Always Ready: Chap. 17 The Ultimate Starting Point: God's Word

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Okay, this is just by word of review, this is what we've been looking at, section three of the book,

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Always Ready. We've looked at chapter 13, Foolishness of Unbelief, Two -Fold

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Apologetic Method, Answering the Fool, and Worldviews in Collision. All of those are foundational for what we're going to be looking at tonight, chapter 17, the ultimate starting point,

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God's Word. Okay, this is

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Bonson's opening paragraph for chapter 17, he says, The disagreement between the believer and the unbeliever, which gives rise to the need for apologetics, as we saw in the last study, is not merely over particular isolated points.

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Remember that we saw that last week, that it's a worldview, it's a whole system of thought that we're looking at, not just, you know, hit or miss points.

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In principle, two complete philosophic systems, or perspectives, come into conflict when the veracity of the

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Christian faith is debated. It is for that reason that the apologist cannot be satisfied to argue merely about certain facts, even those very special facts known as miracles like Christ's resurrection.

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All right, you see what he's saying? In other words, he's just bringing us back again, remember, if you're going to defend the faith, it's not good enough just to be able to defend certain points of Christian doctrine, because it runs much deeper than that.

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And in fact, if you try to do that, you will wind up on the losing end of the argument.

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Factual argumentation may become necessary. I underline that because a lot of people, when they hear presuppositionalism, they say, oh, you don't argue evidence.

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That's not true. We do argue facts, we do argue evidence, but only as it becomes necessary.

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That's not our starting point for our argumentation, all right? But it is never sufficient.

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That's the difference. Factual argumentation is never sufficient to have you to win the argument, or even more importantly, to win the nonbeliever over to faith.

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What one takes to be factual, as well as the interpretation of accepted facts, will be governed by underlying philosophy.

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Follow what he's saying? In other words, if he's arguing facts, and you're arguing a philosophic point of view, you're not going to be on the same basis there.

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So we'll be governed by underlying philosophy of fact. That is more basic, all pervasive, value -oriented, categorizing.

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I love this sentence. Possibility -determining, probability -rating, super -experimental, religiously -motivated presupposition.

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That really sums up what presuppositional apologetics is all about, all right?

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Because it is an all -pervasive value system that we must be defending.

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It is at this presuppositional level that the crucial work in defending the faith must be done.

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All argumentation about ultimate issues eventually comes to rest at the level of the disputant's presupposition.

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You follow that? I want to make sure you're following along. Oh, by the way, this is an exceptionally long lesson tonight, so I'm going to try to move it along expeditiously.

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There's about 36 slides on this one, which is a whole lot more than I like to do, but I think it's necessary.

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All argumentation about ultimate issues, and notice he says all argumentation, eventually comes to rest at the level of the disputant's presuppositions.

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If a man has come to the conclusion and is committed to the truth of a certain view,

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P, that's a P for proposition. When he is challenged as to P, he will offer supporting argumentation,

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Q and R. You're following? In other words, here's your proposition. If you're going to defend that, you're going to bring in other facts,

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Q and R, represented. But of course, his opponent will be quick to point out this simply shifts the argument from B to Q and R.

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Do you follow? So what happens next? Why accept them?

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The proponent of P is now called upon to offer S, T, U, and V as arguments for Q and R.

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You're following? All right. And on and on the process goes.

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The process is complicated by the fact that both the believer and the unbeliever will be involved in such chains of argumentation.

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How many have been to formal debates? Not everybody.

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Okay. You've got to get to a formal debate. How many have seen formal debates on YouTube or whatever?

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Okay. All right. Because if you've ever been to one, especially one by someone like Greg Bonson or James White, you will see these chains of argumentation.

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But all argument chains must come to an end somewhere. One's conclusions could never be demonstrated if they were dependent upon an infinite regress of argumentative justifications, for under those circumstances, the demonstration could never be completed.

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You follow? In other words, if it's just a continual chain, somewhere it's got to end.

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And it's not going to end with just if the chain continues on and on. And an incomplete demonstration demonstrates nothing at all.

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You following? Okay. I'm seeing some heads going. Eventually, all argumentation terminates in some logically primitive starting point, a view or premise held as unquestionable.

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All right? In other words, you can argue down a chain, but somewhere that's got to end, and wherever that ends, it's at something that you consider to be unquestionable.

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All right? And he expands on that here in just a minute. Apologetics traces back to such ultimate starting points or, as we call them, presuppositions.

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In the nature of the case, these presuppositions are held to be self -evidencing. All right?

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It's important, the next couple of slides in particular, are important because it shows to help it.

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Well, let me put it this way. It helps define exactly what presuppositional apologetics is because most people, even people who avow, well, yes, we're presuppositionalists, really can't explain it.

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All right? I'm just, that's from my experience anyway. They're held to be self -evidencing.

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They are the ultimate authority in one's viewpoint, an authority for which no greater authorization can be given.

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All right? In other words, for this chain of argumentation to end at some point, it has to end at something that is called self -evidencing or the ultimate authority, and there can be no greater authorization than this particular point in your argumentation.

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That makes sense, right? In other words, there's got to be a starting place for your argumentation or an ending point, depending on which way you're looking.

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So then all apologetic argumentation will require such a final foundation, an ultimate and self -validating presupposition or starting point for thought and commitment.

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This is our position as well. It's true for everybody, whether they want to admit it or not, but we very forwardly put forth that, yes, there is an ultimate starting place, and of course, we all know what that is.

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All you've got to do is look at the heading chapter 17, the ultimate starting point. So it kind of gives it away there.

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The conscientious apologist, and we had to underline that, the conscientious apologist should be aware of just what his actual starting point is.

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So if you're going to defend the faith, you have to know where, what is your starting point? Where are you going to start your argumentation from?

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But now a problem obviously arises. If argument chains must eventually terminate, and if the believer and unbeliever have conflicting starting points, how can apologetic debate ever be resolved?

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Can it? Since there are different primitive authorities in the realm of thought, does apologetics reduce to a blind, voluntaristic, a will to believe?

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Has anybody here ever debated a Mormon, or seen, or witnessed the gospel to a

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Mormon? Do you know what the starting point for a

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Mormon is? The burning in the bosom. If you argue with a

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Mormon, and you get him all the way back, and when he comes to a place where he can't answer anymore, how do you know that this is true?

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He says, I just have this burning in my bosom. And you can't argue past that, if he's not willing to listen.

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Unfortunately, you know it's coming. Many Christians don't use that terminology, but their argumentation is exactly the same.

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I know it because I just believe it. I know it's true in my own experience.

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That's not argumentation. OK. Because that feeling in your stomach could be the pepperoni pizza you ate last night.

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Is the decision for or against the faith a mere matter of personal taste eventually?

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These are obviously rhetorical questions. Well, the answer would have to be yes, if the apologist contented himself with merely arguments and evidences for selected, isolated facts.

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All right. In other words, if all we're going to do is argue facts, then whoever brings out the largest menu of facts wins.

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And so it comes down to a matter of taste.

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I prefer this set of facts over this set of facts. All right.

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But the answer is no, if the Christian carries his argument beyond the facts and nothing but the facts to the level of self -evidencing presuppositions, the ultimate assumptions which select and interpret the facts.

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In other words, your starting point. What is it that ends all arguments? Where do all arguments wind up in the long run?

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That's your self -evidencing presupposition, your ultimate assumptions. At this level of conflict with the unbeliever, the

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Christian must ask what actually is the unquestionable and self -evidencing presupposition between believer and unbeliever, who actually has the most certain starting point for reasoning and experience.

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This is a crucial point. And if you don't stop and notice, he says you must ask.

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And you can save yourself a whole lot of time when you're defending the faith. If somewhere is near the very beginning, it's all right.

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What is your ultimate authority? Where do you start? Why go through that endless chain?

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All right. Only to wind up there when you can ask that question right up front. What is your ultimate? What is your source of truth?

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And how they answer that question is very revealing.

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Between believer and unbeliever, who actually has the most certain starting point for reasoning and experience?

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What is the presuppositional starting point? These are all basically the same question just trying to get you to think.

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Here the Christian apologist defending the ultimate presuppositions must be prepared to argue the impossibility of the contrary.

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That is to argue that the philosophic perspective of the unbeliever destroys meaning, intelligence, and the very possibility of knowledge.

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While the Christian faith provides the only framework and condition for intelligible experience and rational certainty.

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A lot of words. What does that mean? If you follow me along, you should have some sort of answer.

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Go ahead. That Christianity is the only cogent explanation for meaning and reality.

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Yeah? Anybody else want to pick up on that? That old truth and wisdom is found in Christ too.

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Anything outside of that is a perversion of truth because truth is objective. It's found in the gospels.

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And so what happens if the person rejects the authority of scripture? They despise knowledge.

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Yeah? Yeah. Well, what can you do with that? And following this line of reasoning.

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Well, then they're still adhering to something, but the investigation of what they're adhering to is going to be more, is going to be, is going to be fallible in comparison.

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So it's like trying to. Yeah? Trying to say like, okay, well then. What is, like, what do you believe in and why?

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You have to lead them down the path to show them how it's, it's not intelligent that it leads to, you know, nonsense when you take it to the logical conclusions of what they believe.

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Yeah, and it goes even deeper than that. You guys are on it, but it goes even deeper than that. I was just going to say that you reduce their worldview down to absurdity.

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Yes. That they can't live consistently in their worldview. And they can't even really have an intelligent conversation unless they borrow from the

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Christian worldview. Okay. So that's what I mean by taking it all the way down to the ultimate starting point.

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The apologist must contend that the true starting point of thought cannot be other than God and his revealed word.

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Why is that true? We're going to get to it in a later slide, but yes, go ahead.

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Because eventually they're going to try to supplement it with something that essentially would be

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God. It's just one of their own inventions. Okay, yeah.

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Because it's all contingent on belief. Sure. Look, for no reasoning is possible apart from that ultimate authority.

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When you take God and his word out of the equation, what is the source of truth?

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Where do you begin with truth? There is none. And they will actually have to show you that.

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In fact, even the idea of what is intelligence? What is communication?

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They have no basis for it as soon as you take God and his revealed word out of the equation.

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And we'll pick up on that a little bit later here too. Here and only here does one find the genuinely unquestionable starting point.

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Only when you accept as the ultimate starting point God's word as the only unquestionable starting point.

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The atheist. What are some of the atheists, where do they wind up as a starting point?

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Logic and reason. Logic and reason. And what do you say to that?

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How do you ground logic and reason on a materialistic worldview? Exactly. You should ask them, is that material or immaterial?

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And if it's immaterial, they don't believe in an immaterial world. So how can they use an immaterial concept as a starting point when they don't believe in it?

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So their argumentation is thereby shown to be fallacious and actually absurd.

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It should be clear that this is the perspective of Scripture. In other words, this is not something that Bonson has made up or Van Til has made up.

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If you search the Scripture, you will find that that's exactly what the Scripture teaches. It is

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God's word which must be our ultimate and indisputable presupposition and thought and argumentation rather than independently supported brute facts.

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That's one of the problems with the Christian evidential argumentation.

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They try to come in with all the facts. Look, every time you turn around, science is proving

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Christianity to be true. That's a fact. But we don't rely on that.

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We can point to those and say, yeah, but even in your worldview, look at this.

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What does that lead to? You say the Bible isn't true. Look how the

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Bible has proven to be true. You can use those arguments, but that can't be your starting point.

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Christ demonstrated that God's word and thereby, of course, his own teaching had highest authority in the world of thought.

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It was the firm starting point, self -validating foundation and final standard of truth.

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Now let me just ask you, anybody here ever read the Bible? Isn't that exactly what the

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Scripture teaches? Is that what the Scripture says about itself? Does it say that it's the starting point of all knowledge?

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Is it self -validating? Is it the final standard of truth?

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Yeah. It's exactly what the Bible teaches about itself. As such, nothing was more ultimate than it or could it call it into question.

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Thus, Christ would never consent to the Lord God being put to the test. Matthew 4, 7. What's the context of Matthew 4, 7?

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Jesus is taken into the wilderness, tempted by Satan, and what does he tell him? Shall not tempt the Lord your

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God. Did he say it's a good idea? What did he say?

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It is written. So what is Jesus using to thwart Satan, the ultimate enemy?

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The word of God. Why? Because that's the ultimate starting point. And notice,

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Satan was probably a presupposition list because as soon as he said that, he fled. So also,

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Christ designated himself the truth. What is our source of truth? I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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Christ and his word stand firm as the most ultimately established, trustworthy point of truth.

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He alone can designate himself the Amen and preface his pronouncements with,

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Amen and Amen I say unto you. Jesus is the only one who can do that. When the preacher says something that's true, the congregation says,

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Amen. When Jesus teaches, he says, Amen, and then teaches.

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So you can see why, because he is the ultimate starting point. Christ and his word are self -attestingly true.

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As the very standard of truth against which all other claims must be measured, Christ did not rely upon the backing or evidence of others for his teaching.

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You notice that when I preach, frequently I'm quoting somebody.

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I'm quoting Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, John Owen. Why?

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Because I'm not self -authenticating. And it helps when you hear me preach that I'm not the only one who's come up with these thoughts.

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In fact, I probably stole them from somebody else anyway. But when I do, I usually give, no,

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I always give credit for whose thoughts they were. But Jesus did not rely upon any other evidence except for the scripture.

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He taught with self -sufficient authority. And even at the end of the

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Sermon on the Mount, we see Matthew's commentary. The crowds were in awe.

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Why? Because he was teaching them as one having authority, not as their scribes. Should anyone refuse to receive his words, those very words would stand in judgment over him.

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That's a biggie. You reject Christ's words, you will be judged.

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It's not just like I have a choice. I can believe him or I can believe him. No. You reject

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Christ's words and you're in judgment. He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has one who judges him.

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The word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. Imagine that, standing before God and rejecting the very words of God himself.

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They had ultimate authority as coming from the Lord, thus not being subject to challenge, back in Matthew.

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Christ declared that it would be more tolerable for Sodom than for that city, which would not receive the apostolic proclamation.

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For as he explained to the apostles, he that heareth you, heareth me. That secondary application comes down to you and I.

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That when we witness the gospel, somebody who rejects it is not rejecting us, rejecting

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God. The divine word is authoritative in itself, carrying its own evidence inherently.

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Consequently, no man has the prerogative to call it into question. You call the word of God into question, it's sin.

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Merely by calling the word of God into question. Instead, those who contend with God are required to answer.

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Remember Job? Remember Job did so well for so long, and then towards the end of the book, he started to justify himself.

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What happened when he justified himself? God speaks from the whirlwind, and what does he say?

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I understand, Job, that you didn't quite get it. Is that what he said? Where are you when

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I've set the boundaries of the earth? And he goes on for a litany. Oh, you think you're smart,

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Job? Tell me, where were you when I set the boundaries of the ocean? When I put Leviathan in the deep?

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Can you explain that to me? Those who contend with God are required to give an answer, and they will give an answer at some point.

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God's veracity is to be automatically presupposed. Why? For he speaks with unmistakable clarity.

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Some people try to say that the Bible is hard to understand. No. Certain parts of it, yes.

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In fact, there were certain parts that even Peter said Paul wrote over his head. But the gospel is simple.

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A child can understand it. Jesus Christ came to die for sinners, repent and be saved.

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It's that simple. Christ disdained those who sought signs beyond the authority of his words.

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Don't want to be one seeking signs, all right? Mindful of that,

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Luke prefaced such an incident with the words, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.

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A lot of people like to stop at the blessed are those who read the word of God, period. No, you have to keep it.

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Apologists should keep that in mind that Christ needs not the witness or glory of man.

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Christ needs nothing from us. His greatest witness comes from the

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Father speaking in the scripture. The refusal of men to believe

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Christ's word is not attributed to lack of factual evidence, but rather to their not abiding in the self -evidencing word of God.

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Scripture is authoritative in itself to testify of Christ, for God's word is more sure than eyewitness experience.

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That's one of my favorite verses, 2 Peter 1, that whole section in there, 1, 16 to 19.

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Do you realize the essence of what he's saying here? Peter is saying that the words on the pages of scripture have more weight than somebody who says,

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I saw it with my own eyes. So when you hear somebody say, well, you know, if God were to do a miracle today, then

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I'd believe. Your answer to that is very simple. No, you wouldn't.

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Because if you have the Bible, which is more sure, you're not going to believe even if they raised someone from the dead.

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Christ was raised from the dead. Did they believe? No. If men will not submit to the self -evidencing, ultimate starting point of God's word, neither will the fact of an historical resurrection convince them.

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Luke 16. Hence, when certain disciples are reluctant to believe the fact of Christ's resurrection, he rebuked them, not for failure to attend to the experienced evidence, but for their hesitance to believe the scriptures.

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Remember on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is talking to the disciples, and they were saying, they were puzzled.

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They said, we don't understand what's happening. And Jesus, what did he say?

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Beginning with Moses and the prophets, explained all the things written about him. Then he says, was it not necessary?

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Everything we need to know is contained in the pages of scripture. So we see that in terms of the biblically guided method, the crux of Christian apologetics is not mere experienced facts, necessary though they may be.

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And again, I don't want you to get the idea that we don't use facts or facts are irrelevant.

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They are necessary. And you should understand what the arguments are against the scriptures, but only to the point that it will more effectively cause you to answer those questions.

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But God's revelation in itself attesting truthfulness. It's God's revelation.

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Driving the point home, the ultimate starting point, God's word. As defenders of the faith, we are obligated to test the spirits, whether they are from God, that discernment and defense is required at that level of starting point, and presupposition just as at every higher level.

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So at every level of apologetics, we need to test the spirits, even on the apologetic level.

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The final standard by which all religious claims, affirmative or negative, are to be tried is the apostolic teaching, which means that it is itself tried by nothing more ultimate.

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There is nothing more ultimate than the word of God. There is no higher authority than God's own self -evidencing word.

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Therefore, when the apologetic debate centers eventually on the issue of conflicting presuppositions, the believer must defend

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God's word as the ultimate starting point. This is where some apologists make a mistake.

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They're backed up, they get down to God's ultimate authority, the ultimate authority of God's word, and they get frustrated, and then they abandon that position and start defending the other points, instead of standing firm on the self -evidencing testimony of Scripture.

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At the level where they are conflicting, claims as to the true self -evident starting point, our apologetic argumentation must require all or nothing.

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Let me just pause here, too, though. Remember, the goal of Christian apologetics is not to win the debate, but to win people.

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So you've got to be careful that as your argumentation goes back, that you're doing so with humility and not arrogance.

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Either complete surrender to the epistemic lordship of Christ or utter intellectual vanity, striving after wind.

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Notice, there's the two choices. You either stick with the lordship of Christ, the ultimate starting point, the revelation of God's word, or if you abandon that, you're going down a rabbit hole, intellectual vanity, and as Ecclesiastes said, striving after the wind.

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We must argue from the impossibility of the contrary. What does that mean, possibility of the contrary?

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Nobody? Go ahead, Anthony. When you negate the

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Christian worldview, you can't prove anything. So you're basically shooting yourself in the foot.

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It's like making the statement, there is no truth. Well, is that true? When you negate the Christian worldview, you now have no basis, no starting point for any knowledge at all.

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You will never have any certainty because you're not an omniscient being. We point to an omniscient being who can reveal stuff to us, and we can have certainty with it because he's omniscient.

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As soon as you step off that, you're now a fallible human being who's now grasping for straws and trying to come to some understanding of truth.

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This would be one of those cases where you can stop for a moment, say, all right, let's presume for a minute that you're correct, and that the

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Bible is not the self -authenticating ultimate authority. Where does that leave us?

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And you follow your argumentation, and it leaves you in futility and absurdity.

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That's the impossibility of the contrary. What is your ultimate starting point, and how do you know that that's true?

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The fundamental truth of the Christian faith cannot be given a more ultimate or rigorous defense than this.

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Simple evidences from nature, personality, logic, history cannot suffice when the debate reaches the presuppositional level.

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It cannot cast down every high reasoning which exalts itself against the knowledge of God and demands that every thought be made captive in obedience to Christ.

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That's an important one. All of the argumentations of evidence will never give you that result.

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They cannot take every thought captive. Only the

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Word of God can do that. The unbeliever should not be left with the false pretensions, such as that his problem is merely a lack of information, or that he simply needs to correct some of his syllogisms, or that his experience and thinking are all right as far as they go.

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Those are all false pretensions. In actuality, the unbelievers espouse principles of thought, reason, and reality would lead to utter intellectual foolishness and destruction.

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And that's where you want to take them. That's where I always want to take them. In fact, if you're really experienced at this, and if you watch an experienced debater, they will lead him, but he will actually go down the rabbit hole, wholeheartedly running, thinking that he's got it, only to run down and hit a blank wall, or the bottom of the hole, to keep the metaphor going.

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This is what must be pointed out, thus witnessing that the contrary of Christianity is impossible.

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While on the other hand, the dogmas of the faith provide the necessary preconditions of intelligibility and meaning.

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Granted, this takes experience, it takes study, and you're not going to do this the first time you come up against somebody, but it's every

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Christian's job to follow this type of methodology, such as the scriptural perspective and method.

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We've talked about that before. The source of the unbelievers' moral and epistemological problem is that he has the wrong, allegedly self -evidencing, authoritative starting point in his thought.

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While you're putting forth what our point is, you want to point out how his is a false starting point.

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It's not self -evidencing. It should be obvious, then, that the apologist can help the unbeliever only if the apologist is conscientiously aware of the correct, genuinely self -evidencing ultimate authority in the realm of thought and is faithful in arguing in such a way that his defense is rooted in that presupposition.

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You not only have to know your own, but you have to know his ultimate starting point and show that to be fallacious while knowing where we stand and why it's ultimate and self -attesting.

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Indeed, it is the case, as many will be quick to point out, that this presuppositional method of apologetics assumes the truth of Scripture in order to argue for the truth of Scripture.

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Such is unavoidable when ultimate truths are being debated. So, what do we call that?

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They would assert that this is what? A logical fallacy of circular reasoning.

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However, such is not damaging for it is not a flat circle in which one reasons. In other words, the

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Bible is true because the Bible is true. Rather, the Christian apologist simply recognizes that the ultimate truth, that which is more pervasive, fundamental and necessary, is such that it cannot be argued independently of the preconditions inherent in it.

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One must presuppose the truth of God's revelation in order to reason at all, even when reasoning about God's revelation.

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That's what makes it non -circular. The fact that the apologist presupposes the

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Word of God in order to carry on a discussion or debate about the veracity of the

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Word of God does not nullify his argument, but rather illustrates it. Questions?