Is Frank Turek Right About Presupp?

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November 19, 2020

In this Live Stream Eli Ayala will respectfully respond to some comments made by Frank Turek concerning presuppositional apologetics.

00:02: Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and it honestly feels like I haven't been live in a while.
00:12: I don't remember the last time I did it. Maybe it was a week ago or maybe two weeks. I'm not sure.
00:18: But I'm happy to be on. As you guys know, I'm a very busy guy, and so I don't always have the opportunity to come on as often as I'd like, but I have a really great guest on his way.
00:32: He's scheduled for Saturday at 1 p .m., and I'm looking forward to that. We're going to be covering an interesting topic that I think folks are going to find very fascinating, especially those who are into the whole presuppositional methodology, the different methodologies under the umbrella of presuppositionalism.
00:53: So we're going to be covering a very interesting topic, and that's the topic of the philosophy and apologetic methodology of Gordon H.
01:02: Clarke. Now, when I have the opportunity, I always recommend folks read
01:10: Gordon Clarke. Now, he is labeled as a presuppositionalist. I do not follow his stream of thought, but there is a lot in his writings that are extremely helpful.
01:23: You will find a big difference between reading someone like Gordon Clarke and reading someone like Cornelius Van Till.
01:30: Gordon Clarke is very, very refreshing, very clear, very logical in his structure, easy to follow, and so I highly, highly, highly recommend reading the works of Gordon Clarke.
01:42: Here's a book by Dr. Clarke. This is a book that he's well -known for.
01:48: It is entitled A Christian View of Men and Things, so definitely a good read. If you're a presuppositionalist, more along the
01:56: Van Tillian lines, and you obviously take issue with some of the points of Dr. Clarke, you do have to appreciate his critiques of various unbelieving philosophies.
02:07: So if anything, you'll find his critiques and analysis of the history of philosophy very, very helpful.
02:12: So this is A Christian View of Men and Things, very good book, and of course, Gordon Clarke's philosophical masterpiece, in my opinion, is his textbook on philosophy, and this guy here is called
02:28: Thales to Dewey's, and we've got the camera there, Thales to Dewey's. You can purchase this on Amazon, I think, and it is basically just a history of philosophy with, of course, a
02:40: Christian analysis of the different philosophical perspectives, so definitely a very, very worthy read.
02:47: And those of you, of course, who are interested in presuppositional apologetics, I have to highly recommend the works of John Frame, Cornelius Van Till, An Analysis of His Thought, also a very good book, and Apologetics to the
03:02: Glory of God, which had a more technical title, and I think this is the more updated version,
03:07: Apologetics, A Justification of Christian Belief, so another highly recommended book, and my favorite apologetics book ever, okay?
03:17: This is my top book for Christian apologetics that I highly recommend.
03:22: Everyone, if you're watching now, open up a window, go on Amazon, and order this book right now.
03:28: It is the best apologetics book that I ever read, and that is Classical Apologetics by R .C.
03:36: Sproul. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, all right? For those of you who know the debates within apologetic methodology, between Reformed Brothers especially, someone like Greg Bonson, who was a presuppositionalist, and R .C.
03:48: Sproul, who was a classicalist, this is the book that Sproul wrote together with John Gerstner and Arthur Lindsay, defending the classical synthesis and offering, on the second half of the book, a critique of presuppositional apologetics, so it's definitely not a fan favorite amongst presuppositionalists, but if anything, if you want to know what are some of the common objections against presuppositional apologetics,
04:16: I think this is a good book to dive into. I have criticisms, and there have been reviews written, presuppositionalists who are much more able than I have offered a great critique of this work.
04:28: Greg Bonson has critiqued this work as well, but it's good to have. It's good to have, okay?
04:33: It's old, too. I didn't order this, actually. I stole this from a friend's library. He was giving away books, so I snatched this one out.
04:41: Actually, my favorite apologetics book is Van Til's Apologetic by Greg Bonson, and this is his largest work where he offers some critique of, not critique,
04:51: I'm sorry, commentary of the work of Cornelius Van Til, so excellent book,
04:57: Van Til's Apologetic, readings and analysis. Well, if you are joining me now,
05:04: I see there are a couple people watching. The title of this video is, what is the title of this video?
05:11: Is Frank Turek correct about presuppositionalism? Now, let me first start off by saying a couple of things about Dr.
05:19: Turek, okay? Dr. Turek is a Christian apologist over there at Cross Examined, and I've actually had
05:26: Dr. Turek on my show. It was an excellent show. He's an awesome guy, super generous, and he's quite intelligent.
05:35: Before I offer my critiques, and don't be thrown off of the thumbnail of this video.
05:43: It seems as though I'm going to go in and kind of be snarky towards him.
05:48: I would never. I was told when you are doing YouTube videos to have catchy thumbnails.
05:54: So perhaps my personality is much more nicer than what the thumbnail seems to imply, but I highly recommend
06:03: Dr. Turek. And I'm going to say this as a hardcore presuppositionalist. Dr.
06:09: Turek's most well -known book is, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, okay?
06:14: Now, I own the book in digital format, but I don't own the book in physical format because I've given it away to so many people.
06:25: I think I've owned the physical copy of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. I've owned it three different times, and three different times
06:32: I gave it away to someone who I thought needed it, okay? Now, that's coming from a presuppositionalist.
06:38: Now, here's what I think is going to be very helpful for people who are presuppositionalists, okay?
06:44: Just because we differ in the apologetic methodology with our classical and evidentialist brothers does not mean that they don't have anything valuable to say, okay?
06:54: When we're talking about specific evidences and arguments for, say, the resurrection of Jesus or arguments for God's existence, it's a good resource.
07:06: And it's written in a way that's easy to follow and easy to understand. There's some great quotes in there, very helpful footnotes.
07:13: And so I encourage fellow presuppositionalists to be widely read throughout the apologetic tradition.
07:19: I mean, I'm not a classicalist, but I tried my best to read William Lane Craig. I tried my best to read someone like Dr.
07:26: Turek, especially his book Stealing from God, which is very, very presuppositional -ish, okay?
07:34: I kind of joked around. The title of the book should have been Stealing from Bonson, but I'm completely kidding.
07:41: There's a lot of useful things in that book. And I think Dr. Turek does an excellent job breaking it down for just the everyday person, maybe the high school student or the college student who might confront various objections.
07:52: So super, super helpful. This critique is offered with respect. I consider him my older brother in Christ, and he's a very generous guy.
08:02: And I highly respect him and highly recommend his resources, little video clips and things like that.
08:08: So with that said, I want to actually begin this episode with reading a text from scripture.
08:16: So I'm actually going to be reading from Hebrews 6, verse 13, okay?
08:24: Hebrews 6, 13, all right? Now I know this isn't the habit of apologetic
08:32: YouTube channel. They tend to cater to the general crowd. So you don't usually see someone have a
08:38: Bible open, but I don't care. I'm a biblical apologist. I'm defending the
08:44: Christian worldview, and I have no qualms about reading my Bible. I have my physical Bible, right? I have too many windows open on my computer to flummox through.
08:51: But I want to read here through Hebrews 6, verse 13. Here's what it says. For when
08:56: God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying,
09:03: I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. Okay? Now the thing that I think is particularly interesting here, and will come up later on as I offer the critique, is that God could not swear by anyone greater than himself.
09:20: Okay? That is a very important concept in scripture, that there is no higher than God.
09:27: Okay? And so God is the supreme. He is the absolute. He is the ultimate authority within the believer's worldview.
09:36: And so this is going to be very, very important, especially when we have discussions with other Christians regarding apologetic methodology.
09:43: We get down to that fundamental question of what is our ultimate authority? And when we profess what our ultimate authority is, are we defending the faith in such a way that respects that ultimate authority and keeps it in its proper place?
09:57: That's going to be very, very important, because if you guys follow Dr. James White's channel, The Dividing Line, he talks about this a lot, and I agree with him.
10:05: This issue of consistency, right? The manner in which we defend the faith needs to be consistent with that very faith that we are defending.
10:13: And so we want to make sure that our defending the faith keeps into consideration the role of the authority of God, and the authority of the word of God.
10:23: So I just wanted you guys to keep that in mind. Hebrews 6, 13, good verse to keep in mind and put that into perspective.
10:30: Of course, there are other verses as well. All right. Well, before I actually invite
10:36: Dr. Turek on, he's not physically here, but we'll add him to the screen there, and then we'll play the video.
10:44: I want to just really quickly remind folks that if you are looking forward to my interview with Doug Dauma, who will be the gentleman that I'll have on Saturday to talk about the philosophy of Gordon Clark, you might want to check out his book.
11:01: He's got a book, and I think to my knowledge, it is the only biography written about Gordon Clark.
11:07: It's called The Presbyterian Philosopher, The Authorized Biography of Gordon Clark. I read it. It is excellent.
11:13: Again, even if you disagree with Gordon Clark, it is an excellent book. It goes through his philosophy, and of course, an interesting history of the
11:19: Presbyterian denomination. So you guys definitely want to take a look at that.
11:26: All right. So let's get started. As a precursor, this footage here is from a question and answer.
11:34: So I want to highlight that it is not as though Dr. Turek is going into an in -depth analysis of presuppositionalism and apologetic methodology.
11:47: So it is a Q &A, and so I would imagine his answer would not be as precise as it needs to be if he is going to interact with the presuppositional methodology in more depth.
11:57: So I want you guys to keep that in mind. I wanted to let you guys know that. All right. So let me play this.
12:03: We're going to actually play the whole thing, and then we're going to go back and address various points. All right. So let me do that.
12:09: And you guys can give me a thumbs up if you hear the audio. I don't want to play this and you guys can't hear it.
12:14: So ready? So to say that you need the Bible in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the
12:23: Bible. There's a lot of debate among Christians as to like which method of apologetics is the best.
12:31: You have like the classical evidentialist approach, and then you also have the presuppositionalist approach. And you tend to come from more of like an evidentialist approach.
12:39: Classical. Yeah. And so I was wondering, what is your opinion on presuppositional apologetics? And why do you come from more of a classical perspective?
12:46: First of all, I was taught by Norman Geisler, who is the Michael Jordan, sorry, the Kobe Bryant, or the
12:51: Steph Curry, or whoever you want to use. Michael Jordan's my generation of the classical approach.
13:00: And I think it makes more sense. The problem I have with presuppositionalism, if I understand it, maybe
13:05: I'm misunderstanding it, but it's circular. Because it says in order for you to show the Bible's true, you have to assume it's true.
13:12: How does that make any sense? Right? Now, I do agree that there are certain presuppositions we all have, like the laws of logic.
13:21: And that's why the book Stealing from God says that when somebody is trying to suggest there's no
13:26: God, they're actually stealing from God to argue against him. Because logic and reason wouldn't exist unless there's a mind out there that is endowed reality with those things.
13:37: Yeah, and that's why I think to a degree, it's almost like two sides of the same coin, like what we're both saying. Except I think with the evidentialist approach, you're kind of starting with neutrality and saying like, you can, you know, if you're a nonbeliever, like you can reason like in a neutral standpoint.
13:53: And what I think the presuppositionalists are saying is like, with Romans chapter one, you know, we suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
13:59: And so like, if we're just throwing facts at people that are nonbelievers, it's in our sinful nature to reject those things.
14:06: And so you have to start with the Bible to be able to understand laws of logic.
14:11: And let me point out one thing, there were there were 1000s of Christians before the Bible was ever written.
14:18: So to say that you need the Bible, in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the
14:25: Bible, I guess I should say, start with God. But well, that's what Paul does.
14:31: He starts with God on, on Mars Hill in Acts 17. And he says,
14:36: I see I have an altar to an unknown God here, let me tell you who that unknown God is. But the presuppositional assertion that you have to assume the
14:44: Bible is true in order to prove it just seems so circular to me. Now, again, maybe I'm missing something.
14:49: But I think Jesus was an evidentialist. How do I know? Because when a representative of John the
14:54: Baptist came to him and said, Are you the real Messiah? Or should we wait for somebody else? Jesus didn't say, well, just have faith, just believe.
15:02: What did he say? Look at the signs, look at the evidence. Yeah, yeah, I am the Messiah. Thank you.
15:09: All right. Okay. There's a lot there.
15:17: Okay. Let's, let's start with, hmm, where, where, where shall
15:23: I start? Let's start with the claim that presuppositionalism is circular.
15:31: And we've heard this before, right? This is not a surprise, right? I mean, and again, one of the indicators that I know that someone does not understand presuppositionalism, and this is one of the key, when someone says this, this is one of the key things that, that, that pops in my head to let me know that the person is not really getting what presuppositionalism is trying to argue.
15:55: And that's when the person claims that the problem with presuppositionalism is that it's circular.
16:01: As though that claim that it is circular, and not just circular in a specific sense, it's circular actually in the fallacious sense, which is the indication here by Dr.
16:12: Turek and other people who suggest that one of the, the flaws of presuppositional methodology is that it's circular.
16:19: But, but again, this shows a complete lack of understanding of the nature of presuppositionalism in particular, and the nature of rational argumentation in general, okay?
16:29: But let's deal with this issue of circularity, okay? This was no surprise to Cornelius Van Til.
16:35: Dr. Van Til did not recoil at the accusation that the presuppositional form of argumentation was circular, but of course he most definitely clarified the sort of circle that he had in mind.
16:47: So here's a quote from Dr. Van Til. He says, quote, the charge is made that we engage in circular reasoning.
16:53: Now, if it be called circular reasoning, when we hold, when we hold it necessary to presuppose
16:58: God, we are not ashamed of it because we are firmly convinced that all forms of reasoning that leave
17:04: God out of account will end in ruin. Check this out though. Yet we hold that our reasoning cannot fairly be called circular reasoning or begging the question, which is what
17:14: Dr. Turek is having issue here, because we're not reasoning about and seeking to explain facts by assuming the existence and meaning of certain other facts on the same level of being with the facts we are investigating, and then explaining these facts in turn by the facts with which we began.
17:32: We are presupposing God not merely as another fact of the universe, okay?
17:37: Now this is really important, okay? Before I kind of go a little further, okay? When we presuppose
17:44: God, we are not presupposing God as a simple fact of the universe, reasoning from one fact to another, because the fact of God is a specific kind of fact that is quite special, because unlike one fact that gives an account and makes a connection with another fact, the fact of God, because of his nature, now think of Hebrews 6, 13, what
18:05: I read before, the kind of fact that God is, is the sort of fact that gives meaning to facts, okay?
18:12: Remember I said that God cannot swear by anyone higher than himself. I read that portion of scripture on purpose to draw your attention to the fact that God is the ultimate foundation.
18:23: He is the criterion. Him and his revelation is the criterion of truth itself. And so when we're arguing about God, we are not arguing about just another fact of the universe.
18:34: That's really, really important to keep in mind, because when we're dealing with issues of ultimacy, of course it's going to be to a certain degree circular, but there are fallacious circle, the
18:47: Bible's true because the Bible's true, and then there are circles that are fundamentally necessary given the nature of ultimate authorities, okay?
18:56: An example of the begging the question fallacy, which is being asserted here, let's suppose we say that the
19:04: Bible claims to be the word of God, right? And whatever the Bible claims is true, therefore the
19:10: Bible is the word of God. That is fallacious, and that is by no means the nature of the presuppositional argument, right?
19:16: This is obviously fallacious since the opponent of the Christian faith is not going to accept the second premise, namely that whatever the
19:23: Bible claims is true, okay? Now, in another sense, it is true that for any argument for God's existence or the truth of the
19:32: Bible must also presuppose God's existence and the truth of Scripture. I would affirm that.
19:38: Now, this must be the case because of the very nature of God and Scripture as being an ultimate criterion of truth.
19:44: You got to understand, we make this creator -creature distinction, and when we're arguing about God, it is not simply appeals to one fact and another fact.
19:52: We're talking about the foundation of fact itself. We do not demonstrate the existence of the ultimate
19:59: God who is himself the ground and foundation for proof itself by appealing to some other more fundamental foundation.
20:06: Think about it. If the truthfulness of our ultimate standard of truth, God's revelation and God, if that could be established on the basis of some other standard of truth, then
20:17: God and his revelation would not be the ultimate standard of truth, would it? Right? So, such an argument would actually disprove the argument that God and his revelation is in fact the ultimate standard that is demonstrated, as we would say, transcendentally, okay?
20:33: So, this is very, very important. We're not saying, in essence, what we're saying is that if we had to prove
20:41: God's existence by appealing to something more ultimate and authoritative than him, then we're refuting ourselves, you see?
20:50: That's why when someone asks me, I was in a debate. I don't remember who I was debating. I don't know if it was
20:56: Tom Jump or there was a gentleman by the name of Negation of P.
21:03: It was a debate on modern day debates on the existence of God. I think it was, is Christianity true?
21:10: I think he asked me, is it possible, is it possible that Christianity is false, right?
21:19: Is it possible that God does not exist? And my answer to him was, no, it's not possible. Ah, it was
21:26: Eric Murphy. Okay, I remember him. I had a debate with Eric Murphy. I think he was on the Talk Heathen show.
21:32: I think it's a sister podcast to the Atheist Experience. It's entitled Respectful Dialogue with an
21:37: Atheist, if you want to check it out on my channel. And he asked me, is it possible for me to be wrong about God?
21:42: And I told him no. Now he kind of got bent out of shape because of that. But, but think about it.
21:48: If I were to say that it's possible that the Christian worldview is false, then how could
21:53: I then argue that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, right?
21:59: If that's my argument, how could I place something like contingency and possibility over my ultimate foundation?
22:07: You see, when you say that it's possible for the Christian worldview to be false, you are placing contingency and possibility in a more ultimate place than God himself.
22:18: And hence, contingency is your ultimate authority because it stands over and above God. From the
22:23: Christian perspective, and from the perspective that is consistent with Hebrew 613, where God says, like, you know, he's, there was no one greater to him that he could swear by.
22:35: Within the Christian conception, contingency and possibility does not stand over God.
22:43: For God as the ultimate within the Christian worldview, what is possible and what is impossible is defined by God.
22:52: And so the God of scripture stands over possibility and contingency.
22:57: You see? And if God holds that sort of authority, to what can
23:04: I appeal to that is more fundamental than that? That's why us presuppositionalists, we say that the authority of God is self -attesting.
23:14: It is self -attesting in that it cannot be validated by an appeal to something external to it and more fundamental than it.
23:22: And in that sense, of course, it's going to be circular. So to say that it's circular in that fallacious sense is to have a complete misunderstanding of the methodology and a complete understanding as to how reasoning works with regards to our ultimate intellectual commitments.
23:37: Okay? Now in defense of Dr. Turek, he did say with humility, and this is what
23:42: I respect about Dr. Turek, he says it's circular. He says, but if I'm correct, if I'm understanding this correctly, and I'm happy he said that because that leaves room for fruitful interaction to kind of interact and explain more clearly what we mean by this, that, or the other thing.
24:03: Okay? All right. So just real quick, as I continue on, I want to replay the video and stop at certain points.
24:09: But if you have any questions, please put them in the chat and I will try my best towards the end to get to them.
24:16: If you can label it questions so that I can differentiate that between the many comments that are going on.
24:21: Sometimes in the comment section, people are having their own separate debates. So I have to scroll through. So if you label it, don't point me to a pre, if you have a question, you know, send it in.
24:31: I'll try my best to get to it. Okay. So let us again, begin from the beginning.
24:36: And then I'm going to stop at some strategic points here. So to say that you need the
24:41: Bible in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the
24:47: Bible. There's a lot of debate among Christians as to like, which method of apologetics is the best you have, like the classical evidentialist approach.
24:57: And then you also have the presuppositionalist approach and you tend to come from more of like an evidentialist approach.
25:02: And so I was wondering, what is your opinion on presuppositional apologetics?
25:08: And why do you come from more of a classical perspective? First of all, I was taught by Norman Geisler, who is the Michael Jordan, sorry, the
25:14: Kobe Bryant or the Steph Curry or whoever you want to use, Michael Jordan's my generation, of the classical approach.
25:23: And I think it makes more sense. The problem I have with presuppositionalism, if I understand it, maybe
25:29: I'm misunderstanding it, but it's circular because it says in order for you to show the Bible's true, you have to assume it's true.
25:36: How does that make any sense? And we just explained how that makes sense.
25:42: When we differentiate the nature of ultimate authority.
25:48: So when Frank says in order to prove the Bible's true, you need to assume that the Bible is true. I would even adjust that.
25:55: I think that's a very simplistic way of putting it. And again, this is a Q and A. I don't expect him to go into a vast amount of detail, but I would even go as far to say, to make a more robust and more bold claim that unless the worldview put forth in scripture is true, then one couldn't prove anything at all, much less the
26:14: Bible true without the worldview of scripture, you couldn't prove anything at all. Now, you know, those of you who might have an issue with me saying that that's just the transcendental claim, right?
26:25: I'm not saying anything that's different than what I would say when I'm arguing a transcendental argument for the Christian worldview.
26:31: Okay. And an interesting thing is that the biblical worldview also encapsulates the notion that all men know the
26:39: God of the Bible, right? Again, there are different views out there. And I know that Dr.
26:45: Turk comes from a more Thomistic understanding. I don't know what he holds with regards to the knowledge of God. If it is, if the knowledge of God is apprehended immediately through the created order or immediately kind of, we know it inherent given our own human constitution or a little bit of both.
27:00: I don't know where he stands. But to my understanding, I think he holds the immediate view when that's why natural theology comes into the picture.
27:09: But the biblical worldview encapsulates the notion that all men know the God of the Bible. And this, this is important.
27:15: And this was true even before the Bible was written, since the world was never deprived of God's self -revelation.
27:24: God has been revealing himself from the beginning. And that revelation is not just through the created order externally.
27:30: It is also revealed to man within his own constitution. And that's why in Romans 1, we're told man is without an apologetic.
27:38: He's without an excuse. So for instance, the truth of Romans 1 did not become true.
27:45: Once Roman, Romans 1 was penned rather Romans 1 was written or rather Romans 1.
27:53: It was a written form of a truth that was true in light of the fact that man was created as the imago
28:00: Deas, the image of God. And it is because all men are the image of God that he knows
28:05: God. Okay. And this knowledge of God is constitutional. It is within his very being.
28:11: I would argue that man's conscious, the consciousness of self is simultaneous with the consciousness of God such that when man is conscious of himself, he is in direct con contact contact, sorry, with his creator.
28:25: But because of the entrance of sin into the picture, this knowledge that all men have is suppressed as per Romans chapter one.
28:32: Now, this knowledge of God is not simply ascertained by observation.
28:39: Okay. Well, I would agree the heavens declare the glory of God. Um, when we speak of, of the knowledge of God through the created order externally, that is immediate knowledge, media.
28:49: It is mediated through the created order. Okay. So this knowledge of God is not simply ascertained by observation of the created order, immediate knowledge, but as the imago
28:59: Deas, as the image of God, this knowledge is known immediately in light of the fact that man is conscious.
29:06: He's knowing God is simply part of the constitution of man. And because we live and move and have our being in him, man lives quorum day before the face of God.
29:18: God is the atmosphere. He is the atmosphere in which man exists.
29:25: Okay. So I think this is a very important key thing to keep in mind. Uh, the, the, the very surface level critique, which, which
29:33: I'm, I'm completely fine with because it's a Q and a, I didn't expect them to go in deeper. There is a lot more to unpack here.
29:40: And there's a lot of, um, dare I say presuppositions that go into such a surface understanding of the issue, but again, it's a
29:48: Q and a, I want to give Dr. Turk the benefit of the doubt. Okay. So let's, let's continue. Right.
29:55: Um, now I do agree that there are certain presuppositions we all have like the laws of logic.
30:01: Okay. I'm going to stop right here. Okay. So now here's an interesting thing. Okay. I see a lot of people do this when they desire to throw a bone to the presupposition list.
30:09: So we punch you in the gut. We say, Oh, it's circular, but they're correct. Um, about the nature of presuppositions.
30:16: Okay. Now I'm not saying he's doing that, but, um, people often, uh, do this as though it's kind of like, yeah,
30:22: I'm kind of jiving a little bit with the presupposition list, but let me tell you something. Um, the idea that we all have presuppositions is not an insight made by presupposition lists.
30:31: Okay. That's not, it's not an essential feature, uh, or it is an essential feature, but it's not a, um, something that was pointed out by presupposition lists.
30:40: We all recognize that we have presuppositions and that presuppositions inform the way we interpret reality and things like that.
30:47: The real question is, are our presuppositions correct? Can we demonstrate the truth of our presuppositions?
30:55: Okay. If our presuppositions govern our interpretation of reality, how do we know that our interpret our presuppositions are correct?
31:03: And what grounds those presuppositions? Okay. Um, and there's a common misunderstanding.
31:09: Um, and in my discussion with, with the atheist, Tom jump, um, he, he seemed to have this understanding that a presupposition by definition cannot be demonstrated because it's your, it's your presupposition, right?
31:21: There's nothing more foundational than that. Um, and this seems to be a common misconception, um, by folks while it is true that presuppositions are not demonstrated by an appeal to something more fundamental than, than, than the presupposition itself, you can demonstrate the truth of a presupposition by demonstrating its transcendental necessity.
31:41: And that's precisely what the transcendental argument seeks to do. And, and, and perhaps we'll get into this in my discussion with, uh,
31:48: Douglas Douma, um, on the topic of Gordon Clark, uh, Gordon Clark as a presupposition was held to axioms.
31:56: He said that his axiom is the word of God and an axiom is a fundamental starting point. And by definition, axioms cannot be demonstrated to be true.
32:04: They're just accepted and you build a system from that. Okay. Now, when you build the system from that, you know, you judge the, the, the, the value of that system based on its consistency.
32:16: And so Gordon Clark argued the Christian worldview was beautifully consistent and that it is quite simple to show the inconsistencies in these other worldview systems.
32:25: Van Till, Greg Bonson, and the presuppositionalists that I would follow and people along this line, um, wouldn't argue in that fashion.
32:34: We wouldn't say that our foundation is axiomatic in the sense that it's impossible to demonstrate it because that would be a sort of fideism.
32:45: Okay. All right. There's the popular claim, R .C. Sproul made this claim against the presuppositional methodology that presuppositionalism is fideism.
32:54: It's not okay. Gordon Clark's apologetic was a sort of fideism and it seemed to be,
33:01: I'm not a Clarkian scholar, but it seemed that Clark didn't even have a problem with being called a fideist. But Van Till and the word fideism do not match.
33:11: Okay. Because unlike Clark and unlike other fideists, Cornelius Van Till and Greg Bonson believed that the
33:18: Christian worldview is objectively provable. It is not just an appeal to an authority and that's it.
33:25: As you saw, as you, and that seemed to be hinted at when, um, Dr. Turek said something towards the end, which we'll, which we'll get to with regards to, um, why he thinks
33:35: Jesus was an evidentialist. Okay. Uh, we'll, we'll save it for, for just a few moments, but, but these things are super important to understand.
33:42: There's a lot more to unpack again in the defense of Dr. Turek. This is just a quick Q and A. Um, but let us, uh, let us continue.
33:53: Yeah. And that's why the book stealing from God says that when somebody is trying to suggest there's no
33:58: God, they're actually stealing from God to argue against him because logic and reason wouldn't exist unless there's a mind out there that is endowed reality with those things.
34:10: Okay. Actually, I want to, let me play it a couple of more. Yeah. And that's why I think to a degree, it's almost like two sides of the same coin, like what we're both saying, except I think with evidentialist approach, you're kind of starting with neutrality and saying like, you can, you know, if you're a non -believer, like you can reason like in a neutral standpoint.
34:29: And what I think the presuppositionists are saying is like with Romans chapter one, you know, we suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
34:35: And so like, if we're just throwing facts at people that are non -believers, it's in our sinful nature to reject those things.
34:42: And so you have to start with the Bible to be able to understand laws of logic.
34:47: And let me, let me find out one thing. There were, there were thousands of Christians before the Bible was ever written.
34:54: So to say that you need the Bible in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the
35:01: Bible. I guess I should say, start with God. Well, okay. Let's, let's stop there real quick.
35:09: Let me click through here, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. All right.
35:15: Okay. So the questioner actually is onto something because I think he is touching on an issue that is actually implicitly assumed, presupposed within Frank Turek's apologetic methodology and the methodology of many of our classical brothers.
35:31: And that is the assumption of autonomy and neutrality with regards to man's ability to acquire knowledge, right?
35:40: So we walk them through, we say, Hey, you know, we can show you God exists without appealing to revelation, right?
35:47: That is an assumed neutrality. That's a neutral approach. It presupposes autonomous reasoning.
35:53: Now there are the twin poisons, twin intellectual poisons that presuppositionalists talk about ad nauseum that I think is correct, that we need to recognize.
36:01: And that is the, the twin poisons of neutrality and autonomous reasoning, which
36:06: I think the questioner is actually spot on. And so, but again, there's, there's more to be fleshed out there obviously, but neutrality, this idea of neutrality is a very, very important aspect of some of these more traditional methodologies.
36:23: And that's not to say that the classicalist says I want to be neutral. It's not necessarily the case that the classical is saying, yes,
36:30: I want to be neutral and I want to assume the autonomy of human reasoning. Some people do that, but not all of them.
36:36: Okay. But what Dan Till tried to point out and what Dr. Bonson tried to point out, that is if you don't want to assume autonomy and neutrality in your apologetic methodology, you need to be careful that it doesn't secretly sneak in to your methodology.
36:49: And I think that's the case here. Let's talk a little bit about neutrality for a moment. We like to call it as presuppositionalist, the myth of neutrality.
36:58: The myth of neutrality is, pardon, the mistaken notion that one can approach the question of God's existence in an unbiased fashion, right?
37:08: In a no one knows as of yet sort of mindset. Okay. A neutral approach to apologetics grants the unbeliever's position that he is ignorant of God and that all he needs is to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
37:21: You guys have heard this in a lot of the classicalist sort of debates. And it's quite possible, however improbable, that the evidence can lead away from God.
37:29: Okay. Now I would imagine Dr. Turek does not believe that the evidence will point away, but in principle it could point away.
37:35: Okay. Because we are neutral, we are autonomous, and you know, people come to different conclusions.
37:41: Now, in essence, the neutral apologist will maintain that there are good, independent, unbiased reasons that can lead you to the conclusion that God exists.
37:51: You've heard this phraseology. But again, if you're a classical apologist and you don't use that phraseology, then great.
37:57: If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it, right? But some people do say that, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
38:03: Now, to not adopt a neutral and open -minded approach for many is to really commit oneself to what many deem as an unreasonable form of dogmatism, right?
38:14: We need to be open -minded. We need to be neutral and autonomous in this regard. Indeed, it is a sign of philosophical immaturity, we'd be told, to be positive and dogmatic on any subject.
38:24: We must be open -minded and untainted by the mythical notion of certainty and allow the noble engine of doubt to guide and lead our inquiries as, you know, obviously not that dramatic.
38:36: But when the apologist adopts a neutral approach in presenting his or her case for God, you know, the existence of God is then at that point relegated to probability.
38:46: And that's precisely what we see in the apologetic of Dr. Turek, the apologetic of William Lane Craig, and others like him.
38:53: The existence of God is relegated to probability, possibility, contingency. And even if the apologist believes that God most certainly exists and is the ground and necessary foundation for all things, the neutral approach will manifest a method of argumentation that does not assume those fundamental biblical presuppositions and cause the apologist's method to be inconsistent in his practice.
39:17: So even if you don't hold to neutrality and autonomy, if your method implicitly assumes it, then there's an issue of inconsistency there.
39:24: Okay? Now, to be neutral in one's apologetic would require the believer to cast aside his believing presuppositions in order to approach the question of God in an, quote, unbiased fashion, right?
39:40: And like fashion, the unbeliever asserts that he too will approach the question of God's existence with an open mind, since he's committed to following the evidence wherever it leads.
39:50: But Dr. Bonson, I think, warned us Christians of the myth of neutrality.
39:56: And I think this is very, very important. Dr. Bonson pointed out that when we're asked to be neutral in our approach and to assume autonomous reasoning in our approach, he said that the unbeliever is not neutral and you shouldn't be either.
40:10: This idea of simply following the evidence wherever it goes or wherever it points is not the issue, because we need to deal with the presuppositional issue.
40:19: We need to deal with fundamental authority. Okay? In the presuppositional terminology, neutrality is called the myth of neutrality because neutrality really doesn't exist.
40:30: No one's really neutral. They can't be. Okay? So let's take the encounter between the
40:35: Bible -believing Christian and the skeptic who claims that he lacks belief in God and simply needs to be shown the evidence.
40:44: Now, it would appear that the skeptic is taking an unbiased and neutral position with respect to the existence of God.
40:52: However, according to the Christian position, the Bible teaches that all men know that God exists, and they're without excuse, as per Romans 1.
41:03: Now, again, the skeptic may deny that there is a profound way in which he actually does know that God exists, but in his denial, his non -neutral posture is revealed in that he begins from the start with a rejection of the truth of the
41:18: Christian position, which teaches that there is no one who, quote, lacks belief.
41:24: This is very important. Okay? Now, we need to be able to point these things out and not just to simply swipe them under the rug.
41:34: No one is neutral. No one is neutral. If the Bible says all men have a knowledge of God, whatever that knowledge is contained, such that they're without excuse,
41:41: I'm not going to engage with the unbeliever and argue in a fashion and assume that that's not the case because in that instance,
41:49: I would not be arguing and thinking and reasoning in a way that's faithful to Scripture. Okay? So I think the questioner here points out something very important, the assumptions of neutrality and autonomy with regards to man's ability.
42:03: And of course, Dr. Turek points to his book, Stealing from God, which by the way, I highly recommend. It's a very good book.
42:08: I honestly am saying that I'm not trying to be overly respectful and nice.
42:14: No, it's a great book. You should pick it up. Okay? But the way
42:19: Dr. Turek appeals to the presuppositions is not the same way the presuppositionalist will.
42:26: Okay? And this is not the case of Dr. Turek using presuppositionalism.
42:31: He uses presuppositions as an evidentialist, not as a presuppositionalist.
42:36: I had this issue when I had Dr. Hugh Ross come on my show. Dr.
42:41: Ross and Jason Lyle had a debate slash dialogue on my show. It was a great episode.
42:47: You guys should check it out if you haven't checked it out already. But there was an issue here where Dr.
42:54: Ross said something to the effect that sometimes I'm an evidentialist and sometimes
43:00: I'm a presuppositionalist. And that's simply not possible. You cannot dip in and out of methodologies and be consistent.
43:10: Okay? Remember, when the presuppositionalist appeals to evidence, that does not mean they are being evidential in the methodological sense.
43:21: And when the evidentialist or the classicalist appeals to presuppositions, that is not the same as them adopting for a time presuppositionalism.
43:31: Since a classical apologist and an evidential apologist will often appeal to presuppositions, the appeal to presuppositions is not what makes you a presuppositionalist, right?
43:42: There's a big difference there. So it is very important to keep these things in mind.
43:48: All right? Let's continue a little bit more. That's what
43:54: Paul does. He starts with God on Mars Hill in Acts 17, and he says,
44:00: I see you have an alter to an unknown God here. Let me tell you who that unknown God is. But the presuppositionalist...
44:06: And who is that unknown God? Who is that unknown God? Who is the God that the Apostle Paul appeals to?
44:12: Okay? Does he appeal to a theistic general
44:19: God, or does he appeal to the one who has appointed Jesus Christ to be judge over everyone, who will judge both the living and the dead?
44:30: Right? So whereas Paul starts with God, he doesn't start with God in the same way the classicalist seems to put forth their methodology, in my humble opinion.
44:41: Okay? It feels weird, but I have to keep saying this over and over again. I so respect
44:47: Dr. Turek. I think God is using his ministry. As I said before, God can strike a blow with a crooked stick.
44:55: Okay? And I too, I too am a crooked stick. I don't have all this stuff down and all the philosophy behind it.
45:03: I'm sure that if I were to sit down with Dr. Turek and talk about apologetic methodology, he'd probably bring up some points where I have to be like, you know what?
45:12: I have to go home and think about that. Or someone like Dr. Richard Howe. Again, I disagree with him, but he's a brilliant guy and I like to learn from these folks.
45:21: So I'm definitely not saying this in a way that is meant to be disrespectful in any way or anything like that.
45:28: Listen, the Christian community, the Christian community, okay, is a mixed bag in terms of how
45:38: God uses us, right? We're not perfect. We're broken people. We're trying to understand scripture and how these things connect together.
45:45: And we come off on different sides of the spectrum. But our prayer is in a sense for unity in that even in the midst of our important diversities, that God's glory is still manifested.
45:58: We are still conducting ourselves in a way that is honoring to Christ. And I think folks like Dr. Turek, Dr. Craig, and others within the classical tradition,
46:06: I do, I think do very, very good, very well. Excuse me. All right, let's, let's continue.
46:15: That you have to assume the Bible's true in order to prove it just seems so circular to me. Now, again, maybe
46:21: I'm missing something, but I think Jesus was an evidentialist. How do I know? Because when a representative of John the
46:27: Baptist came to him and said, are you the real Messiah, or should we wait for somebody else? Jesus didn't say, well, just have faith.
46:34: Just believe. What did he say? Look at the signs. Okay. Look at that. Okay. There we go. There we go.
46:39: Okay. That caught my attention. Jesus is an evidentialist because when they,
46:46: Jesus pointed to the evidence, he didn't just say, just believe as though that's what the presuppositionalist is saying.
46:55: Right? So, so the evidentialist is pointing to the evidence and the presuppositionalist is just saying, just believe that's fideism.
47:04: Just believe that's not, that's not the presuppositionalist claim, right? We appeal to evidence because we think everything is evidence for God.
47:13: Everything. Everything is evidence for God. Everything bears his, his fingerprints, right?
47:20: It points to the creator, the one and only creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Okay.
47:26: So, Jesus was not an evidentialist in the sense that he assumed neutrality and autonomy with regards to man's reasoning capacity, right?
47:36: Because he too would believe that God and himself comes with an authority that is never validated by something more ultimate than himself.
47:45: Okay. So again, there's a lot of issues in this perspective. This is a
47:50: Q and A. So I'm sure there are longer discussions that Dr. Turek has on the topic, which you know, if someone has a video link,
47:59: I'll, I'll check it out and, and give it a listen. But that's it for the main content of this response.
48:07: I hope some of my insights were helpful. I do apologize if some of my words are not as philosophically precise as, as some of the people who might be listening.
48:16: There are some people who are far more philosophically astute than I am. And I'm still learning in a lot of ways.
48:22: But that's just, I just wanted to share my thoughts with regards to this short video clip.
48:28: Now, without further ado, let's take some questions from the chat. All right. Here we go.
48:35: I feel guilty today because I cheated on my, my, oh,
48:42: I have to be careful. My third love. Okay. God, family, and coffee.
48:48: Okay. Instead of having real coffee, the drink of the true apologist who stays up late at night and live streams and studies and blah, blah, blah.
48:59: I had decaf tonight. Okay. So, but I have, I I'm still energized.
49:05: I'm still energized. I'm ready to go. Hopefully I can be able to help out with some of these questions.
49:11: If I don't know the answer, I'll let you know. So I have no problem saying, saying that. All right.
49:16: So let's see here. Okay. So here's a question. Okay.
49:22: Regarding falsification, I get why you and others say tag is unfalsifiable, but would you agree that there is a sense in which tag is falsifiable?
49:32: Even Bosterman says in his book on page 158, that I'd have to check the, the reference there.
49:39: I don't know what Bosterman's view is on that, but I would say if I were to use hypotheticals, it could be falsified.
49:49: If you can ground knowledge and intelligibility within a worldview, that's not the Christian worldview, right?
49:56: That's the claim. The proof of the truth of the Christian worldview is that if it weren't true, you couldn't prove anything at all. Basically what we're saying is that the
50:03: Christian worldview provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience, knowledge, or whatever. And the way the unbeliever should respond to say, well,
50:12: I don't have a Christian worldview and here's how I ground those things. And there you have the conflict of worldviews.
50:18: You have the conflict of those perspectives. And that's precisely what the transcendental argument wants to bring out.
50:25: I want to present the Christian worldview, the circle, the system.
50:32: I want to present that from the Christian perspective and show how it answers these fundamental questions and hence provides the necessary precondition for intelligible experience.
50:40: And I want the unbeliever to lay out his case. I want him to do that, right? So, so if, if he thinks he can falsify the
50:48: Christian worldview, I would say he can't, but he's welcome to try. And that's why we have the the apologetic interaction.
50:55: Okay. But within my worldview, there is no possibility above God.
51:01: And hence I could never say it's possible to falsify God because he's the ultimate. But if, if you wanted to say kind of in principle,
51:08: I suppose if they could successfully do this, but I think the history of is bore out that that is not something that is a very optimistic, an optimistic endeavor to pursue.
51:20: I think that unbelieving worldviews definitely have internal issues, especially with leading to things like solipsism and different forms of skepticism and, and just are not able to ground, you know, truth, knowledge, science, philosophy, history, all these things like the
51:37: Christian worldview can. Again, I'm making the claim, but obviously that's going to have to be more out in a, in a fruitful interaction.
51:43: Okay. Hope that makes sense. Okay. Let's see here. All right, here we go.
51:51: It's a statement, the transcendental proof for Christianity sufficiently overturned, even if one alternative position is viable on its own terms.
51:58: Yes, on its own terms. But that's precisely what I already said at the beginning there. Okay. So let's see here.
52:05: There's the same, same individual as a Christian. I don't believe tag can be disproven, but couldn't we still say it is falsifiable in theory?
52:14: I think I just addressed that. Okay. There we go. Let's see. Let's see. Hmm. Good morning from the
52:21: Philippines. Good morning. Nighttime over here. I'm going to scroll through. Okay.
52:30: Here's a question from planting this bulldog. Uh, you know what it is? How about that open theism?
52:36: What are your problems with open theism and more specific than it's not biblical? Well, um,
52:43: I I'm, I'm going to stick to my guns and say, that's my main problem with it. It's unbiblical.
52:49: It has a false conception of the nature of God's knowledge. Okay. That is precisely.
52:57: I am again, I think our, our, our commitment to scripture is vitally important here.
53:03: I would, I don't, I don't have any qualms about saying, well, because it's unbiblical because that's precisely why
53:08: I reject it. It has a fault, a faulty view of God's the nature of God's knowledge.
53:14: Okay. Um, because I believe the Bible does teach that God knows the future. Um, and God knows the sorts of things that open theists say that he doesn't.
53:23: Okay. And I think that that can be demonstrated, uh, biblically and has been done. So, um, in various, um, literature that folks would might, might be interesting to, uh, might be interested to check out.
53:34: I think John frame wrote a book on open theism, um, that I thought was pretty good. I might have it somewhere around here.
53:39: Let me see here. Maybe I'll, I'll look for it later. Somewhere around there. Okay. All right.
53:46: Let's see here. Planting is bulldog. I love that name. That's so internet ish.
53:53: Everyone on the internet has some interesting names. All right. Let's see here. Is that a question?
54:01: Is that a question? Are you some authority down? Yeah. Uh, Martin, uh,
54:10: Martin Luther, not the Martin Luther. Uh, but Martin Luther says many of Turks arguments are amazing when they are presuppositional.
54:18: Um, yeah, again, I don't think you could jump in and out of the methodologies, but when he argues in, in what seems to be very presuppositional ish,
54:27: I think, yeah, he does present really great arguments. That's why I highly recommend, uh, his book stealing from It's a great book.
54:33: So folks should definitely check it out. All right. Let's see here. Um, is this a question?
54:44: I see. Okay. No, there's no labeling the question. Okay. No, that's not a question. Let's see here.
55:01: Hmm. I don't see.
55:07: Come on guys. You guys could ask more questions than that. Let's see here. I don't have enough evidence to be an evidential.
55:19: I love it. That's good. All right. Here we finally, finally, finally got a question. Here we go. Here we go. Okay. So, uh, is it possible to reject natural theology whilst maintaining full adherence to the confession?
55:31: Um, I, to be perfectly honest, I don't know the ins and outs of the confession.
55:38: Um, regrettably, uh, my church experience, I have not been tied very much to a confession. I loosely hold to the
55:43: London Baptist on a personal level. Um, and that's something I definitely, um, actually I have been thinking about recently, something
55:50: I need to be more intentional about connecting with the confessions and really getting a grasp as to, um, what it says with regards to these issues.
55:56: So, um, I don't know, um, the issue of rejecting natural theology as it relates to the confession there.
56:03: So I do apologize. Okay. Let's see here. Is this a circularity?
56:08: Is this a problem brother? Which authority are you appealing to when you make assertions would be a good question to ask him?
56:13: Yes, that's right. We're always appealing to an authority when we make assertions.
56:19: And if the authority is not God and his revelation, then it's going to be some other authority, right? Um, and that's very telling where your ultimate commitments lie.
56:28: And of course, as a presuppositionalist, we want to identify those commitments and show the weaknesses of it. And then hence show the strength of the
56:34: Christian ultimate foundation. And that's literally what you do when you're in the, um, the, um, the, the engagement of worldview versus worldview.
56:45: All right. Uh, Jacob asks, have you read Aquinas summa theologica, uh, prima pars? No, I have not read anything of Aquinas.
56:53: Um, you probably will stop listening to me and say, I can't believe you haven't read Aquinas. Listen, I want to read
56:59: Aquinas. I just don't have time to read Aquinas. Okay. I'm so busy being a father of three little kids, being a full -time teacher, and then doing this when
57:12: I catch the time, it, it does damage to my ability to read a lot of the things that I want to read.
57:19: So, uh, regrettably, no. Um, I have read bits and pieces of Aquinas.
57:24: I know enough that if someone says I'm Thomistic in my approach, I kind of know where they're coming from.
57:30: Uh, but it's definitely something I would love to, spend more time, uh, with.
57:36: Okay. Let's see here.
57:45: Okay. All right. So Dr. Bonson to one of his students, uh, says, so it all comes down to which authority you decide to hold onto, right?
57:54: Yes, that's precisely right. Everyone has an authority. The person who says they have no authority has an authority.
57:59: Okay. It's going to either be their own rational capacity. Maybe they're, you know, if they're an empiricist or a rationalist, they're going to have some philosophical foundation that, that, that will be self -attesting within that system.
58:11: Okay. Whether they acknowledge it or not, your job as a presuppositionalist within the apologetic encounter is to expose that and to show it's self -refuting nature.
58:19: Okay. All right. Let's see here. Okay. Here's another question.
58:25: The Kuyperian Berean. Okay. Uh, not sure if you've covered it already. How do we as presuppers use evidence in an apologetic approach?
58:34: Also, have you read Vantil's Christian Theistic Evidences? Okay. A good question.
58:40: Um, I have not read, um, uh,
58:46: Vantil's Christian Theistic Evidences in its entirety. I've read portions of it, um, which is a good book, but I think a better book that's more manageable.
58:55: If you can get your hands on it, I might even be showing you something that you can get on the
59:00: Christian black market, if that's a real thing. This book right here, Vantil and the
59:06: Use of Evidence. If you could find it on a PDF or something, it's a tiny little book, but it is an excellent resource, uh, to talk about how to use evidences within a presuppositional, uh, framework.
59:18: And so the answer to the question, how would a presupper use evidence, um, in an apologetic approach is that you use evidence within the context of a consistent biblical worldview, acknowledging the proper sources of authority in the way that you present the evidence.
59:34: Okay. I'm a presuppositionalist, but I have written out the Kalam cosmological argument on a napkin at a party.
59:42: I was, uh, at a party, uh, it was me and some other guy who had the terrible, uh, job of watching the kids play while all the adults were, were talking in the kitchen.
59:52: So I'm, I'm here sitting on a couch. There's a complete stranger and other guys around the same age. Um, and we were watching kids play in a living room and he says, say, so, so what do you do for a living?
01:00:02: I'm like, well, I'm a teacher and I'm also a Christian apologist. And he says, well, what's that? And the conversation started.
01:00:09: And when we began to talk about evidences for God, I brought up the Kalam cosmological argument and more issues of morality and things like that.
01:00:18: Presuppositionalist are allowed to use these. As a matter of fact, Van Til himself did not reject the use of many of the traditional proofs.
01:00:25: He just thought they needed to be reformulated in such a way that did not compromise our biblical commitments.
01:00:31: If you can talk about cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, axiological, you know, the moral arguments, things like that.
01:00:38: If you can do that in such a way that is consistent with your presuppositional commitment to the truth of God's word and his revelation, then go for it.
01:00:46: I think that's a really, um, you know, a really good way of going about it.
01:00:51: Hey, listen, when we're engaged in conversation with people, I'm not always talking about transcendental arguments.
01:00:57: If you are an internet apologist, that's a different kind of apologetic than if you are doing apologetics within the context of conversation with someone.
01:01:07: Okay. The average Christian is not doing apologetics on the internet. A lot are okay.
01:01:14: A lot are, but many Christians aren't. And so when we equip people to defend the faith, we want to be careful to cater, um, how we equip them to the specific context in which they find themselves.
01:01:29: So when I'm talking to the person on the street, or I'm talking to some young person or whatever,
01:01:35: I rarely am bringing up transcendental necessities and presuppositions and things like that.
01:01:42: One of the things that you want to try to do as an apologist is master the method.
01:01:48: Okay. Which I would call the biblical method of apologetics master the method and then dress the method with the language of the common man and use that within your day to day interactions.
01:02:02: I mean, look at Cornelius Van Til's work. I mean, his work is very philosophical, very theological, but that's because his, um, interactions required him to learn the language of the philosophers.
01:02:14: And so he interacted with them in that way, but we're not all interacting with the philosophers we're interacting with, with family members, people at work.
01:02:23: We need to learn to, um, master the method, a biblical approach of apologetics, and then dress the method with the language that fits our context, uh, context so that we can be all things to all people that we are able to reach people in our community for Christ.
01:02:39: Now, this is, this is important and I don't want to get all preachy here, but this is so important. You need to be very, very careful in being stuck in the intellectual clouds of apologetic study.
01:02:51: Eventually you're going to have to come down from those clouds and actually talk to someone. Okay. And, and, and you're talking to someone who is made in the image of God and needs to hear the gospel.
01:03:02: So you need to know how to make those transitions from the intellectual rigor of talking about transcendentals and universals and all that to the average person, because ultimately the task of apologetics is not to show the person how smart you are.
01:03:18: The task of apologetics is to honor God and share the gospel with people who need to know
01:03:24: Jesus. I think that's very, very important. All right. Let's, uh, there we go.
01:03:30: Thoughts on that. Okay. Uh, thoughts on the proslogion. Uh, if you're talking about, um, the ontological argument with regards to Anselm's formulation of it, um,
01:03:41: I have not read, I've read the argument in the proslogion, if I'm getting the book, correct. I mean, I'm disappointing a lot of people.
01:03:47: I'm often told that I'm very well -spoken. And so it gives the impression that I'm super educated and I, I am educated.
01:03:55: Okay. I do know what I'm talking about, but I haven't read all of the great, you know, apologists and philosophers of the past.
01:04:02: I've had snippets here and there, and I've been able to make do with what I have. So apologies. I haven't read the proslogion in its entirety, but I did, if it is
01:04:11: Anselm's work and it's, it's referring to the, um, the ontological argument, I have read the ontological argument.
01:04:17: And if you're asking me, what do I think with regards to that argument? If it's valid? Um, in my understanding,
01:04:23: I do think it's valid. I think there's something to that argument. Um, and there perhaps is some use for it.
01:04:29: Um, it's just that me personally, I don't tend to use the ontological argument when I'm interacting with folks. Okay.
01:04:34: I hope that's not way off. Okay. Maybe someone gave me a thumbs up. If I, if I got that right, the ontological argument proslogion.
01:04:41: Okay. It's been a while. It's been a while. All right. Okay. Let's see here.
01:04:47: I hope my answers are helpful. Let's see here. No, see, see it's questions like this.
01:04:57: How does the baptism of infants maintain consistency with the regulative principle?
01:05:03: I don't know. I I'm actually Baptist in my theology, so I don't actually hold to infant baptism again, probably going to lose my
01:05:11: Presbyterian friends. Um, how could I hold to this position? I am friends with a man who knew
01:05:18: Bonson personally, and he tried to convince me of infant baptism in his office.
01:05:23: It was very bright guy. He actually debate. My friend actually debated Dr. James White on this very topic.
01:05:30: Okay. Um, his name is pastor Bill Shishko. Awesome guy. Um, he is a part of the, the OPC, the
01:05:35: Orthodox Presbyterian church, and he debated James White on the topic of infant baptism. And I think in my opinion, out of, out of all the debates that Dr.
01:05:44: White had on that topic, pastor Bill Shishko was probably the better of his opponents. But at the end of the day,
01:05:49: I wasn't convinced. And so I don't hold to infant baptism. All right. Okay.
01:05:55: There we go. Let's see here. Remember moving along. I have to scroll through some of the comments.
01:06:07: So please be, uh, let's see here. Not a question.
01:06:13: I sent the video to Cameron Lane, Craig, Peter Hitchens, Eric Madetix, Peter Schiff, some of the atheists like Spanaker and a few others.
01:06:20: I can't recall at the time. Well, I don't have Twitter, so I wouldn't know. All right. Let me see here.
01:06:30: Okay. There we go. Yes. Yes. I do shout outs. Hello, Jordan.
01:06:36: How's it going? I hope everything's well. All right. Moving along. Okay. That's, that's it.
01:06:45: Uh, yeah, the Norwegian needs to discuss it. And then we have last point here.
01:06:54: Will you have the Norwegian noose on to discuss orthodoxy since Hank told you himself, he probably wasn't the best person for you to go to.
01:07:01: Um, yeah, that's something I would think about. Um, I, I definitely want to, um, organize a debate.
01:07:08: Now, the reason why I want to organize a debate is because I learn that maybe you can relate to this.
01:07:13: I learned through conflict. Okay. I learned more through conflict of ideas, arguing it out, working it out right there.
01:07:22: And then, then sticking my head in a book, especially because I don't have time to read as many books as I'd like.
01:07:28: Debates are very helpful to me because I have enough background knowledge to kind of know where everyone's coming from. So I was interested in organizing a debate between, uh,
01:07:38: Jay Dyer and Dr. James White. And I had reached out to Dr. White and he had expressed to me that he would be interested.
01:07:46: Um, although nothing solidified, he just said in passing, he would be interested in doing something like that. Um, we'll see,
01:07:52: I'll try to touch base with him. I know he's trying to set up his own debate studio and things where he can do, uh, you know, he's doing a bunch of things over there at Alpha and Omega.
01:07:59: Um, so hopefully, um, once he says, yeah, I wouldn't mind doing that.
01:08:04: I'll reach out to Jay and we'll try to set something up and we'll get an interesting, and I think hopefully a very fruitful and beneficial, um, interaction debate dialogue on the issues of, um, orthodoxy or maybe, you know, sola scriptura or something like that.
01:08:18: So, um, definitely, um, something I want to do in the future.
01:08:24: Okay. Um, let's see here. Somebody who leans heavily in the direction of free will doctrine going to be open to precept.
01:08:33: Um, yeah, that, that, that's what you see. That's a really good question.
01:08:39: Okay. That's a good question because it really touches on the issue of the relationship between presuppositional methodology and reform theology.
01:08:49: You have to understand something that when Cornelius Van Til developed, um, the presuppositional method.
01:08:55: Okay. Um, he did it in a way so as to be consistent with a reformed understanding of, of God, man, things like that.
01:09:05: Um, so Van Til had in his writings, his views of, of, uh, from the
01:09:10: Calvinistic perspective, um, with regards to God's decree, right.
01:09:17: And, uh, versus views that hold to kind of a libertarian view. So there might be a connection there.
01:09:23: This is a question I want to pursue a little bit more. Um, but people who tend to be more on the libertarian free will side don't tend to be presuppositionalist because there are some inherent philosophical and theological commitments that go along with that.
01:09:38: Um, but it depends who you talk to. I know there has been an increase in Eastern Orthodox folks, uh, utilizing a presuppositional approach, whether they're doing that consistently,
01:09:46: I think is an interesting topic to pursue. Okay. Uh, but again, um, that would be a topic that would require a little bit more, uh, detail in laying out.
01:09:56: All right. All right. Well, um, I have to teach tomorrow and I don't want to lose my voice.
01:10:02: So I hope, and I genuinely hope that this episode has been, um, fruitful informative.
01:10:09: Um, I I'm hoping that you guys are enjoying the content. Uh, my, my hope and my dream is to one day do this full time.
01:10:15: Uh, so, so hopefully, um, you guys can share this video, put the content out there and maybe, maybe this is something
01:10:22: I could, um, uh, kind of devote more time to, and maybe be able to answer some of the questions, uh, that I wasn't able to answer due to my, my own ignorance.
01:10:31: So, um, so as a favor, if it's okay, I have no qualms about asking, but, um, if you enjoy the content, please share these videos on your social media pages and all of the episodes, um, uh, go onto the
01:10:46: Revealed Apologetics podcast. So if you enjoy the content, write a positive review, um, on iTunes,
01:10:52: I'd greatly appreciate that. Um, also, um, Revealed Apologetics will be coming out with a website.
01:10:59: Okay. And it should be launching in a couple of weeks. All right. So I just want you guys to, uh, be aware of that.
01:11:05: I will give, uh, an announcement with regards to that and, um, a bunch of other stuff as well.
01:11:10: I'm still writing my book, the precept answer book. That's going to take a little while because of just the business of everything.
01:11:16: But, um, I just want to let you guys know those who take the time to listen to these videos. Um, I greatly, greatly appreciate you.
01:11:23: I appreciate the respectful interaction in the comments. And so, um, if I've said anything to misrepresent anyone's views,
01:11:29: I apologize. I'm just sharing my two bits, uh, with regards to this topic that I think is, is important.
01:11:35: Um, and with that, that's it for this episode, please stay tuned for Saturday with Doug Dahmer to talk about the philosophy and apologetic methodology of Gordon Clark.
01:11:45: All right. And of course, if you want to support Revealed Apologetics, um, show me some love with those super chats. Uh, definitely would appreciate those.
01:11:51: Um, and, uh, looking forward to connecting with you guys in the future. Take care and God bless.