Presupp vs. Classical Apologetics: Is There REALLY a Difference?

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In this episode, Eli Ayala interviews Dr. James Anderson of Reformed Theological Seminary, to discuss the methodological differences between the Presuppositional & Classical approaches to apologetics.

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Elias Ayala. And today
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I have with me Dr. James Anderson from Reformed Theological Seminary. And this is the second time coming on.
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You definitely want to check out our previous discussion where we talked about the nature of transcendental arguments.
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So a lot of people have been expressing an appreciation of the content of this channel,
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Revealed Apologetics, because we focus on different applications of presuppositionalism. And so that specific episode, we talked a lot about transcendental arguments.
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And as you know, that's very much related to presuppositional methodology and argumentation. So you definitely want to avail yourself of that episode.
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Also, if you're interested, Dr. Anderson, to my knowledge, has not engaged in a lot of formal debates and discussions.
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Maybe he has, and I don't know, but he had a really good discussion with the atheist YouTuber, Tom Jump, which
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I thought was a very good discussion and a nice lesson in philosophy, in my opinion, for Mr.
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Jump there. I think that Dr. Anderson made some great points. They didn't get to the point of where Dr.
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Anderson wanted to get in his argument, but it was still very informative and I think very, very useful if you take a look at that on YouTube.
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Just by way of really quick announcements, on July 16th, I'll be having Dr. Frank Turek on to talk about his book,
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Stealing from God. And of course, he's not presuppositional, but that book is very presuppositional -ish.
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And so I do think that there's a lot to glean from that book. And so hopefully you guys will find that useful as well.
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And then July 29th, we have Greg Koukl coming on to talk about strategies and how to navigate discussions with unbelievers.
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So stay tuned for those things. If you have not subscribed yet to the Revealed Apologetics YouTube channel, please do so and click that notification button to get the updates on future interviews that are coming up, all right?
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Well, without further ado, I'd like to welcome back Dr. James Anderson. Why don't you take a few seconds to reintroduce yourself?
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Sure, thanks Eli. Yeah, so James Anderson, I am a professor of theology and philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte.
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British by birth, but now American by naturalization. So a full -fledged
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American citizen now, living in the United States for 11, nearly 12 years now, teaching apologetics, ethics, philosophical theology, a range of things at Reformed Theological Seminary.
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Do your British family members call you a traitor for taking the deep baths across the pond?
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They may think that, but they haven't told me that. Okay, very good. So when you have family get togethers and celebrate 4th of July, you can just bring your
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American flag, your little flags, just rub it in. Well, this year was the first July 4th where all of our family could really enthusiastically celebrate
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Independence Day. We'd had to sort of cross our fingers and hold them behind our backs previous years.
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That's awesome. All right, well, let's jump right in. The topic for today, we're covering the question, is there really a big difference between a classical apologetics and presuppositional apologetics?
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And so this episode is not for the purpose of creating a methodological division.
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There's already division. There are different methodologies, different theologies and things like that. And you guys have heard me express,
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I think the importance of gleaning from people from throughout the apologetic spectrum. But I did want to explore some of the main differences within these methodological traditions.
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And so before we get into those differences, why don't you lay out for us, Dr. Anderson, what is the classical approach and why is it called classical?
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And before you answer that, I wanna point people to your lectures at Reformed Theological Seminary, the app.
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You have an entire lecture where you go over these issues in greater detail. So folk can definitely go over there.
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But right now, why don't you lay out the classical approach for us and why it's called classical? Sure, so the classical approach, which has sometimes been called the traditional approach and certainly it's been associated with the
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Thomistic tradition, both Roman Catholic and Protestant Thomists. But the classical approach, according to its own advocates, is a two -stage approach to proving the
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Christian faith. And in the first stage, you argue for the existence of God.
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So you would offer philosophical arguments, typically some version of the cosmological argument, maybe a design argument.
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Some classical apologists will use the ontological argument, although that's more controversial.
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But in stage one, you prove theism, some sort of relatively generic theism that there is a transcendent first cause of the universe, a designer, maybe with personal agency, depending on exactly how the argument goes.
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So that's stage one. And then stage two, you move into a more historical, evidential mode of argumentation.
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And the fairly standard approach for the classical apologist is to argue for the historical reliability, just the general reliability of the
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New Testament, the Gospels in particular, to argue that on the basis of these historical documents that Jesus claimed to be the
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Son of God, claimed to be divine, claimed to be the Messiah, and he predicted his resurrection and rose from the dead and there were eyewitnesses and there's historical evidence for this resurrection, which confirms
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Jesus's claims to be the Son of God. And once you've made this historical argument for the resurrection and sort of a case for the deity of Christ on the back of that, you're done.
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You've proven the Christian faith. You've proven the existence of God and you've proven that Christ was who he claimed to be and rose from the dead.
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And your work in apologetics has basically done, that's what it takes to establish the essential tenets of the
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Christian faith. And there are obviously variations within the classical world.
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There are some more strict Thomists like the late Norman Geisler, like Richard Howe today would be a good example.
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And then you've got guys like William Lane Craig, who are a little more independent -minded but still follow this basic two -stage approach to proving the existence of God and then making a historical case for the resurrection.
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Well, when it's called classical because it's a more traditional methodology, who are some prominent figures other than Thomas Aquinas who follow along that classical tradition?
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Yeah, so obviously on the Catholic side of things, Aquinas is the major influence there.
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Although with him, it's very much focused on the arguments for theism rather than historical arguments that you now get.
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Joseph Butler, a Protestant theologian and apologist is a good example of the classical approach.
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And today, as I say, Norman Geisler, a very influential classical apologist,
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William Lane Craig, J .P. Moreland, Stephen Cowan. Some would describe themselves as reformed.
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R .C. Sproul, of course, should have mentioned R .C. Sproul, identifies as a classical apologist but reformed in his theology.
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And then there are non -reformed classical apologists as well like William Lane Craig. Very good, you kind of answered my next question which was to list some of the classical apologists.
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So thank you very much for that. And again, anyone who is introduced to apologetics usually is introduced to it through the classical approach.
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I mean, the classical apologists today are, I think in my estimation, more visible to the public eye.
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And while it's true with regards to some presuppositionalists, it seems that when you go to the apologetic section in the bookstore, there's a lot of this classical and evidential sort of books that are there.
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Which again, I think are super helpful and useful in their own right. So my next question, what do you think is some important things that we could learn if we're presuppositionalists primarily in our methodology?
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What are some things that we can learn from folks in this more classical tradition? Because obviously it's not, there's one group over here, one group over here and never shall the twain meet.
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I mean, there's obviously some crossover, some important useful things that we can grab from the different traditions.
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What in your estimation are some important things that presuppositionalists should be paying attention to with regards to our classical brothers?
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Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm very much in favor of saying, what can we agree on?
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How can we learn from one another and try and not overstate the differences.
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There are, I think, some real substantive differences. In terms of what we can learn,
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I think many classical apologists are very adept at philosophical thinking, okay?
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They're familiar with the philosophical literature. They can engage in philosophy at a fairly high level.
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So someone like William Lane Craig, even though I have my differences with him theologically for sure and in some philosophical issues as well, he's a first rank philosopher, doing some really good work, a very rigorous work and engaging at a scholarly level.
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And I think that in itself is commendable. And I hope the presuppositionalists will aspire to do the same kind of rigorous philosophical work in defense of their views.
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I think that some of the classical arguments for the existence of God are sound arguments.
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Now, I know that sets me apart from some other presuppositionalists who want to draw sharp lines between what they understand to be the transcendental argument and then other theistic arguments.
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That's not a position I take. My view is that if a theistic argument is sound, if it has true premises and the conclusion follows from the premises, then it's a serviceable argument.
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Some are more useful than others, but I think, for example, that there are versions of the ontological argument that are sound arguments.
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I don't tend to use them in apologetics, but I think that there's nothing logically wrong with the arguments.
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I think that there are versions of the cosmological argument that are quite respectable, versions based on the principle of sufficient reason.
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I think that there are teleological arguments. The fine -tuning argument,
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I think, has a lot of weight to it. And actually, the more we discover about the scientific nature of the universe, the stronger the design argument becomes.
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So this is an area where I think presuppositionalists and classical apologists can say, look, there are some arguments that we can use together.
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Now, how you actually deploy those arguments may differ a little bit, or some of the assumptions, particularly the epistemological assumptions behind these arguments, there's gonna be some differences there.
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And on the historical side as well, if you are a presuppositionalist like me who thinks that there is a place for historical apologetics,
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I think Van Til thought that there was a place for historical apologetics, as long as it was done in the right way with a sort of presuppositional sensitivity to it, there is a wealth of historical evidence.
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Why not use that? Why not appeal to that? Why not point to documentation that we have from the first century supporting the claims of the
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New Testament, supporting what was going on there in the founding of the
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Christian church? There are some really good arguments to be made there, and it's tended to be the classical and the evidentialist apologists who have done the hard scholarly work there.
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And presuppositionists, I think, should say, thank you. We're not taking everything that you're selling, but certainly there can be some crossover here.
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Very good, very good. With regards to, well, basically what you're saying then, and I think there's an important point to keep in mind, because there's so many misconceptions of what presuppositionalism is, is that a lot of people will think, okay, if I'm a presuppositionalist,
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I can't use all these other cool arguments that everyone talks about, but I like these arguments, so I don't wanna be presuppositional because I feel like I'm limited.
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So basically what you're saying, being a presuppositionalist does not prohibit you from using some of the more traditional arguments.
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If they're valid, they have use, and you could incorporate them within your apologetic encounters while doing it within a consistently presuppositional framework.
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Is that pretty much what you're saying? Yeah, that's basically my position. I make a distinction between the arguments that people might use and the methodology that is driving those arguments and that is gonna condition how those arguments are deployed.
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So whereas someone like R .C. Sproul and myself might agree on a particular argument, maybe there's a version of the cosmological argument that we both endorse, in terms of the underlying epistemology by which we justify that argument and some of the presuppositional considerations that we are gonna be taking into account when we're using those arguments with people who doubt the existence of God or claim to doubt the existence of God, there's gonna be some methodological differences there.
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And a lot of this actually I think is background, going on in the background.
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As I say, it's a lot of it has to do with the epistemological assumptions by which we justify the arguments and how we deploy them in practice.
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Right, and I like how you said that it's in the background because practically speaking, just looking, if you were to walk in on a presuppositionalist talking to an unbeliever or you walk in on a classicalist talking to an unbeliever, there are many cases where they will be saying many of the same things while having different presuppositions with how to frame those things.
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Yeah, so there's important crossover. It's not just you only can use the transcendental argument or you only can use,
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I love the cosmological argument. People who know me, I'm a presuppositionalist, but I've sat down with an unbeliever and wrote out the
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Kalam cosmological argument on a napkin. Like it was part of our discussion and it was useful. But of course, within that context, which
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I think is very important. So my next question would be, what do you think is the most compelling and effective argument used by those within the classical tradition?
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So you have the theistic proofs, what in your estimation has been the most best utilized and has been most effective in the ongoing discussion between believers and unbelievers, more specifically from that classical event?
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I tend to think, my views on this may have shifted over time but I tend to think that the moral argument, the argument from morality is the one that has the best sort of psychological force to it.
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You and I, it seems agree that there are good versions of cosmological argument. I think if you're philosophically minded, there are some very interesting versions of the ontological argument.
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But for your average hunter in the street, these seem very, very abstract.
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They seem highly metaphysical and they don't seem to have the kind of impact that the moral argument does because the moral argument starts with the premise that there are objective moral values.
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And in our day and age, sometimes you've even got to argue that point. You've got to draw out some intuitions, some basic intuitions that people have about morality.
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But people are invested in moral claims in a way they aren't necessarily invested in certain metaphysical claims like every event has a cause or that everything, there's a sufficient reason for every contingent fact or something along those lines.
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Whereas morality, of course, is the bread and butter of everyday life. You go onto social media, you read the news, everybody's making moral claims.
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And right there, you've got a foothold for a kind of argument that if you're going to make these objective moral claims, you better have a worldview that can pay the bills, a worldview that can account for these moral norms.
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A worldview that pays the bills. That's a good one. Very good. That was a little nifty little thing there.
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What I think is an important thing too in what you just said, the moral argument, I agree. And even Dr. Craig has been asked this.
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What does he think? What is his favorite argument? His favorite argument is the cosmological argument. He thinks because the moral argument deals with issues that relate so much more to the everyday person, it tends to be more persuasive on that practical level.
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There is a difference, I think, in the arguments you would use with the everyday person that might resonate very much with a moral argument and an argument that you would use within a formal debate or in a
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YouTube interaction or people who are kind of in the thick of these sorts of discussions. You might want to use a different argument because given that context, it might be more useful.
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Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. Just to speak from personal experience, and there's always, you've got to be careful with anecdotal evidence, but I know several people who were atheists and abandoned their atheism on the basis of the moral argument.
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I don't know anyone who abandoned their atheism on the basis of a cosmological argument.
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Well, maybe one person. I think maybe Ed Faser. I think it was sort of Aristotelian Thomism that persuaded him, but how representative that is is another question.
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It's much more common, I think, to find people who have been persuaded by the moral argument in practice.
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So that just tells you something about the effectiveness and the impact that that argument can have. Very good.
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Now, in my interview yesterday with Dr. Ross and Dr.
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Lyle on the topic of young earth and old earth creationism, Dr. Ross had said something that seemed to give the indication, and he's not the first person that I heard.
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By the way, the discussion was excellent. So those who haven't listened to it, it's a very lively discussion, kind of an open discussion.
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So it was very quick moving. And so it's very entertaining as well as educational.
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And I didn't want to veer off too much off the main topic, but we got into very briefly an issue of methodology in which
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Dr. Ross suggested that sometimes he can be a presuppositionalist and then other times he could be an evidentialist.
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And so you can kind of, situation calls for it. You can kind of jump in and out of these methodologies.
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So I often hear evidential and classical apologists, even well -known ones, Hugh Ross and others as well, express their appreciation or derision for the presuppositional approach and often suggest that it can be useful at times.
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So they'll say something to the effect as, well, if I'm speaking with so -and -so, then I would use an evidential or classical approach.
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But if I'm speaking with so -and -so, then I would use a presuppositional approach. So my question for you is, do you think it is legitimate to jump in and out of different apologetic methodologies?
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If so, why? And if not, where is the inconsistency in doing something like that?
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Right. Well, if we're actually talking about methodologies, so if we're talking about presuppositionalism as opposed to evidentialism, then no,
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I don't think you can just jump into one method in one situation and adopt another methodology in another situation.
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That's kind of like saying, when I pass to one church, I'm a paedo -baptist. And when
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I pass to another church, I'm a credo -baptist. There's some underlying theological principles here which are not negotiable in the sense that if they're true, then they apply everywhere.
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Or someone saying, sometimes I'm a Presbyterian and sometimes
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I'm a Congregationalist. No, there have to be some convictions here and those convictions ought to apply in every circumstance.
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Obviously, Presbyterianism in North America might look different than Presbyterianism in South Korea, but still there's an underlying doctrine that is driving things.
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And it's the same with methodology. If someone says, sometimes I take a presuppositional approach, sometimes
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I take an evidentialist approach, probably what they're talking about is the arguments, the specific arguments that they're using in the situation.
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So sometimes in a presuppositional approach, maybe they're arguing that moral claims presuppose
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God or reason or human knowledge presupposes God, so they're operating at a more philosophical level.
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And then when they say, sometimes I'm an evidentialist, they're saying, well, sometimes I'm talking about the evidence of biological design, irreducible complexity, fine tuning in the universe or historical evidence for the resurrection.
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But they're not really talking about methodologies there, rather talking about what is the specific argument or the content of the argument that I'm making in that particular circumstance.
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The methodology, I think, has to do with your underlying epistemology. That is, your theory of knowledge, how we know what we know, how we make judgments about truth claims, how we interpret evidence, all of that is going to drive your methodology.
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And I would say that the fundamental divide between a presuppositional approach and a classical evidential approach has to do with whether your apologetics needs to be grounded in a neutral epistemology or a
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Christian epistemology. I'm gonna camp out on that distinction, on whether when we engage in apologetics, we're doing it on a self -consciously
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Christian basis, where we're appealing to a biblical epistemology that includes both natural and special revelation, or whether we are adopting a sort of pared down, lowest common denominator epistemology, where you're only allowed to appeal to things that the unbeliever is going to grant.
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So reason, whatever secular historians, whatever principles or standards they apply, whatever scientists currently accept.
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That's the difference. It's the underlying epistemology. Okay, very good. And we'll get into that in just a bit in a little more detail.
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My last question with regards to the classical approach, and then we'll move on to the presuppositional, which classical apologist has had the most influence upon your thinking as a presuppositionalist?
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Or I would imagine you're not only influenced by the presuppositional tradition. What classical apologist do you think has influenced your thinking?
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That's an interesting question. And it's a pretty tough one.
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In terms of my own journey into apologetics, I would have to say that Norman Geisler was a significant influence, which probably surprises a lot of people.
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It even surprises me when I find myself saying it, because as I developed theologically,
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I realized I had a lot of differences with Dr. Geisler. But when I was first getting into apologetics, his, some of his books were very helpful to me in just introducing me to the world of philosophy, the world of theistic arguments, the world of defending the integrity of the
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Bible. You know, Geisler's, a lot of Geisler's material on defending the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible was just invaluable to me.
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So, you know, I have to give credit where credit is due. Although I took a different course once I was introduced to the works of Van Til, Banson, Frame, Geisler sort of got me on the apologetic ladder, as well as maybe
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Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, you know, that was useful to me early on.
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So yeah, I give credit for that. Now you just said something, you said it was useful early on.
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Do you still find those books useful for someone who's fully adopted a presuppositional approach? What kind of book would you suggest to someone from Norman Geisler, for example, that might be useful in the precepts arsenal?
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Yeah, I have to say that I rarely refer to Geisler's works now.
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And there are a number of reasons for that. Right. None of which really reflect in any particularly bad way, but rather I just don't find them useful because they're based on a methodology and actually a philosophy, a
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Thomistic philosophy that I don't adopt. It just so happens, actually, I've been delving into a
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Geisler book earlier today because I'm writing up something about a particular criticism of presuppositionalism that I want to say something about.
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And so often when I want to hear again, remind myself, what is it that classical apologists have a problem with in presuppositionalism?
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I will go to Geisler. I'll go to R .C. Sproul's book, Classical Apologetics. So no,
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I wouldn't say that Geisler's works are ones that I pull off the shelf, although he has edited some volumes again on scripture.
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And he was instrumental, of course, in the drafting of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, which is,
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I think, is an excellent resource. So maybe more on the biblical inspiration and inerrancy side of things than on classical apologetics proper, whether that be arguments for the existence of God.
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You know, even theistic arguments, I would say that William Lane Craig's versions of the cosmological arguments are more robust than Geisler's, which
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I feel are a little dated now. Sure, all right, very good. Thank you for that. Let's shift then now to the presuppositional approach.
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What is the presuppositional apologetic approach and why is it called presuppositional? Okay, so I'll answer the second question first.
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So as the term itself indicates, presuppositionalism is a method that focuses on the presuppositions of both the believer and the unbeliever.
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By presuppositions, we roughly mean foundational assumptions about ultimate reality and ultimate authority.
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Perhaps a more common word or the word that's more helpful for people to understand now is to talk about worldview.
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So a worldview is the basic framework that you bring to interpreting your experiences of the world, interpreting evidences and determining how you're going to respond to those.
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So your worldview, we can think of as a network of presuppositions about God, about the nature of the universe, about truth claims, criteria for judging truth claims, sources of authority, human nature, presuppositions about what kind of beings we are.
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All of these together serve as a person's worldview. And what the presuppositional approach fundamentally tries to do is to lay side by side the
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Christian worldview and the unbeliever's worldview. And of course there can be many different forms of unbelieving worldview.
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There are religious kinds like Islam, there are secular kinds like naturalism, but to lay out these two competing worldviews and to do an internal comparison and critique of them.
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And to ask which of these worldviews can make sense of the things that all of us take for granted.
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Believers and unbelievers, in order to communicate, in order to reason together. Of course, we recognize we're all living in the same world.
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We have to talk to each other, we have to reason with each other. But the presuppositionalist is asking a pretty deep question, which set of presuppositions, which worldview can make sense of, can account for, can, to use the expression
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I used earlier, pay the bills for our ability to reason, to make moral judgments, to know things about the world.
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And so what presuppositionalism avoids, and this may be getting into some of the questions you're gonna ask later on, but what presuppositionalism tries to avoid is the idea that there's some sort of neutral stance that you can take, some sort of worldview independent vantage point that you can use to, as it were, stand above every worldview and make these neutral judgments about which worldview is true, which worldview is rational.
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Rather, we're recognizing that reason itself, reason itself needs a worldview to account for it.
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And we're asking which worldview actually does make sense of reason itself. Very good, and you passed.
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You defined it correctly, very good. Okay, I'm glad to hear that. I wouldn't lose my job.
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That's right, that was great of you. Now, when we talk about presuppositional methodology, there are obviously some differences within that scope, and I think this is one of the reasons, well, one of the reasons why
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Dr. Olyphant doesn't like presuppositional terminology, wanted to kind of narrow it down to what he calls covenantal apologetics, which
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I actually very much do appreciate what he's trying to do there, because presuppositional nomenclature has some ambiguity to it.
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But when we hear presuppositionalism, a lot of people think, well, Van Til and Bonson.
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What shades of presuppositionalism do you see that go beyond Van Til and Bonson?
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Maybe explain what's the difference, for example, between someone like Van Til and John Frame or Gordon Clark?
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What are some differences there? You don't have to go into a whole, I mean, that's a large topic, but what are some key differences between the different camps within presuppositionalism?
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Yeah, presuppositionalism as a term itself is useful in some contexts, but as you suggest, it's certainly limited, and it can cover a lot of different approaches where actually there's some quite substantial differences between them.
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To give just one example, Gordon Clark has been categorized as a presuppositionalist as well, and there's a sense in which both
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Van Til and Clark were presuppositionalists in that they focused on critiquing the presuppositions of the unbeliever, but the methodology they used for that critique was very different.
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For Clark, it was a strict test of logical consistency. Does the unbeliever system satisfy the laws of logic, specifically the law of non -contradiction?
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Whereas Van Til's approach, which I think was more sophisticated and more nuanced, and it was a transcendental presuppositionalism, at least that's how
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I tend to qualify it. Van Til's approach was a presuppositionalism that engaged in a transcendental critique, asking whether the unbelievers' presuppositions can account for reason or whether they're actually self -defeating.
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In other words, if you follow the unbelievers' presuppositions through to their logical consequences, they would render it impossible for us to reason at all.
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That's a different kind of critique than the one that Clark was offering. And then within the broader camp of what you might call
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Vantillian presuppositionalism, you've got someone like Greg Banser, who certainly gave the impression that he was just following Van Til and not deviating from Van Til one wit.
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Certainly, if you read his book, Van Til's Apologetic Readings and Analysis, you'd come away saying,
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Banser's just basically rubber stamping what Van Til said. I think there are actually some practical differences, or at least some different emphases that you find in Banser's approach.
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But it's fair to say that Banser's approach was much more strictly following Van Til's explicit terminology and examples in his approach.
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Then you have someone like John Frame, also a student of Van Til.
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And I would say that Frame certainly is a Vantillian presuppositionalist, because the core convictions, the core theological and philosophical convictions that drove
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Van Til's approach also drive Frame's approach, namely that our epistemology needs to be grounded in reformed theology.
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In other words, we start with reformed theology, we ask what are the epistemological implications of that, and our methodology has to flow out of that.
34:33
Also, the idea that there's no neutral starting point, there's no neutral vantage point, and the denial of intellectual autonomy, that there's any autonomous standards that we can use to judge between worldviews.
34:50
Again, Frame is very, very clear about that. And I would say that that puts him clearly in the
34:55
Vantillian camp, although he articulates more points of difference with Van Til than someone like Banser, and in that Frame is more open to other theistic arguments.
35:09
He's less critical, although still critical, but less critical of classical apologetics and Aquinas and so forth.
35:18
And then you have someone like Scott Oliphant, again, who I think is closer to Van Til or is articulating less disagreements with Van Til.
35:30
So there is a spectrum there. And with someone like Dr. Oliphant, you have a more self -consciously theological and being driven by a biblical theology of covenants, hence the term covenantal apologetics.
35:47
I think what that's useful for is for bringing out the underlying theological convictions behind presuppositionalism.
35:56
But again, covenantal apologetics, if you understand all that's packed into that, it makes sense, but in itself, it's not obvious how that distinguishes it from a classical approach.
36:11
After all, someone like R .C. Sproul was reformed covenant theologian.
36:16
So is his approach not covenantal? Well, Dr. Oliphant would argue with whether it's consistently covenantal.
36:24
And that's where we find ourselves in this debate. All right, very good. Now, where would you align yourself?
36:32
Are you more closer to a frame? I'm in exactly the right spot. I've got it exactly right.
36:38
I've avoided all the problems of all the other views. Now, there's a fair question.
36:44
I would locate myself somewhere between Frame and Banson in that I agree with Dr.
36:54
Frame that the transcendental argument isn't the only theistic argument that a presuppositionalist ought to use.
37:03
Banson certainly gave the impression that it's the transcendental argument or bust, that there's just one kind of argument and maybe it can be applied in different ways, but it has to be the transcendental argument.
37:16
I agree with Frame that there are other theistic arguments that are sound arguments, they're cogent, they're appropriate to use in certain situations.
37:27
Where I differ with Dr. Frame is that he thinks that there's nothing particularly distinctive about the transcendental argument.
37:36
In other words, he sees a category of theistic arguments of which the transcendental argument is one, and then there are others that go alongside it.
37:44
And he has said that he thinks that the transcendental argument needs to be supplemented by more traditional kinds of theistic arguments.
37:52
I think there is something unique and distinctive about the transcendental argument. I think the transcendental argument is getting something much deeper than the other theistic arguments.
38:04
So I think it has a special place as sort of the centerpiece of a presuppositional approach, but it doesn't have to be the only arrow in our quiver.
38:17
So if you were to kind of capture then, I mean, I kind of entitled this, is there really a big difference between the classical approach and the presuppositional approach?
38:26
What is the defining feature? As I mentioned before, I was talking with a common acquaintance.
38:34
I wouldn't know if he's your friend or not, but a good friend, Guillaume Bignon, who is exploring these issues.
38:40
I told him - We're friends. I can be public about that. We're friends. All right, cool. I didn't know if it was gonna besmirch your reputation being a
38:51
French - Unless you know something about him that I don't. Well, he's French. So I didn't know. Oh, well, there's that. Yeah.
38:57
That's right. But he asked a really good question and I'm not quoting him directly, but he seemed to think that when the presuppositionalist gives the argument that presuppositionalists tend to give, a transcendental argument, when asked to fill in the details of what we're trying to say, you're basically doing pretty much what the classical apologist is doing.
39:18
So he's having difficulty seeing any significant difference that's worth making a hullabaloo about.
39:24
So what do you think? Is there a defining difference between the methodologies that you would think that the presuppositionalist is doing something different and uniquely so?
39:33
What are your thoughts on that? I think there is a real substantive difference.
39:39
And again, it has to do with the authority that you're ultimately appealing to.
39:47
So in the classical approach, basically scripture needs to be left out.
39:54
Scripture needs to be left to one side because you're not allowed to appeal to special revelation.
40:00
You're only supposed to appeal to natural revelation. This is exactly what R .C.
40:05
Sproul says in the book, Classical Apologetics. He says, we start with natural revelation alone. We make our theistic arguments.
40:13
And then in the second stage, we start bringing in historical evidence. We make the case for the Bible. And actually the reality is that in the classical approach, the
40:22
Bible isn't treated as supernatural revelation at all. Most it's treated as a historical document alongside other ancient historical documents.
40:32
And it's subjected to the standards, the criteria that secular historians would apply to any other document.
40:41
The presuppositionalist is going to object to that by saying we mustn't adopt and rubber stamp these secular standards, whether it's secular standards of reason or philosophical argumentation or historical evaluation.
40:58
Rather, the presuppositionalist will say, we are gonna argue from natural and special revelation together at the outset.
41:06
This is what Van Til called treating Christianity as a unit. That is, we take the
41:13
Christian worldview as an integrated unit, where there's both natural and special revelation. And we argue that that integrated worldview is the only one that can make sense, ultimately, of our experience and our ability to reason about the world.
41:29
So it's not as though we say, we're going to adopt some neutral standards of reason and experience and see where we can build up from there.
41:39
Rather, we're gonna say, look, here is the Christian worldview. Let me explain to you what this Christian worldview is.
41:45
Now compare it with whatever your worldview is, a naturalistic worldview, an
41:52
Islamic worldview, whatever it might be. Let's consider each of these, do an internal critique of each one and ask which one can actually account for the things that both of us are taking for granted.
42:04
Both of us are taking for granted our ability to reason. But when you take that stance, you're not treating reason as a sort of independent worldview neutral standard, or we're not saying that our experiences are self -validating or that they interpret themselves.
42:23
We're not saying that there's this evidence or these facts that can adjudicate in some independent way between worldviews.
42:30
Rather, we're asking which worldview allows us to speak intelligibly about reason, to speak intelligibly about evidence for truth claims and so on.
42:40
So we're not adopting what I call the pretense of neutrality. The pretense of neutrality is where you say, look, we've got to start with some neutral common ground.
42:51
We've got to find something that we can all agree on that doesn't have any theological presuppositions or religious presuppositions, that it really is a neutral starting point.
43:02
And that's the basis on which we're going to settle this worldview debate. Rather, I'm going to say, look, there is no neutral ground, but rather the ground that we are standing on the whole time, both the believer and the unbeliever, that is
43:16
Christian ground. You may not realize it. The unbeliever may not accept that, but that's part of my job as an apologist to show that the common ground that we're standing on, reason, truth, moral norms, the reliability of sense experience, all of these things are actually resting upon the reality of a
43:38
Christian worldview, the truthfulness of a Christian worldview. All right, I want to ask my last question, and then we'll move on to some audience questions.
43:46
I know we're on a tight, I want to keep it to an hour to respect your time. Well, my first question here, you can answer with a yes or no, and I know that there's a qualification that's needed, but it's going to help me move on to my next question, which
43:59
I really want to get to, okay? Okay. Does presuppositionalism necessarily presuppose a reformed theology?
44:11
Yes. Okay, great. So, it is an interesting thing I was thinking, that if someone wanted to refute presuppositionalism, if presuppositional apologetics necessarily presupposes reformed theology, is the presuppositional method refuted if reformed theology is refuted?
44:31
I do think a presuppositional methodology stands or falls with a reformed theology.
44:38
So, if someone were to refute reformed theology, then presuppositionalism would fall with it.
44:44
But that's what philosophers call a counter -possible, okay? Where the premise of it, you're only granting for the sake of argument, but I don't think it could actually be done.
44:55
So, it's like saying, if five were greater than seven, would five also be greater than six?
45:07
Well, maybe, but... So, in a sort of hypothetical sense,
45:13
I think if you could refute reformed theology, then presuppositionalism would fall with it.
45:19
But that's something I'm quite happy to live with, because I think that there's no good refutation of reformed theology.
45:24
That's right. So, now I have an argument here, so that when we're saying, for example, when we're saying that Christianity provides the preconditions for intelligibility knowledge,
45:34
Christianity is true by the impossibility of the contrary, and of course, we'd have to work that out, what we're really saying as presuppositionalists is that reformed
45:42
Christianity, Christianity as understood within the reformed understanding provides those necessary preconditions, because it presupposes our doctrine of God, our doctrine of man, the necessity of revelation, along the lines that the reformed apologists would understand it.
45:56
So, what do you think of this deductive argument that I've just shot off the top of my head here? Premise one, if knowledge is possible, then reformed
46:05
Christianity is true. Premise two, knowledge is possible, conclusion, therefore, reformed
46:11
Christianity is true. So, basically, how do you know reformed theology is true? By the impossibility of the contrary, could someone make a transcendental argument for reformed theology?
46:22
Sure. Oh, yeah, in principle. I mean, what you've just articulated there is a logically valid argument, if I followed it.
46:30
But of course, it's the first premise that's bearing all the weight there. The second premise, knowledge is possible.
46:36
Yeah, okay, we'll grant that, except these people are some crazy skeptic. So, the first one -
46:42
They're out there, as you know. Oh, yeah, I know they're out there. It doesn't mean they're not crazy, though. So, the first premise is, if knowledge is possible, then reformed
46:54
Christianity is true. Now, that sounds, I think, to a lot of people, incredibly implausible, if not quite arrogant.
47:04
But the way that I would parse that is, if knowledge is possible, then the most theologically consistent form of Christianity is true, okay?
47:19
In other words, the presuppositionalist is going to argue that there are theistic preconditions of knowledge.
47:29
That is, for us to know anything about the world, there has to be a personal
47:34
God, creator God, and that God has to be absolute, in the sense of not dependent on anything outside of himself, not qualified by anything.
47:46
So, and this is how I've articulated versions of the transcendental argument in some of my written materials and my lectures, that what knowledge presupposes is a personal, absolute
47:58
God. I think that captures a lot of what Van Til is getting at. But I would say that once you grant that there's a personal, absolute
48:08
God, you're basically, you've basically accepted the reformed doctrine of God.
48:15
Because on any non -reformed doctrine of God, God's knowledge and plans and understanding of the world is dependent on contingencies beyond his control, such as libertarian, free will choices.
48:31
So, if God is to be absolutely self -sufficient and independent, to use the technical term, a se, of himself, not dependent on anything outside of himself, then
48:45
I think that the reformed doctrine of God is the only consistent version of, or understanding of God that's consistent with that self -sufficiency of God.
48:58
And this is a point that Van Til banged on about repeatedly, that in order to have a
49:05
God who is, in order to have a universe that is truly unified and intelligible with no brute contingencies, no elements of chance that are beyond God's control, that don't fit into the big picture, you must have an absolutely sovereign
49:23
God, a God who, to use the language of the Westminster Confession, who ordains all things according to the counsel of his will, whatsoever comes to pass.
49:34
So, that's the connection. Now, of course, there's more to reformed theology than that.
49:40
You've got a Trinitarian theology, you've got the doctrine of the atonement, you've got certain understanding of scripture.
49:47
So, there's more argument that needs to be put in there to flesh things out. But what
49:52
I'm saying here is really nothing other than what reformed theologians have been saying for a long time, is that reformed theology, reformed
50:02
Christianity isn't the only version of Christianity, no one's making that claim. If you're not reformed, you're not a
50:07
Christian, that's not the claim. But the claim is that reformed Christianity is the most consistent outworking of the core convictions of the
50:15
Christian faith, whether that's the nature of God, the fallenness of man, the doctrine of revelation, so forth.
50:23
All right, very good. That's super helpful, by the way. Now, I wanna get to some of the questions because we don't have a lot of time.
50:29
So, we're gonna go through this quickly, but you can, I do apologize that people have actually some pretty interesting questions, but we won't have time to go through them.
50:36
So, let's just take a couple and you can answer as quickly and succinctly as you think necessary, but of course, feel free to expand if you think that's necessary as well.
50:44
So, here's a question. In the Lord of Non -Contradiction, Dr. Anderson talks about dialetheism,
50:50
I don't know if I pronounced that right, and paraconsistent logic. Does dialetheism or fuzzy logic pose a problem for classical logic?
50:59
Okay, so I'll probably need to explain a little bit of the background to that. So, in this paper, the
51:05
Lord of Non -Contradiction, I and my co -author, Dr. Greg Welty, make the argument that the laws of logic presuppose the existence of God.
51:15
So, if you accept that there are laws of logic, then you should accept the existence of God because you need the existence of God to explain the existence of the laws of logic.
51:27
That's this argument in a nutshell. And we use as examples of laws of logic, the three classical laws of logic that were laid out most famously by Aristotle, law of non -contradiction, the law of identity, and law of excluded middle.
51:43
Now, modern logics or modern philosophies of logic have challenged what's called classical logic.
51:50
Basically, classical logic is any logic that accepts the law of non -contradiction.
51:56
There are logical systems, and this comes as a surprise to a lot of people. They think, how could any system that rejects the law of non -contradiction actually be a logical system?
52:04
Well, there are ways of modifying things so that you don't end up with completely crazy results.
52:10
And these are called non -classical logics. Dialetheism is the view that there can be true contradictions or that there can be statements that are both true and false.
52:20
And it's a minority view. The question is, can you escape this argument by jumping into non -classical logic?
52:27
You say, well, your argument assumes classical logic. And actually, we address this. I can't remember if it's in the main text or in a footnote, but we basically say, our argument doesn't depend on any particular laws of logic.
52:39
It only depends on there being some laws of logic. To be more precise, that there are some necessary truths, some things that are true that could not have been false.
52:53
And pretty much any system of logic, just in virtue of being a system of logic, has to have laws.
53:01
It has to have some necessary principles or rules by which you can infer certain things.
53:06
Otherwise, it's not really a system of logic. So as long as someone grants that there are some laws of logic that do not have exceptions, that are necessary principles of inference, then we're up and running.
53:22
Because right there, you've granted that there are some necessary truths. And from that, we argue that if there are truths, necessary truths, they have to exist in a necessarily existent mind, namely the mind of God.
53:34
So I hope that is a helpful answer to the question. Very good. Next question here, Dr. Anderson, what are your thoughts on reformed epistemology championed by Alvin Plantinga and continued with Dr.
53:43
Tyler McNabb and Dr. Andrew Moon? My short answer to that is
53:49
I'm in favor of reformed epistemology. I accept a version of reformed epistemology myself.
53:55
There is a bit of confusion out there. Some people think that reformed epistemology is an approach to apologetics and that it's a rival to presuppositionalism and classical apologetics and evidentialism.
54:08
It's not. Reformed epistemology is an account of how we know that God exists.
54:15
It's not an account of how we demonstrate the existence of God. Now, it does have some implications for apologetics.
54:22
Basically, it says you don't need to be able to prove God exists to know God exists. You can know
54:28
God exists in a properly basic way. This is what Plantinga in particular argues, that our knowledge of God isn't inferential, isn't based on philosophical arguments, it isn't based on natural theology, but rather we know it immediately and intuitively on the basis of this, or through this faculty that Plantinga calls a sensus divinitatis, a sense of deity, that we have an immediate sense that there is a
54:50
God based on, well, a number of factors that can feed into that. Now, Plantinga is getting that from Calvin and it's well -established in,
55:00
I think, in the reformed tradition, reformed epistemology in that technical sense, that we can have an immediate natural knowledge of God.
55:10
That is, I think, consistent with at least some versions of classical apologetics.
55:17
And I think it's also consistent with some versions of presuppositional apologetics as well. I'm not gonna claim it's consistent with every version, but certainly
55:25
I think there's no necessary conflict between the core thesis of reformed epistemology and the presuppositional methodology that Van Til advocates.
55:38
In fact, I think there's a harmony between the two. Now, guys like Dr.
55:44
McNabb, Dr. Moon, we have, I think, our theological and philosophical differences, but when it comes to this reformed epistemology model of how we have a natural knowledge of God, there's a lot of agreement.
55:58
Very good. I thought this was a good question here. Do you think different personality types are drawn to presuppositionalism as opposed to classical apologetics?
56:08
I think that there are certain personality types who are just drawn to apologetics, period. There's a certain personality type that enjoys the cut and thrust of apologetics and argument.
56:22
I certainly think, I don't think I can make the case that certain personality types, and of course the idea of personality types is a little vague anyway.
56:30
Apparently, I'm an INTJ. I took the Myers -Briggs test, and apparently
56:36
I'm an INTJ. I can't remember what they all stand for, and I don't read too much into it.
56:42
But some people like to suggest that people with certain personality types are inclined to reform theology over against non -reform theology or presuppositionalism over classical.
56:52
I don't read too much into that. I know presuppositionalists who are very extroverted, and some who are very introverted, some who like arguing, and some who don't like a confrontational approach.
57:09
So, no, there's no, I don't see any particular connection. All right, that was a fun question here.
57:16
Sort of a side question, but still related. Tom Jump mentioned that Bertrand Russell never critiqued
57:22
Rene Descartes' syllogism as begging the question. Is he right about that? Just to give you context, many presuppositionalists bring this up when
57:32
Tom Jump is arguing against presuppositionalists. He'll say, well, I can know something independent of your God. I know that I exist.
57:37
I start with cogito ergo sum. And then the presuppositionalist will respond, well, that's begging the question. Bertrand Russell pointed that out.
57:44
It's fallacious. He can't use it. And Tom Jump would say, no, it's not fallacious. He asked, what was the I? Not necessarily that it was circular reasoning.
57:51
What are your thoughts on that? Okay, so I don't think that Descartes' argument begs the question.
57:59
Okay, so I don't think it's viciously circular. I actually think that the cogito argument is a good argument so far as it goes in that it shows that there's something self -defeating about denying your own existence.
58:12
And in order to deny your existence, you have to exist. That seems quite obvious to me.
58:18
Now, I know that there are certain postmodern types who want to question whether we even have a concept of an
58:23
I and there are materialists who deny the reality of the self and so forth. But I think as far as a logical argument goes, if you just take it in a common sense interpretation, it's a good argument for showing that it's self -defeating to deny your own existence.
58:42
Now, when Tom says, if this is what he says, that therefore he knows something independent of God, well, that's a non sequitur to claim that we know our own existence.
58:58
That doesn't show one way or another whether our knowing our own existence actually depends on the existence of God or not.
59:04
That's still an open question. And what I've done in a few places, I have a blog post on this, for example,
59:12
I've argued that there's actually a parallel, a kind of a parallel between Descartes' cogito argument and Van Til's transcendental argument.
59:20
You can interpret Descartes' argument as a kind of transcendental argument, namely that your existence is a precondition of your knowledge.
59:29
So a necessary precondition of you knowing something is you existing. That's pretty obvious,
59:35
I think. What Van Til does is he goes deeper and argues that not only is your existence a precondition, a necessary precondition of your knowing something, but God's existence at a far deeper level, a fundamental level, is a precondition of your knowing anything at all.
59:54
And the argument from logic is actually one way of getting to that. The argument that if there are any truths, then
01:00:03
God must exist. Those truths must exist as divine thoughts. That's one way of getting at it. And that's really what the topic of our conversation was when
01:00:11
I was having that dialogue with Tom. We didn't get much further than trying to establish that there are such things as truths or true propositions.
01:00:21
But if you follow the argument through, then you can argue that those true propositions depend on the existence of God.
01:00:28
So simply saying, I can know something without God, actually, that claim begs the question.
01:00:34
To say, I can just know something on the basis of cogito ergo sum, that doesn't prove anything at all about whether God is a deeper metaphysical precondition for the existence of truth, the existence of knowledge.
01:00:50
Yeah. Well, there are so many other questions, but you will be here forever if you took the time to answer them.
01:00:56
And so I do know that you're on a tight schedule, but I just want to thank Dr. Anderson for coming on.
01:01:02
Those who still have questions, I think I'll stay on for a couple of minutes and try to address ones that are more generic and some of them that are geared towards myself.
01:01:08
But this was an excellent discussion. As always, everything you have to say is super helpful and useful.
01:01:14
Whether there's agreement or disagreement, I'm sure there's much to learn from this discussion. Thank you so much for coming on.
01:01:20
It's greatly appreciated. Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun. All right. Well, that's it for Dr. Anderson.
01:01:26
You can feel free to click yourself off, or maybe I think I have to do that. Let me see here. All right.
01:01:32
There we go. I'm waving. You could wave to me if you see my, I don't know if you could, there we go. Thank you so much.
01:01:37
This was excellent. As I often say, I'm a listener of my own show because I learn from these discussions and I like to re -listen to them.
01:01:45
So I highly appreciate everything that Dr. Anderson has said here. Well, again,
01:01:51
I know we often go a little longer, but Dr. Anderson was on a time schedule there. And so I'm going to try and take some of the questions that I think
01:01:59
I'll be able to take. And then of course skip the ones that are geared towards Dr.
01:02:06
Anderson. Okay. So let's see here. There's a question here. T -Jump seemed to imply that presuppositions couldn't be proved.
01:02:12
Is that because he's defining presupposition differently than us? Well, I think
01:02:18
Tom Jump is understanding a presupposition as an elementary assumption, almost akin to an axiom.
01:02:25
Now axioms by definition cannot be justified because to justify an axiom, you'd have to appeal to something more foundational than it.
01:02:32
But you can't justify an axiom by appealing to something more fundamental because the axioms are the most fundamental element within your intellectual framework.
01:02:42
And so he would say something to the effect that presuppositions don't need to be justified because you can't justify them.
01:02:48
They're presuppositions. I think the difference is that if you're treating a presupposition sort of like an axiom and saying that by definition, they cannot be justified, what you're implicitly rejecting are transcendental arguments because this is exactly what
01:03:01
Van Til was trying to do. Van Til had an ultimate presupposition, but he didn't take them as unprovable axioms.
01:03:07
He believed that they can be proven transcendentally. That is to say that if you have this ultimate starting point, you can demonstrate its truth, not merely by just assuming it, and not merely by appealing to something more fundamental than it, but rather you can demonstrate the truth of your ultimate presupposition by appealing to its transcendental necessity.
01:03:29
Deny this presupposition and you have to affirm it in order to deny it. And so in that sense, Van Til would take the route of demonstrating one's elementary fundamental presuppositions transcendentally.
01:03:41
The folks who are not aware of this will often treat presuppositions as simply axioms. And so you can't, these are just things you just presuppose and that's it.
01:03:49
So I think that is an important difference there. All right, hope that helps. Here's another question.
01:03:55
Why do non -Christian forms of epistemology fail? Well, when upon analysis, and again,
01:04:01
I can't go into in detail here, but when you take a non -Christian epistemological perspective, it doesn't deliver on providing the necessary preconditions for knowledge.
01:04:11
Now, again, how do I know that? Well, that's gonna require some interaction with the folks who hold to those particular unbelieving epistemological perspectives.
01:04:20
But we would argue that the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience, the
01:04:25
Christian epistemology, the metaphysics, all this taken together provide those preconditions. And of course, the unbeliever is gonna say, well, my perspective provides those preconditions.
01:04:33
And so there you're going to have the clash of worldviews. And so you're gonna have to demonstrate that through internal worldview critique.
01:04:39
And of course, that would take much more time than what we can get into right now. Let's see here.
01:04:46
Okay. I don't think it's easy to make a transition discussion. Let's see here. What is your response to unbeliever who says, what is your response to those who would say this is about this.
01:05:00
Okay, here we go. Here's another question here. What is Dr. Anderson's response to those who would say that since the
01:05:05
Bible doesn't say much about apologetics, we should use a more pragmatic approach instead of getting stuck on methodology?
01:05:11
Well, I'm not going to speak for Dr. Anderson, but if someone were asking me that question, I would just disagree that the
01:05:18
Bible doesn't say much about apologetics. Now, again, the Bible is not an apologetics textbook, but there is a lot of examples of apologetics being used.
01:05:26
There are principles in scripture that laid down a theory of reality, a theory of knowledge, a theory of ethics and how these things work together.
01:05:33
So with, from the principles of scripture, we can derive a worldview system that I think we should be following faithfully as Christians you know, understanding
01:05:40
God is the ultimate, is the kind of the source of our authority, the authority within our worldview perspective.
01:05:47
So the Bible does have much to say about that. Even for example, first Peter chapter three, verse 15, which says to set apart
01:05:53
Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a reason for those who ask you for the reason for the hope that's in you. I think
01:05:58
I've misquoted that. But even that one passage, set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a reason for the hope that's in you.
01:06:07
You see a lot of people who do apologetics will focus on the always be ready, but there's actually a method that there's a thing that precedes always being ready.
01:06:15
And that is setting apart Christ as Lord in your heart. What are the apologetic implications of that?
01:06:20
Again, these are issues that we draw from scripture and we can derive a methodology that I think is grounded in scripture.
01:06:27
And that's why I'm a free suppositionalist. I believe it's a methodology that is taught in scripture, not with all of the philosophical terminology and all the trappings of a modern day discussion, but the principles in seed form are definitely there.
01:06:40
All right, that's a good question here. Let's see here. Now, again,
01:06:47
I'm not gonna answer for Dr. Anderson here, but how does Dr. Anderson view Brent Bosserman's Trinity and the
01:06:53
Vindication of Christian Paradox? Last time I had Dr. Anderson on, he did express that he was very interested in what
01:06:59
Bosserman had to say. But again, folks can check out the book, Trinity and the
01:07:04
Vindication of Christian Paradox. And I highly recommend if you haven't watched it already, I've actually had
01:07:10
Brent Bosserman on to talk about the Trinity and its relation to transcendental argument, presuppositional methodology.
01:07:15
It's a two hour discussion, but worth every minute. We go into, well, he goes into a lot of details with regards to some interesting things with the necessity of God being triune.
01:07:25
So you definitely wanna check that out. All right, let's see here.
01:07:32
What is the best way to get through this? All right, well, there are a lot of questions here. I can't get to all of them, but I think this is a good place to stop right now.
01:07:42
Just real quick by way of just a reminder of an announcement. Again, July 16th,
01:07:48
I'm having Dr. Frank Turek on. And on July 29th, I'm having Greg Koukl on.
01:07:53
So please stay tuned for those. And of course, there'll be some other episodes. Maybe I'll do another Q and A like I did last time a couple of days ago.
01:08:00
So once again, thank you so much for listening. Let me get this off the screen here. There we go.
01:08:06
There we go. Thank you so much for listening. Again, if you have not subscribed to the Revealed Apologetics YouTube channel, please do so and click the notification button for upcoming interviews, discussions,