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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and I want to begin by wishing everyone a belated

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Merry Christmas. Hope everyone had a great Christmas time with their family or whatever traditions and things that they were doing on Christmas day.

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Hope everyone had a great time and they got everything they wanted on their wish list or their

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Christmas list. So there you go. And I'm super excited to be here the day after Christmas.

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We're gonna be jumping into some pretty good stuff. I'm going to be addressing various comments and counterpoints to presuppositional apologetic methodology collected from the comment section of many of my videos.

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So I literally just kind of scoured a handful of comments from my past videos and said, you know what, let's take the time to kind of dive into some of these and hopefully kind of expand and teach the ins and outs of how we might approach the various things that people say from a presuppositional perspective.

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And so the purpose of this channel is very much wrapped up in that, right? I mean,

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I've covered topics from Calvinism and various aspects of theology. We talked about eschatology, a whole bunch of different theological topics and things like that.

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But my main focus is really to teach presuppositional apologetics. And as you guys know,

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I think this is a biblical approach and I think it's important that Christians are able to not only use it in a biblically faithful way, but also to be able to apply it to a wide variety of areas.

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And so that's the goal of this channel. Hopefully I'm somewhat accomplishing that in the various topics that I cover.

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And I'm gonna try to do that here today. But before we jump right in, I don't wanna spend too much time on kind of introductions, but I have to get this out because January 15th, the premium version of my

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PresuppU, Presupp University course will be beginning, class sessions will begin on January 15th.

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So people can still, if you're looking to support Revealed Apologetics financially, you can definitely donate.

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That can be done on revealedapologetics .com in the donate section. But a really helpful way to support the ministry is to sign up for the courses that I've recorded.

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The premium version of the course includes all of the PowerPoint slides, the notes and outlines, and then five private

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Zoom sessions with myself and the rest of the class, people who signed up, where we go deeper into the content of the prerecorded videos.

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And so I've done this for a few years now and I've had the opportunity to connect with people who support the channel and love apologetics from all around the world.

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So it's super cool and it's interesting to meet a wide variety of people and supporters, but it's a great way to learn presuppositional apologetics in a more organized point -by -point fashion as opposed to watching a collection of videos on YouTube and things like that.

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So that can be done. I think I put the links to sign up for that in the place where links can be placed, at the description, there we go, at the description of this video.

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So please consider supporting Revealed Apologetics by signing up, classes start January 15th of 2024.

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That is amazing. I can't believe it, it feels like only yesterday that I was in elementary school and it was the early 90s.

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So there you go, time's flying by real quick. Well, without further ado, we got some folks trickling in and so I'm gonna walk through some of these comments and issues and hopefully we could expand on some stuff and many of you who are listening will kind of learn the ins and outs of how to address some of these issues from a presuppositional perspective.

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So I'm gonna start by having my sip of coffee. Oh man, coffee and Jesus, that's what keeps me alive.

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Of course, not in that order, Jesus first, right? But coffee follows closely by.

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I love my coffee, it helps me to get through life. So there you go. So let's take a look here.

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So here's one of the comments I found in, I don't remember the specific video, but when I collected a bunch of these, here's what someone says.

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They said, presuppositional apologetics in one sentence. Okay, and this is this person's perception of what he thinks presuppositional apologetics is wrapped up in one sentence.

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He says, if I presume I'm always right and you are always wrong, then

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I win the debate. Okay, so there you go. That's how presuppositional apologetics is perceived by this individual.

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If I presume I'm always right and you are always wrong, then I win the debate, okay? So, all right, so let's unpack this then, okay?

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So this statement misunderstands, of course, right? The claims and argumentation of the presuppositionalist.

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Okay, now we need to remember that presuppositionalism follows what we might call the transcendental principle, okay, and hence we argue along transcendental lines.

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Our position is not, and this is a very common misconception, our position is not a mere presumption of the truth or a mere presupposing of the truth of the

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Christian worldview, okay? Critics, at least at the popular level, it's common at the YouTube comment level, right?

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And especially in places like the comment section, right? They seem to think that the presuppositional argument is a bare authority claim, and it's not.

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It's not a bare authority claim. It's not a mere assertion of the truth of that which we are presupposing. The transcendental argument is just that, right?

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It's an argument. Maybe it's a bad argument, maybe it's a good argument, but it's an argument nonetheless, and it's a form of proof.

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Transcendental argumentation is a form of proof. So if we take, for example, the various conceptions or various categories of proof, we might begin with, say, rationalistic sorts of proof, and this is typically associated with philosophers like Rene Descartes or Spinoza or something like that.

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And what we do within a rationalistic type of proof, we begin with clear and distinct ideas.

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Some might refer to axioms, right? And we can logically deduce the rest of our worldview from these clear and distinct ideas.

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And then, of course, we have the more empiricist kind of proof. And when we think of empiricism and things like that, we typically associate that type of philosophy with people like John Locke or David Hume.

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This is kind of a look -and -see approach. That's the empirical kind of procedure, right?

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Seeing is believing sort of thing, right? That's how we can typically kind of, in a brief and rough -and -ready sketch of how to understand kind of an empirical type of procedure, okay?

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Then we have, in philosophy, we have pragmatic -type proofs, okay?

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Now, the pragmatist is gonna say, who cares, right? Who cares about the rationalist and the empiricist?

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We don't need to address the pressing questions of philosophy. Look what we do. We build bridges, we find cures to polio and so forth, and we can cure various diseases.

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Our beliefs, the pragmatist is gonna say, our beliefs are rational in as much as they help us adapt to our environment, right?

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So truth and rationality, for the pragmatist, is what works, okay?

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And finally, and apparently, this escapes the minds of most critics online and the YouTube comments, there are transcendental -type proofs, okay?

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So it doesn't follow necessarily in the same way the procedures of the previous sorts of proofs we just discussed.

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We have, you know, we mentioned rationalism and empiricism, but transcendental kinds of proof is a type of proof nonetheless.

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And so this type of proof basically seeks what we call, and this is something that I've said over and over on this channel, it addresses what we call the preconditions of intelligible experience.

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What must be true before experience can be intelligible? What must the state of reality be such that things like intelligibility, knowledge acquisition, these sorts of things to be even possible?

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What makes intelligibility possible? Greg Bonson points out in his lectures on transcendental arguments, which can be listened to, there's audio recordings of these lectures, and I highly recommend folks check this out.

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You can find this on Sermon Audio. His lecture series on transcendental arguments.

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Bonson points out in those lectures that transcendental arguments is not an attempt to settle specific issues.

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It's an attempt to show that issues are settlable, right? So transcendental proofs is an attempt to defeat skepticism.

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So they're anti -skeptical arguments, not by appealing to self -evident truths like the rationalist or perceptual certainties like the empiricist or the success attainable in pragmatism, right?

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But it shows, rather, what would have to be true for the intelligibility of all our rational procedures to be possible.

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And so that's not to say that the presuppositionalist who argues transcendentally reject rational and empirical methods per se.

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We would say, rather, if we understand how to justify our ultimate assumptions, we have laid a foundation in terms of which we can now use, not empiricism methodology, but empirical methods.

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Not that we're gonna be using rationalism, but we can use rational and pragmatic methods. So a transcendental foundation provides the intelligibility for the utilization of empirical methods, rational methods, pragmatic methods, and other methods of proof, okay?

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All of those methods of proof are understood within the particular context, the worldview context that gives them meaning, okay?

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So this is super, super important, all right? So if someone says, if I presume

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I'm always right and you're always wrong, then I win the debate. I mean, that's not what we're doing, okay? You don't have to agree with the transcendental argument, but the transcendental argument is a kind of proof and we're attempting to utilize a transcendental argument for the truth of the

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Christian worldview, okay? All right, I hope that makes sense and kind of takes us through a path to understand what's going on here, okay?

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I got some people listening in here. Let me see if I, let's see here.

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A working starter is a necessary precondition for my engine to start. Yes, that is true. My engine has started, therefore

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I have a working engine. Okay, there you go. Let's see here. Okay, all right, let's jump on to our next comment on YouTube here.

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Someone said, and this again, this is common. We hear this all the time. Starting with the end point is never a rational thing to do when trying to defend a claim, okay?

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So this person says you shouldn't start with your conclusion when trying to defend a claim. Now, unless of course we're dealing with that which must be assumed at the start in order to reason itself.

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In other words, unless we're dealing with that which must be assumed at the start in order to reason oneself to any rational end or conclusion, right?

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Surely this person believes, hopefully, that we must have first principles in order to end anywhere, right?

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We're gonna have to start somewhere. And this statement itself doesn't even hold true to its own standard if the person making the assertion is, for example, an unbeliever.

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If we're arguing that one must begin with the triune God and His revelation in order to make sense out of anything, that statement

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I just read assumes the opposite of that position from the start, right? We should never start with that which we are seeking to prove, but then the above statement that I just mentioned starts with its basic assumption, namely that one shouldn't start with the conclusion in mind.

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So it's okay to start with un -Christian or non -Christian assumptions, neutrality, but it's not okay to start with Christian assumptions, namely that in order to make sense out of anything, we must begin with the triune

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God and His revelation, right? I wonder where this person thinks we should start. Brute facts, axioms, neutral and agreed upon starting points.

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If those are among his options from where we need to start in order to prove anything, he's already presupposing a starting point which cancels out a priori, the truth of the

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Christian starting point. And that's just to say that he's not neutral with respect to where one should start in their reasoning and argumentation.

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And this is simply to point out the fact that no one is neutral. We're not neutral.

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And so, again, this statement really is assuming a form of neutrality that we would reject.

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And so, again, it suffers from the very thing that it is trying to pin on the presuppositionalist.

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All right? Okay, I hope that makes sense. And I hope that's useful for folks who are listening.

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If you are enjoying what we're doing so far, please click the like button. As they say on the

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YouTube and interwebs, smash the like button, share all that jazz. From a

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YouTuber's perspective, all those things are super helpful. So if you find this beneficial, do all those things, greatly appreciate it.

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All right, so let's continue on here. Our next comment, our next YouTube comment here. Someone said here, it's a complete joke, presuppositionalism, it's a complete joke to all non -Christians, pure entertainment.

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When we watch you abandon reason and evidence for an argument no better than, nuh -uh.

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Okay, so this person thinks that the presuppositionalist is basically saying my position is true, and when someone responds, we say, nuh -uh, you know, and this kind of a childish sort of thing, right?

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So again, this completely misses the point, okay? So first, I would imagine that all of this would be pure entertainment to anyone who is dead in their sins, and they're an unregenerate

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God -hater, right? Of course, unbelievers are gonna find this a joke, they're not going to take it seriously, but again, someone's psychological disposition towards a view has literally no bearing as to whether the view is true, or whether or not the argument in favor of the view is a good argument.

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So again, at this point, this is really irrelevant in terms of truth. Now to say that reason and evidence is abandoned by the presupper,

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I don't know how he drew that inference, okay? Our argument is that which grounds and makes cogent and intelligible the conception of reason and evidence itself, okay?

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At least that's what we're claiming, and that is far from an abandonment of evidence and reason.

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Now, have we abandoned evidence and reason neutrally understood and autonomously understood?

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Well, you bet, because that's unbiblical theologically, and philosophically, it is problematic in various ways.

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We are abandoning as presuppositionalists absolutely nothing of the kind of idea that is being put forth in this statement.

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Rather, we are playing for keeps. All our chips as Christians are on the table. It's the unbeliever, in my experience, that has abandoned reason by his arbitrary and inconsistent methods and presuppositions.

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In fact, it is more likely one would observe the elusive Bigfoot, okay, than to find the average skeptic.

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I'll say average skeptic, because there obviously are exceptions, who's willing to engage the fundamental issues of worldviews, presuppositions, these sorts of things.

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What we get, typically, at this level, are complaints when we bring up these issues. Oh, you're playing word games, or come on, we all know what evidence and reason is, as though those categories can be understood independent of a worldview context, okay?

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Now, of course, we understand that this is, this is obviously not the case.

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Christians are willing to lay their worldview out on the table, and the unbeliever rarely does that, at least at the popular level, okay?

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I don't wanna speak for everyone, but at the popular level, it is very rare that the unbeliever will lay out their metaphysical assumptions, their epistemology, how they make this all fit together, and the unbeliever has no problem answering these sorts of questions.

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Well, how do you know this position is true? As long as you do not ask them with respect to fundamental issues.

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If you ask them with respect to fundamental issues, what do we get? We get, well, everybody knows that's true. That's silly, right?

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The preceptor is just trying to doubt reality, and he becomes the skeptic. No, we don't doubt reality.

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We do not doubt the reliability of our sensations and these sorts of things. What we're asking is that if you do not want

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God, if you do not want the Christian world, you then make sense out of those things you simply take for granted.

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It's not a word game. Those are asking foundational, fundamental questions, and the inability of many unbelievers to even want to engage in that level of discussion is very telling.

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Now, with respect to the claim that presuppositionalists are simply saying nuh -uh. Again, transcendental arguments are not nuh -uh arguments.

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Okay, I'm gonna say that again. Transcendental arguments are not nuh -uh arguments. This confuses the nature of transcendental arguments with mere authority claims and blind commitment to one's position, okay?

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Now, perhaps this person has met people who have a blind commitment and don't do anything other than nuh -uh, but that's definitely not the presuppositional method.

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That is not the transcendental argument. At that point, we need to make a distinction between presuppositionalism and transcendental argument and particular individuals who argue in a certain kind of way that reflects more of this nuh -uh sort of attitude, okay?

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All right, okay, let's move on to the next one here. Another person said, "'Presup' seems like one of the five stages of acceptance.

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It's kind of the middle ground between anger and bargaining.'" Okay, again, now the comments here confuse the psychological process of acceptance with presup as a methodology of Christian defense.

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It may be the case, right, that a presupper can exhibit anger and bargaining, but this is a feature of the person, not the method.

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To avoid logical blunders, this person might wanna be careful to make the important distinction between presuppositionalists and presuppositionalism, okay?

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Unfortunately, this is very true in a lot of contexts. Not only do people fail to make that important distinction, but presuppositionalists online have exhibited anger and even in some cases, foul language.

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I don't know where this comes from. I mean, I don't know why people do. I certainly haven't engaged in that.

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I've tried to encourage people not to. But even if you could associate these kinds of characteristics with presuppositionalists, that has no bearing on presuppositionalism.

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And so presuppositional methodology is nothing like the stages of acceptance.

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We're making an argument, like I've mentioned earlier in this video. So we wanna make those clear distinctions, okay?

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All right, let's continue on. Our next comment here. Without God, you cannot prove anything at all, okay?

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That's a lot of the claims that presuppositionalists make. So the person asks, so what is your justification for your claim?

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You need to give support for that, okay? And here, I'm going to 100 % agree, all right?

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If you're a presuppositionalist, if you are using the transcendental argument for God's existence and so forth, you need to do more than simply make the assertion, without God, you cannot prove anything at all.

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Saying that doesn't prove that. When Greg Bonson used it in his debate with Gordon Stein, or when he uses it in other contexts, he didn't believe that by simply asserting it proves the truth of that assertion, right?

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So, but again, the presuppositionalist is not simply making the claim, okay?

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Our justification for the claim is, and this is very important, is that when you reject the claim, you must presuppose the tenets of the claim in order to rationally reject the claim.

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I'm gonna say that again. Our justification for the claim is that when you reject the claim, you must presuppose the tenets of the claim in order to rationally reject the claim.

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That's the nature of the transcendental thrust of our argument. And that is the nature of transcendental principle.

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That is the nature of that which functions as what we call the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of something else.

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So let's walk through this real quick. Without God, you can't prove anything at all. What are the necessary preconditions for proof?

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What must be true in order for proof of anything to be a thing? Well, there has to be truth.

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Truth must be in some way attainable. There must be principles of logic, universal, immutable, conceptual laws and so forth.

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There must be a rational and thinking agent whose faculties are functioning properly and so forth. There needs to be personal identity through time.

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We're simply asking the question, which worldview can provide the pre -environment, the metaphysical and epistemological context in which these things make sense?

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Atheism sure doesn't do it. Logically incoherent religious perspectives can't do it. The Christian worldview can.

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And if a person doesn't think it can, then that person must be willing to engage, this is important, in the worldview tussle, right?

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In the worldview comparison. In the worldview test for consistency, needs to be willing to engage in analysis at that worldview fundamental level and be able to critique worldviews, internal critiques and these sorts of things.

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If they're not willing to engage in worldview defense, then they're not really engaging the issues, okay? It is not simply the claim.

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It is also the attempt to show that if Christian presuppositions are taken, okay?

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Then we could make sense out of all these things. You don't agree with that? Okay. Ask the

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Christian, how does he make sense out of objective moral values and duties? How does the

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Christian make sense out of universal immutable conceptual laws of thought? Christians have answers to these questions.

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You might not like the answers, you might not agree with the answers, but not liking the answer or not agreeing with the answer is not a response, okay?

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At that point, the unbeliever is gonna have to do an internal worldview critique. The believer is willing to do that on his worldview.

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The unbeliever is not only willing to do an internal critique on the unbeliever's worldview, the Christian is also willing to engage in defending an attempted internal critique of his own worldview.

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And I think when we engage in worldview analysis, when we engage in worldview comparison and critique, that is where a very, very, especially when both sides do it with good intentions, this is where very, very fruitful discussion can be had because it allows each side to lay out their position with the hopes that we're properly representing the other side and then we are testing each other's side for consistency, okay?

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And we are doing so in a clear and cogent fashion and in a way that honors the nature of the discussion instead of hand -waving it and saying, this is silly, who wants to talk about worldviews?

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This is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay? So there you go. Here's another comment.

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We can move on. We're making good time, making good time. Oh, and I forgot to say, so I will be dealing with some questions here.

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I've been walking through these comments here, but if you have a question, I can't promise to get through all of them because I'm not sure how my voice will be by the end of me going through these lists of points here, but I will try my best to get to some of the questions in the comments.

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So if you have a question, make sure you preface your question with question so that I could distinguish it from the comments.

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That's super, super helpful, okay? If not, and you're just chilling, like it's the day after Christmas, like I don't want to type of a question.

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I just want to listen. That's perfectly fine as well, okay? All right, so here's what someone else said in the comment section to one of my videos.

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I don't remember which one it was, but here you go. In other words, you're assuming you're correct even when you're wrong.

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I'm gonna say that one again. So in other words, you're assuming you're correct even when you're wrong.

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You're practicing a form of deceit. I'm an atheist. According to you, I can't make sense of anything.

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Care to prove that? Okay, I'm gonna read that again so you can follow along. Maybe you can see how you might answer this question, okay?

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In other words, you're assuming you're correct even when you're wrong. You're practicing a form of deceit.

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I'm an atheist. According to you, I can't make sense of anything. Care to prove that, okay? By the way,

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I do not believe that atheists can't make sense of anything. I think atheists make sense out of a bunch of things, okay?

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But given their atheism, they can't make sense of it. If what they say about the nature of reality is true, they wouldn't be able to make sense out of the things they make sense out of every day.

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So the claim here is not that they can't make sense of anything. The claim here is given the assumption of their atheistic conception of reality, they wouldn't be able to make sense out of the things they think they're making sense out of, okay?

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So just to clarify, okay? So in other words, you're assuming you're correct even when you're wrong. Well, this is an example of the pot calling the kettle black, right?

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It seems that he is assuming that he is correct and I'm wrong at the start, right?

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I could ask him, care to prove that, right? When he says, I am assuming that I'm correct even when I'm wrong, we need to make the distinction between the fact that I'm assuming that I'm correct and I believe that I'm correct.

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And the idea that I'm assuming that I'm correct, but I really know that I'm wrong is therefore, right?

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I'm being deceptive, he says, right? So has he considered, could it possibly be the case that I'm not being deceptive and it's just the case that I think

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I'm correct? Is that not an option? Is that not on the table? I'm being deceptive.

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I actually think I'm correct. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I'm not. So there's no deception going on here, right?

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There's nothing in what I've said that would cause someone to assume, nothing that I have said should cause anyone to assume

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I'm being deceptive unless you are so convinced that your position is so obvious that if anyone disagrees with your position, they have to be being deceptive, right?

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I must be deceptive because the things that I'm questioning, everyone takes for granted, right? Of course, that's not the case, right?

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So this person says that they are an atheist, but as we know, there are varying manifestations of the atheistic position.

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However, all of them, I think, suffer from a similar fate, namely the assumption of autonomy.

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It would be interesting to see how this person explains coherence within his worldview. How does he account for intelligible experience?

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How does he account for the issue of unity and diversity, which incidentally is a necessary precondition of intelligible experience?

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Is he a rationalist? If so, how does he escape the many traditional problems inherent in the rationalist position?

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Is he an empiricist? If so, how does he answer the traditional philosophical questions associated with criticisms of empiricism?

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Is he even aware that these are issues? Is he a pragmatist? How does he, starting from a perspective of atheistic autonomy, how does he escape the egocentric predicament?

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Does he even know what the egocentric predicament is and its relationship to the justification of knowledge claims? Well, we're not told, of course, given the fact that we're examining few statements without giving broader context, but nevertheless,

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I think these are the sorts of questions that would be very relevant when analyzing the specific variant of unbelief under discussion here, okay?

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We need to be able to ask those fundamental questions. All right? So there you go.

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I'm gonna take a comment here. Rebecca Halt says, are your courses available as part of Apologia Studios All Access?

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You are part of that, right? I recorded five short lectures on presuppositional apologetics.

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The course that I offer are much longer. So I did a 20 -minute sessions at Apologia.

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My courses are, my lectures are about an hour. And then the private Zoom sessions go about an hour, sometimes a little longer where we can interact with each other and you could ask your questions and we can go deeper into the content.

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So I am part of Apologia, well, I was part of their project there.

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That was kind of just one thing they invited me. I don't work with Apologia. But yeah, you can get kind of a small snippet of my course by going over to Apologia and checking that out.

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Their production values are much better than mine, okay? Because they have much more resources than I do.

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But if you want more information, more content, my course offers more than what is produced over there.

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All right, thank you for asking about that if you're interested there. All right, I'm gonna take a three -second break to take my cup of coffee.

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All right, okay. Give me a thumbs up if you are enjoying this. Is this helpful?

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I might wanna follow this format a little bit more. If you guys like me kind of going through the comments or plowing through certain questions, let me know in the comments.

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That's super helpful for me. So I wanna make sure I'm putting out content that's useful for you and I'm scratching where you're itching as the saying goes.

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So let me go. All right, so someone asked an interesting question.

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What is the difference between presuppositional apologetics and reverse natural theology?

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They sound very similar. Pardon. What is the difference between presuppositional apologetics and reverse natural theology?

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Okay. Now, I'm not sure what this person means by reverse natural theology, but let's begin by defining our terms, okay?

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So according to the Blackwell's Companion to Natural Theology, anyone's interested in that, this is the

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Blackwell's Companion to Natural Theology here. And it is a somewhat thick book that goes through some of the best versions of arguments for the existence of God that are typically associated with natural theology and so forth.

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So if folks wanna check that out, I highly recommend there's some helpful stuff here, okay? Nevertheless, according to the

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Blackwell's Companion to Natural Theology, natural theology is defined in the book in the following way.

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Natural theology, it is the practice of philosophically reflecting on the existence and nature of God, independent of real or apparent divine revelation of scripture, okay?

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I wanna read that again. According to the Blackwell's Companion to Natural Theology, natural theology is defined thusly.

31:32

It is the practice of philosophically reflecting on the existence and nature of God, independent of real or apparent divine revelation of scripture, okay?

31:43

Now, this should be distinguished from what we would call natural revelation, okay?

31:49

There's natural theology, and then there's natural revelation, okay? Natural revelation refers to the act of God revealing himself in the created order.

31:59

So natural revelation, this is a helpful way to keep these distinct natural revelation, natural theology. Natural revelation is what

32:07

God does. He reveals in the created order. Natural theology is what man does.

32:14

We theologize about that which has been created, and we draw conclusions from that. So the presuppositionalist is not engaged in seeking to demonstrate a generic theism, which is the project of natural theology, okay?

32:31

In fact, the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the ontological argument, the moral argument are all arguments for general theism, and taken collectively, there is a desire to fill out the details of this general theistic

32:45

God, and then move toward the second step, and especially within the context of kind of a classical apologetic approach, they move to the second step and establishing with more specificity the

32:53

Christian God. And this is typically done by providing evidences for miracles or historical evidences for the resurrection and so forth, okay?

33:01

Now this approach, I think, coming at it from a presuppositional perspective, it's important to take note of the fact that that approach is done in what we might call a piecemeal fashion, okay?

33:12

At least within the classical apologetic tradition, it's done within the context of rational proofs, which are typically brought forth in some deductive form.

33:23

The more popular argument within that scope of classical apologetics and natural theology is the cosmological argument.

33:31

Of course, the cosmological argument is not one single argument, it is a family of arguments. The most popular one of which would be the one defended by William Lane Craig, the

33:40

Kalam cosmological arguments, typically presented in a deductive form, very easy to remember.

33:46

Premise one, whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise two, the universe began to exist.

33:51

Three, therefore the universe has a cause. And then of course, he engages in a philosophical analysis of what it means to be a cause of the universe.

33:59

And he deduces from that characteristics that match a general conception of God, immaterial, immutable, so forth, personal, these sorts of things, okay?

34:10

So this is not at all what the presuppositional apologist is seeking to do when he offers a transcendental proof for God's existence, for example.

34:19

So the transcendental proof is to be understood here within the context of a

34:24

Vantillian apologetic approach. And this is important because for Cornelius Vantill, the task of apologetics, or at least how he defined and understood apologetics, was specifically a worldview affair, okay?

34:37

So Vantill would not have gone along with a piecemeal approach of defending the

34:43

Christian worldview, okay? So for example, we do kind of a linguistic analysis of Vantill's definition of apologetics.

34:48

And this is, I kind of go into this a little bit in the previous video entitled Dissecting Apologetics, where I take

34:55

Cornelius Vantill's definition of apologetics, kind of unpack how he understands this entire enterprise of defending the faith, okay?

35:04

So I want you to check this out here, okay? So you're gonna see very quickly that in Vantill's definition how he differs from kind of this piecemeal approach, which is typically associated with kind of a natural theology approach, a classical apologetic approach, okay?

35:17

For Vantill, apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life over against the non -Christian philosophy of life.

35:26

And by philosophy of life, Vantill is referring to the issue of worldviews, okay? Apologetics is a defense and vindication of an entire worldview system.

35:35

And this, therefore, I think prohibits the Christian, if understood in this way, from arguing anything less than a fully robust understanding of the one true

35:44

God, triune and revelatory, both in general and special revelation, and who has decisively revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

35:51

That's the God that we are arguing for. That is not the God that the arguments of natural theology are arguing for, but when someone employs them so as to argue for the

36:02

Christian God, that it is point by point, piece by piece. And that is a very different approach than the presuppositional approach.

36:09

Now, to address this ambiguous issue of reverse natural theology, again, I'm not sure what this person means by this, but if it means anything like arguing for generic theism, either by utilizing natural theological approach so as to conclude the existence of, say, like a generic

36:30

God, or by starting with the presupposition of a generic theistic God, and then arguing transcendentally in some fashion that this generic

36:38

God is somehow necessary for intelligibility, then if that's what reverse natural theology is referring to, then no, right?

36:46

It's not the same as the presuppositional approach, right? We do not neutrally and autonomously move from the facts of creation to the conclusion that a

36:56

God exists, nor do we presuppose a generic God and argue that this generic

37:01

God is transcendentally necessary, okay? We are arguing for a fully robust conception of God, namely one that is fleshed out, the details of which are fleshed out within the context of the

37:16

Christian worldview, okay? So we are arguing from the triune God of Scripture, all right?

37:22

And so natural theological arguments are not necessarily doing that. Now, does that mean there's no use for arguments within natural theology?

37:31

No, not at all, okay? Van Til would definitely not say that arguments from natural theology are completely useless, okay?

37:39

What he was arguing for, Van Til was arguing for formulating our arguments such that we do so in a way that is consistent with the teaching of Scripture and how

37:48

God has revealed himself and how the Bible has revealed how we ought to talk about God, how we ought to argue about God and these sorts of things, all right?

37:56

All right, so I hope I understood what this person meant by reverse natural theology.

38:02

If I'm completely off, then just eat the meat and spit out the bones. So hopefully I was on track there.

38:08

That was kind of the sense I got from the particular comment there, all right.

38:20

All right, let's see here. Thank you, Stingray. Thank you for your kind words. Stingray says, great work,

38:27

Eli. Keep up the great videos. I'm a big Bonson fan like you. And aside from his recordings, your videos and recordings are my favorite presuppositional material.

38:34

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That means a lot. Thank you. All right, so here's another comment here.

38:41

Someone said, I don't understand. If the evidence for Christianity is so strong, why would anyone need to make a presupposition that it is true, okay?

38:55

If the evidence for Christianity is so strong, why would anyone need to make a presupposition that it is true, okay?

39:05

Simply because the presupposition of its truth is the necessary precondition for the very intelligibility of the concept of evidence itself, or the very notion of strong evidence, as he says, if the evidence of Christianity is so strong, okay?

39:23

Now, the strength of the evidence and or the coherence of the notion of evidence necessarily requires the truth of the

39:32

Christian worldview context, right? That's what we're arguing for, right? If we simply appeal to evidence or notions of what is considered, quote unquote, strong evidence, we will eventually run into the issue of the presuppositions that govern how evidence is interpreted.

39:50

It would also impinge upon the presuppositions utilized to determine what constitutes, check this out, strong evidence.

39:59

And at that point, there's gonna be a disagreement over the conceptions of how to evaluate the evidence and the quality or the lack thereof of the evidence under discussion.

40:10

And this is why presuppositionalism is very much concerned with the paradigms with which we bring to the table when discussing evidence and the interpretation of the evidential data, okay?

40:19

I hope that makes sense. That's a super important point, okay? We're arguing that evidence requires a worldview in order for the very concept to be intelligible.

40:29

We're arguing that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for the sensibility and intelligibility of evidence. And that the idea of strong evidence is going to be based upon one's presuppositions and standards that they've set up to evaluate the strength or lack thereof within a particular argument presented to them, okay?

40:47

So that's not to say that we don't talk about the Christian evidences, but you don't wanna talk, as Van Til said, endlessly about the facts without addressing the person's philosophy of facts.

41:00

That's key, right? And that's just to draw us right back to the fundamental worldview issue. All right, okay, let's see here.

41:08

Now, I very much was very sympathetic to the next one here. This person says, I sure wish, okay?

41:15

I sure, and it has a bunch of crying emojis, okay? Next to it. I sure wish

41:21

I understand what you're talking about because it sounds important. Okay, yes,

41:29

I resonate with this because I know that these sorts of discussions can be very difficult.

41:36

Now, as you guys know, I teach middle school students. I teach,

41:42

I taught sixth grade New Testament. I now teach seventh grade

41:47

Old Testament and I teach eighth grade logic. And I have to differentiate for my students, for those who are interested in this sort of stuff and do check out my channel, there's a difference between what

41:57

I talk about in class or how I talk about it in class and how I address these issues here on YouTube, which the audience is much more diverse.

42:06

There are people that if I explain things over simplistically, I'm going to get criticized by the analytically minded person.

42:15

If I present the issues in a more sophisticated manner, then I'm going to get criticism from the person who's like, well,

42:21

I don't know what that means. This sounds like word salad. So I have to kind of balance this like, simplicity and technical presentation of these issues.

42:31

And I kind of resonate with the person. Here's the thing, presuppositional apologetics, okay?

42:38

Or understanding the idea that God is in his revelation are the necessary preconditions, what must be true.

42:48

It's wrapped up in biblical principles. In his light, we see light, as the book of Psalms tells us.

42:53

In the light of God and his revelation, we see things clearly. That's basically what we're saying, okay?

42:59

We're saying that God enlightens and gives context to everything else. And if we want to know what the world truly is and what it means and what facts are and these sorts of things and their relationships with each other and all these sorts of things, we need to see the world how

43:12

God has revealed it. It's a simple call to trust and faithfulness in God and a trust in what he has revealed and how he has revealed it, okay?

43:24

Presuppositional apologetics simply is an attempt to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, even the thoughts of the unbeliever.

43:34

I'm gonna say that again. Presuppositional apologetics is an attempt to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, even the thoughts of the unbeliever.

43:46

As a Christian, I proclaim Jesus as Lord. If Jesus is Lord over everything, including my thoughts, my thought life, my arguments and my reasoning, all these sorts of things,

43:56

I'm going to bring all those thoughts under the lordship of Christ. And when I engage in apologetics,

44:02

I want to show the unbeliever that if he does not do the same, then he can't make sense of anything. That's it.

44:08

That's all it is. We take all the complicated terminology out of the way, we're taking God at his word, we're not arguing to God, we're arguing from God, because he is our foundation.

44:18

I typically differentiate presuppositional apologetics with kind of these other approaches. Classical evidentialists tend to be kind of a bottom -up approach where you're working your way up to God exists, whereas presuppositional apologetics is a top -down approach.

44:32

We begin with God and we say, unless you start here and make sense of anything else, in his light we see light.

44:37

That's all I'm saying in a very simplistic way. Now it gets more technical as we're now interacting with more sophisticated objections and issues of philosophy and theology and so forth.

44:50

But in a simple way, yes, what I'm talking about is important, but at a basic level, that's all we're saying.

44:57

And it looks complicated because we're interacting with a wide range of objections and questions and those sorts of things.

45:05

All right. All right, now this is depressing. So I've been talking so much that my coffee has become warm.

45:14

I love my coffee scorching hot. You know what I need to get in this office? I need to get a microwave. Maybe you can give me a thumbs up.

45:20

How many people microwave their coffee like four or five times before you finish the cup?

45:26

I'm one of those guys. Give me a thumbs up or say, yep, that's me. Please let me know

45:31

I'm not the only person who drinks their coffee that way. All right. Okay, so here's our next question here.

45:44

All right, what is the best way in your view to argue for laws of logic as immaterial?

45:52

Okay, what is the best way in your view to argue for laws of logic as immaterial? Would the proposition matter does not exist be true prior to matter existing?

46:03

If that proposition would be true prior to matter existing, then the laws of logic existed prior to matter existing.

46:11

If the laws of logic existed prior to matter existing, then they cannot be material.

46:17

If the laws of logic are not material, then they are immaterial. Okay, yeah, that's sad.

46:26

Yep, I'm the only one. I'm the only one who nukes my coffee.

46:32

Does anyone refer to microwaving something as nuking it? Maybe that's just from where I'm from. Iced coffee, that's heresy.

46:40

I don't do iced coffee. Even on a hot summer day, I will drink scorching hot coffee.

46:46

My wife is an iced coffee person, but we're praying for her. So I'm just kidding.

46:51

All right, so now I have to read this question again because it was a complicated one. And I, okay, so here we go.

46:57

Here's the question. I'm gonna read through this quick. What is the best way in your view to argue for the laws of logic as immaterial?

47:03

That is to say not physical for those who don't know what immaterial is. Would the proposition matter does not exist be true prior to matter existing?

47:12

If that proposition would be true prior to matter existing, then the laws of logic existed prior to matter existing.

47:18

If the laws of logic existed prior to matter existing, then they cannot be material. If the laws of logic are not material, then they are immaterial.

47:26

Okay, so let's unpack this a little bit. So with respect to the example this person provides, would the proposition matter does not exist be true prior to matter existing?

47:38

Again, it is propositions, right, that are either true or false. So if no propositions are being made, then there is no proposition being stated or thought that would be either true or false, okay?

47:50

Now, of course, we believe as Christians that God existed before there was matter. And so the proposition that matter does not yet exist would be true for God at least, right?

47:58

Of course, God being omniscient, God, when we say God is omniscient, he believes all true propositions and does not believe any false propositions, right?

48:06

But of course, the skeptic's not gonna grant that, okay? He might wanna wiggle his way out of the situation, but nevertheless, to get to the question, what is the best way to argue that logic is immaterial?

48:17

Well, there are a few routes that you're gonna take, depends on who you're talking to and so forth. And it's gonna be impacted, the kind of answer you give is gonna be impacted by the level of sophistication of the person with whom you're interacting with, right?

48:32

So you wanna cater your answer to the person you're speaking with. So if the skeptic affirms logic, and that logic is material, then you could ask him, show us how the laws of logic can be physical in nature.

48:44

Where can we find these material laws of logic? Are they physical processes in the brain? If so, they can't be universal, given that the makeup of my brain is not the same as the makeup of this other person's brain, we could at that point entertain really the ridiculous notion that given the differing makeups of our brain, we're simply fizzing out via electrochemical activity, different logics.

49:06

And you might imagine how we could easily demonstrate the foolishness of that sort of position, okay? Is this what this person holds to?

49:13

I mean, is this criticism going to be irrelevant? Maybe, maybe not, depends on the person you're speaking with, okay?

49:21

Now, you could take the route of nominalism in terms of which universal categories, such as logic, numbers, and other abstract notions don't exist, right?

49:30

We're simply labeling these categories with words. And that is to say that we are giving names to these abstract notions, but there isn't anything out there metaphysically called logic or number and so forth.

49:46

Pardon. And of course, this is a more sophisticated route someone might want to take. However, to deny universal categories,

49:53

I would say is like removing the string that holds the beads together. Now, the beads or the facts, if you want to think of like a beaded necklace, of the facts and data of human experience would be the beads, right?

50:05

So the beads or the facts and the data of human experience on this conception are completely loose and disjointed.

50:12

You don't have a universal category, the string that holds them together. There are no broad categories that unify and bring into coherent relationship the facts of human experience.

50:21

This would undermine knowledge and logical inference and hence could be as self -refuting in nature, depending on which direction the person goes.

50:27

So in the final analysis, I think the best way to defend the immateriality of logic is to demonstrate the irrational nature of the idea that logic is material.

50:36

Give examples as to what absurdities would result. And simply, if someone says it's a language game with which to speak meaningfully about the world, we could engage with nominalism at that point to offer some criticisms there.

50:48

So if logic is not immaterial, then it is not universally binding, okay?

50:54

So if logic is material, right? It's not universally binding. And if it's not universally binding, then who's to say

50:59

I'm right or wrong with respect to some sort of inference I might draw, right? When the person points out what he perceives to be a contradiction, you can simply point out that perhaps in this instance, logic doesn't apply in the way that he thinks because logic isn't universal if it's material, okay?

51:14

You can't have a material universal. And if you're a nominalist, you can't have a universal, if that makes sense.

51:20

So things can get really complicated depending on who you're talking to, what topic you're talking, the level of sophistication that you're gonna jump into those issues, okay?

51:29

All right, I'm gonna divert from my YouTube comments and take a question here in the comments here. Stingray, Stingray asked the question, why is your ministry called

51:38

Revealed Apologetics? Does it have to do with revelational epistemology, which is a part of the Christian worldview? Yeah, so to keep it simple,

51:47

Revealed Apologetics is just another way of referring to presuppositional apologetics as I believe that the presuppositional approach is a biblical approach.

51:56

And if it is a biblical approach to defending the faith, then it is a revealed approach to defending the faith, right?

52:03

So if I believe that the Bible reveals to us how we ought to defend the faith, we could rightly say that that kind of apologetic is a revealed apologetic.

52:13

It is revealed to us via revelation, okay? How we ought to defend the

52:22

Christian faith. I hope that makes sense. That's why I call it Revealed Apologetics, okay? Let's see here.

52:29

Aletheia says, what's the presupposition of the Bible? Okay, so I'm analyzing this statement.

52:37

The Bible is not a living entity that has rational reflection. So the Bible doesn't presuppose anything, but if you think that in a general sense, yes.

52:46

The Bible is the epistemological link to the metaphysical reality of a

52:54

God who has chosen to reveal himself through a book or a bunch of books and in nature, okay?

53:01

So the presupposition of the Bible, if we can take this kind of in a general sense, is a

53:06

God who reveals, okay? For us, the Bible is revelation and it is linked to our theory of knowledge.

53:13

And so it is the epistemological link to the metaphysical reality that gives meaning to everything else.

53:19

So I would say that when I say that the starting point for the Christian is God and his revelation, we simultaneously begin with God and the revelation he has provided, both in general and special revelation, external revelation, the look and see revelation, and the internal fact that we are creating the image of God.

53:37

We are literally existing within the context of revelation as created beings.

53:46

Let's see here. God's word doesn't have a presupposition. Well, a presupposition is a pre -belief.

53:54

The Bible is a book, a collection of books. So the Bible, if you're talking about the

54:01

Bible itself, it's an impersonal, I mean, you have ink on the pages, okay? However, that is not to say, when we want to be more specific,

54:11

I would say that the necessary preconditions for the Bible to be a thing is the

54:16

God who reveals, okay? And that's why we presuppose God and his revelation, okay?

54:23

So there you go, okay? Let's see here. Yeah, so, okay.

54:29

So how do you argue that the Bible is truth as opposed to other supposed revelations? So it's the same thing. So when I say the triune

54:38

God is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience and knowledge. How do you know that? Okay, and then we unpack the details of our argument, right?

54:48

Assume the opposite, assume the opposite. Oh, let me see here. I'm getting multiple comments here.

54:55

Well, Aletheia, if you think the Bible has a presupposition, maybe you could help me out a little bit and clarify your question then.

55:04

Presuppositions, if you understand presuppositions as a pre -belief, then if I'm going to interpret your statement or your question literally, then you're saying that the collection of books has a pre -belief.

55:20

How can a book be in possession of pre -beliefs? There are certain things that must be true in order for the

55:28

Bible to be a thing, right? So God is the one who reveals himself through scripture.

55:35

So if that's what you mean, I'm not sure what you mean then. So I do apologize if I'm misunderstanding your point there, okay?

55:41

Sorry about that. Anyway, so D. Otero says, how do you argue the Bible is truth?

55:47

So the same way you argue for the existence of the triune God, right? The triune God is understood within the context of, all right, well, thank you.

55:58

Okay, all right. Let's see here. I'm sorry,

56:03

I'm getting thrown off here as I'm trying to follow. See, when you're doing this all by yourself, I gotta answer the question, I gotta read the comments, and I got my notes here.

56:11

Let me see. Well, let me take one thing at a time. Let's start there, okay? So I would argue that the Bible is true by the impossibility of the contrary.

56:18

Reject the worldview that is revealed in the Bible and the same thing results. So when I say the Bible is true by the impossibility of the contrary, that's the same thing as me saying the

56:27

Christian worldview is true by the impossibility of the contrary. How do we know this is true? Well, it's revealed to us.

56:32

How do I demonstrate the revelation is true? I demonstrate it transcendentally. Assume the opposite. The opposite assumption is going to be reduced to absurdity and the positive statement of the details of the

56:43

Christian worldview as given to us in scripture, answer the questions with respect to the preconditions of knowledge and so forth.

56:50

And then if you remember the previous question, we talked about the importance of worldview analysis.

56:56

We want to take other religious perspectives and those our worldviews too, and they can be internally critiqued.

57:02

And so we engage in internal critique, okay? For example, you take, for example,

57:08

Islam. Islam affirms various aspects of Christian revelation. And so what we can do is we can find common ground with the

57:15

Muslim. And notice that I make a distinction in other videos, that there's a difference between common ground and neutral ground.

57:20

There is no neutral ground, but there is common ground between the Christian and the Muslim, namely the portions of the scriptures that they think we have that is correct.

57:29

And then we could evaluate Islam on that basis and show that the revelation that was apparently given to Muhammad conflicts with the revelation that comes before.

57:37

How do you do that? Well, there's gonna be detailed work and back and forth, but that's where you're gonna get your hands dirty and actually interacting with the details of the perspective.

57:45

That's what apologetics is all about, okay? All right, let's see here.

57:54

Okay, all right, I'm gonna move back to my comments here. All right, I still don't understand what you're getting at,

58:00

Aletheia, and I don't mean that disrespectfully. I'm just reading what you're saying because it's God's word or God's logic.

58:07

I understand that, I understand the idea of logos and that kind of stuff, but the

58:15

Bible says the Holy Spirit is the truth. Yes. Okay, I'm not sure what you're getting at.

58:21

I'm sorry. Yes, indeed. But don't you know the Bible's been corrupted? Yes, yes, of course.

58:27

All right, yes, yes, that's what they say. That's what they say. All right, all right,

58:33

I'm gonna move back to the YouTube comments. Thank you guys for those questions. I hope me jumbling over my answers, I'm trying to multitask here, make a little sense, but here we go.

58:42

Here's our next YouTube comment that I wanna interact with here. So it's a little long one here.

58:48

Someone says, over the past week or so, I have specifically gone out of my way to research presuppositional apologetics and have come to the conclusion that it is a fallacious position, an argument, that's clearly been sculpted to cast doubt and dispersions on the opposing interlocutor or critic.

59:07

The entire position, this person says, is based on begging the question, surprise, surprise, we haven't heard this one before, begging the question derived from circular reasoning.

59:16

They all go through their spiel and script almost word for word, asserting without evidence, cast doubts on the opposing interlocutor with questions like, how do you know?

59:26

How can you determine your faculties to be accurate, et cetera? Even though the same argument could be applied to their position and sit back and pretend like they've won something akin to playing chess with a pigeon.

59:39

Oh, the meme, sorry, I guess there's a meme where someone's playing chess with a pigeon. Okay, I'm not familiar with that.

59:45

It's a very dishonest position and the Christian who attempts to use it should be ashamed of themselves. Okay, so I'm not sure the level with which this individual has gone out of their way to research presuppositional apologetics.

59:56

I can't imagine what he means by research. If he researched presuppositional apologetics in any meaningful way, he would have found out that its central form of argumentation, we've mentioned this previous in the video here, is transcendental in nature.

01:00:11

I wonder if he researched, if he read that transcendental arguments are anti -skeptical arguments.

01:00:18

They're meant to offer a response to the person who is skeptical about some proposition. So as to demonstrate the necessity and absolute certainty of some proposition by taking a fact and asking what are the necessary preconditions for the fact in question to be meaningful.

01:00:33

So yes, this is going to involve challenging the foundation of the skeptic's skepticism. I'm sorry,

01:00:40

I mean, we're not simply going to grant you your controlling assumptions, right? We're going to challenge the skeptic for consistency and cogency and there's no apologies here.

01:00:49

So it's not a word game to ask these questions of how do you know, how do you know?

01:00:55

That's a completely and entirely fair question. Now, if you think this can be turned around on the

01:01:01

Christian, I mean, we ask you to turn it around. That's literally to say, well, if I engage in an internal critique of the

01:01:10

Christian worldview, then this is going to be a problem for you. That's what we're always trying to get the unbeliever to do, right?

01:01:18

Let me take your worldview and try to press it for consistency with the hopes that I can show some inconsistencies there and problems.

01:01:25

And you are welcome to do that with our worldview, but this often doesn't happen, right?

01:01:30

Because many of these folks don't like to talk about worldview issues. It's too fundamental for many of them, okay?

01:01:38

All right, well, they want us to just grant them logic, grant them all these things. They don't have to account for these things. They want to kind of start already in the middle of the road and then drive their way along through their argument.

01:01:47

That's not how debate goes. Now, this person says the entire position is based on begging the question derived from circular reasoning.

01:01:54

Okay, so this is old hat for those familiar with how worldview analysis is to be done and things like that.

01:01:59

So let's ask, is circular reasoning always fallacious? Now, here we go again, right? Okay, I'm gonna bite the bullet.

01:02:05

If one thinks that we should not begin with self -attesting first principles, then it appears that this person is begging the question, in my instabation, in the opposite direction.

01:02:15

He is presupposing a method of argumentation in terms of which one's position is approached neutrally and autonomously, right?

01:02:23

It's approached independently, okay? He's presupposing a method of argumentation in terms of which one's position is approached neutrally and autonomously.

01:02:32

And you see neutrality and autonomy for these people is so much the air they breathe, they fail to see the inconsistency on their part here.

01:02:41

Okay, I'm trying to look at the comments here. Okay, all right.

01:02:47

So you don't find truth by a transcendental argument. Well, transcendental arguments try to ask the question, what must be true first in order for something else to be true?

01:02:58

So you're actually, again, transcendental arguments presuppose truth, right? You start with a truth and ask what the preconditions of the truth are, right?

01:03:06

So truth is known without argument. Yeah, that's fine. But a transcendental argument can show that something must be true in order for something else that we know to be true to be true, if that makes sense, okay?

01:03:18

All right, that's the last time. I can't keep going back and forth between the points that I'm, and then the comments.

01:03:23

So I'll try to address them later. I do apologize. I get, I'm like, you know, with the cat, you have the little laser and I get distracted.

01:03:30

So, but thank you, Lathia, I appreciate your comments there. Okay, so this person says, you know, we ask questions.

01:03:38

How do you know, right? We sneakily ask, how do you know? You could identify a presuppositionalist when someone is asking, well, how do you know, right?

01:03:47

How dare we ask the unbeliever to provide a clear, cogent and meaningful answer to the most basic epistemological question, right?

01:03:55

It's fine when they ask us, how do we know, right? As Christians. But then when we turn around and ask them, how do they know?

01:04:02

We're then following some script and this is supposed to be something bad and inappropriate and dishonest.

01:04:08

You know, we could ask the unbeliever how they know as long as we don't ask in reference to foundational worldview questions.

01:04:15

Isn't that right? We're only allowed to ask the question of mundane things, things that allow the unbeliever to simply assume foundations they can't justify so that they can then marshal other arguments and lines of reasoning based upon these unjustified and unaccounted for foundations.

01:04:30

It's just silly and philosophically naive, right? How do you know questions are perfectly appropriate?

01:04:36

It is not for the purpose of simply being annoying, although some people can be annoying by simply asking the question, okay?

01:04:43

But there is a reason for asking those questions, okay? Now, this person claims that the same arguments can be applied to us.

01:04:49

How can you determine your faculties to be accurate and so forth? Now, of course, this line is typically associated with the incorrect idea that the nature of our claim, and I've said this before, is that it is a mere authoritative assertion on our part, right, but it's not.

01:05:02

If this person thinks the presuppositionalist is in the same boat, then name that tune, right? I could assure you that the

01:05:08

Christian, given the presuppositional framework of the Christian worldview, can make perfect sense of the general reliability of sensation, personal identity through time, universal, immutable, invariant, conceptual laws of logic, and things like that.

01:05:21

If the world is as God has revealed it, both in general and special revelation, right, this should be easy for the presuppositionalist, right?

01:05:28

Now, this might be too simple for the unbeliever to handle, but on the Christian worldview, God has created us in his image as rational beings that can comprehend and make sense of the world in which he's placed us.

01:05:40

He's created us with rational faculties that in some degree reflect the ultimate rationality of the creator.

01:05:46

He's created a world that functions in an orderly and predictable fashion such that we can make general predictions and engage in science and so forth.

01:05:53

I mean, this is basic stuff, right, for the Christian. Many people want to complicate the issue, but when all is said and done, the

01:05:59

Christian can make sense of all these things because God and his revelation provides us with the framework in which all these things make sense.

01:06:06

How do we know this? Well, God has revealed it. And when you reject what he's revealed, your position is reduced to absurdity.

01:06:12

How do we know the contrary position is reduced to absurdity? Well, look at the history of philosophy. Engage in the internal critique of the competition.

01:06:19

This is, by the way, why we ask those basic questions about sensation, knowledge, reasoning, and all these sorts of things.

01:06:25

So as to show that the non -Christian worldview can't answer these questions, the very issues that make intelligible experience and knowledge even possible.

01:06:33

Now, of course, if someone wants to, if someone wants to reject that framework, the

01:06:39

Christian framework, and do what, from our perspective, is suppressing the truth in their unrighteousness, they're able to do so, but to their own detriment, right?

01:06:48

1 Corinthians 3, verse 19 tells us, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the scriptures say, he catches the wise in their craftiness.

01:06:55

We can come up with a whole host of sophisticated ways of denying God and his revelation, but in the end, it's a striving after the wind.

01:07:02

Now, this person thinks that we're being dishonest, and deceptive, but again, this confuses, as I mentioned before, people, presuppers, with the methodology, the argumentation, and so forth, okay?

01:07:14

There is a big difference between those issues there, okay? So super -duper important to make these distinctions.

01:07:21

All right, next comment here.

01:07:27

I wanna hear the presuppositionalist account for what they say the non -believer cannot account for. I've never heard someone do this.

01:07:34

Justify your claims as you expect it from your opponents. Presuppositionalism, the God of the Bible is the only path to intelligibility because the

01:07:41

Bible says so. Again, that's a straw man, right? We may mention that's not the nature of our argument, right?

01:07:46

So this is not the presuppositional argument, okay? The presuppositional apologist does not assert that the

01:07:53

Christian position is true simply because the Bible says so, okay? Now, it's true that the

01:07:58

Bible says so. It does, in fact, say that it's the only true position, but the other half of that coin is that when the truth of the

01:08:04

Christian worldview is denied, the competing perspective is shown to be foolish and false, okay? Now, again,

01:08:10

I'm just saying these things. There's more detail and analysis that has to be done, okay? But you get where I'm coming from, okay?

01:08:18

When the Christian worldview is laid out, it does, in fact, provide the necessary features of the possibility of knowledge and intelligible experience.

01:08:24

And I've argued elsewhere that if the Christian worldview can provide the necessary transcendental foundation, then it must be the only worldview that can do so given the fact that the nature of a necessary transcendental is that it is necessary.

01:08:38

There can be only one as the movie Highlander so rightly proclaimed, okay?

01:08:45

Hopefully, I'm not aging myself. Highlander, the movie from the 80s. Are they making another one where the guy who plays

01:08:55

Superman is gonna be the new guy, right? Anyway, I don't know if anyone cares about that, but let's break this idea down that there can only be one, okay?

01:09:04

There can be only one necessary transcendental because transcendental preconditions are necessary.

01:09:12

So if there are two necessary preconditions that contradict one another, then they're by definition not necessary, okay?

01:09:19

There would have to be some preconditions back of both of them to explain their relationship. If there are two necessary preconditions that are one and the same, then it's just the same thing with linguistic variation.

01:09:28

This often happens when people try to use kind of parody arguments. Well, what if there's a

01:09:34

Christian worldview, and what is the worldview that's not the Christian worldview, but it's the same in all these features, and then they have to qualify it, and they're basically kind of just constructing the

01:09:44

Christian worldview, but not calling it the Christian worldview. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet sort of thing, okay?

01:09:51

So again, so the Christian can answer these questions. You might not agree with the Christian, but I mean, we offer an answer, and I don't think any meaningful interaction with those answers have been laid out, at least in the comments here.

01:10:03

I'm not speaking for every person, of course, right? All right, okay, here's another comment here.

01:10:10

Someone wrote, here's presuppositionalism in a nutshell. Since I'm right, you can't be, okay?

01:10:17

This is what this person says. Well, if the Christian worldview's true, and even further, transcendentally necessary, then by definition, the opposite is not even possibly true.

01:10:28

So yes, if we are right, then by definition, you're wrong. I don't see a problem with that.

01:10:34

Well, I don't see a problem there. Person says, presuppositionalism, you can't even disagree with me unless you agree with me, okay?

01:10:45

Well, if the transcendental argument is correct, then yes, right? You would not be able to rationally disagree without implicitly presupposing the very position that makes your rational disagreement possible.

01:10:56

I mean, that's the nature of the argument, as we're trying to show, like you have to, as Van Til said, you have to be sitting on your father's lap in order to reach his face to slap him, okay?

01:11:06

I remember Greg Bonson being asked about the issue of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence in a debate.

01:11:16

Let's see here. Okay, sorry, my back, getting old. He says,

01:11:21

Greg Bonson's asked about the claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

01:11:29

And Greg Bonson, he responded humorously. He said, that's right.

01:11:34

And here's my extraordinary evidence for my extraordinary claim. And he said, if you reject my claim, then you can't prove anything at all.

01:11:41

Wow, extraordinary. Sorry, irresponsible. So far from being a criticism of the transcendental argument, it's necessity is a strength, right?

01:11:50

So I don't like the argument because it doesn't allow me to rationally disagree with you. Well, if you don't want the God of the

01:11:56

Bible, then you don't get rationality. That's the argument, okay? Now again, stating the argument doesn't make it true, but that's the argument.

01:12:02

We need to understand what is being said here, okay? All right, so again, presuppositionalism.

01:12:08

This is the person summarizing presuppositionalism from their perspective. You can't invoke facts unless you have the thing.

01:12:14

I insist you need, and I insist I have, okay? Like a coherent framework for making sense out of the very facts you invoke?

01:12:26

Yeah, well, yes. You're going to have to have a coherent worldview that makes sense out of the facts you invoke.

01:12:34

Even if I weren't a presuppositionalist, I fail to see why that would be controversial.

01:12:42

If your worldview gives the facts that you invoke, their meaning, the context for their meaningfulness, why would it be inappropriate for someone to ask you for a coherent worldview so as to make sense out of the facts under discussion?

01:13:01

I don't see why that would be a big deal. So, well, anyway, presuppositionalism.

01:13:08

Here's another way this person summarized it. Never make a case for Christianity. Just insist, interrupt, and insult your interlocutor until they rage -quit, gaslight them, then claim victory.

01:13:19

Well, I don't remember who asked this question, but I apologize, okay?

01:13:24

I do know that presuppositionalists, some presuppositionalists have engaged in constant interruption, insulting, rage -quitting, gaslighting, and they claim victory.

01:13:36

And that is not a proper presuppositional apologetic.

01:13:42

That is not a proper utilization of the methodology, nor is it biblical to do the things that you mentioned there.

01:13:48

And presuppositionalists in various contexts have been guilty of that. And so for that,

01:13:55

I apologize for that. And that's why I try not to do those things the best I can, although it can be very difficult depending on who you're discussing.

01:14:04

But nevertheless. But again, this summary of how this person perceives presuppositionalism, this again confuses the unfortunate tactics of presuppositionalists and presuppositionalism as a methodology and form of argumentation.

01:14:22

Again, so we continually come back to that distinction. I think it's super important.

01:14:29

This person also said the, let me see, nope, that wasn't, no,

01:14:35

I think that was the last one. Okay. All right. Let's see here.

01:14:47

Oh, hey Braxton, how's it going, man? So Braxton, I think that's Braxton, I mean, it's Trinity Radio, I assume that's

01:14:53

Braxton. All right, he says, if a second epistle to the Romans was discovered and it was demonstrated to your satisfaction that it was from Paul, would you consider that document to be authoritative?

01:15:04

That is a very good question. And to be perfectly honest, I don't, I'd have to think about that. There's some issues that I'd have to unravel before I can kind of come strong on an answer to that.

01:15:16

And I think it's addressed somewhere. And that was actually an issue that I've been meaning to look into a little more.

01:15:22

But this issue was brought up in the debate on apologetic methodology.

01:15:28

I think it was Jason Lyle, Scott Oliphant, who's the other guy,

01:15:36

Richard, Richard Howe, Dr. Richard Howe, I think it's Richard Howe. And someone brought this up and I thought it was a great question.

01:15:44

Unfortunately, I can't answer off the top of my head. I'd have to think about that because some other issues involved in how to lay that out.

01:15:51

So that's a good question, man. Yeah, thank you for that. Actually, I'm gonna cut and paste that and look into that, so there you go.

01:16:00

And here's the beauty. When you're doing apologetics, I think Braxton would agree here, too.

01:16:10

If someone asks a question that you don't know, just because I argue that the Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience and knowledge doesn't mean

01:16:19

I know everything, okay? There's nothing wrong or inappropriate to say, hey, you know what? It's a great question, let me look into that.

01:16:25

So I'm gonna pull that card there. It's a great question, I will look into that. I've been meaning to. I remember studying a little bit on that issue before, but never really following it through, so thank you for that.

01:16:36

Give me something to research, appreciate that. All right, well, we are at the one hour and 16 minute mark.

01:16:46

And my throat, I need to save my voice. So I'm gonna wrap things up here.

01:16:53

I hope that this has been useful for folks and that I've been able to explain kind of my responses here with clarity.

01:17:04

And if you like this format, I will try my best to kind of do things similar to this where I take questions and comments and things like that.

01:17:15

And even on this video, I might go back and kind of see if I missed anything and maybe address it in another video. So definitely will take

01:17:22

Braxton's question there. I see, hey, Doug from Pine Creek is in there. I'll try to scour some of the questions there as well.

01:17:29

So thank you, I appreciate that. All right, but that is it for now. Okay, I appreciate you guys taking the time and chilling out with me for an hour and a half and hope that it is useful and helpful for those who are listening in.

01:17:46

Guys, thank you so much for your listening support. Thank you so much for your support in general. And thank you so much for being nice in the comments.

01:17:53

You guys are so nice. Very rarely do I have people causing trouble in the comments.

01:17:58

You guys are so good, so I very much appreciate that. All right, well, that's it for this episode, guys.