Part 2 Against All Opposition Teaching Series

All right, welcome to part two of Against All Opposition. It has been a couple of weeks since I recorded the first lesson, but we're continuing on kind of going based on my schedule. So I don't know how long it will be in between recordings, but I am excited to go through chapter two.

So just real quick by way of review, if you're just jumping in the middle, I don't know why you would do that, we're going in order. But the first chapter of Against All Opposition was entitled Faith or Reason, and we kind of unpacked what that was all about.

And so the second chapter is entitled, It's Impossible to Think Without Presuppositions. Now this is a really, really important aspect of presuppositional apologetics, right? Presuppositional apologetics is called presuppositional because we place a great emphasis, not so much upon the particular facts under dispute, that's important and it definitely comes in within the context of our engagement with unbelievers, but we really want to strike at the core of that, which impacts the way specific evidences and facts are interpreted.

And so you would often hear a presuppositionalist allude to the fact that facts do not speak for themselves. We often hear people say we need to follow the evidence wherever it goes. Well, evidence needs to be interpreted.

Facts do not speak, facts must be interpreted. And they are interpreted by people who have worldviews, who have presuppositions and assumptions about the nature of reality, about how we know what we know, about how we should live our lives, and all of those presuppositions impact the interpretation of everything, of reality itself.

So this is a very important chapter. Now, of course, if you've watched the previous video, we're not walking through all of the chapter. What we're doing is we're walking through the study questions at the end of each chapter.

So I'll be sharing the screen just in a moment here, my slides, where we will go through some key definitions. We'll talk a little bit more about presuppositions and why they're important and what role they play in terms of being one's authority, by which everything else is interpreted.

We'll kind of unpack that. But we'll also kind of just jump right into the study questions at the end of chapter two of Against All Opposition. So hopefully it will be useful and beneficial to you. All right, well, let me share my screen here at this point.

All right, so it's impossible to think without presuppositions. Now, before we get into the details, you need to remember that. So if you're just kind of like, man, I'm just jumping into presuppositional apologetics and just saying it, it makes me think like, man, this is super complicated.

All right, it really isn't. We're gonna just take the title of chapter two. If we think of a presupposition as kind of an elementary assumption that people bring to the discussion of any fact, any data point, any piece of evidence, a presupposition is an elementary assumption.

And basically, just like in a thumbnail sketch, presuppositional apologetic methodology is simply saying, hey, when you're speaking with the unbeliever, just be aware that the reason why you're disagreeing is that you guys are coming to the situation.

You're coming to the conversation with different assumptions. And so be sure throughout the course of your conversation, when you're talking about the facts of the Christian faith, okay, think about this, the data, right?

You want to be mindful of the presuppositions or the assumptions that you as a Christian bring to the discussion, and he or she as the unbeliever brings to the discussion. So you just wanna be sensitive to that.

I think that's a very important kind of summary. If someone says, I don't have presuppositions, I just look at the facts, that doesn't make sense. They do not just look at the facts. They're not neutral observers of the facts without prior assumptions.

No, you need to point out that we all have presuppositions. In fact, it's impossible to not have presuppositions, okay? So this is very, very important to keep in mind. All right, so let's continue here.

So the authority of presuppositions, this is a quote from the Introduction to Biblical Apologetics by Greg Bonson. So this is not a direct quote from Against All Opposition, but I do have a couple of quotes here that as preliminary comments are very helpful when talking about this issue of presupposition.

So Dr. Bonson says, quote, "'Eventually all argumentation terminates in some logically primitive starting point, a view or premise held as unquestionable.'". I'm gonna read that again. I'm gonna read it much more slowly.

This is super important, okay? "'Eventually all argumentation terminates in some logically primitive starting point, a view or premise held as unquestionable. Apologetics traces back to such ultimate starting points or presuppositions.

In the nature of the case, these presuppositions are held to be self-evidencing. They are the ultimate authority in one's viewpoint, an authority for which no greater authorization can be given.'". Now, this is important because for the Christian, we would say our ultimate authority is God and His revelation.

And of course, His revelation encapsulates God's revelation to us in the Bible, okay? So the Bible as a revelation of God comes with the authority of God and the authority of God within the Christian perspective is the highest authority, right?

God does not validate His own authority by appealing to some other authority, right? This authoritative test that He has to pass, right? God is the standard. He is the ultimate. In the scriptures, it says that when God made a promise to Abraham, He swore by Himself because there was none greater for Him to swear by.

And like fashion, the Word of God holds such high authority for the believer that we believe it is self-authenticating. We do not demonstrate the truth of the scripture by appealing to a higher authority of the scripture.

Now, that's not to say that we don't try to demonstrate the truth of scripture. We do, but not with the method that says, okay, here's scripture, here's this higher authority by which the scripture has to pass the test.

We don't do that, okay? Because we believe that God and His revelation is our ultimate starting point, okay? So if someone says, man, you Christians, you guys start with the Bible or something like that.

Listen, the point is, and I think one of the key features of a presuppositional apologetic approach is that we need to demonstrate that at the heart of the matter, everyone is a presuppositionalist. Everyone has an ultimate starting point by which they interpret, right, and engage the issues.

I have a Bible as a Christian, but the unbeliever has their Bible too, right? Whether their Bible's gonna be their autonomous reasoning as they hold that as their ultimate standard, the laws of logic, I just start with logic and I build my way up, that's their Bible, right?

We have the revelation, God and His revelation, okay? So everyone has an ultimate authority, and that's really the point of this particular quote, all right? So what is a presupposition, all right? A presupposition is not just any assumption in an argument, but a personal commitment that is held at the most basic level of one's network of beliefs, okay?

Now that phrase network of beliefs is important. If we were to define, for example, a worldview, I have a worldview as a Christian, the unbeliever has their own worldview, everyone has a worldview. We could define a worldview quite simply as a view of the world.

It's kind of an outlook on reality. But if we wanted to give a more technical definition, which I think is helpful here, a worldview is a network of beliefs or a network of presuppositions in terms of which all reality is interpreted.

So our worldview is made up of a network of interconnected and interrelated beliefs. A presupposition is that elementary assumption that makes up the network of our worldview perspective, okay? Presuppositions form a wide-ranging foundational perspective or starting point in terms of which everything else is interpreted and evaluated.

As such, presuppositions have, this is important, they have the greatest authority in one's thinking being treated as one's least negotiable beliefs and being granted the highest immunity to revision, okay?

So a presupposition is not simply a kind of a basic assumption we bring to a discussion. They are those assumptions that hold at the most basic and foundational level. And that's why they're so difficult to revise, right?

Because we hold them at a different level than say something further down the line of our beliefs, okay? I might believe, for example, that the price of eggs at the deli is such and such a price. And I might be susceptible to change my perspective if someone were to show me that maybe it was different than what I thought and I'd be willing to revise that belief.

But when you're talking about say like truths of logic or the truths of kind of what I believe about the foundation of reality itself, it's gonna be a lot more difficult for me to revise those beliefs because it's those beliefs, those presuppositions that inform everything else, right?

They're so foundational. So as Monson says here, they are the least negotiable of our beliefs, all right? Okay, so the authority of presuppositions. Now this is important. I took this quote, I thought, I'm not sure if you could see it on the screen, the font might be a little small if I would have made it bigger just the way StreamYard works, it might've cut it off.

But I think this is really important to summarize the nature of presuppositions and the role that they play as an authority in one's line of reasoning, okay? All right, so I'm gonna read this slowly and I want you to follow along.

This is a very, very important quote here by Dr. Bonson that kind of highlights the nature of the authority of one's presuppositions, okay? So here we go. Quote, all argumentation about ultimate issues, maybe the ultimate questions like the nature of reality, the existence of God, okay?

All argumentation about ultimate issues eventually comes to rest at the level of the disputant's presuppositions. If a man has come to the conclusion and is committed to the truth of a certain view, P, representing some view that he holds, when he is challenged as to P, he will offer supporting argumentation for it, Q, or R, or Q and R.

Maybe Q and R are supporting arguments for P. But of course, as his opponent will be quick to point out, this simply shifts the argument to Q and R. Why accept them? The proponent of P is now called to offer S, T, U, and V as arguments for Q and R.

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, and an incomplete demonstration demonstrates nothing at all.

So you see the important point here? We all have ultimate presuppositions. Why do you believe this over here? Well, I believe this because of this over here. Well, why should we believe that over here?

Well, the reason we should believe this over here is because of this, this, this, and this other argument, right? And if you keep going back, and back, and back, you've never justified the first kind of point you were trying to make.

An infinite regression of explanations, justifications, and arguments really don't do anything to explain the initial point that was under dispute. You know, whether you guys were arguing about some point of ultimate reality or ultimate issues, as mentioned at the beginning of that quote there, okay?

So we all have, and we all require a foundation, and that foundation is not justified by an appeal to another justification. Otherwise, you'd have that infinite regress. See how that works? So I believe A over here.

Well, why should I believe A? Well, because B. Well, why should I believe B? Well, because C. Well, why should I believe C? Because D. Okay, well, why should I believe D? And you keep going all the way down, okay?

Eventually, you're gonna have to have a stopping point unless you wanna go with an infinite regression of justifications by which you're never gonna actually be able to demonstrate the truth of your position, okay?

So all require, all of us require a stopping point, okay, that is justified on its own authority, okay? So if me as a Christian, I would say, I believe A, and you're saying, well, why should I believe A?

Well, I believe A because of B. Well, why should I believe B? Well, I believe B because of C. Well, why should I believe C? Eventually, I'm gonna say God, okay? Well, why should I believe God? Well, he's the starting point.

I do not justify God by an appeal to something external and more authoritative to him because that case, God would not be my ultimate authority, and that is inconsistent with my Christian conviction that God is who he says he is, the ultimate.

He is the one by whom there is none greater that one could swear by, okay? Now, in like fashion, if you ask the unbeliever, okay, why do you believe A? Well, he's gonna say, well, because of B. Well, why should I believe B?

Well, C, eventually, he will either go into an infinite regress, which I've actually had some interesting conversations in which when I accused an atheist that I was debating that, hey, man, you have an infinite regress problem with kind of all of your justifications, he said, well, what's wrong with that?

Well, I hope you can see by now there is something wrong with having an infinite number of justifications. You've never actually demonstrated your first point if you require an infinite number of justifications all the way down the line, okay?

You need some starting point, but of course, that starting point will have to be self-authorizing, okay? It is not justified by an appeal to something external to itself. Now, that's not to say, and this is key, it's not to say that the ultimate authority is not justified at all, okay?

We're not holding to, say, God or the Bible as just kind of a fideistic, like, okay, I'm just gonna accept God and that's it. There's no way to really know how to prove this. We're just starting with the starting point.

I'm not saying that. I do think that our starting point, God and his revelation, can be justified. What I'm saying is that God and his revelation are not justified in this way, by an appeal to something more authoritative than it, okay?

So very, very important. So the authority of one's presuppositions, we all eventually will have to have some foundation, some ultimate point of reference, all right? All right, let's move along. Okay, so here are the chapter two study questions, okay?

Number one, people today who say they reject faith and only believe what they can prove are followers of Descartes, even if they have never heard of him. I'll talk a little bit about who Rene Descartes is if you are philosophically uninitiated, okay?

Number two, is it possible to doubt everything? Why or why not? Number three, why is, quote, we are not to make assumptions in our reasoning a foolish statement? What is Julian Huxley's reasons for not having faith in Christianity?

Number five, Christians hold to a faith that will save reason and make it reasonable to use reason, but the unbeliever does not. Why is this true? And then the final point is really not a question. It's a point of discussion.

The war, the worldview war, that is, the war is not between reason and faith. It is between faith and faith discussed. And so we'll unpack this as we move along, okay? All right, number one. So people today who say they reject faith and only believe what they can prove are followers of Descartes, even if they have never heard of him.

How is this so? Well, let me introduce you to Rene Descartes, who is from the years 1586 to 1650. He was a very important philosopher. As the slide there says, he was considered the father of the Enlightenment.

If you know anything about the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment movement, otherwise known as the Age of Reason, was a very important time period in which a very interesting kind of philosophical perspectives develop, and they often geared towards a move away from divine authority.

Or the Enlightenment spirit has within it the seeds of the spirit of the Renaissance. If you know anything about the Renaissance, where you have a lot of strong Christian thinkers during the Renaissance, you also had this idea of questioning authority, okay?

And in a lot of quarters, that's a good thing. But the Enlightenment kind of birthed this more strong and more articulated version of philosophy in which people began to question divine authority and things like that.

Now, that granted, Rene Descartes was not an atheist by any means, right? But the philosophy that he puts forth emphasized really what we would call an autonomous spirit in philosophy. Autonomy means self-law, being a law unto oneself, okay?

And he emphasized the utilization of reason as kind of this powerful tool that should be used to gain certainty about various things, okay? So this is what Rene Descartes' philosophical goal, and one of the important of his goals was to combat skepticism.

How can we be certain about anything, okay? And he kind of did a very interesting experiment to kind of come to some interesting conclusions as we'll talk about, okay? All right, so the answer to the question, let's get the question here.

People today who say they reject faith and only believe what they can prove are followers of Rene Descartes, even if they have never heard of him. How is this the case? Well, people who say they will not follow faith, but only proof are following Descartes because Descartes said, ready?

Doubt everything until you find a firm foundation from which you can then build up an edifice of knowledge. Okay, now this is important because Rene Descartes in his quest for certainty in an age of skepticism, he kind of in his thought experiment, he tried to get at certainty by doubting everything, okay?

I'm gonna doubt everything there is to doubt and that which survives my doubt is that which is certain. And so Descartes would doubt things like the table in front of him. He would doubt things like, you know, whether he was holding an apple.

He would doubt really the nature of the external world. Descartes would say something to the effect of, how do I know that I'm not dreaming right now? Okay, he'd have to, he tried to doubt all of these things and eventually through this thought experiment, he came to the realization that there was one thing that he could not have doubted.

And it was this ultimate thing that he could know for certain. And from that certainty, he desired to build up an edifice of knowledge. And that foundational issue was himself, okay? So he says, you know, listen, I could doubt this, I can doubt that, I can doubt the apple in my hand, I could doubt the table in front of me, I could doubt the external world, I can doubt whether I'm dreaming or not, but there's one thing that I can't doubt.

I can't doubt the fact that it is I who is doubting, okay? So this is where you get the famous cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, right? So he must exist in order to do the doubting in the first place, all right?

And so he kind of came to this conclusion that we can be certain of the I, right? I think therefore I exist, all right? Or I'm sorry, I think therefore I am, okay? So when people have this kind of doubting spirit, right?

They're following in essence, in many regards, that spirit of Descartes who really tried to get at certainty, all right? Now, the interesting thing is, is it possible, this brings us to our second question, is it possible to doubt everything?

Did Descartes really doubt everything in his experiment there, his thought experiment? Well, I think the answer is quite obviously, we can't doubt everything, no one could doubt everything. Even Rene Descartes' conclusion, I think therefore I am, he didn't just start, he didn't literally doubt everything.

For example, to say I think therefore I am presupposes language, presupposes logic, because coherent language presupposes logical categories. The I, I think therefore I am, presupposes continuity of self-identity, right?

Throughout time. So he couldn't doubt literally everything, okay? No one could doubt literally everything. I think that's a very important point to keep in mind, okay? Here's a quote here by Bonson. He says, if you truly doubted everything, that would mean that you were doubting, that you were doubting, as well as doubting your memory of past experiences.

You would have to doubt your present sensations and the connections between them, such as the connection you draw when you put your hand on a hot stove and say, that hurt. Okay? So no one could doubt literally everything, all right?

There are certain things that are required to even make the process of doubting itself intelligible. Okay? Now, why is this important? Okay, because when someone says, I won't believe anything unless it's proven to me in this specific strict way, you need to point out that they don't hold to that method consistently.

There are things that they believe in that they have not proved through that rigorous standard of proof that they've laid before us, okay? And that's a very useful and important thing to keep in mind when you're talking to an unbeliever who says, hey, prove that God exists.

And of course, the standard of proof that they give you is kind of this crazy standard that they don't even hold to themselves. And so it's very important and apologetically useful to kind of challenge those standards of proof, okay?

But again, you want to just kind of know this kind of line of reasoning when people kind of say these sorts of things, all right? No one could doubt literally everything and everyone has some presuppositions and starting points and things like that, all right?

All right, number three, why is the statement, we are not to make assumptions in our reasoning a foolish statement, okay? Well, Bonson says, people delude themselves when they say they will not accept anything without proof or demonstration, because you see, they do not prove their foundational principles in the way they think they do.

And I kind of just said that before. They do have a place for faith in their outlook and in living their lives, okay? So someone says, I don't believe anything unless it's proven. Well, that's not true because there are foundational presuppositions, right?

We talked about the authority of our presuppositions that people hold to, whose truth was not proven in the way that they require everything else to be proven. That make sense? I'll say it again. People have presuppositions, these ultimate presuppositional commitments that they believe to be true and to believe to be the case, okay?

And they believe these things without having proven them in the same way they require other things to be proven. And so they hold them in consistently with the standard of proof. When they say, I won't believe anything unless it's proven to me, they don't hold to their foundational principles in that same way, okay?

So again, it's important to kind of point out that tension in those who have that specific kind of standard of demonstration, all right? Okay, let's continue on here. Number four, what is Julian Huxley's reason for not having faith in Christianity?

And if you're familiar with Huxley from 1887 to 1975, the issues here are related to evolution and Darwinian theory, these sorts of things, okay? And here's what Huxley said. He said, I firmly believe that the scientific method, although slow and never claiming to lead to complete truth, is the only method which in the long run will give satisfactory foundations for beliefs and we quite assuredly at present know nothing beyond this world and natural experience.

Hmm, I'll say that again. We quite assuredly at present know nothing beyond this world and natural experience. And so Bonson points out, he, referring to Huxley, is showing us his faith commitment in that statement we just read.

Notice that he says, on the one hand, the scientific method cannot give us the complete truth. He openly admits that, but then he turns around and on the other hand, and based on the scientific method, completely rules out knowing anything beyond the natural world.

Huxley says, on the one hand, the scientific method is slow, we can't know everything, but we're working, working, working at it, but we could assuredly tell you that there is nothing beyond the natural world.

That's like saying, I have no idea what next year's model car would look like, but it won't look like that over here, okay? Huxley's reason for not having faith in Christianity was actually his presuppositional commitment to naturalism, all right?

Now, again, the usefulness of this observation, kind of reading what Huxley said and kind of looking at Bonson's analysis there, it's important to recognize that people who put their purchase in science and things like this, they have their presuppositional commitments that they have not themselves demonstrated, but they are committed to, because that's the nature of presuppositions, right?

They have these presuppositions, and what you'll often find when you're talking to unbelievers, more specifically, atheists and things like that, you want to be able to identify the presupposition of naturalism, the idea that nature is all there is, okay?

Because that presupposition is going to color their interpretation of the facts you throw at them. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't throw facts and we shouldn't throw evidence, but you need to be able to identify and bring to light the naturalistic presupposition that is affecting how the data that you're discussing is being interpreted.

And that's why it's so important to be sensitive to the fact that we all have presuppositions. It's not a bad thing. It's like, oh, you have a presupposition. Yeah, we all do, okay? But the question we need to ask ourselves is, whose presuppositions actually make sense of the data points under discussion, of the facts, of the evidence, things like that?

I think that's a key question to bring out in the discussion when you're sharing your faith with an unbeliever, all right? All right. Number five, Christians hold to a faith that will save reason and make it reasonable to use reason, but the unbeliever does not.

Why is this true? Well, there are a couple of things here in this question that are a little ambiguous, okay? Unbeliever is a very generic category. So we need to be very careful that when we are critiquing the atheist, for example, that is not the same as critiquing a Muslim or critiquing a Mormon.

You need to be able to make the differentiation between different varieties of unbelief. Now, that being said, I do think that all unbelieving positions have the same fatal flaw, okay? But there are important applications to be made, and there's gonna be a variation in your responses to them depending on who you're speaking with.

So I think that's very important. But let's just assume the naturalist that we're talking to, the metaphysical naturalist, the atheist, okay? Christians who hold to a faith that will save reason and make it reasonable to use reason, but the unbeliever does not.

Why is this the case, okay? So I'll give you kind of a quick glimpse here. The Christian's presuppositions, right, that make up our worldview, our biblical worldview, make sense and ground the reliability of our reasoning.

Why? Well, on the Christian perspective, if you hypothetically grant, okay, this is what we call the internal critique, hypothetically grant the truth of the person's perspective and examine it in light of its own assumptions, okay?

If the Christian worldview's true, then God created us with cognitive faculties that are geared towards finding truth, right, that God designed us that way. However, on atheism, for example, this is just one example.

You can use different examples and make a similar application depending on who you're speaking with. But on atheism, for example, our cognitive faculties are the result of a blind process of evolution, if the person holds to evolution, which is geared not towards truth, but survival, okay?

So that's huge. I mean, in a world that's designed, our cognitive faculties are geared towards truth. On a world that's not designed, it's not geared towards anything but survival. If you're holding to evolution, the survival of the fittest, these sorts of things.

And so we need to ask the question, I think that's a fair question. On atheism, why should we trust our cognitive faculties to help us get at truth? Can we even justify truth in an unbelieving worldview, in an atheist worldview, if that's the person you're speaking with?

I think that's a good question. And I think we should patiently wait for the atheists to share their thoughts and we interact with the answers they give us, okay? And we try our best to hold them consistently to their presuppositions, okay?

And in like fashion, the Christian needs to do the same as well, right? Once our presuppositions as Christians are out on the table, we need to be consistent, right? With those presuppositions. We can't waffle on our presuppositions, right?

We want to embrace what the Bible has to say and what God has said about himself. And based on those assumptions, those principles in scripture, pardon, we answer questions in light of those presuppositions.

And in like fashion, we want the unbeliever, when they lay out their presuppositions, to argue and engage in a way that's consistent when they are not consistent with their own presuppositions and they proceed to borrow from Christian presuppositions, it is apologetically useful to point that out, okay?

So super important. All right, we're almost through here, making good time here. Now, the last point here, which is not really a question, it is a point of discussion at the end of chapter two against all opposition.

The point is said here, the war, the war between worldviews, is not between reason and faith, it is between faith and faith. And the point here is to summarize that point that we discussed at the beginning, that it's impossible to not have presuppositions.

We all have self-authorizing starting points. It's not that one person has the evidence on their side and the other person doesn't, we all have our ultimate starting points that we begin with a trust in that self-authenticating starting point, okay?

So it's not, for example, in the whole debate between creation and evolution or something like that, it's not an issue of faith versus science, right? It's an issue between worldviews, whose worldview lens is interpreting the data correctly, okay?

And that's why it's so important to highlight the fact that those foundations are brought to the forefront in our discussions. Now, just a side point here, does that mean that when we are engaging with unbelievers, that we always, and we're engaging with them as presuppositionalists, okay?

Let me see here if I can find this here. Does that mean that we automatically start with our presuppositions? This is a problem for a lot of people. Let me see if I could find the page here. Bear with me.

Okay, yes, all right. You know, does this mean as presuppositionalists, we are not doing presuppositional apologetics unless we always bring out the nature of the presuppositions in the arguments? No, that's not the case.

I wanna read a quote from Van Til here. Van Til says, in Christian Theistic Evidences, page 54, he says this. "'This does not imply that we must always "'and in every instance bring in the discussion "'of authority at the outset of every argument "'with those we seek to win for Christianity.

"'This may frequently be omitted "'if only we ourselves do not fall "'into the temptation of thinking "'that we can stand on neutral ground "'with those who hold to a non-Christian position.'". Okay, and this is important because basically he's responding to this point here.

"'An indirect appeal to evidences "'attempts to bring the unbeliever's attention "'back to the facts by confronting him "'with the God of the facts. "'It acknowledges the self-attesting Christ of Scripture "'to be our apologetic starting point.

"'But would this mean that we should announce "'our presuppositions at the start "'of every apologetic encounter? "'Is that what Van Til has in mind "'when he speaks of starting with Christ in Scripture?'.

"'Well, the answer based on the quote is no. "'We don't always point out our presuppositions. "'I think it is quite consistent with presuppositionalism "'to start where the unbeliever is, right?'. Well, someone says, "'Well, I don't know if I think the Bible's true.

"'I mean, I really don't see any reason "'to believe that the Bible is accurate or reliable.'". You don't begin the conversation necessarily saying, well, wait a minute, well, how do you account for the reliability of anything?

You don't jump into an automatic transcendental argument or something like that. I think it is appropriate that when someone says, man, I'm not sure if the Bible's historically reliable that we could trust it.

There's nothing anti-presuppositional about then proceeding to give evidence for the historical reliability of the Bible, right? If someone says there's a contradiction in Scripture and someone gives you an example, say, the differences between Genesis 1 and 2, or how many animals did Noah bring on the ark, it's not always appropriate to say, well, how do you make sense out of contradictions in your worldview?

Sometimes it's helpful to take a look at the apparent contradiction and demonstrate the reasons why you think it's not a contradiction, okay? So we don't always jump into the presuppositional commitments right at the start of every conversation.

I think it's appropriate to meet people where they are and when the context calls for it, right, then we bring out those important presuppositional issues. I think in my discussion with Pastor Doug Wilson, I had him on the show a while back, he was talking about C .S. Lewis, who was not necessarily a presuppositionalist, but he said something like this, and I thought it was funny and appropriate for what I'm trying to say here.

He says that when the atheist was behaving, okay, C .S. Lewis was very evidential, right? When the atheist was like, you know, okay, let me hear the facts. And I was like, well, here is this the facts, and here is Jesus, and the New Testament is reliable, and you can kind of have that nice interaction and go back and forth and share the data.

He says, but when the atheist is misbehaving, right, they're being the ultimate skeptic, and they're trying to challenge everything that you're trying to say, it's like then C .S. Lewis would be very presuppositional.

Well, how do you make sense out of rationality in light of naturalism? How do you make sense out of objective moral values if atheism is true? You see, so I think that's a good way of looking at it, right?

When I'm sharing my faith with people, I don't, you know, a lot of what I say will sound very similar to what classical apologists would say with some traditional arguments or, you know, the historical evidence for the resurrection or the appeal to the disciples, you know, would the disciples have been willing to die for what they knew to be false, right?

I think there's a power to those type of arguments, right? But you need to develop a sensitivity to the fact, you need to develop a sensitivity to know when it is appropriate to use those sorts of argumentation and then look at some of the presuppositional issues and bring those things out.

So it's really, you're really gonna have to feel out the nature of your conversation with people. I know you guys are watching this on YouTube, but you need to be very careful. Apologetic encounters on YouTube is not the same as apologetic encounters when you're engaging someone face-to-face, all right?

There are a lot of things that I would say to someone face-to-face, or I'm sorry, there are a lot of things that I would say as an apologist that I use on YouTube, the arguments that I use and certain lines of reasoning that I use, that I wouldn't necessarily use when I'm speaking with someone face-to-face.

It just wouldn't be appropriate, right? Not every unbeliever that I encounter is the hardcore, you know, YouTube atheist, right? There are some people who are not in this world, and so we need to be able to kind of engage them where they are and be flexible in that regard.