguing that the existence of God, we can be epistemically certain of the existence of God and the way we can demonstrate the epistemic certainty of God or the or the way we can demonstrate the existence of God is through a transcendental argument, which, if successful, demonstrates the existence of God by the impossibility of the contrary.
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OK, and so that kind of argumentation is going to be different than arguments that are trying to that give us the probability of God's existence.
32:25
And so it definitely the transcendental argument is definitely making a more robust and I'm going to say robust.
32:33
It's making a more. Not dramatic assertion, it's making a more it's making a stronger claim,
32:42
OK, not it's not arguing for the probability of God's existence, it's arguing for the fact that God exists by the impossibility of the contrary.
32:51
Apologetics say that the case for the existence of God can be proven demonstrably, rationally and formally and compellingly, so it's a little stronger than evidentialists who are more empirically oriented.
33:07
But what I said afterwards was that that's the way apologetics ought to be done. You don't just say say to the scientific community, well, you're working on the wrong presuppositions or you have the wrong worldview.
33:18
That's true. All right, then I want you to listen to this part. This is important. OK, I'm going to play it again.
33:25
Essentialists who are more empirically oriented. But what I said afterwards was that that's the way apologetics ought to be done.
33:33
You don't just say say you don't. This is how apologetics ought to be done as in contrast to the presuppositional is ready to the scientific community.
33:43
Well, you're working on the wrong presuppositions or you have the wrong worldview. That's true.
33:49
So so so we don't just go to the scientific community and say you're working on the working off the wrong presuppositions.
33:56
And then he says, in fact, that's true. But then look what he goes on to say. But you have to begin to show them that they're that the conclusions that they've drawn from their own evidence are formally invalid, which is what
34:11
I heard this morning. And I thought it was magnificent. OK, so that's interesting here. So so more again on the distinction here between validity and soundness with respect to argumentation.
34:20
Validity deals with structure. Soundness deals with the truth of the premises. Now, is it the case, as what he just suggested, that all we need to be doing is showing that the unbelievers conclusion simply don't follow from the premises of their arguments?
34:34
Are we simply trying to demonstrate that the counter arguments are invalid? Are we not also trying to show that the key premises in the unbelievers arguments are unsound as well?
34:45
They're not true. And that one of the primary reasons they're not true is because they're interpreting the very evidence they utilize from within a very from within a faulty worldview framework.
34:58
Is it not the case that the competing worldviews between believer and unbeliever is the very reason we're disagreeing when we debate with we debate over fundamental issues?
35:07
Isn't that isn't that the reason why we disagree? So he says, you don't go to the secular scientists and say, oh, you're working off false false presuppositions.
35:17
Right. What we're trying to show is that their conclusions are unsound. OK, well, I mean, are unvalid.
35:23
The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. OK, but we're also trying to show that the premises in many cases are false.
35:29
And the reason why it's false is because they're not interpreting the data correctly. OK, so on the one hand, he's saying we shouldn't be doing this.
35:36
It's true that they disagree because of the different worldviews. If that's true, then of course, then the presupposition is right on in emphasizing the fact that the key reason why there's disagreement is because of differing presuppositions and hence the reality that the fact that no one is neutral needs to be stated there.
35:56
And so the the impossibility of neutrality, I think, lends to a more presuppositional and transcendental thrust to our apologetic.
36:04
We're not going to grant neutral area to the unbeliever. And so, again,
36:09
I think that's a very interesting statement there at the tail end of his response. But let's let's continue here.
36:20
One follow up question is, how do we explain why classical apologetics is not equated with rationalism?
36:30
And that's to me again, how do I answer the charge that it's? Well, you know, if I'm if I espouse to be human.
36:39
That doesn't mean I've embraced humanism. If I argue that I exist, that doesn't mean that I am an advocate of existentialism.
36:48
And just because a woman is feminine does not make her a feminist. All right.
36:53
We want to be rational. To be rational is to think in a sound way.
36:59
And to be rational does not mean you embrace rationalism. And at the same time, you have to understand that historically in the field of philosophical inquiry, there have been three distinct types.
37:10
By the way, he is 100 percent correct. And I think that's a very important distinction to be made.
37:16
Right. Utilizing reason or having a desire to be rational does not necessarily commit someone to rational ism.
37:23
OK, that's super, super important. These terms need to be defined as well.
37:30
Right. When we say we are relying on reason, what do we mean by that? OK, you want to define your terms, you know, reason and evidence, reason and evidence.
37:38
We hear this a lot in apologetics. Well, what kind of reason are we reasoning along Cartesian lines after Rene Descartes?
37:45
Are we understanding reason in terms of Lockean categories? Are we understanding what reason has?
37:53
Many different versions. We need to kind of be clear on what we mean by reason when we use that term.
37:59
But we don't want to fallaciously assume that because someone is relying on reason that therefore they're rationalists.
38:04
I think that's a good a good point that Dr. Sproul made their rationalism. Cartesian rationalism, where rationalism is distinguished from empiricism, where the highest proof is found in the a priori categories of the mind rather than a posteriori demonstrations empirically in that debate between the 17th and 18th century.
38:27
The second form of rationalism is the form you found in the Enlightenment where the rationalism was was distinguished not from empiricism, but from revelation, where reason was elevated above the trustworthiness of supernatural revelation.
38:44
And the third kind of rationalism is the Hegelian rationalism in the 19th century, where reason is elevated to the capital
38:52
R, where it is the highest reality, where reason itself becomes God. So when you call me a rationalist,
38:59
I want to know what kind of rationalist you're calling me. And I would deny all three of those. And what
39:05
I'm just trying to be rational. Right. So so I appreciate what he's saying there.
39:13
Now, I think Dr. Sproul would agree with me that the role of reason and rationality specifically defined holds the place of a ministerial role, whereas God's revelation holds a magisterial role.
39:30
Right. Revelation is more authoritative than our reasoning process. And I think that he would agree with that. However, the issue is not whether he agrees or not.
39:38
The issue is, does his apologetic allow him to consistently apply that principle in terms of the order of authority?
39:46
And I don't I don't think that he does that consistently. OK, again, these are important kind of details to pay attention to.
39:55
On the one hand, for example, if we were to say no neutrality, no autonomy. Right. Oh, there's no neutrality and there's no autonomy.
40:02
And someone says, yeah, that's right. I as a Christian, I believe there's no one's autonomous and man's reasons are not autonomous and there's no neutrality.
40:09
You could affirm that. But there's a difference between what you affirm and what you actually do in practice.
40:15
We could affirm something. But then in practice, when we're giving our apologetic, we can succumb to categories of neutrality and autonomy even when we verbally deny it.
40:35
And that's just an issue of inconsistency, which I think, you know, Vantill and Dr. Bonson would would assert that Dr.
40:41
Sproul, with his reformed convictions, is actually engaging in an inconsistent apologetic methodology.
40:48
All right. OK, let's let's continue on here. We're almost done with that answers.
40:57
The alternative to that is everything outside of the category of the rational is what?
41:04
Irrational. Yeah, we don't want that. That's right. And. And. To be rational, he says, we have to think in a rational way, but I'm thinking to myself, what is more rational than using reason under the lordship of Christ?
41:19
I mean, what's more rational than that? And again, consistently doing that. That's the issue of consistency.
41:25
Who is consistently doing that in practice, I think, is is important here. All right.
41:31
So I'm going to I'm going to play this here. Let me see if there's another question presuppositional related question.
41:37
No. OK, so that's the end of the first video. All right. OK, so that's the end of the first video. I'm going to kind of click out of this.
41:43
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up. Let's see here. I'm going to set up screen share.
41:55
Boom, boom. Let's see here. And this. No, no,
42:01
OK, make sure I pick the tab so you could hear it. OK, we don't want to do the same mistake as before.
42:07
Let's see here. Boom. OK, we're going to do this and then
42:12
I'm going to play this back here. All right, just bear with me, I'm almost done.
42:23
OK. Let's see here. All right.
42:31
So, OK, let's do this and we'll play this here. Only I see the comments here are some people who have questions.
42:37
Let me see if I could address some of them. You guys are being so nice and patient as I fumble across, you know, audio issues and things like that.
42:45
So let's see here. Do do do do do. Hey, Steven or Stefan.
42:52
Thank you so much for the two dollar and ninety nine cent super sticker. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Jonathan Myron, is
43:00
John MacArthur a presupposition list? I have no idea. That's a good question. I'm not sure. Stevie, six, six to one precept is the best apologetic.
43:10
I agree. All right. Thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. Let's see here. What would you tell someone who says reason logic has no origin?
43:22
Well, I mean, who am I talking to? This is a theist. I mean, is this what do they believe about the nature of reason and logic?
43:30
I mean, if we say that logic is a reflection of the mind of God, then logic, in a sense, would be eternal, not as an abstract principle, independent of God.
43:39
OK, but then you have some debates in there. Some people think that God created logic. I do not happen to hold to that position, but some people do.
43:46
But I think that logic is eternally reflects the mind of God. That's that's my position.
43:53
Let's see here. Now, if someone says logic and reason have no origin and they're an unbeliever.
44:00
So, OK, how does reason and logic exist? Independent of a mind, that'd be that'd be a question
44:06
I'd ask. OK, and see what they say. I mean, it depends when you say when what would you tell someone?
44:12
Well, it depends. I need to gather more information from the person and kind of see where they're at. OK, when we're critiquing assertions, you have to remember,
44:20
Henry, that every assertion comes within the context of a worldview perspective. And the more we know about the worldview, the better position we're in to address the specific assertion that they make.
44:31
And so sometimes it's not not good to just answer a question directly. I would probably ask for more information depending on who
44:39
I'm speaking with. Right. That makes sense. All right. Let's see. Let's continue this video here.
44:44
Now, I want you to pay attention to the language he uses here. And I think this is interesting. And it's wrapped up in the same misunderstanding that I think when he kind of assumes that Van Til's presuppositional argumentation transit argument is a.
44:57
Direct argument as opposed to an indirect argument, and then the way in which he thinks Van Til's direct argument is formulated.
45:04
He thinks it's formulated in such a way in which the conclusion is in one of the premises. Now, look at the language he uses and I'll stop him once he says it.
45:12
Let's continue. And I'm not going to get into a lot of discussion right now about presuppositionalism, only to say by way of introduction that the presuppositional approach says this, that in order to arrive at the conclusion.
45:31
That God exists in order to prove the existence of God. You must start with your primary premise.
45:41
Up right there. OK. In order to prove the existence of God. Now, look at the language he's using, because that language is based upon a misunderstanding.
45:52
He says you must start with. You must begin with your starting premise.
45:59
As though Van Til's argument is the sort of argument that is premise, premise, conclusion.
46:06
He is assuming that Van Til's argument is a direct form of argumentation, and he uses the language premise.
46:16
You start with the premise and then you end with the conclusion that's the same as the premise.
46:21
That's not what we're doing. So I'm going to rewind it there and let him say that again. And I won't interrupt him so you can hear his full thought.
46:28
God exists that the presuppositional approach says this, that in order to arrive at the conclusion.
46:40
That God exists in order to prove the existence of God. You must start with your primary premise, your first premise false.
46:53
Being the presupposition of the existence of God. In other words, that unless you start by presupposing the existence of God.
47:04
You will never get to. So notice that now now he makes the conflation between the premise of an argument and the presupposition of an argument.
47:17
OK, the premise of an argument and a presupposition of an argument, I presuppose the truth of the
47:23
Christian worldview. Even before I lay out my formal argument and I presuppose it's true because my position is that that worldview that I'm presupposing is the only necessary context that gives meaning to my argument itself.
47:40
But to presuppose the truth of my position as a presupposition is different than inserting it in a formal argument, inserting it in a premise.
47:52
All right. And that's not I challenge anyone to find me a deductive argument, transcendental argument and deductive form that anyone uses of any note, any knowledgeable presuppositionalist that says anything along the lines is the
48:09
Bible is true. Therefore, the Bible is true or God exists.
48:15
Therefore, God exists. I start with my my starting premise. I begin. God exists.
48:20
And then I conclude God exists in terms of argument form and argument structure that you won't find that.
48:27
I guarantee it to the conclusion of the existence of God.
48:34
Now, of course, the immediate objection that is raised against that form of thinking is that that procedure of starting with the thesis that God exists and then reasoning to the conclusion that God exists involves a classic fallacy of logic called the
49:01
Petitio -Principi fallacy, or the fallacy of circular reasoning.
49:08
Or and he's conflating here, circular reasoning and circular argument. I think those are important distinctions. And the fallacy of circular reasoning occurs when the conclusion appears already in one of your premises.
49:23
Say that they can. Right there. So the conclusion appears in one of the premises. Give me let me let me give me one example from Van Til, Greg Bonson, even someone like James Anderson, Scott Oliphant, John Frame, in which a presuppositional argument is presented in which the conclusion is in one of the premises.
49:55
You ain't going to find it. You're just not going to find it. It's going to be more difficult to find than Bigfoot himself.
50:02
OK. All right. You ain't going to find it because that's just not what we're arguing. OK. Now, Mike Carr is asking, was this recorded after or before his debate with with Greg Bonson?
50:13
This is this was recorded after Greg Bonson. And I think I don't remember exactly what year it was.
50:20
I think Dr. Bonson and R .C. Sproul debated in the late 70s, maybe.
50:26
Let me see. Let me actually look that up. What year? Did Sproul.
50:32
Let me see here. Debate. Greg Benson.
50:40
Let's see here. I misspelled Bonson. What's up with that? I don't know if it'll show up the year.
50:47
It was a long, long time ago. OK. Now, this recording is I'm pretty sure it's after after that debate.
50:56
OK, so I hope that hope that helps. All right. Anyway, I just wanted to be dramatic.
51:02
I had to put myself on the full screen so you can see my my frustration. OK. All right. Let's let's let's let's continue on.
51:09
All right. Inclusion is already assumed up here. And so this is a faulty form of reasoning which invalidates an argument, and that's been the chief objection raised against presuppositional apologetics over the defense that Dr.
51:30
Vantill gave to that, because he was certainly aware that that charge would be made against this approach.
51:38
He defended it by saying that that all reasoning.
51:46
Moves in a circular fashion. Insofar as its starting point, its middle ground and its conclusions are all involved with each other, which is to stay, say, if you start with a rational premise and you reason consistently in a rational way and go a little bit here, conclusion would be of a rational sort.
52:17
And so with that kind of of definition, Dr. Vantill justifies his use of circular reasoning, saying that it's no different from anybody else, because now.
52:30
And I agree with Dr. Vantill that it is true that at a fundamental paradigmatic level, there is you can't avoid circularity.
52:37
OK, I think. Let me see one second here. I could find it if I can't find it,
52:48
I'm looking for. A book. Let me see here, a super helpful quote in it.
52:58
Hmm. Oh, here we go. I found it. I found it.
53:04
OK, so Dr. Bonson kind of helps us out here when I'm going to read something from it's a quotation from Dr.
53:11
Bonson, but it's from the book. Let me actually take Dr. Sproul off the screen there for a couple of seconds.
53:17
I'm quoting here a justification of knowledge by Robert Raymond.
53:25
And there is a section here where he quotes Dr. Bonson. OK, all right.
53:31
Let's see here. He says, and this is Dr. Bonson, and he says, quote, all argumentation about and Vantill would agree with this.
53:39
OK, all argumentation about ultimate issues, right? About ultimate issues, not just any old issue eventually comes to rest at the level of the disputants presuppositions.
53:49
If a man has come to the conclusion and is committed to the truth of a certain view, P, when he is challenged as to P, he will offer supporting argumentation for it,
53:58
Q and R. But of course, as his opponent will be quick to point out, this simply shifts the argument to Q and R.
54:05
Why accept them? The proponent of P is now called upon to offer S, T, U and V as arguments for Q and R.
54:14
But all argument chains must come to an end somewhere. One's conclusions could never be demonstrated if they were dependent upon an infinite regress of argumentative justifications for under those circumstances, the demonstration could never be completed.
54:29
And an incomplete demonstration demonstrates nothing at all. And he continues, eventually all argumentation terminates in some logically primitive starting point of view or premise held as unquestionable.
54:42
Apologetics traces back to such ultimate starting points or presuppositions. In the nature of the case, these presuppositions are held to be self -evidencing.
54:51
They are the ultimate authority in one's viewpoint and authority for which no greater authorization can be given.
55:01
Okay, and I won't continue on there because it's a good book. You should check it out. Actually, it's a
55:06
Justification of Knowledge. Okay, not by Dr. Bonson by Robert Raymond, but that was a quote from Dr.
55:14
Bonson. So it is true that Vantill did appeal to the necessity of circularity, but that was not his only reason for affirming circularity in that ultimate sense.
55:26
Okay, he didn't say, well, the reason why circularity is okay, and this is not how Vantill sounds.
55:31
That is my bad impression of Vantill. Vantill didn't say, well, the reason why, you know, circularity is okay is because we can't help it.
55:39
We have to. If you just offer that as the main reason why he thought circularity at the fundamental level is okay, that's false.
55:47
When you get to the fundamental level, you're getting to the level of kind of the ground zero of someone's worldview.
55:53
Okay? Not only did he believe at a basic fundamental level, there's an inescapable issue of circularity.
56:00
He also believed that the foundational starting point can be objectively proved via a transcendental argument.
56:12
Okay? So that's a key thing to keep in mind. All right? All right.
56:18
Let's see here. Someone says here. Yeah. So, so here, so g -r -w, having listened to thousands of hours of scroll, like a scroll, okay?
56:35
Preaching and teaching, it was my impression that he didn't like the argument as a formal argument because it's circular and it is.
56:41
This is blatantly false. Okay? I challenge anyone to give me a formal transcendental argument in which the conclusion is found in one of the premises.
56:50
I challenge, I challenge anybody to find that. Okay? If I was not a presuppositionalist and I didn't like the transcendental argument,
56:57
I still would recognize that it's not circular in that sense.
57:04
I might disagree if I was a non -presuppositionalist. I might say it's not, it's formal.
57:11
Construction is not circular. I just don't think that the presuppositionalist actually demonstrates what he's trying to demonstrate when using that kind of argument.
57:18
You could say that, but to suggest that Vantil had the conclusion in the premise in a formal way, that's just completely false.
57:25
I mean, you're not even, it's not even close to being true. Okay? So just want to, just want to put that out there.
57:34
Okay. But thank you for sharing your thoughts. GRW. All right. Let's see here. Whoops.
57:52
Circular reasoning. The commission of a secular conclusion will be of a rational sort.
58:01
And so with that kind of definition, Dr. Vantil justifies his use of circular reasoning saying that it's no different from anybody else because all reasoning is circular in that sense.
58:19
Well, those of us who don't adopt this approach to apologetics find in the justification for circular reasoning, the commission of a second fallacy that is as deadly as the first one.
58:34
The first fallacy is the fallacy of circular reasoning, which in classic categories of logic invalidates an argument.
58:44
The justification for using circular reasoning involves the second fallacy, which is the fallacy of equivocation, where a term changes its meaning in the middle of the argument.
58:57
When he justifies circular reasoning by saying that all reasoning is circular in the sense that its starting point and its conclusion are of the similar sort, that's not what is meant by circular meaning, circular reasoning.
59:10
We've all understood that a rational argument, if it's going to be rational, must be consistently rational throughout.
59:19
And why call that a circle when in fact it's linear? You begin with a rational premise, you use another rational premise, and you move and advance to a conclusion that is of a rational sort without running around in a circle.
59:34
Now granted, there is a presupposition in rational argument. The presupposition of reason, the presupposition of the law of non -contradiction, presupposition of causality, and the other presuppositions that I've been setting before you in this class, including the basic reliability of sense perception and the analogical use of language.
59:59
Now, those who defend Dr. Van Til here, like Greg Bonson, are saying really what
01:00:06
Van Til is getting at here is something a little deeper than a superficial exercise in circular reasoning.
01:00:15
What he's saying is that if you want to assume rationality, to even assume rationality, involves you out of necessity of presupposing the existence of God.
01:00:34
That's correct. Because without God, there is no foundation for rationality.
01:00:40
Because he's the necessary precondition. There's no foundation for trusting the law of causality. There's no foundation for trusting the basic reliability of sense perception.
01:00:49
And so even though you don't admit it, when you advocate reason, you are already assuming the ground of that reason, which is
01:00:59
God himself. So let's just be open and above board and say anybody who presupposes rationality is therefore presupposing the existence of God, and they're simply disguising that.
01:01:11
And so I feel the way to that because we certainly agree as classicists that it is true that if rationality is to be meaningful, and if these presuppositions of epistemology that I'm talking about are sound, then they scream for the existence of God.
01:01:28
But that's exactly what classical apologetics is trying to prove, that if you want to be rational, you've got to affirm the existence of God, because the very reason that you're presupposing demands the existence of God.
01:01:43
Correct. But we have to show people that, and we don't think it's a good strategy just to muddle the argument by saying, well, you have to start with the existence of God in your premise.
01:01:54
So again, yes, I agree. We have to show it. Okay. We're not denying as presuppositionalist that we have to show it.
01:02:04
It's just the way in which we show it is through transcendental argument, and it is an arguing that the
01:02:11
Christian God provides the necessary preconditions. We're not simply saying you have to start with the premise and then draw the conclusion that's already stated in the premise.
01:02:21
That's not what we're arguing. That's not what Van Til is arguing. So again, all of this is going to be based upon his misunderstanding and muddling between the issue of indirect argumentation and direct argumentation, presupposition of an argument versus the premise of an argument.
01:02:35
In your argument, in order to approve it, because then the other guy says, well, I'm going to start without the premise of God, and I'm going to end up in meaninglessness.
01:02:46
And now what you have is a tie. And as they say, that's like kissing your sister, and we're not interested in that kind.
01:02:55
Okay, so I love that's totally R .C. Sproul. So I love his humor. Let's rewind that part a little bit and hear that again.
01:03:03
I'm going to stop it. Without the premise of God, and I'm going to end up in meaninglessness. All right. So he's suggesting, okay, well, if you start with the presupposition of God, then the unbeliever is going to start with his presupposition, and that's it.
01:03:15
You're stuck. You're stuck and in a tie because it's presupposition versus presupposition.
01:03:23
And so there you go. You're at a tie. There's no way to break that because you have your starting point, and everything you believe is built off that starting point, and the other person has a starting point.
01:03:33
Everything you believe is built on that starting point. And what he fails to recognize is that a transcendental argument breaks the tie.
01:03:41
We're not simply asserting authoritatively the truth of our presupposition. We are arguing for it.
01:03:48
So, for example, if I were to argue that the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for, say, logic, okay?
01:03:57
Saying that doesn't prove it. We demonstrate it by actually filling the details of the
01:04:04
Christian worldview and show that it actually meets the preconditions for intelligible experience.
01:04:09
Now, when the other position says, well, I account for it this way, or I don't need to account for it.
01:04:16
I'm just going to be irrational, okay? Well, if he chooses the irrational route, we want him to speak up into the microphone.
01:04:22
If your worldview reduces to irrationality, that's precisely what we're trying to demonstrate, okay? But suppose the person is trying to ground, say, conceptual laws of logic or morality or whatever, the worldview doesn't get—there's no tie simply by asserting that your worldview can provide those preconditions.
01:04:40
As Dr. James Anderson said, Dr. James Anderson of RTS, he says that when you make those claims, my worldview can account for A, B, and C.
01:04:50
He says the worldview must be able to pay the bills on that assertion.
01:04:56
The Christian is willing to show that given the truth of Christian presuppositions and the Christian worldview and, you know, what
01:05:02
God has revealed about himself and Revelation, given all of the trappings of the Christian worldview, the necessary conditions required for intelligible experience are met.
01:05:13
The atheist might come along and say, well, I don't presuppose the Christian God and I could account for all these things.
01:05:19
You can make that assertion, but can you pay the bills on the assertion? Let's actually get into the details of that.
01:05:25
And so by doing that, we can show that the unbelieving position does not in fact have the right to assert those things, and his worldview does not provide the ingredients to support the very things he says that he can account for.
01:05:37
Now, again, I could say this, but this is going to be played out in the actual argumentation itself. But no one is arguing over authoritative first principle over here and then authoritative first principle over there.
01:05:48
And it's, you know, it's a tie. It's like kissing your sister, right? You know, no one wants a tie. That's just not the case at all.
01:05:56
All right. Okay, let's continue on here. And now what you have is a tie.
01:06:04
And as they say, that's like kissing your sister. And we're not interested in that kind of experience.
01:06:14
So the biggest objection I have, frankly, besides these logical errors to presuppositionalism, is that nobody starts with God.
01:06:24
All right, this is key here. So I'm going to push it back a couple of seconds. This is a key objection, all right?
01:06:29
This objection, again, is addressed already by Van Til and is addressed by Dr.
01:06:36
Bonson, but it often comes up. And so, well, let's address it here. These logical errors to presuppositionalism is that nobody starts with God, except God.
01:06:49
You can't start in your mind with God, the knowledge of God, unless you're God. Where we say you start is with self -consciousness.
01:06:59
And from self -consciousness, right? So the presuppositionalist will typically say, in passing, that we start with God, not with man, right?
01:07:06
And of course, R .C. Sproul is going to say, well, no one could start with God, because you first have to start with your own consciousness, okay?
01:07:14
No one could start with God, except for God himself, okay? Consciousness, you move to the existence of God.
01:07:22
Right, so you move from self -consciousness, and then you move from epistemology to the ontology of the existence of God, okay?
01:07:32
Now, there is a problem here. I'm going to let him finish his statement here before I kind of offer my thoughts here. But there's some issues here that we need to bring up.
01:07:40
You don't start with God -consciousness and move to the existence of the self. By necessity, human beings, thinking with human minds, must start with where they are, with their brain.
01:07:53
Now, the objection that comes to that... Okay, so I'm going to stop right here. So, when someone says, if someone asks the question, do we start with God, or do we start with the self?
01:08:08
Okay? You need to point out that this commits, that actually commits, and we can use the language of R .C.
01:08:15
Sproul, it commits the classical fallacy known as the false dichotomy, right?
01:08:22
That's my bad impression of R .C. Sproul. It's a false dichotomy. You either start with man or you start with God. You can't start with God, so therefore you have to start with man.
01:08:29
No. You start with God or you start with man, the answer is not that you start with God or man. The answer is you start with both simultaneously.
01:08:37
Man -consciousness and God -consciousness. The only way to meaningfully make sense out of our own consciousness is to understand it within the context of the ontological reality of God himself.
01:08:47
Okay? This is the whole presuppositionalist, confused epistemology with ontology. Okay? So he says, nobody starts with God except God.
01:08:55
You can't start with God unless you're God. We start with self -consciousness, he says, and then from self -consciousness, you move to the existence of God.
01:09:02
By necessity, he says, human beings thinking with human minds must start with their brain.
01:09:09
Okay? Now, you have to also point out that there is an equivocation with the phrase to start with, for there are very different ways in which we can use the phrase start with, and presuppositionalists have made these distinctions.
01:09:29
Okay? All right? You can start with something temporally and logically.
01:09:36
There's temporal order and logical order. So you can start with something in a chronological sense.
01:09:43
That is not what presuppositionalists mean when we say that you start with God, not with man.
01:09:50
We're not thinking in terms of chronological starting with. Okay? Rather, we are understanding start with, with respect to the distinction between proximate starting points and ultimate starting points.
01:10:04
Okay? It is a logical order, not a chronological order.
01:10:11
Okay? You can start with something temporally. You can start with something logical.
01:10:16
You have temporal order, logical order, proximate starting points versus ultimate starting points.
01:10:22
You can start with something in practice, and you could start with something in principle. Okay? When we start, when we say that we start with the entire
01:10:31
Christian worldview, right, we're starting with God, the Christian worldview, we are referring to a logical order and not a temporal one.
01:10:38
And the equivocation in this phrase becomes clear when the objector says something like this.
01:10:45
Someone will say, well, you have to rely on your senses before you read your Bible. And obviously the term before in this case is referring to a temporal order.
01:10:55
But we must think, as I mentioned here, more in terms of what we call logical priority, not temporal or chronological priority.
01:11:03
Our senses, reason, logic, etc. may come first temporally, but God and his revelation take preeminence over those other beliefs.
01:11:16
So to summarize this point, when we say to start with, we start with our faculties.
01:11:23
And I'm not saying anything weird and new. I mean, Bonson touches on this, and it's explained, even
01:11:30
Bonson says we start with ourselves as a proximate starting point. He uses that language, proximate starting points.
01:11:37
So we start with our faculties temporally, but we start with God logically.
01:11:43
Our faculties are our proximate starting point, but God is the ultimate starting point.
01:11:50
We may start with our faculties in practice, but we start with God in principle.
01:11:57
Okay, that is a huge, important, important thing to keep in mind.
01:12:04
Okay, Van Til did not confuse epistemology with ontology.
01:12:10
Okay, he said, quote, Van Til said, you either predicate knowledge upon an ontology, a view of reality, constructed speculatively by humans, or you predicate knowledge upon the ontology revealed by the triune
01:12:31
God. That is not him confusing or conflating. He's saying you either start when you when you talk about knowledge, you either talk about knowledge within the context of an ontology that is based upon human speculation, or when you predicate knowledge, you start with an ontology that is revealed by the triune
01:12:48
God. And when you start with human speculative conceptions of ontology, then your position is reduced to absurdity.
01:12:55
It's reduced to subjectivity. It's reduced to finitude. That's why you get you can't get to certainty, because if you start with man, you end with man.
01:13:04
Okay, so presuppositionalists aren't confusing epistemology and ontology, like being suggested here.
01:13:10
We understand the categories very clearly. Van Til understood the categories, and this has been addressed as well.
01:13:15
So I love, I absolutely love R .C. Sproul. He's wrong here. He's just wrong.
01:13:21
And I say that, of course, respectfully. Let's continue. Is that we are capitulating to secular pagan ideas of thought.
01:13:32
I remember debating this point with one of the advocates of presuppositionalism in a public meeting almost 30 years ago, where this particular professor was very exercised when
01:13:45
I said that you have to start with self -consciousness, and he said that that's unbiblical, because that what
01:13:52
I'm doing is assuming the autonomy of the self rather than the sovereignty of God, and that this is exactly what
01:14:05
Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden when they rebelled against God, and that it is a sinful, fallen, corrupt way to start reasoning by beginning with the self rather than with God.
01:14:21
And I said to him, I would certainly agree that if my first supposition, my primary premise in reasoning was the autonomy of myself, that I would be guilty of everything you say, that I would be indeed already embracing paganism, and I could only end up if I were indeed consistent with the deification of the self and the rejection of God.
01:14:50
But I said we don't start with the autonomy of the self, but simply the consciousness of the self, and I reminded my friend that Augustine himself said that with self -consciousness always comes immediately an awareness of finitude, that the moment that you're aware...
01:15:07
That's right. So it starts with awareness of finitude. And so how do you move from the consciousness to God without committing autonomy?
01:15:18
If you don't start with God as the logical ultimate starting point, what context are we understanding consciousness and reasoning to be placed in?
01:15:30
Is it within the context of a Christian worldview? Is the idea of the consciousness and the method we use to move from consciousness to God, is that set within the context of neutrality?
01:15:42
If it is, how then are you avoiding autonomy? Right? Again, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt because we're just basing this upon this short video.
01:15:51
I'm sure he's spoken to this issue. But again, those are the sorts of questions I would ask. Aware of yourself as a self, you know, you're not
01:16:00
God. That's what Calvin argued at the same time. And I'm saying that the idea of autonomy, where you're a law unto yourself, is not contained in the idea of self -consciousness.
01:16:17
If it were, it would indeed be sinful to start at that point. But what we're saying is that the beginning with self -consciousness is a given to creatureliness.
01:16:27
It's the only place any self can start with their thinking. You cannot start in your mind with his thought, or with my thought, or with God's thought.
01:16:36
The only thing you start with is your own self -awareness. And from there, you move because you are a self, and you will soon discover that you are.
01:16:46
Do we move autonomously until we reach the conclusion that God exists? Again, I don't see how you're escaping autonomy.
01:16:56
So again, I don't think he affirms autonomy, but I think the way he explains his view, it succumbs to autonomy, even when he rejects autonomous categories.
01:17:09
I hope that that makes sense here. So we're going to end it here. He kind of goes off into another issue there, but hopefully this, and if you let me know in the comments, it's super helpful.
01:17:20
If you let me know if this has been helpful to you, because if it is,
01:17:25
I would love to do more things like this, kind of play videos and respond to various things like that.
01:17:31
If it's useful to you, I most definitely would try to do that more often. But yeah, love
01:17:38
Dr. Sproul. Again, even with everything that I've just said in this stream, I highly recommend you download the
01:17:47
Ligonier app. You will be blessed by the content on that app. Again, we listen to everything with discernment, right?
01:17:54
We want to be discerning of what we're listening to, but there is so much good with the teaching of R .C.
01:18:00
Sproul, and I consider him a giant of the faith and a warrior for Reformed theology.
01:18:07
I thought he was one of the best expositors of the Reformed faith in our modern context, and he's such a masterful communicator, such a passionate speaker.
01:18:17
And so I highly recommend most things from R .C. Sproul. But in terms of his critiques of presuppositionalism,
01:18:25
I obviously have some issues here, and hopefully this live stream has clarified some of the issues involved in these disputes.
01:18:33
And for those who disagree with the presuppositional method, I mean, that's okay. We're free to do that, right?
01:18:38
We're going to have different perspectives. Just let us try our best. And of course, I'm sure
01:18:43
I fail in this, but at least in terms of a goal to move towards, let us try our best to properly understand that which we are critiquing.
01:18:52
Okay. And I think all of us, myself included, can do better at that. You know, for example,
01:18:58
I did a video not that long ago critiquing Mike Winger's criticisms of presuppositional apologetics, and I had,
01:19:09
I think it was, I had Jeff Waddington on with me, and I thought the stream went well, and I think we did explain some things that were super important, but Mike had briefly reached out to me and said, hey, that's not quite what
01:19:22
I was saying, and yeah, that's something we need to listen to. And I'm not going to take the video down because it still had the gist of what
01:19:28
I wanted to say came across. But yeah, I didn't accurately represent the angle he was trying to argue because Mike was very nuanced in specifically the sort of presuppositionalism he was critiquing.
01:19:42
And so, yeah, he's correct. We want to be able to properly represent people that were critiquing.
01:19:48
I think that's super important, and I think we need to be able to also take correction and kind of lay down our pride.
01:19:54
If we have wrongfully represented a position, we should say, hey, that's my bad. Thank you so much for letting me know.
01:19:59
So I'm sure there's aspects of R .C. Sproul's thought that maybe I'm not capturing accurately, but to my understanding, based upon hearing his criticisms, these are my thoughts in terms of where I think he gets things wrong on presuppositionalism.
01:20:17
Well, I do apologize. I had to reschedule the live stream with Anthony Rogers and Jeremiah Nortier on the topic of the defense of original sin.
01:20:26
We're going to reschedule that, and I'll let you guys know when that's going to be back up on the schedule.
01:20:33
And yeah, and then I've got a couple of things coming up as well. I do have a speaking engagement in Florida, and then
01:20:39
I have a speaking engagement in Pennsylvania in June. So I've been busy this year, traveling all over the place.
01:20:45
I went to Arizona. I went to Kansas. Where else did I go?
01:20:50
A couple of other places I went. So I've been able to travel a bit and to do some teaching and speaking.
01:20:57
So excited to do those sorts of things. Hey, if you've enjoyed this video, just as all the
01:21:03
YouTubers say, smash the like button, share. But if you're looking to support Revealed Apologetics, that is always welcomed and greatly appreciated.
01:21:15
Sorry, I have to now. Yeah, it's greatly appreciated. If folks want to support
01:21:21
Revealed Apologetics, you can go to the website. You can either purchase a course. You can purchase a conference, an online conference that I've recorded.
01:21:28
There are a few of them there, or you could just donate if you feel led to do that. That always is very helpful.
01:21:34
So folks can do that by going over to RevealedApologetics .com. If you want to invite me as a speaker or a teacher or do a workshop on apologetics or something along those or even online thing where maybe you have a class that want to learn presuppositional apologetics or something like that, you can go on my website.
01:21:51
You could reach out to me there or email me at RevealedApologetics at gmail .com. So before I end here, though,
01:21:57
I have a comment here by Carl James Kabasi Ramos. Hi Eli, not a presupp, but would like to know your response to Dr.
01:22:05
Richard Howe's arguments against presuppositionalism. Well, you're in luck.
01:22:11
You're in luck, Carl James Kabasi Ramos. There is actually a video on my channel where I do just that.
01:22:21
Now, if someone could find that video, I'm trying to see it was definitely a live stream that I did a while back.
01:22:30
Let me see if I could find that and actually put it in the comments.
01:22:36
If someone could find it before me, that would be awesome. But if not, you're going to have to put up with me for a couple of seconds.
01:22:44
I'm going to ramble a little bit while I fetch that because I don't want to forget. Let's see here.
01:22:51
I do have a response to Richard Howe. And I think you'll find it useful and that's okay if you're not a presupp, you know, man, you'll see the light soon enough.
01:23:01
No, I'm just kidding. All right, let's see here. Richard Howe. That was a long time ago.
01:23:06
I did a response back in the day. I'm not sure if it was something in response to when
01:23:13
Dr. Howe was on capturing Christianity.
01:23:18
It might have been when he was invited on capturing Christianity to critique presupp and I did a response to that.
01:23:26
I don't I don't remember if that was the context. Let's see here. Do to do to do man looking back at this the backlog of some of these videos.
01:23:37
Oh my goodness. These are old. I mean, it's been doing this for a while here.
01:23:43
Let's see here. Richard Howe. So sorry. We're going to find it man. We're going to get it.
01:23:55
All right. I can't find it now. All right. Let me see now.
01:24:01
It's going to annoy me because now I know I have a video on the channel. And it was pretty good.
01:24:09
Not to know. I'd have to say it was it was a pretty a pretty good response. I thought let's see.
01:24:16
Maybe I get me scroll down real quick. No, no, no. Oh, here it is. Okay responding to Richard Howe's criticism of precept.
01:24:25
So it was a 34 minute 34 minute response. So not too long. I'm going to copy the link here and we're going to get that for you.
01:24:34
Boom paste and send there you go it.
01:24:40
There you go. So yeah, I hope you hopefully you can check that out. And that will be useful to you.
01:24:45
So, all right. Well that ends this live stream guys. Thank you so much for listening in and yes, you're welcome
01:24:52
Carl anytime and I hope that this has been helpful and beneficial for folks until next time.