Pushing the Antithesis

The Meaning of Antithesis in Presuppositional Apologetics

What is antithesis? Now this term is very important when you are studying presuppositional methodology. This term often comes up quite a bit. It comes up in Cornelius Van Til and the writings of Dr. Greg Bonson, and this is an important concept.

So there are a lot of important terms that one needs to become familiar with to kind of understand what's going on here. So what I want to do in this video is define for you the concept of antithesis within kind of a presuppositional apologetic methodology, okay, within that kind of context.

So what is antithesis? Now the word antithesis is based upon two Greek words, anti or ante, against, and tetheni, to set or place. Antithesis speaks of opposition or a counterpoint. As Christians, we need to recognize the fundamental disagreement between biblical thought and all forms of unbelief at the foundational level of our theory of knowing and knowledge.

Worldview Apologetics and the Christian-Nonchristian Divide

Now presuppositional apologetic methodology is a worldview apologetic. That's to say that the presuppositionalist brings the Christian system of thought to bear upon the unbeliever, while not allowing the unbeliever's system of thought to borrow from the Christian system of thought, okay?

When the presuppositionalist, for example, makes the argument that without the truth of Christian theism, one would not have a foundation for intelligible experience, we are in essence inviting the unbeliever to engage such an argument by showing us whether he or she is able, given their own worldview system, to ground things like logic, knowledge, science, etc.

If the unbeliever thinks he can have these things independent of God and his revelation, then he's going to receive no help from the Christian system of thought, right? So the unbeliever in essence will have to ground intelligible experience given his own unbelieving and God-denying presuppositions.

Now, while the believer and unbeliever can agree on a surface level with regards to any particular fact, there is a fundamental disagreement as to the nature of facts. You see, the believer sees every fact as finding its origin, meaning, and cogency within the context of God and his revelation.

The unbeliever either implicitly or explicitly denies this. So because the believer and unbeliever have two diametrically opposed worldview systems at the fundamental level, they're going to interpret facts in particular and reality as a whole in general in different ways because of kind of the two different worldview systems.

Rejecting Neutrality and Autonomy

Now, because the conflict between believing and unbelieving thought are diametrically opposed to one another, there can be no fact or item of human experience that can be understood in a neutral and autonomous fashion.

Now again, those are two important terms within kind of the presuppositional methodology and system of thought. Neutrality and autonomy are two very important concepts that perhaps we'll cover in another video.

But again, I'm throwing out these words here, but let's focus in on this idea of antithesis. Now, the believer's intellectual commitment, okay, to Christ requires that he does not give an inch with regards to understanding any and every fact in light of God and his revelation.

Pushing the Antithesis at Every Point

And it's because we're convinced that facts cannot have any meaning independent of the father of facts, which is God himself, that we want to, as Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bonson has put it, we want to push the antithesis, okay?

Push the antithesis. We want to push that point of conflict between the Christian system of thought and the non-christian system of thought, okay? So we want to push that fundamental point of difference between the Christian worldview and the non-christian worldview, so that we maintain the lordship of Christ over every fact while at the same time exposing the inability of the unbeliever to ground anything whatsoever, given his intellectual rebellion against his creator, okay?

And with regards to pushing this antithesis, this point of pressure of disagreement between the two worldviews, we do not seek only to push this antithesis at some point in our interaction with unbelieving thought, but rather we seek to push the antithesis at every point, so as to demonstrate that unless a fact be understood in light of God and his revelation, then no fact would be truly understood at all.