Chapter 3: Christian Apologetics by Van Til

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today we're gonna be diving back into this book.

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We've been walking through this book and summarizing some of its key points. This book by Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics.

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This is the book that I highly recommend people to get into if you want to get into presuppositional apologetics and read directly from the writings of Cornelius Van Til.

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This is the point of entry that I suggest for most people. You can come at the works of Van Til from different angles.

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I mean Greg Bonson is probably my favorite entry point. That's how most people have gained access to the ideas of Van Til.

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You could also gain access to those ideas via John Frame who kind of takes some issue and differences in various areas.

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But Bonson, Frame and others have been the entry point for many. If any of you guys are like me, one entry point for me that was kind of like a clincher that made me kind of really pursue this with more detail was the famous debate between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein.

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And so that got me interested in the topic. But if you want to jump into Van Til, this is the first book that I suggest everyone get their hands on.

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And this is a newer edition. It's edited by William Edgar. I think I mistakenly said it was edited by Scott Oliphant.

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I think that might be the case that Defense of the Faith was edited by Scott Oliphant. I'd have to double check.

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But this one is edited by William Edgar. And this is a part three or chapter three rather.

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If folks are interested in my summaries of chapters one and two, you can check that out on the channel. It's labeled there on the thumbnail.

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And so what we covered in the previous videos was chapter one. There's basically five chapters in the book.

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So it's a pretty small book, relatively speaking, and it covers a wide range of issues. And I'm kind of just summarizing in broad strokes.

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So this is not kind of an in -depth analysis, but hopefully it will be useful for folks who are just trying to get their their bearings in terms of how a presuppositional approach looks and how to answer how it answers certain questions and so forth.

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And so chapter one was the system of Christian truth. So we talked about the importance of how the Christian worldview is that it is a worldview, or as Van Til put it, a philosophy of life.

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And so a system of Christian truth. He laid out for us the importance of systematic theology as the bedrock and understanding our worldview, the

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Christian philosophy of life, understanding the worldview as a worldview or a philosophy and all the things that are entailed in that.

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And then today I'm going to be covering chapter three, which is called the point of contact. Now, this is really important because in Van Til's writing, there is a great emphasis upon worldviews and the fact that we all have presuppositions that impact how we interpret data, how we interpret fact and how we interpret truth itself.

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How do we gain access to the other person? Anything the unbeliever is going to say to me,

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I'm going to filter through my worldview perspective and anything that I say to him, he's going to filter through the lens of his worldview.

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And so where is the point of contact? How do we actually connect with the unbeliever to have a meaningful discourse when we disagree over such fundamental worldview issues?

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As a matter of fact, a very popular criticism of presuppositional apologetics and presuppositional methodology is that Van Til taught that in light of the fact that we are kind of isolated from the unbelievers because of our worldview and their worldview and so forth, that Van Til taught that there was no point of contact.

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And of course, that is demonstrably false. Van Til did believe that there is a point of contact between the believer and the unbeliever, and that is what we're going to be talking about today.

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So I'm going to jump in by simply reading the first page. It's very short.

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Our first page and kind of the beginning of the second page to kind of set the context for the rest that will follow in this video.

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And so this is chapter three of Van Til's Christian Apologetics. He says, in the two preceding chapters, it has been our chief concern to set forth the salient features of the

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Christian life and worldview. The Christian life and worldview, it was argued, presents itself as an absolutely comprehensive interpretation of human experience.

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The Christian life and worldview, it was further argued, presents itself as the only true interpretation of human experience.

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From the consideration of the content and claim of Christianity as a life and worldview, our task now calls us to a consideration of its defense.

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We have seen, in broad outline, what Christianity is. The question now is as to how it is to be vindicated as exclusively true.

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In what follows, it will be impossible to deal with this question in detail. Our concern will be with general principles only.

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And here's an important point here that sets the context for the rest of this chapter. The first matter to be concerned, or considered rather, will be that of the point of contact.

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Is there something on which believers in Christianity and disbelievers agree?

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Is there an area known by both from which, as a starting point, we may go on to that which is known to believers, but unknown to unbelievers?

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Okay, and so here is where we're brought to the crossroads of understanding the connection point, or the point of contact.

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Okay, now I'm going to give you just kind of the cheat sheet. We're going to move ahead and just I'm going to let you know what the point of contact was, at least in Van Til's estimation.

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Okay, first, I think it's very important to understand the difference between neutral ground between the believer and unbeliever, and common ground between believer and unbeliever.

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They are not the same, okay? Van Til taught, and I think he is correct on this, that neutrality with respect to facts and so forth is a myth.

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There is no neutrality between the unbeliever and believer. And so many have erringly concluded if there is no neutral contact point, then there is no way for the believer and unbeliever to meaningfully communicate, but that's not true.

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So for Van Til, there was no neutral starting point, but there was a common ground between the unbeliever, or what we might call the point of contact.

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So the point of contact within Van Til's perspective is basically, okay, the built -in knowledge of God that everyone has.

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It's the common ground we can use to connect with people who don't believe. What is the common ground?

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What is the point of contact? The fact that the unbeliever is made in the image of God, and so we can appeal to the image of God within the unbeliever, okay?

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And by doing that, the way we do that is to appeal to the things we know they know in light of the fact that they are created in the image of God, okay?

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Now, the unbeliever is not going to affirm that, obviously, right? But his non -affirming that common ground does not make the common ground no longer common ground.

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See, the reason why I can speak to the unbeliever and he can understand me is not because the unbeliever's worldview is true, but because the unbeliever knows in his heart of hearts the

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God of whom we speak. This is not my opinion, this is what the Word of God says. So from a Christian perspective, we're affirming the

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Word of God, we want to understand the unbeliever through a biblical context, and the

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Bible teaches that all men have this knowledge of God. Now, with that said, what is the purpose of this specific chapter?

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What is this chapter all about? It is about how we, as Christians, as apologists, right?

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How we can engage with non -believers, okay? And in essence, we do this by recognizing that they, okay, because the

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Bible teaches this, they have an innate sense of God, they have an innate knowledge of God.

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Even if they deny it, their worldview still relies on the truth of the Christian worldview.

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And our point is to show that when they do affirm things that are coherent and cogent and so forth, it's because they are relying on the resources of the

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Christian worldview, which they verbally reject, okay? Now again, I could say this, but it is demonstrated through the fact that when the unbeliever argues against the

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Christian perspective, they are doing so while assuming categories that only make sense within the very worldview that they are rejecting, okay?

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And so it's important to keep in mind. So, for Van Tilben, in this chapter there is a rejection, a consistent rejection, of the concept of neutral common ground, okay?

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It's expressed in the chapter that the point of contact between the believer and the unbeliever cannot be found in any neutral area of knowledge or in some common ground that both agree on without reference to their respective ultimate commitments.

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This is important. Van Til is saying here that there is no such thing as neutral ground. Everyone's reasoning and knowledge come from their foundational beliefs, their foundational commitments.

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For the Christian, okay, that's going to be God's revelation in Scripture. For the non -believer, it's going to be whatever, you know, whatever version of human autonomy and human reasoning they hold to, okay?

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And so the point of contact between believer and unbeliever isn't some neutral area of knowledge, you know, it's rather this...it

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is the fact that the unbeliever is created in the image of God and has a knowledge of God within him.

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And this is wrapped up in the very important concept of the sensus divinitatis, or the sense of deity that all men have.

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It's expressed in this chapter, the point of contact is found in the fact that man is made in the imago

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Dei and he therefore has an eradicable knowledge or sense of deity, okay, which is what, as Romans 1 says, is being suppressed, okay?

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And so Van Til brings up this idea that everyone has kind of this sensus divinitatis, this inbuilt sense of God that all men have and can't escape from.

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And so it's part of being made in God's image. People might try to suppress this truth, but be that as it may, it's still there, it surfaces up.

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And as apologists, our job is to bring this suppressed truth to the surface and to show how non -believing worldviews don't really make sense without acknowledging the

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God that they know exists, okay? So when we say that the unbeliever knows that God exists, this is not just a, you know, you really know and that's it, you know, na -na -na -na, poo -poo, right?

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That's not what we're saying. The way we demonstrate the knowledge of God is by appealing to that image of God, appealing to the things that they know that don't make sense within their worldview, but only make sense if what we're saying is true, okay?

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Now, the idea that Van Til expresses, he says, it is therefore not to be sought in some sort of autonomous reasoning power which man possesses in virtue of his being man.

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Man is a creature, and as such, his reason is dependent and derivative, okay?

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Now, here Van Til is saying that human reason isn't independent. It is not autonomous. It's actually dependent on God.

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And so the point of contact isn't found on...it's not found in some self -sufficient human reasoning, but in the fact that our reasoning depends on the creator.

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And this dependency is something we could highlight when talking with non -believers, show them that they're dependent upon those categories, even when they reject it.

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Okay, that's the task that Van Til is calling us to do, and I think it is demanded biblically as well in terms of how we ought to engage the unbeliever.

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Because here's the thing, when we're doing apologetics, we are not, if we're doing it biblically and consistent with biblical teaching, we're not giving information to an otherwise ignorant person, but rather we are tearing away the mask of the unbeliever, showing that they actually are...they're

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actually suppressing the truth in their heart of hearts, okay? Now Van Til goes on to say, man knows

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God and yet does not know him, okay? He knows God. This is important because a lot of people have accused

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Van Til of contradiction here, okay? Van Til has said that man knows God, and in another sense, he doesn't know

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God. Now remember, this is not a logical contradiction, okay? Remember, a logical contradiction would be something along the lines of a violation of the second law of logic, which states that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same way, okay, or in the same sense.

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Van Til would put forth the idea that there is a sense in which all men know God, there's a sense in which the unbeliever knows

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God, and there's a sense in which he doesn't, okay? For Van Til, he expressed that he knows

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God as covenant breaker, not as covenant keeper, okay? So you are either a covenant keeper or a covenant breaker, okay?

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Now this kind of sounds contradictory, but it's really about the two -sided nature of human knowledge and sin, okay?

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On the one hand, everyone knows God exists and has moral standards, right? On the other hand, people don't truly know him in a relational sense because they're in rebellion against him, and so our job as the apologist is to confront the non -believers with this suppressed knowledge and call them to a true relationship with God through Christ, okay?

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And there are different ways apologetically to do that, okay?

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Now, it's very important that we want to make clear that there is no neutral ground, okay?

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We want to make clear the idea that we all have presuppositions. We want to make clear of the fact that all men are made in the image of God and therefore have a sense of deity or a knowledge of God within them.

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We want to engage in apologetics recognizing that the unbeliever is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and then we want to show that in the pretended autonomy of the unbeliever, they are not actually being autonomous, they're actually relying on the very tools that God has provided them with, all the while not giving thanks to God for those very tools, okay?

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And so this is what this chapter really is about, is recognizing that point of contact. The imago

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Dei, man made in the image of God, and so therefore it is possible to communicate to man, the unbelieving man, by appealing to that image of God, okay?

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So in short, that's really what this, the heart of the chapter is about. Now there are a couple of things that I want to clarify, so if I'm saying all this and you're kind of like, okay,

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I kind of think I know what you're, where you're coming from, okay? Now remember, Vantil here is talking to Christians.

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This is a book on Christian apologetic methodology. I don't expect an unbeliever to read to read this or to say, oh, you know, yeah, you know,

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Christians would say that. It's like, no, no, he's teaching Christians how to do apologetic consistently.

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I would tell something to the unbelievers here. We as Christians view you through a theological lens, okay?

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I view the unbeliever through a theological and biblical lens, okay? What I believe about the unbeliever is going to be informed about what

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God says about the unbeliever. I'm really not concerned with what the unbeliever says about himself, if it contradicts what

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God says about the unbeliever. So this is something that Christians need to keep in mind, okay? But again,

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I want to highlight this fact that claiming the unbeliever has a knowledge of God is not a bare, arbitrary claim.

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We are willing to try and demonstrate that by showing that they must rely on God in order to argue, to even argue against him.

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But again, just in terms of understanding what I'm saying, someone might be asking, well, what is this, you know, you're talking about these theological concepts and terms, what is the census divinitatis and how does it function in apologetics?

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That might be a question that might be running through your mind, okay? Well, let's explore this, okay?

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The census divinitatis, okay, independently of the idea that it's an important concept in John Calvin and throughout, you know, when you look at the history of development of Christian thought, it is, especially within the reformed tradition, the census divinitatis plays a very important role.

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But very simplistically speaking, it's basically built, it refers to the built -in sense of God that everyone has.

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That's all it is, okay? Now Calvin, I'm not sure if he coined the term, maybe he did, I'm not sure.

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Maybe someone could fact check that there. But Vantill uses it to describe how every person has an awareness of God in the sense that I've just laid out, because they're made in his image, okay?

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Now in apologetics, this is our internal point of contact, as I mentioned before.

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So even if people deny it, they still have this internal knowledge of God. And our job is to bring that suppressed truth to light and show how their worldview doesn't work without acknowledging this

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God that all men have a knowledge of. Another question that might be flying through people's mind is, well, then how do we engage with someone who claims to have no sense of God?

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The census divinitatis, I reject that, right? They deny that inherent knowledge of God is a thing, okay?

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And there are a couple of things that we can do. When someone says, well, I don't have a knowledge of God, I don't have a census divinitatis,

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I don't have an awareness of deity and so forth, you have to understand that that is in direct opposition to the claim that God makes in His Word, okay?

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And so obviously when someone says that, we don't just kind of kneel down and say, well, I guess he doesn't have a knowledge of God, right?

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No, there are a couple of things we need to do. First, we need to challenge the assumed autonomy inherent in this, right?

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The unbeliever often thinks of himself as kind of like, well, I don't have a knowledge of God, but I'm open to it, right?

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I just got to see the evidence, right? We need to challenge that pretended neutrality, right? Show them that claiming to be neutral or denying

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God is itself a presupposition they're not aware of. Isn't that right?

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Everyone has foundational beliefs, even if they say they don't believe in anything, okay? Or they say, well, you know,

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I'm open to the evidence or anything along those lines. Notice the implicit rejection of the

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Christian worldview when someone says, well, I don't have a knowledge of God. What they're saying indirectly is that God is a liar, because if the

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Bible is the Word of God, God declares that they have a knowledge of God that is being suppressed. And so even the

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I don't know God claim is not a neutral claim, and hence, when people make that claim, we need to challenge that claim, okay?

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We don't challenge it by simply saying, nah -ah, you know God. No, we challenge it by exposing the fact that they are relying on the resources that they use that only make sense if God exists.

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And so we want to also then expose the inconsistencies that are produced out of that line of thinking.

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Point out how their worldview doesn't make sense. For example, things like moral values or logic or reasoning can't be explained in purely, if you're talking to an atheist, in purely atheistic or materialistic terms, right?

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Press these points to highlight that they rely on concepts that only make sense within a Christian theistic worldview.

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So on the one hand, the materialistic atheist says, well, I don't believe in spiritual non -physical realities if he's that flavor of atheism, and show that actually he's presupposing immaterial realities even while verbally rejecting them.

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That is a contradiction on his own part, and it is a indicator that they're actually relying on the very things that God has provided him, okay?

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So again, even when we're talking with the unbeliever, it's important to also quote scripture, right? When someone says, well,

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I don't know if God exists, right? That's not what the Bible says, okay? Now, I don't simply say that, but I think it is useful in conversation to say, well, the

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Word of God actually says this. Let's talk about that a little bit, okay? So you use scripture, you know, quote something like a

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Romans 1, verses 18 through 20, or a Romans 2, 14 through 15. I think those are good

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Bible verses that help us, you know, it helps to show that the Bible anticipates their suppression of the truth, okay?

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And it pretty much asserts that God's moral law is written on their hearts. And so it's a good conversation point.

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Well, the Bible actually says this, and then we begin to ask more probing questions, right? Get them to think about the, you know, their sense of morality, logic, and thinking in those categories allows them to reflect, well, how do

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I make sense out of those categories apart from a Christian worldview, right? Those are good conversation, well,

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I don't know if they're conversation starters, but they're useful things to use within conversation, okay?

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Because the Bible does say that, you know, when we appeal to the image of God, the Bible says that men have this knowledge of God, we want to expose the folly and the foolishness of the result of rejecting the very

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God they know in their heart of hearts. Now, what does Vantill mean by saying that man knows God and yet does not know

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God? As I mentioned before, when people have read that concept in this book and other writings within Vantill, people typically think, well, that sounds very contradictory, okay?

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And I think Vantill's statement about man knowing God and yet not knowing him is all about the double -sided nature of human awareness, you know, in sin.

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It's not contradictory, it highlights, I think, two things. Number one, it highlights the innate knowledge of God, okay?

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Everyone has this innate knowledge of God because they're made in his image, they're aware of his existence and basic moral truths, right?

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Yet, the second point, they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, right?

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Because of sin, people actively suppress this knowledge, and this is what the Bible teaches, right? And they reject and distort what they know about God, leading, really, to practical ignorance or even a denial of his true nature.

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And so they know, they know God in terms of being aware of his reality, but they don't know him relationally or redemptively because they're rebelling against him, okay?

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We would argue that the unbeliever is actually engaging in self -deception. Now, if you're wondering, how can an unbeliever be self -deceptive?

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How can they deceive themselves? I have an entire video that talks about the nature of self -deception.

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You can look it up. I think it's, I don't remember what the video is called. It wasn't that long ago. You can check it out if you search through, just put up, you know, revealed apologetic self - deception,

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I'm sure it'll pop up, okay? Now, another question that might be flying through people's mind that I think is the chapter three of this book would be helpful in addressing is, if there is no neutral ground, then how do we effectively communicate with those who don't share our presuppositions?

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Okay. Well, there are a couple of things that we can do. First, I think this is the basic point of presuppositional apologetics is that we want to acknowledge that everyone has presuppositions.

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We want to be clear that the Christian worldview is based on the presupposition of the truth of God's revelation in scripture.

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So we highlight our presuppositions. We bring out the fact that they have presuppositions.

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And then we, you know, we encourage the non -believer to examine their own presuppositions and the foundations of their own beliefs, and compare and contrast the coherence and explanatory power of the

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Christian worldview with theirs. Louis Bantill says that when we engage in the internal critique, we hypothetically grant the truth of the unbeliever's worldview and show that, on its own basis, it falls apart.

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But then we invite the unbeliever to do the same thing. Assume the truth of the

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Christian worldview hypothetically and see how beautifully consistent it is. And then we answer questions. And we, you know, we welcome the internal critique.

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But internal critiques are an important part of that. We also want to include a positive presentation within our apologetic, right?

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We want to present the Christian worldview positively, demonstrating how it provides a coherent and consistent basis for understanding the world, morality, knowledge, human purpose, logic, and so forth.

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And so it's not really an issue of simply asserting that the Christian worldview does in fact provide, as we've made mention before when we talk about the transcendental argument, that it provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility and so forth, but actually walk people through how it does that.

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Okay. All right. And I think an important aspect, too, if people don't share your presuppositions, and you're trying to,

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I think creating a relationship with those that you're speaking with as well is important. Okay, you have to understand, the world of YouTube is not the same as the world of face -to -face personal interaction, right?

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Go out of the way to form good relationships with people. Have good, meaningful conversations that consist of gentleness, respect, mutual respect, where you can actually sit down and talk about the issues.

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You know, be there with your Bible. You know, talk to—have a heart -to -heart with people and form friendships. It's not this kind of drive by theology or drive by apologetics, you know, so much of what we see online.

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Although, I understand, you know, that's the nature of online interaction. I get it. I get it.

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But we want to emphasize the importance of relationship as well. All right.

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Okay. Let's see here. Let's see.

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Let's go through a couple of things here. So that's my quick summary, by the way. That is chapter three, the point of contact. What is the point of contact?

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It's not neutral ground. It's common ground. And the common ground is that the unbeliever is made in the image of God, and therefore we can communicate with them, and they can understand what we're saying, not because their worldview lens is correct, but because they're borrowing from the

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Christian worldview, because they have a knowledge of God that's being suppressed, which is what the Bible teaches.

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Okay? Now, let's go through some of these comments here. Scott Terry says, yeah,

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Imago Dei, the image of God. John Smith says, I don't know that a God exists. Yeah, so I addressed this.

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I don't have a knowledge of God, right? So let's take these as kind of test, you know, test cases here, okay?

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So he says, I don't have a knowledge of God. Now, what I want to point out is that a person who comes from this perspective is not neutral with respect to the question, because to say that you don't have a knowledge of God is an implicit denial of the truth of the

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Christian worldview. And so, in essence, you're saying the Christian worldview is false, because it's the Christian worldview that actually contradicts this specific proposition that John Smith is laying out here.

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And so this points out the non -neutral nature of the dispute between the believer and unbeliever.

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Now, it's not enough to simply say, well, wait a minute, the Bible says you have a knowledge of God, even though you say you don't have a knowledge of God.

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Well, if I were talking to John Smith, I would engage in some further conversation, asking him, you know, how does he justify the things that he takes for granted within a

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God -denying worldview? And we'd have to see if he has a worldview that functions and provides the preconditions for intelligible experience, logic, knowledge, and so forth.

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Now, an important thing to keep in mind, that doesn't end the discussion, because just as I think in the implicit denial of the

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Christian worldview that's inherent in this proposition here, the unbeliever has a burden of proof, but I have a burden of proof as well.

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And so I would further engage in this discussion, not only challenging John Smith to provide a foundation for the things he takes for granted in the intellectual discourse, so to speak, but it would be my responsibility as well to show that if Christianity were true, we make perfect sense of the very tools of the intellect and rational discourse and logic and so forth, okay?

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Now, there is no burden shifting, because the burden is not being shifted away from me.

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This is a common—we'll get this up here, too—this is a common, and I think very philosophically naive, point, okay?

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Shifting the burden of proof is removing burden from myself and moving it on to someone else, and that's not what

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I'm doing at all. As I explicitly said before, that I have a burden of proof, okay?

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Now, I could say this and people are gonna still say, you're shifting the burden of proof. No, I welcome the burden of proof.

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What I'm pointing out is simply that you do not have a situation where the other person doesn't have a burden of proof, because their position is an implicit rejection of my position.

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They are not neutral, okay? That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that I don't have a burden of proof, okay?

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That's not burden shifting, because I welcome—I keep my burden. I have a burden.

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That's right. And no, see, yes, again, how can it be a burden shifting if I've welcomed my burden?

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To say you don't have a burden is to engage in the pretended neutrality fallacy.

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Well, I'm neutral here. I don't have a position to hold. Mr. Theist, you're making the claim, okay, and therefore

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I don't have any burden. Well, no, because in saying you don't have a burden and assuming a neutral position is an implicit rejection a priori of the other position.

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Now, I welcome my burden, but I will put it out in the open, because we are engaging in worldview, okay?

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Everyone has a burden of proof. I don't start with this, you know, silly nonsense that, oh, we're just, you know, it's just you're making the claim and I'm not making any claims.

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Yes, there are implicit claims in every claim and proposition, okay? Again, and I would say this even if I weren't a

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Christian, actually. I think it's true that if Christianity were true, then yes, it does make claims about the nature of the unbeliever.

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And so by saying I don't know God exists, that's implicitly saying that the

29:41

Bible is incorrect. And so there's an aspect of which I have to actually engage the discussion.

29:48

Now, it's not all on me, because the Christian is making that positive assertion, but there is a certain level of burden on the other side as well.

29:55

All right, let's move along here. I'm gonna spend too much time on that. Scott Sarris says, given the current state of philosophy,

30:06

John, you might not be able to claim to have any knowledge at all. Yeah, it depends on his position there.

30:16

Here we go. So Jacob Glass says, is there a point where you stop evangelizing a specific person, a person who understands, still rejects the

30:22

Christian worldview? Do you continue to always pursue, or do you let them approach you?

30:29

Yeah, I think there is a point. However, Jacob, the point is not a clearly defined point.

30:35

Someone says, well, when is that point? I don't know. It's gonna depend on the nature of the discussion, the relationship between the individuals, and things like that.

30:42

So I do believe that the Bible does warn us against throwing pearls before swine, right? There comes a point where you're going to have to apply wisdom and say, you know what, it might be better for me to move on and speak to someone else who seems to be more engaging in what

30:56

I'm saying, as opposed to someone who seems to be completely cut off. Now, we continue to pray for those people. We are sensitive to the fact that if they're within the realm of our relationships, we can, you know, hopefully be sensitive to the fact where it seems okay to kind of re -enter that discussion.

31:11

But I think that applying wisdom to our discussions, you just need to kind of get a feel for when it seems like a good idea to be like, okay, we're gonna move on, and I'm gonna move on to someone else.

31:22

So I, again, there is no specific when that point is. It really is an application of wisdom at that particular point in time, okay?

31:30

Hope that makes sense. Let's see here. Materialism hasn't been refuted.

31:43

I mean, I would be interested in seeing how materialist understands the laws of logic in a purely materialistic way, maintaining their universality, or rejecting their universality and making sense out of a worldview that rejects its universality.

32:01

I'd be interested. Yeah, all right. This is really bad.

32:09

Okay. Yeah, so here's another one. So you can't know God's nature.

32:15

God could be a liar. See, now, this is a perfect example, right? This is kind of a textbook example of worldviews, right?

32:23

Now, this person holds to a worldview in which it's possible that God could be a liar, but that's not the

32:30

Christian worldview, right? From within the Christian worldview, it is impossible for God to lie, okay?

32:36

Now, someone might say, well, wait a minute. Well, what if that's one of the lies, okay? Well, if God could lie, the

32:41

God of Christianity could lie, it's not the God of Christianity, right? We need to operate on the worldview.

32:47

This is my worldview. How do I know he's not a liar? By the impossibility of the contrary. If God is a liar, then we lack the preconditions of intelligibility, knowledge, and so forth, okay?

32:57

I don't think we lack those foundations. I do think that there are things that I know that are true, they're objectively true, and hence, you know,

33:03

I can know them by the impossibility of the contrary. There are certain things within my worldview that it is impossible for me to be wrong about, and it is grounded in the idea that God is true.

33:12

Reject that position, then I would be in the same position John Smith, I would imagine, is in.

33:17

If he's an atheist, I would not imagine John or any other atheist has a firm foundation for objectivity and avoids the problems of philosophy that I think are inherent in all forms of materialism.

33:28

So, so there you go. Let's see here. Yeah, Tony Torpa.

33:35

Are you familiar with Gottlob Frege? I can't even pronounce his name. I am familiar with him.

33:41

I don't remember his views on logic off the top of my head, since Gottlob is not, is not typically brought up in conversations that I have, but I am familiar with him.

33:53

I have studied the history of philosophy. So, but maybe I'll return to some of the sources and maybe share my thoughts when

34:01

I have gathered my thoughts with respect to his position there. Yeah, thank you for that. Let's see here.

34:15

Right, so you need to demonstrate your claim before you can challenge me.

34:28

Well, first we need to hash a couple of things out here, okay? What do you mean by demonstration?

34:34

Because everything you say is going to be worldview -dependent. So when I speak with John Smith, whoever he is, he has a worldview, in which case he has at least these three foundations to his worldview.

34:45

He has a metaphysical outlook, an epistemological outlook, and most likely an ethical outlook. The demonstration outlook is baked into the term demonstrate is going to be

34:54

John's epistemology. And so first we need to evaluate what he means, what counts as a demonstration.

35:02

And depending on what he says, I could either answer him directly or I can challenge his standard of what constitutes demonstration.

35:09

Oftentimes when someone says to demonstrate something, what's baked into that is their epistemological framework, which is self -contradictory and unworkable.

35:19

So I don't know what you mean by demonstrate. If you mean by demonstrate to offer an argument, well, I've offered the transcendental argument and have literally—now this, even if I were wrong, and let's say the transcendental argument was bunk—99 .9

35:32

percent, actually no, a hundred percent of the objections that I've heard online are not only wrong, they're laughably wrong.

35:39

So they're not even close to the mark. So I have no reason to believe that there's an adequate response to the transcendental argument.

35:47

Now you could bring up the Stroudian objection, we've addressed that in this channel as well. So even to demonstrate your claim before you can challenge me, the conversations don't simply work like that, as though demonstrate is kind of this all -encompassing, everyone knows what you mean by that.

36:01

I don't know what you mean by demonstrate. Are you an empiricist? Are you a rationalist? Do you hold to Kantian epistemology?

36:08

Or, I'm not sure. So I don't want to begin to do something but violate the standard you're assuming when you ask me to demonstrate something, okay?

36:17

I'm not being pedantic here, I mean, it's true. Someone says, prove to me that God exists! Many times, what people mean by that is to show me tangible, empirical, observational proof, and I reject that standard since I believe, it's easy to demonstrate, that not all things are proven in the same fashion, okay?

36:36

God is an immaterial being and therefore he's not proven in the exact same way, as I would prove to you that there are crackers in my pantry, as Bonson, in a funny way, demonstrated in his debate with Gordon Stein, he called the crackers in the pantry fallacy.

36:54

So there'd be a lot more to unpack there, okay? Let's see here, oh boy.

37:05

Stop evangelizing anyone! It's indoctrination! Do you see math teachers stopping you on the street to convince you about calculus?

37:13

I'm just going to allow that statement to, I won't even engage that one, that's, obviously claims about math, right, are different than claims about God, our responsibility to him, and impending judgment for rejecting the clear revelation of God.

37:31

There's, even if you don't believe in God and everything I just said, there's clearly a difference between math and claims about God and so forth, because there are certain things that we believe that don't have any lasting consequences, necessarily, and then there are other claims that do have very important consequences that are worth paying more attention to than other things, okay?

37:53

And this is silly too, another thing that's wrapped up in this, and I've heard this, it's a very stupid assertion that I've heard by many people in the comment section, not of this video and others, that the very fact,

38:05

I mean I want you to think about how dumb this sounds, okay? The very fact that you have to do apologetics shows that what you're saying is false.

38:14

So people say like, if something is true, it doesn't need to be, you don't need to do apologetics to demonstrate it.

38:20

That's stupid, okay? That's super, super, super dumb, okay?

38:26

There are things that we know to be true that have to be defended, okay? For example,

38:31

I know that the Holocaust happened, yet you need to defend the historicity of the Holocaust against people who deny the

38:36

Holocaust, because those people exist, right? Truth is so important that it deserves to be defended, okay?

38:45

And so everyone's doing apologetics. Even to say stop evangelizing, I'm sure in there is baked in an argument that I should not evangelize.

38:52

Well, if you defend that position, you're engaging in apologetic discourse, because apologetics simply is to make a defense.

38:59

It's not uniquely a Christian discipline. You can see this all throughout history and philosophy. Anytime you defend something, that's what it means to give an apologia.

39:08

Now who gets to determine what's indoctrination, right? Is indoctrination wrong, okay?

39:15

Is it indoctrination if I'm teaching what I'm teaching my kids is actually correct? Is it indoctrination to teach my kids truth, right?

39:23

So again, this one kind of misses the boat big time. Let's see here, yeah, so when you claim miracle, you have burden of proof, okay?

39:42

Again, you see the pretended neutrality in this statement. That's number one. Number two, I'm not claiming a miracle.

39:47

I'm claiming that if you reject the God of Scripture, okay, you lose the foundation for knowledge and the very intelligibility for you to even express your words here.

39:58

You understand that, okay? That's not a bare authority claim. Language presupposes logic and intelligible experience.

40:06

Definitions and continuity of self -identity, all of those categories are presupposed in you even asserting this sentence.

40:14

I'm asking what are the preconditions for that? Can you, in your worldview, make sense out of the very claim that you're making here, okay?

40:21

I can. Given the Christian worldview, it makes perfect sense that you have the rational capacity to formulate the sentences in which you did and utilize logic and so forth and things like that.

40:30

This is transcendental reasoning. This isn't some weird Christianese type of thing. I'm asking you a deeper question, not simply just pointing to a miracle over there and saying, look, a miracle happened.

40:40

Obviously, there's a burden of proof. As I said before, I don't deny the burden of proof, but I think it's silly to suggest that the other side has no burden of proof, since the other side implicitly or explicitly is denying the other side.

40:52

So there is a dual burden, okay? Let's see here, follower of Jesus who unironically, like, you should title the stream

41:06

Eli versus John debate. No, I mean, I'm going in order. He has most of the comments there, and I appreciate

41:12

John. I don't really know who John is, but I appreciate him sharing his thoughts there, and obviously I'm gonna disagree.

41:17

I mean, I would imagine he's not putting up these comments thinking I'm going to agree with him, so I don't mean any disrespect, but I'm just going kind of down the list here.

41:25

That's why I'm addressing John's comments here. There we go. Ready?

41:33

Watch this. Ready? So here's John again. The Bible is incorrect. I don't have that knowledge. Okay. The Bible is correct.

41:42

You do have that knowledge. See how we see it? There you go. All right.

41:47

Please demonstrate for us, John. How do you have knowledge of anything, let alone God, from within your worldview?

41:52

I'd like to make sense out of knowledge without God. I'd be interested if you typed in a little summary there. I'd appreciate it.

41:59

Let's see here. Yeah, Scott. I think people who make claims about burdens ought to shoulder their own burden and give us all good reasons to accept beliefs about the burden.

42:10

Yeah. Don't hurt them, Scott. They don't think that deeply about it, right? They just think that these ideas of burden of proof, okay?

42:18

See, burden of proof fallacy presupposes that a standard of reasoning and argumentation has been violated.

42:24

Again, you don't want to ask them to think too deeply, right? Why should we follow standards of rationality and argumentation?

42:33

That's a good question. But you know what's gonna happen, Scott? When you say that, what they automatically think is that you're trying to avoid your burden.

42:41

They can't think past the idea that actually to even put forth the idea of burden, shifting and so forth, assumes a standard of reasoning and argumentation.

42:50

And so that's literally what we're asking. What's your foundation for that? Okay. Many of them can't see it.

42:56

I think smart ones can. But unfortunately, not everyone is in that boat. Let's see here.

43:03

Yeah, Art says, is Pushing the Antithesis a good book? Yes, it is a very good book. I highly recommend it, especially it was originally written for a high school audience.

43:13

It's got study questions and practical application at the end of each chapter. And at the end of the book, there's like a huge Q &A section where it asks a question, answers the question.

43:21

You can kind of study where Bonson is coming from in his answering the questions in the way that he does.

43:28

Okay, let's see here. All right, GP, the Bible is full of contradictions.

43:34

All right, that's a claim. The Bible is human -made. That's a claim. We should just cherry -pick and use it as a metaphor.

43:40

That's another claim. All of these things are, oh my goodness, there's so many so many fallacies in this.

43:47

Full of contradictions. Well, contradictions presuppose logic. How do you make sense out of logic without God?

43:53

That's an honest question. I really would like to know. In a world without God, I don't know if this person is an atheist, how do you make sense out of universal conceptual laws?

44:02

Right? What's wrong with contradictions? Okay, in your worldview. In my worldview, there is a problem with contradictions.

44:09

How do you make sense of that? The Bible is human -made. Yeah, no Christian thinks that the Bible fell from heaven.

44:15

Obviously, it's human -made. The question is, is it only humanly sourced? Right? The Bible, Christians believe the

44:21

Bible is written by man, but it was inspired by God. So, obviously. And I think the idea,

44:28

I'm not sure if he's making this connection, but the fact that the Bible is human -made, does that mean, is that the reason why it has contradictions according to you?

44:35

Right? So anything human -made can't be trusted. Again, that's going to be self -contradictory as well. We should cherry -pick?

44:42

No. We treat the Bible as we would other pieces of literature. We don't just cherry -pick things. Reading the

44:47

Bible in its context is important as well. And use it as a metaphor? Really? The whole thing? The whole thing as a

44:53

Bible is a metaphor? Even the portions that are clearly, according to all standards of historical analysis, written as historical narrative?

45:00

We should use that as metaphor as well? Again, this is really bad.

45:06

Really bad. Oh boy. Let's see here. Oh, there it is.

45:12

There it is. Guys, pack up your bags. Sorry if I sound a little saucy today. The Bible supports slavery!

45:20

Oh my goodness! Okay, haven't heard that one before. Okay. Let's assume that it does, in the sense that the word slavery is being used,

45:29

I guess, with some guy. How does that disprove the Bible? Right. Yeah, it doesn't. There's no logical connection there.

45:35

All right, let's see here. Right, so John says it doesn't follow that God can't lie just because he says so.

45:46

Well, if God is God, then yes, God is the one who gives self -attesting testimony to who he is and what he's like.

45:54

And also, the argument isn't that God can't lie simply because he says so. He can't lie because the justification

46:00

I provide for that is the transcendental argument. To affirm that God lies is to destroy intelligibility.

46:06

But of course, we can make intelligible statements. Therefore, God does not lie. Okay. Meditate on that one.

46:12

Okay. All right. Oh, there we go. The Bible supports drowning babies.

46:18

Oh my goodness. Yes. This is so silly. This is the level, guys. These people exist.

46:24

This is the level. God is bad. Therefore, God doesn't exist. There we go.

46:31

And there we go. So look, the Earth does not come before the Sun. So it appeals to science, right?

46:38

You know, the creation order is different because when the Bible says God created in this order, scientists tell us that actually was created in this order.

46:47

So now, hmm, God who created things tells us how things are made and yet I'm supposed to say God is wrong because clearly scientists studying these issues in the modern time trying to reconstruct what happened all those years ago are telling us that it happened in a different way.

47:01

Hmm. Yeah. I don't think so. There we go. Let's see here. The world never happened.

47:07

The flood never happened. The flood did happen. There we go. These are bad.

47:13

Holy cow. Yeah, right. There you go.

47:18

We should just cherry -pick the Bible. It's more useful. Useful for who? Useful for people who want to disrespect interpretation, right?

47:26

If you want to disrespect literature and just cherry -pick because, by the way, you cherry -pick the Bible and why not cherry -pick any other piece of literature, right?

47:36

There you go. And here you go. Here's a profound one. By the way, do you use Presupp?

47:41

Has this guy seen my channel? Yeah, I use Presupp, okay? Presupp is illogical as pink elephant, as the pink elephant can ground all knowledge.

47:51

I would challenge you to show me how the pink elephant can ground knowledge.

47:58

By the way, elephants are physical, and so therefore you can't have a physical grounding of immaterial conceptual laws.

48:05

That's how stupid that statement is. To think that's what I'm saying, okay? What is it?

48:10

I want people to learn from this here. So the pink elephant is the ground of all knowledge. So what is ignorantly implicit in this statement is the idea that when

48:19

I say God is the foundation and ground of knowledge, then I'm simply making an authority claim.

48:24

No, the nature of God metaphysically is sufficient to ground something immaterial like universal conceptual laws which ground our knowledge claims and intelligible experience.

48:35

If you want to posit an elephant, that doesn't work because of the metaphysical nature of an elephant. Oh no,

48:40

Eli, but this is an invisible elephant. Ah, so an immaterial elephant. And this immaterial elephant, by the way, can ground unity and plurality because this elephant is an invisible elephant that is one in essence and three in persons.

48:53

You see the problem? This is the this is the peak of ad hoc utilization of argumentation and complete philosophical ignorance of what a transcendental argument is and the nature of the presuppositional claim.

49:05

I mean, this is this is bad. This isn't even like, oh, my goodness. Well, let's think about this. This is just really low tier, low tier objections.

49:14

All right, there we go. There we go. By the way, if you if you haven't known,

49:22

OK, logic and math is a language and human made. OK, now

49:28

I want you to think about this, friends. Logic is human made. That would be equivalent to saying that logic is conventional.

49:36

Guess what? If logic is conventional, then logic is not universal. And if logic is not universal, then it is not does not apply everywhere and in all cases.

49:46

And so on this worldview, I can construct a different logic that contradicts his logic and he can't call me or anyone else irrational.

49:55

It would actually destroy knowledge and intelligible experience. Thank you, GP, for demonstrating the complete absurdity of that position.

50:04

So by the way, your worldview is self contradictory. So there you go.

50:09

By the way, I'm going to create a logic right now saying that your words mean something different. By the way, logic and math is language and is a language and human made means that everything

50:19

I'm saying is correct. So there you go. It's man made. I can contradict you. And on my version of logic, contradictions are perfectly fine.

50:27

Yeah. Again, this is the level that we have to deal with, folks. Hopefully that's helpful for people who are actually paying attention and see the absurdity in a lot of these comments.

50:36

Now, I say this. Respecting the people who write it, but it's these comments, it's difficult to respect the actual argument.

50:45

These are bad arguments. OK, they're just bad. All right. If I were not a presuppositionalist, but I understood presuppositionalism and I were teaching this, the examples

50:58

I would use to students who want to engage in, I would use these as examples of not what not to use because they're just bad.

51:06

OK, that's how bad they are. So. All right. Let's see here. Evolution, blah, blah, blah.

51:17

The Bible is mostly incorrect. Yeah, yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

51:29

This is really bad. I mean, these are terrible. Oh, my goodness. This is so terrible.

51:40

Oh, my goodness. These are like low tier objections. I'm so sorry. I don't mean to be disrespectful.

51:46

This is bad. Oh, all right. Let's see here. Question, are there any upcoming apologetics presuppositional theme conferences?

51:55

You mean for like my show, like having people on the show? No, I don't have any planned.

52:01

If I hear something, I'll let you know. That'd be cool. Yeah. All right.

52:12

Let's see here. Sola Scriptura says,

52:24

I am a presupp, but I sometimes wonder if it commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent. If a then

52:30

B, B, therefore none of the the the form of the argument is X is the necessary precondition for Y, Y, therefore

52:41

X. So that's not affirming the consequent. That's different. So transcendental arguments of metallurgical arguments asking for the necessary preconditions of something else.

52:49

So if you were to say, you know, if something over here is possible. Then this is the case, this thing over here is possible, therefore, this other thing is the case, since that other thing over there is the necessary precondition for the thing in question.

53:02

OK. All right. Let's see here. It's a great question.

53:07

Art Vandeley says, how do we tear down presuppositions from other faiths or cults like Islam or Mormonism that also presuppose their system is a starting point?

53:16

Yeah, very good. As a really well phrased question, too, because, yes, those other those other worldviews will acknowledge that they have starting points within their their system.

53:25

Not every Mormon or Muslim is aware of that fact, but there are many who who recognize that.

53:33

OK, so here's the deal. So what you want to do is you want to engage in the internal critique. So the way you tear down presuppositions is you hypothetically grant the truth of the perspective and show that on its own assumptions, it falls apart.

53:46

And so you can do that for Islam, for example. Islam is fairly easy because the

53:52

Quran teaches that the truth claims of the Quran are to be tested by the revelation that has come before.

54:00

So when you test the Quran based upon what came before, what you find is that what came before contradicts the

54:06

Quran. But then when you bring that up, the Muslims say, no, no, no, no, no. Your Bible has been corrupted. Oh, so if my

54:11

Bible has been corrupted, then there's a problem, because if it's corrupted, then I'm unable to do the very thing that the

54:17

Quran has commanded me to do, namely go to what came and what was revealed before to test the

54:22

Quran. How can I test the Quran by going to what was revealed before? And then when

54:28

I do that, you say what was revealed before has been corrupted as a contradiction. So I can't even do the very thing that the very test that the

54:34

Quran tells me to do. So if it's correct on this view, you know, it collapses on its on itself.

54:39

We can't even obey the Quran, even if we wanted to, given what Muslims say with respect to the corruption of our texts and so forth.

54:46

OK, same thing with Mormonism, right? Mormons believe the Bible. OK. And I believe the

54:52

Bible. So let's look let's look there. We look at the scriptures and we could argue from the text that Mormonism doesn't work.

54:58

Now, there's an important distinction, though, Art. There's a distinction between proving your point and persuading the person that you're engaging with.

55:05

I can prove my point from the text that Mormonism contradicts the biblical text, the biblical revelation. Whether that person is persuaded is a different a different issue.

55:14

OK, so it's important to keep that in mind. OK, so the internal critique is how we would address that.

55:19

All right. Let's see here.

55:31

No. So the Christian worldview worldviews in general have metaphysical presupposition, so your metaphysical view also informs what you deem is possible and impossible.

55:42

So when you say God could still be a liar, that is a metaphysic with respect to your view of possibility that is inconsistent with the

55:50

Christian worldview within the Christian worldview. It's literally impossible for God to be a liar given his nature and to affirm that he could lie would actually undermine the preconditions of intelligibility.

56:02

But then again, if we undermine the preconditions of intelligibility, we undermine the very intelligible sentences and argumentation that we use all the while we're having a conversation.

56:11

OK, so if there is intelligibility, then that's false. OK. And of course, within the

56:16

Christian worldview, yes, it is not possible for God to lie and to lie at all. So the Bible even says that it's impossible for God to lie.

56:23

So to talk about a lying God is to no longer be critiquing the Christian worldview, to talk about the possibility of God lying is to no longer be talking about the

56:33

Christian worldview. And in that sense, you're not engaging in an internal critique. And if you're not engaging in internal critique, then you're just tossing stones, so to speak, from a different worldview other than the

56:44

Christian one. And in that case, the Christian is going to reject what you're casting over to our side because we reject the presuppositions upon which those questions and those hypotheticals are being based upon.

56:54

OK. All right. Let's see here. Let's see my last

57:04

IQ just jumped in. OK. All right. OK, so did it to do.

57:13

Let's see here. I don't know what he's referring to. That's just a claim, though. Support that.

57:18

OK, so I'm not listening to you in full time, so I'm not sure specifically what you're referring to, John. So here we go.

57:26

All right. So let's see here. We're almost at the top of the hour, folks.

57:31

This is my last live stream before going back to work as being a teacher.

57:36

I've had the summer off, so I've had so much time. This is my last day of freedom. So I do have to wrap things up and make dinner for my wonderful family.

57:45

Wife is out to work, and so I'm holding down the fort. I don't know if that's a good thing because I'm not an excellent cook.

57:52

But, you know, we're doing today. OK, talk a little talk a little bit about apologetics and I'm making sloppy joes.

58:00

That's easy as an easy one. Right. I can do sloppy joes. OK. All right. All right.

58:06

So I'm going to wrap things up here. I do have to get going.

58:13

I am on a schedule here, John. Right here, John. It's impossible for God to lie.

58:18

So you want me to demonstrate that it's impossible for God to lie. Now, that's a great place to stop. I'm going to take this, John, and I'm going to do another live stream.

58:27

I'm not sure what to be the next one, but I will incorporate it into one of my live streams and I will address this this point of yours in more depth.

58:35

OK, John. John, I appreciate your questions and your comments. I know that we're obviously just going to disagree, but I do appreciate them and I'll try to address them.

58:44

All the videos that I do, by the way, are because they are in some way, shape or form suggested. Or if I read through a comment or someone brings up, you know, a point of disagreement,

58:53

I'm like, hey, let me take that and do it. So I try my best to address as much as possible, you know, things that people bring up and things like that.

59:00

So hopefully, hopefully you appreciate that, John, even though, you know, I'm getting a little saucy here.

59:05

It's OK. I'm totally in a good mood and I I'm not upset or anything like that. But I'll try my best with the next few videos to address that specific point from within the perspective that I'm talking about, the presuppositional framework and the biblical perspective and so forth.

59:20

OK. All right. Well, I must cut short here. We're at the top of the hour, and I hope that this has been useful, beneficial, at least encourages more conversation.

59:31

Behave in the comments. Be respectful. Both atheists and Christian have fruitful discussion.

59:37

And I appreciate all of you guys until next time. Take care and God bless. Bye bye.