Is Presup Immoral?

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics, I'm your host Eli Ayala and today

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I have an interesting topic, let me fix my mic here, an interesting topic,

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I'm going to be interacting with an individual, I'll explain a little bit about who he is, I don't have lots of information to go on, this individual that is on the thumbnail is a gentleman by the name of Jacob Brunton and he posted something

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I think on Twitter and it was shared on Facebook and when I came across the post, I figured this might be something good to respond to, okay?

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So I'm going to be responding to Jacob Brunton but before I do that, let's talk a little bit about, I don't have a lot of information about him so I went to a website,

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I guess it's a website that he and another gentleman run, it is called For the Christian Intellectual and I'm going to read real briefly his

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About Us page so you can kind of get a little feel for the perspective that he is coming from.

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So it says here on the website, For the New Christian Intellectual is a worldview publication created by Jacob Brunton and Cody Liebold.

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Our goal is to equip a new generation of thinkers who will give a voice to the classical

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Christian principles of reason, rational self -interest, individualism and individual rights. We offer a way to change the direction of modern

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Christian thought towards something more intellectually solid and more biblically faithful. In a time when the world seems to be losing its mind and losing hope, we seek to restore the impact of the

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Christian mind and thus be the salt and light in the midst of an increasingly dark world. We seek to restore a vision of Jesus Christ as one who is rationally worthy of all admiration and devotion.

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The teachings of Jesus and of the entire God -inspired scriptures have been badly misrepresented by many of today's intellectuals and teachers.

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Among the worst errors are the promotion of fideism, which probably refers to what he understands as presuppositional apologetics, which is faith as a means to knowledge, altruism, self -sacrifice as an end in itself, and social justice, the tribalistic assault against individual rights.

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Such poisonous ideas flood contemporary Christian culture and we aim to be a stronghold against them. And a little bit about Jacob himself,

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Jacob has a bachelor's degree in theology and a master of arts in philosophy. He specializes in philosophical and theological defenses of individualism and capitalism.

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And of course, if you're familiar with him on social media, he is very outspoken against presuppositional apologetics and criticizes it left and right in various and sundry ways.

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Now, what caught my interest here is the post that was shared on Facebook that was posted by Jacob Brunson.

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He gave a list of reasons why presuppositionalism is apparently immoral.

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That's right. You heard that correctly. And if you read the thumbnail, you read that correctly. It is immoral to do presuppositional apologetics.

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And so he provides a list of reasons why he thinks this is the case. And so that's what is going to be the majority of what

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I will be responding to. I'm going to be responding to his points one by one, and hopefully that will be useful for folks.

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Without further ado, I want to jump right in here. Now Jacob Brunton, I don't know personally,

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I've never spoken with him. I've only seen things online. And so I'm not really familiar with a lot of his political views and other commentary that he provides on various issues.

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All I know is I'm pretty familiar with presuppositional apologetics, and when someone is critiquing it,

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I think I am an appropriate person to address those things, because I am familiar with the position, and I am not very happy when

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I see misrepresentations of the presuppositional approach. And so hopefully this is going to be an opportunity for some teaching, okay?

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So hello everyone in the chat. Again, if you have any questions, I will try my best to get to them, and if folks can help me out, in my headphones,

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I feel like the sound is hopping in and out. You can give me a thumbs up, let me know if you hear me okay.

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I'm continually fixing my volume here, so I do apologize, okay? Fox64, where am

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I located? I am located in North Carolina. That's where I live. I grew up in Long Island, New York, and moved to North Carolina a few years ago, so that's where I am.

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All right, so as you guys know, on this channel we've addressed a wide range of accusations against presuppositionalism, right?

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To be perfectly honest, I have to say that it is very rare that I encounter an objection or a criticism that accurately represents the presuppositional position, and I don't think it is the presuppositionalist's fault, okay?

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Now, it's possible, of course, to fairly represent someone's view, right, and then explain why you believe it's wrong, but from what

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I've seen from Jacob and others in the comments, many of the atheists in the comments, kind of doing drive -by comments, they think they say things that are very profound, you know, not good, right?

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It's clear that people are, they have a very surface -level understanding of what we're even trying to argue when we engage in presuppositionalism and the utilization of transcendental arguments, so they're pretty bad.

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Now, if you want to continue to use kind of the classic, you know, objections to presuppositionalism, or, you know, if you're presupposing the

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Christian God, what if I presuppose Allah, as though we've never heard these things before, you can use those arguments if you want to sound ignorant, but,

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I mean, if you want to move the ball forward, actually listen to what we're saying, and then engage with what we're saying, okay?

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Now, I mean this honestly. If I were not a presuppositionalist, right, suppose

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I were an atheist or a classical apologist, but I was familiar with presuppositionalism the way I'm familiar with it now,

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I would still find the majority of objections that I read in the comments and, you know, things that we're going to be addressing here,

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I find them completely unconvincing and a complete misrepresentation of what we're actually saying, all right?

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So if you want to critique a viewpoint, at least understand what it's actually claiming, right? There's a difference between what the presuppositional position is and what you think it logically entails, okay?

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Isn't that correct, right? So you might say, I understand the methodology, but I believe it leads to certain conclusions, and then you explain where you think it logically leads.

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That's fine, but you need to make a strong argument to demonstrate why you truly, you know, that you truly understand what the presuppositionalist is saying.

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Now, with that in mind, okay, we're going to cover a few reasons why Jacob Brunton believes that presuppositional apologetics is immoral.

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I want you to put your seatbelts on, okay, because his points are very, very cringeworthy, all right?

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And this is unfortunate, because Jacob seems to be an intellectually capable person who really should know better, yet here we are, living in a world where apparently we cannot make that assumption.

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I don't mean to be rude. I'm just making an honest estimation of what's going on here, because his reasons for why presuppositionalism is immoral are just bad, okay?

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So my job here is to interact with them as best I can, and hopefully it will be useful for those who are listening.

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So what is number one, his number one, okay? First, Jacob says presuppositionalism is immoral because it relies on pietistic virtue signaling instead of rational discourse or objective debate, okay?

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Now I think I understand where he's coming from with this assertion.

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Presuppositionalists are often accused of preaching to the choir, so to speak, right, or engaging in what appears to be pietistic virtue signaling, especially when we emphasize the difference between a man -centered apologetic and a

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God -centered apologetic, right? This can also be the case when we assert that we're standing on God's word and we emphasize the need to trust

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God's word over human reason. We tend to use that language, and someone can interpret that as kind of pietistic virtue signaling.

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And you know what? Some people, some people who identify as presuppositionalists might in fact be engaging in pietistic virtue signaling, right?

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But that's not an intrinsic feature of presuppositionalism, right? We genuinely believe that God's word is a more reliable foundation than human reasoning, okay?

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There's nothing inappropriate or fallacious about speaking highly of God's word, right?

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Which we argue provides the necessary basis for a coherent worldview. And you see, the Bible teaches that the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge and that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I affirm those truths, right?

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Because as a Christian, I'm convinced that that's what the Bible teaches, okay? Now that's not pietistic virtue signaling, that's just Christian, okay?

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Now Jacob claims that presuppositionalists rely on pietistic virtue signaling rather than engaging in rational debate or objective discourse.

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But again, that accusation is really ridiculous on its face, right? We do engage in rational debate.

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However, I think it's important to make the distinction, and this is key. I want you to understand this. There is a distinction between presuppositionalists and presuppositionalism as a methodology.

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I'm going to say that again. There is a distinction between presuppositionalists, people who use presuppositionalism, and presuppositionalism as a methodology.

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It's true that there are presuppositionalists who do not engage in rational debate or objective discourse, just as there are people in all camps, whether they're classical apologists or evidentialists or even atheists, who fail to do so, right?

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But this is not an inherent flaw of presuppositionalism as a method, right? When a presuppositionalist engages in debates, okay, when we engage in debate, we present rational argumentation intended for discussion and objective analysis, okay?

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You might believe that presuppositionalism fails to succeed to that end, but that's different from saying that we don't engage in rational debate or objective discourse at all.

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I mean, that's just—there's just a complete distinction there, okay? So I think there's a conflation between perhaps what he's experienced in engaging certain presuppositionalists and then considering what the presuppositional method itself seeks to engage in, okay?

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And so Jacob and others who share really this weak criticism, here's your job, Jacob and others, right?

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Your job is to say to the presuppositionalist, I hear your argument. Here's why I disagree, rather than claiming you're not even making an argument or engaging in rational debate.

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I mean, that's—it's ridiculous. I mean, Greg Bonson, who was nicknamed the man who atheists fear the most,

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I mean, you could disagree with Greg Bonson. You could even think that he didn't prove the points that he tried to prove in his debates.

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But to say that he wasn't engaging in rational discourse, that's just stupid, all right?

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When a presuppositionalist does something similar to what Dr. Bonson was trying to do, we're engaging in rational discourse.

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Whether we do it successfully or unsuccessfully really isn't the point. The point is that we are engaging and trying to give arguments to demonstrate a point, okay?

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And so we don't get anywhere by simply labeling the other side as not even engaging in rational discourse.

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I mean, that's just silly and overly dramatic, okay? So you're not even making an argument or engaging in rational debate.

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That's silly, right? So I disagree with atheism, for example, obviously, yet I don't claim that all atheists never engage in rational debate or objective discourse, right?

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Many atheists do, and you could have a fruitful discussion with those folks. And I might argue that an atheist can't justify the very foundation for rational debate and objective discourse, right?

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I could argue that. But that's not the same as saying that they're not participating in such discourse, right?

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Shouldn't that be obvious? I mean, I could disagree with someone but still affirm that at least they're engaging in rational discussion, okay?

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So to say that the presuppositionalist is not engaging in rational discourse and debate is just plain silly and false, obviously so, okay?

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So calling presuppositionalism immoral because it supposedly relies on pietistic virtue signaling,

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I think is a really serious charge, right? You're actually saying we are engaging in immorality by practicing this, right?

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So to substantiate that claim, I think Jacob needs to demonstrate that presuppositionalism as a methodology inherently relies on pietistic virtue signaling, right?

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If you can't prove that, then as a brother in Christ, Jacob, right, I'm going to caution you, right? You are verging or perhaps you've jumped off the cliff.

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You are engaging in slander against people who use that methodology. And I hope you can understand why

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I'm saying that, right? I'm critiquing your statement, but I don't see you as, quote unquote, my enemy.

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If you are genuinely a Christian, you're my brother in Christ, but we have a strong disagreement here and you're wrong, okay?

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Say that lovingly, right? So presuppositionalists on our part, now I want to speak to my fellow presuppositionalists, okay?

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We need to ensure that we're properly representing the other side, okay? If we critique a classical or evidential apologist, right, we need to distinguish between what those methodologies actually teach and what we think they logically entail.

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If we believe evidentialism or classicalism logically leads to certain conclusions, then we need to clearly make those distinctions and build our case, okay?

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Our evidentialist and classicalist brothers, right, should then respond with rational discourse, right?

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Explaining why they think that we're wrong and this is how rational debate and discourse should function on both sides of the conversation, right?

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It doesn't help when the presuppositionalist says, you know, idolater, you're standing on human reasoning and rejecting the authority of God.

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You don't get to say those things without demonstrating that that's the case and presuppositionalists have tried to do that.

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Maybe successfully, maybe unsuccessfully, but to pretend that we're not building a case or giving reasons why we think our position's true is just silly, okay?

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All right, number two. Why is presuppositionalism immoral? Well, his next point is that presuppositionalism is immoral because it hypocritically doesn't follow its own standards, right?

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However, after reading this in the post, he doesn't actually provide any details to support this claim. I don't expect him to write an entire discourse in a tweet, but I mean some context would be helpful, right?

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Okay? So it's really difficult to know exactly what he's referring to. I agree that if someone fails to uphold their own standards, that would indeed be hypocritical, okay?

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And as someone quite familiar with presuppositionalism as a methodology, right, I'm not aware of anything within the methodology that inherently leads to hypocritically not following our own standard, okay?

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If Brunton means that presuppositionalists ask unbelievers to justify their position while failing to justify their own,

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I think that's what he might be referring to. It's not clear. So if I were as a presuppositionalist to challenge the unbeliever to justify their position without trying to justify my own position, yes, that would be the case.

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Do some presuppositionalists do that? Yes, they do, right? So when we argue presuppositionally, we argue transcendentally.

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When we say that the proof for the Christian worldview is that if it were not true, you couldn't prove anything.

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That's not an argument. That's an assertion. And it's an assertion that we as presuppositionalists need to actually demonstrate.

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I believe it's true that if Christianity were not true, you lose the foundation for proving or knowing anything. I believe that's true.

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But the presuppositionalist needs to do more legwork and actually demonstrate and show why that is the case. And to demonstrate it is an aspect of presuppositionalism.

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We're not simply making assertions. We're giving an argument. We're giving arguments for our position, okay? So if a presuppositionalist fails to justify his own presupposition, right, that reflects — this is key — that reflects the individual's failure.

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That's not a flaw in presuppositionalism as a methodology, right? Presuppositionalists do believe that we can justify our position, but we don't justify it in the same way that we justify non -paradigmatic issues, right?

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Presuppositionalism — this is so key for people to understand — we're engaging at a worldview level. We're dealing with entire paradigms, which is really different from justifying something as mundane like the price of eggs in the supermarket, right?

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These are fundamentally different types of questions, okay? And so there's nothing intrinsic within the methodology of presuppositionalism that requires us to hypocritically apply different standards to ourselves than we apply to others.

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I have a worldview. I try to justify my worldview. The unbeliever has a worldview. He needs to justify his worldview.

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There is no neutrality. You know, I'm making an assertion. The unbeliever, whether explicitly or implicitly, is making an assertion, and therefore we need to engage in intellectual combat, okay?

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We need to engage in rational discourse, right? This isn't hard. This is simple, okay? But it's apparently hard because folks apparently don't understand the nature of what we argue when we argue presuppositionally and transcendentally, okay?

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So there are a couple of important things to really keep in mind, all right? Now before I go to the next one, I just want to remind folks, since we have some viewers here, if you have a question that you would like me to address, okay, you can preface your question with question, and I will try my best to answer all of your questions because I had coffee and I am awake, okay?

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So please feel free to share your questions if you have them, and I will address them towards the back end of this live stream.

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All right. What are some other reasons why Jacob thinks presuppositionalism is immoral, okay?

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Presuppositionalism, according to Jacob, is immoral because it has, and I quote, corrupted the minds of a whole generation of pastors and teachers, okay?

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That's pretty dramatic, right? That's a—yeah. All right, so it's important to understand that when he makes this claim,

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I think he assumes without proper demonstration that presuppositionalism is in fact false or unbiblical, right?

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From what I observed, right, Jacob hasn't even come close to demonstrating the falsity or unbiblical nature of presuppositionalism.

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I've read some posts in the past. I've seen some interactions. I've seen—I've even watched a debate that he had.

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I don't remember who the debate was against, but he doesn't even come close, right? Now, he might believe he has, but based on what

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I've seen, he's not even in the right ballpark, okay? There are times when people are close enough to warrant serious engagement.

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This isn't one of those times. Now, you might be asking, well, then why am I engaging? Well, there's still teaching value in engaging bad arguments.

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Some people don't know how to answer. So when you deal with atheism, sometimes dealing with bad atheist arguments is helpful because it helps the people who have to deal with those arguments and don't know how to respond to them.

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So that's kind of the value here. It's a teaching opportunity, okay? Now, to argue that presuppositionalism has corrupted the minds, right, corrupted people's minds, presupposes that the methodology is both false and unbiblical, which is really the very issue under dispute, right?

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Unless Jacob is claiming that he's provided irrefutable evidence or arguments proving that presuppositionalism is false and corruptive, right, really his assertions are going to lack any meaningful foundation.

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So this is certainly not my perspective when considering what presuppositionalism actually claims, right?

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For example, presuppositionalism holds—I'm going to quote the scripture here—it holds that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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We hold that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It stands on a firm foundation.

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The methodology stands on a firm foundation. We stand on God's word. We're not standing on the shaky foundation of human autonomy and philosophy.

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Presuppositionalism rejects the concept of autonomy, affirming that one is either with Christ or against Christ. There's no neutrality.

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These principles seem clearly biblical. Now, if someone disagrees with me, they disagree with these ideas, then we should have a biblical discussion to determine whether the

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Bible truly supports concepts like autonomy and neutrality, if you disagree with that, okay? Whether those categories are acceptable.

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Simply asserting that presuppositionalism has corrupted the minds of a whole generation of pastors and teachers doesn't make it so.

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In fact, I firmly believe that presuppositionalism as a methodology seeks to honor God, not just in the way we argue, but in the way we reason, okay?

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It strives to be consistent with a biblical approach to reasoning and to apply the lordship of Jesus Christ literally to every area of our life, including our reasoning and argumentation.

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Now, you might argue that presuppositionalism fails in these goals, but that is what it aims to accomplish.

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So some might accuse me of engaging in pietistic virtue signaling when I assert these things, like what

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I've just asserted when I quoted scripture there. But as a Christian, right, I'm committed to what the Bible teaches.

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Now, if you disagree with my interpretation of scripture, that's a fair point, right? But that's my position. Simply labeling these convictions as like pietistic virtue signaling really doesn't advance the conversation.

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I don't believe that presuppositionalism has corrupted the minds of a whole generation of, what do you say, pastors and teachers, right?

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I think on the contrary, those who consistently apply presuppositionalism are applying biblical categories to the issues of unbelief.

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And in doing so, we honor Christ in that approach. Now, in contrast, when we assume neutral and autonomous categories, or we argue for the mere probability of God, we're not honoring

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Christ. We honor God when we affirm what scripture teaches, that all people have a knowledge of God sufficient to leave them without excuse.

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That's what the Bible teaches, okay? Now, this approach, as a presuppositionalist, this doesn't undermine apologetic discourse, right?

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It strengthens it by grounding our arguments in the authority of scripture where it needs to be.

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Critiques that suggest that we're doing otherwise, whether from Jacob Brunton or R .C. Sproul, bless his soul,

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I love R .C., okay? Or whether it's coming from others, they're just wrong. Their critiques, the common critiques, they're just not understanding where we're coming from or they're not listening to the responses and so forth.

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They're just way off. I say that respectfully, especially with respect to R .C., but if you have heard

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R .C. Sproul's critiques of presuppositionalism, they're as great of a theologian as R .C.

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was, and I don't pretend to even remotely compare in terms of the knowledge and understanding and teaching ability that R .C.

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had. Me, as a layperson, I can say that his critiques of presuppositionalism are not good critiques.

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Others have responded to them, and me, as a layperson, I could respond to them because I understand the methodology, and I could identify where R .C.

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and Jacob and others who share similar criticisms, they're just off, okay? So I don't believe that presuppositionalism is immoral or that it's corrupted a generation of pastors.

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Rather, I believe it calls this generation to return to Scripture as our ultimate authority in every area of life, including our reasoning, our argumentation, and all of our apologetical activities, okay?

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Apologetical, is that a real word? I'm not sure if that's a real word. Let's see here. Jacob Rivera, thank you so much for your super chat.

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Really appreciate that. It says, I wouldn't even engage Jacob. He was excommunicated, church discipline from his church. I have no idea about his personal situation.

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Thank you so much for the super chat, by the way. I don't know any of those details. So nevertheless,

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I think anyone is warranted in engaging if it provides an opportunity for instruction. So that's the reason why

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I'm doing that. But thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, James. I really do appreciate it. And thanks again for the super chat there.

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All right. Once again, if you have a question and you'd like me to address an issue, please preface your question with question, and I will try my best to answer them.

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I see a comment in a question. Who is Eli responding to? Did you read the thumbnail, man? I'm responding to Jacob Brunton, okay?

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All right. Anyway, okay. Some more reasons, more reasons why presuppositionalism is immoral, okay?

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Now, his next point here is that presuppositionalism is immoral because it turns check this out.

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It turns genuine and robust knowledge of God into sin.

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Okay. Now, I'm not sure what he means by this. I do believe that it is a sin when an unbeliever possesses an accurate, genuine and robust knowledge of God, but chooses to suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness, like the

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Bible says. I think that is in fact sinful, okay?

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Now, to claim that presuppositionalism is immoral because it supposedly turns genuine and robust knowledge of God into sin,

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I don't know what he's referring to there, right? The presuppositional position and the biblical position is that the

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Bible teaches that unbelievers have a genuine and robust knowledge of God. And that they suppress this truth in unrighteousness.

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Okay. That's what the Bible teaches. We're not turning genuine knowledge of God into sin, right? It's not sinful to possess a genuine and robust knowledge of God, but it is certainly sinful to suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness, right?

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So that is what we're saying. I'm not sure what he's getting at there, because once again, there is no context provided.

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Okay, but there you go. I don't think there's more that needs to be said there. There's not enough context there, but again, just on its face,

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I don't think he's got all of his paws in the litter box.

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What's the saying? How does the saying go? I'm not sure. Okay, let's move on from there. Sorry about that. All right, let's see here.

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His next reason why this one I found amusing. I thought this was interesting in a very sarcastic way.

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I don't think it's actually interesting, but you know what I mean? This caught my attention because I think it's funny. He says that Jacob claims that presuppositionalism is, he says it is the lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God in our day.

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Okay, now you could picture someone saying this, right? He says that presuppositionalism is the lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God in our day and that the church has built up this wall, which now needs to be torn down.

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Let's break this down. Okay, that's what he says there. Very, someone might argue that sounds very pietistic and virtue signaling -ish, if you ask me.

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But nevertheless, as a presuppositionalist, I strive to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, including the thoughts of the unbeliever, right?

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My reasoning, my argumentation, my entire thought process, these are all brought under the authority and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

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And I stand firm on the foundation of God's word, recognizing that there's nothing greater than God and his authority, right?

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God alone instructs us on how we ought to reason because in him we have true knowledge.

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Now, that's interesting to suggest that that is a lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God is actually quite absurd.

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It is any position that asserts implicitly or explicitly autonomy or neutrality that truly raises itself up against the knowledge of God.

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Isn't that right? The idea that God might possibly exist rather than recognizing his absolute lordship is what

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I think constitutes a lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God. Okay, I think he's got things backwards.

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In fact, this accusation is pretty humorous, right? Who's really engaging in pietistic virtue signaling now, right?

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The notion that a method which seeks to place God as the foundation for everything is somehow the lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God that's absurd.

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There's no need for a lengthy rebuttal at that point. I mean, it's obvious that presuppositionalism is not the lofty opinion raised up.

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Literally, we try to submit everything to the lordship of Christ. Maybe you think we don't do it right or whatever the case may be, but to suggest that that is the very idea that God is lord of all, lord of knowledge, lord of reasoning that we must trust in him as our firm foundation in order to argue meaningfully.

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If that's the lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God, I mean, golly, right? That is, again, not very deep there, all right?

29:45

Now, here's another fun one, and we've responded to this. I've lost count, but here we go again, okay?

29:54

Jacob's next point here is that presuppositionalism is immoral because it allegedly turns the

30:02

God of the Bible into a fideistic fairy tale, all right?

30:08

So what objection is this? Well, you've got it. Presuppositionalism is fideism, right?

30:17

We haven't heard that one before, right? Well, that's obviously false.

30:26

I actually have a video on that. I actually have a couple of videos addressing this, but if you're interested, you can look that up. First off, how can

30:34

I say this? Presuppositionalism is literally the complete opposite of fideism.

30:43

I'm going to say that again. I want that to sink in. Presuppositionalism is literally the opposite of fideism.

30:54

Not even close, okay? I'm not saying, well, maybe it, oh,

30:59

I can see. No, it's not even close. Jacob is literally not even in the ballpark with this one, okay?

31:06

Not even close. Now, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, fideism can be defined as an exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason, okay?

31:21

I'm going to read that again because it's important, right? So according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, fideism can be defined as an exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone accompanied by a subsequent disparagement of reason, okay?

31:35

Now, of course, this doesn't sound like presuppositionalism at all because presuppositionalism does not disparage reason.

31:42

Far from it. We don't say that reason is bad, okay? Here's the question.

31:48

What kind of reason do we criticize, right? Oh, yeah, that's right. We criticize autonomous and would -be neutral reasoning, okay?

31:58

And so criticizing autonomous and neutral reasoning is not the same as disparaging reasoning altogether.

32:05

That's a fallacy to suggest otherwise. We affirm that reason must be understood within a particular context.

32:12

And what is that context in which we are to understand reason? That's right. A biblical one, right?

32:18

By the way, anyone who argues that reason ought to be understood within a neutral and autonomous categories also understands reason within a particular context.

32:30

It's just not a Christian one, right? So presuppositionalism isn't fideism because we're not dismissing reason in favor of a blind faith, okay?

32:39

Instead, we're asserting that the foundation of faith in God creates the context for true reason.

32:45

It's not a leap of faith in the dark, right? It's a relational trust in God. And when we sit at the feet of Jesus and we submit to the authority of his word, we can properly understand and employ our reason, okay?

32:57

Again, this isn't difficult, right? Now, on a side note, this is important. I want you to pay attention because this is useful when folks are talking to atheists who claim reason on their side, okay?

33:08

When someone claims to rely on reason, it's important to ask what they mean by that, okay?

33:17

In logical categories, this is equivalent to asking what we might call a precising definition.

33:24

So we're going to ask for a precising definition, which can often be brought out by simply saying, what do you mean by that, right?

33:30

That's a very helpful question in rational discourse, okay? Now, when someone uses reason, the word reason is actually an ambiguous term.

33:41

So this is what precising definitions do. Precising definitions ask for clarification for otherwise ambiguous terminology.

33:50

It's kind of like saying, you know, do you believe in evolution? Well, evolution's an ambiguous term.

33:55

It depends what you mean by evolution. There are different understandings of evolution, some of which Christians would have no problem with and others which many

34:02

Christians will take issue with, okay? So it's not a very clear term. Likewise, reason is philosophically ambiguous unless you actually provide content and explain what you mean by that.

34:12

And so it's important to ask, you know, thank you,

34:18

Braxton. I think this is Braxton. Obviously, precept is not immoral. Well, thank you. That's coming from a classical apologist. I appreciate that.

34:25

Love you, Braxton. And if this is Jonathan Pritchett, I apologize. I don't know if you guys share the profile there, but love you, man.

34:32

All right, so when someone claims to rely on reason, we need to ask them what they mean by that, okay?

34:38

Throughout the history of philosophy, reason has been understood in a wide variety of ways. So clarification here is going to be essential, right?

34:45

But back to the point. Presuppositionalism does not turn God into a fideistic fairy tale because, ready?

34:54

Wait for it. We reject fideism entirely, right? And fideism is not a logical entailment of presuppositionalism.

35:04

You can say it is, but we need an argument for that. And trust me, I've heard many of the arguments and they are bad, okay?

35:11

If I wasn't a presuppositionalist, I would still think that they are bad. They're just bad.

35:17

It's just not fideism, okay? Not only are we not fideists, but we actually believe that the existence of the biblical

35:25

God can be objectively demonstrated. How do we do this?

35:32

Through the transcendental argument. That's one of the ways we do it. Whether you think the transcendental argument succeeds or not, it is an attempt to objectively prove the absolute necessity of God.

35:42

100 % necessity, okay? With all the love to my classicalist brothers, do classical apologists try to do that?

35:55

No. Do evidentialists try to do that? No, they don't even attempt to do that, okay? They use different kinds of arguments that don't seek to give you kind of that epistemic certainty that a transcendental argument seeks to do, okay?

36:08

So presuppositionalism is not even remotely close to fideism. In fact, if I were to be kind of blunt,

36:14

I think, and I want to be clear here, it's the evidentialists and the classicalists who are closer to fideism.

36:20

Now, this is what I'm not saying. I'm not saying evidentialists and classicalists are fideists. That's not what

36:25

I'm saying. They're not, okay? But their positions would be closer if we wanted to kind of pejoratively make the connection, which

36:33

I don't think we should. But those positions don't give you, or they don't seek to give you, the kind of epistemic certainty that presuppositionalism is trying to get.

36:42

Whether presuppositionalism succeeds or not, to understand what we're trying to do, we're trying to get something, a conclusion of 100 % certainty, transcendental necessity, okay?

36:54

Whether we succeed or fail, and we could debate that, right? But that's what we're trying to do. And so the very fact that we're trying to do that makes us not fideistic.

37:01

It's not based on fideism, okay? So I think that's a really important point to keep in mind, all right?

37:08

Presuppositionalists believe that there is objective proof for the existence of the

37:15

Christian God. You might reject the way that we attempt to demonstrate this, but at least understand the position, okay?

37:20

As Greg Bonson himself said, he says in a debate, I believe that the existence of God is objectively provable, okay?

37:27

Again, you could disagree, but that's what we're attempting to do. We're not saying this is fideism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay?

37:33

And thank you for that clarification, Braxton. Braxton, classically, he says, classicalists argue that God is necessary, but not the way that they can have

37:39

Cartesian certainty or something like that. Yes, thank you for that clarification. But again, that goes to show the distinction, right?

37:46

Presuppositionalists are arguing that God is transcendentally necessary. So you can have the sort of epistemic certainty that, at least we argue that we can know with epistemic certainty, okay?

37:59

But to quote a very knowledgeable classical apologist, presupp is not fideistic. Thanks again for that.

38:07

All right, there we go. We're moving along, man. These are, I hope you give me a thumbs up if you're following along, if my answers are clear.

38:14

I hope these are helpful. You can let me know how I'm doing, that hopefully I'm scratching where people are itching.

38:20

Sorry to use that weird analogy, but I heard it somewhere, and I suppose it's relevant, okay? Here's another reason why presuppositionalism is immoral, and this is a common one, okay?

38:30

This is actually, this next point here is actually something that was used to critique the writings of Bantill in Bantill's own day, okay?

38:40

And so here, I want you to pay attention because I think it's important to respond to this here, okay? Jacob Brunton's, I think this is the seventh point that he makes, okay?

38:49

He says that presuppositionalism is immoral because it supposedly operates on the same

38:58

Kantian epistemological assumptions that fuel postmodernism, okay?

39:07

I'm going to repeat that again, okay? Presuppositionalism is immoral because it supposedly operates, pardon, it supposedly operates on the same

39:22

Kantian epistemological assumptions that fuel postmodernism.

39:28

Now, I want to agree with Jacob that Kantian epistemological assumptions have indeed contributed to the rise of postmodernism, okay?

39:39

I actually think that's a good point. The idea that we cannot have an objective picture of the world because we're confined to our subjective experience and unable to bridge the gap between, to use

39:53

Kantian categories, the noumenal things as they are and the phenomenal things as we perceive them,

39:58

I think is a key element to postmodern thought. However, however, okay?

40:04

Before someone snips this, I don't agree with the fact that this is what presuppositionalism is doing, okay?

40:10

So this claim about presuppositionalism with respect to Kantian categories is completely false, okay?

40:17

Presuppositionalism is not only aware of Kantian epistemological assumptions but explicitly rejects them.

40:26

Cornelius Van Til, the father of presuppositional apologetics, did not embrace Kantian categories as Kant presented them.

40:32

While Van Til—and this is so key, okay? While Van Til sometimes employed language that might reflect idealist or Kantian philosophical perspectives, there is a significant difference between using terminology, ready, and actually endorsing the philosophical meanings associated with those terms.

40:55

That is so important, I'm going to say that again, okay? Ready? There is a significant difference between using terminology and actually endorsing the philosophical meanings associated with those terms, okay?

41:12

I think it's important to recognize that Van Til in his writings used some idealistic and Kantian language, but he certainly did not imbue those terms with the meanings that Kant intended.

41:24

Not even close, not even close. And this is why it's a complete misrepresentation to connect Van Til or presuppositionalism with Kantianism.

41:31

In fact, Immanuel Kant's epistemology, rooted in autonomy, it was, would lead to skepticism, that's true, which can fuel postmodernism, which has fueled postmodernism.

41:43

But Van Til, of course, rejected that very concept of autonomy and rejected Kantian categories, okay?

41:49

So again, this is key to understand, and people don't get it because new books keep coming out and people keep saying,

41:57

Van Til's a Kantian. No, he's not. Well, he used Kantian language. That doesn't mean you're a

42:03

Kantian, right? The question is not what language you're using, what do you mean by the language? You see, that is a key point to keep in mind, okay?

42:13

Presuppositionalism begins with the knowledge of God and knowledge of self, right? Knowledge of self and knowledge of God is simultaneous, right?

42:18

To know myself is only possible, to know myself truly is only possible within the context of one's knowledge of God, as God is the ontological context that gives meaning, intelligibility, and cogency to the meaningfulness of the self, okay?

42:33

The gap between the noumenal and the phenomenal for the Christian is bridgeable, right? From within the

42:38

Christian worldview, we believe that God provides the revelational link between our subjective experiences and the truth of the external world.

42:47

So in other words, the Christian position doesn't follow Kantian categories because we don't believe that there is an unbridgeable gap between the self and the objective world, because we believe in a personal

42:59

God who's revealed. We have the all -knowing God, the ground of all reality, revealing truth to us in Scripture, providing us a coherent worldview to make sense out of the world, to ascertain truth and so forth, okay?

43:11

That's not Kantian. No matter how you want to turn it and twist it, it isn't Kantian, not even close.

43:17

And so, again, this objection is yet another misrepresentation. Easily dismissed by anyone familiar with Van Til's work.

43:24

And so Van Til explicitly rejected Kantian epistemological assumptions, right?

43:29

It's not like that Kantian assumptions snuck into—he was aware of those assumptions. He's very knowledgeable about Immanuel Kant, and he explicitly rejected

43:38

Kant's epistemology and the categories that he uses, okay? And so I, along with other presuppositionalists like, you know,

43:45

Greg Bonson or people who are with these things, we look at these objections and we kind of just, you know, face palm, right?

43:54

It's like, you're not even close, okay? And so I don't believe, as postmodernism does, right, to disparage this idea that we're connected to postmodernism in any way,

44:03

I don't believe that we are so locked into our worldviews that it's impossible to obtain an objective picture of the world, right?

44:13

Postmodernism—one of the essential features of postmodernism is the rejection of meta -narratives, right?

44:18

I affirm meta -narratives, especially the Christian meta -narrative, which I believe can be objectively demonstrated.

44:26

I don't believe—presuppositionalists are not stuck in philosophical towers isolated from others. This is what Bonson pointed out.

44:32

He says, when Bonson explained the fact that we all have worldviews, there's no neutrality, right?

44:38

We all see things within a certain perspective. The inclination was to think that, well, if we're trapped in our worldview and we don't have an objective picture of the world, how can we communicate with other people?

44:48

There's no point of contact, okay? And this is why Abraham Kuyper, who thought in terms of similar lines of worldviews and so forth, he would say that because of this antithesis, right, there's no meeting place, and so therefore apologetics is useless.

45:05

That's Abraham Kuyper's position. Well, Kuyper was wrong, okay? And Bantill did not hold to Kuyper in that regard, because obviously

45:11

Bantill believed in apologetics, whereas Abraham Kuyper disparaged apologetics, okay? But Greg Bonson says that we're not trapped in our philosophical towers merely loathing others who are trapped in their philosophical towers.

45:24

If that were the case, we would indeed be in a postmodern position with no way to escape our subjective outlooks.

45:30

That would be the case if that's what we were saying. But that, of course, is not even close to the presuppositional position, okay?

45:36

We believe that other philosophical towers, okay, can be dismantled, and that the

45:43

Christian worldview, the Christian tower, so to speak, can be vindicated, okay? You might disagree with the success of this approach, whether we do it successfully or not, but that's a separate issue from the false claim that we operate on Kantian epistemological assumptions, thereby aligning presuppositionalism with postmodernism.

46:00

It just isn't true, okay? All right, moving along. Making good time here, all right?

46:08

Let's see here. Presuppositionalism is immoral. This, again, we haven't heard this one before, right?

46:14

Presuppositionalism is immoral because it grants a valid excuse to unbelievers, okay?

46:21

Now, this one was confused, okay? Let me get this straight, okay?

46:27

Let's think about this. I want you to think about this, all right? Presuppositionalism seeks to demonstrate with 100 % certainty that God exists and that every unbeliever has an inescapable knowledge of God, as we assert and argue that the

46:40

Bible teaches. That's what we're trying to do, okay? You know, we'll appeal to things like Romans 1 and Genesis 1 and the image of God and Revelation, all these kind of things we would appeal to.

46:48

So we think that this knowledge of God, right, is so clear and so evident that unbelievers are literally, as the

46:57

Greek implies, unapologetus, literally without an apologetic, okay? We believe he's without an excuse.

47:03

Why? Because the knowledge of God is so clear, okay? Even in their rational rejection of the

47:09

Christian God, they must presuppose his existence whether they realize it or not. And so how exactly does that leave them with a valid excuse?

47:19

I'm completely puzzled. Now, you don't have to believe that we do this successfully. You might disagree with our interpretation of scripture and so forth, but the approach in principle would literally leave the unbeliever literally with no excuse at all.

47:34

It's just a complete opposite, right? So now you contrast this with other approaches that tend to argue for, like, the probability of God's existence or suggest that the unbeliever can simply use his rational faculties to follow the evidence wherever it leads, as we often hear, right?

47:51

Those approaches often leave room for doubt and could, in theory, allow an unbeliever to claim ignorance or uncertainty and use that as an excuse.

48:00

Yet Jacob here is suggesting that it's the presuppositionalist, right? Presuppositionalism, the position that seeks to demonstrate

48:05

God's existence with absolute certainty that grants the unbeliever a valid excuse. That's the position that grants the unbeliever a valid excuse, the position that tries to demonstrate the existence of God with 100 % epistemic certainty.

48:18

Now, cast aside the idea that you think—maybe you think, well, I don't think presuppositionalists do that.

48:23

That's fine, okay? You don't think that the argument works. But that's what we're trying to do, okay?

48:29

That's what we're trying to do. And so in principle, if what we're doing is accurate, then literally there is no excuse.

48:38

How can we leave the unbeliever with a valid excuse when literally there's nowhere for the unbeliever to hide if we argue successfully and accurately, okay?

48:46

So the presuppositionalist perspective is the one that leaves them without excuse.

48:54

But the position that argues for the high probability of God's existence, allowing room for doubt, isn't giving the unbeliever a valid excuse.

49:02

I'm confused, right? Now, people can make these claims, right? But that doesn't make them true. Presuppositionalism's very aim is to formulate a type of argument and reasoning process that literally leaves the unbeliever without any valid excuse.

49:14

If it's true that the Christian worldview is true by the impossibility of the contrary, then there is no excuse. Because the contrary to Christianity is impossible.

49:22

To deny the Christian worldview is to affirm the Christian worldview in an indirect way. That's why

49:27

Van Til said, and Bonson pointed this out, if you remember anything from his lectures, Bonson said, if your friend called you in the middle of the night and asked you, tell me what

49:36

Van Til is all about in one sentence. Tell me, tell me, please. He says, anti -theism presupposes theism.

49:43

That's presuppositionalism in a nutshell. Whether that can be demonstrated, that's going to be where the legwork is happening, but at least understand what we're saying.

49:52

So again, not much by way of vigor in terms of providing real reasons as to why presuppositionalism is immoral.

50:01

Not only is presuppositionalism not immoral, but we can easily respond to all of these points and make evident the clear fact that these are based on misrepresentations.

50:12

So huge, huge straw man in every single point that he asserted here.

50:19

All right? All right. Well, those are all his points, and so let me take some time. Let's go through some of the comments here.

50:27

Let's see if there are any questions. I'll try my best to address them. It's going to go down in order.

50:33

Okay. Once again, thank you so much. If you're still listening in and you're hanging with me, I do appreciate it. Okay. And I do have another live stream coming up next

50:42

Tuesday, but apparently, I don't know. I haven't been following things because I'm just a busy dude, but are the debates next week?

50:50

Is Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debating? Someone shared something.

50:55

I haven't heard anything, so apparently I don't want to have my live stream conflict with that, as I would imagine most people are going to be watching that debate, if we can call it a debate.

51:07

But chances are people will be watching that other than my live stream, so I might have to reschedule the live stream.

51:12

Maybe I'll make it on Monday. I'll have to look at my schedule there. But nevertheless, let's see here.

51:18

Going to go down. Seems like Dr. White is in the chat. Hello, Dr. White. Hope everything is well.

51:27

He got new hearing aids. That's good. My dad, he got hearing aids, and he doesn't use them, and he can never hear anything

51:34

I say when I talk to him on the phone. He's like, what? That's good. You should use them. All right.

51:40

Dr. White says here, I went back and forth with Jacob and Cody. That's right. Cody Leibel years ago on this topic and failed miserably to ever get them to a point of accurately representing our position.

51:53

So God bless your efforts. Well, yeah, I would say that what I've seen in terms of their critique, it seems like almost all their points,

52:02

I'll say almost because I haven't listened or seen all of the stuff that they put out, seem to be a misrepresentation.

52:07

And I know that people are inclined to say, well, you know, just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're misrepresenting your position.

52:15

That's true. You could disagree with someone and accurately represent their position, but that's not what's happening here, okay?

52:22

Jacob and this individual, Cody, I've seen some stuff from him from the past as well. It just doesn't accurately represent the position that he's critiquing, right?

52:30

And again, if I wasn't a presuppositionalist, I would say that all. I would still say that, okay? Again, I don't know who these people are personally.

52:37

I hope, you know, I'm pretty sure they're fine people. If we were hanging out talking, we'd probably get along well. But again,

52:43

I hope if Jacob and Cody ever watch this, I'm addressing the or Jacob specifically, I'm addressing the comments.

52:49

This is saying nothing to their personal character. I don't know them that way, and I don't mean to disparage them in any way, shape or form with respect to that.

52:57

So hopefully people can make that distinction. Myron says you're close to 10 ,000 subs.

53:02

Yeah, close, close. Not there yet, but close. That's super exciting. So maybe

53:08

I'll do something special and celebrate 10 ,000 subs. That's a pretty big deal. I've been doing this for a couple of years, and it's a lot.

53:16

It's a lot. I got advice from a good friend who said not to do YouTube with the intention of growing subs.

53:24

You got to do it because it's something you're passionate about, you know, apologetics and so forth, and then let time take its course and growth comes, you know, along the way.

53:32

I do appreciate all the people who've listened in and contributed through the comments and offered suggestions, discussions, questions, all these sorts of things.

53:39

I appreciate the audience for folks who listen in. Thank you very much, apologetics.

53:46

I don't know if he was calling me a goat, or was he saying Eli is the goat? Well, I don't know if I'm a goat.

53:51

I wouldn't go that far, but thank you for those kind words. I appreciate it, apologetics. Let's see here.

54:02

Let's see. There are questions here, so give me a moment to just get there.

54:10

Here's a question. All right. So Jonathan Myron. Hello, Jonathan. Thank you for your question. Jonathan says, when people make claims about Presup, like what you are responding to, how do these claims work their way into illogical hand -waving and dry reasoning?

54:25

How do they work their way into? Well, they don't work their way into it. They are exemplifications of illogical hand -waving, right?

54:34

It's very easy to be, oh, Presup's immoral because, and then you kind of just throw in these points that we've responded to a bajillion times, right?

54:42

I mean, I think they are token examples of illogical hand -waving. People hand -wave all the time, right?

54:49

I mean, I could explain ad nauseum until my face is blue to the atheist. Presuppositional apologetics does not argue that the

54:56

Bible is true because the Bible is true. And I'll say that, and then I'll spend 20 minutes explaining why that's not what we're saying.

55:03

And then, of course, there'll be a drive -by atheist comment. Oh, so what you're saying is the Bible's true because the Bible's true? Cool apologetic, bro.

55:10

And then they just leave. It's like, okay. I mean, maybe they got something in their ears. They didn't hear correctly.

55:16

You know, at that point, there's really not much you can do, right? I can't force someone to understand what

55:21

I'm saying. Even if you disagree with what I'm saying, I'm not saying the Bible is true because the

55:27

Bible is true. This is so silly. Yeah, you can have so much disrespect for a view that you don't take it seriously at all.

55:33

And then you tend to hand wave and misrepresent instead of honestly, you know, if you don't respect the view, you're not going to give it an honest hearing.

55:40

I mean, I think that's the case with a lot of the drive -by atheist comments and people like Jacob Brunton and Cody Liebold and others.

55:47

I'm not going to say that they are just hand waving, but a lot of what they put out seems to be something along those lines.

55:54

Again, it might be a misunderstanding. We also can get into this kind of tribal mindset too, like the presuppositionalist versus these other groups over here.

56:03

We need to be very careful with that mindset because when all is said and done, the classical apologist is my brother.

56:10

The evidential apologist is my brother. And so those conversations, I can make these critiques here like this, but generally speaking, when we're talking to people face to face and all these sorts of things, we should have respectful interaction and be patient with one another, right?

56:24

I don't hate these people, right? If he was my neighbor, I'm sure we'd probably be friends, although I don't know if we share the same interest.

56:31

I'm kind of a nerd in some things, but I won't let you know what I do in my spare time for my nerdy gratifications.

56:39

But I'm sure we'd be friends, whatever. That's not the issue here. So thank you for that question.

56:46

Let's see here. I don't know if this is a question or a long comment here.

56:51

Such a bizarre view. These fellow Christian intellectualists have such a view on precept calling it sinful. When I first came across it, my mind was blown to how it gets to the heart of the issue on the standard of morals and where is the source.

57:05

Question, is Jacob reformed? I don't know. Do you know if they view us as brothers?

57:11

I don't know that either. Brothers in error by their view, perhaps. Or are we heretics by their objective moral standard that they derive from Scripture?

57:18

I cannot answer any of those questions because I do not know enough about them to answer those questions.

57:26

Yeah. Sorry about that. All right. Let's see here. Scott Terry says,

57:38

I think Van Til's position in modern philosophy literature would be called quasi -fideism. They can call it fideism.

57:44

I don't think it's fideism at all. I don't even think it's quasi -fideism. I don't know what you mean by quasi -fideism, but just to call it fideism.

57:51

As Greg Bonson said in his debate with R .C. Sproul, he says that the word fideism shouldn't even be mentioned in the same room with presuppositionalism because it's not even close.

58:00

So I'm not sure what you mean by that, but sorry about that if that's not helpful. Let's see here.

58:09

These big words are too much for my level of intelligence. Come on. Big words can be defined.

58:15

If you hear a word and you don't know it, just ask. What does that mean? I've explained transcendental on this channel, epistemology, metaphysics.

58:24

My seventh graders, I teach metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics to my seventh graders. So I teach seventh grade

58:29

Bible with a focus on the Old Testament. And I teach eighth grade logic, logic and debate.

58:34

And we talk about worldviews. The first thing I do when I teach a class, it doesn't matter if it's a history class because I used to teach history,

58:42

U .S. history, global history. It doesn't matter what class. I always start the first week or two, we focus on worldviews.

58:49

Metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, how they're connected. What is a biblical worldview? And then with that worldview context, we then engage in the specific topic like history.

58:58

How do we look at history, U .S. history, or any history within the context of a metaphysical outlook, an epistemological outlook, and an ethical outlook from within a

59:05

Christian perspective? Right? So these big, big words, they can sound scary, but they mean very easy things, right?

59:14

Metaphysics just deals with someone's theory of reality. Metaphysics asks the question, what is real?

59:21

Epistemology asks the question, how do you know? Ethics asks the question, how should we live our lives? And they're connected. And from a biblical perspective, we have a biblical outlook in all those three categories.

59:30

Okay? So we can use a lot of big words, transcendental, worldview, all that kind of stuff. But ask questions. I encourage you.

59:36

Okay? Let's see here. I'm still around.

59:44

Of course you're still around, Braxton. Braxton is the host of Trinity Radio. He calls it the channel that loves atheists.

59:52

While Braxton is a classical apologist, I've learned a lot from Braxton on a personal level.

59:58

We talk quite often, and he has been such a great friend to me. And even in our disagreements, we had such great discussions.

01:00:04

And he's one of those brothers that even though we disagree on theology, I'm a Calvinist, he's a Molinist, I'm a presuppositionalist, he is a classicalist, we have been able to get along so well.

01:00:14

And I've learned so much from him, even with the core disagreements that we have. So if you do like content that responds specifically to atheists, even if you're a presuppositionalist,

01:00:23

I think you have much to value in a lot of the videos that are put out by Trinity Radio. So I highly recommend you go over there, sub, and check it out.

01:00:31

Okay? So there you go. Love you, Braxton. Hope everything is well. All right. Let's see here.

01:00:38

I went through that one already. Let's see. I love this one.

01:00:49

James Rivera says, Trinity, that's Braxton out there, James White in the chat. Three bald men is a statistical anomaly.

01:00:58

That's awesome. Yeah, maybe it is. That's right. Okay. Let's see here. Let me see.

01:01:12

Well, thank you for that. He says, I feel like if Eli was the main spokesperson for presupposition, like an ambassador or something like that.

01:01:24

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Unfortunately, no matter what I say, there's always going to be people who believe half the stupid things about it.

01:01:33

Presuppose circular. No, it's not. Here's why. Presuppose circular. No, it's not. Here's the reason why. The Bible is true because the

01:01:39

Bible is true. No, that's not our argument. And here's why. The Bible is true because the Bible... Keep repeating themselves, just wash, rinse, repeat, that sort of thing.

01:01:47

But thank you for those kind words. I do appreciate it. Let's see here. Let me see.

01:02:00

Let me see here. Okay. Richard Cox says, what are the best Gordon Clark books and what's the biggest problem you have with Clark?

01:02:08

Okay. So if you're interested in Gordon Clark, I will answer your question, by the way. But if you're interested in Gordon Clark, I actually have an interview on this channel.

01:02:17

Type in Gordon Clark, the other presuppositionalist. That's the name of the video.

01:02:23

Gordon Clark, the other presuppositionalist. And I interview an expert in Gordon Clark, Douglas Dauma.

01:02:30

Okay. And he wrote, let me see if I can get it for you. Okay. So Douglas Dauma is an expert in Gordon Clark and he wrote this awesome biography on Gordon Clark.

01:02:57

I highly recommend. I'm not a Clarkian. I have my issues with Gordon Clark. But Gordon Clark was an intellectual juggernaut.

01:03:08

Okay. This guy was a logic chopping machine. You would still benefit greatly from reading his material, although you want to read him, as with everything else, with discernment.

01:03:19

Okay. But this biography not only goes into some of his views, but it actually gives you this amazing history of American Presbyterianism, which

01:03:27

I thought, well, I couldn't put this thing down. I literally read this in a couple of days. So highly recommend this.

01:03:34

Now, if you're looking for a good book, Gordon Clark. Okay. This is his main work.

01:03:42

It's a history of philosophy. It's called Thales to Dewey. Okay. And he tracks with pre -Socratic philosophy all the way up to the modern context.

01:03:52

This book was so influential that many secular universities used it as a philosophy textbook.

01:03:58

Highly recommend. Excellent history of philosophy. And then another view that's considered one of his most influential works is a book by the name of, it goes by the name of,

01:04:08

I think it's called the Christian View of Men and Things. Okay. So if you really want to dive into Gordon Clark and his position,

01:04:15

I would highly recommend Thales to Dewey and a Christian View of Men and Things by Gordon Clark. He's written a whole bunch of stuff as well.

01:04:22

So, and now, okay, my biggest problem. Okay. My biggest problem with Gordon Clark is the way his apologetic.

01:04:32

First of all, I don't, I'm not a scripturalist in the sense that all knowledge comes through scripture alone.

01:04:38

Okay. So Gordon Clark held to this interesting view known as scripturalism. So he says that all knowledge is derived from scripture and anything that can be logically deduced from scripture.

01:04:48

Um, and so I don't hold to that position, although I do hold scripture as a foundational to my worldview and it is connected to my epistemology and so forth.

01:04:58

So I'm not a scripturalist with respect to his apologetic. I disagree with his apologetic. Gordon Clark believed that we start with axioms.

01:05:06

We start with an axiom, a fundamental axiom. And from that axiom, we build the rest of our worldview. So when we start with an axiom, we can logically deduce from that axiom, the rest of our worldview for Gordon Clark.

01:05:17

The, um, his axiom was the, the Bible is the word of God written. And he believed that when you start with the

01:05:24

Bible as an axiom, you can logically deduce the rest of your worldview from the teachings of scripture, the propositions of scripture and anything that can be logically deduced from scripture.

01:05:33

And he believed that the Christian worldview was the best worldview because it answered all answered most of the philosophical problems better than other worldviews can.

01:05:42

Now, in the, with respect to this, I'm in agreement with Van Till. I don't believe that the

01:05:47

Christian worldview is the best worldview that answers the philosophical problems. I believe that the

01:05:53

Christian worldview is the only worldview that can solve the philosophical problems and so forth and give us intelligibility.

01:05:59

I also believe, contrary to Clark, that the Christian starting point is objectively demonstrable.

01:06:07

You see, when you start with an axiom by axioms, by definition cannot be demonstrated for in order to demonstrate your axiom, you have to appeal to something else to demonstrate your axiom.

01:06:19

But if you appeal to something else to demonstrate your axiom, then your axiom is no longer your axiom.

01:06:24

This other thing that you're appealing to is your axiom. You see how that works. Okay. And so, uh, you, for Clark, you start with the axiom and then you build the rest of your world from there, but there's no way to actually objectively prove your axiom because to do so would be to forsake your axiom in favor of some other starting point.

01:06:41

Now, I disagree with that because I think that that leads to fideism. As a matter of fact, if I'm not, if I'm, if I'm correct, um,

01:06:49

Gordon Clark had no problem being referred to as a fideist. Pardon. Okay.

01:06:54

Now I hold the Vantillion position that we start with an ultimate presupposition, an ultimate starting point, and that we could objectively justify that starting point.

01:07:04

Now someone said, well, wait a minute. How do you objectively justify a presupposition? It's a presupposition. You can't justify a fundamental elementary assumption.

01:07:12

Yes, you can. Okay. To say that we cannot justify presuppositions is simply to implicitly deny the possibility of transcendental arguments because transcendental arguments do just that.

01:07:23

They, they will, they can justify an ultimate presupposition by applying a transcendental of a transcendental form of reasoning in terms of which you prove the fundamental starting point by the impossibility of the contrary.

01:07:38

So let me, let me hash this out. So Clark says, axiom can't be demonstrated because to do so you have to go behind the axiom, which then your axiom is no longer axiom.

01:07:48

Vantill would say, wait, you can prove your starting point. You just don't prove your starting point by appealing to something more fundamental.

01:07:56

Vantill says, you don't do that. The way you prove your fundamental starting point is by justifying it transcendentally.

01:08:03

You prove it by the impossibility of the contrary. How do I know my starting point is correct?

01:08:08

When you reject it, you have to, you have to presuppose it. So in rejecting it, you're actually assuming it, whether implicitly or explicitly.

01:08:18

Okay. An example would be like logic. If someone says, I don't believe in logic. Well, what's wrong with that?

01:08:25

To say, I don't believe in logic is to presuppose logic for the very coherence and intelligibility of the sentence.

01:08:34

I don't believe in logic presupposes logic. So logic is required for the meaningfulness of spoken language.

01:08:40

So to assert, I don't believe in logic is to implicitly assume logic because logic is a necessary precondition for meaningful statements.

01:08:49

See how that works. And so likewise, we're saying that the Christian worldview provides a foundation for logic. And so logic doesn't make sense without it being grounded in God.

01:08:56

As we argue, I'm going through this quick. So when you presuppose logic, you're also presupposing God, which is the ground of logic.

01:09:02

So when you deny logic, I'm sorry, when you deny God, you're presupposing God because God is the foundation for intelligibility.

01:09:09

So to deny him is to affirm him implicitly. Now that's a thumbnail. This one might be a little prove that I've done that in other videos.

01:09:15

We talk, I'm not going to talk about it now, but that's the general gist. I think that the Christian worldview is objectively provable.

01:09:20

We can justify our starting points, whereas Gordon Clark did not believe that you can justify your starting point because we begin with axioms, which by definition cannot be demonstrated.

01:09:31

All right. I hope that makes sense. It was your question, not mine. That was complicated. It gets into deeper stuff, but sorry.

01:09:37

All right, let's see here. Okay, so Fox 64 says,

01:09:48

I've been reading Van Til's Christian apologetics. Good. That's a great place to start. If you're going to begin studying

01:09:55

Van Til, I always suggest that people start, if you're going to start with Van Til himself, you want to start with this little book,

01:10:00

Christian apologetics. I think that's the best place to start. Could you recommend anything from Greg Bonson? Absolutely. I highly recommend if you can get your hands, there's a newer edition pushing the antithesis.

01:10:12

Do not be scared by the title. This is actually based upon a series of lectures that Dr. Bonson gave to high school students on their way to college.

01:10:21

So while it sounds complicated, pushing the antithesis, right, it is actually very easy to follow and is complete with study questions and everything.

01:10:28

It also has questions at the back of the book with the answers. Okay. You know, for each chapter.

01:10:36

So for example, there's a chapter on, let's see here, the problem of universals.

01:10:42

So, and then he actually gives you questions and answers the questions for you. So you can kind of see, oh, I see what he means by that.

01:10:48

Very, very helpful. Highly recommend pushing the antithesis. Of course, a good, another good beginner's book for Bonson is always ready directions for defending the faith.

01:10:59

And then of course, you can move on to others like against all opposition, which was put out by American vision.

01:11:08

The impossibility of the contrary was also pushed out, pushed out by American vision. And if you really want to dig your teeth into a really good book,

01:11:13

I have it here. Highly recommend. Now, if folks are into presuppositional apologetics and transcendental argumentations, if you don't have this book that I'm about to show you, okay, you don't know what you're doing.

01:11:32

All right. I highly recommend this book. And before I show you the book, okay, that's a new book.

01:11:41

My good friend, Joshua pillows, who have had on the show a bunch of times when

01:11:47

I asked where should I, if I want to really get a grasp on the presuppositional argumentation, where do you think

01:11:52

I should, I should really focus. And he says, if I can only give you one suggestion, he says, you want, you want to listen to the transcendental argument lectures that Dr.

01:12:01

Bonson gives. And you can find the lectures there at Apologia Studios website, or you can find them on sermon audio.

01:12:08

And the reason he said, you want to focus on those lectures, because when, when push comes to shove, when you boil down the presuppositional form of argumentation, it's a we argue transcendentally.

01:12:17

And that really listening to those lectures really solidify the nature of the argument itself.

01:12:23

And so I thought that was awesome. I listened to the lectures. I thought this was awesome. And I was like, you know what? I really wish this was a book.

01:12:28

Well, here it is. Okay. This book here, I highly recommend the objective proof for Christianity.

01:12:36

Okay. The presuppositionalism of Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bonson and, and Michael Butler, who was the protege of Greg Bonson.

01:12:45

And this book is edited by my good friend, Joshua Pillows, and it's put out by American Vision. When I say this book is awesome,

01:12:52

I'm not exaggerating. Okay. I get no money for promoting this. Okay. I don't get anything for, you need to get this book.

01:12:59

It goes into all the details of the transcendental argument. Also answers all of the key objections, you know, the first Christianity objection.

01:13:08

You know, what if there's a worldview out there that looks really close to Christianity and they claim that they can provide the precondition. This book addresses all of that stuff.

01:13:15

It's readable. It's based on the, it's a transcript of Dr. Bonson's lectures. And what

01:13:21

I love about Dr. Bonson is while I love his books, his audio lectures are better than his books, in my opinion, because he has such a great teaching style, the way he speaks.

01:13:31

These are transcripts of his teaching. And so it was very easy to follow. Okay. Highly recommend this book, the objective proof for Christianity.

01:13:39

If you don't have it, you're, you're immoral. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. I was just trying to play off the title of the video.

01:13:47

Anyway. I hope that helps. Hope that helps. Okay. Uh, Richard Cox says, have you read

01:13:53

Keith Matheson's article on Bantill? What are your thoughts? Nope. I have not read his article, but if someone wants to give me a link,

01:13:59

I will try my best to get to it. So, um, so yeah, um, definitely if you can send me that, or if you know somebody or know where I can find that,

01:14:08

I will be happy to look at it and try my best to offer my thoughts in the

01:14:13

Creed says, I know we can lean heavily on scripture for precept. Thank you. Always ready. But what of the claim that it's a theological

01:14:19

Novum? Is it truly a theological Novum or just new relatively to Christian academia? Okay.

01:14:27

So I think you answered your own question. If you think about it. Okay. I know we can lean heavily on scripture for precept.

01:14:36

Thank you. Always ready. You don't have to thank always ready. You can thank scripture.

01:14:43

Thank you. Scripture for the fact that we can heavily rely on script. What is always ready? Telling us is telling us that when we're doing apologetics, what are we doing?

01:14:52

We are simply applying biblical categories. And if we're applying biblical categories and we could demonstrate by a scripture, scripture that presuppositionalism is taught, then it is not a theological

01:15:02

Novum. It's taught right there in the Bible. Both old and new

01:15:08

Testament. Mind you, if you're interested, I actually have a video on my channel where I show you the principles of precept in the

01:15:14

Pentateuch first five books of the Bible, you can derive all of the ingredients necessary for a presuppositional understanding of apologetics.

01:15:22

How do you do apologetics? How would an old Testament Saint do apologetics in that context? I have videos on that as well.

01:15:27

So it is biblical. Okay. You have seeds of it in various thinkers throughout history, but you also have inconsistencies as well.

01:15:35

As you know, if you study history, many apologists who are philosophically minded have been very heavily influenced by Greek philosophical categories.

01:15:43

So you have elements of presuppositionalism inconsistently put together with other elements that we would probably take issue with.

01:15:50

Okay. So you do see it throughout history, rather not as consistently as we would like, but it's there.

01:15:57

And of course, most importantly, it's grounded in scripture. So I don't think it's a theological Novum at all. I think it's based upon biblical principles.

01:16:04

Okay. Hope that helps. All right. Let's see here.

01:16:16

Art B says, question. Would you consider calling into Jay Dyer's live stream debates? I see he invites all

01:16:22

Protestants to call it. No, I never call into shows in which a person has control of the interaction.

01:16:31

Okay. I've listened to a lot of Jay Dyer stuff. And while I could appreciate a lot of the stuff that he says, I don't take him to be the kind of person that I would want to interact with.

01:16:40

By the way, I'm not by nature a debater. I've engaged in some debates and I enjoy it.

01:16:45

I often don't have time to engage in those things because it often takes prep to do it well. So Jay Dyer is more of a debater and he's very well versed in church history, and that's not my forte.

01:16:55

So I wouldn't be comfortable debating him in that context. But in terms of just his personality and the way

01:17:01

I've seen him interact, I probably would not. So there you go. But yes,

01:17:07

I tried to actually get him on the show a while back and that backfired. I was super nice about it.

01:17:12

He took me the wrong way and all of a sudden things blew up and I was like, all right, well, that didn't work out. So I have tried in the past, but based upon what

01:17:20

I've seen, I most likely would not. Okay. But thank you for the question.

01:17:26

I appreciate it. Babyfoot says,

01:17:32

Eli, do you come from a reformed family? Absolutely not. I grew up in a Spanish Pentecostal church my entire life up until my early 20s.

01:17:41

I grew up in an assemblies of God church. Had an awesome experience. I'm not one of those people who said, you know, grew up in a

01:17:48

Pentecostal was terrible. I had an amazing experience in church. It's funny story is

01:17:54

I grew up in a Spanish speaking church, but I don't speak fluent Spanish. I could read Spanish and I can sound fluent, but I have difficulty having these prolonged discussions in Spanish.

01:18:03

So it's interesting. I grew up in a Spanish church. I don't understand mostly what they're saying. And our church services were, we had church service

01:18:09

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, two services on Sunday, one in the morning, one in the evening.

01:18:15

And each of the services were about two hours long, two hours, sometimes two and a half hours when the spirit moved as hopefully you get my drift.

01:18:22

Right. And so when I was young, I just sat there in service for those hours and I would just pick up my Bible and read.

01:18:28

And so it was actually my experience being in that church that caused me to fall in love with the scriptures because I didn't understand what they were saying most of the time.

01:18:35

So I just sit there and read my Bible. So you're reading your Bible for two hours, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Sundays.

01:18:40

You know, it really impacted me in a great way. And of course, I went to a small church. So we're really close tight knit at a small youth group, but it was mixed with like family at my brothers, my cousins, and some friends.

01:18:52

We were really, really close. I had a really great experience growing up in church, but it was a

01:18:57

Spanish Pentecostal church assemblies of God. Definitely not reformed. I became reformed as probably in my late teens or early 20s.

01:19:07

After someone sent me a James White debate that kind of opened the gateway, I became a

01:19:13

Calvinist because of my influence of James White, Greg Bonson, and other people who

01:19:18

I think made a convincing biblical case based upon the things that I've listened to back in the day. And of course, since I've accepted reformed theology, really,

01:19:26

I've been that way for most of my life since then, except for a small stint in which I cheated on reformed theology by adopting

01:19:34

Molinism for a short while. And I've told this story. Dr. White knows I became a

01:19:40

Molinist for a short while, and then I became reformed again after watching a

01:19:45

James White debate that wasn't even on the topic of Molinism.

01:19:51

I won't rehash the whole story there, but that is an interesting point there. But yes, I am not originally from a reformed family.

01:19:58

Hope that answers your question. Okay, Jonathan Myron says,

01:20:19

A little off topic, is it okay for Christians to play video games? Yeah, it's just that with everything, it always depends, right?

01:20:27

There are certain things that aren't sinful but can become sinful, right? So I don't want to be kind of legalistic, but I think the

01:20:33

Christian is free to do many things, but it always depends on the issue, right? Video games are kind of like movies, right?

01:20:42

You could have video games that are innocent. You could have video games that kind of expose you to things that you probably shouldn't be exposed to.

01:20:50

The issues of video games that are perfectly fine, but that we are sinfully enslaved to them such that they occupy a large portion of our time when we could easily be doing things that are more honoring to Christ, right?

01:21:04

But intrinsically, I don't think playing video games is a sin. I play video games. I'm 42 years old.

01:21:09

I love theology. I love apologetics. I love reading and studying. And when I need a break, my kids are asleep.

01:21:16

My wife is in bed. You guys can't see it here. I have my computer to monitor here. And then I have behind this,

01:21:22

I have another TV with a PlayStation 5 and I need to unwind. That's how I unwind. I play some video games.

01:21:28

That's not for everybody. I get it. But that's the way I unwind. So yeah, it all depends.

01:21:34

Yeah. All right, let's see here. Apologize.

01:21:41

Can you give a shout out to my boy named Daniel Larson? Yo, what up, Daniel Larson? Here's your shout out.

01:21:48

No one's ever asked me to do that before. I hope that's what you were looking for. What's up, Daniel Larson? I hope everything is well.

01:21:57

Okay. Work in progress says, are you familiar with the late Dr. Glenn R.

01:22:02

Martin? No, I am not. Unfortunately, I have no idea who that is. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Let's see here.

01:22:09

Oh, yes, I do have a hard copy of Thaley's to Dewey.

01:22:16

Yeah, here it is. Highly recommend. I ordered this bad boy years ago.

01:22:23

It's really cool. And in it, it actually has little quotes that summarize the main points.

01:22:28

Really good. Good layout and everything too. I don't remember how much this was. It wasn't that bad when I purchased it.

01:22:34

I don't know how much it is now. So yeah. All right, let's see here. Work in progress says,

01:22:43

I heard that Clark went astray toward the later part of his life. What do you mean by astray? I'm not familiar with that. Based upon what

01:22:49

I know about Gordon Clark, I'm not aware that that is the case. I probably want to look for a reference to confirm that.

01:22:59

Caleb Ramsey, do you have pre -sub class material for teaching kids? Yes and no.

01:23:06

I teach logic and I don't have the book with me now because it's on my desk at the school that I work at. I teach out of Jason Lyle's logic textbook because it is explicitly from a presuppositional perspective and that incorporates how we can think logically to honor

01:23:20

Christ. And then I incorporate my own knowledge. So they give me some freedom at my school.

01:23:26

My brain can also act as the textbook. So I try to use what I know and try to incorporate it in the things that I do.

01:23:34

And one of the ways that I do that is prior to teaching the Bible, prior to teaching logic, I talk about worldview and the importance of consistency and how we think about things and the importance of the authority of God's word when engaging in study of the scripture, study of logic, or whatever topic that we're engaging in.

01:23:52

So yes, I don't have anything explicitly pre -sub, but I do understand and I don't know where you lean in terms of like the creation issue, but I do understand that Answers in Genesis, that creation ministry has a very big focus on presuppositionalism and it has tons of material for homeschooling and curriculum and things like that.

01:24:17

So if you're looking for a curriculum with a presuppositional bent, Answers in Genesis has a lot of great material.

01:24:24

Although I know that's kind of controversial because they're Christians who differ over how they understand Genesis and so forth. And so you might have thoughts on that.

01:24:30

But if I had to point you in a direction with some material, I mean, I'd point you to Answers in Genesis.

01:24:36

I think they have some great material for kids. So there you go. Caleb Ramsey says,

01:24:43

I'm having a hard time explaining presupp to my 11 -year -old boy. Okay. All right.

01:24:49

So there are different ways that you could explain presupp. Okay. Now, when someone says, what's an easy way to explain it?

01:24:54

That's a very difficult question because easy is person relative. Might be easy for one person to understand and not easy for another person.

01:25:02

What I find helpful is teaching presupp without using the word presupp.

01:25:08

Okay. I remember I had Jeff Durbin on the show some time back. I highly recommend people check out that discussion somewhere on my channel.

01:25:16

Just type in, you know, Jeff Durbin, Eli Ayala. And I asked the question about this, like how to teach kids presupp.

01:25:23

And he gave a really good answer. And he would because he's a presuppositional. Then he's a pastor and he's got like a million kids. Okay. He doesn't have a million kids, but he had a lot of them.

01:25:31

Okay. I don't know how many, maybe if James White is still in here, maybe he can confirm. How many kids does

01:25:36

Jeff Durbin have? Okay. He's always adopting kids and, you know, having kids.

01:25:43

So he's got lots of kids. So what he said was really helpful. He says that when he's teaching his kids or instructing his kids, he always appeals to the authority of scripture.

01:25:54

You know, if some issue comes up, he'll say, well, what does God's word say? What does God's word say? And when you speak in those terms to your children, you are training them to always consider the authority of God with respect to whatever you're talking about.

01:26:09

All right. Daddy, what about such and such and such? Well, what does God's word say? Now you can go to the scriptures with your child and that teaches a fundamental foundational aspect of presuppositionalism.

01:26:20

And that is the role of the authority of God's word. Okay. And when you instill the authority of God's word in your child's mind, okay, you can do that without having to use fancy terminology and things like that.

01:26:32

You train them to think presuppositionally, right? Anytime they're confronted with a challenge, they've been trained.

01:26:38

What does God's word say? What does God's word say? God's word. And what does God's word say as a question becomes the background music of their mind when you instruct them in this way.

01:26:47

And so when they're confronted with unbelief, when they're confronted with questions, they're always drawn to that foundation.

01:26:52

What does God's word say? And I think that's a helpful way to teach your kids presuppositionalism.

01:26:58

Don't use the word presuppositionalism. You'll scare the kid away. What you want to teach them are those basic principles.

01:27:04

God exists. He's revealed himself in his word. When we confront questions and issues, what does

01:27:09

God's word say? I think in a very simple way, you could do well in explaining presuppositional apologetics to your 11 year old kid.

01:27:18

Okay. Hope that helps. Michelle says, I would love to work up to Vantill.

01:27:24

Which book of his would you start with? I would start with the book entitled Christian Apologetics.

01:27:29

It's a small little book. And it's the book I always tell people, if you're going to start with Vantill, you want to start there.

01:27:35

It's the easiest and best place to start. Okay. Hope that's helpful. Let's see here.

01:27:45

Those are questions. All right.

01:28:00

Jackie Griffith says, question, how would you recommend handling disbelief for the

01:28:05

Christian without completely destructing the faith? Well, Jackie, the

01:28:11

Bible says that faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God. Okay. If the person who's a

01:28:16

Christian struggling with faith, I would bring them to the scriptures. I wouldn't simply read them scriptures if we're going to apply presuppositional apologetics.

01:28:26

I mean, what are we trying to do when we argue presuppositionally? When we're trying to provide a justification for the

01:28:31

Christian worldview, we're trying to show that you can't make sense of anything without the truth of scripture.

01:28:38

And so depending on the relationship I have with someone, I would try to show that even in your doubt, you couldn't even make sense out of your doubt without scripture.

01:28:45

As a matter of fact, I have a video on my channel with Saiten Bruggencate. It's called How Doubt Presupposes God.

01:28:52

Okay. So even doubting, you need God to rationally doubt. Okay. Now, if you're well grounded in a presuppositional approach,

01:28:59

I would speak to this person. Obviously, there might be some other issues. It really depends on what you mean by disbelief.

01:29:05

If the Christian is simply doubting, that's kind of normal. Christians can go through periods of doubt.

01:29:12

In that case, I think we need to surround such people, encourage them, speak encouragement scripture to them, pray with them, and also explain how doubts can be remedied with a firm foundation in truth.

01:29:26

Speak the truth to them. How do you know Christianity is true? How do you know the Bible is true?

01:29:31

We can speak to those things. This is where Christian evidences becomes very important. Okay. And so, again, it depends what you mean by disbelief, but I would give the evidences for the

01:29:42

Christian faith to buttress their faith and to cast away some of those doubts.

01:29:48

Okay. That's not anti -presuppositional. Okay. Well, I don't know if the Bible is true.

01:29:53

The Bible is a reliable historical source of information. There's good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

01:30:01

Those are not the purview of simply evidential apologetics. Okay. You can talk about evidence as a presuppositionalist.

01:30:09

Evidence is an amazing tool to strengthen the faith of a Christian who is struggling with faith, if that makes sense.

01:30:16

Right. So I don't think any of those things are out of the question. Right. We don't just say, believe the

01:30:21

Bible. If you're doubting, you're in sin, you better repent. That's not what we're saying. We want to be able to address people's questions and address their doubts.

01:30:29

Okay. We do so lovingly, patiently, and we are in it for the long haul, especially if this is a brother in Christ or a sister in Christ that you know, and you're able to speak to this person and meet with this person and create a genuine kind of meaningful relationship with that person.

01:30:43

I think all of those things come into play, Jackie. So great question. I hope that helps. Let's see here.

01:30:57

What's up, Marlon? How's it going, brother? Hope everything is well. Thanks for tuning in, bro. You're doing a great job there at the

01:31:03

Gospel Truth at those debates. Appreciate your channel, man. Let's see here.

01:31:20

Tereti Harris says, question. When Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, was he talking about the

01:31:25

Ten Commandments? I don't think necessarily that he was talking about the Ten Commandments, perhaps indirectly. I mean, if we love

01:31:32

God, we demonstrate our love for God by obedience and obedience encompasses the

01:31:37

Ten Commandments, but it also encompasses some of the other broader teachings that Jesus spoke, right?

01:31:43

Again, they all tie together, right? The Ten Commandments kind of tells us how we are to love God and how we are to love our fellow man.

01:31:51

And Jesus taught that throughout his ministry. So I suppose you could say it's an indirect reference to the

01:31:56

Ten Commandments, but there are some broader issues there as well. Okay. We obey his teachings. Jesus' teachings is not simply the

01:32:03

Ten Commandments. There are other things there, especially with respect to Jesus' words on loving our neighbor and loving our enemies and praying for those who curse us and so forth and obeying his commands with respect to what he requires of us as disciples.

01:32:18

Of course, not for salvation. We do not believe that we keep his commandments in order to be saved or in order to maintain our salvation, right?

01:32:26

We make that distinction, right, between works that demonstrate genuine faith and the genuine faith which alone saves us.

01:32:34

For by grace, you've been saved through faith. Okay. We're not saved by our works. Romans 4, 5, but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

01:32:43

So you don't want to conflate those two. We want to obey the commandments of Christ, demonstrating our love for him, but our salvation is not based upon our ability to obey those commandments.

01:32:56

Let's see here. Yeah, Scripture and Stone says,

01:33:02

I play video games to stay awake while listening to books and papers for my thesis talk. That's awesome.

01:33:08

Yes, this sounds weird. Okay. I have really weird ways of studying. One of the ways that I study is by playing video games.

01:33:15

So it depends. So if I'm playing like, so I have like my PlayStation 5 over there. I got a

01:33:20

Nintendo Switch there. I play with my kids sometimes, depending on what I'm doing. If I want to study something, but I don't have the patience to sit and read, okay,

01:33:27

I will play something while I'm listening. And this actually helps. I think Dr. White would resonate with this, even though Dr.

01:33:33

White, I am most sure he does not play video games, but he speaks a lot about cycling and how when cycling, he listens to books and he can remember portions of the books based upon where he was when he was cycling.

01:33:49

It's kind of the same thing when I play video games. When I play a game while I'm listening to a book, I remember parts of the book because I remember parts of the game.

01:33:56

And that's just how my brain works. It's not, it doesn't work for everyone, but that's one thing that I've found to be helpful for myself.

01:34:01

So, so yeah. So yeah, I think that's cool that you said that there. Let's see here.

01:34:08

I'm surprised I'm last. I've lasted this long. I thought my voice would be gone, but I'm actually okay right now.

01:34:14

Let's see. I apologize if I missed anybody. Yeah, a little late.

01:34:24

He says this is 1034. This is written at 1033. It just came in.

01:34:31

What is the argument that precept is immoral? Well, to answer your question, okay, the person that I'm interacting with says,

01:34:37

I would just read the questions to you. It'll take me 30 seconds to do so. Person says presuppositionalism is immoral because it relies on pietistic virtue signaling instead of rational discourse or objective debate.

01:34:49

He also says that presuppositionalism, Jacob Brunton, that is presuppositionalism is immoral because it hypocritically doesn't follow its own standards.

01:34:56

Presuppositionalism is immoral because it has corrupted the minds of a whole generation of pastors and teachers. Presuppositionalism is immoral because it turns genuine, robust knowledge of God into sin.

01:35:06

And presuppositionalism is the lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God in our day. And the church has built up that wall.

01:35:12

It's time to tear it down. And then he goes on to say that presupp is immoral because it turns the God of the Bible into a fideistic fairy tale.

01:35:19

And presupp is immoral because it operates off the same Kantian epistemological assumptions which fuel postmodernism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:35:27

Okay. That's basically what we were covering in this live stream. All right.

01:35:33

Let's see here. Apologetic says, I play video games to keep my sanity after hearing classicalists critique presupp.

01:35:43

I love that. That's awesome. Let's see. Okay. All right.

01:35:49

I think I covered everybody. That's okay. I think I covered everyone's question. I apologize if I missed anything, but there we go.

01:35:55

That's this is a one hour, 35 minutes. Hopefully my response adequately addresses really absurd claims that presuppositionalism is immoral, obviously.

01:36:06

And hopefully you can see that all of those points were based off really misunderstandings and straw men of what presuppositionalism actually teaches and what presuppositionalism logically entails.

01:36:16

It doesn't logically entail the things that are suggested either. So, well, guys, thank you so much for listening in.

01:36:22

I'm planned to go live. I'm going to probably reschedule my next

01:36:28

Tuesday's live stream to Monday because I think there is the presidential debates. I'm not sure someone texted me or messaged me and said something to the effect that it was on Tuesday.

01:36:38

So if that's true, I haven't been following anything. So if that's true, I will reschedule so folks can, you know,

01:36:44

I don't want to be live streaming with two people watching and everyone else watching the debate. So, so there you go.

01:36:49

Well, thank you so much, guys. I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much for listening in until next time.