Always Ready: Chap. 13 The Foolishness of Unbelief

Concluded sections one and two of Always Ready. And they were, here's the topics. First section, if you remember, I think it was six or seven chapters, the Lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge.

That was a foundational section. Second one is the conditions necessary for the apologetic task. That's still very much foundational. Tonight, we begin the third section, which starts to get into the nitty gritty of apologetics a little bit more, how to defend the faith.

I have to say, though, that this too is still very much foundational. It's not going to be if he says this, then you say this. It's not going to be anything like that. The first chapter is chapter 13 under section three, and that is the foolishness of unbelief.

The Foolishness of Unbelief as the Starting Point of Apologetics

And that's what we're going to look at tonight. Foolishness of unbelief, the central declaration and challenge of Christian apologetics is expressed by Paul's rhetorical question, has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

I don't think he could have picked a better starting verse because, again, if you're going to understand why we are so insistent on presuppositional apologetics, this is still very basic to it. And we need to understand that apart from the word of God, the wisdom of the world is foolishness.

That's the point he's been making for the first two sections for 12 chapters. So does everybody follow that, that this is one of the basic presuppositions, is that apart from the wisdom of God, the wisdom of the world is foolishness?

So we see that critical attacks, which are leveled against the Christian faith in the world or thought, cannot be met by piecemeal replies and appeals to emotion.

OK?

I want to just pause there for a second. This is one of the tactics that you will come against, not just atheists, but other people where you're defending the faith to. They love to get down to the nitty gritty, very individualized topics, which takes you away from the root.

For example, when you start talking about the abortion debate, what do they always say? What about the little girl who was raped? You know, it's that. Exactly.

All right?

But that's part of their tactics. You can't let yourself be sidetracked onto all the nitty gritty, the little nitty gritty details, but to understand the entire presupposition. So that's why Bronson is starting here with this.

Defending the faith cannot be met by piecemeal replies or appeals to emotion. In the long run, the believer must respond to the onslaught of the unbeliever by attacking the unbeliever's position at its foundations.

That's what they want. That's one of the things that will disorient them, for lack of a better word, right away. If you can get through the maze of what they're going to throw at you, get through the barrage, and just don't let that distract you from getting to the root cause.

What's the root cause? The root that you got to get to is to show them that their world system is untenable. And that's what we're going to show a little bit. You must challenge the unbeliever's presuppositions.

Notice, it's not just the believer who has presuppositions. Everybody is operating under their own set of presuppositions. The only question is, are the presuppositions true? So he must challenge the unbeliever's presuppositions, asking whether knowledge is even possible, given the non-Christian's assumptions and perspective.

You see now why we spent two whole sections of the book laying the foundation, showing that apart from a biblical presupposition, debate is really almost impossible. Because the person has no basis for knowledge, or no basic even to assert that logic is true.

So asking whether knowledge is even possible. The Christian cannot forever be defensively constructing atomistic answers to the endless variety of unbelieving criticisms. Atomistic simply means very small piecemeal, like it comes from the word atom, obviously.

But again, if you allow them to distract you constantly with all these little picky arguments, you're never going to make any headway. And what you've done then is you've given them the platform. So you have to be careful.

Don't let them set the agenda.

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He must take the offensive. This is talking about the Christian apologists, so that's you guys. He must take the offensive and show the unbeliever that he has no intelligible place to stand. Do you follow what he's saying?

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Not only does he have no intelligible place to stand, he has no consistent epistemology. What is epistemology again? How do you know what you know? It's your realm of knowledge. What is true? What is false?

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No justification for meaningful discourse, predication, or argumentation. In other words, what you're showing the person is they really, if they insist on putting aside the scriptures, you can show them they have no basis for their argument.

They will make, for example, they'll make the assertion that, well, there's no such thing as absolute truth. And what do you say? Is that absolutely true?

All right?

That's how you have to come back at them. Don't let them set the agenda. As soon as they say something that they can't justify based upon their presuppositions, you have to nail them with it. Very arrogantly and condescendingly, right?

No.

Even when you're showing the sheer lunacy of some of their positions, you still have to be kind, you have to be gracious, and you have to be Christlike. The pseudo wisdom of the world must be reduced to foolishness.

It has to be. What we've seen in the first two sections of the book is that apart from the wisdom of God, the wisdom of the world is utterly foolishness. So if you can show that, and this is where you have to, again, this is where you have to take the lead, break it down, get to their own presuppositions, show that it is foolishness, and then their criticisms have no force behind it.

And this really, it's not that difficult to do. It's just that most of us have never been taught to do this. How many people here are the product of public schools? I'm so sorry.

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One of the problems is you're not taught this in public schools. Unfortunately, it's not even taught in most Christian schools.

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And even more unfortunately, it's not taught in most homeschools. It's more apt in homeschooling and Christian schooling, but to think biblically, to think critically, is just not being taught. And that's why we have to be retrained to think critically and to think logically.

The Biblical Concept of the Fool

If we are to understand how to answer the fool, if we are to be able to demonstrate that God has made the pseudo wisdom of the world foolish, then we first must study the biblical conception of the fool and his foolishness.

This is important. One of the first things, when we say that the nonbeliever is categorized by scripture as fool, what do we mean by that? Doesn't mean we're not saying that he's stupid. We're not even saying that he's uneducated.

In fact, some nonbelievers, many nonbelievers, are more educated and in some cases, very nice people and very intellectual. And they have a lot of knowledge running around up there. The question is, what do they do with it?

So the first thing we have to do is understand what is the biblical concept of a fool. And in scripture, the perspective of the fool is not basically shallow minded or an illiterate ignoramus. I like Bonson's terms there.

We're not saying that the people are stupid, uneducated, and whatnot. That's not the case whatsoever. Remember, he can be quite educated and quite sophisticated in social reckoning. Here's the important point.

He is a fool because he has forsaken the source of true wisdom in order to rely on his own allegedly self-sufficient intellectual powers. You follow what Bonson's saying?

All right.

In other words, we're not saying that he's not smart. Remember, in biblical terms, and especially you'll see most of the quotations in this lesson come from the book of Proverbs. What is the book of Proverbs all about?

It's about wisdom. What's wisdom? The ability to handle life with skill.

OK?

And what we'll see is what happens when you forsake the wisdom of the Lord.

OK?

What are you putting your faith in? Yourself. Because you're saying that I'm to be the judge. I can judge whether the scripture is right, whether this person is right, or this person is right. So I'm the judge.

So that's what we call what? Autonomy. So what I'm going to give you now, these are from Bonson's book. These are various characteristics that you'll see when you're dealing with a person who rejects the wisdom of the Lord.

Now, this is very important. There's going to be a lot of references here. Not every non-believer epitomizes all of the things. But you'll find that some are more prone to exhibit some of these characteristics, some others, some many of them, some maybe only a couple of them.

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So it takes wisdom to know which is which. So one of the first things is he's unteachable. If you ever come across somebody and they just reject the Bible out of hand, nope. What does that tell you right away?

Person's unteachable. Doesn't even want to hear your point of view. That person, according to the scripture, is a fool. He despises instruction. The way of the fool is right in his own eyes. Anybody know anybody like this?

You can't tell them anything? My father used to make, he used to get under the skin of my Norwegian relatives. Because I guess almost every old country nationality has its own sense of pride. So my father, the Norwegians in my family, they'd get around and they'd start boasting about Norway this, Norway that, and everything else.

And my father would always come out and say, you know what? You can always tell a Norwegian. Just can't tell them much. And then we go downhill from there. The fool has utter self-confidence and imagines himself to be intellectually autonomous.

And that's exactly what we've been talking about. You come to a person, if you've ever seen, how many have seen some of the debates with either Bonson or Doug Wilson with atheists?

Don't know.

Don't they all characterize the same thing? You can't really tell me anything. So the fool has utter self-confidence and imagines himself to be intellectually autonomous. Are they, in fact, self-autonomous?

Not really. Not really. That's why it's alleged. He that trusts in his own heart is a fool. That's Proverbs 28, 26. Notice Proverbs has a lot to say about this. A fool cannot think of himself as mistaken.

Again, another characteristic. Just think back of people that you've tried to give the gospel to. And you can see how, nope, nope. That can't be. No, I'm not wrong. Even when you show them the 8 by 10 glossies with circles and arrows written.

Did you pick up the, you know where it comes from? No, no, this goes back to the Woodstock days, Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant. Anybody know Alice's Restaurant? OK, I'm sorry. I forget the age of my audience sometimes, you know what I mean?

Yeah, most of you got shoes older than you guys. So pardon my ancient references. He judges matters according to his own pre-established standards of truth and right. Isn't that exactly what they do?

Isn't that what we all want to do? And that's one of the things that we need to be trained in. We're not the sole arbiter of what's right and what's wrong. It's the scriptures. And unfortunately, many Christians fall into this category.

The Bible will state something that's very clearly, and they say, yeah, but I think that's too harsh. They think that somehow that they're more loving than God is. So he judges matters according to his own pre-established standards of truth and right.

Therefore, his own thoughts always turn out to be right in the long run, in his mind. Because if he can't be wrong, then no matter how it turns out, see, I'm right. Know somebody like that? The fool is sure that he can rely on his own rational authority and intellectual scrutiny.

The fool bears himself insolently and is confident. You've run across people like this, huh?

I can see. I love the word confident.

Yeah, that's true. Proverbs 14 .16, and therefore, he utters his own mind. I like what Howard Hendricks said when he used to get angry. He said, I was so angry, he says, I gave the person a piece of my mind that I couldn't afford to lose.

And you'll find that so often with people in arguments. In actuality, this autonomous man is dull, stubborn, boorish, obstinate, and stupid, in a biblical sense. He professes himself to be wise, but from the opening of his mouth, it is clear that he is, in a biblical sense, a fool.

Remember, in a biblical sense, being a fool is a moral judgment, not an intellectual one. So again, I don't want you to ever confuse that. When the Bible calls somebody a fool, it's not saying they're uneducated or not intellectual.

It's saying that they are morally bankrupt. His only wisdom would consist in him keeping silent. That was one of my physics professors in college, one of his favorite expressions. This guy was a brilliant physicist.

And he'd ask questions, and people would raise their hands, and they'd give outrageous answers to his physics questions. And finally, he said one day, he says, it is better to keep your mouth shut and appear a fool than to open it and prove it.

And that always stuck with me. Probably the only thing I remember from physics. That could be. Well, so he plagiarized it, but it was still true. So the heart of fools proclaims foolishness, and the fool flaunts his folly.

You ever notice that people who really have very little to give give a lot? That's the way of the fool. He eats up folly unreflectingly. He pours it out and returns to it like a dog to his vomit. Proverbs 26, 11.

He is so in love with his folly and so dedicated to its preservation that it is better for a man to meet a bear robbed of her whelps than a fool in his folly. These are all quotations from Proverbs. And Proverbs is right on the money.

The fool does not really want to find the truth. He only wants to be self-justified in his own imagination. While he may feign objectivity, a fool has no delight in understanding, but only that his heart may reveal itself.

Ever notice that, too? No matter. You can show a person in black and white. They just don't believe it. Quick story. I know that's unusual for me to lapse into stories, but I had a good friend who was a believer.

He was in construction. He was a carpenter. And every day at lunchtime, he would go and sit under a tree pretty much by himself, took his lunch to work, and would open up and read the Bible while he was eating his lunch.

One day, one of his fellow workers comes off and sits down next to him. And he says, what's your opinion on homosexuality? So my friend just opened the Bible to Romans chapter 1. It says, here, read this.

He read it. He read it. He gave the Bible back. He says, well, that's your opinion. It just shows how the closed mind. Therefore, he will not depart from evil. And therefore, all his knowledgeable talk reveals nothing but perverse and lying lips.

You notice how every time we come up with new scientific discoveries, true scientific discoveries, they always back up the scriptures. And yet, it doesn't change the thinking of the scientific community.

It happens every day, and it's continuing to go on. He may talk proudly, but a fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. Proverbs is quite a book, isn't it? He shall not endure the judgment of God.

How Unbelief Becomes Foolishness

All right, so now the next obvious question is, how does a man become such a self-deluded, allegedly autonomous fool? A fool despises wisdom and instruction, refusing to begin his thinking with reverence towards the Lord.

Proverbs 1 .7, the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. And if you reject that, how can you ever hope to come to some sort of biblical or even true understanding of the world, the scriptures, et cetera?

He rejects God's commandments and even dares to reproach the Almighty. How many people do you see today just shaking their fists and in the face of God, and they think they can do so with impunity? The fool will not be governed by God's word.

He is lawless, and his thinking also is lawless. And rejecting God's law or word, the fool respects his own word and his own law instead of God's law or God's word, meaning he is autonomous, self-law, autonomous.

And scripture describes people who do not know God, his ways, his judgment as foolish, Jeremiah 5 .4. This is a consistent theme through scripture. The fool lives in practical ignorance of God, for in his heart, out of which are the issues of life, the fool says there is no God.

Notice what Proverbs says, Proverbs 4 .23. That's such an important verse. It says, guard your heart with all diligence, because out of it flow the issues of life or the springs of life. And so that's why it's so important that we guard our hearts, what goes into it.

And what is the heart in scripture? It's who you are. It's the mind, the will, the emotions. That's what we have to be guarding with all of our heart. He lives and reasons in an atheistic manner as though he were his own Lord.

And rather than being spiritually directed, the fool's vision is earthbound and earthbound only. How many times you ever hear somebody say, what I can see and what I can hear and what I can feel, that's all that there is.

He serves the creature, example, the authority of his own mind rather than the creator. The man who hears Christ's words and yet builds his life on a rejection of that revelation is a fool. Matthew 7, that's the story of the man building a house on the sand.

If he hears it and rejects it, what happens when the winds and the rains come? The house collapses. But it's not just that. The man who suppresses even the general revelation of God in the created realm is also described as a fool.

You can't walk out of these doors and look at this creation and say, there is no God. It's virtually, I mean, not that people don't do it, but certainly not based upon anything either empirical, empirical, or even just logical.

It's quite clear then that a fool is one who does not make God and his revelation the starting point, his presupposition of thinking. There we're coming back to it again. Everybody's got presuppositions.

And that's why we talked earlier about the myth of neutrality. You can't set the Bible aside. That's moving over to the other person's presuppositions. You have to presuppose that the word of God is true.

It is very revelation from our almighty God. Fools despise the preaching of the cross, refuse to know God, and cannot receive God's word. The self-proclaimed autonomous man, the unbeliever, will not submit to the word of God or build his life in thinking upon it.

How often you hear that? Go on, no part of the scriptures. Disbelief and ignorance of God's will therefore produce foolishness. And then we bring it down to a conclusion. These are the last paragraphs of the book.

As a result, the fool does not have the concentration necessary to find wisdom. He vainly thinks that it is easily dispensed or gathered. By glorying in man, the fool's thinking becomes futile and shameful.

His heart is darkened and his mind is vain. Because of his unbelief and rebellion against God's word, the fool does not have knowledgeable lips. And then the last paragraph. Indeed, because he does not choose to reverence the Lord, the fool hates knowledge, Proverbs 129.

The unbeliever who criticizes the Christian faith is this fool with which we have been dealing above. In answering the fool, a Christian apologist must aim to demonstrate that unbelief is, in the final analysis, destructive of all knowledge.

I underline that one specifically. Look at that again. In answering the fool, a Christian apologist must aim to demonstrate that unbelief is, in the final analysis, destructive of all knowledge. That's where you have to begin.

You show him that, and then all of their arguments fall. The fool must be shown that his autonomy is hostile to knowledge that God makes foolish the wisdom of the world.

Questions?

Questions on chapter 13?

No?

Good.

Everybody's now an apologist.

OK.

All right, let's pray.