Presuppositional Apologetics Crash Course Part 2

But we'll review it real quick.

Apologetics and the Three Approaches

Apologetics.

The definition of apologetics is, it is the branch of Christianity that deals with the defense and establishment of the Christian faith. In order to defend our faith, we must be saved, be bold, and be ready.

We must sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, having an attitude of gentleness to men and reverence to God, and we must keep a good conscience. And that was all in 1 Peter 3, 14 through 16. The three different approaches to apologetics are classical, evidential, and presuppositional.

And we went over who forwards the ideas of these three different approaches, and we also favor the presuppositional approach. That's what we're gonna be learning, and what we are learning. A worldview answers three basic questions.

Epistemology, which is how do we know. Metaphysics, what can be known. And ethics, what kinds of things are good or bad. A lot of these big terms, if we just define them, they become easily understandable.

So that's all that stuff means. How do we know what's around us? What is the nature of reality? And how do we know what right and wrong are? We talked about ultimate authority, and that's an individual's ultimate or final authority, and it can be defined as his standard by which all is measured.

And we talked about, we gave some examples of that, but one of the easiest to understand would be morality. That everyone has a sense that there is a right and a wrong. Everyone has a sense, also, that there is a logical and an illogical.

And we judge, as C .S. Lewis said, if you want to know what a bent stick is, you have to know what a straight stick is, right? So we have an ultimate authority. We have an ultimate standard by which we can judge what a bent stick is.

In the same way, if we wanted to know if our ruler is giving us accurate measurements of what an inch is, we would compare it to a standardized ruler, something that has a measurement that's agreed upon by everyone.

So if you want to know more about that, go get the recording from last week, and we went into detail. The nonbeliever's ultimate authority is not God's word. It is in opposition to what he knows is the ultimate authority, right?

Because we read Romans 1. So we know that everyone knows who God is. They know truth about God, but they suppress it in unrighteousness. That's what Romans 1 tells us. So they know that their ultimate authority isn't correct.

They know that it resides in creation itself, and it results in foolishness. And that's the choice Van Til, one of the proponents of presuppositional apologetics, gives us. He says, it's either God or it's absurdity.

You don't have any other option. You can either go with the God of Christianity, or you're going to be left with a worldview that winds up in contradictions and in arbitrariness and all sorts of problems.

And Romans 1 gives us an example of the moral lifestyle problems that results in a worldview that takes God out of the equation and replaces him with an idol. The believer's ultimate authority is God himself and is understood through God's word.

And it is self-authenticating. So we talked about the circular argument and what the difference was between a viciously circular argument and a virtuously circular argument. Does anyone remember the difference?

I want to be bold enough to explain it maybe to everyone. This is kind of a key concept, but it is kind of an involved concept. So if you understand this, you can kind of understand the rest.

Yes.

It's like an escape.

Yeah.

Because of God.

Yeah.

I know that's not enough.

Do you want to elaborate on that?

Okay.

Well, I guess the circular logic, man goes to himself as the ultimate authority, but Christians start with God and we end with God, but because God is the standard, he gives it that escape hatch to make it truth.

There's more I would add to it, but yeah, you're on the right track.

You said that it was saying the same thing, only louder, louder, louder.

That's the viciously circular argument.

Yeah.

It would be saying, I remember I gave an example of a song. Well, remember the song I gave? Right. What did I say? Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. That's a circular argument, right?

Because you'd be saying, well, I know Jesus loves me. Well, how do you know? Well, because the Bible says it. That doesn't get us anywhere, right? Here's where you add in the escape hatch. I call it the escape hatch, but, and without him, you can't prove anything.

In other words, Christ, in whom is hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Christ is the standard by which all is measured. And so to deny Christ is to result in absurdity. So you don't have that option.

You don't have the option of denying the God of Christianity because everything we, all the preconditions of intelligibility, everything we have to assume in order to get off the ground intellectually is based on the character of God.

So if we go to morality, right? A moral standard, that is based on the character of God. We know that morality is invariant. It doesn't change. If I go to Mexico, morality doesn't change. Maybe the people's practices change, but it's still wrong to torture children, right?

Morality didn't change. We know that it's something that's absolute, right? It applies to everyone. There's no person that is allowed to break the moral law. And we know it's unchanging. Over time, it's not gonna change.

Now, in Christianity, we see this as something that is based on the character of God. God is that standard that's absolute, unchanging, invariant. He's immaterial, right? Morality, you can't find growing somewhere on a tree.

So we have to assume that the God of Christianity exists in order to even have a moral framework. And that's morality, but it applies also to the other preconditions of intelligibility, which would be the laws of logic.

Laws of logic possess the same nature as morality. They are also absolute, unchanging, invariable. They're also non-material, just like the God of Christianity, right? And the reason is because as Romans 1 says, God has given knowledge to unbelievers even.

They know that they can use these tools because the God of Christianity exists and they know he exists internally, okay? So to try to put it in a little maybe more nutshell, to simpler terms, the proof for God's existence is that without him, you cannot prove anything.

Or as Van Til said, atheism presupposes theism. If you wanna try to give me arguments for any other God, idol, right? That is not Christian, or atheism or any other philosophical system that is not Christian, you have to start with the God of Christianity.

Otherwise, I'd like to know where you get these invariable, absolute, unchanging standards, okay? So this gives you kind of a preview of where we're going and how we're gonna use this apologetic. But that's the difference between the virtuously circular and the viciously circular argument.

The viciously circular argument just says, God exists because the Bible tells me so. Why does the Bible tell me so? Because God exists. It goes in a circle, okay? The virtuously circular argument says, God exists because without him, I can't prove anything.

I can't even make sense of the question that I'm asking or the statement I'm making, all right? And every worldview we talked about has that circle. Every single one of them has an ultimate standard. And for you to have an ultimate standard, there can't be anything above it.

So it has to validate itself somehow. The easy one to understand is human reason. When someone gives a reason for why human reason is their ultimate authority, they're arguing in a circle because they're giving you reasons for reason, or they're using their memory to validate their memory.

And so every unbelieving system has the same thing going on. The difference is unbelieving systems cannot account for the preconditions of intelligibility. They cannot give us what we have to assume in order for science to work, in order for us to even brush our teeth, right?

I remember I mentioned the toothbrush argument for God's existence. You can use anything in this world, and you can show that it is the God of Christianity that people have to assume in order for them to live their daily lives, okay?

The reason I spent time on that is because it is, it's a key concept, but it's also kind of a hard one. We're not used to thinking this way. We just assume things, right? Because that's the world God made.

But getting behind that and examining the presuppositions and the ultimate authorities, that's where we're just not used to it, you know? We start out with, we all know that we can reasonably approach the world.

Why? Why do we know that? Well, it's only one God, only one religious system can account for that. So I don't wanna move on until, is there anyone that has a question about that? It is a fog, especially in the first session, it's a fog.

You still might be in a fog today a little bit. Hopefully by the end, the fog will start to lift. And next week when we're going to, if you learn by applying, next week we're gonna be applying. We're gonna be using these things.

We're gonna be doing role-playing and having mock conversations. And you guys can bring up anything that you wanna bring up. Hey, my friend said this. Okay, let's talk about that. And so if you still have a little bit of the fog today, I think next week hopefully we'll be able to kind of shed some light.

All right, yes.

Can you just repeat, is it virtuous as opposed to vicious?

I just said valid circular argument, but virtuous was one of the terms that Mark Spence used in one of the videos I showed. So that's a fine term to use. The fallacy is the viciously circular argument.

But when you're arguing transcendentally, it's called, that's the philosophical term, then you have to use, you have no choice. You have to use reason in order to validate reason. So that's just called, Mark Spence called it the virtuously circular argument.

And I thought, you know, it's a fine term. It's better than transcendental argumentation probably. It makes more sense in our mind, I guess. Whenever I can cut out a philosophical term, it's probably best to do it, to use a layman's term, right?

Because there's a lot of philosophy and that can sometimes get confusing, all these new terms. So this week, we're gonna talk about the myth of neutrality. Definition of the myth of neutrality. Non-believers frequently attempt to coerce Christians into adopting a mentality in which both the parties are looking objectively at the facts.

We call this compromise position neutrality. It is widely thought in the Christian world that through reasoning in a neutral way in which all biases are left out of the picture, the believer can, through argument, beat the non-believer at his own game.

In other words, the Christian can objectively, using only the facts, make a case that the word of God is authoritative. What this approach fails to realize though, is that both the non-believer and the believer rely on their respective ultimate authority in order to interpret the facts.

Thus, there is no such thing as neutrality. And to assume neutrality, essentially means that the Christian is exchanging his ultimate authority, the truth of God, for a lie, the fundamental principles of the world.

Neutrality, Worldviews, and the Facts

Okay, so what does this mean? I'm not sure exactly who that is, actually. I just thought it was a gangster. It's Jack Webb.

You, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm a little too young, I guess. I just found it online though. And he's saying, just the facts, man, just the facts. That's all he's interested in. This is the non-believer. When we wanna talk about our ultimate faith commitments, we believe in Christianity.

They believe in something different. How do we reconcile? How do we have a conversation? On what ground do we stand to be able to say, well, how are we going to resolve this dispute between us? Well, this is the way that non-believers, typically, we're getting into post-modernism a lot now, so this doesn't always hash out.

But there are still a lot of people that say, well, if we can just use the facts, just what we know to be true, right? Then if we start there, then maybe we can build a case for either my worldview or your worldview.

And whoever has the facts on their side is gonna be the winner. That's the way that we're used to viewing apologetics. Okay, is that fair to say? Most of the conversations you've probably had have involved something like that.

This is what the non-believer is asking you to do though, essentially. They're saying, come over here to secular opinion, which they're gonna call the neutral ground. They're gonna say, this is neutrality.

Throw out God's word. That's our ultimate authority. Forget about that. Let's not start with God's word. Let's assume that that's your faith. So that's a personal thing, right? That's not something that applies to everyone.

They're gonna assume that off the bat. And they'll say, now using just the facts, argue for your position. Now this, in my estimation, this doesn't make sense for a lot of reasons. One of them is though, what happens when you get someone to the point that they believe Jesus is Lord?

Let's say that, and of course we don't do that, the Holy Spirit does. But let's say through our apologetics, God uses us to get someone to that point. Well, now they realize that the whole process that was used to get them there was ultimately wrong, right?

Because they realize God wasn't Lord in any of that. You were assuming he wasn't Lord in order to get them to a position that they were Lord. It's like a ladder. It's like, you're trying to get them to climb up this ladder.

When they get to the top, you can kick the ladder away. We don't need it anymore. So here's some reasons. Oh, actually, before I get into the reasons, I wanna play for you this video. Let's see, here we go.

Live, Ocean Beach, California and San Diego. I'm asking people on the street, if I think I'm a dog, does that make me a dog? Physically, no, but I guess in your heart, you are, right? Does that make me a dog?

No. Why?

Because you're not a dog, but you can live like a dog.

Free will, whatever you want.

If I wanted to live as a dog, does that make me a dog?

Because you're a human.

If I wanted to live as a six-year-old girl, does that make me a six-year-old girl?

No.

What if I wanted to live as a woman? Does that make me a woman?

Maybe if you had transgender sex change or something.

But when I asked you about if I wanted to be a six-year-old girl and I had sex change, would that change that answer?

No, because that's weird.

So you would think I was crazy?

Maybe, yes.

But here's my question. If I wanted to live as a dog and I feel like I'm a dog, does that make me a dog?

Sure.

It makes me a dog?

Yeah, it makes you a dog.

DNA and everything, I'm a dog?

Yeah.

If I want to live as a dog and I feel like I'm a dog, does that make me a dog?

Because you're still a human in a dog suit.

I am not a dog, though, even if I say I'm a dog.

Because you're not.

If I feel like I'm a dog and I want to live as a dog, does that make me a dog?

Only if you have an operation.

Uh, you do you.

But we are only humans because we were created by God in his image as humans. He did not create us as dogs. He did not create male as female. Only as he intended, only as he created us, and only in him did we find our identity.

It's a wacky world these days, huh?

Yes.

All right, so it's a funny video, right? Let me ask you the question. If we're gonna start with just the facts, only the facts, how do we navigate a disagreement with someone who thinks they're a dog?

All we have available to us is just the facts.

You tell the truth.

Okay, of course we tell the truth. We proclaim what is true. But what I'm saying is, where do we get any ground for neutrality? Remember the guy who had the dog? He's like, yeah, man, your DNA changes, everything.

Now, what do we do with someone like that?

That's right.

If we're gonna just say, what do you have in common with me? You really can't navigate a discussion with someone like that if you're just gonna start with the things that he accepts as facts and the things you accept as facts.

Because he's in a different world, right? So this is one of my favorite memes. Will we find intelligent life? Could it be right here on earth? Could it be this man? So did you just assume my gender? It says the search continues.

All right.

So we could behave in that way, right? We could just say, this is not worth my time. Obviously, I am not a dog. Obviously, I'm a man, right? We could just say, you're crazy. But that's not giving a reason for the hope that is with you.

They may be crazy. It's possible, right? But the point of showing you this is to say facts aren't the issue in this debate. Facts have nothing to do with it. The facts are the guy's a man in a dog suit, right?

Did you hear how many people who wanted to say you're a man had trouble accounting for it? Because they know, they're like, well, transgenderism is a thing. So they were hesitating. They were like, where do I, you have to get a, okay, an operation's gonna change it.

Or in your heart you are. But no, they were trying every which way to kind of keep transgenderism as something that's true while saying this guy can't be trans species. All right, because that is an actual thing.

There are people who think they're other animals, right? So it's not the facts that are gonna convince someone. Let me give you an example. There's a man who is convinced that he's going to die, that there's nothing that can be done about it.

And he goes to the doctor and the doctor checks him out and says, you're not gonna die. And he's convinced, no, I'm gonna die. I'm a very sick man. Now the doctor can give him all the charts and the graphs and run all kinds of tests and show him, you're not gonna die.

And he's still, he's going to still believe that he's gonna die. I actually saw in someone's house, someone on Dr. Phil who believed this, that she was terminally ill. And she self-identified as that, terminally ill, needed someone to take care of her all the time.

You can show her all the information in the world, all the quote unquote facts, it's not gonna make a dent because her worldview is, her worldview says that the facts don't really matter. Her presuppositions say, I'm gonna start with the idea that I get to define myself, God doesn't get to define me.

So if you get to define yourself from the beginning, then the facts aren't gonna change anything. If someone says that they're dead and you're trying to convince them they're alive, and there's another story Van Til tells, and it's a doctor who actually shows the man that he's bleeding.

He says, let me cut you, let me show you. You're bleeding. He says, do dead people bleed? And the guy said, I guess one of them does because I'm bleeding. Because the facts didn't change what he thought about himself.

All right, so I think we belabored that point. So if it's not about the facts, what is it about? It's about presuppositions, and that's why we're doing presuppositional apologetics. Why is neutrality philosophically impossible?

Why can't we have neutrality with Mr. Puddles? Well, facts need a reference point. All facts are interpreted in light of one's worldview. Creation itself demands a reference point in order to be understood correctly.

If man is the reference point, everything is seen as it relates to man. If God, then everything is seen as it relates to him. It comes down to authority. Who gets the right to define reality, right? Who gets to the right to define us?

That's why things are breaking apart when it comes to the gender issue, and pretty soon maybe a species issue, because people are defining themselves. They've been growing up in a culture that says you can be anything you want.

You are God. And so they've taken that literally, and now they're trying to change everything around them to conform to their idea of what reality is, when generations before can't understand this because they were always raised with a Christian worldview.

Even if they weren't Christians, they were raised with the idea that, yeah, there's a creator, male and female. He's given us biological hardwiring that seems to mirror that, but we're created for a purpose.

There's purpose in this. There's a theological underpinning that they believe, and that's why one side thinks the other is crazy. So if there is neutrality, why do we disagree? If there is a neutral way of looking at the facts, and if everyone starts from the same premises, then why is there disagreement?

Why is there such a wide divergence of theological and philosophical systems? If individuals are merely being inconsistent with their starting points, disagreements should be infrequent and simple, right?

If all we have is the facts and we should be able to reason with each other, then we shouldn't really be disagreeing, right? Because we should all be looking at it objectively. But the problem is we don't look at things objectively.

And sin is what gets in the way of that. Sin perverts our understanding and says, look at it this way. However, what we find when we look at the world are worldviews that are completely antithetical. And that word antithetical just means in conflict.

They're completely opposite of each other at war with each other. Thus, when a believer accepts a non-believer starting point, he is thus implicitly accepting their entire worldview, assuming that the non-believer is reasoning in a way consistent with his starting point.

All that means is if you accept one part of a non-believer's worldview, if you accept the statement, I get to define myself, or I am the God in my own universe, then you've given them everything. There's no reason to argue anymore because you just lost.

There's no way for you to gain a neutral ground, a neutral starting point by which you can convince them that the God of Christianity is true because you've just shut him out. And here's some reasons that neutrality is wrong biblically.

Ephesians 4, 17 through 18. So this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart.

Notice it's not ignorance because man is just ignorant and he can get off the hook this way. He's innocent. No, it's because of the hardness of their heart. They're purposely ignorant. They don't want to see the truth.

Remember in John 1, the light comes into the world and what do men love? Darkness. They don't want to see the light. Colossians 2, 8. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the traditions of men, according to what?

The elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. So this is what neutrality is. Come and let's start with the elementary principles.

Of the world.

We don't start with that. We have to start with Christ. Ephesians 5, 6. Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. So God commands us not to be neutral.

Neutrality is sinful. Romans 1, 21. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Luke 11, 23.

He who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters. Christ says there's only two choices. You're either with me or against me, right? There's no third option. And then we got James 4, 4.

Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And I'd suggest that's what we do when we try to be neutral with an unbeliever is we're being his friend.

We're trying to be friends, and we should be his friend in a friendly way, right? But not in the sense of friendship with his philosophical system, with the world. We don't wanna, we make, we're warring against that.

We're totally antithetical to what that means. So neutrality is sinful. Also man is sinful and thus darkened in his understanding, making his worldview unredeemable. 2 Corinthians 4, 3. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

Ephesians 2, 1. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Colossians 1, 21. And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled. And then finally, 2 Corinthians 6, 14.

Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? So here's the conclusion. To accept neutrality requires a compromise with Satan himself.

1 John 5, 19. We know that we are of God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. That means evil thinking, the whole world, all right? So this is pretty important stuff. Right now we're in the philosophical kind of stage, and we're gonna hash this out a little more with some examples.

But I wanna, here's the question that usually comes at this point. If we can't be neutral with an unbeliever, he's got his presuppositions, his ultimate authority. He has his worldview and we have ours.

How can we communicate at all? Is that a fair question? If we're not supposed to have any fellowship with darkness and the whole world lies in the power of darkness, then I guess we should just be the Amish.

We should just go to Pennsylvania, start a farm and never communicate with anyone. What's the problem with that? We have a great commission, right? We're supposed to go out into all the world. All right, so there's tension here, right?

How do we then communicate with the non-believer? And how do we give them an apologetic, an answer for the hope that lies within us if they ask us or challenge us? Well, here's the solution. We know a couple things about man.

And these things that we know about man are gonna give us what I'm calling common ground. It's not neutral ground because we're not compromising anything. I'm gonna use a Star Wars analogy if that's okay, right?

You know the Death Star has a weak point? Luke and the boys, I guess know about it, right? Because they got the plans for it. They have the secret plans that tell them where the secret point is and they can destroy the Death Star.

And it's this little bit,.

You wouldn't think it'd be that significant, this little bitty point. But if they destroy this one point, the whole thing goes up in flames. Well, in a similar way, and we're not that violent, right? We're not looking to go destroy.

We're destroying philosophies, but we're trying to save people. And we have a letter from God, right? We have the Holy Bible and it tells us something about man. And it tells us where the weakness is.

It tells us that man actually knows God exists. And because we know something about man, and this applies to all men, then we can have discussions with them because we actually do have something in common with them, whether they realize it or not.

They have to live in the same world that we live in, right? And they get up and they make their toast and have their coffee and get in their car and drive on the right side of the road and do their job.

And when they get paid, they wanna make sure their paycheck has the right number on it because they do believe in absolutes. And they do believe in all the things that God tells us that are based on his character.

So man is made in God's image. That's where we're gonna start here. Genesis 127, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.

Ecclesiastes 311,.

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He's also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning, even to the end. That phrase, he has set eternity in their heart means there's something every man has.

Every man knows that God exists and has a sense of it somewhere. That's why they keep trying to suppress it. And they get these groups together that are professional truth suppressing groups. Some people call them universities.

Some people call them false religions, right? I went to Comic-Con today. I'm pretty sure it's there. I was there for 10 minutes. I've never been to a Comic-Con and I had a free pass.

All right?

So it was right next to where I work and they use our parking lot. And so they said, hey, if you wanna, Katie told me actually, if you wanna walk over there. And I said, I'm not gonna do it and I went and did it.

Yeah, they're crazy. They're crazy. That's all I gotta say. I'm doing a little tangent here, but it applies, trust me. So I walked through a number of the booths and I was just looking at people like, like who, I don't even understand what that cost.

How come every alien has to show him, how come they're all immodest and sexy looking? Every alien from an alien world. I think that's an excuse for people, honestly. But that's, I was walking past that.

And I saw on my right-hand side, as I was walking down, I saw a Star Trek area. Now I kind of like some Star Trek stuff. So I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And then I, so I walked over there and as I was walking through, I was like, they have a lot of stuff.

There's like all the ships, all the phasers, all the communication devices and just stuff I didn't even know about. Then I'm like, this is from Star Trek? And they had all this stuff and signs saying not to touch.

And I asked the guy, I said, who are you?

Like, what do you get?

They weren't selling anything.

So I was like, what are you with? What is this?

And he said, oh, we're part of Starfleet Command. And he had a Star Trek uniform on. I was like, Starfleet Command? And I said, look, I've never been to Comic-Con before. This is my first time. And I just, I'm so like blown away right now.

Like I've never been in this environment where I've seen so many adults. There's like no kids in there. They're all between the ages of like 35 and 65. And I said, I've never seen so many people in costumes.

And I'm sure I'm offending someone out there who likes Comic-Con, but anyways. So I said, Starfleet Command, what do you guys do? Well, they give to charities and they get together and they watch episodes of Star Trek.

And then they discuss these episodes with each other. And they discuss Star Trek news with each other. And I said, and they have a hierarchy. They have captains and they are a local chapter. And he said, that's, I don't even remember the name.

They have a vessel and it's the name of their vessel. And I was like, this is exactly what I told him. I said, you sound like a church. I said, you get together. You do good things for people, right? You have a hierarchy of leadership.

I said, is it religious at all?

And he's like, he immediately, he was like put off by that. I was like, no, no. He's like, but you have to ask our captain. He might have a different view of it. And I was like, oh my, and the guy's like 60, right?

So I just thought, I was like, I don't know if he's getting paid, but he's not selling anything. And he's sitting there all day trying to recruit people into Starfleet Command. Starfleet Command doesn't exist, right?

Okay, so then as I thought about it, I was leaving there and I said, you know what? There are a lot of complex cults and philosophical systems out there, just like Star Trek. I thought Star Trek has languages.

Kleon is a language that was created, right? And there's all these different things that you can know. You can read books and books about information that has to do with Star Trek and it never existed.