College Course On Christian Apologetics Part 1

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The Sermon That Can Change A Nation- Part 2

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So, again, I mentioned that presuppositional apologetics.

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I actually like the way that Dr. Scott Oliphant, I like what he calls it.

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He calls it covenantal apologetics. I like what he's aiming at there in covenantal apologetics is in terms of the fact that all of us are already in some sort of a covenantal relationship with God.

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So we're addressing people based upon the biblical anthropology, the biblical view of man and covenant and what we're able to do, what we are not able to do.

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Presuppositional apologetics and covenantal apologetics ultimately are the reformed apologetic and it's based upon the

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Word of God. What does God say about the world around us? What does God say about us? What does God say about himself?

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And so it's standing first and foremost upon the Word of God. And so we think about how we approach the world in terms of methodology.

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How do we defend the faith? How do we provide a reasoned defense? We have to ask what we're standing on.

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What's the basis of knowledge? And so to that first we have to go to what is the biblical view of man?

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That's the starting point. And so I think a good place in terms of getting this discussion off the ground, there's many places we can start, we can launch from.

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But I think a good one that's quoted from often in this context is in Romans chapter 1.

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In Romans chapter 1 verse 18, starting in verse 18, after the glorious statement that is the gospel, that is the power of God for salvation, the

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Apostle Paul says in Romans 118, Namely, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

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So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor

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Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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Therefore, God gave them up and the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

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Amen. And so if we start there, if we engage the world on the basis of what

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God says about them and us and not on the basis of what they say about themselves,

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I believe that our apologetic methodology will be very different. I think that's the important thing to grab hold of.

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If we're thinking in terms of how does this get fleshed on and how do I understand it in the common interaction that I have with the average person next to me?

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How do I understand the difference in approach? I would say the difference in approach between say an evidentialist school and the presuppositional school of thought is in terms of starting point.

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How do I view the person in front of me? What does God say about their condition?

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What does God say about them? If you think in terms of the atheist, say you get to the far side of the spectrum and you're talking to the militant atheist who says, there is no

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GD God, GD it. If you look online, you'll see we went to the

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Reason Rally in Washington, D .C. The fact that they called a gathering of atheists a Reason Rally is beyond me, my capabilities to understand, but every famous atheist all over the world was at the

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Reason Rally. I was looking around that day for different kinds of atheists to engage with.

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I tried to find a really, really intelligent atheist. I found one. He was the vice president of the

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Atheist Society at Cornell University. He used all the right language and so I was pleading with him to please do something with us and he agreed to do it.

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So that's up online. You can see that. And then I found some college students and I wanted to just find the average person.

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I found a mathematics teacher. Do you say it in Irish, maths? Maths. So do

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I say maths teacher? That's so weird. He said it sounds beautiful.

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Okay. So he was a maths teacher at a university and I found also a rabid, rabid militant atheist.

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The reason I picked him is because he was just tearing into some Christians that were out there talking to him and his shirt said, there is no

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G .D. God. G .D. it. I said, you're the guy. I want to talk to you.

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Now this guy, obviously with the shirt, he spent the money on the shirt and he wants you to know how he feels about God.

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He absolutely denies that there is a God and he is not just an atheist. He is an anti -theist.

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He's angry with God. And those, by the way, as Douglas Wilson says in his movie with Christopher Hitchens, atheism has two tenants, right?

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The first tenant of atheism is there is no God. And the second tenant is I hate him. Um, so, so this, this, this gentleman is ferocious.

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And he says, there is no God. I deny that there is a God. I deny any existence of God. There's not enough proof for God, not enough evidence for God.

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Believing in God is foolish. Now, how do we approach someone like that? Well, the evidentialist school would say you approach that person on their own ground.

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You say, well, let's, let's look at the evidence. Let's find out where it will lead us. Let's take a look.

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Which field do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about biology? Which field do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about history?

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Where do you want to go? Do you want to talk about logic and reason? What do you want to do? Do you want to do the cosmological argument?

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Do you want to talk about causal relationships? Do you want to talk about cause and effect? Do you want to do the teleological arguments?

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You want to do the moral argument? Where do we go with this unbeliever? Because he says he doesn't believe. Now, if we are good

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Calvinists, and I hope we all are in this room, no matter what you think about my Reformed Baptist theology, okay?

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If we're all good Calvinists here, we recognize that we have a particular view about all mankind.

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We have a view of image bearers of God. And so, rather than believing the unbeliever, when he says, there's no evidence for God, I don't find it reasonable, we want to believe

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Scripture. What does God say about the unbeliever? Because this person's in the image of God.

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That's my perspective. That's my worldview. What does God say about them? Not what's coming out of their mouth. What does

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God say? And what God says, plainly, Romans 1, is that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, are suppressing the truth.

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That's active. That's an active suppression. It's something that's taking place constantly.

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You see, here's the thing. If we are in the image of God, in God's world, we can't help being what

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God made us to be. It's absolutely unavoidable. You can't avoid it. You just can't get away from him.

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And so, the unbeliever is in an active suppression of the truth. Dr. Greg Bonson used to use the illustration of the person who takes the ball into the pool.

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Do they have pools in Ireland? As cold as it is? No? Yes? Okay. Okay. So, the person takes the ball into the pool, and they hold that ball down.

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Well, what takes place when they stop actively suppressing? What takes place is that ball, by very nature, shoots up.

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That's the nature of the case. You have to actually hold it down consistently, sit on it, press it down, active suppression of the truth.

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And this is what's being expressed here in Romans 1, is that this is an active suppression.

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It's going on. The unbeliever is doing it. He's in the image of God. Now, here's the thing about image of God and being in God's world.

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Though you may try to suppress the truth, though you hold it down, it's inescapable.

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Your image of God in God's world. And here's the thing. You're going to miss something. The unbeliever, the militant atheist, the anti -theist, may say there is no

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GD God, GD it, all day long. He may say that we're all just stardust in a purposeless cosmos.

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He may say that our ancestors were highly evolved societies of bacteria, which is the framework.

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He may say that we've evolved from fish, which is the framework. He may say the little yellow canary is related to the dinosaurs.

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He may say it, but this is the same unbeliever who will try to pay his bills on time.

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He'll try to love his children. He'll go to the funeral of a friend who dies and act like there's something more to that person than protoplasm.

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This is the same unbeliever who calls the police when somebody robs their television from their house.

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The unbeliever who decries moral atrocities. This is the same unbeliever who on the one hand says there is no good, there is no evil, there is only blind and pitiless indifference, as Dawkins says in The River Out of Eden.

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Same unbeliever who says that and then rails against the God of the Bible for his genocide, as though there was something wrong with that in this cosmically indifferent universe.

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And so what does it really speak to? It speaks to the fact that the unbeliever knows God and he has to borrow capital from God his entire life.

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He's going to be in a constant state of suppression of the truth, but he will miss things. The unbeliever who says there is no

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God, GD it. It's also the unbeliever that says that there are standards that we must hold to.

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There are laws of logic that we must hold to that are universal, that are unchanging. There are standards of integrity in discussion and debate.

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There's a necessity of evidence in believing things like science and truth. Same unbeliever who rejects his creator has to borrow from him every day of his life.

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It's what Cornelius Van Til said. He said that atheism presupposes theism.

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Atheism presupposes theism. You can't get your argument off the ground. You can't talk about laws of logic.

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You can't talk about science and induction and ethical absolutes without the

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God of the Scriptures. Atheism presupposes theism. So if we start from a perspective of Reformed anthropology, we know about the unbeliever that they are not neutral.

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That's something Dr. Bonson used to talk about all the time, the myth of neutrality. This is vitally important to get because if you grab hold of this from the

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Bible, it will dramatically transform how you approach the world in apologetics, the myth of neutrality.

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The person in Romans 1, the mankind in Romans 1 is not neutral towards God.

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What are some of the things that the Bible says about us in the fall? What are some words that are used to describe us, some terms?

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Well, we know it says that we're sinners, we're ungodly, we're wicked. Ephesians 2, we are by nature children of wrath, we are dead in our sins and trespasses.

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Romans says that we are helpless sinners, ungodly. It says in Romans 1, we are enemies of God, we are hostile towards God.

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We are John 6, 44, no man can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up. That's our condition, active suppression of the truth.

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That's what the Bible says about us. We're not neutral. And here's what's important in terms of neutrality.

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Jesus says, whoever is not with me is against me. When you come to Christ, he demands all of you, not some of you.

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He doesn't call you to come to him with divided loyalties. He calls you to come to him and die and rise again.

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Think in terms of how Jesus preaches the gospel, how he calls people to come to him with crowds of thousands.

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It's a great opportunity. The church is finally growing, right? It's a great encouragement to Jesus' disciples.

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We have now finally the kingdom of God is growing, it's spreading now, it's exciting. And Jesus turns to all these crowds and thousands of them and he says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate, and he starts now naming the most important people to all of us.

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He says, you're not worthy to be my disciple. If you don't take up your cross, come and die, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

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And so when Christ calls us to come to him, he calls us to come to him and he commands us to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind.

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And our mind is attached to the whole discussion of epistemology and apologetics and reason and logic and science.

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And so in terms of reformed apologetics, we have to consider the myth of neutrality. And I want to suggest to you two particular points to consider when you think about the myth of neutrality.

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First and foremost, nobody's neutral according to the scriptures. First point, according to the scriptures, there is no neutrality.

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What does the Bible say? Romans 1, we're suppressing the truth. What does the Bible say? Listen, that which is known about God is evident within them for God has shown it to them.

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This is really important to get. If you get this, you'll pretty much get the whole package. God has shown it to them.

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Here's the question to ask. If the all -powerful, all -knowing God sends the message of his own existence and the revelation of himself into the heart of a person, does the message get through?

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If the all -powerful God sends the message of himself into the heart of his image bearer, does the message get through?

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Answer, yes, the message gets through. It gets through to such a degree that Paul says in the very same text that God has shown himself to them, he says what?

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That they don't want God in their knowledge, they profess to be wise, they become fools, and it says they are left unapologetus, without a reasoned offense.

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How you like them apples? Is that an expression in Ireland? Okay. They are left unapologetus, they are left without an apologetic.

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Fancy that. God says in his word to Christians, be ready with an apologetic, be ready with a reasoned offense, and he says about unbelievers, they don't have one.

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They don't have one. They know the true God, not some God, not a version of God, they all know, every one of us know the true

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God. It's what Calvin talks about, that every person in the world that God has made may not know

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God as redeemer, necessarily, but they have that sensus divinitatis, they have that knowledge of God as what, creator, as the creator.

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They know the creator, and what does fallen man do with the knowledge of God that they have, clearly, so much that they are without excuse, they construct very sophisticated world views and religions.

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They don't want the true God, so they switch him for what? Something that looks kind of like him.

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They worship rather than him, the creature, and not God. And so we see sometimes fallen man goes off and creates religions, like Joseph Smith.

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He creates a God that looks kind of like God, right? Uses the same definitions, sorry, not definitions, uses the same terminology, but pours entirely different definitions into it.

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We go off into atheism, we go off into hugging trees, and falling before trees, and worshiping the dirt rather than the creator.

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And so, number one, neutrality is a myth according to the Bible. I'm going to give you one more point here to pay close attention to, it's what my friend

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Dr. Oliven likes to point to, and that's, I think it's fantastic, by the way, I think it's where he likes to provide a foundation for why he wants to call it covenantal apologetics.

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Dr. Oliven says that he spent a lot of time with Dr. Van Til, and he believed that this terminology of covenantal apologetics was more of what

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Dr. Van Til was getting at. The term presuppositional apologetics was made in an article about Van Til, and he sort of just said, well, okay,

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I'll adopt that. But Dr. Oliven says this is more like it, and it comes from Romans 5,

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Romans 5. And you know the text, Romans 5, there are two representatives, one,

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Adam, two, Jesus. And all of humanity, according to Paul, is in one or the other.

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That's it. There's no middle ground, there's no other category, according to Paul. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ.

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And Paul says, of course, all who are in Adam die. There is condemnation and death.

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All who are in Christ are made alive and given the gift of eternal life. And so, biblically speaking, neutrality is a myth.

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Everybody is already in covenantal relationship with God, in one way or the other. They're either in Adam, in the flesh, in the fall, or they are in Christ.

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They are either suppressing the truth of God, or they are professing the truth of God.

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Another point to make here is that neutrality is not just a myth, according to the

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Bible. Neutrality is a myth, philosophically speaking. It's absurd to suggest that anybody is neutral.

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It is utterly absurd, philosophically speaking. It just is. A great example of this being fleshed out by a non -Christian is about two weeks ago,

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Bill Nye, the science guy, was on Fox News with Tucker Carlson, and he was talking about the global warming, no, sorry, global cooling, no, sorry, climate change.

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I hope you caught that. And Bill Nye was suggesting that people who deny climate change get punished in some way.

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And they're trying to discover, why is it that people can be given all of this evidence for climate change, and they could reject it?

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How could that be possible? And so as Bill Nye is fleshing this out, what he suggests is this.

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We have all of this overwhelming evidence for climate change, and yet we have the deniers of the skeptics.

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And what he says is the most beautiful expression of presuppositional apologetics imaginable. He says, the problem is, is that all the evidence is there, but people are interpreting the evidence by their worldview and pre -commitments.

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I thought, praise God, Dr. Bonson, I mean, Mr. Nye. And what's amazing is

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I'd like to suggest, if I ever had a chance to talk to Bill Nye, that you're doing exactly the same thing with your atheism.

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With the overwhelming existence of God, you filter through that evidence with your worldview.

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And if we consider the fact that everybody has a worldview, everybody has a perspective, a starting point, they have pre -beliefs, we'll understand that nobody is neutral.

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Everybody has a worldview. And what's important for us in terms of our moral requirements as a

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Christian is that we are not neutral. Christ commands us not to be, and here's the important point, neither are they.

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They're not neutral. And so we need to approach the unbeliever recognizing their hostility towards God, that what's wrong in the moment is not simply a lack of lighter evidence, it's suppression of truth.

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They need Christ. They need to change a heart. They need to be born again. They need to be regenerated.

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And so if we look at the worldview perspective and understand their pre -beliefs, we can begin to engage them with the gospel.

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Everybody has a worldview. And let's consider for a moment that not everybody has thought through their worldview. It's not as though everybody has had that moment that maybe many of us have had as Christians where we thought one way about the world, and then

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Christ saves us, and all of a sudden now we have a renewed mind. We start to think about the world in a different way.

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We start to see colors differently. We start to smell the air differently. We look up at the stars in a different way.

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We look at a baby from a different perspective as a Christian. We think about the future from a whole different perspective as a

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Christian. We have a change of mind. Perhaps we thought one way ethically as Christians, and then

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Christ saves us, and now we have a different ethic. We have a radical shift sometimes. That takes place with Christians who come to Christ later on in life, dramatic changes of mind.

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You have to actually go, wait, this was wrong, and now I need to go this direction. But not everyone has those dramatic shifts.

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Oftentimes our worldview is something that was given to us by our mom and dad. Now from a Christian perspective, praise

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God. That's the gift of God. That's His grace that somebody is born into a Christian home, and they're given the truth from a very young age.

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That's God loving them. It's a beautiful thing. Being raised in a Christian home is a glorious blessing.

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I didn't have that. But it's a gift, so no one's dissing that. But sometimes you get your worldview from your parents.

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That's where you get it. Sometimes you get it from your science teacher. Sometimes you get it from Lady Gaga. It's true.

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If you consider for a moment all the songs and media that goes out, it's preaching. It is.

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It's preaching. Music is preaching. I mention this often because I think it's a good way to crystallize this.

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In the United States, recently, where the Supreme Being of the

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United States decided to call circle squares and decided to legalize gay mirage, when that took place, there was some things that happened before it that got it off the ground.

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There were anthems that people were singing across the United States. They were part of our commercials.

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They were actually ... I mean, Wells Fargo, the bank, had a commercial that was using some of these anthems that were promoting homosexuality.

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There were two songs in particular that were anthems in my country. One was Lady Gaga's Born This Way, and the other one was

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Macklemore's song Same Love. These were songs that were all over the radio. They were all over social media.

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These were songs that people were adopting as the anthems to promote what? Their neutrality?

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It's to promote their ethical system. I was born this way, Same Love, and Macklemore's song was

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I can't change even if I tried, even if I wanted to. We adopt those ethics.

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It's taught to us. Everyone has a worldview perspective. Everybody has, generally speaking, a metaphysic, an ontology, if that's the word you want to use.

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That's the doctrine of being and reality. What's real? What is this? What's the substance here?

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What's the nature of reality around us? How did we get here? Those things swim around the discussion of ontology.

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What's the nature of reality? Everyone has an epistemology. Epistemology, of course, is the study.

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It's the domain of study of the theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know?

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How do we have justified, true belief? How do we have knowledge at all?

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Now, oftentimes, people have an epistemology that is rationalism. We have to reason through it.

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It has to be logical. It has to be consistent. It has to hang together. That's how I know something to be true, because it's rational.

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It's consistent. Sometimes people have an epistemology that's more empiricism. I've got to observe it.

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I've got to test it. I've got to actually witness it and see it. Sometimes people hook up the different epistemologies like rationalism and empiricism, and they make them bedfellows.

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They say, well, this is how we'll do it. This is how we'll know. It's got to be rational, and I've got to observe it. Sometimes people have an epistemology that's more pragmatism.

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Well, it works for me. It's worked over time so far. By the way, that tends to be the epistemology of the

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West now. How do I know that I'm not really a male?

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How do I know that I'm not really female? What do people generally lean on there? Well, their own experience.

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How they feel. That, by the way, is an epistemological claim. You realize that. That is an epistemological claim.

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How do you know that you're not male, you're female? Is it based upon observation?

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Is it based upon what I see? And they say, no, no, if you look down into me, you would see that my biology is that of a male.

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But you see, I'm not actually a male. I'm a female. Well, how do you know that? Because what I see in front of me is maleness.

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So how do you know you're a female? How do you know it? Well, what do they say? Is it based upon science?

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Is it based upon rationality and reason? No, it's an epistemology of another sort.

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It's epistemology that says something like this. Because I feel like it's true.

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Because I feel like a woman. Or I feel like a kitty cat. Now, I wish

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I was kidding. But that's true. Just YouTube it. Woman believes she's a cat. Living like a cat.

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Believes she's a cat. She hisses at dogs in the street. And it's not a joke.

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It's real. And if you ask her, why do you think you're a cat? Because if I look at you right now,

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I see a woman. I see a human being. And if I actually start, you know, cutting pieces off and putting them under a microscope,

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I see the same thing. You are a female of the human species. That's what you are.

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So how do you know you're a cat? And she says, because I feel like a cat. I've always felt like a cat.

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That's an epistemological claim. Now it may not be high level, but it is.

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Next is people have, generally speaking, people have an ethic. An ethical system. Now this is the one where people may generally have the ability to converse more in.

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So you might ask somebody, what's your ontology? What's your view of reality? And they'll go, an onto what?

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I have no idea what that is. You say, what's your epistemology? Is it rationalism, empiricism? What is it? And they'll say, what's that?

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I don't have any idea what you're talking about. But if you say, what's your ethic? How should we live? People generally say, oh,

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I got that one. I got that worked out. Here's how you should live. And this is sexuality. This is a good and wholesome sexuality.

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And this is not. And this is a no -no in my system. And this is something you can do. People generally have an ethical system worked out in their own mind.

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But here's the point. Nobody is neutral. And everybody has a perspective by which they view everything.

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And the goal in apologetics is to bring the gospel to bear on their entire system.

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Now, if we think in terms of the biblical worldview, we have to ask this question.

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How do we know what we know? I mentioned worldviews. And I mentioned epistemology.

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Now the unbelievers have, for a very, very long time, been working on the problem. How do we know what we know?

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And generally speaking, if you're a naturalist and materialist, ultimately, if you get down to the bottom, if you whittle it all the way down, the unbeliever will say, well, we really don't know anything at all.

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Which is a good time to ask this. Do you know that? No, it's funny.

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People will say things like, well, that's just a word game. You're playing a word game. When I say we can't know anything at all, and you say, do you know that, that's just a word game.

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Brothers, that's not a word game. That's a refutation. Christians don't say things like that. That's something that unbelievers will say.

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But in terms of the Christian worldview, we have a revelational epistemology.

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How do we know what we know? God has spoken. God's told us.

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It gets as simple as this, the stuff we teach our kids, Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to the

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Lord our God, but what He has revealed belongs to us and to our children.

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God has revealed Himself to us in such a way that we can know things.

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God has created a world, created His image bearers, and He has condescended and He has disclosed

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Himself. So from a Christian perspective, in terms of how do I know what I know, guess what?

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With God, with Christ as the principium, as the source, as the foundation, I get logic.

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I get observation and an orderly universe. I get all of that, but I only get it because God has revealed

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Himself in such a way that I can know things. He has condescended. He has made me to where I can understand,

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I can take in knowledge, and I can be certain. And so in terms of how the Bible speaks about it, plenty of passages, but just a few to put into your toolbox,

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Proverbs 1, verse 7, the fear of the Lord, what?

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Beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Brothers, do we not understand that that is an epistemological claim?

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We do it often, right? I mean, I'm sure we're the same in this way. There are these grand statements in Scripture, things that God says in His Word.

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But oftentimes as Christians, we take in, we check the box, we say, I believe that, we can pass the theological exam.

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But the truth be told, we don't believe it. We don't trust it.

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We don't live like it's true. We don't actually embrace all the implications of the claim.

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I can pass the test. I can say it in church, but the question is, do I embrace that?

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Do I actually embody it in my life, in my ministry? And that is an epistemological claim.

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Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. You want to have knowledge? You want to actually have knowledge, real knowledge, justified, true belief, and not just so -called knowledge as Paul refers to it?

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Do you want to have knowledge? The fear of the Lord is the beginning. It's the starting point. It's the base.

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Next, another text besides Deuteronomy 29, 29, Colossians chapter 2.

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Let's go ahead and go there quickly because this is actually a significant passage in terms of what we're discussing. Colossians chapter 2, the apostle

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Paul refers to the great struggle he had for the church in Colossae and Laodicea.

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And he says in verse 3, chapter 2, verse 3, about Christ, well, let me start in verse 2, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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Christ, in whom, this is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Do you want to know something?

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Do you want wisdom? Do you want knowledge? All, not some, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ.

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He's the starting point. He's the principium. We're talking about knowledge here.

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We have to recognize something as Christians. You can't be ashamed about this. That is an epistemological claim.

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How do you know? Well, as a Christian, I make no complaints about it.

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I know because God has disclosed Himself, and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.

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Do you want to know something? Do you want to truly know it? Do you want to truly have understanding? You have to start with Christ.

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If He's not your source, if He's not the principium, if you don't stand on Him, you're on sinking sand.

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And notice what Paul says here. It's significant because he says this, of course, at the time, or in a time where you have

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Plato, you have Socrates, you've got the

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Epicureans, you have, of course, the time where the Apostle Paul stands at the Areopagus, Mars Hill, probably being brought up in preliminary charges at that point.

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And he points to them in exactly the way he would talk in Romans chapter 1, to the knowledge that they already have, you know the

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God that I'm talking about, is what he says. Now this is the Stoics, and that whole context is all around him.

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This is the time where people are standing there and they're talking, and they're trying to figure out wisdom, and you've got questions about forms, and you've got, you know, we're trying to figure out how can we even talk about ducks and buildings and trees, and where do these things really exist?

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Is there any actual substance to these ideas, these abstractions? You know, they had done all that.

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These people aren't stupid. These aren't people who are anti -intellectual. They thought about these things, and Paul says this in that context.

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You want to know? You want knowledge? He says to the Greeks, you want it?

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All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Jesus. And he says,

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I say this, verse 4, in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

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For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

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Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and establish in the faith just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving.

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Here we go. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

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Consider that for a moment now. The Apostle Paul says that there is a philosophy that is not according to Christ, which by logical deduction means that there is a philosophy which is according to Christ.

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We have to recognize something, brothers. If we think about context, we think about the historicity here, we think about audience and relevance.

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The Apostle Paul is making these claims about knowledge and wisdom in the context which very much fits our discussion, the discussion of philosophy and how do we know anything at all.

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This isn't a 21st century discussion. We're finally beginning this discussion about Christian epistemology.

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This is Christian epistemology. Here's a philosophy not according to Christ.

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Here's a basis for knowledge and wisdom not according to Christ. And here is one that is according to Christ. Where is knowledge deposited?

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Where is wisdom found? Only in Christ. So there's our starting point in terms of biblical worldview.

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Christ is the principium. God's Word is the principium. How do we know? Because God has disclosed

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Himself. And one final text, just that's incidental but powerful, Matthew chapter 7.

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The verse escapes me at the moment but you know the passage, easy to find. Jesus gives us a discussion about two different kinds of people with two foundations with two destinations, right?

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And Jesus says you are either a wise man or you are a fool. You are either going to build upon the rock or the sand and you are either going to end in desolation or you are going to actually weather the storm, make it through.

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And Jesus says it works out this way. Whoever has built their house, their life, their life upon the rock is the one who actually makes it through.

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The person who doesn't build upon the rock is a fool. And Jesus, this is powerful, think for a moment now.

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This is significant, don't miss it. This is part of the entire discussion about which way should we go in terms of methodology.

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This is very important. Jesus stands before people and he says you are either a fool or you're wise.

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You're either built on a rock or sand and you're either going to end in desolation or make it through and he says watch, the difference is whether or not you build your house upon my word, me.

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Now consider for a moment brothers, many of you ministers, men of God, mighty, many of you training to be ministers over God's people.

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Imagine for a moment that any one of us stood before God's people and we said something like this.

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Brothers and sisters, you're either going to be a fool or you're going to be wise. You're either going to be built upon a rock or sand and this is the difference.

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Whoever in this congregation builds their life upon my word, do you see?

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Do you see it? Do you feel it? What arrogance? What shameful arrogance?

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What kind of haughtiness for that to come out of a mere man? If anybody in the world makes a claim like that and is not

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God, it is deplorable. It is disgraceful and Jesus says it works out like this, fool, wise, my word.

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You know what's amazing? Is their response. Go read it later. Their response when they hear Jesus preach that message, they say what?

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He speaks as one having authority and not as one of our scribes.

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What did the scribes do to build their authority and foundation? What did they do? They built it on the back of the other scribe, of the other rabbi.

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Oh, Rabbi Shmuley says this and Rabbi so and so says this and how do we know because Rabbi such and such, he taught us this.

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Jesus doesn't do that. What does he do? He doesn't ask for their stamp of approval. He doesn't ask for any corroborated evidence.

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He doesn't bring it. All he does is makes the claim. You're a fool or wise.

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It depends upon this. My word, where are you at? And they caught it instantly.

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They caught it instantly. They said he speaks as one having authority. What we do oftentimes in apologetics is we say, well, let's see what we can do here.

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We've got to get people to understand that God is the ultimate authority, that he is the ultimate authority, that he's actually the starting point.

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So oftentimes in apologetics, people will say, well, let's build a ladder. Let's build a ladder to get there. Let's put it over here on this ladder.

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Let's get some evidences here, some biological complexity, and let's get some rational arguments there and some philosophical arguments here.

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And let's talk about the teleological and let's get it all the way up there. And let's get the unbeliever to climb the ladder of evidences to finally get to God to see that he's the final authority.

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And you know what's compelling? Is you build that ladder and you get to God, and what happens when you get there? You get to the top of that ladder and you realize he was the final authority all along.

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You never needed a ladder in the first place. And isn't it amazing? Christians say, build a ladder to get to God to show what?

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That he's the final authority, that he's actually the starting point of it all. And you get there and realize you didn't need it.

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He was the final authority anyway. He didn't need your evidence to corroborate his authority. He already had it intrinsically, and his word has it intrinsically.

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So we have a revelational epistemology. I wanted to say this quickly in terms of revelational epistemology.

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This is something that we recognize all the time as Reformed folks. Can I just say this?

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If you want to know what presuppositional apologetics really is, is Sola Scriptura worked out.

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If you understand Sola Scriptura, then you already understand presuppositional apologetics.

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Nothing really more needs to be said. If somebody wanted to say, well, what really is it in essence, I would say Sola Scriptura. The scriptures alone are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.

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What do we recognize when we debate with Rome? What do we recognize? We recognize this is the word of God, this is your tradition.

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Your tradition contradicts the word of God, therefore you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

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That comes from Mark chapter 7, of course. That's how Jesus dealt with divine, sacred tradition in his day.

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He says, Moses says, but you say, thus you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

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That is how Jesus would handle Rome. And we recognize that in dealing with Rome. We recognize it in dealing with Mormonism.

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We recognize it in dealing with Charles Taze Russell and Judge Rutherford in the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

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But all presuppositional apologetics is, is Sola Scriptura worked out in epistemology?

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How do I know? God says. How do I know? Because God has spoken. That's what

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I stand on. That's the source. We have a revelational epistemology. It is Sola Scriptura.

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Next point. We're getting near to the end here. The goal of apologetics. We need to consider.

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Well, actually, you know what? I don't want to miss this. I don't want to toss this aside and forget it because it came up the other day in a question someone gave to me over dinner and I want to make sure that I touch it.

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One common objection to presuppositional apologetics is people say, well, this destroys any common ground.

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Now, I can't really quite understand if people are really listening why they would think that. But they say this destroys common ground.

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Because if you're saying you stand on the Word of God and that's the revelational epistemology and you're saying the unbeliever is the antithesis, that he's standing on his world, you know, perspective over here and he is hostile towards God, neutral towards God, and he's not standing on the biblical revelation, then that means there's no common ground.

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You've just destroyed common ground. And the truth is, if you really think about it, you can't understand how that objection really can be made.

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Because what are we saying at the bottom? That they know the true God and they're in His image.

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We believe that there's common ground between us and the unbeliever, but we believe this. It's common ground because it's

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God's ground. All of this is God's. All of them is

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God's. And every bit of understanding they have in the world, every appeal to logic, every appeal to science, every appeal to experience, every ethical appeal is only made, can only be made because they are in the image of God and it's inescapable.

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It's what Vantil said. Vantil, I think, the greatest thing for me about Vantil is just how he expressed it.

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He put it into just great symbols and he had just a great way of explaining things in a quick burst.

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He said, the unbeliever is like the small child who smacks his father in the face. He's dependent upon his father to hold him in his lap or he couldn't reach.

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The atheist who rails against God and strikes at God can only do it because he's being held up by God to do so.

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He has to be sat in the lap of his father to do it. And there is common ground between us and any unbeliever because they are inescapably made in the image of God and can't help being image of God in God's world.

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If they rejected the common grace, if they didn't live according to actually the image of God that they are, they would be pulled apart.

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They wouldn't be able to live and reason. They wouldn't be able to love. And so, this is important to address the common ground.

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The goal is the gospel. Can I just say that as one of the most significant things about presuppositional apologetics?

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Is that it aims to bring the gospel into contact with the unbeliever at every point.

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What's the goal of presuppositional apologetics? It's not to start with a general form of theism.

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So maybe if we work through some general form of theism, we can maybe get to Jesus sometime.

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But it's to start with God and His word, to start with His revelation, to stand on Christ from the beginning.

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So all along the way in the discussion, at every point, I'm trying to point out the suppression of truth.

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I'm trying to point to the image of God. I'm trying to point to the sinful suppression so I can call to repentance and faith.

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Here's the point. Listen closely. While apologetics is a distinct field within Christian thought, while it's a distinct field, it is very much wrapped up in the gospel, the call of the gospel.

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In other words, we should not separate our evangelism from our apologetic.

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How would this look? Well, it would look very much, and I don't want to pick on the man, but I need to point it out as a good, shining example of what not to do.

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Dr. William Lane Craig can be seen in one clip at a university, and a university student comes up and starts to argue with him after the lecture.

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And he starts challenging Dr. Craig on his Christianity. And what Dr. Craig says in response is very, very telling.

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He says to this university student who's challenging his Christian faith, he said, I didn't come here defending the

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Christian God tonight. I didn't come here defending the

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Christian God tonight. He said, I just came here defending a general form of theism, and Islam fits that,

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Judaism fits that, and so does Christianity. He gave an entire lecture before a university audience defending general theism, and when challenged on his

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Christianity, he says, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not here defending Jesus tonight. I'm just here telling you about general theism.

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That's not an effective apologetic, and it's not the gospel. If our apologetic is separated wholly from evangelism, we're doing it wrong, brothers.

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Apologetics is about the goal of getting people to know the hope that's in Christ.

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We never divorce the gospel from our apologetic. At every point in the apologetic, it should be our endeavor to bring the gospel into contact with whichever part of the discussion we are in.

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Now finally, the conditions for success. Conditions for success. Dr. Bonson referred to, and I mentioned him a lot,

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I think I referred to myself often as a disciple of Dr. Bonson, even though he was brought home to be with the

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Lord before I was even a Christian, I believe. He used to mention that we are to have humble boldness.

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Humble boldness. It doesn't seem like that makes a lot of sense, humble boldness.

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But humble because we recognize, what, about Jesus. He's the one who opens eyes.

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He's the one who changes hearts. He's the one who opens our ears to God. We recognize that it is God who ultimately grants repentance,

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Philippians 1, verse 29, and faith, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, 2

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Timothy 2, 24 through 26. God grants faith. God grants repentance. God removes

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Ezekiel 36, a heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. So we can be humble because we recognize it as God who saves.

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But we can be bold as well because we recognize that this is the truth. And they are either going to be a fool or a wise one.

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It's the very truth of God. We come with the same kind of boldness that Jesus did and Paul did.

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How are we successful in our apologetic? Well, we're successful because ultimately it is

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God who saves. Those are our conditions for success. The Spirit of God must empower the preaching of the gospel and bring it to life in the heart of the unbeliever.

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Those are our conditions for success. God is sovereign. Now, hopefully, brothers, that really encourages you.

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It truly does encourage me. I recognize that it's not dependent upon my intellectual abilities.

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It's not dependent upon all the books that I have read. It's not dependent upon all the fields that I have mastered.

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It is dependent ultimately upon a sovereign God who saves His elect. It's God who saves.

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Those are the conditions for success. And I will say finally, point to you quickly, point you quickly to Proverbs 26, 4 through 5, and there are a lot of lectures online

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I have at Apologia Studios that should help you here, the two -fold apologetic methodology.

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The two -fold apologetic methodology. First point, the

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Proverbs say, And the next point is,

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It sounds like a contradiction. It's not. It's a common device used in the

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Scriptures. It's really a two -fold methodology. Two approaches. First approach,

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That is to say, press the antithesis. When you come into collision with an unbeliever, you ought not take their principles and begin to behave in the same way and use those tools.

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Don't pretend neutrality is one example. You ought to bring your entire worldview against theirs, bring them into collision.

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Let it be a gospel contact. Don't answer the fool according to their folly.

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A great way that Dr. Bonson and Van Til would bring this out and put flesh on it.

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They said, look, if you got onto a train, an unbeliever's train, and it's going west and you wanted to go east, you don't get on their train.

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Because no matter how much you want to run to the back of the train and try to go east, it's going west.

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You're going to end at their destination. If you take their principles, if you adopt their foolishness, it doesn't matter how hard you try to go the other direction, you're on their train going their direction.

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If you assume neutrality with the unbeliever, say the atheist, and you grant him his appeals to evidence and induction and laws of logic and integrity and debate, and you pretend like he's allowed to have them without being challenged, and you reason in that realm, you are handing over your tools that belong to you because of Jesus to the unbeliever.

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You're losing it. And so don't get on their train. Don't take their principles. And however, however, the next part of the methodology is to answer the fool according to their folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

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That is to say you step into the unbeliever's worldview, not to adopt their principles as your own, but you step into their worldview to show them their folly.

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That is to say you do an internal critique of the unbeliever's system. Now we have limited time here.

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I'll just say quickly, what would that look like? Well, a number of ways, but let's say the unbeliever is the rabid, militant atheist.

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And he says, there is no God, GD it. He says we are all just protoplasm, descendants of fish, highly evolved societies of bacteria.

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We are all African apes in a universe that doesn't care, no justice above us, only sky.

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That's the world we live in. And then all of a sudden, they start challenging the Bible. They say,

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I don't like the Bible because all the genocide and God is just an oppressive tyrant and he is wicked and he is evil and he oppresses women and slavery and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all those things.

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Here's a good way to answer the fool according to their folly. Ready? It's very sophisticated. Get ready.

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Here's what you say. So what? By the way, that's a philosophically rigorous answer if you think about it.

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They just told you their worldview and perspective and now they're challenging God for being immoral. You don't get to have that anymore because I know what you believe.

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And my answer to you when you challenge God is so what? Isn't it amazing these unbelievers who deny

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God and say there are no ultimate oughts of any sort, all of a sudden when they start talking about Jesus, they become

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Puritans, right? They got the moral indignance of a

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Puritan, right? It's an amazing thing. And so what you can do to answer the fool according to their folly is when they start challenging the biblical worldview and genocide and immorality and all the rest, you say, so what?

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So what? Be consistent with your worldview. You believe you're the descendant of fish. What morally ought one descendant of fish do to the other?

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There are no moral oughts in your perspective. And you know what's amazing is if you really challenge the unbeliever, sometimes they'll tell you, oh, you're right.

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And that's when you say, can I talk to you about Jesus? Because you know what? Only sin can cause somebody to embrace such a foolish and unworkable perspective.

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Because you know what? Though you say there are no moral oughts, though you say there is no good and evil, you won't live that way.

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You'll walk away from this conversation and you're going to demand love for neighbor. You'll walk away from this conversation and you'll demand justice.

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You'll walk away from this conversation and you'll decry moral atrocities. And every moment of your life, you are going to contradict your most basic foundational presuppositions.

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And here's why. Because like me before Christ, you're a sinner against a holy God. The only

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God that there is that you know in your heart of hearts. And here's what you need. You need to turn from your sin to the living

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God. Come to Christ to live. God became man, lived righteously and blamelessly, died for sinners and He rose from the dead.

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And He says that He gives life and forgiveness and peace to all who turn from their sin and trust in Him.

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That's what's really going on here, is it's your sin that's betraying you. It's your sin against the

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God that you know is there. And I want to call you to turn from your sin, to believe in Christ, to trust in Him.

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He's going to save not just sinners from their sin, but He saves sinners from their foolishness.

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He saves not just your soul, but your mind. And that's presuppositional apologetics fundamentally.

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What does it mean? God said it. I believe it. That's presuppositional apologetics.

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That would have been kind of a short lecture, wouldn't it? Gentlemen, here it is. God said it. I believe it.

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Tea time. Let's go. Hopefully, that's been a help to you guys. I think there's a lot of really good resources online for you at ApologiaRadio .com,

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Apologia Studios on YouTube. If I can give any recommendations, we probably would be all talking about the same things.

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But recommendations, I think Always Ready is good. Bonson's book, which was found behind...

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Where was it found? I think it was found behind a file cabinet. He had been talking about writing a book on presuppositional apologetics beyond Always Ready for a while, and everyone thought that he'd actually finished it.

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But when he died, they figured, well, I guess he didn't. And they actually found it about 10 years ago behind a file cabinet at American Vision.

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And so they published it. I think it's actually very, very good. Presuppositional apologetics by Greg Bonson is fantastic.

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I think Covenantal Apologetics by Scott Oliphant is award -winning.

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I think it's just fantastic. And if you get those works together, and you read those, and you study those, and you spend time,

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I think it'll make you love Christ more, and I think it'll make you into a very, very formidable opponent to the unbelieving perspective.