The Presup of John Frame

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today we're gonna be covering John Frame. John Frame's book entitled Apologetics, A Justification of Christian Belief.

So again, you guys know that we cover a lot of topics relating to presuppositional apologetics. And I don't know if there, how many other resources there are who cover the wide ranging issues that we cover here.

And so I'm sure there's some people that do it, but my goal is to try to provide a resource for people who really just wanna dive deep into presuppositional apologetics. And so I'm super excited to have my guest on who I'm gonna introduce in just a moment.

But I wanna begin this episode by showing a little love to John Frame. I know those who are Bonson fans and Van Til fans, John Frame is a somewhat of a controversial guy within presuppositional circles, but he's definitely been someone who has been greatly beneficial to me in my personal studies.

And so there's a lot of great insights that we can glean from John Frame, even if there may be some areas of disagreement. So hopefully that will serve useful for folks who are listening in. Of course, we don't just cover presuppositional apologetics here, we cover a wide range of topics relating to reform theology, issues of Protestantism, Sola Scriptura.

We've covered a wide range of issues here, but been on the preceptive for quite some time and I don't see anything moving in a different direction. There's just so much to cover. And it is my goal and my prayer that as complicated as some of these issues can be, that you as the listener learn to contextualize what you're learning.

So we can talk about all the highfalutin theological terminology, but if you are not able to contextualize that into your day-to-day discussions with unbelievers, then of course we need to work on that area.

So, but there you go. Well, before I kind of, I'm gonna share a little something in just a bit, but before I do that, let me introduce my guest. I have with me Patrick Studebaker. He has his own YouTube channel where he covers issues of apologetics and theology.

I highly recommend you guys check his channel out. It is called, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Cave to the Cross?

Cave to the Cross? Apologetics, just at the end, apologetics, yep.

Okay, so it's Cave to the Cross Apologetics?

Correct.

All right, excellent. So if you're watching this and you wanna kind of click away real quick and do him a solid and sub to his channel, I highly recommend you do that. Covers a wide range of topics, but I've seen some great book reviews on his channel as well, and that's a great way to read without reading, if that makes sense.

You can learn what a book is about without having to go through the whole thing. Now, of course, if you have time, you wanna read it, but it's great to have a resource where folks are summarizing and doing all that hard work for us in our busy life.

So Patrick, why don't you share a little bit about yourself and then we'll jump right into the meat of our discussion.

Sure, well, and let me just plug you for a minute because I was there in the beginning when you were debating a negation of P, and I remember seeing your debate where you were very kind and respectful, but also presuppositional and very high view of God and his word.

And so I don't know if I wrote a blog post or pointed people to it on our Facebook page, but that drew me in. And then once you did presupp you, I was one of the first. So again, it says to be like Jesus.

And if I can be at least be like Aslan and be there in the beginning, then I'm there. And so there's nothing like being questioned by Matt Slick on your last day, thinking that you have everything done for presupposition and you just get bowled over.

So if you haven't, sign up for whatever, all the presupp use and help out Eli.

Well, I appreciate that. And if folks are interested, I'm actually making a part two of the course. I will be recording with a poly, one second. Let me adjust the chair, my chair. You'll notice that throughout our discussion, I'll get shorter.

My chair is gonna start sinking. So I apologize. Yeah, I was invited back out to Apologia Studios in Arizona to do another part, kind of a part two, but I'm also creating a longer version for my website and folks who wanna enroll in the part two of that course.

It'll be more expansive when I'm done with that. It's gonna be a presupp applied to atheism. Let me see if I can remember. Presupp applied to Roman Catholicism. This is one part of the course. And so I'm excited about working on it.

It's presupp applied to presuppositional Eastern Orthodoxy. So that's gonna be super interesting. And then presupp applied to the cults and then how to navigate discussion and what that looks like in the practical day-to-day.

So that's what I have on the docket. So, all right, well

The only problem with Jesus being Lord of all is that you have to presupp everything because he is Lord of all, so.

That's right.

So you'll never run out of topics.

That's right. They're endless, endless. Now, before we get into talking about John Frame, in honor of John Frame, because I am a fan, I am a fan, I wanted to read a bit of my last interactions with John Frame on Facebook.

So people have asked me, Eli, why don't you get John Frame on your show? Well, you would imagine with all the different guests that I've had, I've tried, but unfortunately, well, fortunately for him, unfortunately for me, he's retired.

And so, you know, he's kind of a retired war horse, so to speak. And so I'm sure he wouldn't mind. After I invited him on, here are a few things that he said, and I'll even read just some of the questions I asked with some of his responses.

They're not terribly long, so folks might be interested here. So after inviting him on, Eli said, Eli, I'm sorry, John Frame said, Eli, I'm honored by your invitation, but really I cannot accept. I retired in 2017 and am now 81.

That was a couple of years ago. So he's older now, right? So he said, I've distanced myself pretty far from academic theology in general and the presuppositional debate in particular. I used to engage in those debates with great gusto, but no longer.

I think we'd be better off not arguing about methodology and instead, and here, I think I would agree with him, instead take it to the streets as Greg Bonson asked us to do. My final word, this isn't his final word, I got to squeeze a couple more words out of him, but he says, my final word on all of this, every presuppositionalist is at heart an evidentialist, and every evidentialist is at heart a presuppositionalist.

Now you could interpret that however you'd like. May God richly bless your labors in the kingdom, in Jesus, John Frame. And so later on, I asked him a couple of questions. Here's a couple of questions I asked him.

Let's see here, I think I asked him, let me see. I asked him, okay, there was one question I asked him a while back about the issue of equal ultimacy and predestination with respect to Van Til. And so here's what I asked him.

I said, question number one, did Van Til hold to the notion of equal ultimacy with regards to predestination? If so, what was the gist and as to why? Is it simply because he thought it was biblical or did he have a more specific form of argumentation?

And then I asked him a practical question. How do you, or how did you study and take notes? Do you outline what you read, et cetera? Any insights would be helpful. Thank you for your time. And so he responded, hi, Eli, Van Til held to equal ultimacy because it is biblical, but of course it is also logical.

If God chooses a certain group, then he does not choose other groups. With respect to my question about studying, he says, I took notes during my professor's lectures. Afterward, I would rework them and put them into an outline if I needed to take a test on them.

Then I'd walk through the neighborhood with my notes, memorizing as I went. In reading, the type of study varies with the content. When I'm reading a book to write a review, I read it several times, taking notes each time.

The first time, my goal is to learn what the author is saying. The second time, my goal is to take notes on anything particularly helpful or unhelpful, what I like and what I don't like. Those notes would form the core of my review.

And when I'm reading, not to review, but just for my edification, I would skim some parts and read others more carefully according to my interests.

And so I said, thank you.

And so there's another question I asked him. I said, morning, I hope all is well. As I was reflecting on the objection against presuppositional methodology, that is that it is circular, an objection we are all too familiar with, I came across the following, and this is an objection someone wrote.

The problem with presuppositionalism is that it is circular. It says that in order to prove the Bible, you have to assume the Bible. How does this work when there were thousands of years in which people never had the Bible?

And he responds. And again, he responds with a caveat, Patrick, because you can tell he doesn't want to go too deep because he's retired, okay?

But here's what he says.

He says, hello, Eli. I used to spend a lot of time on these issues and I can't do so any longer. Please don't get me into a long back and forth. But briefly, one, not only the Christian worldview, but any worldview depends on certain ultimate presuppositions.

Two, these cannot be proved the way we prove other things because all proof presupposes those presuppositions. Three, so if you want to call it circular, go ahead, but every worldview is circular in that sense.

Four, the circularity includes every attempt to prove the presupposition. Five, but once you've proved the presupposition, you can engage in non-circular arguments to prove other things within the system.

For example, the law of gravity or something along those lines. Six, the Christian presupposition includes the Bible, but also natural revelation, every bit of knowledge that has come to us from God. Seven, since all our knowledge comes from God, our presupposition includes all knowledge, but of course for the Christian scripture directs, this Christian scripture directs our reading of all revelation outside of itself.

Nine, the fact that all knowledge is included in our presupposition is to say that all knowledge is revealed by God. 10, the other way to see this is that all knowledge has a normative perspective. All knowledge plays a role in governing our lives.

So there is not a sharp distinction between our presupposition and knowledge in addition to the presupposition. The two are perspectives on one another, the normative and the situational. The normative is knowledge governing life.

The situational is life governed by knowledge. The existential perspective describes this knowledge as a subjective event. Here's my favorite part. I guess I spent more time on this answer than I originally intended, but I would ask you not again to ask for more.

And that was the last thing I asked him.

So there you go.

That was the final words of John Frame, at least with respect to my interactions with him. And he was gracious enough, even though he was long past his time to do those sorts of things, he still gave a little time for my question.

So I appreciate that.

I will say too, one of your first students in Presupp. You did get him on his show and he talked about his relationship with himself and the church. And I found that interview quite enlightening as to the person of John Frame.

So that was really interesting to see.

Yeah, I remember the first time I met John Frame, I visited him at RTS in Florida. And I walk into his office and I see his feet under his desk. They're just dangling there. And it's like a wheelie chair.

And I couldn't see his face because there was a pile of books, like five feet tall.

And he's like, oh, Elias, it's a pleasure to meet you.

And I felt so bad because I kept asking questions about Bonson. So I was like, what was it like to have Bonson as a student?

And blah, blah, blah, you know.

But he was gracious with his time and it was cool to be able to talk to him for a little bit. But all right, well, got that out of the way. I hope people enjoyed that. Okay, we already have some people in the second here.

We already have some people in the chat here. So welcome. And a couple of people expressing, yes, they've subscribed to your channel.

That's awesome.

Good, good, good.

All right, well, let's jump right in. So Patrick, you just recently finished John Frame's book, Apologetics, A Justification of Christian Belief. And I don't know if you've read the entirety of this bad boy, but I highly recommend this one.

Yep, so Cornelius Van Tillen, Analysis of His Thought. This is the book that I highly recommend people who want a very comprehensive view of Van Tillen. So these are the two things, if you want to go deep, here are two really good books.

There's Greg Bonson's, Van Tillen's Apologetic Readings and Analysis, which is my favorite book. And then John Frame's, Cornelius Van Tillen, Analysis of His Thought, which is an excellent book, probably up there as well.

I have some points of disagreement, obviously, but it's a super helpful book. Nonetheless, he's got a great section on Van Tillen's character, just the kind of person he was. So that's actually fun to hear how John Frame perceived his professor.

So, all right. So what were your thoughts on completing the book? What was your overall kind of impressions when completing the book? And then we'll jump into some of the specifics of the book.

Yeah, so my mentor and I, we do the show together where we just read a chapter and then we used to do this just offline and talk with each other about apologetic books so we can build each other up as iron sharpens iron.

I took Howard Hendricks to task and read everything that he ever said. And he said, find a mentor and then be a mentor. And so I chased down my person who helped me the most with philosophy. And we said, we need to read together.

And so we collaborate now just filming it. So we invite people on to kind of experience the book club with us over coffee or on your drive to work so that we do kind of the heavy lifting for it. So for Frame, we found this as, so initially we did Against All Opposition by Bonson.

And we said that was kind of a high school level introduction. And so we wanted to kind of take it up a little bit and look at maybe like a college level. And so we found apologetics here, Justification of Christian Belief by Frame.

And that sits right kind of in the middle of your lower level college basis of where you're gonna talk about. So you kind of need a little bit of the philosophy in there to kind of make sense of it, to slow down and read it.

But overall, Frame has a high view of scripture. He pushes you to have a high view of scripture in your apologetics, in your life. And he attempts to encourage all people to have good dialogue where you are presenting the best possible case for the gospel in your apologetics.

So he does not divorce apologetics and gospel presentation. They are, you're doing evangelism when you're apologizing and you're apologizing when you're doing evangelism. So I love that aspect to him.

That's great because I think this is, John Frame does not represent what we often see in online manifestations of presuppositionalism. I've seen online presuppositionalist, I mean, literally like spout out profanity in their discussions.

John Frame is kind of the soft teddy bear of presuppositionalism, razor sharp intellect, but he's very congenial, very like conversational. And I think you would agree with, I hopefully you'd agree with this, whether you agree with Frame or not, he writes very clearly.

And whether you agree with his conclusions, he covers aspects of Vantill that you're wondering about after you read Vantill. You're like, well, what about this? And he covers those areas, whether folks agree with the direction he goes or not.

He definitely knows the main key points that are interesting to people who study this area. What do you think of that?

Absolutely, absolutely. He drives you to be salt and light and serpent and dove. You know, he's not afraid to say it's wrong to do apologetics in a certain way, but he's also asking people to have grace in their speech.

And that comes out immensely when he's talking about it.

Suavitar and Modo, right? Something like that?

Right.

Yeah.

Now, with respect to how he comes, his presuppositional approach is very much linked with his tri-perspectivalism.

You'll find threes throughout this book.

Yes. So he's the Trinitarian apologist in the sense that everything comes in threes. Now, what I found useful, Patrick, and maybe you can kind of unpack this if you can, when he defines apologetics, there's a whole section in the book on definitions.

And he actually gives kind of a trifold definition. He defines apologetics as proof, which involves presenting a rational basis for fate or proving Christianity to be true. He defines apologetics as defense, which involves answering objections of unbelief.

And then he defines apologetics as offense, attacking the foolishness of unbelieving thought. Can you unpack those three different levels, those three different definitions that he provides? How does that reflect his very much tri-perspectival approach to apologetics as a whole?

Right.

Right, so yeah, he has what he calls a biblical perspective on apologetics. Again, he's always going to tie apologetics with scripture. If you don't, he warns about teaching falsity, which is not what we wanna do because we're always evangelizing during our apologetics, even evangelizing to the believers, which I'll get to in a little bit, or we become false teachers ourselves, which is definitely something we don't wanna do.

And it's something that I've seen, I won't name any names, but it seems like the easy thing to do these days is to downplay or to deny certain aspects of once held standard biblical theology just to kind of appeal to a conversation that gets you in the door to the scholars at the table and it provides you a seat.

And so, Frame's not worried about having the seat at the table. He's worried about, am I presenting the gospel inherently here? And so, of course, I always call 1 Peter 3, 15, and 16, the tattoo that all apologists would probably get on their arm, even if they didn't believe in tattoos.

I mean, yeah, that's the one.

I mean, I'll probably be a tattoo and from 1 Peter 3, 15, so yeah.

That's right. So yeah, so it needs to be carried out with this honoring Christ as holy. And so, yes, you're right. He talks about apologetics as proof. He says that you're able to offer evidence in support of your belief.

And what does he do? He ties this with the Bible. He says Jesus offers proof of his works in John 14. He does so with Thomas. The misalignment of what we let people talk about the word faith in with doubting Thomas is rooted here and it would behoove the apologist and all Christians to know proper definitions of faith.

And this isn't a blind leap in the dark. In fact, that's what we're going to accuse non-believers of doing when it comes to certain aspects of their worldview. But this is something rooted in the testimony of the apostles and then ultimately in Jesus himself.

And then of course, we have the resurrection testimony in 1 Corinthians 15.

Of course, yeah. Now I think it's very important. A lot of people think that presuppositionalism and like the transcendental argument kind of boils down to kind of a form of fideism, kind of like a bear authority claim that Christianity is true.

But it's interesting to note that the title of the book which wasn't the original title. I think the original was apologetics to the glory of God. Notice that the title of the book which I think captures really the essence of what precept is about and what apologetics is about is that it is apologetics, a justification of Christian belief.

So whether you think frame is successful in that whether you think Bonson is successful in that I think all presuppositionalist would agree that apologetics is about justifying the Christian worldview.

And this is why I think Van Til's definition of apologetics is so important. People ask me, what's a very simple way that we could define precept? And the first definition that comes in my mind is the first page of Christian apologetics by Van Til.

He says that apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life over against the non-Christian philosophy of life. So our apologetic involves vindication. It involves a worldview, a philosophy of life.

Antithesis, we're against another philosophy of life. And so he kind of summarizes the whole precept method there in one sentence, which I think is awesome. So, okay, so if you could summarize in kind of a broad stroke, what is this book about?

Why is this book unique? And then we'll kind of dive into some of the specifics. I think there's a really important section that I'd love to get your thoughts on with respect to frame's understanding of the importance of sola scriptura in apologetics.

There's a section there, yeah.

So he does this trifecta of evidence, defense, and offense. And then that's what he offers. That's kind of the breakdown of his book. And so when it comes to defense, you're answering objections to unbelief, things like the theodicy is there, but also we're answering objections of unbelief or objections that people have.

And so frame doesn't shy away from saying that our apologetic can also be towards the Christian. And so there are times where frame even says, there are certain cases where even more so that our apologetic is to build up the believer, to build up the church.

And of course that was his goal as well. And then going on the offense, that's what you're talking about is the antithesis. So let's take a look at all the other worldviews out in the world and let's answer them.

And so we're able to parry and we're able to lunge with our rapier.

Right, that's awesome. And you said also that apologetics involves engaging with other Christians as well. I mean, there is an external aspect of apologetics where we're engaging the unbeliever. And then there are elements of apologetics that we need to do within the church.

The first thing that came to mind when you said that was Jude chapter one, verse three through four. I don't read it for folks. Cause I think it's cool. Verse one and three, chapter one and three. We often quote that for like putting forth this idea that apologetics is necessary contending for the faith.

But look what Jude says here. He says, beloved, although I was very eager to you to write about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

And then he goes on in verse four. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

And he says, I found it necessary because people have crept in. So even within the context of believers, we have falsehoods that come in and require, indeed it is necessary that we contend for the faith within that context, as well as that external context of engaging directly with like the unbelieving world.

That's not necessarily within the quote unquote four walls of the church. So I think that's an important point. So perhaps you can unpack for us, what is the difference in your opinion of John Frame's presentation of a presuppositional approach and Van Til's?

I know a lot of people are very critical of Van Til's kind of broad brushing over the gist of what he's arguing for. So if we know, for example, philosophically Van Til comes from a continental philosophical perspective in which there's great emphasis upon worldview and systems and those who are more analytic minded chide him for not being so specific.

Do you see a contrast between kind of the broad stroke ambiguous kind of big picture and maybe John Frame's approach to, do you see Frame going into more detail on key points than Van Til has?

I guess from what I've read of Van Til, again, it's not to say that Van Til doesn't use scripture but that the push for Frame is to always ground your evidences or your claims of, I think you say the number of times of the preconditions of intelligibility is you kind of got to do more than that.

And so here, Frame does look at metaphysics and epistemology and ethics, and he's tying it back to kind of the character and person of God. And so that's kind of where he goes for in his apologetics is looking at those areas and then building out exactly what in those areas makes precept such a good foundation because of who God is.

Yeah.

Yeah, the who God is so important, right? The metaphysical foundation. So we talk about the Christian worldview, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, which are the three foundations of a worldview. One of the basic assumptions metaphysically for Van Til is that creator-creature distinction where we acknowledge a fundamental difference between God as creator and everything else as creation.

God is original, we are derivative. So there's always that healthy balance between what creatures are and the unique nature of the creator. And that actually has great apologetic import as to how we answer certain questions theologically.

So I think that's very important. Now, when I look at Frame's book here and I look at the table of contents, he kind of breaks them up into multiple sections. So he talks about apologetics, the basics of apologetics, talks about definitions, presuppositions, all those sorts of things.

But there is a mention here of sola scriptura. And I think that's on page 18. Let's see here, I have the book in front of me. So sola scriptura. So of course, Frame is coming obviously from a clearly reformed perspective.

What role do you see sola scriptura playing in John Frame's apologetic? Or just in terms of the reform perspective, I mean, sola scriptura is such an important aspect. How does he involve sola scriptura in the broader discussion of what he's trying to accomplish in his book?

Yeah, yeah. And that's something too, is that Frame is wholly, as in complete, not wholly, in the other way. He's probably that too.

He's fully, he's fully, not wholly.

Yes, yes, exactly. He's 100 reformed and 100 man.

So you got a two nature, yes.

A two nature, yep.

A hypostatic me.

All right, well, so yes, in sola scriptura's section here, he says that you don't need to exclude everything else other than the Bible. It's just that the Bible restrains how to look at everything. So you can bring in other books, other church leaders, other evidences, or writings, or proofs, but it has to be restrained from the Bible.

So if it precludes you from bringing that argument to the table, you should say, that's interesting. I wonder if I can reform it and turn it to the glory of God. But we can look at other things. It has to be restrained by the Bible.

So we can use other items other than the Bible to bring evidences, but our ultimate control of looking at those evidences is the Bible. The Bible judges those other books and evidence. The Bible doesn't conform to those other sources.

And then he goes on, sorry, to talk about natural revelation and soul scripture as well. So he's probably someone who would tend to use as well. And he says, natural revelation is the truth of God and everything is made, nature, man, everything.

That of course comes from Romans one, which is probably the other arm tattoo that we all need, but natural revelation doesn't show the gospel message of salvation. So that's the important part of why we need that special specific outpouring of God's word to us.

Direct divine speech shortens the length curve of natural revelation. So yes, we can get there. We can say, oh, look up at the stars. There's something above and beyond that that has to have created it.

It must be greater than it. It must be outside of it. Why do all the hard work when in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth? Divine revelation shows the purpose of the resurrection. Natural revelation only gets you to the fact of the revelation, which is something that we kept saying, my mentor and I through this conversation is the fact of faith is not the resurrection in and of itself.

It's Jesus died and rose again on the third day to pay for your sins. And that's where the ultimate expression of faith resides in. Is he going to be faithful to the end to pay for my sins? Because without him and without doing that, then I'm still dead in my sins.

And so we need to realize that the divine aspect of scripture kind of outweighs and makes it easier and provides the basis for knowing the purpose of the resurrection. So when we talk about classicalists or evidentialists who do the two-step approach or the one-step approach, which if you're dancing, evidentialist is the way to go because you only have one step and you're less likely to step on people's toes.

But there you might get to the resurrection. And what happens to the unbeliever? Oh, well, people, I guess, do rise from the dead. It's that story of the man who you're trying to convince isn't a zombie and he goes, but zombies don't bleed.

I'm clearly a zombie. Well, zombies don't bleed. Would you suggest that's the truth? Well, yeah, sure. Zombies don't bleed. You pick them, lick them and he bleeds. And he goes, huh, look at that. Zombies do bleed.

So he's just shifting his idea because his ultimate ideas in life is that he's a zombie. Well, divine revelation corrects our mistake in natural revelation. And here's kind of the key point from this section is that presupposition is the application of scripture of natural revelation.

So we don't remove, we don't disjoint the fact of the resurrection with the meaning of the resurrection. Is that a purely evidential basis when you quote unquote prove the resurrection of Jesus, all you've proven is that someone came back from the dead.

But what that means requires the broader worldview context that gives it meaning. Now, some people might think that's ridiculous. Like, oh, you know, someone says, well, you just proved that someone was raised from the dead.

That doesn't mean Christianity is true. People don't actually say that. If you prove the resurrection, you know, come on. I had a debate with a well-known YouTube atheist by the name of Tom Jump. And in our debate and our discussion, he actually suggested, he said, well, I can grant you the resurrection.

That's what he told me. I can grant you the resurrection. That doesn't mean that an all-powerful God exists. And I was like, wait a second, you're disjoint, you're trying to pick apart my worldview and isolate the parts.

I said, my worldview is not that a man named Jesus rose from the dead. My worldview is that the all-powerful God revealed in natural and spiritual revelation is the one who raised him. You cannot separate those elements.

And this is very much what we see today, Patrick, with a lot of people within the mere Christianity movement, right? That all we need to do is prove the resurrection and everything else gets clumped together, right?

We don't need the Old Testament, those sorts of things. That's the piecemeal apologetic approach, which I think Frame, to some degree, would reject. And there's some elements of piecemeal in his, we don't wanna get into that.

But you hear other people's argue along those lines.

Correct, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's the greater benefit of the presuppositional position is we can't break apart God. We can't talk about him as love and only love. It has to be in the context of judgment and supremacy and impartiality and specificity.

A worldview that anyone operates is not a real worldview if they're able to hold one out here and one out here. If they're not standing on that worldview, then it's not their ultimate commitment.

Right, and just as Van Til said, that apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life. It's a worldview system that we don't put apart. Now, just for those in the comments, I know some questions are coming in.

Yeah, if you have any questions for Patrick or myself, we'll take a few towards the back end. I'll give him all the hard ones because it's Thursday and I'm tired. I don't know how many questions I'll be able to contribute to, but if you have any questions for him, awesome.

If you have any questions for me, that's fine as well. I'll try my best to address some of them. But what I really appreciated, something you said, Patrick, about Sola Scriptura is that you acknowledged the usefulness of other authorities, but that scripture is the ultimate authority.

Isn't that not what Sola Scriptura is, right? It's the idea that scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith. Not that it's the only rule of faith, but it's the sole infallible rule of faith. And I think there's an interesting parallel, Patrick, between the issue of the utilization of presuppositional methodology and the use of evidence and arguments.