Always Ready: Chap 15. Answering The Fool

We're in the book Always Ready by Greg Bonson, and we've completed sections one and two. Section three is what we're into tonight, how to defend the faith. And we've seen chapter 13, The Foolishness of Unbelief.

Chapter 14, The Two-Fold Apologetic Method. And that's what we're going to be dwelling on probably for a good portion of the book. In fact, probably right to the end of the book to one degree or another, this two-fold method of apologetic.

Tonight, we're looking at chapter 15, Answering the Fool. All right. Chapter opens with this. In the last two studies, we have begun to look at apologetics from the biblical point of view. It has been observed that, and this is kind of like a summary.

The Fool as the Unbeliever’s Moral Condition

Bonson begins this chapter with a summary of the previous two chapters. One, the intellectual outlook of the unbeliever is that of a fool in the scriptural sense. And again, remember, don't misunderstand what the scripture calls a fool and what we might call foolish.

It's talking about, remember, foolishness is a moral judgment. It's the opposite of being wise in a biblical sense. Two, the unbeliever proclaims a pseudo-wisdom, which is in reality a hatred and destruction of knowledge.

Let me just pause on that. Do you follow what Bonson's saying when he says that? Remember, this is a summary of what we've already looked at. The unbeliever proclaims a pseudo-wisdom, which is in reality a hatred and destruction of knowledge.

Why would Bonson say that? Why would he say that the unbeliever basically has a hatred and destruction of knowledge?

Because scripture tells us that we all know the truth. So, the unbeliever is denying the truth. In doing so, he's denying the knowledge of the truth and the wisdom that would come from it.

Okay. Good.

They also hate the truth because it conforms them with their sins. So, they want to deny it and reject it. Yeah.

Anyone else? Go ahead. Because of the unbeliever's worldview, he puts himself at the center of the world and he's the arbitrator of what is true and false. But he has no access to true truth, which is God's truth.

God's the one who defines everything. He tries to redefine it based on his perspective and his sense.

Sure. So, by setting himself up as the main arbiter or actually the sole arbiter of what is true, he accepts falsehoods as true and therefore, in reality, he hates knowledge. All right. Because when you give him the true truth...

Who knows who coined that phrase? I don't know if you know that was a phrase. I do know that, but I don't know who. It was Francis Schaeffer. Francis Schaeffer coined the term true truth. And then he went on to explain how ludicrous it is that you even have to say such a thing as true truth.

But when you accept a false worldview, you have to realize that and differentiate. So, that's why we would even use that terminology. Three, God makes foolish the wisdom of the world and puts it to shame through his people who are unable to cast down every high imagination exalted against the knowledge of him.

All right. That just follows through. God makes the wisdom of the world foolish through what medium? His people, those who are committed to the truth, those who have been regenerated of the heart and have the ability to see what the truth is, and that puts them at enmity with the non-Christian.

Answering the Fool by Refusing and Rebutting Presuppositions

In order to give an answer to the fool, the believer should follow a twofold procedure. This is what we looked at. What was the reference? Can anybody tell me what was the reference? Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26.

What verse? Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26. Four and five. Proverbs 26, four and five. Remember what it is. Refusing to answer in terms of the fool's presuppositions for they undermine the Christian position.

All right. In other words, refusing to argue with a fool on the basis of his presuppositions. That's the worst thing that you can do. And unfortunately, there are many Christian apologists today who do exactly that thing.

They're willing to put aside the Bible and use empirical truth or evidence. Not that we don't use evidence, but not as the basis of truth. And the second half of that is answering in terms of the fool's presuppositions in order to show where they lead, namely to epistemological futility.

See what he's saying? The only time you would ever agree with a nonbeliever is if he says, if he makes a statement like, well, we know that the world is billions of years old, or the world started at such a point.

Call him out. Okay, let's take your presuppositions. Let's say that that's true for a minute. And then you just take the infinite regression and show them the futility of what he's really saying. And here we find the prescribed course for giving an answer to every man who asks a reason for the hope that is in us.

Notice how the portions of Scripture always complement one another. We're going from Proverbs, talking about how to answer a fool and how not to answer a fool, and then that ties right in with our main text for the whole study, 1 Peter 3 .15, which says we have to give an answer to every man who asks for the reason for the hope that is in us.

That's what's the prescribed course. How do we do that? How do we give an answer? Proverbs 26, 4 and 5. The apologetic strategy rehearsed above meets the precondition laid down by Peter for defending the faith that we set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts.

Notice what he's saying. If you look at Proverbs 26, 4 and 5, that twofold method, it meets the precondition laid down by Peter. And what is the precondition laid down by Peter in 1 Peter? That we set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts.

That's where you have to start. Any apologetic that doesn't start with Christ being Lord in your hearts is bound to fail. It's going to wind up in foolishness and futility.

Go ahead. And that's why it's hatred against God, because the unbeliever sets himself up as Lord. Absolutely.

By refusing to suspend the presupposed truth of God's Word, when we argue with those who criticize the Christian faith, we acknowledge the Lordship of Christ over our thinking. Now, this is going back all the way to Section 1.

Remember, we had six chapters in Section 1 that Christ is Lord even over our reasoning, even over our minds, even over the way we think. His Word is our ultimate authority. If His Word is our ultimate authority, if we understand that, then how in the world can you set that aside?

And how many people have engaged in some sort of apologetic or evangelistic effort with an atheist? Quite a few. Okay. What is one of the first things they want to say? You can't trust the Bible, or let's put the Bible aside, or the Bible is circular reasoning, right?

That's the first thing they want to do, because they know. They know if they can get you to put the Scripture aside, they got you. And, in fact, Bonson is going to make that very point in a few minutes.

If we were to reason with the unbeliever in such a way that we trusted in our own intellectual powers, or the teaching of the so-called experts in science or history or logic or whatever, more than we trusted in the veracity of God's revelation, we would end up the argument, if consistent, by agreeing with the unbeliever.

See what he's saying? If you agree to put the Scripture aside and use the so-called experts in whatever field it is, if you're consistent in your logic, and we hope that you would be, you would wind up agreeing with the nonbeliever.

Many a Christian falls right into that trap. That's why you can never put the Word of God aside. In the language of Proverbs 26, we would answer the fool and end up being just like him. You know what that would be like?

It would be like trying to argue calculus and saying, well, we're going to set aside all the basic rules of arithmetic. All right? Because I can demonstrate to you. Maybe I'll do that one day up here.

I can demonstrate to you that 1 equals 2. Has anybody ever seen that? I'll dig it out of my old geometry notebooks. I can demonstrate to you that 1 equals 2. It was first postured by none other than Lewis Carroll, but we all know that he was a little flaky anyway.

But when I put it up as an algebraic equation, most of you will not find what's the fallacy. So if you put aside the basic rules of mathematics, how are you going to move on to algebra, geometry, and the like?

Okay. Consequently, we can rhetorically ask where is the wise, where is the disputer of this world? You can only wind up asking those rhetorical questions when you are following the apologetic method of Scripture.

That's what I want to really show you. As we go through this book, one of the things that Bonson does is he continually goes back and what is his basis for making the authoritative statements? It's always the Word of God.

You can assert many truths about apologetics, etc., but if you're not using the Scripture as your basis, they're subject to criticism. They're subject to being refuted. But if you're using the Scripture, which is the ultimate authority, consequently we can rhetorically ask where is the wise, where is the disputer of this world?

Notice how many times he comes up with the rhetorical, and that's what we have to understand. Where is the wise, where is the disputer? What is he really saying when he says you can then rhetorically ask where is the wise, where is the disputer?

Translate that out of a rhetorical question and into a statement. Who can do that?

What's that? None of you can compete with that. Nobody has as much wisdom as God. Yeah?

You're not to be found. Yeah. Where is the wise? There is none. There are no wise. There is no disputer of the world to those who, what, dismiss the presuppositions of Scripture. The fact of the matter will be abundantly manifest.

God makes foolish the wisdom of the world, and he does it by the word of the cross. And by demonstrating to the fool that his presuppositions can produce only falsely called knowledge, the believer answers him in such a way that he cannot be wise in his own conceit.

I'm not going to lie to you. Not that I've been lying up to you now. I have to premise that. You ever notice that I had a detective that said that on the stand once. He said, well, to be honest, counselor.

And the lawyer says, well, it's about time you're honest. This, it's not as easy as it sounds. To be a presuppositionalist and to defend the faith, it takes work. It takes study. It's not something, just learning the principles doesn't mean that you can do it.

It's like I'm going to fly a plane. So I get all the books on how to fly an airplane. And then I get in the airplane for the very first time, and what happens? I crash it. Because it's not just a question of the knowledge.

I know what all the instruments say. I know what all the controls are. But it takes experience to learn how to fly a plane. It's the same thing with apologetics. Just because you know how to do it, you have to practice it.

You have to put it into play. And you know what? You're going to get smacked around once in a while. Who was it, Mike Tyson? Mike Tyson said, everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face. And the plans go right out the window.

Okay. Not often you hear me quote Mike Tyson, but he nailed that one. Thereby, this twofold procedure in presuppositional apologetics aims at argumentative success without compromising spiritual fidelity.

That's the argumentative success. But we have to be careful about what we even call success. It renders a reasoned account of the Christian hope as well as reducing all contrary and critical positions to impotence.

When it's done right, that's exactly what presuppositional apologetics will do. You'll see that the reasoned account of hope is the only thing that makes sense. We've talked about that in the past. That's one of the strongest arguments for Christianity is that to follow any other system of thought always leads to futility.

And so only the Christian account in Scripture is what leads to reason and gives you some true answers. But, and notice he constantly reaffirms this, it is to be remembered at this point, of course, that the apologist must do this destructive work.

Notice he calls it destructive work. And that's exactly what it is because you're destroying speculations and every high imagination. But how do you do that? With humility and reverence. Okay? It's not like our football players when they catch a touchdown.

What do they do? They raise and they dance in the end zone and everything else. No. By the way, I think that is horrible sportsmanship. That's just me though. A useful and instructive summary of the presuppositional approach to apologetics is given in 2 Timothy 2, 23 through 25.

We're going to read this here. This is the direct quote of that passage of Scripture. But, and then we're going to take it apart in the next couple of slides. All right? Avoid foolish and undisciplined questions, knowing that they produce quarrels.

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel. He must be gentle toward all, skillful in teaching, patient, one who courteously instructs those who oppose themselves, if perhaps God may grant to them conversion unto a genuine knowledge of truth.

That's a sobering verse, is it not? Let's look at it piece by piece. Avoid foolish and undisciplined questions. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but must be gentle to all, skillful in teaching, patient, courteously instructs those who oppose themselves.

Notice who oppose themselves, if perhaps God may grant to them conversion unto a general knowledge of truth. Notice, we must always keep that in mind. One of the major goals of presuppositional apologetics is the conversion of sinners.

Not the only goal. The major goal, of course, is to glorify God. But we should always be, in our apologetic, have the right attitude that we're trying to win this person to Christ, not destroy him. Destroy his arguments, not destroy the individual.

So, Bonson now takes that passage apart. He says, first, this passage makes it very clear that the apologist simply must not have an arrogant attitude in dealing with unbelievers. There's never a reason to be arrogant, no matter what's coming at us.

And that takes patience and long-suffering. It takes a move of the Holy Spirit. Because you can have some really arrogant people shouting in your face. But we are never to respond in kind. Scripture makes that perfectly clear.

Never overcome evil with evil, but overcome evil with good. He must be gentle, patient, courteous, and unquarrelsome. Hmm. Who's willing to say that describes them? My hand's not going up. These attributes come hard to most people who hold to strong doctrinal positions and who are diligent to defend those positions.

He's talking about us. If you're in this church for any length of time, my guess is that you have some very, very strong doctrinal convictions. Soteriology, eschatology, apologetics, how to evangelize.

But it's hard when you hold something strong and you hear somebody saying something stupid. You know? Right? It's hard, but that's what we're called to do. I had a friend. I know that's hard to believe.

But I had a friend from Memphis, Tennessee. He was a chaplain for the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, which covers Memphis. His name was Corky Childs. He came up to New York to visit us in the church I was attending at the time.

He was a character. He was a little bit on the charismatic side. You've got to love him, though. He was just so on fire for Christ. And he used to walk around with a T-shirt. He said, I'm a fool for Christ.

Then he'd turn around on the back and say, who's fool are you? And I kind of summed it up. In fact, you know what he did once? He went into the elevator at the Empire State Building, and he waited for the doors to close.

He turned around and he says, my name is Corky Child. I represent Jesus Christ, and for the next five minutes, you're going to hear about Christ. I had a captive audience. However, it is the opposite attitude, which is peaceable and gentle, that demonstrates that our wisdom is from above, James 3.

The opposite attitude. Never quarrelsome, but patient, long-suffering, and gentle, et cetera. Second, this passage teaches that those who are challenged to defend their faith must not consent to answer in terms of foolish unbelief.

That's what entering into a quarrel is. When somebody says something that's just totally outrageous, don't get sucked in. You know, you have to move them away from their foolish questions and get them back on track.

Paul commands us to reject foolish questions, that is, questions given from the fool's point of view. We are not to submit to the autonomous, and I underline that, autonomous outlook, which suppresses the truth of God.

We are not to comply with the demand for agnostic neutrality in our discussions. We've spent quite a bit of time looking at that, but it's so important because this is where most people go astray, is accepting that neutrality.

And they can guise neutrality where it sounds like it's not, but you have to be able to look through that and say, no, wait a minute, time out, and bring the conversation back to the facts. The fool-oriented question is to be put aside.

However, the avoidance of foolish questions does not take the form of silence, for the passage above indicates that we are to educate the questioner. So when somebody says something that is just ludicrous, completely out of, just not even out of the realm of truth and logic, the object that we have is to show them the futility of what they're saying, not just say, oh, well, you know, I'll pass it by.

You can't, that comes under the heading, you can't just let a fool say what he wants without questioning him. Why? Because then he's going to look wise. That's why you always have to have the answer. So avoid the foolish question does not take the form of silence, but our goal is to educate the questioner.

An answer is to be given, but not an answer which conforms to the foolish presuppositions behind the question. Otherwise, contention rather than education will result. You ever see two people going at it, and they're both saying ridiculous things?

You know, and it comes down to, oh, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, and just add whatever you want. You don't want to be contentious. That's the hard part. When somebody says something that's just absolutely ludicrous, you just say, well, wait a minute, let's look at that.

Let's take that apart and examine what you're saying. You said that this is the truth. This is why it can't be the truth. And again, do it with grace and dignity. Third, it is revealed that the unbeliever opposes himself.

If you listen to the arguments of the unbeliever, they will always be contradictory and come back on themselves, okay? I had a brother-in-law who would always like to debate the age of the universe and evolution with me whenever we got together.

And no matter what I said to him, he would change his argument. When I explained to him at one point, he was talking about some science facts that he had. I just said, well, you know, you realize that there's not one single proof of evolution in the universe that we've seen.

There's no missing links, et cetera, et cetera. He said, well, that's because we don't live in a fixed universe. It's a transitional universe. So what was happening back then isn't necessarily happening now.

I said, so it's changing. So it's changed while you and I are sitting here. I said, so that means I can't even trust what you said is still true. I mean, just show the foolishness of what they're saying.

If there's no facts that are standard at all that are not true, then how are we even going to have a discussion? Finally, he decided it was too late and went to bed. So he opposes himself. By his foolish presuppositions, the unbeliever actually works against himself.

And that's why it's important that we listen. One of the fallacies of debate and argumentation is spending too much time on how you're going to respond to the person and not listening to what they're actually saying.

You have to spend the time. If it takes you a minute or two to catch your breath before you answer, then do it. There's nothing wrong with that. But make sure you're answering his question. He suppresses the clear truth about God, which is foundational to an understanding of the world and of oneself.

He affirms a position which is contrary to his better knowledge. Understand that a lot of things that these people are saying, they don't really believe it. They're caught in that system, and that's why they continue on, even though they can't answer.

I mean, we've had, you think of all the discoveries that we've had. I'll give you an example. For years, going back to the beginning of the 20th century, one of the big things the critics had was there's no such person in the historical records as Pontius Pilate.

He was made up. Until archaeologists found not a tombstone, a gate post that said, in Latin, Pontius Pilate. Guess where it was? In Jerusalem. So now they admit that he's there, but still they'll just find something else.

So they affirm things which are contrary to their better knowledge. He's intellectually schizophrenic. I like that. Intellectually schizophrenic. This must be made clear to him. You have to show him his schizophrenia.

And fourth, Paul indicates that what the unbeliever needs is not simply additional information. He does need additional information, but that's not all he needs. Instead, he needs to have his thinking completely turned around.

He must undergo a conversion onto a genuine knowledge of the truth. Here we come back again. Notice, it's not just a question of education. There is that element to it. We are to educate. But you can teach and teach and teach and give them facts and facts and facts.

But unless his thinking is completely turned around, he's not going to accept the truth. He must undergo what? A conversion. And conversion is not just merely a change of a spiritual nature. It affects everything.

The mind, the will, the emotions. Remember, it affects the entire being of a person. Until this turnabout takes place, the unbeliever will have a knowledge of God which condemns him. Francis Schaeffer once said, he said, in one sense, evangelism is cruel.

And people said, why is evangelism cruel? He said, because if the person hears the gospel and does not repent, he's left in a worse position than he was before. He says it's like somebody sitting in their house, nice and snug, the rain comes and the roof protects it.

But what evangelism does, you blow the roof off his house. Now he's exposed to all the elements. And so you leave him worse than he was. He has a knowledge of God that, what does it do? It doesn't help him.

The knowledge he has, it condemns him. What he needs is a saving, is a genuine or sincere knowledge of the truth. A saving knowledge can only come with conversion. That's so important to understand. The unbeliever must be taught to renounce his feigned autonomy and submit to God's clear word of authority.

I want to get to this last part here. Finally, the passage quoted above leaves no doubt as to what the source of apologetic success must be, God's sovereign will. You can be the most eloquent apologist.

You can have all the scriptural knowledge that you need. You can present it in the most cogent form that you possibly can. You can rival the Apostle Paul in his eloquence, in his speech. And at the bottom line, all of that will be for naught if God's sovereign will is not to convert that man.

We need to understand that. A man will be converted only if it is granted to him from God. Since it is he who determines the destinies of all men, he it is who determines whether our apologetic witness will be fruitful or not.

This is really, this is an important point, because it does, it takes the onus off ourselves and puts it right where it belongs on God. We are called to be faithful, not successful. It's up to us to be faithful, to present the gospel, to defend the faith through all of that.

But in the long run, what happens to that person is in the hands of God Almighty alone. Thus it behooves us to avoid any attempt to improve upon the scriptural approach to apologetics. And what is the scriptural approach?

I think from this series you'll see the scriptural approach is the presuppositional methodology. Our duty is to be faithful to the Lord's instruction. He will bless obedience to his will. Success cannot come by circumventing it.

Final thoughts or questions? To me that's freeing. I love that. That's why when I came to the Reformed doctrines it was such a freeing thing, even in our preaching. We preach it. It's up to God what he does with it.

That word will go forth. And whether it saves a person or condemns a person, that's in God's purview, not mine.

What Quarrelsomeness Looks Like in Practice

Yes, Jake. How would you describe what a person who is quarrelsome, what they're like? How would you describe what quarrelsome means in that sense that he's referring to in 2 Timothy?

Somebody who will take exception with everything that you say. And making a quarrel even though they may not believe what they're saying in the first place. I'm trying to think if I can think of something off the top of my head, but there's not much of anything left off the top of my head, let alone.

Yeah, you know, just somebody who is always going to never agree with anything that you say, even when it's obvious that it's true. Well, for example, take Christopher Hitchens. His argument was that Christianity has been detrimental to society.

I mean, almost everybody else agrees when you look over the history. Christianity is behind scientific discoveries, mathematical discoveries, humanitarian efforts, et cetera. And so to say that in the long run it's detrimental, that's quarrelsome.

It's not even in the realm of reality. All right, let's pray.