Presuppositionalism Reexamined

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We are live now on the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris as always

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Here to talk about at least what I think are important topics and specifically for Christians we're gonna talk about apologetics today and a lot of my

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Motivation in even having this podcast I suppose you could say is an apologetics focus

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When I first went to college, I was involved in a college career group. I eventually

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Became a leader in that group and I've been involved in several other college career groups since that time and on college campuses

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Obviously, there's a lot of questions about the Bible and the truth of Christianity and especially today the ethics of Christianity and so all of these questions are what propelled me into trying to understand the best approach to Witness to unbelievers because that really is the end goal.

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I want them to know the gospel I want them to know the God that created them But I also want them to know that Jesus's commands are actually moral and better for living and and and this applies to Christians as well

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But when Christians, you know after you're born again when they're living life They should adopt the ways of Christ and the ways of Scripture.

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And so it's really a defense of God's Word and so in that vein though, I I Obviously have this channel, which

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I think was built primarily off of people wanting answers on social justice So that's been my specific focus for a few years but in focusing on that one thing

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I noticed is that a lot of the attacks on Christianity aren't necessarily

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Specifically just against Christianity. They're against the natural order And I've talked about this many times a good example of that is masculinity and femininity and this has driven me to ask some questions publicly about the role of presuppositional apologetics versus natural law and And that's opened a whole can of worms over the last week

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I've had a lot of messages from some of you but more presuppositional folks messaging me saying John let me explain this to you or this person can explain this to you.

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And and and I think that's great I appreciate that. I what some people might not understand is I probably read more on presuppositional apologetics at least

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Ventilion presuppositional apologetics Than almost anything else. There's there's a few subjects. I probably have read more on but not many and It's something that I really

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Care about I don't want to cast the whole thing overboard But I I think there's some weaknesses potentially and so with that long intro in that vein.

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I want to Introduce to you for the first time on the the I was gonna say the presuppositional apologetics podcast.

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That's not what this is the Conversations that matter podcast is what this is, but I want to introduce for you Chris bolt

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Who is a pastor at the village church in Dallas? I mean Richmond, Virginia He's not with Matt Chandler and he teaches at reform

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Baptist comm it's the reform Baptist Institute and you can go check out His teachings there and Chris, thank you for coming on the podcast.

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I really appreciate it Thank you very much for having me John is my audio is still good because I just changed the setting perfect Yeah, all right.

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All right. Good for me. Good anyone out there thinks otherwise, let me know in the comments That's where you can also let me know if you have a question for the discussion today

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We are gonna be discussing presuppositional apologetics and the reason I just want to let everyone know the reason

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I wanted Chris bolts on the podcast is because Chris teaches presuppositional apologetics.

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Well, I don't do you call it that Chris or is it just apologetics? Uh, I've taught it in every label in every way

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So yeah I have a general apologetics course that I do That's an introductory level and I go from presupp to reformed epistemology all the way through classical and evidentialism and all of that.

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So But yeah, and there was a brief period of time where I caught a covenantal apologetics, but I've changed that too.

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So oh You call presupp a covenantal for a while I've never heard anyone do that.

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Is that unique to you or that's from case got all of them He tried to make that that shift and of course, there's some things

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I disagree with with his methodology So went back to the old didn't stick

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Yeah, most people when they hear presupp or presuppositional apologetics, they think they until yeah

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I've had a few Clark Ian's that really give me a hard time for that. Like what about us? I mean, I know you're out there

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I see you but it's it is not the prevalence perspective when it comes to presuppositional ism

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But you know, I forgot to mention this I think too So if people want to follow you also go on X CL bolt is your

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Twitter handle So anyway with that out of the way, let's start the discussion here you are familiar with some of my teaching on this subject because I have a few courses

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I did years ago trying to Let people know about presuppositional apologetics and you're also very familiar with the current political battles or Theological political battles that are out there on this whole thing, you know, whether it's

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It's Thomistic or Scholastic or it's it's too natural law focused

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Just give me like from a 30 ,000 foot view Where you think things are at?

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Apologetically like do you see because there was I think a time during the New Atheist where Presuppositional apologetics became the apologetic methodology.

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I think that was around. I was a little before that I adopted this right before that and then

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I remember everyone's reading the books that I had read a few years before and And it it was it's skyrocketed.

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I see a ship. Do you see that or I do? The landscape has changed considerably, right?

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So I was writing on this back in like 2000 I mean I was using presuppositional apologetic so -called as early as like 2004.

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So it's been what? 21 years or so so Yeah, there there was not a lot out there back then at all

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And I was writing a blog trying to break down the presuppositional methodology for people just on the common level as it were make things easier

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And then yes since then things have really taken off. You've got a lot of pop I think you referred to them in an ex post as pop

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Presuppositionalist who are out there and and that's really taken off Yeah, I've got to mention my friend

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Eli Ayala who's on revealed apologetics. He's doing good work I believe in an introductory level to presuppositional apologetics

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He's actually doing apologetics in debates and things like that as well as teaching them. And so I'm thankful for You know venues like that But yeah the what we are responding to has changed as well so the new atheism

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I believe was a republication essentially of logical positivism on a very naive type level right on a popular

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Type level and I didn't expect the new atheism to survive very long and I don't think it did

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You know, you had the four horsemen and I mean a guy like Richard Dawkins is just he's a terrible philosopher

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It just didn't last very long And what you have instead and I didn't follow this so much because I was in the thick of the

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Lead pastor role at a church at this time, but the intellectual dark web starts taking off, right?

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And so then you've got you know The Manosphere and all of that with you know guys like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan and you know

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All of them start taking off And I think you've mentioned, you know, some of that with regard to masculinity and the concerns there as pertains to what we might call natural law

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Obviously, I think that's Stephen So first I saw Thomas Aquinas start being promoted in a lot of reform circles a lot more than he once was now

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People take issue with me saying that but that's that was just my perspective It seems to me as though a lot more people are reading him

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Especially since Bob Inc was translated by John Bolt not long ago his reform dogmatics

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So you get reformed Thomism start mixing around and then along comes Stephen Wolf, right?

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And so Stephen writes the case for Christian nationalism And it stirs a lot of controversy up.

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I'm gonna go on record as saying I'm not sure why I read his book and Now I am a philosopher by training and Stephen is too to some extent, right?

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And so as I read his book, it just seems to me like good reformed contextual

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Political philosophy and it seems rather mild. Yes. They're a little you know punches He'll take here and there especially on social media, but that's a different animal as we all know

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So I'm not sure what exactly all the stir is over with regard to that But this has caused especially because a traditionally theonomic

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Publishing house published case for Christian nationalism This has caused quite the dust up with regard to how theonomy and by that I mean

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Reconstructionist theonomy relates to the natural law tradition Magisterial Protestantism and then of course you can take that all the way back into presuppositional ism so I think that my thesis would be something to the effect of Presuppositional ism as an apologetic methodology does not necessarily

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Commit one to the rejection of natural law. And so I think that's where I land on all of this

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Yeah Yeah, and I'm very interested in that. Hey out of curiosity and all this Did you ever call yourself a theonomist or think of yourself that way?

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I have yeah In various contexts again, and I think that's an important thing to mention while we're there.

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I might as well mention it Yeah, you know Vantill is not a Reconstructionist theonomist.

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No, he he he did famously say there is no alternative but that of theonomy and Autonomy but we have to remember what

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Vantill's project was in the main and we have to remember that with respect both to the theonomic issue by which

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I mean Reconstructionism non legislative theonomy and all that sort of thing But we also have to remember his project in relation to natural law

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Because as I look through Vantill for some semblance of natural law There's not a lot there.

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There's precious little there. Why he's not writing on that That's just not his his area that he's he's addressing

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But as Vantill is claimed by the theonomist for saying that quote that I just mentioned

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Here's one from Stephen Wolfe I affirm a form of theonomy Civil law ought to be in accordance with God's law and civil law ought to order man to both earthly and heavenly

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Ends and that is from his case for Christian nationalism somewhere between 269 and 271

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So if Vantill is a theonomist by virtue of that quote Then I'm gonna say that Stephen Wolfe is a theonomist by virtue of that quote

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We obviously all as Christians are in some form or fashion Theonomist but even within reconstructionist theonomy there are different schools of thought.

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Yeah. Well, the etymology of the word is pretty broad, right? So when people Say theonomy,

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I mean you you hear, you know I'd like JD Hall guys like that say that theonomists are just rebranding themselves by saying they're general equity

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Theonomists and that's not the pure form that Preceded them by guys like Rush Dooney and Greg Bonson and Gary North others, so So there's it's a problem with a lot of the terms that we talked about and I don't know if the media has just escalated this and social media in particular, but You spend sometimes at least

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I feel like I do half an episode trying to just define terms And Because you say something and you're like, well this group thinks of it this way and then you so I already have questions coming in asking me to define terms and maybe the best thing to do is to Not get too deep into the weeds

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But just to quickly if you're capable of doing this give a definition and then we will proceed with the discussion here but the first one is can you briefly define or distinguish between Clark Ian and Vantillian I'll give you a crack.

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I know I could but it probably take me too long. Could you give a short crack at that? so I Will confess

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I've not read a great deal of Clark. Okay, Clark was and this is Gordon H Clark He was a legitimate philosopher.

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He published Articles in the realm of philosophy. He's very very good at looking at the failures of Non -christian systems of thought and philosophies.

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He had strong followers like Ron Nash. Ronald Nash was a Clarkian You know

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Robbins John Robbins wrote what's probably the best criticism or critique of Ayn Rand and the philosophy of objectivism

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One of the only ones really nobody seems to bother with it much but for whatever reason, but I would think of Clarkianism is being more scripturalist and I'm afraid that a lot of the pop

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Vantillians are actually going that route to where we are unnecessarily pitting special revelation

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Against natural revelation when they come from one in the same source, which is God, right?

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And so Clarkians will and I even saw this in some of your mentions John Clarkians will argue against science and the scientific endeavor

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Because and this is my take on it They're taking deductive standards of logic and applying them because they are rationalist

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They are applying them to the scientific realm now. I would agree that science is not deductive in nature

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There is some deduction in it, but it's not deductive in nature on the whole it's inductive in nature And so yes, if you try to think of it deductively then it's fallacious

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That does not mean that we cannot have knowledge through science and I would actually go to scripture To point that out that there is such a thing as empirical knowledge that we gain through the senses and our reasoning

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That's portrayed in scripture itself Yeah, well, this is good because this gets into so many areas including even biblical counseling right verse

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Christian counseling and whether or not you are capable as a human being of looking at the world and noticing patterns and seeing make you know making observations about human conduct and behavior and then

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Using those things to To induce principles or to apply principles or you know interacting with them in a way that's you know, interpretive and rational

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And I see debates going on in so many different realms But they fundamentally seem to come down to this and I think you just described it this

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Is it special revelation? Is it natural revelation? Is there a synthesis? And I'm very interested of course in what you just said of taking

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Or I don't know if you would frame it this way but reconciling Some of I think what we can find that's good in presuppositional apologetics reconciling that with also a healthy good form of natural law that's

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And I used to hate that word natural law. I would always say natural revelation in fact that I have coming out

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I think I try to say natural order because I was afraid of Being lopped in with Aquinas, you know,

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I have you read Aquinas. I have I read mostly back in like 2007 or 8 so it's been a while But I've been refreshing some of my knowledge.

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In fact, I was reading him yesterday the read him and I Confess it is so boring to me it's so boring because it's like here's the six objections to what

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I just said and I'm like They're all the same objection, but they're not because they're slightly different Very weeds on it

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But I I don't get my understanding directly from Aquinas on a lot of this stuff at least at this point

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But I'm glad that you've read it. One of us has read it. Here's another question about definitions Can you define terms pre sub natural law?

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Well, all right, I would say let's just let's just continue the discussion I think that will become evident as we go

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Alright, I have more questions, but we're gonna save those and we're just gonna proceed With I think of the narrow the focus here another question

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I asked this on X right before we started podcasting here, but I asked people what the divide was in Natural law and presuppositional ism.

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Is it autonomy or in theonomy? Which is how I hear a lot of presuppositional is presented like you're either gonna be autonomous or you're gonna be theonomic and they don't mean

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Necessarily theonomy in the government sense, but just you're not going to be

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That you're gonna be dependent on Some kind of a interpretive grid that comes directly from God in the form of special revelations

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So so is that the difference or is this a battle between idealism and realism and in the pop form?

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I think it's You know, are you going to be biblical is the question that's often asked like is this biblical which of course has broad meanings and So forth, but I think those two things are really the way it's framed is important here.

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So what do you think is this? Like if you're engaging in natural law or using natural law, are you being autonomous?

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And then you know, this is obviously You could take this any direction you want. This is a bigger question, but if you're

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Engaging in presuppositional apologetics. Are you then by definition engaging in idealism? Yeah.

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Okay good So if I forget to address some of this Please feel free to like correct me and bring me back in because I'm I tend to go all the way around something

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Which is fine because I've given you such a broad you could like literally, you know, you could talk about I don't know

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Trump buying Greenland and it would somehow apply. I don't know So I want to address the

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Thomas Aquinas thing. First of all, there is a sense in which Thomas Aquinas I mean we need to read and we need to understand him as he is

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And this is not with your question per se but what you said right before it We have to remember when it comes to Cornelius Van Till He is reading

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Thomas Aquinas through his interpreters during Van Till's day and so he's he's actually reading he's looking at the lens of Bellarmine, which

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Stephen Wolfe has recently been taking to task and so there is certainly what

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I would consider an abuse of some of these natural theological and natural law categories among those contemporary

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Roman Catholics of Van Till's day that's analogous by the way to how some natural law arguments that may have been abused even within the

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Reformed Camp, and so those are the types of things that Van Till is trying to correct context matters a great deal

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And so that leads into that first question there context matters a great deal When we're thinking about what somebody like Greg Bonson is addressing in the 70s the 80s of the 90s sorry, it wasn't quite as far as that but No, he died in the 90s, right?

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Yeah, but a lot a lot of his his works are coming out You know, of course his

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THM thesis is the theonomy and Christian ethics, right? And then later on he had no other standard which which does serve to clarify some of these things and there is certainly a sense in which

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Bonson does regard natural law as Autonomous in that negative even apologetic sense

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So for example in in theonomy and Christian ethics and this is a 387 to 388

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He's talking about the allegations of civil magistrates to perform their official functions in accord with God's law

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Okay, and so he says here's the deal The magistrates are gonna be judged by God and he writes now since this is true

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There must be criteria or a standard for this judgment a law that the magistrate is responsible to obey

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If this law is not God's law So we're talking about hypothetical here where the magistrate may be judged by something that is not

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God's law Okay, then it must be one of five alternatives now

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I'm not gonna go through all five, but one of the alternatives he mentions is natural law he says it might be natural law, but this is simply a projection of autonomy and Satisfaction with the status quo

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So understand how Bonson just defined natural law there is over against God's law it is a projection of autonomy in other words from man's nature we can come up with a law whereby will be judged and it is

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Satisfaction with the status quo because we see all men everywhere in some form or fashion doing this thing

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But then he goes on with another alternative later he says others have gone on to maintain that natural revelation

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Will be the standard of judgment However, this either amounts to preferring a sin obscured addition of the same law of God or to denying the unity of natural and special revelation and being willing to pit the one against the other

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Not only this but in fact natural revelation is suppressed in unrighteousness by the sinner and this should dissuade us from thinking that it

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Can be the recognized functional measure of his ethical obligation So Bonson is defining natural law there over against divine law and he is defining it as autonomous

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And he is defining it over against natural revelation, which we would understand to be Divine law, but he's saying it's less clear in nature than it is in Scripture It's nevertheless in union with it, right the two you don't put them against each other special revelation and natural revelation

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But there are other places where Bonson more fully develops this idea of natural revelation

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To mean something closer to or akin to what we might mean by natural law

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Insofar as the debate is concerned so for example in no other standard and I'll just read this and I'll Bring it back to you so we can stay on track here.

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He says God's Word is of course found not only in special revelation but also in natural revelation and to whatever degree unbelievers do civic good and Whenever there has been anything like a reasonably just government in non -christian lands

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It is to be credited to common grace and natural revelation

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Scripture is nonetheless our final authority now interestingly Vantill writes this in his defense of the faith page 194

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He says men cannot be wholly insensitive to the goodness of God Their hostility is curved in some manner.

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They cannot but love that which is honest and noble and true They may have many virtues that often make them better neighbors than Christians Themselves are and quoting him one more time from the

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Protestant doctrine of Scripture Vantill says but until the judgment day the revelation of God to man is a

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Revelation of grace as well as wrath of long -suffering endurance as well as a punishment of sinners that they might come to repentance

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So in addition to knowing the truth and the difference between good and evil men respond favorably to it in a casual fashion

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They have a certain love of the truth and a certain respect for the good in distinction from evil

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They do works which for the matter of them are things which God commands and are in themselves praiseworthy and useful

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They do the civil and moral good without these good works of unregenerate men

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Civilization could not long endure by the way. This comes from Calvin.

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It comes straight out of Calvin And so both Bonson and Vantill understand what we would propose as some sort of consent of the nations or Natural law in the way.

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It's being used in wolf and others So when you read common grace when you read consent of the nations when you read natural law when you read

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Natural revelation. These are often being used synonymously, but Bonson for his part in his context is often most often talking about natural law in terms of Rejecting something like the secularist would present something like a purist

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Aristotelian would present Something like David Van Drunen and the radical two kingdoms guys would present and so we have to define those terms carefully

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But certainly Vantill Bonson Calvin and I can read passages from there if we need to would affirm this

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Goodness, this goodness toward a civil end Yeah No this is really really good and I want to frame things in Simple terms as much as I can for those who are not as familiar with the debate that is happening online over some of these things

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The question really comes down to I think this that you have unbelievers who are and this is

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Very much for the reform community They are lost in their sin and there's something called the noetic effects of sin

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Which means that sin affects your knowledge? And so the the question I think is can unbelievers do good things.

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Are they capable of actually doing righteousness and You know,

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I would I have my own answers for all of this and so forth but I think the debate you could even start it there and say

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There are unbelievers who feed their children Jesus acknowledge this right and you're worse than an unbeliever

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If you don't take care of your children and that kind of thing So there's this these instinctual it seems like at least the scripture assumes there's these instinctual things

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Unbelievers know and can do like when Paul says act like men. He doesn't have to define exactly what that means it was understood in a natural way what that might mean and so There's some knowledge that we have based upon the way

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God's made us and based upon Being you know in his image and looking at the world around us making observations

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The book of Proverbs has obviously so many observations about the natural world, right? And so the question then becomes how do these unbelievers that function in these ways?

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How do they justify it? We share a society with them we Share all kinds of things we work with them.

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We might be very close It might be best friends, you know, or at least very close friends with unbelievers.

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They're in our families, right and We have to organize with them

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For the common good at times. There's no other alternative. That's just how things operate so how how does this happen?

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How do we think about this as believers and And and and so that I think that's one of the the ways or the areas in which this discussion emerges is

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There are those who will say that the unbelievers can't justify or can't they don't have the capacity to do any of these things apart from some interpretive grid and And and that would be the

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Christian worldview and it's a very holistic thing It's it actually I think I have I have several quotes from van

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Tillen Bonson Which I won't bore you with unless you want me to Chris But you've are probably read all of them where you know they essentially say that on every point the

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Christian there's this antithesis between the Christian worldview and the pagan worldview and or the anti -christian and that You can't have knowledge.

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You can't have meaning you can't have interpretation Bonson calls these the preconditions of intelligibility unless You start off with the

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Christian worldview and and then there are those who say no there there's these shared

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I Don't I don't know if instincts is the word. What's the word Chris for that the shared you shared?

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I think that's part of the debate really. I mean there are common notions or common ground and that sort of thing.

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Yeah Yeah, yeah, there's these common notions. That's a thank you That's a better term so that the unbeliever and the believer have and that we can work together and so I think that van

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Tillen and Bonson try to use common ground as their if you want to Like parallel what like what they're trying to say with what natural law theorists are trying to say they say there's no neutral ground

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But there's this common ground but I think what Bonson and van Till at least in my readings have done is they will say that this is like The the fact that unbelievers actually do have the

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Christian worldview because they're doing orderly things. They just suppress the knowledge of that And famously

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Until uses the example of a child on his father's lap slapping the father And the only reason he can do it is because he's on the father's lap

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So he's supported by this Christian worldview and so epistemology and presuppositions are very heavily focused on in that system

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Whereas I think in natural law theory it's not so much epistemology they focus on as much as it is metaphysics and The kinds of things that can be known and they just assume that we're made in God's image

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And so we come pre -programmed in a certain sense and we can justify certain things without having to adopt the whole

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Christian worldview How am I doing so far? Am I explaining this accurately? No, I think that's good And I mean,

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I think this brings us back to the idealism Good that's good.

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Okay, so because I I had forgotten that so Yeah, I mean I'm gonna

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I'm gonna use JV Fesco as a as a foil on this because I think that he is

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The primary person promoting some of this idea right now Vance Hill wrote a book called so let's go all the way back

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Jay Gresham ation writes Christianity and liberalism and Implicit in that title is this concept of Christianity and liberalism being two different things, right?

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They are not the same thing liberalism as he was talking about is not Christianity So along comes

30:27

Van Til Van Til wrote Christianity and Bartean ism Van Til was able to read

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Bart in his original language the Kierkegaard Madoka before it was translated into English and Wrote that response to Bart and to neo -orthodox theology

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This pits Van Til against Bart Sometimes people read Karl Bart and they claim that he is in the reformed tradition and he's in a reformed tradition of the reformed

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Objection to natural theology and so then they lump Van Til in with him. That is far from the truth

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It's best guys. What's that? That's go is one of those guys that lumps them in. Yes Yes, and he does so through you know

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Van Til's comments about interpreting everything through Christ and that sort of thing and there are some answers to that I may or may not get to here, but My point here is though to say that Van Til saw himself as pitted against Bart for sure

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A lot of people complained when Van Til's book came out because these seminary students are reading Bart when he's translated into English And they're thinking how could this

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Van Til guy already respond to him and give him, you know a fair hearing but Van Til also wrote

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Christianity and idealism same Implicit idea in the title

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Christianity is not idealism. They are in fact what he would say Antithetical and so Van Til was it was a

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PhD in philosophy from Princeton. He wrote his dissertation against idealism and pragmatism which he saw as equal and opposite errors and And so yes, there are times when

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Van Til is writing into that idealist context There are times when he uses the rhetoric or language of idealism, but is reading in other meanings to them

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There are times when he is addressing idealism as a complete type of system as representative of what he sees as an absolute antithesis of a

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Christian view which he would just defined as you know reformed Christianity expressed through the creeds and confessions and this sort of thing.

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So When Van Til says something like oh, well, we didn't have this until Kant comes along Immanuel Kant He's not saying that Kant is his friend

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He is saying this is a clear example of what I'm talking about with all times would be autonomous reasoning

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This sort of thing reasoning as though there is no God as though God's law doesn't matter and this sort of thing and so Van Til in general views every

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Unbelieving example of thought that the way that they err is that they absolutize their system

33:12

You do see this in John frame a great deal in the way for example

33:18

Especially in the doctrine of the Christian life, which is his massive ethics book He he basically says don't silo these different positions.

33:26

So he might address I Apologize for all the words. I'm about to use but he'll address the deontological view of metaethical theory

33:33

He'll address teleology, you know utilitarian ethics that sort of thing He addresses existentialism and he points out that each of these taken in and of themselves contradicts the other viewpoints and they also fail to account for Metaethical theory as a whole but when you approach them from a biblical

33:55

Standpoint you can see that there are in fact truths in each of these different systems

34:01

They've just taken those borrowed capital right that barred capital those borrowed truths and Absolutized them into these philosophies whereby they're trying to reject

34:12

God's revelation to man and by the way Van Til is is mighty loose on this as well

34:21

Because he actually does at one point praise Idealism only in this form

34:28

Van Til basically following almost an Aristotelian view of ethics in his book on Christian ethics

34:34

He believes that self -realization is kind of this end in our quest for the the son of Bonham the the you know the highest good in this sort of thing because What God is after in us is for us to use our mind or intellects and our will and all of that grace -given

34:52

Freedom to be directed toward God that sort of thing I'm speaking in colloquial terms here, but my point here is that he recognizes that there is

35:05

Here's the quote actually from Christian theistic ethics page 71 The only way in which we can account for the lofty character of idealist ethics is by saying that the gift of God's common grace

35:14

Has in a particular manner restrained what would be the ordinary operation of sin?

35:20

When it allowed men to conceive of a relatively speaking very high conception of self -realization now I can hear fesco's fans saying aha.

35:27

See he's an idealist No If you're going to argue that we can borrow from all of these non -christian views and whatnot

35:34

Then don't critique van till for doing the very same thing. You can't then say oh see clearly.

35:39

He's an idealist van till also says Uh in that same work that he finds much truth

35:47

In aristotle's doctrine of the golden mean in ethics, even though van till goes on to critique the problems with that view for example

35:55

If the virtue is found in between these two means Then in some form or fashion and this may or may not be a good understanding of aristotle.

36:03

I'm just putting that out there There's always evil present and the good is some like path between between the two

36:10

Which is not going to work christianly speaking because we're not dualist. We don't believe that good and evil are necessary to doing the good

36:18

Um also he would criticize. Uh aristotle as does frame

36:23

Uh, because you have to be virtuous in order to do virtuous acts Well, how can you be virtuous you do virtuous acts it makes this circle, right?

36:30

And that's dependent upon a view of free will that calvin goes into great detail in the christian institutes

36:37

To reject this is not a view that holds up To the christian understanding of divine providence and decree and that sort of thing.

36:46

Okay, so getting back to fesco quickly um Fesco just seems to go well out of his way to try to prove these things with regard

36:57

To van till and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. For example Uh, he argues and this is in a credo magazine, uh article he has

37:08

Fesco writes van till airs because he argues that believers suppress the truth

37:15

Rather than hold it as paul explains in romans 1 18 And here's how he explains that He says quote paul for example writes

37:26

For the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Who hold the truth?

37:34

in unrighteousness romans 1 18 king james version And he says

37:39

I purposefully quote the kjv here because it captures the nature of the term

37:44

Uh kateko Which is hold Rather than newer 20th century translations that say unbelievers suppress the truth as in the esv

37:55

And so he's criticizing van till on this As being someone who has this absolutist system and won't allow

38:04

That the natural man Holds the truth of god. There are a lot of problems with this for one thing

38:11

The kjv is unique in translating it this way That's the first thing the second is that van till doesn't actually argue anything here then he's just quoting scripture the suppression of the truth

38:23

Uh, this is not unique to van till that translation is not unique to van till If this translation really is sufficient cause for van till supposedly to earth then why not every other christian?

38:37

Uh other than those who are kjv only us, right? Uh, the suppression of the truth anyway

38:43

Presupposes a holding of the truth. You can't suppress that which you do not have And it is clearly the case even empirically speaking that unbelievers are out here claiming that there's no god, right?

38:55

Claiming that they lack belief in god And that can only be explained by some form or fashion of the suppression of the truth

39:01

Even if we get that by way of natural theology, let's say rather than romans 1 18

39:07

And so van till does not reject that unbelievers hold the truth and that can't be cited for his supposed

39:14

Error, but there are numerous places where van till Explicitly rejects idealism

39:23

He writes in a theory of christian knowledge or a christian theory of knowledge man's system of truth

39:28

Even when formulated in direct and self -conscious subordination to the revelation of the system of truth contained in scripture

39:34

Is therefore not a deductive system. He does not absolutize He does not believe that you can rationally move from one premise to another in a deductive system

39:45

So that one point entails all the others in that fashion. That is an explicit rejection of idealism, um

39:54

He he writes that elsewhere too in uh common grace of the gospel he writes the biblical System of truth that's in quotation marks

40:02

Is not a deductive system The various teachings of scripture are not related to one another in the way that syllogisms of a series are related the system of truth in scripture or of scripture presupposes the existence of the internally eternally self -coherent triune god who reveals himself to man with Unqualified authority he brings this up again in the defense of the faith

40:27

He says another charge is to the fact the effect that I think the bible is presenting us with a deductive system of truth

40:33

He says it would follow that the creed He says it follows and he says this positively The creeds of the church do not constitute deductive systems derived from the master concept of god

40:43

They are rather statements containing so far as possible All the various facets of truth about god and his relation to the world there is coherence in these creeds but it is not the coherence of Deduction I won't get into how he rejects bart, but he does outright for one thing.

41:01

He's not a cristo monas Um, but anyway, there's a little bit more I could say on the flip side of that, but go ahead

41:07

Yeah, okay. So for for those listening, uh, I just want to Let everyone know that you're quoting

41:14

When you talk about fesco you're talking about a book called reforming apologetics retrieving the classic reform approach for defending to defending the faith and in that book fesco critiques van till and he does present van till as uh someone who believes in idealism and you hear me on the podcast talk about ideology a lot and These things are related because idealism and this is a very over simplified kind of street level version of it, but it it posits that there's uh, there's one principle essentially that has interpretive that creates an interpretive grid for all knowledge and that This grid this worldview if you will is antithetical to other worldviews there can't be uh, you know more than one worldview cannot be correct and so um, so so you have you know

42:06

People walking around this world who have certain interpretive grids that they've adopted you could think of these almost as lenses that's what we

42:13

I think saw in 2020 especially right with You need a black lens or a gay lens or a womanist lens to understand what's really going on out there

42:22

And you're incapable of doing it unless you adopt these lenses. So There's an ideological component that I am

42:28

Very much against i've critiqued. Uh numerous times in the political sphere where people will say that you know their

42:38

Certain principle for under it holds the key to every piece of knowledge in the universe and it's really honestly

42:44

It's lazy because you don't have to really know anything you you could not research anything

42:50

But you have this one little key. It's you know, it's and i've seen guys do this with presuppositionalism I'm sure you've seen it too where they'll say

42:57

Like, you know, you know the problem today and then it's like insert. What are you going to say? Is it credo baptism? Is it uh, you're going to be you know, we don't have theonomy we don't have presuppositionalism what

43:06

I like and they'll insert like if everyone got back to uh, you know post -millennialism that it's like well

43:13

You're in danger of creating an ideology when you oversimplify things and make this the interpretive grid that paints uh, you know everything that you look at so, uh, this is obviously street level and that's the probably the realm in which

43:25

I operate the most because Hopefully i'm a simple guy. You're the you're the smart one here. Chris. He's going to um,

43:32

Tell everyone, you know, and I want you to philosophically What this all means?

43:38

Um, but let me get it back to uh on the course that I wanted to discuss this at so uh

43:44

Ideology is a problem idealism. I think is a problem. I'm a realist. You're a realist. Uh, Is van till a realist and and I would add to that bonson is bonson a realist or does bonson deviate from van till?

43:56

Yeah, no, I if I understand what you mean by realism, I believe they are Um another quote from christian theistic evidence or christian theistic ethics rather Uh van till writes that the revelation that comes to man

44:11

By way of his now he's not talking about only believers here The revelation that comes to man by way of his own rational and moral nature, so he's got a rational and moral nature

44:22

Is no less objective to him Than that which comes to him through the voice of trees and animals man's own psychology or psychological activity

44:34

Is no less revelational than the laws of physics about him

44:40

All created reality is inherently revelational Of the nature and will of god.

44:46

Well that strikes me that he's not a post -modernist He's not talking about a subjective thing and so Obviously there is for everyone

44:56

Some sense in which we subjectively imbibe what is objective, right?

45:01

But it's not as though we're talking about thomas kuhn With his paradigms where we're defining everything in terms of those paradigms and they're incommensurate with one another and that sort of thing

45:11

There is common ground and both van till and bonson are fairly plain about what that is

45:18

It's god's world and it's the fact that we're created in the image of god Now you had mentioned the image of god earlier and it's tied to metaphysics and this sort of thing um

45:28

Metaphysics and epistemology. So that is what's real and that's real what's real and not real

45:34

Epistemology being you know what we can know and not know and how and that sort of thing These are distinct and yet they are intricately tied together

45:43

And that is a vantillian point like van till would say that bonson would say that absolutely And I would say that by the way

45:49

I think that a lot of the analytic philosophy out there now is diverging from that and that is a problem So I do agree with like my friend craig carter on issues like that Well, you do have to have some kind of a metaphysic in order to even get the ground started with epistemology, right there's

46:04

Late you start from that's right. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's a reductio that you just presented against those other views.

46:12

Yeah so But what are we talking about? We're talking about the imago. So let's go all the way back to uh the trinity

46:20

You know within the trinity you've got the the one being essence of god And each person the father the son and the spirit participate in they subsist in the one divine essence and Each of the persons co -inheres, right?

46:38

So there's there are perichoretic relations within the trinity meaning that um, there's nothing like secret or hidden within the council of god to god, uh as it were so When you're talking about one person of the trinity that person can stand in as it were for the others

46:57

Okay, because of those perichoretic relations now on a creaturely level Man is created adam is created in the image of god.

47:06

Okay and uh, he's created not merely with uh

47:12

Rationality and volition But he is also created and I do like this language, but i'm going to define it in a moment

47:19

He is created in natural religious fellowship with god in the gardening now when you go back for example to calvin

47:30

Calvin would not use that language of natural He would use the language of supernatural

47:37

Because that is a supernatural gift Now, let me go back a little further

47:43

That is not the same thing As the roman catholic concept of the donum super additum where there's some other outside thing that's added to man

47:53

These gifts both natural which I have not mentioned yet both natural and supernatural

47:59

Are concreted in man in the beginning? And so that's the way stephen wolf would put it

48:04

Um, I think that a thoroughgoing vantillian like laying tipton would agree though They would differ in terms of their rhetoric and semantics

48:13

Uh, and I think that that's what calvin very plainly teaches and so in the fall uh, man

48:20

Misses out on he loses the the supernatural gifts and that's why it's important to say that these are not essential to man

48:27

Uh, because then man would no longer be man Uh, man is not erased in the fall, right?

48:34

And so, uh, the image is still there But it's marred right it's defaced but not erased and you can go on and on with whatever he'll preach, right?

48:43

so um That that brings us then to what can man do in terms of those supernatural gifts.

48:51

Well, those are gifts of Perfection. Okay, so that that's what man would need to perfect His good works

49:00

That is what is restored in the category of redemption Whereas, uh in the natural category those those go toward earthly ends

49:11

Those just are those civil and social goods because man is a political animal like you can't escape politics

49:17

You are going to relate to other persons Going all the way back to by the way, the grounding that we find for that in the trinity.

49:24

Okay, so the very idea of relation relations, but also relationships

49:31

Uh, there's a transcendental argument to be had there with regard to the trinity. Okay Coming back all the way to earth then our earthly ends those natural

49:39

Gifts are pointed toward these earthly ends like the civic good that i've already proven from the writings of bonson and van till Uh, and I haven't read calvin, but I I promise you he's sitting here open on my desk by the way, the section to read would be book two and uh chapter two beginning in uh, section 12 there

50:00

Man's natural endowments are not wholly extinguished Uh the understanding and he says supernatural gifts are destroyed

50:08

Natural gifts are corrupted but enough of reason remains to distinguish man from brute beasts

50:16

And so I would make the point that the corruption of the natural gifts is a very important thing that does a lot of work for All of us regardless of which side you're on in this.

50:28

Um There is at the end of the day to get to I think what the question was um

50:34

Everybody has this problem of trying to understand and define Exactly.

50:40

What is that relation between those natural gifts that are retained? and their corruption

50:46

Because we would say they are corrupt right question 22 of keach's catechism Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein two men fell the sinfulness of that estate wherein two men fell consists

50:57

In the guilt of adam's first sin the want of original righteousness. Now, that's part of those supernatural gifts

51:05

And the corruption of his whole nature. There's the corruption in the natural gifting

51:12

Which is commonly called original sin together with all actual transgressions Which proceed from it now i'm not going to get heavy into the relation between the image of god and man

51:24

And the covenant of works but stephen wolf would make a big deal of the covenant of works

51:29

In relation to his christian nationalist project in relation to natural law and this natural gifting and I would simply say that The covenant of works is on a creaturely level an analog

51:41

Of the perichoretic relations in the trinity insofar as federal headship is true

51:47

Adam stands in for every man and every man relates to adam by way of that federal headship

51:54

And so when we're talking about I promise you i'm i'm putting a point on this

52:00

When we're talking about what man is capable of or not capable of We're going to appeal to the image of god

52:08

And you can't talk about the image of god without talking about god and so yes uh as van till says

52:17

Unbelieving man can count He just can't account for counting right? And so if bonson who

52:24

I view i'm putting him forward as the radical today on on christian Theonomic reconstructionist thought if bonson can affirm some form of natural revelation

52:35

Even some type of natural theology. He may be against using inference in that that's fine

52:41

But if he if we can get that far with that Then surely I can bring this thing all the way back to van till Surely I can bring this thing out of the realm of political theory back into presuppositionalism

52:52

As an apologetic methodology and say there is no reason that a presuppositionalist

52:57

Is necessarily committed to the rejection of natural law as has been described here

53:03

So some of what you just said I think gets to Uh this idea of heavenly good versus earthly good and this is of course a big debate

53:11

Uh today, uh, I shouldn't say it's big it is a debate. It's not a big debate If you're in certain corners of the internet, maybe it's big but You know, can man?

53:21

uh accomplish good Even though he's depraved in some sense and I think the answer of course is he can't accomplish earthly good

53:29

But it's not the kind of good that pleases god, right? Yeah, he needs Effective gifts. That's right. Right.

53:34

Right. Um, so here's the thing like, you know van till and bonson both Uh, and we didn't talk about it bonson as much but you're saying hey they affirmed this they also affirmed that uh, man is capable because of the fact that man is made in the image of god of Engaging in some form or maybe it's limited, but they can't interpret some things they can't reason

53:59

Now here's the question I have and I want to read to you two quotes to set this up. The question is Were they consistent in this?

54:06

uh, and And then I guess the second part or the second place I want to go after reading these quotes is how

54:15

Should all of this inform our street level college campus level apologetics

54:22

I want to get into the transcendental argument and and all of that and and I have some uh thoughts on and i'm i'm already picking up we probably agree here, but I think that you can engage in these things but I this is what i'm trying to figure out, you know was bonson off In some way or inconsistent or are some of the pop level followers of these guys?

54:46

going off into idealism, you know, or something that's uh,

54:51

You know because they seem very sensitive and defensive about their position in and aggressive towards Natural law sometimes so I want to explain that because that's the dynamic people are seeing play out and wondering what explains this right?

55:04

So let me read for you the quotes first then we'll go to those, uh areas. So here's the first quote This is from cornelius van till you're i'm sure you've heard these

55:11

Uh, this is from the reformed pastor in modern thought he says no valid interpretation of any fact can be carried on except upon the basis of the authoritative thought communication to man of god's final purposes in scripture

55:27

As this scripture sets forth in final form and redemptive work of christ

55:33

Every fact must be interpreted Christologically and let me give you one more

55:38

This is from greg bonson greg bonson for those who don't know a student of cornelius van till who is I think more than anyone else popularized

55:45

Uh van till's thought or at least he claims to do that people claim that he does that so Here's what he said in a book called pushing the antithesis page 96

55:53

He says the christian worldview does not simply differ with the unbelieving worldview at some points

56:00

But absolutely conflicts with it across the board on all points

56:05

The unbeliever's epistemology is informed by their ethical hostility to god as van till said therefore presuppositional apologetics requires that you recognize the

56:17

Antithesis between christianity and all other variations of the non -christian worldview whether religious or secular

56:24

So help me reconcile these quotes with what you've just told us. They've said in other places Yeah, and this is what

56:30

I was trying to say by way of like a two quote, okay I think we have this problem regardless of where we land if we're natural law advocates

56:37

Uh, we're going to be asking what does it mean that man can know things and do civil good and yet There's also corruption not merely with removal of the supernatural gifts, but or the heavenly gifts, right?

56:52

But there's corruption with regard to earthly ends and those types of goods

56:57

So what do we mean by that and how is uh is man affected in that way and by the way

57:03

I would argue that calvin certainly does say that there is that type of corruption and he does spell that out more

57:10

Um, he also goes on a few sections later there to define

57:15

He actually defines natural law as that which shows that man is suppressing the truth and unrighteousness

57:21

Is is a sinner is in need of salvation that sort of thing i'm being very i'm very much paraphrasing him there

57:26

But you can go look that up, uh, but so coming back to van till and bonson then so yeah They do constantly make these comments like uh, well, uh, man, uh, you know, the unbeliever can't know anything

57:38

But the unbeliever Knows things or you know, well, there's no common ground Uh, but we have these things in common right and and I think when it when it comes to van till He's doing that as somebody who writes from a continental tradition um van till again, he

57:57

Like stephen wolf and this is funny that he's been Dinged on this, you know wolf starts out his book and says look i'm not going to revisit all the theology

58:06

I'm going to assume reform theology the bulk of the magisterial reformers and the work they've done Calvin and others and I think he gets calvin, right?

58:14

Uh, and then build a political philosophy upon that so also cornelius van till is working from two major streams of thought

58:21

Namely amsterdam and princeton. He's bringing together dutch calvinism and uh, the the princetonian school of the puritan thought he's trying to be ecumenical and develop a somewhat novel apologetic

58:36

Approach in that regard. That's why he gets dinged also for not doing heavy exegesis and whatnot

58:43

He's using the work of his teacher your hardest boss So anyway, um,

58:48

I do think just to pause that's a very important point I wasn't expecting stephen wolf to come up so much But that the guys who criticize stephen wolf the most love van till and van till was hammered

58:59

Because he didn't quote bible verses. So anyway, he even conceded the point van till concedes that point in.

59:05

Um, Was it after once upon an a priori or in in his festrift? Um van till admits.

59:11

Yeah, that's right. But anyway, um So I think that all that is and that that's difficult to get into without having the context there in front of me and all that and I know tit for tat it's fine because I I offered a lot of quotes too, but um,

59:25

It's they are merely trying to get to the idea of what is it?

59:30

That man can know what is it that man can do that is good And then how does that relate to the fact that something is awry here?

59:39

They are corrupt. Obviously the spiritual good we all agree on the spiritual part They they are they're dead right?

59:46

They're spiritually dead They don't have the knowledge of spiritual things that sort of thing When it comes to the natural goods though, how do we understand that and I think that the best way perhaps to understand it

59:57

Is through van till's categories of uh formal and material agreement

01:00:02

And so you can have I think you can illustrate this locally with an analogously

01:00:08

Without even resorting to the theology behind it. So let's say that I say Murder is wrong.

01:00:15

Why do I believe that murder is wrong? Well, I actually have multiple reasons for believing that murder is wrong.

01:00:21

I believe that murder is wrong Um because man is created in the image of god. And so this is a genesis 6 sort of thing

01:00:28

Um, I think you can flesh that out in terms of natural theology. I believe it's richard hooker that makes a really good case um that From natural law you you actually have to love god and love your neighbor

01:00:40

Um, so anyway, you you can I think you can know through natural law Uh natural revelation of god and then building natural law on top of that inferentially you can make good arguments

01:00:52

That prove that we should not murder that it's wrong to murder ethically speaking, but I would understand that natural theological

01:01:01

Building there in terms of my prior christian commitments. I'll come back to that in a moment.

01:01:08

So Someone else is saying unbelievers says well, I believe murder is wrong Well, we agree

01:01:15

There's formal agreement now. We can be co -belligerents We can live together side by side in society all that sort of thing

01:01:22

But you start asking that person. Why do you believe murder is wrong? Well, it could be because uh, you know

01:01:28

Maybe they'll drag in someday ontological argument and be like well, you know Immanuel kant had these uh maxims and one of them was that you should treat people as ends in and of themselves and not as means to an end

01:01:39

And murdering someone you're using someone to get something else that you want whether it's revenge or you know

01:01:45

Whatever it may be and you're certainly not acting in an ethical manner there Uh now I might even agree with the additional explanation, but at the end of the day there's no material agreement between those two

01:02:00

Two positions right and so I think that analogously we can say that with regard to the whole i'm going to use that word the whole of Our approach to metaphysics epistemology ethics aesthetics

01:02:18

Because when I listen to natural law advocates who are not advocating a secular theory

01:02:23

But are actual christians making these arguments. What do they always come back and appeal to the image of god?

01:02:30

There's still an underlying theological explanation For what they are saying when they are pressed.

01:02:36

So can there be that that surface level agreement? Absolutely I think that's the civil good that we're talking about When pressed are they are the unbelievers consistent in that?

01:02:46

Absolutely not and so we're dealing with this rational irrational dialectic this inherent inconsistency in the fallen sinful creature himself

01:02:56

And so it is very difficult to articulate How that works out, but I think at the end of the day apologetically speaking what vandal and bonson are after is so let's just Cut to the chase.

01:03:07

Let's just get to the presuppositions. So here's the thing though when that happens though that appeal to natural revelation

01:03:13

I agree that the identity of the image of god is the god of scripture It's the trinitarian god of scripture.

01:03:18

Obviously, we're christians. We're confessional. So we we must affirm this but there I the concern

01:03:25

I suppose that I have and I think this is probably what fesco has even if he has misrepresented van till or bonson is that There's not like a comprehensive special revelation type level of knowledge that an unbeliever

01:03:43

Possesses in order to make the claim as you said that murder is wrong or some other claim, right?

01:03:50

They they don't necessarily Uh have the entire Biblical worldview and I and I know some pop level guys who do argue this way explicitly and if there's a

01:04:01

Either an inconsistency or if there's a disagreement from van till and bonson I do know guys like and i'll just i'll just name the guy and I love him

01:04:09

I deeply I just got to say this before because i'm gonna have people upset at me But I think that jason lyle's work on things like fractals and like it's incredible That was actually a funny story that I don't have time to get into but it's one of the ways that I uh

01:04:22

Started dating. My wife was I tried to get her interested in jason. Lyle's uh fractals I thought it was amazing and she never watched it to this day.

01:04:30

We've been married now 10 years. I still haven't gotten her to watch the fractals video. But uh So jason lyle though in his book on I forget the title of it his pop level presuppositional book

01:04:40

Uh, he I think it's called the ultimate proof of creation. Does that ring a bell? Uh, and i've read it a few times but it's just years ago

01:04:48

He will explicitly say he doesn't say the christian worldview. He goes the extra step of saying the bible, right?

01:04:53

So You must assume the bible you must assume this special revelation in order to know anything and I used to think like okay like this is

01:05:04

You know for the common lay person who doesn't know philosophy who just wants to defend the faith like Maybe this is a good book to give them and I know

01:05:11

I gave it out to a few people Maybe I shouldn't have done that but uh I thought like this just cuts to the chase and it's powerful in a way because when you use the

01:05:18

Transcendental argument and you say look I have the bible and it explains these things for me

01:05:23

You don't have the bible and you're left to this autonomous Kind of you know, you're you're grasping explanations like it's powerful and I think most people

01:05:32

When they're asked basic questions about life, they naturally grasp for answers because no one thinks through these things

01:05:38

Hardly, this is the philosophers who end up trying their theologians who think but most people just take

01:05:44

Like they assume at face value. They just assume everything they've been given Um, so anyway, you know,

01:05:50

I guess i'll i'll have to say i'll end with this. Uh You know when i've done some formal debates in college settings, in fact, you can probably find

01:05:58

At new paltz suny new paltz years ago. I did a debate with an atheist. I used a lot of the presuppositional stuff

01:06:04

Um, I did one on abortion there it's powerful it really is powerful but I I think the thing that I struggle with now more than anything else is

01:06:15

Um, like what you just talked about The imago day when people root back their ethics in there uh, they're not

01:06:24

They're not always We are talking about I think something that's informed by special revelation

01:06:30

But not everyone who agrees murder is wrong is talking about special revelation and they're getting there And I think they're getting there because of the god of scripture, right?

01:06:37

I think I think i'm saying what you agree. We're agreeing on this. I think I think I think maybe we'll find out

01:06:43

Maybe there's just superficial. No, I don't know So i'm being i'm being practical about it here though, because I want to get street level uh,

01:06:52

I guess the question would be then um is Special revelation meaning the bible is that required to know things or is that required to give an account?

01:07:04

of of knowing any and all details Yeah, I think it's required for an overarching accounting uh in terms of The so -called and I know we've both stopped using this word the so -called world view

01:07:20

Um, but uh, I I think that this is analogous in a strict natural law scheme that we're looking at in the popularizer like stephen wolf, right because uh, you know quote

01:07:37

He says recall that we distinguish the two species of gifts that god gave to man natural and supernatural or perhaps better put

01:07:44

Constitute Constitutive and perfective gifts. I said that the former that is reasoning

01:07:51

Body and understanding are essential to man as man and principally concern earthly things. So can man have knowledge?

01:07:57

This is not him. Can man have knowledge with regard to that? Can man do good with regard to that? Yeah, absolutely.

01:08:02

I think so. There's civil good there is reasoning There is thinking through things we are rational creatures.

01:08:09

That was not erased in the fall That would be a terrible view of total depravity and by the way, john calvin takes it to task immediately

01:08:18

In that section I referenced earlier But then wolf continues and says the perfective gifts are not essential to man as such but necessary for his perfection and his knowledge of Desire for an ability to strive after eternal life and to worship god rightly in the heart

01:08:38

These latter gifts are primarily inward since they provide the ability to perform theological good a good conscience before god in all one's

01:08:46

Works and I I would not so sharply differentiate. This is not him. This is me now

01:08:52

I would not so sharply differentiate what's going on here with regard to the intellect And the will and the emotions and all that I wouldn't sharply differentiate between epistemology and ethics

01:09:04

In that regard and so I think that is what van till and bonson are trying to do is something akin to that As they are very familiar with the tradition of the magisterial reformers

01:09:16

They are I mean, they're not totally out to lunch on these things. These are not Dumb guys, it doesn't mean that they're right.

01:09:22

I understand that but uh, some of the things that people will charge them with I think is way off track

01:09:30

But anyway I'm gonna kind of set that theology aside because I think i've probably talked about that enough and if you don't find it sufficient

01:09:36

That's fine um but I think there's something to be said there for again

01:09:42

Yes, man knows things and also man does not know things as they truly are like in their fullness

01:09:48

No, there's not this assumption. I think it's wrong to say That the unbeliever needs to have a holistic world view

01:09:57

Before he can know things in this natural sense Uh, but anyway shifting over Tell me if this is helpful

01:10:05

So one of the things I do a lot on these podcasts and i've done it even in my debates It's talked about natural theology now and I think that natural theology is analogous to this issue in many ways and by the way i'll reference there was an uh,

01:10:18

There were two blog posts written by doug wilson back in the day back in like 2014 or something where he talks about natural law

01:10:24

In relation to that one principle of christ as lord And so I would encourage people to go back and read that because he certainly affirms natural law uh

01:10:34

But then we have to get into what he means by that But I do think there's significant overlap between what he's saying and what people now are trying to say

01:10:42

So, let me let me do this. Let me go through uh, natural theology real quick and then just the practicality of it

01:10:48

What do I think is going on today and what what we should do with using this so? Natural theology can mean different things and does mean different things depending upon who you're reading and how they're using it

01:10:57

There's natural theology in the sense of natural revelation General revelation. In other words, all men have a knowledge of god.

01:11:04

That's romans 1 18. They do hold the truth Uh this sort of thing Okay, and there are a lot of things we can know through natural revelation the power of god the wisdom of god his divine essence

01:11:16

Feinberg actually argues because i'm teaching a course through his book He actually argues that man knows by nature

01:11:23

That he is in need of god's grace to get him back in good with god as it were Because he should know when his conscience is either excusing or accusing him and this sort of thing

01:11:33

He should know. Oh, I can't do this on my own I have to look to this external source, which

01:11:39

I think is going fairly far You're saying you can know quite a bit from natural revelation in that regard But natural theology

01:11:45

I would distinguish from that as an inferential process This is a rational process that's built upon those deliverances of natural revelation

01:11:54

Natural theology are those natural theological arguments? I think that those are at home within presuppositional methodology

01:12:05

And the reason I do Uh is because god is not against reason um

01:12:12

We we do not believe and I think all of us should reject this the pre -dogmatic use

01:12:20

Of natural theological apologetic arguments. We do not believe that those are consistent with What we would um say our faith rests upon Our faith rests in the revelation of god thomas aquinas himself taught this

01:12:36

There are things you cannot know about god through natural theology such as the trinity such as redemption

01:12:41

Calvin would agree. Okay. So in that regard and I like saying this thomas aquinas is a good vantillion

01:12:47

Okay, because he's not trying to pre -dogmatically argue people into the faith by way of rational proofs

01:12:55

How can we then use natural theology in terms of an apologetic? Well, we can present natural theological arguments to point out the inconsistencies

01:13:05

In an unbelieving understanding of the world. Hey, ultimately you can't account for these things. Okay We can also present them in a positive sense

01:13:12

Like I the kalam cosmological argument, right? Everything which begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being the universe began to exist

01:13:18

Therefore the universe has a cause I believe all of that. Like I think that's a great argument, but i'm a christian

01:13:25

And so i'm interpreting that I am Through that christian lens and I don't know what other lens I would interpret it through But I think that that can be offered as hey,

01:13:33

I have actual reason to to believe these things that I say Okay, and so that can be used as part of the persuasive uh aspect of Christianity as well.

01:13:46

So on the practical street level with regard to the issue of natural law I do believe what we're seeing are the pragmatic outworkings of what van till would call a christian world and life view or christian worldview

01:13:58

We're seeing people recognize that they need at least on a pragmatic level

01:14:04

Christianity they're seeing that civil order is parasitic Upon cultural christianity which we're losing and so great britain

01:14:13

Is no more right like england is becoming muslim now Okay, and uh, whereas the united states we're headed in that direction, right and um,

01:14:24

You know things like marxism all the social justice concerns that you were talking about that jordan peterson has talked about and others

01:14:29

Um, those are real worrisome because those are antithetical they are opposed to christianity um so I I think um

01:14:40

I think that what we need to do Yes is appeal to some of these guys like a joe rogan or something on the basis of natural law

01:14:48

Scripture itself uses natural law. It uses it in the head coverings passage It uses it in romans 1 18 and following by the way that gets into ethical outcomes

01:14:58

Doesn't it that regard civil order doesn't it? So the corruption of natural man is on display in romans chapter 1.

01:15:05

It's not merely Spiritual there that paul is talking about or addressing and so, um,

01:15:12

I think even if we try to remove the exegetical arguments for a corruption of man, uh in his natural gifts

01:15:20

We have to think about what are the implications for spiritual blindness as it pertains to? uh, the civil order and this sort of thing and so That doesn't mean that we completely jettison the presuppositional

01:15:34

Apologetic and and whatnot. I do agree with you john like 100 there is a type of naive

01:15:40

Um, you I think you've described. Oh pop. Yeah pop presuppositionalism out there. That's generally unhelpful um,

01:15:47

I get it like you don't want to do the work and study philosophy and stuff and actually interact with people On the level that the argument actually takes place on you just want to cut down to the root

01:15:56

But you end up, you know saying like well, how do you know you're not a brain in a vat? Ah, that proves god.

01:16:02

Well, no, you really didn't prove god. Okay Uh, there there is a positive presentation of the christian world

01:16:08

All of these things with natural theology and natural law. Yeah, I think you're probably referencing sigh tim brook and kate there who uh, uh, you can correct me if you're not but I don't want to say that because then you don't want to get enemies.

01:16:19

Um, but uh No, I I you know, I I actually I mean I like size a lot of these guys are people

01:16:25

I like that's the thing but um, but yeah, like I as i've seen people like um,

01:16:30

I guess i'm the one naming the names here But like, you know, jeff durbin being another pop presuppositionalist when he debates when

01:16:36

I see sides and brook and kate debate Um as much as I appreciate so many of the true things and hard -hitting things

01:16:42

They say because they do say some good things I I think once they get to the point of yeah

01:16:48

Like like how do you know you're not a brain in the vat and then the guy whoever they're debating with, you know, matt However, you say his name dillawadi or how you know, whatever he just comes back and sit and start saying well

01:16:58

You know prove to me your god Is the correct god and that you need your god specifically?

01:17:06

I I Oftentimes the response is well, you can't even reason though So like I don't need to do that because you can't reason

01:17:13

And I I have god and I can't reason and they'll say well, how come I you know, explain it to me

01:17:19

How come I can't reason we'll say well you do reason the same way I do, you know god but you so so it ends up becoming this like and and it's

01:17:28

It's also I guess it looks like bad manners too, but it becomes this like you know the god of christianity in sometimes

01:17:37

I think an exhaustive way like you you know answers to so many, you know social questions and um,

01:17:44

And you know, he exists obviously as being a fundamental question there but it's like you're just You're suppressing that knowledge about him and in one sense

01:17:55

There's a truth to this right in the sense that like man as romans one says

01:18:01

He looks around him and he sees attributes of god on display but when when they're saying like give me

01:18:09

Show me that it's the christian. It's the one in the bible then, um, I don't know it just becomes kind of like I don't know

01:18:16

I don't want irreverence the word that might be too strong, but it's a very Like i'm not gonna tell you the answer like i'm not gonna yeah

01:18:25

Right, and I don't have to explain this to you Yeah, it's a two -step approach right?

01:18:30

We're told this but even by bonson's a two -step approach There's the positive presentation of the christian worldview and then there's the negative transcendental critique

01:18:37

And if we only rely on the negative transcendental critique, we're never actually offering the truth of christianity. That's good.

01:18:43

Yeah No, no, no, I think that's really really good. I I don't have a problem whipping out even some what are considered

01:18:50

Thomistic arguments on these points, you know when ray comfort says hey The painting has a painter look around you and I mean, it's really paley's watch right?

01:18:58

He's a scottish common sense realist argument I think that's great. That's a great argument to use. Why wouldn't you use that?

01:19:04

Right? But either there are presuppositionalists and and I thought i've heard bonson say this maybe i'm wrong um

01:19:11

It's just been so many years since i've read bonson, but who will say you can't do that because you're assuming autonomy

01:19:16

You're assuming that man's capable of reasoning on his own and i'm thinking no i'm assuming that man's made in the image of god

01:19:22

That's what i'm assuming right when I appeal to those things but um And we don't want to conflate the object and the subjective there

01:19:29

Look, I mean when we talk about so your previous one of your previous guests was talking about you know

01:19:35

Man cannot natural man cannot spirit. He doesn't have spiritual understanding He can't understand things like the trinity or redemption and the gospel.

01:19:42

He can't understand scripture. I'll push back on that. Yes, he can to some extent

01:19:48

There there is an intellectual grasp available To an unbeliever sure trinity redemption and scripture itself now

01:19:58

Here we are in the same problem again, like everybody's in the same boat We need to theologically and philosophically work out.

01:20:05

What exactly does it look like then in terms of something like illumination? Where a man is moved from that premise of unbelief to faith in god

01:20:13

And then the perfective gifts kick in again and all that kind of thing, right? Um, but but all those questions always run parallel with the natural revelation itself, too

01:20:23

Those are not opposed to each other and i'm i'm afraid I keep seeing that and you mentioned it with jason law

01:20:28

I don't I don't remember that or whatever but uh going off what you said I mean for jason law to say well the bible you need the bible to know anything like I think it's a problem

01:20:37

Yeah, I mean that that's how I think it's presented and I wasn't expecting to talk about him.

01:20:43

So I didn't uh mine his book for quotes but uh, But that's obviously the impression that I left with after reading it a few times um, so I I want to come up with or I want to present, you know, my way of for the last two years how

01:20:56

I've thought of reconciling These things and I want to kind of bring it home and do some questions

01:21:02

But I do need to let people know because I was asked to do this real quick. Uh, uh speaking, uh,

01:21:09

Arrangements that I have engagements that I have coming up and someone inform me You can go to johnharrispodcast .com.

01:21:14

If you want to look at the page i'm looking at that Uh for the march 1st reformation war room in shelbyville where i'll be speaking with ad robles shelbyville, kentucky

01:21:23

This is your last week to get the early bird discount. So, uh, just go to johnharrispodcast .com

01:21:29

Go to speaking And you'll find reformation war room right there. Of course, there's a number of other

01:21:35

Engagements, I just added uh, february 21st and 22nd. I'll be at the political christianity conference in vancouver, washington uh, and then uh, there's yeah, texas pennsylvania, new jersey

01:21:47

Uh, just go check it out. So, all right now that i've uh said that um All right, so we have some questions coming in but I just wanted to say this um the way that I thought about this for the last couple years,

01:21:58

I haven't publicly said this on the podcast, but I have um thought of It this way justifying your interpretation

01:22:09

You know interpretation itself Um, you do need the god of scripture to do that you

01:22:15

I don't think It is necessary to justify the use of interpretation because of or because you have some kind of exhaustive knowledge or a christian worldview in other words,

01:22:27

I think someone in Uh, we always use the example of an african tribe somewhere who's never been exposed to special revelation

01:22:35

They can use reason and I don't think it's because They are somehow uh

01:22:42

Tapping into the christian worldview, right in the sense of you know, like the way that worldview is traditionally used

01:22:49

Uh, I think that they are wired with a knowledge of god by nature of being made in his image

01:22:56

Yes, and and right so this is where I think we agree and this is where I know that there are presuppositionalists who scream at this and say that this is

01:23:04

All wrong see that's weird to me because natural revelation van till teaches plain as day natural revelation is authoritative

01:23:11

It's necessary. It's sufficient. You just have to ask. What is it sufficient for? It's understandable

01:23:18

And so on and so forth. There's nothing wrong with the natural revelation The problem is with us as sinners and the same is true, by the way when we come to scripture itself

01:23:27

Yeah, right. Exactly. You have to interpret scripture same problem, right? Yeah. Yeah yeah, no, I I've pointed this out too before it's like because someone actually told me and I kid you not and I don't want to Embarrass anyone here.

01:23:38

Um, because I I love this brother dearly, but that scripture is self -interpreting that that's so you you have this interpretive grid that comes from scripture that's prior to Understanding things about the natural world and you don't have to interpret that scripture because it is self -interpreting and I I just thought but that is

01:23:58

I I don't even know where to start with that exactly because it sounds clarkian to me and and in Nature and scripture van till talks about the necessity of nature in order to interpret scripture.

01:24:10

That's right. That's right And that's how I look at it. So maybe I I don't uh necessarily disagree with pantsville um

01:24:15

But we do need to get to some of these comments We've been going about an hour and a half and I wanted to try to keep it around an hour if we do

01:24:21

Need to do more on this subject and you're listening. Just let me know and we'll do more content on this

01:24:27

There's all kinds of things that I wanted to get into That we just don't have the time for because this is a super big subject

01:24:32

But um, let's start here. We have uh, this was early on So these questions come at different points and maybe we've answered some of this

01:24:39

What utility does natural law have for public policy and and let's do short answers on this.

01:24:44

What do you think chris? Uh, pick up a copy of the case for christian nationalism You know you mentioned stephen wolf way more than I thought we were going to talk

01:24:53

I didn't even know his name was going to come up But uh, I think you're right that a lot of these debates are happening because of him.

01:24:58

So, you know I think it's appropriate the problem with tag. That's the transcendental argument for god's existence for those who don't know

01:25:05

It's usually framed this way the the the um argument for god's existence is that without him you can't prove him or the reason for god's existence is that Without him, you can't prove anything.

01:25:16

That's the trinity trinitarian god of scripture All right So and jason lyle, by the way frames that with the reason that the bible is true is without the bible

01:25:23

You can't prove anything. So that's I think why I thought that about jason lyle. That's like the premise for his book uh, which

01:25:29

I think is different which is In an ultimate sense again, and I think

01:25:35

I granted that earlier in an ultimate sense. That may be true. Yeah So so here's uh the question the problem with tag from a calvinist perspective is that is that there's a strange interpretation of romans one

01:25:46

How can a totally depraved man hold the truth in unrighteousness if they are totally uh depraved any yeah,

01:25:55

I mean i'm not sure I understand that question that there seem to be some confused categories, but um, you know, the only two ways

01:26:02

I know of interpreting Romans one really in the main literature would be that there is this uh instantiated knowledge of god versus uh

01:26:11

There is a knowledge of god that we can acquire Uh as a presuppositionalist, I believe both

01:26:16

I think that the knowledge of god is in man Uh, but I also believe that we can acquire the knowledge of god, right?

01:26:23

Uh, and so that even is how as a christian I think we can use natural theology to learn more things about god through reason even um, but Uh that's using nature versus using scripture and coming up with systematic theology and this sort of thing but total depravity is simply that uh

01:26:42

It's no part of man as it were is left unaffected by sin And so our mind, you know, our intellect our wills our emotions.

01:26:50

All of those are affected by sin Uh total depravity does refer to our spiritual inability to come to christ on our own

01:26:59

The holy spirit is required for that by the way That's an armenian teaching as well And so they would posit a provenient grace that brings man into this, you know neutral position where he can choose for or against Uh, but it's certainly in calvinism as well, right and reformed theology this sort of thing

01:27:16

Uh, just this idea that the spirit is needed to bring a person to christ Um, and so i'm not sure how that affects either of those interpretations really of romans one where yes man has knowledge of god

01:27:31

Uh, he suppresses that truth in unrighteousness greg bonson wrote his uh phd his dissertation in philosophy on this the crucial concept of self -deception

01:27:42

He argues that there's a first order belief in the existence of god. There's a second order belief about that belief

01:27:49

Um, you know, I I do not believe in god and that's the suppression that's happening there I think you can see this on an empirical level that people clearly suppress the knowledge of god within them but yeah, no, that's good and uh,

01:28:01

I think of I don't know that I agree with this. I think at one point I did and I might have gotten it from bonson but uh,

01:28:08

There's this interpretation of thomas aquinas that He believed that man's reason was not fallen that It was probably an overstatement.

01:28:17

Yeah, it's an overstatement, right? Yeah paper francis shaffer makes a big deal of that too. Maybe I got it from shay. Yeah shaffer

01:28:22

I think you're right because they think in how should we then live? I think he he makes this point

01:28:27

Uh that yeah quinus doesn't think reason faculties are fallen or something. Um, You can think that reason faculties are still have a place and can still work while also holding to total depravity, right?

01:28:40

Uh, and I think that is the majority of the magisterial reformers would have felt this version of that.

01:28:46

There's corruption But that's that's what i'm saying. We do have to define what are we talking about with corruption and calvin does so yeah

01:28:52

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Uh there is a radical depravity that I think maybe that question we just got could uh, like like this understanding that like if man is so Uh depraved that he can't do anything including reason then it's like what do you even do in bringing an argument to him, right?

01:29:09

Real quickly that I keep reading some of the the critics of van till And they act as though van till holds something like that like this radical depravity where the image of god is completely erased and all

01:29:20

That sort of thing and there's no knowledge of these principles and all that That's not even what brought me into presuppositionalism

01:29:25

It was the opposite that I could look at the atheist and go. No you do believe in god Let me describe that through your use of logic

01:29:33

Same with me. Yeah. No, that's a fascinating point because I I was in college and I just thought wow, this is powerful stuff that you can point people back to You don't have a standard.

01:29:45

I do it was really as simple as that and then hey look the god described in the bible the christian god uh is

01:29:54

You know how I can justify these things that we both agree on and that's where the common ground Uh comes from but uh, doug, let's see.

01:30:01

I think the next one is from doug So doug says do you think man can get to a true understanding of truth justice morals and beauty apart from special revelation?

01:30:09

I think we've already answered this and you say Yeah on a certain level. Yes uh, we have

01:30:15

Greg who says if theists want to claim that everybody has some inherent responsibility or obligation to everyone else's welfare

01:30:22

And then the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate that isn't it? Well, that's an interesting question and it's not really in the purview of what we've been talking about Do you want to take a crack at it?

01:30:31

Anyway, chris, I think the burden of proof is on them um But I don't think it would be hard to prove

01:30:37

Yeah, and this is so so this may be an area where we we could prove we could even like just go to natural uh your natural natural revelation or natural law shouldn't say natural theology, uh, and You know when you're born into a society,

01:30:51

I know richard weaver makes this point from an essay That was very profound on me called two diarists but uh, or no, no, sorry, it's two types of american individualism

01:30:58

That's the one where he talks about Individualism and how there's different versions of it but basically he says look you're born into a society and these

01:31:06

Transcendentalists who thought you could get off on a mountain and like cut all these bonds and like now i'm free

01:31:11

Like that's a pipe dream. It doesn't exist. Uh, you're born into obligations. You're born into an environment where you're shaped and That's just the way like I can't give you a blank slate palette doesn't exist and and I think that's one of the big critiques of uh,

01:31:28

You know, even ayn rand type objectivism and many forms of libertarianism is like you can't sever those connections

01:31:34

It's it's just not part of the order. God has laid down in this world Yeah, the funny thing about ayn rand is why does she feel the need to spread her ethical system?

01:31:44

Well, one thing there's no obligation there according to that But the other is she's actually undermining its efficacy because now everybody's in on your on your game plan

01:31:53

And they're the biggest the the randian, you know followers to me or sometimes they can be the biggest.

01:31:59

Uh, dare I say jerks on Some of these things like they really think you know they're busy bodies as far as like they

01:32:06

You need to agree with them on this and i'm just like why if you're really that way Why do you care? Right?

01:32:11

All right. So, um, i'm gonna have some randians mad at me for that They're gonna say because you're affecting our lives and uh, you're you're not practicing the non -aggression principle.

01:32:19

All right if uh, Theus want to oh did I just I just read that Doug says y 'all did

01:32:25

I already read doug doug you got two in here you slipped? I try to keep it to one but you got two y 'all might have discussed already this but what theory of natural law are we using?

01:32:34

Since there has never been a subtle definition. Yeah, and I think that's a good point And so that's that's why

01:32:39

I was arguing that if we go all the way out to the edge I'm going to take bonson as the edge. I know he's not but let's say he is for the sake of argument

01:32:47

Like if he has room for this this thing, whatever it is Then we can also work backward and say well van till certainly did presuppositionalism as a methodology and apologetics

01:32:59

Certainly has room for this thing now Let's talk about natural law and what it is and there are many different variations

01:33:05

There are lots of different arguments about natural law and within natural law Stephen wolf is not a radical two kingdoms guy the way that you know, david van druenen and escondido california westminster is um also

01:33:19

You have distinctions for example robbie george presents a roman catholic understanding of natural law where It's pluralistic religiously speaking that is inconsistent with the type of natural law that stephen wolf is

01:33:34

Working toward and so uh, those are important distinctions They're not ones that I am an expert on and uh, so i've kind of avoided them yeah, and I think

01:33:43

I tried to approach this with a guest last week and um, I I regret it because I hadn't prepped for it and and this is another interview where I don't want to get deep into it either because Neither of us have really prepped extensively, but I to to put a very general observation on this

01:34:01

Uh, there does seem to be a very secularized approach to natural law out there and I think probably the more libertarian schools of thought would um affirm this and and there's a capital r reason that Almost sees reason as a god sees reason as this explanation that Christians should operate on apart from special revelation.

01:34:24

They should just you know, dump special revelation essentially And I think what chris and I hold to is that special revelation and natural revelation complement each other completely.

01:34:34

They're in agreement They're just they both root back to the same god. And by the way, thomas aquinas would also affirm this so would uh, bantill, right?

01:34:41

So there there shouldn't be and stephen wolfe. You pointed this out. There shouldn't be a disagreement there and uh, and furthermore uh

01:34:51

When you start I think this is where you get into the autonomy thing, right? This is where some presuppositionalists will

01:34:58

Critique that if you give up their presuppositionalism you land in autonomy There is this type of autonomy that they're

01:35:04

I think those guys are arguing for Where man Is can look deep into himself?

01:35:09

In fact, we have a question and I I think it actually touches on this if I can find it. Yeah, doug says um

01:35:15

If I basically if I he he says why do I need special revelation if I can come to what? Is true by just looking inside myself and both chris and I actually aren't saying that Uh, I don't think you're saying just look inside yourself and you'll find the truth.

01:35:29

It's it's not looking inside yourself It's we're actually saying you should look outside yourself we're saying that there is

01:35:35

A transcendent capital t truth that resides over you. Yeah, absolutely that you are bound by um

01:35:43

But uh, you know, we're saying that this is by nature being made in the image of god That you know any of this it's not because of just your reasoning faculties.

01:35:53

There's more to it Something you said there too, which reminds me, uh real quick because I probably got 10 minutes.

01:35:59

Um, well Yeah, and we may not make it that far that's fine. Um In principle is an important phrase here because when we're talking about autonomy and the principle of autonomy

01:36:10

We are talking about in principle and I do think and I would go toe -to -toe with anyone out there if you want to talk to me about, uh, you know, the problem of induction and the laws of nature and Uh, that's my area or if you want to go outside into logic and morality and that sort of thing

01:36:25

I would absolutely go toe -to -toe with you and and ask you how do you account for these things? Uh without christianity as it were and so I am going to argue on the basis of both natural and special revelation in that discussion but um

01:36:40

There are things that cannot be accounted for in principle, uh without the god of christian scripture.

01:36:46

So um That does that's not to say that people don't practically act as though there is a god

01:36:51

That's just again the borrowed capital common grace natural law that sort of thing and by the way

01:36:56

You can make an apologetic for based on those things too and calvin mentions this too

01:37:02

There are the exceptions that prove the rule When you look at civil orders, they're following these basic principles.

01:37:09

That just is the consent of nations and natural law, but um christianity does benefit societies

01:37:16

For for the good wherever it goes literacy rates go up Um, you know technology comes about I would make that argument.

01:37:24

That's a cultural argument, by the way Shameless plugs real quick before I get off One if you want to see me argue using on that higher not higher level but the surface level of like evidences and whatnot and also

01:37:36

Cutting down to the presuppositions. I do have a podcast called christ or chaos. It's available on youtube christ or chaos

01:37:42

That's at village church plug that there you go And then the other thing is that I do have a book on this the world in his hands christian account

01:37:49

Of scientific law and its antithetical competitors And i'm actually fairly critical of anthill in that book and I use all sorts of reasoning all just mashed together in a beautiful mess

01:38:00

Yeah, no, thanks for for uh Letting us know about those things in addition to the reform baptist institute reform baptist .com

01:38:09

Uh, all right, so we're gonna land the plane here. Um, we have uh this from jesse. He's Where uh

01:38:15

I guess he's frustrated with us. I got this pushed back a little bit too when I was um When I went online you saw my post on x

01:38:22

I assume where I was saying look I this is what I affirm. I think you can use the transcendental argument But I have some doubts about these areas

01:38:29

I thought I was nice about it, but I had a bunch of guys saying like you just don't understand So that's what he says. I think you are showing a surface level understanding

01:38:36

You need to study the necessity to try and go good. Uh, try and god Against evidence and no one said it was we don't believe that and um,

01:38:45

I actually said the opposite That we do use evidence. We do use arguments even natural theological arguments

01:38:51

I don't think I possess merely a surface level of this. I've been doing it for over 20 years I've produced conference papers and books and podcasts and everything else and so has john

01:39:00

And then uh the other issue what was the other thing they said right there? Oh, the necessity to try and god. I absolutely believe the trying god is necessary Uh, but necessary for what and what are we talking about today?

01:39:10

So yeah. Yeah, I think uh, yeah the trying god needs to exist and give us uh communicate to us in such a way or you know, give us the faculties we need to be able to reason but I guess what i've been getting at and we've been talking about for the most of this episode is whether or not someone needs to have

01:39:31

Uh this interpretive grid this exhaustive knowledge of some kind of special revelation in In order to justify engaging in reason

01:39:39

I think that's and these are two different things And oftentimes, uh when I was trying to bring this up,

01:39:45

I had people Responding along these lines. So I think it's just a conflation.

01:39:50

Uh, tim bush song is going to watch this later I just had to highlight that Hold him to it. Yeah, tim, you know tim. Yeah tim's great.

01:39:56

And uh, he's actually he sent me some really cool songs I don't know if you knew this i'm doing an album I do a musical album of some things i've written and uh, so tim's a rocker and uh, so I do more country

01:40:06

I do some rock stuff, but tim can have he's capable of taking any country song.

01:40:11

I write and making it a rock song. So, uh, But he's he's done a very good job. And uh, anyway, you can look forward to that coming out not not you chris

01:40:19

I don't know what you listen to but you know people listening like country music and so forth Um, you have a slight southern accent though.

01:40:25

So i'm assuming you have i'm gonna ask you are you what what is your back? Are you you an ulster scott?

01:40:30

What's going on? Yeah, uh, actually the name harris is a scottish name. There's actually a british or a english line.

01:40:37

We're not that's kamala harris They're the english line where the scottish uh, so So yeah, when

01:40:43

I you know did my dna test they sent me back a cracker and then no they sent me back

01:40:48

Uh a cracker and then my results, uh, but it it did say, you know, basically it's british isles

01:40:54

Yes, scotland's high on there england's high on there Hey a fascinating thing you should look into are the barbarians in the apostle paul when he's referencing them

01:41:03

And then augustine when he goes to the islands and finds that there are already christians there and he's surprised by it

01:41:09

Oh, I didn't realize that I think that our barbarian ancestors those scots the caledonians, etc

01:41:16

Were evangelized by paul. You're scottish I am. Yeah So the the harris line that i'm part of is the harris's that came in Pennsylvania started harrisburg and went down that appalachian corridor and then finally it's mississippi.

01:41:30

That's that's my roots. So that's the southern connection people can't understand this because they're like you're you're in upstate new york and I have a big family in mississippi and i've always appreciated that Aspect of my identity.

01:41:42

Anyway, you got to go. Um, doug has three questions. Get out of here doug. You're not And uh, it's on the holy spirit.

01:41:49

There you go. We appreciate yeah, the answer is jesus. It's always the answer I appreciate your time chris, uh, and you know, maybe we'll have to do it again if there's some questions people have but uh,

01:41:59

Yeah, i'm gonna have to listen to this myself again because there's a lot of stuff you threw out there that I need to process

01:42:05

But I think that's good An episode like this you may have to go through twice. You may have to do it I can't do it on three three x speed or two x speed i'm gonna have to actually listen

01:42:14

So, uh for that we're appreciative go to reform baptist .com Follow chris, uh cl bolts on x and uh, we'll say bye at this juncture