Always Ready: Part 2 & 3: The Immorality of Neutrality & The Nature of Unbelieving Thought

The Purpose of the Series and the Book *Always Ready*

This is the second part of our series in apologetics. And we're using Greg Vonson's book, Always Ready. It's helpful if you have the book, but it's not absolutely necessary. I do quote extensively from it.

And this is part two. Last week, we covered the introduction to the book and then the first chapter, which was the robbery of neutrality. All right, and then we have the illustration of the house. And what we're doing is we're really laying the foundation right now of learning how to build upon our faith.

So just a couple of things to review. Remember, apologetics is simply the defense of the faith, not saying I'm sorry for it, but defending it in a real meaningful way. Presuppositional apologetics is the defense of the faith with certain truths being presupposed and non-negotiable.

And we'll expand more on that in the first half of this evening. The book, Always Ready, is an explanation and application of the presuppositional apologetic method. We get the term apologetics from 1 Peter 3 .15, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense.

That's the Greek word apologia. That's where we get the whole term apologetics from. Always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

And if you remember, we spent a good deal of time talking about what it means with gentle and reverence last week. Apologetics is something that can get very contentious. And as believers, we are not supposed to be in that mode when we are defending the faith, but do it with gentleness and with reverence.

We began last week with section one of the book. Remember, the book is divided into five sections and with several chapters, usually five or six chapters in each section. The first section is the Lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge.

That's one of our presuppositions. First chapter was called the Robbery of Neutrality. And we get that from Colossians 2 .8. One of the things you'll see, Paul's epistles have a lot to do with apologetics, and specifically Colossians 8.

They would be excellent books to do studies on, because most of Paul's epistles were written with a very particular goal or aim in mind. We know, for example, Galatians was to refute the heresy of the Judaism, and we know that 1 John was to, in fact, let's see, who remembers what was 1 John?

What was the scope that John wrote his first letter to refute? But there was a particular philosophy he was, it's not mentioned in it. Yes, the Gnostics.

The Gnostics.

Well, but so is 1 John.

OK.

So anyway, so here we have now Colossians. See to it that no one takes you captive. Another translation of that is that nobody robs you. That's where Boston gets his title from. See to it that no one robs you through vain philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the word, rather than according to Christ.

This is still under review, but this is the opening paragraph for chapter 2 in his book. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found in Christ. Thus, if one were to try and arrive at the truth apart from commitment to the epistemic authority of Jesus Christ, he would be robbed through vain philosophy and deluded by crafty deceit.

I chose to put this up in toto because it really is a good summary of what we discussed last week, the robbery of neutrality. And continues, consequently, when the Christian approaches scholarship, apologetics, or schooling, he must staunchly refuse to acquiesce to the mistaken demands of neutrality in his intellectual life.

He must never consent to surrender his distinctive religious beliefs, for the time being as though one might thereby arrive at the general knowledge impartially.

All right.

Remember, when you see the yellow printing, what does that mean?

It's a quote from the book.

Quote from the book. White italics? Quote from the Bible. I just put that up there so you know the difference, OK? Because obviously, what has more authority?

The Bible.

All right.

Now, this is the opening paragraph to chapter 2. And like I say, it's an apt summary of the whole first chapter, which is why I put it up. But notice what his presupposition is, if you will. We must never come to a debate or a study or any sort of academics and say, OK, we can put the Bible aside and start on neutral ground.

All right.

And just from the first chapter, we're going to expand on that in the second chapter. Because the first chapter, he titled it the robbery of neutrality. And the second chapter, he calls the immorality of neutrality.

OK?

And this kind of tells you why. Why would he say that it was immoral? Why would he say that you are being robbed by the myth of neutrality? Just from what we've learned so far.

Come on.

If you're not standing on God's word, you're standing on man's opinion.

Yes.

He calls it the myth of neutrality for a reason. There is no neutrality. To put the Bible aside is not to come to neutral ground. It's to jump over onto the secular humanist side. So there is no such thing as neutral.

That's why you'll constantly hear it referred to as the myth of neutrality.

Yes.

Last week, I loved what Sarah said. The other side would be asking us to set the Bible aside. They don't set aside their presuppositions.

No, you're absolutely right. And she was.

All right?

And notice what he says. We must staunchly refuse to acquiesce to the mistaken demands of neutrality. Because there's literally no such thing as neutrality. And you will never arrive at genuine truth, quote, impartially.

All right?

So we're still under the section of the lordship of Christ in the realm of knowledge. This is the immorality of neutrality. Attempting to be neutral in one's intellectual endeavors, whether research, argumentation, reasoning, or teaching, is tantamount to striving to erase the antithesis between Christian and the unbeliever.

And notice what he's saying. If you attempt to do this, what you're doing immediately is you're doing away with or erasing the gulf that stands between a believer and a nonbeliever. And if there's one thing, if you've read even just a cursory view of the Bible, you will understand clearly that there is a gulf between the thinking of the Christian and the thinking of the nonbeliever.

There is no mixing of the two. And this is still an opening part of his chapter. And he's going to get a little bit more in depth on it. This is not something the Christian can do. If neutrality is attempted, then being set apart by God's truth is sacrifice.

What's the biblical word for set apart that we see all the time? Sanctify. The number one goal for the Christian is to be sanctified. 1 Thessalonians 4 .3, this is the will of God for your life, your own sanctification.

We are constantly being, in fact, even 1 Peter 3 .15, what is that? But sanctify Christ in your hearts. Then give a defense. So if you try to take a neutral stance, you're erasing this gulf that stands between the believer and the nonbeliever, which is the number one goal that the Bible has for the Christian, is to become more like Christ, that is to be set apart.

The line between the believer and nonbeliever is obscured. Still in the first chapter, or second chapter, keeping in mind Proverbs 1 .7 and Colossians 2 .3 -8, the result is not just a bad choice, and here where Bonson says it clearly, he says it's immoral.

What do we mean by immoral? Don't be confused by the wording. Yeah, I mean morality is an ethic. We have a tendency of thinking of morality just in the way of sensuality, but it's not that. Anything immoral is against morality, and all of God's law is moral law.

We refer to the Ten Commandments as what? The moral law. So it's not just certain, quote, sexual sins that are immoral. It's anything that violates God's Ten Commandments is considered immoral. Notice what he says, immoral, not amoral, and that's a big difference.

What's the difference between immoral and amoral, Sarah? Yeah, in other words, it's without it. It would be like, what are we trying to refute here? Neutrality. It would be like saying that there's such a thing as neutrality in the law, and there isn't.

It's either immoral or it's moral. There's no neutral zone. So in fact, it's not just a bad choice, it's immoral. It is, in fact, adopting the methodology of the Gentiles or the nonbelievers. That's the important point.

If you're asked to set aside your Christian values, they're not asking you to set aside Christian values into some sort of neutral zone, which there is none, but to come into their camp and argue from their basis.

And if you're going to try to argue from their presuppositions, how are you going to prove your own? It's not going to work. Ephesians 4, 17, 18, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk.

Look at what happens. You walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind. If you're putting aside your presuppositions, your biblical presuppositions, what are you doing? Exactly what Paul cautions you not to.

You're walking as the Gentiles walk. How is that? In the futility of their mind. Darkened in their understanding. Excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

Yeah, I think that's where I want to go to begin my argumentation. Think like a Gentile, yeah. You're better off walking like an Egyptian than thinking like a Gentile. So, Bonson goes on in his book, the culpable agnosticism of the world's intellectuals must not be reproduced in Christians as alleged neutrality.

Notice what he says. In fact, I wish I had underlined that, the culpable agnosticism. If you jump into their camp, what are you jumping into the camp of? Agnosticism. Because what they're saying is, let's pretend that none of this is true and let's try to prove it.

Well, what is that thinking? All you philosophy majors? That's agnosticism. This outlook, this approach to truth, this intellectual method evidences a darkened understanding and a hardened heart. It refuses to bow to the lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life, including scholarship in the world of thought.

And it's unfortunate that you even have aspects of the church of Jesus Christ that thinks in this way. That says, oh no, the Bible is true. Sure, the Bible is inerrant on religious matters, but not on every other area of life.

That's not what the Bible itself says. So neutrality is not some middle-of-the-road stance. It's a jumping over to the unbeliever's way of thinking. So it's a subtle trap. If you're involved in debate or an apologetic argument and somebody convinces you to put your presuppositions aside, you've adopted theirs, and what have you done?

You've put yourself in a very, very bad position, a non-biblical position, an immoral position.

Yes.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's a moral decision because the choice is to be sanctified by God's truth or to be alienated from the life of God. That's exactly what Paul said in Ephesians 4. If you walk like the Gentiles, what?

You're excluded from the life of God.

All right?

So there's the choice. It's not, well, you can be neutral or you can be thinking godly. No, it's not that. You're thinking ungodly or you're thinking godly. It's one or the other.

Yes.

So if you're sharing with an atheist who doesn't want to hear the Bible because he thinks the Bible was written by a bunch of trans men, what do you do?

You're getting way ahead of what we're doing tonight.

I'm sharing with God right now.

All right.

You come at it from the point that the Bible is truth and he even knows that it's true. You can answer some questions such as what is your basis for knowledge? What is your source of knowledge? And you can back him well into a corner.

We're going to go through probably in about two or three sessions. How do you go about this. Doing it apologetically. My goal tonight is just to lay the foundation as to why not to do it any other way.

All right?

Application is coming. And even some examples of exactly how to do it. But to try to do that before I lay the foundation is just putting the cart before the horse. Okay? But that's, of course, that's the $64 ,000 question.

Either the mind of Christ or the vain mind of Gentiles. Either bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ or continue as enemies in your mind. Notice the antithesis back and forth always.

And that's what we say. There can't be any neutrality because the Bible everywhere holds that there is an antithesis, a gulf between the thinking that comes under the lordship of Christ and according to the traditions of men.

That this is a true antithesis is proved by Paul's teaching in Ephesians 4. And I know here we are just showing the antithesis again because after describing the ignorance and the futility of the Gentiles, Paul says this, but you did not learn Christ after this manner.

See what I mean? So if somebody comes along and says, well, no, let's do it this way, you got to go back and point to the apostle Paul and say, no, but we didn't learn Christ that way. That's not how we have been taught to do it.

Remember, the Bible is comprehensive. We just went through several weeks, many weeks, a couple months even, on how to understand the Bible, how to interpret the Bible, and what the Bible is. Remember, what is the Bible?

It's infallible. It's inerrant. It promises to give us everything necessary for life and godliness. So here we see, you did not learn Christ after this manner. Not in the same way that the Gentiles come to their truth.

The Christian is completely different from the world when it comes to intellect and scholarship, not just good and bad behavior. I mean, of course that's there. The Bible does have an ethic that we are to follow, a morality we are to follow, but it's not merely that.

He does not follow the neutral methods of unbelief, but by God's grace, he has new commitments, new presuppositions in his thinking. I'm going to get to it a little bit later, I think in the next chapter, which hopefully we'll get to today.

And we'll come down and show that once and for all, there is no such thing as neutrality. It's a myth. He does not follow the neutral methods of unbelief, but by God's grace, he has new commitments, new presuppositions.

Everybody has presuppositions. Somebody who says, no, let's come to this from a blank slate, there's no such thing. It's impossible. There's an impossibility to wipe the slate clean. Because if you do, where's your source of truth?

What is going to be the basis for knowledge? How do you even know that what I'm speaking is English? Maybe it's a little more Brooklynese than English, but you get the point. A Long Islandized version of Brooklynese.

By denying his distinctive religious commitment, he has reduced to apostate thought patterns and absorbed into the world of unbelief. Attempting to find a compromise between the demands of worldly neutrality, which is nothing but agnosticism, and the doctrines of Christ's word, results in the rejection of Christ's distinctive lordship by obliterating the great gulf between the thinking of the old man and that of the new.

One of the biggest distinctions in scripture is what happens when you come to Christ. You put off the old man and put on the new. And if you're not doing that, if you try to go back into some sort of neutral zone, you're obliterating that too.

You're working against that. So you're actually working against your own sanctification. So it's not surprising that Bonson takes such a strong stance on this issue. And what I mean by that is calling it immorality.

The scripture is quite clear. Jesus said no one can serve two masters. It's impossible. Can't do it. James 4 .4, whoever therefore would be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And then Bonson concludes neutrality is nothing short of immorality.

And you can see how he comes to that conclusion. And he ends the chapter with an important question. Do you have the courage of your Christian distinctives in scholarship, apologetics, and schooling, or have you been trying to wipe out the contrast between Christian thought and apostate thought by following the demands of neutrality?

Put in biblical perspective, this question can be rephrased in this way. Does your thinking operate under the lordship of Jesus Christ, or have you become an enemy of God through neutral, agnostic, unbelieving thought patterns?

And then he puts up, choose you this day whom you will serve.

All right.

And you can see how he gets, you can see how he's laying the foundation. Last week we looked at the robbery of neutrality, the myth of neutrality, and here he comes up to the immorality of neutrality.

Any questions. Just on, again, just laying the foundation?

Yes.

So I know we don't have neutral ground, but we do have common ground in the sense that we're both image bearers of God.

Yes.

And we have a lot more common ground than that. If you've ever watched, especially if you've watched one of Greg Bonson's debates, one of his debates, what he says, and says it frequently, is the reason we can even have debate with nonbelievers is because they have actually jumped over to our point of view on several things in that there is knowledge, there is, you know, so there is a common ground that we can address.

And if they, well, let me give you the one example. Is there such a thing as absolute truth?

All right.

Are there absolute statements? And what happens if the atheist says no? Well, that was an absolute statement. So are you absolutely sure of that? And if he says no, well, then how can you be sure of anything?

See, and this gets back a little, jumping ahead to what your question was. When you have somebody who is rejecting anything to do with the scriptures, show them the utter futility of that type of thinking and the logic of it.

Because if you don't have some source of truth, that's why he calls this an epistemological argument as well, where your basis of knowledge comes from. That's your theory of knowledge. What is the basis for your knowledge?

Yeah, how do you know what you know?

Okay.

All right.

I think the next chapter is a little shorter, so I'm going to jump right to it. This is chapter three, which is the nature of unbelieving thought. And again, this is still laying the foundation. We're not anywhere near application yet.

In parts one and two of the present study, a discussion of the demand for neutrality in our scholarly apologetical or educational endeavors has shown it to lead to unfortunate results. One, it robs one of all the treasures of knowledge that there are.

Remember? Why is that? Because all the treasures and wisdom of knowledge are where? Where do we find those? Hidden in Christ. Secondly, a neutral approach to knowledge has been demonstrated to be immoral in character, allowing one's Christian distinctives to be muffled and finally integrated into the rebellious ways of an unbelieving mindset.

So that's two of the unfortunate results. And then finally, it has been noted that in reality, it is impossible for the genuine Christian to be neutral in his intellectual life, for such neutrality in a Christian would call for a dual commitment, one to secular agnosticism, one to saving faith.

In other words, serving two lords. You can see why the Christian can't do that. You cannot serve two masters. What then is the true nature of neutral thinking? That's the question we're going to answer now.

Ephesians 4. Now, we just went through this in the last chapter, but it's such an important portion of Scripture that I'm putting it up there again to emphasize it because it's that important. What is the nature of unbelieving thought?

Well, how do the Gentiles walk? Look at it again. The futility of their own mind. And remember, this is inspired by the Holy Spirit, which means that this analysis is absolute truth, darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God.

It is ignorant because of the hardness of their heart. Now, I'm just going to pause here for a minute. None of this is on the slide, and it's not in the book because a lot of what I'm going to say has happened after the book was written.

Can you look at this and say that this country has not reached that at the highest levels of intellectualism, political institutions, and even some religious institutions? What our latest nomination to the Supreme Court could not define what a woman is.

But think about that. Would you ever think that a nomination to the Supreme Court, one that's going to be one of nine judges that are going to rule on the most important issues that face our land, says, well, I don't know what a woman is.

I can't. I'm not a biologist. We can choose which gender we want to be based on my feelings. That's what I'm saying, okay?

Yeah.

So, I mean, we have seen, literally seen this come to, almost verbatim, come to reality in our society, which has, what, systematically tried to ban God from the classroom, from our political institutions, and from pretty much all public society.

And they're trying to. They can never do it. But they're at least trying to remove the symbols. Here's your answer right here. You can see, again, why Bonson calls it the immorality of neutrality. Thus, if a Christian wishes to begin his scholarly endeavors from a position of neutrality, he would, in actuality, be willing to begin his thinking in the dark.

This is why we are so strong in this church, in our apologetics, of coming, starting from our presuppositional point of view. And, again, I know it's going to be a few weeks before we get to define what that is exactly, but we'll get there.

To walk on in neutrality, he would be stumbling along in darkness. Romans 121, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

And, again, all I have to do is point, just pick up any paper of the week, and you'll see this type of thinking. Colossians 2 .8, see to it that no one takes you captive. It is that robs you through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

Notice the antithesis. Scripture doesn't give you choice. It's this or it's this, this rather than that. And I just want to pause here, because Bonson does in the book as well. This verse is not a universal condemnation of all philosophy.

I want to make that perfectly clear. We are not putting aside philosophy. In fact, there are many good theologians who take philosophy courses. I've taken philosophy courses. I've found them extremely helpful in understanding world history and other things.

But you can't start philosophy in the traditions of men. You have to start with the presuppositions of Scripture. Then you can make sense of philosophy. So what is Paul condemning here then? It's a warning concerning a certain type of philosophy.

Why do we not condemn philosophy? Because philosophy is defined, if you look at the Greek word, phileo and sophia, is what? The love of wisdom. And Paul never condemns that as long as it's genuine wisdom.

And what is the genuine wisdom? Notice what Paul does. He's talking specifically not only to the Colossians, but about the church in Laodicea in Chapter 2. And he says, Their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, attaining to all the wealth that comes from a full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, which is what?

In Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So again, philosophy in and of itself is not bad. It depends on what the starting point of philosophy is. And you're following along biblical guidelines.

And in fact, if you want to get a good overview of philosophy from a biblical worldview, R .C. Sproul has an excellent series on philosophy. And he goes through the history of philosophy. And it's a fascinating study.

What kind of thinking is it that can be characterized as vain? This is just defining some of the words. A ready answer is found by comparison and contrast in scriptural passages that speak of vanity. And I'm not going to go through these.

They're up there. And remember, this will be posted on the Reformed Rookie. So if you don't get everything here, if you want to copy some of these down, it will be up online. Vain thinking is that which is not in accord with God's word.

That's vanity. Remember, what is the main reason, main definition of the word vain? And it really doesn't have anything to do with pride. People think, well, he's so vain. Probably think this song is about you.

It's emptiness. Yes. It's emptiness. Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain. Don't use the Lord's name in an empty way. Every time you use the Lord's name, it should be to glorify him and whatnot.

That's why cursing is, you know, using the Lord's name in vain is using it in a way, in an empty and meaningless way. It should not be used that way.

All right.

So just a little aside. That's why I object to when I see in the email stuff, OMG, sorry, I don't like it. Compare it to scripture. I don't think we should be using it. Vain thinking is that which is not in accord with God's word.

A similar study will demonstrate that deceptive thinking is thought which is in opposition to God's word. And here again, we have a whole series of Bible verses that support that. The vain deception, against which Paul warns then, is philosophy which operates apart from and against the word of the truth of Christ.

Note the injunction of Ephesians 5 .6. Let no man deceive you with vain words.

Oops.

Let no man deceive you with vain words. In Colossians 2 .8, we are told to take care lest we are robbed through vain deceit. So it follows from these points that the Christian who strives for neutrality in the world of thought is, number one, not neutral after all, and two, is in danger of unwittingly endorsing assumptions that are hostile to his Christian faith.

While imagining that his intellectual neutrality is compatible with a Christian profession, such a believer is actually operating in terms of unbelief. If he refuses to presuppose the truth of Christ, he invariably ends up by presupposing the outlook of the world instead.

And this is my summary. All men have their presuppositions. None is neutral. And you can show that. If you ever get into a discussion with a nonbeliever, especially if he claims to be an atheist, he has his set of presuppositions.

And if you know how to do it, which hopefully this class will teach you a little bit how to do that, you can show their futility very, very easily. And if you want to see a good debate, see Greg Bonson versus Gordon Stein.

It's on video and it's also audio. And you can see the presuppositional method. And we did it. We made through two chapters in one night. Any questions? And again, this is just the foundation.