Is Presup Biblical? A Friendly Response to Mike Winger

Revealed Apologetics

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All right. Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and it has been a hot minute.

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If you guys are wondering, there was actually someone who reached out to me and was asking, Hey, man, are you okay?

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I haven't done a live stream in a while, so I think they were kind of concerned.

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Maybe something happened to me. Maybe I became an atheist over the past couple of weeks or something like that.

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No, no, no. I have not apostatized, as is very popular throughout the interwebs.

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I've just been busy. As you guys know, I'm a full -time middle school teacher, and last week was kind of our last week of the quarter, and so I was having to get things sorted out there.

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A little busy, and so I'm happy to be back on today. All right. Well, just real quick, just by way of announcements,

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I am super excited. I was invited by Apologia Studios to fly out to Arizona and record a six -part, 23 -minute -each lecture series on presuppositional apologetics, and so I'm super excited about that opportunity, and that is what

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I will be working on throughout this week, and then I think I'll be flying out there next

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Tuesday. So those recordings are going to be put on the

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Apologia Studios website where they have that Academy thing where if you kind of like sign up and subscribe to their special features sort of thing, you'll have access to those, and so I'm very much looking forward to doing that.

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Other than that, I will be working on a new podcast called Revealed Apologetics Simplified, and it's basically presuppositional apologetics, biblical apologetics at the bottom shelf level.

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I know some people are complaining, well, you know, we need more sophisticated stuff. Yes, I get it, but I have to work within my sphere.

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The higher shelf stuff requires a lot more prep. I don't have that much time. I don't do this full time, and so the lower shelf stuff is something that I'm able to do without as much prep, and there is a lot of people within my own circles that are really interested in learning this apologetic methodology, but they don't really have a lot of background in apologetics in general and presuppositional apologetics more specifically, so I know folks are looking for me to go deeper, but that's what this channel's for.

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You guys know that we've gone very, very deeply into various aspects of presuppositional apologetic methodology and things relating to that, so I just want to throw that out there, and there you go.

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So let's jump right in. I'm going to introduce my guest and my friend, Jeffrey Waddington.

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Jeff Waddington, how are you doing, brother? I'm doing fine. How are you, Eli? I'm doing very well.

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When I first had you on, it was actually my last live stream, we had you and Joshua Shooping where we talked about Eastern Orthodoxy's use of presuppositionalism.

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When I had shared on my social media that you were going to come on, someone was like, ooh, a rare Jeffrey Waddington interview.

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So apparently people knew they know who you are, but they were like, I haven't really seen him kind of do stuff in a while.

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So I'm so happy to be connected to you through Lane Tipton, and now you text your

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Bitmojis every morning to say good morning. I do. I'm sure you said, was it really a good thing to get to know

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Jeff now that he sends me his Bitmoji? I love it. I'm curious as to which one you're going to send me.

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They're so funny. As you know, you've seen them, there's a whole bunch.

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That's right. And you can also search by topic, and I guess there might be some that don't show up in the menu.

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There's no presuppositionalist Bitmojis. I thought of that. Yeah, I know.

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We'll have to work on that. So why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself?

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Yeah. Well, my name is Jeff Waddington. Some of you may be familiar with me through the

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Reform Forum. I've done a few interviews or have interacted with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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So some may be familiar with me through that. And you may be thinking, yes, Jeff, you have the face for radio.

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And Iron Sharpens Iron is a benefit in that regard. There's no video part of it.

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I'm a minister in the Cambodian Presbyterian Church, and I teach.

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I'm a professor at the school that's connected with that denomination in Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

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I teach at this point by live stream or by way of Zoom. And I'm also teaching as an instructor, adjunct instructor in religion at Penn State.

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I think they have 20 or so. I'm teaching at the

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Abington, which is north of where Westminster is in Glenside.

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I went to Westminster, got my master's in divinity and my

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Ph .D. in apologetics from Westminster. Excellent. Very good.

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And you are a big Van Til guy. So I am super happy to have you on.

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When Lane Tipton, who is a big Van Til guy, suggests having you on, I was like, well,

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OK, well, if he suggested you, then I know you know your stuff. Because Lane is he's an expert in this area of presuppositionalism.

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And I kind of I trusted him in suggesting you. And I was I was not disappointed after having spoken with you on the phone about some things relating to this.

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So very much appreciative of your friendship and and your mind. And hopefully we'll be able to get into some into some of the weeds of presuppositionalism and this video that we're going to be taking a look at now.

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I just want to let people know we're going to be sharing screen here and we're going to be covering a topic that is entitled

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Is Presupp Biblical? And this is a critique of presuppositionalism from Mike Winger.

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If you guys know the Bible Thinker YouTube channel, Mike Winger has a very large following and he is an awesome guy.

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And I highly recommend his channel, even though we have some theological and apologetical differences. I've benefited greatly both from his friendship and from his content.

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So I've spoken to him personally over these topics. And, you know, I've always seen

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Mike as someone who really tries hard to understand the other side, so to speak.

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And of course, we're going to disagree at the end of the day. But I respect his spirit, the spirit with which he engages these issues.

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And even in the video that we're going to be taking a look at now, I think he does a great job being respectful, trying to be careful in his understanding of presuppositionalism, at least as he sees it.

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But of course, we are going to take some issue with some of the things that he says or a lot of the things, I suppose.

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And hopefully as we interact with this video, this will be a great opportunity to teach. And hopefully folks who are listening in will find this beneficial.

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So I know, Jeff, you've watched this video here. We're going to put it up on the screen here. You've watched it already.

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And I have as well. And I've taken some notes. And hopefully we can kind of just dive right in and squeeze this lemon for all the juice that it has.

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Let's do it, brother. It'll be very, very easy. So I'm going to jump right in.

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I'm just going to play the video. And then we'll take it from there. I will stop when I think we should stop.

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And if you think we should stop, we'll stop. And you say, hey, just stop right there. I have some comments there.

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So you ready to go? Yep. All right. Let's do this. Before we start, if Mike Winger ever watches this,

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I love you, man. And it's been a while since we've spoken. So hopefully we can connect soon over the phone and catch up.

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So love you, man. All right. Let's get started. What are we doing here today?

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Here's the questions I'd like to tackle. One, is it true that God doesn't believe in atheists?

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Is that a true phrase, that God does not believe in atheists? I mean, that's how we hear it phrased sometimes. But the idea is that nobody's really an atheist, that people, deep down, they know the truth.

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And when they say they're atheists, they're not being honest. They're lying to you and they know it. Is that true?

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Number two, is it morally wrong to give people evidence for Christianity? Is it?

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I'm not saying it's like the gravest sin in the world. I'm just saying, is it wrong? Is there something inherently incorrect or wrong about just giving people evidence for the

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Christian faith? Is that somehow incorrect? And then three, is presuppositional apologetics biblical?

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And that's the question. I'm not here attacking this from a philosophical standpoint. I'm not talking about it from that angle at all, actually.

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I'm interested in the Bible. I love the word of God. I believe it is God's word to us. So it is an authority over what

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I'm going to think about things. And it's silly to think it would be somehow the Bible's God's word, but it doesn't have the authority to tell me what to think.

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So we believe the Bible. The question is, is this form of presuppositional apologetics, is it biblical? Now, you may not be familiar with presuppositional apologetics.

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But if you're watching the replay, chances are you are clicking the video because you're interested in this question.

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And so hopefully it will respond to that exact need. And you're going to get just what you need, I hope, out of this content.

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Now I'm going to stop right there, Jeff. Just to create some context, the specific flavor of presuppositionalism that he is interacting with is

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Saiten Brugenke, which he's a friend of mine, awesome brother.

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I've learned a lot from him over the years and have benefited from his friendship. But he's often seen as kind of the representative of presuppositionalism.

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And, of course, as much as we agree on so much, I wouldn't say that that's necessarily the case.

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We want to be careful. Mike himself makes a distinction between, say, Saiten Brugenke and people who follow his flavor of presuppositionalism and other presuppositionalists who may or may not use the same kind of forms of argumentation.

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Can you share with us, Jeff, just a little bit about the spectrum of presuppositionalists?

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Are all Vantillians treated equally or what? Well, now, if you're familiar with the work of Dr.

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Gregg, the late, great Dr. Gregg Bonson, you'll know that he himself, in his book,

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Presuppositionalism, yeah, I forget the subtitle, explain. Stated and Defended?

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Yes, it's the yellow cover book. Presuppositionalism, Stated and Defended. He, in that book, distinguishes between Dr.

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Vantill, Gordon Clark, E .J.

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or Edward John Carnell, and Francis Schaeffer. It's representing four different types, get four fingers there, four different types of presuppositionalism.

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Dr. Vantill representing what he calls and what others have called revelational presuppositionalism, say, is over against the other three types which have a modicum of rationalism in there.

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And then, of course, you have, I was thinking there was another division.

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Oh, yes, sorry, slow on the uptake there. So you've got those distinctions and I think are legitimate distinctions that Dr.

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Bonson makes. In fact, they're different enough that I'm not sure, like Carnell, I don't know how he gets in there as a presuppositionalist other than he was a student of Clark and Vantill back in the 40s.

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Carnell, by the way, if you're not…

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Jeff, if I could interrupt real quick, your voice is coming in and out. I don't know if there's a bad connection or something like that.

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Can you hear me okay? Your sound is coming in and out. Yeah, I can hear you.

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You're fine. You sound better there. Go ahead. Yeah, okay.

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So E .J. Carnell was better known probably in the 40s to the late 60s.

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He died under mysterious circumstances.

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We don't know if he overdosed on medications or if he took his own life.

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He also served as president of Fuller Seminary for a time. But why he's labeled as a presuppositionalist is another matter.

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But within the Vantillian camp, if I can use that language,

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I would say that you have

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John Frame and Verne Poitras on the one hand with their multi -perspectivalism or tri -perspectivalism.

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But not everybody agrees with that particular way of slicing and dicing our theology.

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Then you have someone like Scott Oliphant with covenantal attributes teaching.

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Then you've got Lane Tipton. And I would see myself as more in Lane Tipton's camp,

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I would say. We're friends, so I guess you might expect that.

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They all wouldn't hash out presuppositionalism. No, the difference, say, with Lane Tipton is that represents the camp

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I'm in. And I would also, William Dennison is a precursor. That's right.

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We try to highlight the redemptive historical or Vosthian biblical theological basis for Vantill's more philosophically framed apologetic.

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It's to show that and Greg Bonson, we would look to Greg Bonson as well, especially, but we would say that Dr.

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Bonson, the one short, if we could offer a critique of Dr. Bonson, it would be the histionomy tends to flatten any influence of Vos in the redemptive historical school.

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So I'm sure that now I've unloaded a bunch of distinctions that has confused everyone.

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Well, all this to say, Jeff, I think when you take someone like Greg Bonson, Vantill, Edward Carnell, Gordon Clark, Francis Schaefer, and all these guys, they're very different than, say, a

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Si Ten Bruggencate. They would say many different things, right? Si has his particular favor, and that's fine.

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We all do. Right, and I would caution folks who are looking into presuppositional apologetics of seeing one person be representative of the entire camp.

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That's not necessarily the case. Myself and Si might have little disagreements here and there or even some big disagreements on how presuppositionalism looks in real conversation.

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So I want to let people be aware that there is variation within that. And Mike says as much.

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Right, I was going to say, he notes very winsomely, as you've already noted,

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Eli, that he recognizes, one, his limitation or familiarity with the school of apologetics, but two, he's also got enough common sense to know that probably there's variety within the presuppositional camp.

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In my conversations with Mike, I've definitely expressed that I disagree, and I don't know if he remembers this as a while back.

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The questions he's asking here, I mean, I've shared my thoughts on them, and I'm going to get your thoughts in just a moment.

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But let us kind of let him get through the introduction part, and then we'll kind of address his first two questions, and then we're going to spend most of our time on his third question, and that's with respect to whether presuppositional apologetics is biblical.

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So let's continue on. Is it biblical? That's the question.

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So what I don't mean when I say this, I have to give a disclaimer, two disclaimers, actually. So one disclaimer is this.

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I do not mean that we shouldn't do apologetics that deal with presuppositions. I don't mean that I shouldn't talk to someone about their assumptions, about what they believe, the foundations of their beliefs, how they know anything at all to start with.

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That's a great discussion, and it's a wonderful way, I think, to bring the knowledge of God into people's lives.

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So what I don't mean is I'm not attacking this sort of using presuppositions in apologetics, but rather there's a specific subcategory called presuppositional apologetics, and within that there's just one group that I'm dealing with, which is a group that says, hey, there's no atheists.

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In fact, it's wrong for you to use evidence to give people reasons to believe in God because you're sort of emboldening their rebellion against God and making them a judge of God.

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And so is that a biblical view or not? That's the question I have because I want to follow the

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Lord in these issues. So second disclaimer. I'm here analyzing, or at least trying to analyze, a very specific presuppositional apologist to have an example of the content

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I'm dealing with, and it's a gentleman, a believer, and a brother named Cy Tenbruggenkate. Now, I've actually been in contact with Cy, and he tells me he thinks that I might misunderstand his views.

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So here's my disclaimer. I'm going to try my best to get his views across as carefully and thoughtfully as I can, and if I get it wrong, that's not his fault.

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That would be my fault. And I'm going to have him on, hopefully this week, to have a back -and -forth discussion with me live on YouTube where he's going to be able to offer correction or clarity, and we can discuss it as brothers.

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So that's the plan. Now, let me give you an example of what it is I'm talking about here, and I'll have to put on my ridiculous headphones so I can hear this as well.

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And now he's going to address his first question. So the first question is, is it true that God doesn't believe in atheists?

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So folks have often heard presuppositionalists say that all men know that God exists, and if that's true in one sense, then do atheists exist?

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Is someone who doesn't believe in God or lacks belief in God or however you want to hash out that terminology?

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So what he's about to do is play a portion of Cy Tenbruggenkate's film

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How to Answer the Fool, and he's going to respond to his reading of Romans 1. So we're going to let him play that clip, and then

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I'm going to toss it over to you, Jeff, so we can interact with that question. Is it true that God doesn't believe in atheists?

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That's the question. So let us continue on. That's what I'm talking about. Out in the world, where do you hear evidence most often?

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In court. Who do you give evidence to in court? The judge. The judge and the jury.

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So we go out in the street in a campus with some arrogant, snot -nosed kids like that, and they say,

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I don't believe in God. And what's the first thing we do? We give them evidence. And when we give them evidence, who are we saying is the judge?

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Them. And who is on trial? God. So we go out in the street and we say,

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You, sir, are the judge. The Lord of glory is on trial. What does Scripture say? Do not put the

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Lord your God to the test. And what are we doing? We're out there saying that God's on trial. And you know what the problem with that is?

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You can win that court case. Because God has given us wonderful evidences. Evidences are a wonderful gift from God for Christians to bolster our faith.

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You can win that court case. And you can acquit God. But what's the problem? Who's the judge?

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Okay, so the complaint here is that just by. Okay, so let's interact with that.

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Let's just take the question head on. As a Vantilian presuppositionalist, how would you, how would

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Vantil, how would Bonson answer this question? Is it true that God doesn't believe in atheists?

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Would we say God doesn't believe in atheists because everyone has a knowledge of God? Why don't you unpack that for us?

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Sure. The question, does God believe in atheists?

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I think we would say that there are, you know, as we've often said about wartime experiences, there are no atheists in foxholes, right?

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Going back to World War I. However, it's one thing to say that, in fact, there are no true atheists because we all possess the knowledge of God that is implanted in us by God himself.

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Or do we, so it's one thing to say that, that does

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God, are there real atheists? And the answer to that question,

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I think, is no. However, there are many people who claim to be atheists and who may, in fact, have persuaded, been successfully persuaded themselves to, that they are real atheists.

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And of course, you can include agnostics in there because the dividing line between agnostics and atheists is kind of blurry.

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So now the Scriptures are very, you know, do address the fool who in his heart has said there is no

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God. So it is possible to say, for someone to say internally in this thought process that there is no

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God. However, that is not to say that there are, in fact, people who are bereft of knowledge of the true

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God. That's the, I think we'll get into that a little later in the video to that.

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Do you want me to address Roman's one now? Well, well, not just yet.

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Here's the thing, though. If we were to say it's true that God doesn't believe in atheists for the reasons you just gave, then are we saying as presuppositionalists that when an atheist says that he's an atheist, he's just lying?

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Is our assertions boiled down to something so simple as, well, you know, I'm an atheist.

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I'm telling you, I don't believe in God. Oh, deep down, you're lying, man. We really know you. No, I think it could be they're lying or it could be they're self -deceived.

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You know, and the self -deception could take, you know, there's very many gradations.

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Dr. Van Til made a distinction between epistemological awareness and psychological awareness.

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Now, I'm not sure, like Mike, I don't know if I can parse or slice as finely the distinction between psychological and epistemological, except that one is describing the subjective processes of the human mind and heart, and the other is talking about the conceptual content of that human mind and heart.

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So I've forgotten what I'm supposed to be responding to. This isn't the first time that's happened to me, and it's not a sign of old age.

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So when we say, are atheists just lying? No, no. And Dr.

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Bonson, as you know, Eli, did his PhD dissertation on self -deception.

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And there is, by the way, a short form of that. It's available on the web, his dissertation.

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But there's a short form article in the Westminster Journal, Spring 1995 issue.

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That's basically an article -length version of the argument he makes more fully in his dissertation.

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So self -deception, you know, the human heart, you know, as Jeremiah said, the heart is desperately wicked.

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Who can know it, right? So the human heart, and the heart biblically includes the mind and the will and the emotions.

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It's the seat of the human person. So I would not want to, on the one hand,

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I would not want to say that a person is lying. They could be deceived at some level.

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On the other hand, I do have to say that if it's a choice between God's Word and the self -assessment of an unbeliever, or even of a confused or compromised believer,

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I have to go with God's Word. And I believe Romans 1 tells me that all people know

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God. Now, when we get to discussion, if we do of Romans 1,

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I'll have more to say about this. Yeah, we'll unpack that a little later. So in short, when we say all men know that God exists, but then someone says, well, does that mean atheists are just lying?

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We're going to say, and Greg Bonson would say, no, that's not necessarily the case.

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Someone can be self -deceived, which biblically, I'm sorry, if you're an atheist, you're obviously not going to agree with this.

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But we're talking from within the context of Christian theological implications of how the

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Christian theological conception of the unbeliever, we would say that the unbeliever is self -deceived, right?

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And so what he says with his mouth, his actions tell us otherwise.

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He does things that don't make sense given his professed atheism. So we would not simply say, well, atheists are just lying, because that's not necessarily the case.

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But even Mike would willingly admit, and myself as well, some people could be doing that, but that's not necessarily the case.

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So let us continue here. Giving, sort of building a case, say I give the evidence for the resurrection, as I've actually done on this channel, that just by giving that evidence,

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I'm suggesting that God is now the defendant in a case in which the skeptic is the judge.

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And they're over God now. In a sense, I'm placing them in authority over God, as though they're deciding whether God exists or not.

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It's up to them or something like that. And that's the question. Is it wrong to give this kind of evidence to skeptics?

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Does it actually put God on trial? Does it make them the judge? Specifically, is it unbiblical?

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That's my biggest issue, actually, is I think this is not a biblical thing. And is it true that they just know already?

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So let me tell you a couple things I like before I get into all the long...

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Well, real quick, I would agree with Mike that it is unbiblical to say that I will not give any evidence to the unbeliever.

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I would agree. As a Vantillian presuppositionalist myself, I would say I agree that it is unbiblical to say that I will give no evidence.

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So I will give evidence. I do give evidence, but I make this qualification. I do not pretend that the very concept of evidence, an argument, could be understood independent of a

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Christian context. But I will give it. And I think it's appropriate to do so in various circumstances.

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I don't think, as that blanket statement stands, I don't think giving evidence makes the unbeliever judge, unless we give it in such a way that is contrary to our commitments to the

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Lordship of Christ and the context of the Christian worldview. Would you agree with me there, Jeff?

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Yeah, I would. I was pondering whether giving evidence or even the use of human reason to ascertain whether something is so.

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That is sometimes called the judgment. But to talk about having the ability and actually,

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I would argue in this case, the obligation to judge or to assess or to evaluate, it's not the same thing as to sit in judgment.

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Cy ten Bruggenkade is correct that we ought not to be either ourselves as the apologist or putting our list, you know, our interrogator in the position of being the judge over God.

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It's actually assessment of the evidence, which he might still have a problem with that.

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But my response is, well, then you're trying to bypass the subjective element that God has put into creation.

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But that's another, you know. Sorry, Mike, for pausing it in an awkward pose there.

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I feel bad. I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry. A long list of things

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I don't agree with, with Cy on this issue. And like I said, I'll bring him on hopefully this week in a few days or maybe tomorrow, actually.

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We haven't ironed it out yet. What I like is this. Cy, along with some of the other guys who are doing this presuppositional method, and you get guys from like, if I'm not mistaken, from the

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Bible -thumping wingnut who are doing this sort of thing. Here's what I love about them. These guys are confident about the gospel, and they're unashamed about biblical truth and about God and about the fact that there is a real judgment and a real eternal damnation that is coming.

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They're not ashamed of this fact. Instead, they want to warn people of it. And there is a disease of shame that a lot of Christians have relating to the gospel of Jesus Christ, as though I'm supposed to be embarrassed about the judgment that we deserve because of our sins.

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We're the wicked ones here. God is the righteous judge, and that's a beautiful thing. So they recognize the black and white of Christianity, and they're willing to just go forward with it and hold to it.

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And a lot of times, as I listen to Cy's stuff, I hear him, and I congratulate you on this,

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Cy. You're like, you sort of will ignore the bologna sauce that sometimes comes out of skeptics' mouths. And maybe

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I need to do that more when I'm interacting with skeptics. They sometimes just call out, that's just bologna, man. Like, you're just saying foolish things.

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And so I think that that's actually possibly a very good thing. So those are kind of like the bold, unashamed, seeing the black and whites, being able to call people out on their bologna.

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I like that. But I think that Scripture gives us a really strong case, as you surveyed through the

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Bible, of using evidence to convince nonbelievers or people who are in rebellion to God, using evidence to convince them that they should turn to God.

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And so I'm going to go through a bunch of Scriptures right now. He's going to go through his biblical case here. So I just want to review this real quick for folks.

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Number one, is it true that God doesn't believe in atheists? Yes. Does that mean that atheists are lying when they claim to be atheists?

33:26

Not necessarily. Number two, is it morally wrong to give people evidence for Christianity?

33:32

No, it's not morally wrong. And I'm happy to say that as a presuppositionalist. Now, the last question, is presuppositional apologetics biblical?

33:41

And what he's going to do now is he's going to make a biblical case for presenting evidence, which...

33:50

Do you have a problem with that, Jeff? I don't have a problem with presenting evidence.

33:56

I've done it every Sunday as a pastor in the pulpit, presenting evidence, seeking to persuade.

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To present the message of a particular passage of God's Word. So, you know, in that sense, of course, we would argue that everything is evidence, right?

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Everything is evidence for God. If you have the time to trace back, you know, the present facts to their bases, if you will, their foundation.

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And I'm not trying to be a foundationalist by using the word foundation. Just want to put that out there.

34:40

Okay. So, just going to say that again. We're presuppositionalists. We have no problem giving evidence.

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And I would agree with Mike. The Bible does give examples of giving evidence. I just don't think those examples prove evidentialism or classicalism.

34:56

But there's nothing wrong in principle with giving evidence. So, let's take a look at some of the scriptures he uses, and then we'll have you interact with those.

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Okay? We're going to start in the Old Testament. We're going to go to the New Testament. We'll look at what Jesus says about this stuff as well.

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And I think you might be surprised, those of you watching, you know, to find out that the Bible actually says a lot, a lot about using evidence to not just for Christians to encourage them, but using evidence to bring nonbelievers into a place of submission to God.

35:28

This is a good biblical thing. So, the first passage, and you may want to have your Bible or a

35:33

Bible app out for you, is 1 Kings 18. And many of you know this passage, but have you really thought through it with this in mind?

35:41

Like, have you asked the right questions about it? Right? So, 1 Kings 18 20. So, we have this passage here where Elijah goes to Mount Carmel, and he's going to bring the prophets of Baal.

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And there's going to be this sort of spiritual battle that results in a physical battle, which is pretty interesting.

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So, 1 Kings 18 20, it says, So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel.

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And Elijah came to all the people and said, How long will you falter between two opinions? If the

36:07

Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. But the people answered him not a word. So, the people are gathered together.

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The people are really apostatized, right? They're pretending to worship Yahweh, but as part of a polytheism that they're part of.

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And this is not appropriate, right? So, what I noticed first off is that what Elijah says to them in verse 21 is,

36:28

If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. Now, this is not, the word if is not in the presuppositionalist vocabulary, as I understand it.

36:39

As I've watched this method be used several times. Is that true? Are presuppositionalists allowed to use if and contingency language?

36:50

Oh, yes. I think what he's responding to is that we are not going to ourselves embrace either how we think internally or how we argue apologetically.

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We're not going to try to pretend that God is not

37:15

God. So, that I think. However, his comments do seem to reveal a lack of familiarity with the standard distinction between the internal and external arguments for the

37:34

Christian faith. And the reason

37:41

I mentioned that is because Dr. Van Til, when he talks about those arguments, he doesn't use the internal, external.

37:49

I think that's Bonson and others use that language. Dr. Van Til talks about standing on the ground of the unbeliever for argument's sake.

38:01

Okay, that sounds like a hypothetical, right? If what you're saying is true,

38:07

Mr. Unbeliever. Right, you're going to use if -then language. Right. And then when you try to get the unbeliever to stand on the

38:14

Christian's ground for argument's sake, in that case, you might use the if -then. But when we use that language, we're not suggesting that God is a hypothetical to be tested.

38:28

Right. Now, I don't think he would either. From Mike's comments,

38:34

I don't think he would argue that way either, even if he uses the word if. Right. Now, when you say if, with respect to the internal critique, if we were to take the hypothetical truth of the unbeliever's perspective, we can say, if what you're saying is true,

38:52

Mr. Atheist, then such and such will follow. So we can use that language, but we don't use it in the way that suggests that God is a hypothesis that may or may not be true.

39:04

Right, I think it's not necessarily the use of if -then arguments.

39:11

It's what some apologists say outside of the arguments that make us nervous when they use if -then arguments.

39:20

Sure. Because of what they've said elsewhere, we have strong reason to think that they really do believe this is a hypothetical situation, that God is a hypothesis that can be tested.

39:34

As Dr. Carnell, as whom I mentioned earlier, D .J. Carnell, said, bring on your hypotheses and see if they can stand against the law of contradiction, famous statement that I just butchered that Dr.

39:54

Carnell issued back in the middle of the 20th century. So we're not going down that road.

40:02

But God is not a hypothesis to be verified. He is the basis of all scientific research.

40:12

Right, right. All right, let's continue. I don't see this as part of, if you're a precept, you know, like you don't say if God or if Baal, like, well, if Muhammad is right, then you should follow

40:23

Islam. Like you don't say that. You assume the truth of Christianity. You don't reason with a hypothetical like this.

40:30

So he doesn't say, you know, Yahweh is God. You just know it. Follow him. Now, if I said this,

40:35

I think that, Sai, I think that he would correct me or rebuke me on this and say, Mike, you can't say if, if God is, it really is.

40:45

That already, we're not in the worldview, I think, of the presuppositional apologist, this particular branch of it.

40:52

So as we read on in First Kings 18, look at what happens next. Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left the prophet of the

40:58

Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Therefore, let them give us two bowls and let them choose one bowl for themselves, cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it.

41:09

And I will prepare the other bowl and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. So they're preparing an offering, a sacrifice.

41:14

And it's going to be a test for those who aren't familiar with the passage, a test of which God is real. Is it

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Baal or is it Yahweh? So verse 24 says, then you call on the name of your gods.

41:25

And I will call on the name of the Lord Yahweh, right? And the God who answers by fire, he is

41:30

God. So all the people answered and said, it is well -spoken. Now, if the people already know, if the people of Israel already know who's

41:37

God, like there's, you know, they're wavering between these two different deities, right? A false

41:42

God and the true God. If they just already know, why doesn't Elijah just say, you know it? And to deny it is to deny reality itself.

41:49

Did you stop that there, Eli? Sorry. There's one problem with his approach.

42:00

And I detected it yesterday when I was watching the video. Is that Elijah the prophet is addressing

42:09

Israelites who not only have the word, the law of God written on the hearts, as all human beings do, made in God's image.

42:17

But they also have the word revealed, given through Moses. And so they know, and all the books that were written, you know, between the time of Moses and the time of the prophet

42:30

Elijah. So they are more than familiar with God's demands and his condemnation of idolatry.

42:40

So there's no excuse on multiple levels. And the only criticism

42:47

I offer here is that Mike is almost treating the Israelites here as if they were, you know, in a state of nature and had not been exposed to the scripture, the inscripturated word.

43:05

Now, when I hear the whole story of the prophet of Baal in this context, some people within the evidentialist and classicalist camps will use this as an example of evidentialism, right?

43:18

Like this is an example of, you know, they're giving evidence to see which God is real. Would you think that's an inappropriate use of this passage?

43:25

Well, it certainly is giving evidence. Evidentialism though, as a system, requires the coming along of at least two major figures in the history of philosophy,

43:41

Rene Descartes and John Locke. Because evidentialism is a form of foundationalism, you know, so I'm stressing the ism.

43:52

Giving evidence is hardly a problem, right? It's not the giving of the evidence.

44:03

Mike could have just as easily gone to the story of Gideon in the book of Judges as another example.

44:14

When Gideon himself looks for evidence that God is who he said

44:19

He is, right? When they put out the fleece, one time the ground is wet and the fleece is dry.

44:26

The next time the fleece is wet and the ground is dry. He's testing God. Well, that's looking for evidence, right?

44:35

And I think this is something that is brought up either in this video or in others that Mike has done is that God does sometimes condescend to our weakness.

44:47

And therefore, that's again, that's not even about the issue of the existence of God per se.

44:59

It's whether the one whom I am being confronted by right now is the

45:07

God, you know, Yahweh, we would say. And so it's looking for evidence of a different kind.

45:16

It's not looking for the evidence for the existence of God. It's looking for evidence that you are who you say you are, right?

45:25

Which is slightly different. Right, that's a good point. All right, let's continue on.

45:31

Which I think is true. I think you are denying reality if you deny God. But he doesn't say that. My point is his approach isn't from that angle.

45:39

They say, okay, let's do it. This is literally an evidential test, right? The people of Israel have lots of good reasons to believe in God.

45:46

But now Elijah is going to say, I'll give you another one. Here's another reason on top of all the accountability you've already got.

45:52

Here's an additional reason. Wouldn't Psy or the presuppositional apologist say, I'm not talking evidence with you, you unbelieving

45:59

Israelites. You're apostate, you're pagans now. And I'm not even going to give you evidence. I think he would. And here's a short clip from that same.

46:07

This is actually from the video, How to Answer the Fool. I have the link in the video description here if you'd like to watch that.

46:12

It's a full length video that they make available for free. And it unpacks this presuppositional argument.

46:19

So here's the second video. What would this video say about what Elijah is doing? Wouldn't this stuff mean that Elijah was doing something wrong in 1

46:29

Kings 18? Most of my life when I was defending my faith, I was doing it wrong. I was giving evidences to the unbeliever.

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The problem is most Christians are doing it wrong today. I mean, look at the books that we have. We have 20 compelling evidences that God exists.

46:44

The case for Christ. A handbook of Christian evidences. Evidence for God. Evidence that demands a verdict.

46:52

Who's the judge in this case? Not the creator of the universe, the unbeliever. These people know that God exists.

46:59

So instead of believing what the Bible says, we believe them when they say that they don't believe that God exists. We elevate them to the position of judge and we put

47:06

God on trial. Okay, so I think that this is what we can do, right?

47:12

We're just saying let's take this method and let's look at Scripture and see if this is what Scripture uses.

47:19

I'm starting with the Bible here, right? Does the Bible give us this method? I think the answer is no. Now, I saw a debate between Cy and another gentleman who was

47:28

Eric Hernandez, I think. And it was about presuppositional apologetics. And I think it was Eric. And he brought up this specific passage.

47:35

And I'll give you Cy's response. Cy's response was, well, that's fine. We can give that evidence if we're willing to then kill the people afterwards.

47:43

And I don't think I'm misstating what he said there. I think that's what he said. Now, I don't know how much that might have been tongue in cheek a little bit there.

47:49

But I think that if it was just a joke, like a funny joke, it missed the point. And even if you meant it in any respect, they didn't kill the people.

47:58

The ones who were killed were the false prophets. They were slain, right? But the people were told, turn back to God.

48:05

So this was evidence presented to get them to turn back to God. So I'll just throw that out there for anybody who may be like me. You listen to all these debates, and you watch all these videos, and you're wondering about that kind of stuff.

48:15

Do you have any thoughts there, Jeff, that if you're going to follow Elijah's method there, you've got to kill the person?

48:24

Well, yeah. I think that Cy's comments were meant to be humorous, even if they missed the mark.

48:33

You've got to understand. Because no doubt Cy is aware of the difference between the

48:39

Old Testament era and the New Testament era in which we live, right? The way that God and His people dealt with each other and with the pagans in the land is different from how we would deal with them in the

49:01

New Testament era. And I suspect that's in the background.

49:07

So what Cy is saying is you would have to go back to the Old Covenant era if you're wanting to take in the whole context of what

49:19

Elijah is doing. And if you go that route, then you also have to be prepared to kill the 450 prophets of Baal.

49:32

Okay. All right. Let's continue. So, yeah. They go on, and then

49:37

God answers by fire, whereas Baal's prophets, nothing happens. They're cutting themselves, and they're doing all this stuff, and nothing happens.

49:43

And so God is clearly evidenced as being Yahweh, the true God. And let's look at another example.

49:50

So Deuteronomy 18 .22, this passage is really giving us another good reason to think that God is interested in evidence.

49:58

So Deuteronomy 18 .22, he says, When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is, the thing which the

50:07

Lord has not spoken, the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him. I can confirm a prophet was speaking from God because what he says happens.

50:17

I don't confirm it because I presuppose that what I heard was God's word because I just sort of know it in my heart.

50:23

I'm not saying you can't do that, right? Of course the Holy Spirit can testify to my faith. Is that what preceptors are doing?

50:29

Are we saying, well, the prophet, you know, it's weird. He says in Deuteronomy 18 .22,

50:34

you have the test of a true prophet. He seems to think that a preceptor can't consistently follow that test.

50:40

Again, if Mike's understanding in this video at this point, four years ago when the video was made,

50:47

I believe it's four years ago, that would rule out Bible studies, that would rule out preaching and teaching so that we could never talk about the

51:00

Bible because all of that is on one level or another kind of evidence, right?

51:09

So what is happening when

51:16

Moses is described telling the people of Israel that you can tell who is a legitimate true prophet of God by virtue of these telltale signs?

51:32

They say something about the future and it comes to pass that that means they're a true prophet, right?

51:40

Well, yes, that is a form of evidence after the fact. But I think what he's doing is he's putting all these different, so far, two different passages and putting them through a grid of, is this a form of evidence?

52:02

And then assuming use of evidence equates to evangelism.

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And that's where you and I, I think, and Sy would say, no, no, that's wrong. Evidence is fine.

52:15

It's just we're not okay with evidentialism. Right. If folks are interested,

52:20

I actually did an episode. It was just me. I was teaching on, I think, the first chapter of the book by Tom Notaro, Vantil and the

52:29

Use of Evidence. And I talk about this. I didn't put it in the description, unfortunately, but I put it in the comments somewhere.

52:35

So if you scroll through, it's there. And I highly recommend people take a look at that because I address a lot of these issues.

52:44

There is a big distinction between the use of evidence and the use of evidentialism. When I, as a presuppositionalist, use evidences,

52:51

I'm not ceasing to be a presuppositionalist, nor am I now being an evidentialist.

52:56

That's just a misunderstanding. So I want folks to keep that in mind. Let's continue on.

53:02

My heart that the Bible is God's word. I'm saying the Bible doesn't give that as the only way in which we know that the

53:09

Bible is God's word. In fact, he says here, how will you tell that this prophet was false? You will wait and see if what he says happens.

53:17

So that's, to me, a very profound thing that doesn't support, I don't think, that particular view of presuppositionalism.

53:24

If I'm understanding Sai correctly, I want to throw that out there. I think I am. I've tried hard to accurately portray it.

53:31

Also, in the book of Isaiah, dealing with false idols and how God is different than false idols, we have another example of evidential, or you might say classical, apologetics.

53:40

I'll use R .C. Sproul's terminology here. Classical apologetics, which is—

53:46

See, again, this idea of the use of evidence, if you find a place in Scripture where people are presenting evidence, that that's equated with evidentialism or classicalism, and that's just not the case.

54:02

If we were to express our issues with classical apologetics and evidential apologetics in terms of which these are methodologies that either explicitly or implicitly affirm neutrality and autonomy, those are big issues we have with these other methods, then if those are key elements to classical and evidential apologetics, showing a

54:27

Bible verse where someone uses evidences, you don't get included in there the assumption of autonomy and neutrality necessarily.

54:35

I think we're just seeing passages where people are using evidence. We're not told necessarily that it's along evidential lines or presuppositional lines.

54:45

Those come from other Scriptures and other principles that we would argue from in terms of what all the

54:51

Scripture has to say. Do you think I'm on the right track there? Yeah, there is a real sense also we can broaden the category of evidence to include reason.

55:04

When Peter in 1 Peter 3 .15 says, give a reason for the hope that is within you, that's another way of saying give evidence.

55:18

In other words, reasons are internal forms of evidence. Or they may be referring to a historical event or some object out there in the world, in the real world.

55:31

But the point is in the English language and perhaps in other languages as well, we can go back and forth between the word reason and the word evidence and they can overlap even though they're not technically speaking synonyms.

55:49

So what's your evidence for your view or what is your reason for your view?

55:55

You could be referring to the same thing. Right. Or asking the same question. Yeah. So again, he goes through 1

56:05

Kings 18 .20, which again, we don't have a problem with as presuppositionalist, right?

56:12

With Elijah and the prophet of Baal. Deuteronomy 18 .22, I don't see a problem as a presuppositionalist following the test of a true prophet and still being consistently presuppositional.

56:21

Isaiah 41 .21 is the next one he's going to go through. I'm actually going to skip that. I want to go to a certain time mark that I think it would be interesting to kind of land on.

56:30

And then he goes into the New Testament and he will go into reasons that Jesus gives to believe in God.

56:40

And then we'll talk a little bit about that. So what I want to do now is actually skip to the time mark 17 minutes and five seconds.

56:48

And I want to see if you could interact with something here and I picked something up that I thought would be worth noticing here.

56:55

So let's start here. Does Jesus tell me believe it because I'm just telling you to believe it? Like the Bible is God's word.

57:00

I know it's God's word because it said it's God's word and that's the end of the conversation. So actually...

57:07

Okay, so I wrote this down. I wrote this down. Sure. It seems as though Mike is accusing presuppositionalism of being fideistic.

57:18

So look what he says. Look at what he thinks the presuppositionalist is saying when we consider the words of Christ here.

57:27

Watch. Does Jesus tell me believe it because I'm just telling you to believe it? Like the Bible is God's word.

57:33

I know it's God's word because it said it's God's word and that's the end of the conversation. It seems to be...

57:38

He seems to be implying that that's what we're saying. Right? That seems to be...

57:45

I think he's giving a rather quick and dirty form of what we would call self -attestation.

57:52

Right. And of course, there is a legitimate form of that and Jesus could say that and the people did say that Jesus spoke as one who had authority.

58:04

Well, what does that mean? Well, among other things, it means it doesn't appeal to...

58:09

Self -attest means to not appeal to a higher authority. Right? Now, the

58:17

Son of God in the days of His earthly ministry was in terms of the economy of redemption was subordinate to the

58:30

Father, but the Son is to His divine nature is co -equal with the Father and not subordinate.

58:39

So Jesus was able in the days of His flesh to say, and I think

58:45

Mike will make reference to this shortly, where Jesus says, if you don't believe me, believe the works that I've done.

58:54

If you don't believe me, believe my Father who testifies to me.

59:00

And those, of course, as he notes, also have some connection with the biblical basis for testimony where you need two or three witnesses to establish a fact in Old Testament courts,

59:18

Old Testament Israel judicial system. And that's not a bad idea.

59:24

Actually, we follow that generally in church government. So all of that to say that, no, we're not saying just believe...

59:39

Jesus isn't saying, you know, believe me because I say you should believe...

59:44

I tell you to, I say so. He could. Now I will grant that as the

59:50

Son of God, He could do that and perhaps did on occasion, but that's not

59:56

His normal modus operandi. He's normally going to...

01:00:02

Again, He's condescending and not in a condescending way. Oh, two uses of condescension.

01:00:10

That was very sharp. But now I agree. Now Jesus could say that, but it seems like He's kind of suggesting that this is what the presuppositionalist is saying.

01:00:19

No, I don't believe that. I don't think that's what Jesus is doing. In the instances, especially that He cites, and I don't know anyone that does.

01:00:30

Yeah, I agree. Now I'm going to kind of summarize here because I want to make sure we get to some other aspects of the video here.

01:00:38

But as He transitions to the New Testament and reasons that Jesus gives for believing who

01:00:49

He is, He will appeal to three witnesses that Jesus appeals to that confirms who

01:00:56

He is. And this is going to be another example of Jesus using evidence. And so I want to read through these real quick.

01:01:04

I have them listed here, and I'd like to get your thoughts. We as presuppositionalists, are we not also able to use these very things as evidential markers of the identity of Jesus?

01:01:15

I want to hear your thoughts here. So number one, He says that Jesus appeals to John as His witness,

01:01:25

John the Baptist. Jesus appeals to His works. If you don't believe me, then believe based upon what

01:01:32

I do is miracles. And then He appeals to prophecy and Moses, right? You look in the scriptures, then it points to Him, right?

01:01:42

You search the scriptures because in them you think that you have eternal life, but it's they that speak of me. Is it contrary to...

01:01:51

Let me see. I'm looking, reading a comment here. Okay. Is it disallowed for a presuppositionalist to say, yeah,

01:02:00

John bore witness to Jesus. Jesus pointed to His works and Jesus pointed to Moses.

01:02:08

Can a presuppositionalist do that and still be consistently a presuppositionalist? Absolutely. Okay. There's no reason why we can't point to our

01:02:24

Lord's use of evidence, whether it be in the form of a personal witness that John the

01:02:31

Baptist, His cousin, or to His own, the evidentiary value of His own works or His fulfilling prophecy.

01:02:44

In fact, the two of those are all three are combined when the disciples of John come looking for the

01:02:53

Lord when John is in jail, right? When John is in prison and he's beginning to doubt what he himself already has affirmed.

01:03:01

And Jesus says, see what I am doing and go tell John. Go tell

01:03:06

John what you've seen and heard. And that's a reference to Jesus' fulfillment of Isaiah, specifically of the healing of the blind and the deaf and the lame and having the gospel proclaimed to them.

01:03:25

All of that is evidence, right? Specifically all has evidentiary value on several levels, right?

01:03:34

It's witnessing to John on the basis of what

01:03:39

Jesus is doing in His personal miraculous ministry. And that miraculous ministry does it by the way it happens to square with what

01:03:49

Isaiah said would be done by the Messiah. So it's a fulfillment of prophecy.

01:03:57

All right, very good. And let's see here. So he used those three things that Jesus appealed to.

01:04:04

And I'm going to have an outline here. So I want to make sure. Okay, so here's one thing that comes up and it often comes up in discussions on methodology and things like that.

01:04:15

And that is Acts 17, Paul's Areopagus address. And so Mike will walk.

01:04:22

I mean, I don't have the time marker, unfortunately, but he will walk us through.

01:04:28

And I jotted down his words here so that I knew that we wouldn't have time to play it all continuously.

01:04:33

I should have put the time markers there, but that's how the cookie crumbles. So here's what he says with respect to Acts chapter 17.

01:04:42

He thinks that Acts chapter 17 is an example of kind of a more evidential or a classical kind of approach here.

01:04:48

He says, this is what Paul's method was in Acts 17. He says, he takes the

01:04:54

Athenians, right? He takes them from polytheism to monotheism. He takes them from monotheism to the specific attributes of God.

01:05:03

Then he takes them to moral accountability before God. And then he takes them to the resurrection. So Acts chapter 17, the

01:05:13

Areopagus address is a textbook example of kind of a more classical approach.

01:05:19

Would you take issue with his understanding there? And how would you characterize

01:05:25

Paul's address at the Areopagus? Is it evidential? Is it presuppositional?

01:05:31

Is it neither? At that point, he's just kind of walking through some stuff that's unrelated.

01:05:36

How do you understand Acts chapter 17 and Mike's thoughts on those passages? Well, I mean, in Acts chapter 17, you'll remember that the

01:05:45

Apostle Paul is addressing the Areopagus because they have pulled him off the street because he's a seed picker.

01:05:55

That is, he's eclectic, right? They think he's talking about Jesus and his consort resurrection.

01:06:03

That's right. Which by the way, Anastasia comes from the

01:06:08

Greek word for resurrection. So I'm not quite sure what to make of the step -by -step argument because I think that misunderstands

01:06:23

Van Til's criticism of the blockhouse method. I mean, that would be equivalent to criticizing a preacher because he starts with verse 1 and ends with verse 10 as opposed to saying everything all at once.

01:06:38

Well, human beings aren't capable of saying things all at once, nor is our thinking one to intuition.

01:06:46

That's confusing our knowledge and language and ability to communicate with God. We have to think in steps.

01:06:57

So Paul's taking now, nor is it significant that he takes them from polytheism to monotheism to Christ.

01:07:12

He says, I see people of Athens or men of Athens, I see that in many ways or that in every way you are very religious or superstitious if you follow the argument of Dr.

01:07:28

Bonson's article on Paul of Athens. And that is in the appendix of Always Ready.

01:07:37

It's also published. I think there's a third place where it's available as well, but it escapes me right now where that is.

01:07:45

But it is in the book Always Ready as an appendix, if you want to read that and it's very good.

01:07:50

So, I mean, he's right. Mike is right that that's the way

01:07:56

Paul proceeds. But I don't see how... I mean, he could have jumped from the shrine to the unknown

01:08:06

God, right? The altar to the unknown God, to Jesus. But that would have been...

01:08:15

It would have bypassed the necessity of stressing what was a key element of Old Testament religion, which was that God is one, that there are no multiple gods.

01:08:28

There is one God. And Paul is using a method of persuasion or rhetoric when he says, the

01:08:38

God who you, the unknown God that you worship in ignorance,

01:08:44

I'm going to reveal to you. And he starts out with arguing against polytheism, belief in many gods, and ends up with the proof that Christ has been appointed the judge of all men, women and boys and girls by his resurrection from the dead, right?

01:09:10

That's the argument. And as Mike points out, there's some indication, and some commentators will say this, that it appears as if Paul was not able to finish his argument, that he was swept away.

01:09:25

Or whether that's true or not, he is able to make it at least through the resurrection of Christ as the proof of Jesus being the

01:09:42

Son of God. Now, notice that this is evidence for several things, if we're going to say it's evidence.

01:09:50

It's evidence for covenantal theology, because the resurrection, as we like to say, and as Sy says in many instances, a bare resurrection reference is, of course, it is an anomaly, right?

01:10:16

Now, I wouldn't suggest that every unbeliever that you address with the argument for the resurrection would say, well, that just proves that strange things happen in this world.

01:10:28

I think it is correct that a bare affirmation of the resurrection does not prove that the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus is the

01:10:38

Son of God. That requires the kind of argument that Paul gives in Acts Chapter 17, right?

01:10:47

Because the one thing, the way you get to the covenantal context of the resurrection is by way of the one

01:10:57

God of the Old Testament. You see, so that's not an example of a blockhouse method of apologetics.

01:11:09

At some other point in another video, we can get into what Van Til meant by blockhouse. I just say we could say icebox method or ice cube method, right, of apologetics, bit by bit.

01:11:26

Don't read Van Til's criticism of the blockhouse method as a facile observation that we learn and we teach seriatim, that is part by part.

01:11:41

We can't help but do that as finite human beings. That's the way God made us, that by the way, that's not a result of the fall.

01:11:49

That is the way God has made us, and that's a part of our nature.

01:11:56

Being finite is not a sin, they're not the same thing. But anyways, so there you go,

01:12:05

Acts 17. So he's right, and Acts 17 is a glorious passage for us apologetics guys.

01:12:14

It's a place to go. It's a place to camp out on in terms of looking at how does

01:12:20

Paul do it? How does he do it with pagan philosophers? One could argue that in Acts 14,

01:12:27

Paul deals with pagan, the man on the street. In Acts 17, he's dealing with the pagan upper crust.

01:12:36

And in other chapters, we can see how Paul deals with, argues in the synagogue, right?

01:12:43

So in all of those instances, as I've said before, to argue for is to present evidence, right?

01:12:52

It may be evidence of a form of a line of argument. It may be evidence of events or a scripture passage and arguing for a particular interpretation as Mike himself is doing here.

01:13:06

But no, I don't think, again, it is presenting evidence.

01:13:12

Paul is presenting evidence. He's presenting glorious evidence. And that's not at all inconsistent with presuppositionalism.

01:13:19

Not at all. Now I want to move to one more scripture reference and then we'll kind of wrap it up with his last six objections.

01:13:30

We'll move that because he goes through a lot of scriptures here. And this is what I very much appreciate about Mike is that he sees the importance of going straight to the text.

01:13:40

Oh, absolutely. I love that about what he does is that it is a biblically suffused, permeated, whatever language you want to use, founded apologetic.

01:13:54

So there's no criticism on that score at all.

01:13:59

Right, right. And so I do appreciate that about him. And I highly recommend, I mean, he's a much larger channel than my channel.

01:14:07

But if you have not subscribed to Mike Winger's channel, I highly recommend. Even when you disagree with him, he's got some useful things to say.

01:14:13

And so I highly recommend you go over there to the Bible Thinker and subscribe if you haven't already. But nevertheless, we're going to deal with Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 23.

01:14:26

And then I'm going to summarize Mike's understanding of Romans 1 with respect to this whole discussion.

01:14:33

And then you can share your thoughts as to why you disagree because I know you're going to disagree once I summarize it for you.

01:14:39

But here's Romans chapter 1. I'm a disagreeable person,

01:14:44

I can say. I know for a fact you disagree. Okay, Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 23.

01:14:49

Here it is. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

01:14:57

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely

01:15:02

His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

01:15:09

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor

01:15:14

Him as God or give thanks to Him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

01:15:20

Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

01:15:29

And this is going to come up in the discussion here. He says, Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.

01:15:41

That's the key point here. And worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.

01:15:47

So I'm going to take this off the screen here. So what I gathered from Mike's understanding of Romans chapter 1, he says that they knew

01:15:55

God because the text clearly says that. But they believed the lie. So that if they believe the lie, then they don't have the knowledge anymore.

01:16:07

So it's been exchanged. So not everyone has a knowledge of God, but perhaps they did have a knowledge of God at some point.

01:16:16

And even gives a suggestion that perhaps this isn't even talking about every individual, but a certain group of individuals that commit the sin of,

01:16:28

I guess, suppression as expressed here in Romans chapter 1 verses 21 through 23 or 24 rather.

01:16:36

25, I suppose as well. What do you think? To address the question of what's going on when the exchange occurs.

01:16:48

I'm not convinced that what Paul is telling us is that you swap out completely knowledge of God for the idol.

01:17:01

Right. And I apologize, Mike, if he watches this, if I've misrepresented what he's saying.

01:17:08

Right, if we misunderstand that, if that is not what you're meaning to convey, we apologize for that.

01:17:16

But assuming that something like that is what's going on because of comments that he made around this time in the video suggests that there actually is an accurate understanding.

01:17:30

Because he says, as you've already made reference to Eli, that at one point they knew

01:17:36

God, but now they don't. Well, and that gets into the question of the, there's two senses of knowing going on here in Romans chapter 1.

01:17:46

There's knowing God, we might say that as Adam knew

01:17:51

Him, as Adam and Eve knew Him prior to the fall. And then there's knowing God as Adam and Eve knew

01:17:56

Him after the fall. And interestingly enough, reference to Adam and Eve connects with Romans 5, which may answer the question of whether this is a speaking about every one of us or an earlier stage.

01:18:14

All of the above. It's probably a reference to, if you think of, think of this in light of Romans 5, where Paul talks about sin coming into the world through one man and then justification occurring through the act of one man.

01:18:31

If we assume that the Apostle Paul, when writing Romans 5, didn't forget what he said in Romans 1.

01:18:39

Well, there are some scholars who write as if Paul was that stupid.

01:18:46

German New Testament scholars of the 19th century were particularly good at that kind of attitude.

01:18:53

But anyways, that's another matter. So that Adam sins.

01:19:01

He's the federal head. He's the federal head of the whole human race, which means that what's said of Adam or Adam and Eve, if you're thinking just in terms of the two, the couple in the garden.

01:19:16

What is true of them by virtue of God's covenant through Adam as the covenant to head is also true of us individually.

01:19:26

Now, I think Michael is correct that all of the kinds of sins that are described in that catalog of vices in Chapter 1 verses 18 to 32, that not every, we're not all guilty of every one of those sins.

01:19:43

I think that is correct. I think he's right on that. But I do believe the covenantal nature of reality as Reformed theology has understood that the relationship of Adam to his progeny has something, has some bearing on that question.

01:20:03

I do believe that the way Paul speaks in that passage, he speaks in terms of our knowledge of God, both present tense and past tense.

01:20:17

So it can't be simply, well, you know, an earlier generation knew

01:20:24

God and the rest of us are just, you know, it's too bad that we came after the fact is, you know, we just don't have that knowledge.

01:20:31

I believe that what Paul is telling us in Romans Chapter 1 is that we all have a knowledge of God, the

01:20:41

God who exists. In other words, the triune God of Scripture, although I don't believe necessarily that we know by nature that He's triune.

01:20:52

And we know about His moral expectations for us. Now we in the

01:20:59

Reformed tradition, we can refer to the Westminster Standards and we can refer to the shorter and larger

01:21:07

Catechism of the Westminster Assembly where we are told that the moral law is summarily comprehended in a particular place.

01:21:18

In other words, it's not merely left up to us to guess. Well, what are the, what is the moral law written on the heart?

01:21:25

It's summarily comprehended in the 10 Commandments. That is

01:21:30

Exodus Chapter 5 and Deuteronomy Chapter 6, the appropriate verses where you get the 10

01:21:39

Commandments delineated. So that the law of God written on the heart, beginning with Adam and Eve as our first parents, the law is written on their heart is equivalent to what is spelled out later through Moses in the 10

01:21:57

Commandments. So we know by nature who

01:22:04

God is and what He expects of us. Now we suppress that knowledge and like we'll talk of the beach ball effect of suppression, right?

01:22:16

And we all know that when we push a beach ball under the water, it has a habit of popping up and whacking us in the face to remind us that it's still there.

01:22:31

And again, Paul's concern in Chapter 1 and in part of Chapter 2 is what we call the natural knowledge of God.

01:22:42

Okay, in other words, what God reveals to us through nature is kind of what we see in the first portion of Psalm 19, the heaven declare the glory of God.

01:22:53

And so we want to distinguish between natural revelation and special revelation, although the two of them are interrelated very, very clearly.

01:23:06

Very often natural revelation, as in the case I just mentioned of the 10

01:23:12

Commandments, natural revelation is re -revealed in special revelation.

01:23:19

It's concurrent, we might say. Yeah, thank you for that. Well, now, unfortunately, we are at an hour and 23 minutes, so we can't cover everything, unfortunately, on my outline.

01:23:31

But if I could ask you in summary, and then we'll take a couple of questions, not too many questions.

01:23:38

I have to say this. Did you want to deal with the six points, the six point, or do you want to keep that for another episode?

01:23:45

Yeah, maybe we should keep that for another episode, because then I know it's going to go way too long. Okay, let's say we'll do a

01:23:50

Part 2. Yeah, we can definitely do a Part 2. What I'd like you to do, though, for us, before we take some questions, and before I even make this comment here,

01:24:01

I'd like to say congratulations to Joshua. I won't mention your last name, but you are the first person

01:24:07

I've ever blocked on my channel. I'm sorry for blocking you. Oh, my. I've never blocked anyone.

01:24:14

I have no mods on my channel to do this stuff for me, so I did see that there was someone in the comments really just bringing up stuff completely unrelated to this video, and it seemed like, from what

01:24:28

I can gather and what other people were gathering, that this person was just being unnecessarily contentious, and I think it was taking away from, really, what we're talking about here.

01:24:37

So sorry about that, Joshua, but if you come on the next live stream, you're free to comment and stuff, but it seems like you are doing something that I'm not down with in terms of what's appropriate in the comments.

01:24:51

So I apologize, but that's how the cookie crumbles. Nevertheless, let's take a look at the – well, let's do some – did

01:25:03

I say we were going to do questions? Sorry, I got like a – You were going to – I think you were going to ask me to do some summarizing.

01:25:09

Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you. So if you could summarize in like a minute or two or even three what – answering the question, is pre -depositionalism biblical?

01:25:22

How would you answer that question and briefly demonstrate it's biblical and what sense is it biblical and perhaps give us some

01:25:29

Scripture that you think supports the idea that it's a biblical approach and we should be doing it? Okay.

01:25:37

I do believe that the presuppositional method is the biblical method. It is,

01:25:44

I believe, supported by Romans 1 properly understood, and you need to know that we have historical examples of it not being properly understood.

01:25:56

The brilliant Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages had a commentary on Romans, which is in many ways an excellent, clear commentary, but his understanding of what

01:26:09

Paul meant by knowing God, he had an understanding of knowing

01:26:18

God by way of an inferential process, and that's not what

01:26:28

Paul is talking about. I believe what Paul is talking about is what we call implanted knowledge.

01:26:34

That is when we're sometimes called con -created knowledge. So that's one place.

01:26:39

Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 are another essential place to deal with the absolute necessity of the

01:26:52

Holy Spirit enabling us to believe and understand and know

01:26:58

God and His will for our life. And you could also, in terms of, well, let's ask the question.

01:27:16

And this is something that's been said frequently online.

01:27:23

Does anybody anywhere in the

01:27:29

Old or the New Testament argue for the existence of God based upon probabilities?

01:27:35

Say that again? Does anyone in the Bible do that? Do any of the biblical authors ever argue for the existence of God based upon probabilities?

01:27:48

No. When I read Scripture, there seems to be a confidence and certainty all throughout with respect to God.

01:27:56

Correct. In fact, I'm not sure that we could ever argue that anybody in the Bible, Old or New Testament, argues for the existence of God in the sense that we mean nationally.

01:28:07

I believe that the Scriptures begin with God and ask the question, if you deny this

01:28:18

God, what are you left with? You know, whether it be with reality or with describing reality in human language.

01:28:28

So it would take a lot more time to spell out the details.

01:28:33

You and I have already made reference to Dr. Bonson's book,

01:28:39

Always Ready. If you're looking for a good, thorough, biblical grounding of presuppositionalism, read

01:28:49

Dr. Bonson's book, Always Ready. There it is in Eli's hands, a beautiful paperback copy of Always Ready.

01:28:59

I want to highlight this too, if I can get it on the camera. That little thick part here is the entire

01:29:10

Acts 17 section. It's been said by some reviewers that it's worth the price of the book.

01:29:17

It is. Even if you disagree with Bonson, you should definitely read his take on Acts 17.

01:29:23

It was my intent during the day today to review just the outline of the book to deal with all the passages.

01:29:33

What I was going to say is 1 Peter 3 is dealing with apologetics.

01:29:39

It does, I think, indirectly or implicitly confirm a presuppositional apologetic, yes, by sanctifying

01:29:53

Christ as Lord in the heart. But of course, that's pardon the pun, presupposing a fair bit of knowledge about Christ and about what it means to set apart

01:30:12

Christ as Lord in the heart, etc. In other words, it's presupposing what we would have to articulate or unpack, which is that it's presupposing the presuppositional method, which

01:30:26

I believe it can be argued that way, but it would have to be argued not assumed.

01:30:37

I would also argue that in the Old Testament, something even like Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal, that's a reve, or if you want to pronounce it, the

01:30:51

Hebrew word rib, R -I -B, is a covenantal lawsuit that God brings against His people.

01:31:00

And so the prophet acts as a covenantal prosecuting attorney, if you will.

01:31:08

And there is another example of a presuppositional method.

01:31:14

No, if by that do you mean, if you're asking, is every argument in the

01:31:23

Bible presented in the form of tag? Well, no, but in the obvious form of tag, the answer is no.

01:31:30

In fact, none of them are. No, no, there is no, as far as I, you know, someone might be able to ferret one out.

01:31:37

So I don't, I want to be careful. Well, Jeff, what I always say that while tag is not like laid out in Scripture, the principles and ingredients for tag are there.

01:31:47

Correct, like the doctrine of the trinity, right? Right. Like the doctrine of the trinity. Given the nature of God, who

01:31:54

He is as an authority, as the definer and creator of all things, the role of human beings and His limitations and His having to lean on God and these sorts of things, from those principles, out of the soil of Scripture, I think grows a transcendental method that can take a manifestation of a specific argument, which is the centerpiece of the presuppositional methodology.

01:32:21

All right. Well, there's so much to cover, and unfortunately, we can't cover all of it. So we're going to jump into some questions.

01:32:27

There's not a lot of them, but we'll cover a few of them, and then we'll wrap things up for tonight.

01:32:32

I'd like to thank you, Jeff, for sharing your thoughts and hanging out with me here, and I hope folks have found this discussion useful.

01:32:39

And we love you, Mike. Again, we need to connect again. It's been a while since we spoke, so I'd really love to catch up, and I appreciate you very much.

01:32:49

So just wanted to throw that out there. Okay, so Jay Hu says, what is a fair effort, quote, unquote, fair effort, to understand a view before you critique it?

01:33:01

Is YouTube okay? In my opinion, it would be much best, that's what they say, to go to written works by proponents, i .e.

01:33:09

Bonson and Van Til. So what do you think? And I'll share my thoughts, or I'll just kind of heartily agree with you.

01:33:15

What is the best example of giving your best effort in understanding a view, reading a book or watching a video?

01:33:23

Well, we're talking about responding to a video.

01:33:30

This is a common practice. It's done by guys like James White.

01:33:36

It's done by Doug Wilson. It's done, if you're into history, some of you may be familiar with the

01:33:43

Vlogging Through History podcast, where the podcaster Chris Mowry does the same thing on the historical matters.

01:33:52

He stops and starts the videos and interacts with it. He doesn't always disagree with it. Sometimes he just adds a thought that occurs to him.

01:34:00

Ultimately, you want to appeal to, in my opinion, to written works where that's appropriate.

01:34:10

However, not every form is put down in writing.

01:34:18

When Paul spoke to the Areopagus as written down in Acts 17, to state the obvious, that occurred before it was inscripturated, the historical event.

01:34:37

This is entailed in Jay's question, I think.

01:34:44

If you're going to treat a view fairly, you must address its best representatives.

01:34:55

This is not saying anything about Cy or Mike. It's simply saying that if you're wanting to get down to brass tacks, then someone like Bonson or Van Til are the ones you want to go to, to wrestle with these issues.

01:35:17

The YouTube venue is important because it reaches out and touches people that probably will never buy or take out of a library or read online

01:35:33

Van Til or Bonson. Is that sad? Yes, I think it is, but that's reality.

01:35:42

Overall, the answer is a fair effort would be to read Bonson and Van Til directly and then the best representatives out there, whoever they may be.

01:35:56

I'll just piggyback off your answer. By the way, the best representation of a view can sometimes be in written form and it can sometimes be in spoken form.

01:36:05

I've had much more clarity on presuppositionalism listening to Bonson's lectures than I have reading his books.

01:36:12

Now, that doesn't mean he's not clear in his books. It's just it seems like he covers things in his lectures that he doesn't go into great detail in some of his books.

01:36:19

For me, listening to him has been very fruitful and I think that would be a good way to, if I were going to critique

01:36:25

Dr. Bonson, I would listen to his lectures and read his books to get a fully orbed presentation of the perspective.

01:36:34

With 1 ,600 hours of lectures and sermons, you're bound to hear things repeated so the ideas get hammered into our head.

01:36:45

Yes. Right. All right. Patrick asks, Is the problem of universals and particulars related to the problem of the one and the many?

01:36:55

I would say yes. If we can explain what the problem of the many is, throughout the history of Western philosophy, there has been a discussion about what is metaphysically fundamental.

01:37:09

What is the kind of the foundation of reality? Is it an ultimate one or is it an ultimate many?

01:37:16

Of course, if you look at the philosophers, especially with respect to the pre -Socratic era, you're going to have different answers to that question in which some philosophers will emphasize, overemphasize the one and not be able to account for the many and you'll have other philosophers who will overemphasize the many and not be able to account for the one.

01:37:36

You have this problem of how do we bring together both unity and plurality and that very much is related to universals like logic, which is a unifying principle, and particulars, which are individual things.

01:37:50

What connects and relates these individual parts? You're going to need a worldview that can answer that question.

01:37:59

Otherwise, you're running some problems as the solving of the problem of the one and the many is actually related to one of the preconditions for intelligibility and knowledge.

01:38:10

If you can't have a metaphysical grounding for oneness and manyness, unity and plurality, then you cannot make sense out of knowledge at all.

01:38:19

So, yes, it is a big question. I think it's related, these things are related, and I have two or three videos in which we go into deep, deep discussion on this very issue.

01:38:29

So if you want to look up Eli and Anthony Rogers, the problem of the one and the many, Brent Bosserman, I've had him on multiple times to talk about this issue.

01:38:37

So you can look up those names to jump into more detail there. Do you have any thoughts there, Jeff? Well, I mean, it's basically the one and the many is the issue of universals and particulars.

01:38:57

Sometimes you also have realists and nominalists, right? Those are the parties that were debating the relationship of universals and particulars.

01:39:08

An example would be how to unify our knowledge, right?

01:39:15

Well, what does that mean? That's the one and the many. That's the universals and the particulars. And so a universal would be something like humanity, redness, hardness, roundness,

01:39:34

Eli -ness. Particulars would be a particular red apple, a particular round apple, a particular heart, et cetera.

01:39:43

You get the point. And so philosophers have often found it hard, if not impossible, to bring those two together.

01:39:53

Plato being a prime example of that with his ideas of ideas.

01:40:01

Anyway, so yes, to answer your question, it is basically... And we have to ask the more fundamental question.

01:40:10

When we deal with transcendental categories, for example, transcendental category of the self, these are necessary preconditions for intelligibility and knowledge.

01:40:21

The presupposition of the self, the presupposition of space -time reality, the presupposition of the reality of the past.

01:40:29

These are transcendental categories. You have multiple transcendental categories and we can ask the question, what unifies those transcendental preconditions?

01:40:40

What is the big ultimate transcendental that unifies the individual transcendentals, if you will?

01:40:46

And of course, we would say that they're unified in the mind of God, of course. So yeah, all of these are very, very important and very in -depth.

01:40:54

We can't cover it now, but again, folks should check out those interviews that I've done on this very topic. It's very, very informative.

01:41:00

All right, we're gonna do one more question and it's a simple question. So I'm gonna throw this one at you, Jeff, and we'll end with this one.

01:41:09

JCS asks, what is your one sentence answer to the question, how do you know Christianity is true?

01:41:19

If it isn't, then we can't describe or explain or understand anything.

01:41:28

So by the impossibility of the contrary. Yep. Yep, and so you just simplify, you really kind of in a simple term, just describe the transcendental argument.

01:41:39

It's how we can know objectively is through an argument. I mean, Bonson even said this.

01:41:44

He says that I believe that Christian theism is objectively provable. So we could know it through an argument, the transcendental argument.

01:41:52

So yeah, that's what I was thinking. I would summarize it. We could know Christianity is true by the impossibility of the contrary.

01:41:58

Now that's just one sentence that's gonna have to be fleshed out, of course, and I'm sure Jeff would agree that's gonna have to be fleshed out.

01:42:04

But if you're asking for one sentence, I think that's one sentence we can say.

01:42:10

Also, his spirit bears witness to our spirit. That's one way we could know. Transcendental argument is a way we can show.

01:42:17

We wanna make that distinction, right? But all right, well, very good. You've answered widely,

01:42:24

Obi -Wan. Well, Jeff, I wanna thank you so much for coming on and hanging out with me and talking about this topic.

01:42:33

My pleasure, brother. And I just wanna let everyone know I appreciate you. And I wanna let folks know also, if you're wondering, when is

01:42:43

Eli going to write a blog article? The question is, I don't know. But the great news is that Jeff here has volunteered his time to contribute to the blog at revealedapologetics .com.

01:42:57

So I'm very much looking forward to when he's able to do that. So stay tuned for that.

01:43:04

Well, I have no idea when my next live stream is, but I think I may be having

01:43:09

Dr. Paul Copan on in the near future. We are to talk about some

01:43:15

Old Testament stuff. So I'm still working out the date and the time for that, but that's probably gonna be the next one.

01:43:23

Oh, I forgot, David Bonson's coming March 30th or the 20th, hold up.

01:43:30

Now let me double check before I, let me see. Okay, and it was Jeff here that connected

01:43:36

David Bonson and myself. So thank you so much for that. Let's see.

01:43:42

You're welcome. Oh my goodness. This is the awkward YouTube silence. I'm like trying to flip through something real quick.

01:43:51

Okay, so David Bonson will be joining me. Let's see here.

01:44:00

Do I even have it here? I don't remember. Maybe the 20th,

01:44:07

I'd have to look in my notes. I'm so sorry, but I'm happy. I'm happy for,

01:44:13

I'm looking forward to it. So, oh boy, it's been a long day. You're having a mental freeze.

01:44:20

I am having a, I don't normally do. I'm normally very quick, but you know what? I didn't have coffee in the evening.

01:44:25

Usually I have coffee before the lecture. Well, that's it for this episode, guys.

01:44:31

Thank you so much for listening. And if you have any questions about apologetics in general, presuppositional apologetics in particular, please, please, please don't hesitate to email me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com.

01:44:45

You could message me on Instagram. I do respond there. You could message me on TikTok. I'm on TikTok as well.

01:44:51

So email is the best way, but if you try to reach me through those other means, I try my best to respond.

01:44:57

So if you have any questions about anything presuppositionalism related, whatever theology, let me know and I'd love to help you out or point you in the right direction.

01:45:07

So once again, I've been speaking with Jeffrey Obi -Wan Waddington. That is not his real middle name.

01:45:13

And until he joins me next time, guys, that's all for tonight. Take care and God bless.