Is Frank Turek Right About Presupp?

Presuppositional Apologetics, Gordon Clark, and Recommended Books

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. I don't remember the last time I did it. Maybe it was a week ago or maybe two weeks?

I'm not sure, 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. He's scheduled for Saturday at 1 p .m., and I'm looking forward to that.

We're gonna be covering an interesting topic that I think folks are gonna find very fascinating, especially those who are into the whole presuppositional methodology, the different methodologies under the umbrella of presuppositionalism.

So we're gonna be covering a very interesting topic, and that's the topic of the Philosophy and Apologetic Methodology of Gordon H. Clark. Now I always, when I have the opportunity, I always recommend folks read Gordon Clark.

Now he is labeled as a presuppositionalist. I do not follow his stream of thought, but there's a lot in his writings that are extremely helpful. You will find a big difference between reading someone like Gordon Clark and reading someone like Cornelius Van Til.

Gordon Clark 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 Clark. Here's a book by Dr. Clark.

This is a book that he's well known for. It is entitled A Christian View of Men and Things, so definitely a good read. If you're a presuppositionalist, more along the Van Tilian lines, and you obviously take issue with some of the points of Dr. Clark, you do have to appreciate his critiques of various unbelieving philosophies.

So if anything, you'll find his critiques and analysis of the history of philosophy very, very helpful. So this is A Christian View of Men and Things. Very good book. And of course, Gordon Clark's philosophical masterpiece, in my opinion, is his textbook on philosophy, and this guy here is called Thales to Dewey's.

I'll get 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 Christian analysis of the different philosophical perspectives.

So definitely a very, very worthy read. And those of you, of course, who are interested in presuppositional apologetics, I have to highly recommend the works of John Frame, Cornelius Van Til, An Analysis of His Thought.

Also a very good book. And Apologetics to the Glory of God, which was, had a more technical title, and I think this is the more updated version. Apologetics, a Justification of Christian Belief. So another highly recommended book.

And my favorite apologetics book ever. Okay, this is my, this is my top book for Christian apologetics that I highly recommend. Everyone, if you're watching now, open up a window, go on Amazon and order this book right now.

It is the best apologetics book that I ever read. And that is Classical Apologetics by R .C. 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. 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, I think this is a good book to, 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. Greg Bonson has critiqued this work as well. But it's good to have.

It's good to have. 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 up. 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, I'm sorry, commentary of the work of Cornelius Van Til. So excellent book, Van Til's Apologetic Readings and Analysis. Well, if you are joining me now, I see there are a couple people watching.

The, the title of this video is, well, what is the title of this video? Is Frank Turek correct about presuppositionalism? Now, let me first start off by saying a couple of things about Dr. Turek, okay?

Dr. Turek is, is a Christian apologist over there at Cross-Examined, and I've actually had Dr. Turek on my show. It was an excellent show. He's an awesome guy, super generous, and he is, he's quite intelligent.

Before I offer my critiques, and don't be, don't be thrown off of the thumbnail of this video. It seems as though I'm gonna go in and kind of, you know, be snarky towards him. I would never. I was told when you are doing YouTube videos to have catchy thumbnails, so, so perhaps I, my, I, my personality is much more nicer than what the thumbnail seems to imply, but I highly recommend Dr. Turek.

Now, I'm gonna say this as a hardcore presuppositionalist. Dr. Turek's most well-known book is, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, okay? 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.

I think I've, or 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 I gave it away to someone who I thought needed it, okay?

Now, that's coming from a presuppositionalist. Now, here's what I think is gonna be very helpful for people who are die-in-the-wool presuppositionalists, okay? 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?

When we're talking about specific evidences and arguments for, say, the resurrection of Jesus or, you know, arguments for God's existence, it's a good resource, and so, 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, and so I encourage fellow presuppositionalists to be widely read throughout the apologetic tradition. I mean, I'm not a classicalist, but I tried my best to read William Lane Craig.

I try my best to read someone like Dr. Turek, especially his book, Stealing from God, which is very, very presuppositional-ish, okay? I kind of joked around, the title of the book should have been Stealing from Bonson, but I'm completely kidding.

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, 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, and I highly respect him and highly recommend his resources, little video clips and things like that.

So with that said, I want to actually begin this episode with reading a text from Scripture, so I'm actually going to be reading from Hebrews 6, verse 13, okay? Hebrews 6, 13, all right? Now, I know this isn't the habit of apologetic YouTube channel.

They tend to cater to the general crowd, so you don't usually see someone have a Bible open, but I don't care. I'm a biblical apologist. I'm defending the 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, but I want to read here through Hebrews 6, verse 13. Here's what it says. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, 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, okay? That is a very important concept in Scripture, that there is no one higher than God, okay?

And so God is the supreme. He is the absolute. He is the ultimate authority within the believer's worldview, and so this is going to be very, very important, especially when we have discussions with other Christians regarding apologetic methodology, and 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?

That's going to be very, very important, because as, if you guys follow Dr. James White's channel, The Dividing Line, he talks about this a lot, and I agree with him, 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, 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.

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. Of course, there are other verses as well. All right, well, before I actually invite Dr. Turek on, he's not physically here, but we'll add him to the screen there, and then we'll play the video, 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.

He's got a book, and I think to my knowledge, it is the only biography written about Gordon Clark. It's called The Presbyterian Philosopher, The Authorized Biography of Gordon Clark. I read it, it is excellent.

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 Presbyterian denomination. You guys definitely want to take a look at that.

All right, so let's get started. As a precursor, this footage here is from a question and answer. I want to highlight that it is not as though Dr. Turek is going into an in-depth analysis of presuppositionalism and apologetic methodology.

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. 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. 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, 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. 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 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, and then you also have the presuppositionalist approach, and you tend to come from more of like an evidentialist approach.

And so I was wondering what is your opinion on presuppositional apologetics, 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 Kobe Bryant, or the Steph Curry, or whoever you want to use.

Michael Jordan's my generation of the classical approach, and I think it makes more sense. The problem I have with presuppositionalism, if I understand it, maybe 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.

How does that make any sense? Right? Now, I do agree that there are certain presuppositions we all have, like the laws of logic, and that's why the book Stealing from God says that when somebody is trying to suggest there's no 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 has endowed reality with those things.

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, you can, if you're a non-believer, you can reason in a neutral standpoint, and what I think the presuppositionalists are saying is, with Romans chapter one, we suppress the truth and unrighteousness, and so if we're just throwing facts at people that are non-believers, it's in our sinful nature to reject those things, and so you have to start with the Bible to be able to understand laws of logic.

Let me point out one thing. There were thousands of Christians before the Bible was ever written, so to say that you need the Bible in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the Bible.

I guess I should say, start with God. Well, that's what Paul does. He starts with God on Mars Hill in Acts 17, and he says, I see you 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 Bible's true in order to prove it just seems so circular to me.

Now again, maybe I'm missing something, but I think Jesus was an evidentialist. How do I know? Because when a representative of John the 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. What did he say? Look at the signs. Look at the evidence. Yeah, I am the Messiah. All right. Thank you.

All right. Okay. There's a lot there. Okay. Let's start with, where shall I start? Um, let's start with the claim that presuppositionalism is circular. And we've heard this before, right? This is not, um, uh, a surprise, right?

I mean, and again, one of the indicators that I know, um, 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.

And that's when the person claims that the problem with presuppositionalism is that it's circular, 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, uh, by Dr. Turek and other people who suggest that one of the flaws of presuppositional methodology is that it's, um, circular.

But, but again, this shows a complete lack of understanding of the nature of a presuppositionalism in particular and the nature of rational argumentation in general. Okay. But let's deal with this issue of circularity.

Okay. Uh, this was no surprise to Cornelius Van Til. Uh, Dr. Van Til did not recoil at the accusation that, um, the presuppositional form of argumentation was circular, but of course, he most definitely clarified, uh, the sort of circle that he had in mind.

So here's a quote from, uh, Dr. Van Til. He says, quote, the charge is made that we engage in circular reasoning. Now, if it be called circular reasoning, when we hold, when we hold it necessary to presuppose God, we are not ashamed of it because we are firmly convinced that all forms of reasoning that leave 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 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.

We are presupposing God, not merely as another fact of the universe. Okay. Now this is really important. Okay. Before I kind of go a little further. Okay. When we presuppose 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, uh, 13, what I read before the kind of fact that God is, is the sort of fact that gives meaning to facts.

Okay. Now, remember I said that, 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 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. That's really, really important, uh, to keep in mind, uh, 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 Bible's true because the Bible's true. And then there are circles that are fundamentally necessary given the nature of ultimate authorities. Okay. An example of the begging the question, um, fallacy, which is being asserted here.

Let's suppose we say that the Bible claims to be the word of God, right? And whatever the Bible claims is true. Therefore the Bible is the word of God that is fallacious. And that is by no means the nature of the presuppositional argument, right?

This is obviously fallacious since the opponent of the Christian faith is not going to accept the second premise, namely that whatever the Bible claims is, is true. Okay. Now, in another sense, it is true that for any argument for God's existence or the truth of the Bible must also presuppose God's existence and the truth of scripture.

I would, I would affirm that now this must be the case because of the very nature of God and scripture as being an ultimate criterion of truth. 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. We're talking about the foundation of fact itself. We do not demonstrate the existence of the ultimate God who is himself the ground and foundation for proof itself by appealing to some other more fundamental foundation.

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 God and his revelation would not be the ultimate standard of truth, would it?

Right? So, so, 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. So, so, uh, this is very, very important.

We're not saying, uh, in essence, what we're saying is that if we had to prove God's existence by appealing to something more ultimate and authoritative than him, then we're refuting ourselves. You see, that's why when someone asks me, I was in a debate.

Um, I don't remember who I was debating. I don't know if it was Tom jump or, um, there was a gentleman by the name of negation of P. Uh, I was a debate on modern day debates, um, on the existence of God.

I think it was, is Christianity true? Um, I think he asked me, is it possible? Is it possible that Christianity is false, right? Is it possible that God does not exist? And my answer to him was no, it's not possible.

Ah, it was Eric Murphy. Okay. I remember him. I had a debate with Eric Murphy. Uh, uh, I think he was on the talk heathen show. I think it's a sister podcast to the atheist experience. It was risk. It's entitled respectful dialogue with an atheist.

If you want to check it out on, on my channel. Um, and he asked me, is it possible for me to be wrong about God? And, and I told him, no, now he kind of got bent out of shape because of that. But, but think about it.

If I were to say that it's possible that the Christian worldview is false, then how could I then argue that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience, right? If that's my argument, how could I place something like contingency and possibility over my ultimate foundation?

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. And hence contingency is your ultimate authority because it stands over and above God from the Christian perspective.

And from the perspective that is consistent with, um, Hebrew six 13, where God says like, I, I, you know, he's, there was no one greater, uh, to him that he could swear by, um, within the Christian conception, contingency and possibility does not stand over God for God as the ultimate within the Christian worldview, what is possible and what is impossible is defined by God.

And so the God of scripture stands over possibility and contingency. You see, um, and if God holds that sort of authority to what can I appeal to that is more fundamental than that, that's why us presuppositionalists, we say that the authority of God is self attesting.

It is self attesting in that it cannot be validated by an appeal to something external to it and more fundamental than it. 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.

Okay. Now in defense of Dr. Turk, he did say with humility, and this is what I respect about Dr. Turk. He says it's circular. He says, but I, if I'm correct, if I'm understanding this correctly, and I, and I'm, and I'm happy he said that because that leaves room for a fruitful interaction to kind of interact and, and more and explain, uh, explain more clearly what we mean by this, that, or the other thing.

Okay. All right. So, uh, just real quick, as I continue on, I want to replay the video and stop at certain points. Uh, but if you have any questions, please put them in on the, uh, in the chat and I will try my best towards the end to get to them.

If you can label it questions so that I can differentiate that between the many comments that are going on, you know, 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. I'll try my best to get to it. Okay. So let us again, begin from the beginning. And then I'm going to stop at some strategic points here.

So to say that you need the Bible in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the 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.

And then you also have the presuppositionalist approach and you tend to come from more of a, like an evidentialist approach. And so I was wondering, what is your opinion on presuppositional apologetics?

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 Kobe Bryant or the Steph Curry or whoever you want to use.

Michael Jordan's my generation of the classical approach. And I think it makes more sense. The problem I have with presuppositionalism, if I understand it, maybe 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.

How does that make any sense?

And we just explained how that makes sense. Okay. When we differentiate, you know, the nature of ultimate authority. 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. I think that's a very simplistic way of putting it. And again, this is a Q &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 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? I'm not saying anything that's different than what I would say when I'm arguing a transcendental argument for the Christian worldview.

Okay. And an interesting thing is that the biblical worldview also encapsulates the notion that all men know the God of the Bible, right? Again, there are different views out there. And I know that Dr. Turek comes from a more Thomistic understanding.

I don't know what he holds with regards to the knowledge of God. 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.

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. But the biblical worldview encapsulates the notion that all men know the God of the Bible.

And this is important. And this was true even before the Bible was written. Since the world was never deprived of God's self-revelation, God has been revealing himself from the beginning. And that revelation is not just through the created order externally.

It is also revealed to man within his own constitution. And that's why in Romans one, we're told man is without an apologetic. He's without an excuse. So for instance, the truth of Romans one did not become true once Romans one was penned.

Rather Romans one was written or rather Romans one, it was a written form of a truth that was true in light of the fact that man was created as the imago Deus, the image of God. And it is because all men are the image of God that he knows God.

Okay. And this knowledge of God is constitutional. It is within his very being. I would argue that the consciousness of self is simultaneous with the consciousness of God, such that when man is conscious of himself, he is in direct contact with his creator.

But because of the entrance of sin into the picture, this knowledge that all men have is suppressed as per Romans chapter one. Now this knowledge of God is not simply ascertained by observation. Okay.

Well, I would agree the heavens declare the glory of God. When we speak of the knowledge of God through the created order externally, that is immediate knowledge, immediate. 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 Deus, as the image of God, this knowledge is known immediately in light of the fact that man is conscious.

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. God is the atmosphere. He is the atmosphere in which man exists.

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 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. 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 Q and a, I want to give Dr. Turk the benefit of the doubt.

Okay. So let's,.

Let's continue. Right. Um, now I do agree that there are certain presuppositions we all have,.

Like the laws of logic. 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. So we punch you in the gut.

We say, Oh, it's circular, but they're correct. Um, about the nature of presuppositions. 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, 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. 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 list.

We all recognize that we have presuppositions and that presuppositions inform the way we interpret reality and things like that. The real question is, are our presuppositions correct? Can we demonstrate the truth of our presuppositions?

Okay. If our presuppositions govern our interpretation of reality, how do we know that our interpret our presuppositions are correct and what grounds those presuppositions. Okay. Um, and there's a common misunderstanding.

Um, and, and 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?

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.

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, Douglas Douma, um, on the topic of Gordon Clark, uh, Gordon Clark as a presupposition was held to axioms.

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. 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. 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.

Vantill, Greg Bonson, and the presuppositionalists that I would follow and people along this line, um, wouldn't argue in that fashion. 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.

Okay. All right. There's the, the popular claim, R .C. Sproul made this claim against the presuppositional methodology that presuppositionalism is fideism. It's not okay. Gordon Clark's apologetic was a sort of fideism and it seemed to be, I'm not a Clark, Clarkian scholar, but it seemed that Clark didn't even have a problem with being called a fideist, but Vantill and the word fideism do not match.

Okay. Because unlike Clark and unlike other fideists, Cornelius Vantill and Greg Bonson believed that the Christian worldview is objectively provable. It is not just an appeal to an authority and that's it.

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 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. 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.

Yeah. And that's why the book stealing from God says that when somebody is trying to suggest there's no 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.

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 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.

And what I think the presuppositionists are saying is like with Romans chapter one, you know, we suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And so like, if we're just throwing facts at people that are nonbelievers, it's in our sinful nature to reject those things.

And so you have to start with the Bible to be able to understand laws of logic. And let me point out one thing. There were, there were thousands of Christians before the Bible was ever written. So to say that you need the Bible in order to get anybody to become saved would negate all the writers of the Bible.

I guess I should say,.

Start with God, but well. Okay. Let's, let's stop there real quick. Let me click through here, bleep, bleep, bloop, bleep, bleep. All right. Okay. So the questioner actually is onto something because I think he is touching on an issue that is actually implicitly assumed it's presupposed within Frank Turek's apologetic methodology and the methodology of many of our classical brothers.

And that is the assumption of autonomy and neutrality with regards to man's ability to acquire knowledge, right? So we walk them through, we say, Hey, you know, we can show you God exists without appealing to revelation, right?

That is an assumed neutrality. That's a neutral approach. It presupposes autonomous reasoning. 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.

And that is the, the twin poisons of neutrality and autonomous reasoning, which 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.

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, I want to be neutral and I want to assume the autonomy of human reasoning.

Some people do that, but not all of them. 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.

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. The myth of neutrality is, pardon, the mistaken notion that one can approach the question of God's existence in an unbiased fashion, right?

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.