Always Ready: Chap. 12 Summary & Review of Ch. 1-11

Summary of Chapters 1–11 and the Need for a Biblical Worldview

We're up to the end of chapter 11. We've covered the first chapters of the book. And in the book, if you're following along, this is a summary chapter. So it comes at a perfect spot right at the end of the conditions necessary for the apologetic task and the foundations that were laid in the first section with Christ having lordship over even the realm of thought.

So we're in chapter 12, which is the overall summary of chapters 1 to 11. And these are the opening words to the paragraph. And I thought it was just appropriate because he gives kind of an apologetic for why he's taking a summary at this point.

It'll be convenient to pause at this point and summarize our discussion in the past studies in order that we gain a concise overview of our pattern of thought. Remember, that's one of the big things is to successfully and biblically defend the faith, you have to have the correct biblical worldview.

And that governs how you even think. So now here, remember, the whole purpose of this section is to review everything, all the principles that we've learned. Because when you go through them once and you just keep moving along, you have a tendency of forgetting.

I try to do a little review each week. But this is a more significant view and a more comprehensive view. The first part of this series set forth the lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge. Remember, that was the whole first section was talking about the lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge.

And applied that truth to the exercise of man's reason. And we concluded with Calvin that God's word must be presupposed in order to have knowledge in either the realm of creation or redemption. Now, I just want to pause there, even in this opening paragraph.

Notice, the first part was the lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge. Why would he spend, I think it was five or six chapters, just on that topic, the lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge?

Why do you think he spent so much time? Go ahead, Sarah.

Because people contest it all the time.

Christ's Lordship Over Knowledge and the Rejection of Neutrality

Yeah, who? The atheists, right? Yeah. Yeah, actually, this book was not really written for us to confront atheists, but to convince us of the proper method of apologetics. Because the majority of Christians do not know how to adequately defend their faith and come with a whole set of presuppositions of their own.

So that's why he says, we concluded with Calvin that God's word must be presupposed in order to have knowledge in either realm, creation or redemption. In other words, in the natural realm, and then even for the Christian.

A lot of people consider that to be like a sacred, secular distinction, but I think his wording is much better than that. Even when you're not talking about redemption, all right, if you're just talking about the natural sciences and everything else, you still, Christ is still Lord over that whole realm of knowledge.

We're not saying that the Bible is a textbook of scientific facts that you can study. That's not what we're saying. But he has lordship over that realm, and any discoveries that man makes have to be in the context of his lordship over the physical realm as well.

So that's why I like the way he put it, creation or redemption. In other words, that takes in the whole sphere of man's knowledge. Anybody follow that? Okay. However, because our culture has been saturated with the contrary demands of autonomy and neutrality.

Notice, autonomy and neutrality. What is autonomy again? Self-government, self-law, two words, self and nomos, meaning law. And neutrality, that's probably the biggest problem in the church today when it comes to defending the faith is this whole area of neutrality, and that's why, again, he's spending so much time.

He says, so the culture has been saturated with the contrary demands of autonomy and neutrality. There is a pressing need for redemption in the world of thought. We need reformation in the world of thought, all right?

And again, notice, this is applying to believers. One of the difficult things to hear is if you ever watch debates with somebody who is not a reform thinker, not a presuppositionalist, it's a terrible thing to watch them try to argue with an atheist or with a scientist, and they get demolished, and it's pitiful, okay?

Three basic objections. Remember, we spent that time looking at a chapter in each of the three basic objections to presuppositionalism. And the theory of knowledge arise from an unreformed culture. I underline that, an unreformed culture.

It's my contention, and I know people are gonna be watching this on the net because it's gonna be posted, and I'm glad, but my address isn't posted because I don't wanna get cards and letters. If you're not coming, if you're not arguing the scriptures from a reformed perspective, you've already got one foot out the door.

The only method is reformed and presuppositional. That's going to accomplish the purpose that you want. And then these three complaints were subsequently considered to demonstrate, firstly, to demonstrate their invalidity.

Remember, we looked at those three complaints, and one by one, we took them and showed, number one, that they were invalid, but while we were doing that, while we were looking at their invalidity, we also exhibited the strength of presuppositionalism.

As we answered the objections, you could see how the strongest position to defend the faith was presuppositionalism, and then to profound, to expound further aspects of that position. Now, the next section in the summary chapter in this chapter 12, he has a title over it called Christ's Epistemic Lordship, all right?

Again, what is epistemology? What was that? Yes, your theory of knowledge, what is the basis of your truth, all right? So God's knowledge is original, comprehensive, and creative, all right? There are no higher principles or standards of truth to which he looks, to which he looks and attempts to bring his thoughts into conformity.

Notice capital H, he's talking about God, and when he's talking about he, he's not talking about you and I, or the apologist, he's talking about God. God's knowledge is original, comprehensive, and creative.

In other words, it originates in him, it's comprehensive, there is no limit to it, and it's creative, okay? And there are no higher principles or standard of truth which God looks to in attempt to bring his thoughts into conformity.

Why?

Because God is the author of all of this, okay? There is no mystery surrounding his understanding. There's mystery from our understanding. There's great mysteries, even that are not revealed in scripture.

And, oh, by the way, let me just handle that, because this is something that happens to pastors all the time, where people come up and say, pastor, I have a question for you, and they'll give you a question, you know, in fact, this just happened to me last week, about somebody who was concerned about the eternal state, you know, what happens to the body, what happens to the soul, and I was explaining it to him, and he asked me a couple of questions that the answer's not in scripture.

Don't ever be afraid to say, I don't know. And the reason I don't know is the Bible doesn't address it. So I don't even attempt to answer those questions, all right?

Why?

Because we're told not to exceed what was written, okay? Everything we need to know about life and godliness is contained in the scriptures. If it's not contained in the scriptures, guess what? You don't need to know it.

You may want to know it, but you don't need to know it. And so God has limited what, in fact, even Mark Twain put it very eloquently, as he usually does, he says, he says, I'm not worried about the things that I don't understand in the Bible, he says, I'm concerned with the things that I do.

All right?

We've got enough information in the Bible to keep us busy for the whole of our lives without trying to speculate about things that God hasn't revealed, all right? So why is there no mystery? Because his knowledge is infinite, okay?

God's mind gives both diversity and order to all things, guaranteeing the reality of particulars, that's the multiplicity, and yet assuring that they are intelligible, that's unity. Remember, and this is, we see this even in the makeup of the Trinity, that we have unity and diversity, all right, at the same time, still under epistemic lordship.

Number two, all knowledge and wisdom have been deposited in Christ because he is the source, the standard, and the embodiment of truth, okay? So if, now notice again, all knowledge and all wisdom. So if you want to, if somebody wants to debate you on the age of the universe or anything else, you have to start where?

In the scriptures with the person of Jesus Christ. Now again, I'm not saying that all the answers that you may want are there, but all that you need are there. Number three, God's word thus has supreme, supreme, absolute, and unquestionable authority in the realm of knowledge as well as morality.

There again, you have that distinction that people want to make and say that the natural realm, well, that's up to us. Yeah, we go to church, we read the Bible for morality and whatnot, but not for the rest of knowledge.

And God's word itself refutes that. This also means that God's word must be the final standard for truth, the final standard for truth for man, in which case it cannot be challenged by some more ultimate criterion.

In other words, when you make it, if you're engaged in apologetics and somebody comes up to something and you give the Bible as truth, as your source of truth, and they don't accept it, you don't say, oh, well, let's pull out the Encyclopedia Britannica.

There is no authority that is greater than the scripture itself. It's the final standard for truth, in which case it cannot be challenged by some more ultimate criteria. Why can't it be challenged by some more ultimate criteria?

Because there is none.

Yes.

In the book of Hebrews, it says, God swore by no one higher than himself. In other words, there's not a standard above God, which he is held to. He is the standard. So anything that you would use to judge God would have to come beneath God, not over God.

Exactly. Still under epistemic lordship. Consequently, the teaching of Christ in scripture has self-attesting authority. And Christ is the only one that can make that claim.

All right.

We can make that claim to a lesser degree.

All right.

In fact, we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, and I was on a case, a homicide case, and it was a boating accident where, well, it wasn't an accident. The guy was wound up being charged with murder or manslaughter.

And we were examining the boat and everything else. He had run over somebody in the little Zodiac. And during the trial, we put on a witness to testify that the propeller that he had on the boat was only meant for one reason.

It was designed for one reason, one reason only. And that was for speed.

Okay.

And the engineer was adamant about it that, well, the defense attorney got up and he says, how do you know that that's the only purpose for it? And the guy looked back at him and said, I designed it. We had brought in the actual designer of the propeller, and he went, oh.

And shut him right down. But you get the point. In a lower degree, who could testify that, I couldn't testify that that was the only purpose for that propeller, but the designer could. He says, that's why I designed it.

God is the creator of all things, self-attesting. There is no higher authority than him.

Okay.

That was such a feeling of satisfaction for that, too. Christ clearly speaks with the authority of God in the, is the repository of knowledge, is subject to no authority or standard more basic than himself, obviously, because he is the way, the truth, and the life.

He alone is adequate to witness, he alone is adequate to witness to himself and his word. Just constantly reinforcing. These are principles that you have to get, because when you get in the trenches and you're starting to do apologetics, it's going to be tempting to reach out for something else if you get stuck.

But you have to stick to your guns and just understand this. And believe, firstly, you have to believe that this is true. All right, the next section in the summary is man's exercise of reason.

All right.

There is absolute truth and knowledge which is accessible to man. While he may not know exhaustively, he does have adequate knowledge. Remember, this is to refute that one argument that, well, if you have to have biblical presuppositions, then the unregenerate man can know nothing.

And you saw that that is a fallacious, that's a straw man argument. Firstly, it's important to note there is absolute truth. Right then and there, you're going to have a problem with people because what do they say out there?

Oh, there's no such thing as absolute truth. All right, absolutely, they say that.

Okay.

So the first thing is there is absolute truth and the knowledge of that truth is accessible to man. And while we may not know it exhaustively, we do have adequate knowledge of it. For whatever purpose that God has put us on this earth for, in both creation and redemption.

Man's knowledge must be a receptive reconstruction of God's original and creative knowledge. In other words, we can say things assertively as truth as long as we have its knowledge that we have received from God's original knowledge.

That's why the only time you'll ever hear me from the pulpit or any one of our elders from the pulpit say, this is absolute truth, thus saith the Lord, is when we're quoting from scripture.

All right.

So a lot of churches out there, we all hear, thus saith the Lord. And if you look between the pages of scripture, it's not there. They're asserting a feeling as being a word from the Lord, which you cannot do.

All right.

So it's a receptive reconstruction of God's original and creative knowledge. To come to a knowledge of the truth, man must think God's thoughts after him. One of the purposes of Bible study, studies like this, is to bring our thoughts into God's thoughts, not the other way around.

The starting point of knowledge is therefore God. Any system of apologetics that does not start with God is inherently flawed. The beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord, thus requiring respect and submission.

When God speaks, that's it. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No, you're okay. I have to say something after you've finished.

I'm sorry.

No, that's all right.

Go ahead.

No, it just, it really is profound. When we look at some of the scientists or the men of, the respected collegiate of our day, how really so many of them have PhDs in absolute nonsense at the end of the day.

And if you guys haven't seen it, I would highly recommend the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox, because John Lennox just absolutely showcases how Richard Dawkins really has no idea what he's talking about at the end of the day.

And it really is sad because when you really boil it down, it's just another belief system. It's another faith and religion.

Sure, everybody has presuppositions. Just a question of whose presuppositions are they?

Okay.

In particular, one must submit to the truth of God's revealed word. That's one of the basics for the whole idea of apologetics. It's submission to the truth of God's word. Man must be grateful to God for whatever he possesses, including his knowledge and understanding.

All that we have comes from God. Again, why is Bonson making such a point of including his knowledge and understanding? Because that's the thing that man wants to pull aside. Yes, okay, yeah, you want to tell me how to live a good life, I shouldn't.

Thou shalt not kill, I agree. Thou shalt not steal, yes, most often. But when it comes to, well, don't tell me how to think. And they may not say it or articulate it that way, or some of them do. That's what is underlying their whole thought process, is you can't tell me what to think or how to think.

Thus belief precedes understanding. Remember, we saw that. Who quoted that, remember? Just Augustine, yep. Thus belief precedes understanding, and revelation undergirds reason. Theology is foundational to every area of study.

It's a bold statement. Theology is foundational to every area of study. You'll have people say, I don't believe in theology, I don't want to study theology. Everybody studies theology, whether they believe it or not.

And even, especially when you start dealing with the cults, a lot of times they don't want to discuss theology with you. They say, we just, let's just talk about Jesus, okay? Okay, that's a theological question.

How can you answer Jesus, who is Jesus, without delving into theology? Because the Mormons believe in Jesus, just not the Jesus of the Bible. Okay, Muslims, yes, you see? So, you can see why Bonson says that theology is foundational to every area of study.

So also, man does not have the prerogative to call God's word into question. Philosophy, which suppresses rather than presupposing the truth of God, evidences the darkness of the sinful mind, okay? That is, it is both epistemologically and moral rebellion against God.

Remember, we looked at also that every field of study is basically moral, all intelligence is moral. Whether you agree with it or not, it is rebellion against God. Such thinking is made foolish by God and leads to futile conclusions.

It makes the use of reason impossible. Notice that, it makes the use of reason impossible. If you are trying to make sense of this world apart from God, you're insane. Because it just can't be done. How can you look at this world and say you're gonna take the creator out of it and make any sense out of the world?

Nowhere is this more evident than in our society today. Look at the big agendas from those who either call themselves atheists or the progressives and whatnot. What's the big buzzwords? What's going on right now in our society?

What are you reading in the papers? What decision has come down? Yeah, Roe v. Wade is overturned. Big outcry, they want the right to kill babies. What happens, what's the hue and cry for the baby seals?

Save the baby seals, can't kill them. Can't kill any animal, look at PETA, all right? Against, I mean, if a celebrity wears a fur coat, they may have blood thrown on them, which has happened. Look at the thinking, kill a baby human, but don't kill an animal, all right?

Oh, and no death penalty, that's for sure. So we can kill an innocent baby, but you can't kill a hardened criminal.

This whole summary and what Bonson says up until now just points us right back to Eve in the garden when she was questioned by the serpent and she began to think independently of what God told her. So all of this thinking, bad thinking, goes back to becoming independent of what God told us and to try to reason it out ourselves rather than trust in him and be dependent on what he says.

The Folly of Autonomous Reason and Neutrality

Yeah, it's autonomy. Autonomy, the two big things, autonomy and neutrality. Still in the man exercising reason. Thinking which submits to the elementary principles, that's the presuppositions of worldly philosophy and traditions of men, deludes men with crafty speech.

It misleads them into spiritual destruction. My father used to have, my father was not an educated man in a formal sense, but he's one of the wisest men that I ever knew. He was a very successful chef and everything he touched, he did very well.

But he worked in a college as a food service director and he would hobnob with the professors. They all loved my father, but he would tell them, he says, you know what, you're so smart, you're stupid.

Because they were so intellectual and they couldn't pay their bills. They didn't know how to go about buying a car. I mean, it was ludicrous. Neutrality in scholarship, apologetics or schooling is both impossible and immoral.

And we looked at that, remember the robbery of neutrality and the immorality of neutrality. There were two chapters in the book. There were two chapters that we looked at for those. No man can serve two masters and thus one must choose ground to ground his intellectual efforts in Christ or his own autonomous reason.

Notice the further we go, we keep laying it out. There is no neutrality. It's one thing or the other. You can't have it both ways. You can't serve two masters. There's no middle ground between two authorities.

Either you're under the authority of God or you're attempting to be under your own authority, which is a myth in and of itself. Neutrality would erase the distinctiveness of the Christian's position and muffle the antithesis between godly and ungodly thinking.

So why in the world would anybody, especially a Christian, want to promote neutrality? A Christian who strives to be neutral not only denies the lordship of Christ and knowledge, but he loses solid ground in reasoning.

And he's also unwittingly endorses assumptions which are hostile to his faith. This is what it's so sad. You know, you had some well-meaning Christians, true brothers, and yet they're trying to dwell in this neutral ground, and they don't realize that unwittingly they're endorsing assumptions that are actually hostile to Christianity.

The believer is a new man in Christ. And what does that mean? Being renewed in mind. It's not just the spirit. You know, and well, the mind is part of the spirit, but you understand what I'm saying. It's not just his spiritual sense, but it's also his intellectual capabilities.

Conversion requires repentance. And what is repentance? But a change of mind. Metanoia, meta and noose, change of mind from attempted autonomy. And he says as well, it's only attempted autonomy. Nobody can ever truly reach autonomy.

They can try, but they don't. The Christian walks by faith and the regenerating and illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, rather than by self-sufficient intellect. We always must acknowledge that we believe certain things in faith.

Why do we have presuppositions? Because we believe that God is true and that his word is true. So if I'm, there's a reason that I believe in the scriptures because God has revealed himself to us and he is the creator of all things.

His every thought is made captive to and rooted in Christ as his new Lord. And so he presupposes the truth of God's word and applies it to every aspect of his life, including intellectual activity.

Okay?

Including his intellectual activity. The believer must love the Lord, his God, with all his mind, seeking in all things, seeking to glorify him, even in the world of thought. I know by now you're getting this.

I get it, I get it. I hope so. But there's a reason. Bonson doesn't just repeat himself for no reason. And then there's this last part of the chapter is further crucial aspects of presuppositionalism.

Grace, Humility, and Common Revelation in Presuppositional Apologetics

Men come to presuppose the truth of God only by the grace of God. I want you to listen carefully to these last few points because this is where the rubber really meets the road. Notice, men come to presuppose the truth of God only by the grace of God.

Because it is the truth and grace of God which has transformed us, we must be bold in our challenge to intellectual belief. We can be bold because we understand how true it is because God has revealed this to us.

Since it is the grace of God, not our own wisdom, which accounts for our change of mind, humility is befitting the Christian scholar. As we have nothing in ourselves of which to boast, okay? Humility, humility, humility.

One of the problems with presuppositionalists, and I've seen this myself, is many of them tend to become very arrogant and almost boastful. We must never, because what have you gotten except God has given it to you?

We're not Christians because we're smarter than everybody else.

Yes?

Yeah, I've noticed that in certain videos that I've watched but I think Jeff Durbin actually does a really good job of depicting presuppositional engagement without becoming arrogant. So if anyone wants a reference to watch, I would highly.

Therefore, it must be humble boldness. That's not an oxymoron. You can be humble and bold at the same time. Not compromise, not obscurantism, nor arrogance, which characterizes our scholarship. All men are without excuse for rebellion against the Lord for all men know the living and true God by means of common revelation.

This is the beginning of the book of Romans. All men are without excuse for their rebellion because every man, that's why I say, don't accept when somebody says, I don't believe in God. They know enough about God, enough that they are without excuse, and that's right from the pages of scripture.

Despite his contrary profession, even the unbeliever knows what may be known about God from nature and from conscience. God has clearly revealed himself to every man. That's why men are without excuse and that they can't use it as an excuse.

And they can't say, I just don't believe that that's good for you, but it's not good for me. They know, and part of your apologetic is to keep on that track. And sooner or later, they will admit, at least to some extent, that they do know that there is a God out there.

They may not know him as the God of scripture, of course, but they know. All men attempt to suppress the knowledge of God as is manifested by the various multi-form and profuse schemes of anti-Christian thought and philosophy.

Everybody knows. How do you know that they know? Look at all the anti-Christian rhetoric. If they didn't believe, you don't find the same type of antagonistic thought to something that is of no consequence.

Who was it that was saying that, you know, they were having a discussion and he said, well, why don't you go against Santa Claus? You know, there's a Santa Claus down the street. If you don't like the Christmas story, why don't you go ahead and attack him?

And what did he say? Well, because he's not real. But because the unbeliever cannot rid himself of the knowledge of God, because he continues to use the borrowed capital of theistic truths, he is unable to come to a limited understanding of the truth about the word himself, the word and himself, despite, not because of his attempted autonomy.

God has created all things for himself, directs them to his own sovereign ends and owns everything, in which case everything in the created realm must serve him, okay? So do you realize the solid ground that you're standing on when you come with this position?

Just keep thinking of these things that Ponson is putting forth. This precludes the possibility of any neutral ground between the believer and unbeliever, but it assures us that there is abundant common ground between them since all men are God's creatures and live in God's word.

This is what we're talking about, that not neutral ground, but there is always common ground. There's things that we can talk about with the non-believer, which we have in common, but that does not mean that they are neutral.

As God's creature created in God's image and living in the environment which constantly brings the revelation of God to bear upon him, the unbeliever is always accessible to the gospel. The believer always has a point of contact with the unbeliever.

You get that? What he's saying here is that no matter what the person's viewpoint is, there's always going to be a point of contact.

Why?

Because they're both image bearers of God. The believer has a point of contact with the unbeliever, one, his being the image of God, and two, the suppressed truth deep inside him. That's the hardest one, the suppressed truth, because people can really suppress their feelings and you just have to know that it's there and try and work your way towards that.

It's kind of like an interrogation.

Okay?

Questions? I know that was a mouthful, that's a lot, but that was summarizing the first 11 chapters. Thoughts, comments? Yes, Joe?

Yes, could you explain what metaphysically speaking means?

It means it's the realm of being. When you talk about metaphysics, it's the being, who we are in that realm.

The study of reality.

Yeah.

The study of reality.

What's real and what's not.

So, when we look at things from a metaphysical point of view, what it means is there's a context for every fact that we hold to, and all these facts are interrelated. Like, Pastor, I'd spoken of in the beginning about the universals and the particulars, meaning the oneness of God and the unity of God.

We have all these facts that are all particulars, but they're unified because they all point to God. Every fact is not a fact in and of itself, it's dependent on something else. Every fact in our world view is connected somehow or another, so there's a unity of diversity.

Only the Christian God can offer that. There is no other God or non-God that can give you unity and diversity, okay, and interrelation between all these facts. How do you even have a fact on a world without intentionality, without rationality, and without purpose?

What is a fact? Why is a fact? And sometimes I'll say, well, that's just a brute fact, and I'll ask, well, does it have relation to anything else? Well, no, it's just a brute fact. I said, if it has no relation to anything else, then it's irrelevant, but you're using that brute fact to make your point, so it is relative to everything else.

Your world view cannot substantiate facts that are interrelated and dependent on one another.

Any other thoughts, questions? No, good, okay.