Chapter 1: Christian Apologetics by Van Til

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics, I'm your host Eli Ayala and today I am here with you live, kind of a surprise live stream, didn't know I was going to go live, just found the time this morning and figured why not.

Why Van Til’s Book Is the Best Place to Start

And so what I want to do in this video is I want to kind of explore this book here, okay? This is a little book entitled Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til. People ask me all the time, when someone wants to study presuppositional apologetics, what book should they start with?

And I typically tell people, don't start with Van Til, because Van Til can be a very challenging read. However, if someone wanted to venture into reading Van Til, I think the easiest place to start would be with this book Christian Apologetics.

And of course this is kind of a newer edition, it's edited by William Edgar, and I believe the notes, the footnotes in this book I think were provided by K. Scott Olyphant. Okay, now regardless of what you think of Olyphant and his interpretations and so forth, I still think it's a useful newer edition, so here you go.

Now what I want to do is I want to broadly summarize the first chapter of this book. And I think in understanding the first chapter, it really sets the foundation for the presuppositional apologetic method in general.

So I think it's very important to understand where Van Til is coming from. And when I say that, I'm not going to be going into kind of the historical influences like Abraham Kuyper or, what's his face, B .B. Warfield and others.

I'm kind of speaking in more simpler terms in terms of the importance for Van Til of having apologetics flow from one's theology. And I think that's very relevant with respect to the first chapter of this book.

And so that's what I want to do. I highly recommend, once again, highly recommend folks pick this up if you're wanting to jump into Van Til. And you want to just be very careful with some other texts that he's written.

They can be very, very difficult. Now if you were to ask the question, why is Van Til difficult to understand, well, there are any number of reasons, okay? Number one, English was not his primary language, and so his writing can come off a little clunky.

And he is very wordy, which can be complicated for people to follow along. Also, he's interacting with philosophical schools of thought that the average person today really is not familiar with, at least if you haven't studied philosophy.

And of course, Van Til comes from a specific tradition within philosophy. He comes from a more continental philosophical tradition as opposed to what's very popular today, which is kind of the analytic philosophical tradition.

So Van Til speaks lots about big-picture issues, worldview issues. And of course, that's very, very important in understanding the presuppositional approach, as presuppositionalism within the Van Tilian school is a worldview-focused methodology.

And I think that's where apologetics needs to be, okay? Not to the exclusion, however, to discussing and interacting with specific data points and evidences and arguments. But I think as Christian apologists, we need to learn to have one foot in the evidence and the data and the other foot grounded in a consistent worldview perspective.

And I think Van Til helps us kind of keep those things in mind. I think Van Til calls us to be consistent in that regard. I think one of his main clarion calls is that our apologetics ought to be consistent with our theological convictions.

And of course, for Van Til, his theological convictions kind of placed him straight within the Reformed perspective, okay? So this comes up a lot, too. So Van Til's Reformed theology is very relevant to his apologetic.

And this question comes up all the time. Can you be non-Reformed and still use a presuppositional approach? I mean, you have some Arminians that try to use presuppositional aspects and elements within their methodology.

You have Eastern Orthodox people, especially within the current context and online, the online community. You have Eastern Orthodox individuals trying to utilize a presuppositional approach. But I think that Van Til specifically intentionally sought to develop an apologetic methodology that flows out of a consistent application of his Reformed theological foundations.

And so I think presuppositionalism fits best within a Reformed understanding of God, a Reformed understanding of man, the relationship between man and God, and things relating to issues of epistemology and some of the various metaphysical assumptions that are baked into those sorts of paradigms.

And so these are super things that are important, okay, to keep in mind. Now, again, I'm not going to be quoting from the book. I want to broadly outline kind of the gist of what Van Til is doing in his first chapter, okay?

The System of Christian Truth as the Foundation of Apologetics

Now, I think it's interesting that his first chapter's title is I'm going to turn to it here. And this is I think this is so important. I think it sets it really sets the groundwork for understanding a presuppositional approach.

The first chapter I don't know if you can see that there is entitled The System of Christian Truth, The System of Christian Truth, okay? Now, that's super important because before you get into the kind of the apologetics material in Van Til, he emphasized the importance of first understanding the system that we're seeking to defend, all right?

So in the first chapter, Van Til introduces us to the system of Christian truth, and he begins by emphasizing that the systematic and coherent nature of Christian truth is what we need to be understanding and we need to be starting with, right?

So unlike other worldviews, which are often fragmented, inconsistent, Christianity offers from Van Til's perspective and, of course, from mine as well, Christianity offers a unified and harmonious system of truth that encompasses all aspects of reality, okay?

So this is kind of the big picture that I think is super important to keep in mind. And so this coherence of the Christian worldview stems from the belief that all truth, okay, all truth originates from the self-contained, self-sufficient God of the Bible.

That's a language that is often used within Van Tilian circles, right? He is the self-contained, self-sufficient God of the Bible. And so this God, okay, as presented in Scripture, who is independent and the source of all truth, provides the foundation for the entire system of Christian doctrine.

And so Van Til really underscores that understanding that this system is crucial for a robust and effective apologetic, okay? So our understanding of God, okay, is related to the strength of our apologetic.

Our understanding of the nature of revelation is going to be related to our apologetic because apologetic is what? It flows from a worldview, okay? Now, I'm going to stop every now and then to sip my coffee.

Give me just a second. This is my favorite little cup. I got like a little heater. It keeps my coffee hot. I do not like cold coffee or room temperature coffee. It's just not right, okay? But anyway, let me put this book over here.

All right. Okay. So starting with theology, okay, Van Til speaks of what he calls the self-contained God, okay? And so Van Til explains in the first chapter that the Christian worldview really starts with what he calls the self-contained God of the Bible, okay?

And so God is self-contained. He's independent. He's self-sufficient. And he's the source of all truth. And God has aseity. This is kind of within traditional theological categories. We're affirming that God is ase.

He exists ase. He exists not dependent or contingent upon anything external to himself, okay? Now, this foundational belief really undergirds the entire system of Christian truth. And so in contrast to, say, the autonomous man-centered perspectives, which are often prevalent in non-Christian worldviews, and I would argue in non-presuppositional apologetic methodologies, right?

Christianity asserts that all knowledge and understanding are grounded in God's self-revelation. And so this means that our starting point in defending the faith must always be God and his revelation rather than any supposed, you know, what we'd call neutral ground, okay?

Kind of, you know, we talked about neutrality in other videos as well, this idea that we can come to an issue without presuppositions. We're completely objective, right? We don't have these pre-commitments impacting, that that's not what we're dealing with here, okay?

We are starting from a uniquely distinct Christian worldview position grounded in the ontological triune God who's revealed himself both in general and special revelation. More specifically, with respect to the special revelatory aspect, he's revealed himself in the scriptures, okay?

Very, very important in understanding Van Til. Again, in the first chapter entitled The System of Christian Truth, he emphasizes the importance of systematic theology, okay? Let me see if I could find it here.

Let me see if I can get this here. I don't have all of the quotes pulled up here. Well, again, just to highlight this idea of starting with worldviews I think is helpful. If you just go to the first page and if you have this book and you're reading, you're listening to this video.

If you have this book, if you open to the first chapter, I think it's interesting that the opening lines of the book is a definition that Van Til offers of apologetics. And when he offers the definition, this idea of worldviews is baked in there, and that's kind of really relating to the system of truth, the system of Christian truth, okay?

He says apologetics in page one is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life. And that phrase, philosophy of life, refers to a worldview.

It refers to the system of Christian truth. It refers to literally the title of the chapter, the system of Christian truth. And so to defend the system of Christian truth, we need to know what that system of Christian truth is.

And so in this regards, the issue of systematic theology is going to be very important. And here on page 23, Van Til says,. And then he goes to say,. And of course, moving on from there, he kind of goes through the basic categories of systematic theology.

Why? Why does Van Til begin with systematic theology? Because you cannot talk about something like apologetics without talking about its foundation. And what is the foundation? It's the biblical theological truths, okay?

It's the system of Christian truth, all right? And so he begins to go through the categories of theology, and he talks about the nature of the self-contained God, right? He talks about the doctrine of God.

He talks about the Trinity, right? Van Til discusses the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity within the Christian system of truth, you know? The triune God, the triune nature of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for Van Til, provides a basis for unity and diversity within creation, right?

This reflects God's own nature as a perfect unity and diversity. And so the Trinity, for Van Til, is not an abstract theological concept, but rather it's a central doctrine that influences every other aspect of Christian belief and practice.

And so it shows how different parts of the Christian system of truth fit together, basically reinforcing that coherence and the richness of the Christian worldview, and the triune God's ability to bring together both unity and plurality and to bring things into coherence, okay?

And so Van Til speaks in the first chapter of the importance of the Trinity to Christian theology. He also discusses issues relating to creation and providence, okay? Van Til covers the doctrines of creation and providence, explaining that God is the creator and the sustainer of all things.

Now, this is really important, because one of the fundamental presuppositions and starting points for Van Til is what we might call the creator-creature distinction, okay? This is very important, because there is a distinction between creator and creature.

We cannot put the creator at the same level as the creature. And a lot of heretical views are heretical views, because they blur that distinction, okay? And so you go right there to Genesis 1, verse 1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, right there, the opening sentence of the book of Genesis. You have the creator-creature distinction. In the beginning, God, the creator, created the heavens and the earth, the creation.

And so right there, the opening verse of the Bible, you have this distinction between creator and that which is created, setting up the proper metaphysical relationship between the maker and everything that the maker has made, okay?

Now, when we talk about the doctrines of creation and providence, these doctrines affirm that the universe is not self-sufficient, right? But depends on God's continuous involvement. These are very important, this idea of God's creation and providence, okay?

Creation reveals God's power and wisdom, right? While providence assures us that he governs all things according to his sovereign will, right? God is sovereign. And this understanding, I think, rejects any form of things like deism or naturalism, right?

Which denies God's ongoing involvement in his creation. And so instead, it affirms that every aspect of the universe is under God's control and purpose, okay? Providing a firm foundation for understanding the world around us.

And incidentally, I want to say incidentally, coincidentally, this also has implications with respect to how we understand, you know, things like the uniformity of nature and the fact that God, through his sovereign will, governs the world through certain means.

And they reflect the orderly character and nature of God himself, okay? So again, these are kind of key points to keep in mind. Of course, for Van Til, revelation is key, okay? Van Til distinguishes between general revelation and special revelation, which is a typical classical distinction within the study of systematic theology.

You know, general revelation refers to God's self-disclosure in nature, which is accessible to all people. And this is why it's called general, while special revelation refers to God's self-disclosure in scripture or his self-disclosure through prophets or miracles, these sorts of things.

And so both forms of revelation for Van Til are essential for a complete understanding of God's truth. General revelation reveals God's existence and his attributes, leaving humanity on a polygate, too, says Romans chapter 1 says, without excuse.

However, due to sin's distortion, special revelation in scripture is necessary, right, to provide clarity and to give us a fullness of God's redemptive plan. And so scripture serves as the interpretive key to fully grasp the message of general revelation, right?

And this pretty much ensures that we rightly understand and respond to God's revelation and creation and history. And so those two aspects of revelation, I think, are vitally important for Van Til and I think are vitally important for us as Christians doing theology and understanding aspects of the system of Christian truth.

Biblical Anthropology, the Image of God, and the Fall

OK, Van Til also goes on to discuss biblical anthropology. OK, now, anthropology, just broadly speaking, is the study of man. You have the Greek word there, anthropos, OK, and ology. We can kind of think of ology as like the study of, so biology, the study of life, anthropology, the study of man, you know, let me see, eschatology, which we'll talk a little bit about the study of last things.

So there you go. So a biblical anthropology. Now, if you were to go to, you know, some university and take like an anthropology class, you might learn about man's evolutionary history and how man has come to us in the state that he is now from, you know, less complex, more simpler organisms.

And so that's one way to approach the topic of human anthropology. However, Van Til, I think, emphasized, and of course, any systematic theology worth its salt is going to emphasize that the Bible has a particular anthropology.

OK, the nature of man is different within a biblical conception of God as opposed to a secular conception of man. OK, for the Bible, man is the pinnacle of God's creation. We are made in the imago Dei, OK, that gives us value.

Of course, the Bible teaches that God created us with various capacities and things like that. And so man's importance stands out. And as an apologetic, I think it's important to understand man's role and importance, especially with respect to things that we have to deal with today, with respect to gender identity.

And what does it mean to be a man and what does it mean to be a woman? That's part of apologetics, too, as these are the sorts of things that we're having to contend with when we interact with the world today.

And so being grounded in the theological, anthropological perspective, right, the biblical view of what it means to be a man and a woman is vitally important in doing apologetics. And so it's wrapped up in Van Til's concept of the system of Christian truth being the bedrock out of which our apologetic derives.

OK, so with respect to the doctrine of man, Van Til discusses the biblical doctrine of man, that man is created in the image of God. Of course, he doesn't discuss this without talking about the fall of man into sin and its implications for human knowledge and understanding.

These are related sin for Van Til and, of course, for scripture. Sin has profoundly distorted human perception of truth, right, leading to basically a need for the redemption and restoration of our souls and our minds through Christ.

So Christ does not simply save our souls. He also saves our minds, as our minds must be renewed and moving away from the mind that is the product of men being in Adam, in bondage to sin and so forth. And so the image of God in man for Van Til is that it must be renewed, and of course for the Bible as well.

The image of God in man is marred, but I think this is a key point, and a lot of people who critique Reformed understandings of this get this wrong. The image of God in man is marred, but it's not obliterated.

It's not destroyed. It's not removed, which means that while humans still reflect God's character, they do so imperfectly. And so this understanding, I think, highlights the necessity of a renewed mind, as I said before, through the work of the Holy Spirit, enabling believers to rightly know and understand God and his word.

And so Van Til kind of unpacks his understanding of what the Bible has to say with respect to the nature of man. All right, I'm going to take a quick coffee sip there. Now when I have my coffee, I get a little bougie bougie, right?

So I have this mug, as I said before, but then what I do is I put whipped cream on the top. I ate all the whipped cream, and then I sprinkle it with cinnamon. So good. Oh my goodness. So relaxing and therapeutic.

One second. All right. I should sip in the microphone so people can get the sense of the bubbles and the taste. You know, kind of a 4D experience, right? Okay, let me actually get one more. All right.

Christology and the Centrality of the Incarnation

Okay, so moving through the categories of systematic theology, Van Til again also discusses the importance of the doctrine of Christ. Within systematic theological categories, this is the topic known as Christology.

And so Van Til elaborates on the centrality of Christ in the Christian system of truth. Christ is the fulfillment of God's redemptive plan and the ultimate revelation of God to humanity. You see this in the book of Hebrews, for example.

I mean, look at the growing buildup and culmination that the writer of Hebrews gives to the revelation of Jesus Christ. Okay, let's go to Hebrews real quick. Let me actually go here. I'll share it on the screen here.

Let's do this. So we're going to do ESV. Let's do Hebrews 1. All right. Not Hebrews 11. Okay, there we go. Typo. Okay, Hebrews 1. All right, I'm going to share this on my screen. There we go. And look at the buildup here.

All right, we're going to do this here. So I don't know if you can see that. It's not the best situation here. Let's see here. I'm going to do this. Let's see here. I don't know how to. Well, if you if you can see that.

Okay, look what it says here. It says that long ago and many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Okay. But but in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

And I love not related directly to what I wanted to get to, but I love verse three and four highlighting the superiority of Christ. Okay. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down, indicating the completeness and finished nature of his work at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Having become as much superior to angels as the name is inherited is more excellent than theirs. Okay. Now, this is important because look what it says. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

And so this is really much in line with what the scriptures teach with respect to when Jesus says in the gospel of John, you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life, but it's they that speak of me.

That's right. It's the Old Testament scriptures, the writings of the prophets, the writings of most all of those things pointed to the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so, again, I appreciate, therefore, Van Til's emphasis on the importance of understanding and elaborating upon the doctrine of Christ.

Okay. That through his incarnation, the incarnation, the life, the death and the resurrection of Christ, Christ reveals the fullness of God's nature and provides the means for salvation. Okay. And Van Til goes on to explain the fact that he is both fully God and fully man uniquely qualified to bridge the gap between a holy God and a sinful humanity.

Okay. This central doctrine for Van Til, for me, for Christians attuned to the importance of this theological doctrine, this doctrine ensures that all aspects of Christian truth are grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is the cornerstone of our faith.

Now, again, this is just a survey of systematics. Okay. But it is central to understanding the system of Christian truth, which is the object of our apologetics. Okay. Very, very important. This is why Van Til in chapter one goes through this.

And of course, he moves through the doctrine of salvation as well. Okay. Van Til outlines the doctrine of salvation. The fancy, you know, $20 term for the doctrine of salvation is soteriology. Soteriology.

Soteriology, the Church, and Eschatological Hope

And so Van Til outlines this doctrine, emphasizing the necessity of God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing individuals to faith. Okay. This is this is a standard fare for those who share Cornelius Van Til's reformed convictions.

Right. Salvation for Van Til is part of the coherent system of Christian truth. Right. Demonstrating God's justice in the way that he deals with sin and his mercy and providing redemption to sinners who don't deserve it.

Right. And so this doctrine encompasses the entirety of the salvation process from from election, calling, regeneration, justification, sanctification, deglorification, showing the comprehensive nature of God's redemptive work.

And so it affirms that salvation is entirely of God's grace received through faith and results in the transformed life that reflects God's holiness and love. Okay. Very, very important. Now, this sounds kind of, oh, well, you know, God loves us.

But understanding the nature of God's love is theological and, by the way, has immense apologetic implication. For it is a distortion of God's love that often gives birth to misunderstandings. Well, I get this question all the time.

How can a loving God send people to hell? And the answer is because God is not only loving. Right. He is also holy. He is also just. He is also wrathful against sin. We have an imbalanced view of God and we have an we have an anemic, so to speak, theological perspective that we're unable to actually defend the biblical position with respect to the nature of God and how we interact with questions like that.

Okay. This is this is this is a problem. This is why I think it's so vitally important that Vantill starts with the importance of systematic theology. Right. This is so important. Now, moving on, Vantill, moving through the realm of systematics, also focuses on the importance of understanding the doctrine of the church.

Okay. So Vantill addresses the doctrine of the church. Again, the twenty dollar word here is ecclesiology. Ecclesiology is the study of the church. So Vantill addresses this, highlighting its role as the community of believers and the body of Christ.

And so, again, these are biblical categories as well. So pretty much the church is essential for nurturing faith, providing fellowship, proclaiming the truth of the gospel to the world. Right. It serves as a tangible expression of God's kingdom on Earth, where believers gather for worship, teaching and pretty much mutual edification.

Right. So the church's mission is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching people to obey all that Christ has commanded.

And so this doctrine really emphasizes the importance of communal life and communal witness to Christ, ensuring that believers grow in their faith and effectively reach out to a lost world. Okay. So church is super important, not simply the building of the church, but the nature of the unification of all those who genuinely follow Christ.

Okay. Real quick, there is a question with respect to the book that I am talking about here in the first chapter. This is Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Vantill, edited by William Edgar. The notes are provided, I think, by K. Scott Oliphant.

I hope that's... No, maybe the notes are from William Edgar. I don't remember. I know that K. Scott Oliphant edited one of the other books. Maybe I've gotten that wrong. I do apologize. And if Dr. Oliphant watches this, I apologize if I mix that up.

But yes, it is published by PNR, someone is asking. Let's see here. There we go. So yes, it is published by PNR. Okay. And again, and so this is kind of, it comes with a string of new editions. I mean, I wish I can get it.

I like to flex when I read the Defense of the Faith, which is Vantill's most popular work, I think most important work. I have the newer edition with all the updated notes and stuff. But I also have, and people have seen me flex this on the channel a while back.

I also have a signed copy of the Defense of the Faith, signed by Cornelius Vantill himself. Let me actually go get it. I'm actually looking at it right now. I've shown this before, but I'm going to do it again.

Okay? Because, you know, it's so cool. All right, I'm back. So here is... It doesn't even have a cover. My cover ripped off. Here is my copy. I don't know if you can see it. It's signed by Vantill right there on the top.

This signature was provided in, I think, December, if I could read it from the screen, 14, 1973. Okay? And it says here, Bill Shishko. This is Pastor Bill Shishko, awesome pastor and mentor of mine some years back.

He also, Pastor Bill Shishko, if the name sounds familiar, he actually debated Dr. James White on the issue of baptism. Of course, Shishko being like Vantill, Shishko being a Presbyterian and Dr. James White being, of course, a Reformed Baptist.

I think Shishko did a really good job in that debate. I hold to Reformed Baptist convictions myself. I thought those are really good debates. So if you're interested, James White versus Bill Shishko. But he was also a mentor of mine, and he knew Vantill.

He knew Dr. Bonson. And every time I would meet with Pastor Shishko, he would always let me leave his office with a handful of books. So we had a really cool library with a lot of Reformed writings. And of course, because he knew Vantill and Bonson, there were a lot of material there.

And so I was able to finagle that copy from him. It took me a while. He's like, no, I don't know if I want to part with that one. But eventually he broke and he let me have that. And of course, when I took this book from Dr. Shishko, and it's got all the highlights in it, too.

I think it's pretty cool. Let me see here. Let me see here. Let me see if you can see that. It's got the highlights and underlines and whatnot. When I opened the book up, a piece of paper kind of fell onto my lap and it was actually a letter written by Vantill.

But you can tell that he was very old because the writing is very shaken, very sloppy. You know, and I don't it's so bad I can't read it, but it was pretty cool. You can kind of recognize the signature there at the end.

But super cool. It's kind of a geeking out moment here. All right. But let me let me return to the task at hand. All right. OK, so again. So Vantill highlights the importance of the church. OK, and this is important.

It's not something that should be passed by. OK, and I think Dr. White talked about this a lot in various talks that he's given and the importance of the role of the church and doing apologetics. If you're doing apologetics, you should be connected to a local body there.

You know, the church also offers, I think, from a very important perspective, accountability. And so it's important to kind of have those structures in place when doing apologetics. OK. All right. And of course, Vantill concludes with the doctrine of last things or eschatology.

And so this doctrine really provides Christians with hope and assurance of God's ultimate victory over sin and evil. Right. This is what Dr. Bonson, there's a video floating around there on YouTube where he says, you know, when I debate, he says, I'm really not afraid of any opponent that comes by.

And he says, and it's not because I'm prideful or because I think I'm super smart. He goes, because I've read the back of the book. All right. He knows what happens at the end. Right. God has told us what we need to know about the unbeliever and equipping us to interact with them.

And of course, if the Bible's true, the believer stands on the very wisdom of God. OK, we stand on the foundation of God's word. And what does the unbeliever have to stand on? Well, obviously, he is standing upon a foundation of sand that might look, you know, powerful.

There are some pretty nice looking sandcastles out there. OK, you go to those like those beach competitions where people make these, you know, these elaborate sandcastles. I mean, they're great. They're fancy.

It is even the case that I might not be able to build a sandcastle that is so complex and so immense. However, when the storm comes, will it last? Will it last? And of course, we know that it will not.

Right. So the Christian stands on a firm foundation and we have the hope that in the end we are victorious. OK, this is the value, I think, of eschatology. And so Van Til kind of concludes with the issues of eschatology or the study of last things.

And he discusses how this offers us the hope and assurance that we have God's ultimate victory over sin and evil. And it points to the future restoration of creation. And that's important, too, and the fulfillment of God's redemptive purposes.

OK, again, reinforcing the coherence and completeness of the Christian system of truth. And so the promise of Christ's return, for example, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment really encourages believers to live in light of eternity.

OK, and with and we ought to live with confidence that God's kingdom will be fully realized and that they will share, we will share in his eternal glory. That's super important because that's not just an issue of generic theology.

That is the Christian hope that we have. And to live in light of eternity and to do apologetics in light of eternity and evangelism in light of eternity, understanding all of the theological and biblical truths that are true and go with us as we go forth to proclaim the gospel, I think ought to be a great encouragement.

For example, when you take a doctrine like the sovereignty of God, it brings great comfort knowing that my job is to be a faithful conveyor and messenger of the gospel, to be able to defend the gospel, but that the conversion of the heart is the job of the Holy Spirit.

That's not my job. That brings great relief, right? Understanding that it is God who brings about that result. And so understanding the system of Christian truth, again, for Van Til, was foundational.

It is foundational. Okay? And that's why I think this is why he covers it in the first chapter, setting that foundation. Okay? Now, I am tempted, but then I'd have to make another thumbnail if I summarize the second chapter.

So, if there are any questions, maybe I can take a few questions and then we'll wrap this up. Again, this was kind of a last second. I decided to come on live. If there are any questions about apologetics, theology, I can try my best to answer them.

If not, you know, we'll end things here, and that's okay as well. And if you guys like this format, I will, you know, next video that I make, I'll cover chapter two. I can't promise. I promised in the past to go through certain books, and it's just time gets away.

I get busy. It's hard to kind of read the book and kind of gather my thoughts and just jump on. But if you like this, I will try my best to walk through chapter two or random chapters and maybe go through in order.

I'm not sure. But anyway, so while questions are coming in, if they're coming in, I just want to remind folks, if you really appreciate what I do here, you can support Revealed Apologetics. It is greatly needed and appreciated.

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So I have two different courses. One is an introduction to biblical apologetics, so it's kind of a basic introduction to presuppositional apologetics. When I say basic, it's somewhere between basic and intermediary, but easy enough to follow.

And then I have a second course that I just released called Presupp Applied, where I cover how to navigate apologetic conversations, how to apply presupp to atheism, Roman Catholicism, presuppositional Eastern Orthodoxy and the cults.

And so it comes with five lectures and the presentations and so on. And so if people are interested in that and they're interested in supporting Revealed Apologetics, you can sign up for those as well.

And I also have some conferences that were recorded with various theologians and speakers covering a wide variety of topics. So those are some of the ways that you can support Revealed Apologetics. And of course, super chats are always, always welcome as well.

Any support would be greatly appreciated. I am super excited and I know I'm talking super fast. Maybe it's because it's the morning. I'm so I'm so not used to talking in the morning. I'm usually doing my show late at night.