DELETED SCENE Bahnsen vs. Sproul | Also, Am I Presup Yet? (UPDATE)

Apologetics is not evangelism. And when some people hear that, they think that apologetics is more differentiated and distinguished from evangelism than what is actually the case, than what the scripture actually shows us is the case.

In other words, you know, sure, apologetics is meant to provide a forum for the believer in the marketplace of ideas, right? Sure, apologetics strengthens the faith of the believer himself when he delves into the study of the defense of the faith, apologetics.

And yes, apologetics closes the mouths of the obstreperous, right, the non-believer. But we have reduced apologetics down to merely destroying arguments and merely shutting up the mouths of non-believers.

That's not good enough, ladies and gentlemen. Apologetics is supposed to take us further than that. Welcome, everybody. Got a different video for you today. So if you enjoyed the discussion about Bonson and Sproul, well, then I think that you're going to dig this discussion, okay?

But before I get into all of that, a couple of announcements. Number one, I need you to go to the Community tab and take part in a poll that I started yesterday as of this recording. And I'm not exaggerating when I say this, but your vote will help shape the future of this channel and community.

And I will explain more about where all this is coming from very soon, and I'm sure it's going to make a lot of sense to you. But definitely take a look at what I'm offering in terms of exclusive content, and then go ahead and vote.

Let me know if the exclusive content interests you, if it doesn't interest you, all of that. All of your insights help me think through this, and I really appreciate those of you that have voted already, those of you that continue to let me know, you know, where you're at, what you're thinking through.

The second announcement. I am traveling for the next couple of weeks, so videos are hopefully still coming. But just bear in mind, I'm going to be in a couple of different cities across the country over the next couple of weeks, all right?

The Deleted Scene From Bonson vs. Sproul

Okay, so today's video is a deleted scene, okay? You can consider this the director's cut of the conversation that I had with my friend Eli Ayala on Bonson vs. Sproul, Classical Apologetics vs. Presuppositional Apologetics.

At the time that I was putting this together, we were editing this. If you remember, the conversation went long, so I just split it into two parts. I just remember that it seemed like this conversation that I'm about to share with you took away from the flow of the rest of the discussion.

And so, I opted to just kind of cut it and set it to the side, but now I'm very glad to be sharing it with you again. In this conversation, we discuss more of the background of the debate and the differences between where Bonson and Sproul are coming from, their different schools of philosophy and thought, which I actually think helps to elucidate further the discussion that they had, but also that Eli and I had about the debate.

So, I'm going to share this with you. Also, stay tuned after this clip, because I'm going to come back on, and I'm going to answer some questions from the comments section of Bonson vs. Sproul, maybe talk a little bit about where I'm at with all of it, give you an update.

But in the meantime, check out this clip. But, you know, a few preliminary comments here. I'll say some things, you can say some things, because we're kind of not starting at the beginning. And I think at the outset, there were some important statements that were made from both sides.

Both Sproul and Bonson had the opportunity to make kind of like an opening statement of sorts. So, a couple interesting things that I noticed. The first thing that I thought was interesting was that Sproul said that this whole disagreement about apologetic methodology has its roots in the differences between B .B. Warfield and Abraham Kuyper.

And so, Warfield and Kuyper, they were contemporaries in the early 20th century. These were both, as far as I can tell, theologians of the highest order. Warfield was a Princetonian, so he was a professor at Princeton.

Kuyper was, he was a politician. He was a lot of things.

A politician, yeah. And he heavily influenced the thought of Van Till, this idea of the importance of worldviews, this idea of antithesis, that because we have different starting assumptions, the believer and the unbeliever, we're kind of at like this diametric point of opposition.

Which there's no neutrality. And so, that aspect of Warfield's, I'm sorry, of Kuyper's thought heavily influenced Van Till. But Van Till comes to a different conclusion, because in light of the worldview situation, right?

Unbeliever has a worldview, believer has a worldview, there's no neutrality. Abraham Kuyper fallaciously concluded that, therefore, apologetics is useless. And of course, Van Till would disagree with that.

There is no common ground, Kuyper would say. There's no common ground, and so, what's the point in doing apologetics, right? So, interesting influence there, but of course,.

Van Till doesn't bite that bullet all the way. Right. That's good. That's good. And Warfield took issue with that as well. Particularly, the usage of evidence, Warfield thought was totally appropriate when doing apologetics.

So, that was good. The other thing of note, there's a lot of what Dr. Sproul said. But one of the other things that I thought was interesting, maybe you can comment on this, he was concerned that presuppositional apologetics furthers a false divide between science and theology, or maybe science and the Christian faith, such that we Christians have been assigned to kind of a ghetto, you know, like a reservation where we're allowed to have our private faith, but we can't go around directly confronting the scientists and philosophers of the secular age.

Sproul was concerned that presuppositionalism led to further isolationism because of the particular methodology of, I guess, refusing to make arguments for God's existence and for the Bible as His Word, but instead assuming.

Those things at the outset. What do you think? Right. Well, I think that this is where R .C. Sproul is confused, and I think he doesn't have a proper understanding of the presuppositional method. Take, for example, the argument that's at the heart of the presuppositional method, which is the transcendental argument.

To say that the presuppositionalist doesn't give arguments just completely bypasses the fact that Bonson gives a transcendental argument. It is an argument. You might not agree with the argument, you might not like the argument, you might not think the argument kind of, you know, accomplishes what presuppositionalists think it accomplishes, but it is an argument, and it takes a very traditional form.

For example, if I can give you kind of just the form of a transcendental argument, which is not particular to the presuppositional school of thought, you see lines of transcendental arguments within Aristotle when he's trying to prove the necessity of the laws of logic, that in order to even deny the laws of logic, you have to presuppose them even in their denial.

So he proved the laws of logic by the impossibility of the contrary. And you have, of course, without boring your audience, the language of transcendental argumentation is often associated with Immanuel Kant, but we can't get into that now because it is a very intricate philosophy.

But here's the basic form of a transcendental argument. When we talk about logic and argumentation, as you know, Nate, we can often use symbols like X and Y, and X and Y or whatever letter you use can stand for a proposition, which is a statement that is either true or false.

So a proposition would be, I like to go to the beach. That statement is either true or false, and that can stand for either X, Y, Z, or whatever. So the basic transcendental formulation would be for any X, any proposition to be the case, Y must be the case because Y is the necessary precondition for X.

X is the case, therefore Y must be the case. That is not a fallacious form of argumentation. That's a traditional transcendental argument, and we need to plug in our propositions within those letters.

So if I could formulate a transcendental argument for God's existence using that form, I can say premise one, for knowledge to be possible, Christianity must be true. Premise two, knowledge is possible, therefore Christianity is true.

Now you might not agree with that argument, but there's nothing fallaciously circular about it, but there is some sense of circularity to it because if I prove my conclusion, then what does the conclusion show if not that I had to presuppose Christianity to even formulate the argument, right?

I'm showing what are the necessary preconditions are for the very intelligibility of argument itself or knowledge. And so R .C. Sproul kind of equated the transcendental argument or the presuppositional approach with kind of like a dogmatic, arbitrary assertion, the Bible is true, and that's it.

You have to take my word for it, we don't give you further argument, we can't talk about evidence, and that's just a faulty misunderstanding of the methodology and form of argumentation on the part of R .C. Sproul.

So this raises—we don't even need Bonson and Sproul, you and I can talk—because it raises some questions, but actually I think I'll probably hold off and ask those as the conversation goes along between Bonson and Sproul.

But this is really great. I think we're setting the table in the right way. Something about Bonson that he said in his kind of opening remarks that I thought was really interesting is he directly dunks on Bayesian-style apologetics, you know?

Bayesian meaning arguing for Christianity in the Christian worldview, you know, the existence of God, the historicity of the Bible, in terms of probability. You know, there's a probability calculus that gets introduced into the notion of arguing for Christianity, and some Christian apologists today argue this way.

You know, they'll argue for Christianity, they'll say things like, well, you know, the resurrection of Jesus is highly probable, you know? And Bonson pointed out that the Bible not only does not speak this way, but apparently teaches the opposite.

So I.

Certainty, Fideism, and the Presuppositional Method

Thought that was really interesting. Yes, that's going to be the key difference. And this is where you have Sproul when he says, for example, he's concerned about the loss of the purity of Calvinism and an intrusion of neo-orthodoxy in Calvinistic methodology.

That's kind of an indirect reference to fideism. He saw presuppositional argumentation as a form of fideism, in terms of which one makes an assertion, we believe it by faith, and we don't give reasons for it.

And so that leads to subjectivism, because anyone can make a dogmatic assertion, and therefore that form of argumentation will leave the unbeliever with an excuse. But the irony there is that the nature of a transcendental argument actually, if successfully argued, would be the argument that would leave the unbeliever without an excuse, because a transcendental argument seeks to prove a conclusion with 100 certainty.

If a transcendental argument is successful, you cannot rationally and meaningfully deny the conclusion of the argument. Does that make sense? And so if that's the case, and if the presuppositionalist argues successfully, transcendentally, then that's more certain than any of the traditional proofs, because the proofs for God's existence along classical lines like the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument, those are all probability, and they're nonspecified.

They prove an ambiguous deity that requires more information. So there's this idea of fideism, if anything. Transcendental and presuppositional argumentation is literally on the complete opposite side of the spectrum of fideism, because it's arguing for certainty that we can know, and we could have justification for the certainty that we're arguing for.

I don't think any of the traditional proofs can get you that, and so I think R .C. Sproul was mistaken here.

Right. I have a question, I'll bring it up again later, but the issue of certainty comes up because Bonson is, sort of in his own way, reiterating what the Bible does teach. The Bible does teach that Christians can have a full assurance of the things in which they place their faith, and so it's not coming out of nowhere.

Here's one other thing that I thought was really interesting about what Bonson said. Bonson said, and I wonder if this is what you've been telling me, Eli, because I am trying to do my due diligence and have a book on Van Till right now, so there is that.

But Bonson said in his opening remarks, and this is right at the end of his opening remarks, he said, Christians do present the facts. And then he said, we are evidentialists. What he said was at the end, we present the facts and the evidence within a presuppositional framework where they make sense.

Now you verbatim have told me this. So it sounds like Bonson is not opposed to evidentialism as long as the Christian includes the presuppositional framework. Is that.

Right? Yes, and that's just a roundabout way of saying that Bonson is rejecting neutral facts, presuppositional-less data. He's saying the Christian must not be neutral. Indeed, neutrality is not giving due reverence to the Lord of the facts, and it's impossible.

So not only should we seek to be neutral and allow for neutrality in terms of the data that we're disputing with the unbeliever, right? It's irreverent to do that because we're defending the very God who defines the facts, right?

Bonson points out that it's actually impossible to do that as well because we all have presuppositions. So that's kind of just a roundabout way of getting that point across, which is really the twin poisons, I call them.

When I teach presuppositional apologetics, I call them the twin poisons of neutrality and autonomy. And so what Bonson would point out is the classical approach with the utilization of the traditional proofs.

The problem is they, in the way they've been traditionally presented, they allow for, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the assumption of neutrality and autonomy with respect to how we could interpret facts and with respect to the ability of man's capacity to properly interpret the facts.

So Bonson's going to be careful for those two things, and he's going to say once you don't use a presuppositional approach, you're allowing these things to sneak in. And autonomy and neutrality is a no-no intellectually, and they're definitely a no-no if you want to be consistently Calvinistic.

Right. I was going to say, I think Sproul is going to slap back on the autonomy thing a little bit, but let's just jump right into the discussion here. All right, got some comments here. I only have time for a few of these.

Matt Minucci, I hope I'm saying that right. I gotta appreciate Nate for his ability to try and stay neutral when doing these things. I know neutrality is a myth, and I'm a presupper through and through, but listening to Eli, who I love, really showed me just how hard it is to not commentate over these debates in a biased fashion, and I honestly think Nate does this at a Justin Brierley level.

Oh, thank you, sir. You know, I try. I really do. I think there's a weird underlying assumption that a lot of us have when it comes to neutrality, especially as it pertains to adjudicating debates, right?

This is what I do with the reaction stuff, and it's what you're saying right now, Matt. You know, there is no neutrality, okay? This is why I don't believe a lot of what atheists who say very sincerely, by the way, that they lack a belief in God.

They may feel that way, but the fact remains that they absolutely retain beliefs about the universe and how it came to be that leave no room for God. They completely shut him out, right? Materialism, verificationism, all of these isms that a lot of atheists in particular hold to are all positive beliefs that shut God out, and so it's misleading to say the phrase, I lack a belief, because it appears to suggest neutrality when there is no neutrality.

I totally agree. The only thing that someone can do when they listen to arguments and assess them is strive to be objective, in my opinion, and I'll be the first to admit that objectivity is often imperfectly achieved, you know?

It can be messy to get there, but I think objectivity can be achieved when a person understands their biases well enough to concede them for the sake of discussion. And by the way, objectivity is the secret ingredient to what makes an excellent debater.

Again, in my opinion, that's how I sort of navigate this and sort of relay this to others. To be able to adopt the framework of the person that you disagree with well enough to be able to pass the intellectual Turing test, right?

You end up fooling adherence to the view that you disagree with. That's how well you explain their own view back to them. That's when you know that you've achieved objectivity. But that's also when you know that you understand the view that you disagree with well enough to critique it.

So there's kind of this double benefit in striving for this kind of objectivity. Great observation, man. Thank you for the comment. Let's keep going here. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Chris Crutchley, you know what?

Honestly, I stopped because you look like the creepy—who's the guy from Happy Gilmore that watches over grandma, but he's like a crazy person threatening to kill all the old people that he's watching over?

Is it Ben Stiller who played that role? That's what your photo looks like. If that's you, Chris, you look an awful lot like Ben Stiller in that movie. Anyway, Chris says, Was this recorded before you said you're a presuppositionalist or did you change your mind?

I don't—did I say that I was a presuppositionalist? I don't think I said that. I may have said that in jest, perhaps, but it was in jest. Because the fact is, I'm wrestling with the view right now. And currently, as of this recording, I still am.

I'm wrestling. And I'm so grateful for brothers like Eli who can help me understand better the presuppositional view, you know? I've always understood the view as being extremely esoteric and difficult to maintain.

And not just on a philosophical and epistemological level, but also just on a practical level, you know, in terms of effective communication, right? Sitting across from someone who is a spiritual interlocutor of sorts, right?

I mean, you have to understand, presuppositionalism did not have an Eli Ayala as a spokesperson for the last several decades, okay? And I'm old enough to remember this. And that's a huge compliment, by the way, to Eli, who—if you're watching, Eli, I love you, and I really appreciate, you know, how you're framing this out for me.

But I will say that the PR for presuppositionalism in the last several decades has not been great. And this is why—this is partly why Sproul and other critics of presuppositionalism struggled with it.

And it also, I think, explains when you hear them try to challenge presuppositionalism, you know? The challenge is coming from the classicalist, right? You'll hear Bonson say, well, that's not the presuppositional view.

Well, it's not because Sproul and other critics were just simply idiots, or they were, like, horrible listeners. It's because the view was not being clearly explained, at least not to the level of clarity that somebody like Eli is bringing to it today.

So, I say all of that to say, I have an excellent memory, and I remember how things went. Well, my memories, as I get older, is not what it used to be. But for me, it's not simply a matter of thinking through how Eli frames presuppositionalism, which, again, is extremely helpful.

It's a matter of also squaring what Eli is saying with what I learned about presuppositionalism years ago. And, of course, I'm open to, you know, me not hearing it correctly, and so the breakdown in communication and learning came on my end, perhaps.

You know, I'm open to that. I would suggest that the breakdown was not just on my end. It was not just on Sproul's end and other critics of presuppositionalism's end. I think the breakdown was also coming from people trying to articulate the view who were actually adherents to presuppositionalism.

So, I say all of that to say, I'm still wrestling with the view. When I consider changing my mind about something like this, of this nature, it's not going to be overnight. It's probably not even going to be something that happens in a few months, you know, or maybe even a year.

I just, I don't take this stuff lightly at all, and neither should you, by the way. I think, to be as transparent as I can be, you know, one of the primary things that I'm trying to do with presuppositionalism is justify it in the scripture.

But that's where I still hesitate a bit because I still don't see a strong biblical justification for it. And the explanations that are given, you know, that come out of places like Romans chapter 1, for example, in my opinion, they're extrapolations of the text that lean too far over the skis of what is actually being said.

Now, this is where a lot of you who are presuppositionalists are cracking your knuckles, right, to get at me in the comments section. And I just, I want you to understand this in my heart in this. I'm not providing a challenge to you all so much as I'm just trying to articulate where I'm at right now in this moment.

Again, I don't see the justification for it in the scripture, but maybe one day I will. And trust me when I say that I'm open to it and I'm looking for it with an open mind. So, thank you for the comment, Chris.

Keep that mustache up, that's all I can tell you. One more, one more. I got time for one more. Gandalf the Grey, commenting to boost the video for the algorithm. Commenting to boost the video for the algorithm.

Commenting to boost the video. There's 10 replies. What is going on, Gandalf the Grey? Well, I appreciate the sentiment, Gandalf. Okay, moving on. I have time for one more. Let me go back up. Daryl Powell says, Apologetics as I have understood it is not evangelism, and I would even argue it is not even softening the heart for the unbeliever, as we know that without the unlocking of the heart by the Holy Spirit, the unbeliever will not have God in his thoughts.

The purpose of apologetics is to close the mouth of the obstreperous, to give the belief a podium in the marketplace of ideas. I would also say that it strengthens the faith of the believer when his mind can calculate that the existence of God, and it's not just a preference but a viable induction.

I believe R .C. admitted in this debate that precept did help to nullify neo-orthodoxy and the corruption that it brought to the Church, though we see it is alive and well in our seminaries today. Yeah, you're right to say, Daryl, apologetics is not evangelism.

I think it's actually Francis Schaeffer that said that apologetics is pre-evangelism. Also, I think it was Schaeffer that sort of gave an image of clearing brush away to reveal a path, that that is what apologetics is.

I mean, if the path is the path of the gospel that leads to repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ, well, then apologetics is meant to clear the brush away from the path so the path can be walked on clearly.

And I agree with all that. I agree with those characterizations. And the way I've said it is, apologetics is the other side of the coin of evangelism. And we actually see a bit of that in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, where Paul articulates the, I think he articulates the apologetic endeavor by saying that we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God.

And I think you can clearly see that if we stop right there, that is not evangelism. What Paul is talking about is not evangelism, right? It's a destruction of arguments. But then Paul says this, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ, okay?

And this is all part of the same thought and therefore the same enterprise, you know, the same activity. And so the question is, what is Paul talking about? Destroying arguments, lofty opinions, raised up against the knowledge of God, taking captive every thought, right?

Well, you cannot truly understand what Paul is talking about in chapter 10, verse 5 unless you remember what he was talking about in chapter 4, verse 4. So there, Paul said this, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

So in both places, chapter 4, verse 4, chapter 10, verse 5, Paul is focused on the same battlefield. It's the battlefield of the mind. In chapter 4, the mind of the unbeliever is blinded. Why is that the case?

It's blinded to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, okay? So in chapter 10, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought in order to obey Christ.

You cannot understand chapter 10, verse 5, unless you remember and bear in mind chapter 4, verse 4. So where am I going with this? What is the role of apologetics? To clear the path so that we can proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, and that's exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 5.

So I agree with this point, Daryl, but I say all that to say, be careful, all right? I urge you some caution in saying what you've just said here, because you're not the only one saying this, Daryl. I've heard this many times before.

When some people say apologetics is not evangelism, and when some people hear that, they think that apologetics is more differentiated and distinguished from evangelism than what is actually the case, than what the scripture actually shows us is the case.

In other words, you know, sure, apologetics is meant to provide a forum for the believer in the marketplace of ideas, right? Sure, apologetics strengthens the faith of the believer himself when he delves into the study of the defense of the faith, apologetics.

And yes, apologetics closes the mouths of the obstreperous, right, the non-believer. But just remember, the Bible shows us that all of these things are supposed to culminate in proclaiming the gospel and fulfilling the Great Commission, and so this is a challenge for all you apologists out there who engage with non-believers on a regular basis.

The wonderful thing about what Eli has been saying all along, if you've been tracking my discussion with him, and his own channel, which, by the way, if you're not subscribed, you should definitely go and subscribe to Eli's channel.

What he's been saying is every Christian should 100 affirm that our engagement with non-believers must culminate in the cross of Christ. It must all eventually lead to the gospel itself. If you're a fan of James White and his debates, you'll notice that he keeps that ultimate focus in view and shares the gospel in his debates.

Why? It's the same reason. Everything we do, communication-wise, defending the faith or evangelism, must eventually culminate or end up in the gospel, right, in fulfilling the Great Commission. Or else, we're just simply engaging in shutting up mouths, and we're simply deepening our own beliefs.

And that's not the full understanding of apologetics as given to us in the scripture. That's not the purpose fully of apologetics, friends. Apologetics is meant to lead to fulfilling the Great Commission, which, by the way, that's what I see in 2 Corinthians 10 .5.

The phrase, taking captive every thought to obey Christ, connects to what Jesus said in the Great Commission. Go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.

There's a connection here. So when we engage in apologetics and we stop short of the Great Commission, we have reduced apologetics down to merely destroying arguments and merely shutting up the mouths of non-believers.

That's not good enough, ladies and gentlemen. Apologetics is supposed to take us further than that. Well, thank you very much for the comments, everyone. I'm going to keep you posted on my journey here with regard to presuppositionalism.

Stay tuned for more debate reactions coming up soon. I hope the clip that I shared with you blessed you in some way, and I'm praying that all of us, we are all walking in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ and the Wise Disciple community.

I'll return soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I'll see you next time. Bye for now.