Presup 101 for Dummies

The Need for a Simple Presuppositional Method

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today I am going to be giving a brief presentation. Well, I don't know how long I'm going to go. I suppose just a presentation entitled Presupp for Dummies.

So this is not meant to be condescending but basically what I want to do in this video is present the presuppositional apologetic method in a very simple way. So that is I get this question all the time.

Hey, when I hear presupp being done, it can be very philosophical. We often use really big terms and philosophical concepts and abstract ideas. Is there any resource you can point me to that I could learn the method in a very basic way?

And so I'm a teacher at heart. And so keeping that in mind, I was like, okay, well, let me kind of just put something together that I think would be easy to follow, not overly technical and provide something that you can link to this video.

Someone was like, hey, can you give me a good resource on how to do presuppositional apologetics? You can kind of send them this video and hopefully it will be useful. Now I do want to tip my hat off to my good friend, Saiten Bruggenkate, which while we both are presuppositionalist, if you know some of the things that Sai has done and you know how I do things, we do things a little differently in how we do the method.

But what I think, and I've got to give kudos to brother Sai, is that I think he's done an excellent job in laying out the main nuggets of the presuppositional approach in an easy to understand way. So I'm relying heavily on a lot of the things that he said, of course, with my own emphasis and own twist.

So there's not going to be something brand new presented here, but I'm going to try my best to simplify and maybe expand on some ideas that people often are mixed up about. All right. And depending on how my voice is towards the end, I will try, if there are any questions in the chat, I'll try my best to take some questions.

But I'm hoping that the questions are on topic with respect to what I'm presenting or, you know, questions relating to presuppositional apologetics. So this is going to be primarily geared towards the layman, the person who maybe knows a little bit about apologetics and is interested in presuppositional apologetics.

So that's really my goal. And before I jump in, though, I'd like to let folks know that yesterday, I think it was yesterday, what's today? Today's Tuesday. Yesterday we had our last PresuppU Zoom session.

Okay. As you guys know, I provide an online course that goes through the methodology of presuppositionalism and I've been meeting with the students privately throughout the course of five weeks. And we had our last session last night and it went wonderfully.

So if folks are interested, again, in taking a kind of a course where you have to go through material in a more structured way, while the premium version of the course just finished, there is a basic version of the course where you can purchase the lectures.

It comes with the PowerPoint slides and all of the outlines. And you can work through the material on your own. That's still available. It's always available. It's not like a seasonal thing. And folks can sign up for that on my website, revealedapologetics .com.

And click down the menu, PresuppU, and you could purchase the course through the website. Okay. But be that as it may, if you're just looking for dipping your foot into presuppositional apologetics, just imagine me sitting in your living room, sipping on a cup of coffee, and giving this presentation, hopefully successfully summarizing the presuppositional method.

So I have my slides up here that I'm going to share. And again, I want to encourage folks that if you do have any questions, please preface your question with question so that I can differentiate between the questions and the comments and just regular comments.

If you don't have any questions and you just want to follow along, that's perfectly fine as well. Okay. So let's jump right in. Presupp for dummies. Okay. And again, not calling anyone a dummy, but I'm trying to really kind of just lay out the basics of this methodology and hopefully it will be useful for folks.

All right. Let's jump right in. All right. So let me get this set up here, make sure I'm all good. There we go. All right. So first, before we get into what I would say is the proper way of defending the faith, I want to identify what the problem is in apologetics.

Certainty Versus Probability in Apologetics

Okay. And I think the problem in apologetics is an issue of inconsistency. Okay. On the one hand, we defend what we don't believe in, namely the probability of God's existence. Okay. In traditional arguments that you'll typically hear in the realm of apologetics, people will try to defend the high probability of the existence of God or the reasonableness of the existence of God.

Okay. And there's an interesting inconsistency between how we worship God in church and in our personal life and how we defend God out in the world. Right. In church, we defend or we rather we worship the certainty, the God that we know, the God that we are in intimate relationship with, that's the God we worship.

And then we take a completely different route when we're defending God out in the world. And we give arguments that highlight the high probability. We often will even say, hey, I could be wrong, you know, but I think, I think I'm right because the evidence seems to point in this direction.

And I think there's an inconsistency there. Now, I know this might be kind of controversial to some. I do think that there is a place for certain arguments that, you know, lend to probability and things like that, but they're done in a specific context.

So not in the way that it's traditionally presented. I think that we want to defend the certainty of the God that we most certainly know exists, the God that we worship, the God that we lift our hands to and devote our entire lives to, that is the God that we are defending.

So the certainty of the God we worship is the same God we are defending when we are doing apologetics. And this is simply a roundabout way of saying that our relationship with God, our theology, what the Bible teaches, the way we do apologetics, the way we defend the faith must be consistent with the foundation of the faith, namely the scriptures.

And of course, even our personal relationship with the Lord. I want to defend the faith in a way that is consistent with the reality and certainty of the God that I know, my Lord and savior, the triune God.

I want to be able to bring my theology to bear upon my apologetics so that I'm consistent. Now, does that mean that God can't use the classical apologist or the evidentialist? Of course not. God uses, as the saying goes, he uses broken sticks.

I don't do apologetics perfectly and God uses the words that I say and arguments that I do and he uses it for his purposes. And I think the same can happen when someone like a Frank Turek goes to a university campus and answers atheist questions.

God can work through his people regardless of whether we are doing things in a consistent way or an appropriate way or whatever. So I think this is a problem. We want to be consistent. So we don't want to make a distinction between the certainty we worship and a probability that we defend.

We are defending the certainty of God's existence. God most certainly exists. And so I think that's an important thing to lay out right there at the beginning. Okay? All right. Well, we do tend to be drawn to a lot of the traditional arguments that we do here.

For example, on YouTube or popular apologetics books. I'm not going to talk about the scholarly stuff because that's at a different level. There are different issues there that are brought up. But at a popular level, we tend to be drawn to kind of the popular level apologetics.

And why do we feel drawn to those arguments that we hear? Arguments like the cosmological argument. There's the famous Kalam cosmological argument. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause.

And we love that argument and I love that argument. I've used that argument in various contexts. But why do we tend to find them so convincing? Well, it's because the conclusions are true, right? We agree with the conclusions and because of our presuppositions and our pre-commitments, yeah, the cosmological argument kind of makes sense and we find it very convincing.

And of course, it can be used as a tool in discussions with people and it can be convincing to people as well. I've seen that myself, okay? But we tend to love these traditional arguments because we, you know, the conclusions are true.

But I don't think that many of these arguments, as traditionally presented, really touch on the key issues with the unbeliever. And that's the issue of the assumption of neutrality and autonomy on the unbeliever's part.

And so we want to be careful. Van Til, Cornelius Van Til, who was the father of presuppositional apologetics, he wasn't necessarily against the traditional arguments. Van Til said, I think it was, I don't remember which book it was, so I apologize.

I don't know the source. But he says, I do not reject the traditional arguments or the traditional truths. I only ask that we formulate them in such a way so as to be consistent with our Christian presuppositions.

And so to that end, I think the traditional arguments do have a good use if we use them appropriately and in a way that is consistent with our Christian commitments. Okay? So I love the traditional arguments.

And some of them I don't. But if I don't like one of the traditional arguments, it is not because I'm presuppositional. It may just be because of the argument itself. I might have issues with the argument.

But I think that's an important thing to point out. Okay? All right. Well, here's another thing that we need to keep in mind. Okay? Doing apologetics, if you're not doing it on YouTube and you're not doing debates and you're really just kind of wanting to reach out to people on the street or in your family, there is this issue of fear.

It can be really scary. Okay? It can be very nerve-wracking to start spiritual conversations, to press someone on some issue. You don't want to overstep the bounds or cut the lines of communication. And so it can be, you know, it can be hard to do apologetics.

In one sense, apologetics is easy, especially if you kind of, you know, you've studied a bit, you kind of know some of the issues. But then it can be difficult as to how to navigate conversations with real human beings.

Right? It's a big difference when you're reading something and then you're disagreeing with the author, you know, and then you apply your Christian position, your arguments to kind of an impersonal author on a page versus actually talking to someone face-to-face.

There's definitely a big difference there. And the same thing with online apologetics. It's very easy to interact with someone through a text, but when you see someone face-to-face, you have a different situation.

Right? So it can be nerve-wracking, like, you know, overcoming fear is going to be one of the challenges in actually getting up and doing the thing that we know that scripture teaches us to do, and that is to defend the faith when the opportunity presents itself.

All right. So I think it's important, okay, that we need to be careful not to see apologetics as simply a test of one's intellectual strength. Right? I've got to be smarter than the unbeliever. Right?

It's not an issue of simply smarts and intellectual, you know, sharpness. I think we have to also take these opportunities when we are engaging unbelievers to pray before talking with unbelievers, to understand the very real spiritual aspect to apologetics.

We are not only engaged in intellectual warfare, but apologetics entails spiritual warfare as well. Okay? Now, the spiritual warfare aspect does not necessarily impinge upon the logical nature of your arguments.

Right? Whether, you know, whether to the degree of spiritual influence there is in your engagement, that's not going to touch on whether your arguments are valid or invalid or anything along those lines.

But you do want to understand that we're not just talking to, you know, another human being that is not influenced by other factors other than intellectual issues. There are definitely spiritual strongholds that are involved as well.

And so I think it's important that before we go out and share the gospel and defend the gospel, that we are in prayer. We pray for those that we are sharing the gospel with. Okay? Or, or, um, we, um, I'm getting a notification here.

Someone is saying my video is blurry. I don't know. I look great here on my monitor. It looks really clear. Yeah. Not sure. Okay. My video is clearer than normal as well. Let me, let me do this real quick.

I get here. I can see myself. Yeah. I look pretty clear. Yeah. I'm not sure. Sorry about that. But thank you for letting me know. I appreciate that brother. All right. All right. So we want to pray before talking with unbelievers and we want to, and this is a key part, not just as Christians, right.

But as believers in general, read our Bible and believe it. Okay. This goes in, you know, this has wider application than in apologetics. Okay. For example, um, if someone is okay. So I'm getting a bunch of them.

It's blurry. I don't, I don't know what to say. It looks good on my end. So it looks blurry. I'm not sure why it looks blurry. Yeah. I there's really literally nothing to fix because, um, let me see here.

There's nothing to fix. It looks completely clear to me on my end and right in front of my camera. I mean, the lights are on. I've got the lights. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you about. How about now?

Does it look, look a little better? Someone let me know. It's blurry when I go small. Well, I have to go small to what's more important is not that you see my face, uh, but the text needs to be readable.

Okay. Okay. So let's see here. Let's bring the text back up. Okay. On my, on my end, it looks great. Let me, let me actually check on my phone. I'm going to go onto YouTube on my phone and see what it looks like.

It looks clear now. Okay. All right. We'll make it work. We'll pick up. Well, let's see here. Yeah, I'm on YouTube. It looks clear on YouTube. So I think it's, uh, no, no worries. You're not distracting me.

I want to make sure, you know, things are good quality. So I checked YouTube, but it's clear on my end. So maybe as y 'all did it, I don't know what's going on. I got good internet over here. So, all right.

So let's, let's continue on here. Okay. So we want to pray before talking with unbelievers and we want to read our Bibles and believe it. And this is important for apologetics, but it's also important for the Christian life.

Okay. And, um, I just want to make this clear that when I say that it's, it's not just important for apologetics, but the Christian life, I'm not no longer talking about apologetics because apologetics is something holistic, right?

Uh, we are in, we are Christians that have a holistic experience, our spiritual health in other areas, impact our ability to be effective in other areas as well. And so I think it's really important, uh, that we are reading our Bibles and believing it apologetically believing what the Bible says about the nature of the world, God's revelation, the clarity of God's revelation, what God has said about the nature of the unbeliever, that he has a knowledge of God, right?

That's, that's the consistency between what we say we believe with respect to scripture and how that actually plays out when we're interacting with someone. And then of course, when we kind of shift from the apologetic focus to our personal lives, right?

We want to still read our Bibles and believe it. You know, sometimes we can be in a situation in our lives where we feel alone, we feel abandoned, uh, but the scripture says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And so whether you feel, um, like comforted or not, the feeling of being comforted and the feeling of being alone is irrelevant to the fact of, is irrelevant to the reality that you are not alone, that he is with us.

And so that truth comes in believing God's word, regardless of how we feel. And so there's huge, important application that goes beyond the realm of apologetics. Um, so I think it's important to kind of have a balanced view on this, but with regards to apologetics, and this is a simple aspect of presuppositionalism, you want to be a faithful, consistent presuppositional apologist.

You want to read your Bible, believe it, and then apply what the Bible teaches to the specific apologetic context that you find yourself in. Super, super important. All right. Let me, uh, click here. There we go.

All right. So what is the danger of, of this apologetic, the danger of presuppositionalism? Okay. There are a couple of dangers. Um, and I think it's not just the danger that is inherent in presuppositionalism.

I think it's, it's a danger in anything we do in which there are people who we look up to who are doing, you know, these sorts of things. I think the danger of this apologetic and apologetics in general is becoming too much of a fan boy of a Greg Bonson, a Van Till, or anyone else.

Dangers of Pride and Fanboyism

Okay. We want to recognize that we are not doing this apologetic because we really, really like some philosopher or theologian. We're doing this apologetic because we truly believe that it is the apologetic that is provided for us in scripture.

The principles of presuppositional apologetics is right there in the scriptures. And so we want to be very careful with that. Now, also when you master, okay, the presuppositional method and you begin to use it, and this is something that I can say of myself and personal interactions, you're going to find yourself doing very well in engaging unbelievers.

You're going to, you're going to win a lot of arguments if you, um, use it consistently and you are, uh, you know, you're on point in, um, being able to analyze the unbeliever's worldview and to identify presuppositions.

And so again, there is going to be this element, this danger of pride. Okay. The danger is that you're going to win arguments and people will credit you. All right. And this is the, something that Saiten Brueggen pointed out in a past video that I thought was spot on.

That is so true. Um, especially when you quote unquote, come to someone's rescue. Oh man, I had this atheist friend who was saying such and such. And I'm so happy that so-and-so came in and was able to address those answers.

You know, all men, this person's awesome. I wish I could put you in my back pocket and just take you out every time. You know, my atheist friend comes in with his objections. Okay. Very easy that when you master the apologetic to, uh, become prideful.

And so, uh, we want to be very careful because this is, this is genuinely a threat to Christians, the, the, the specter of pride. And when you are dealing with an apologetic weapon, like presuppositional apologetics, um, it is very easy, uh, to become prideful.

And I've seen this unfortunately in a lot of internet personalities, people, when people, um, speak about presuppositionalism, especially as it's seen online, um, it's not really seen in a positive light.

And I would, and I would venture to say that it's not seen in a positive light simply because the people disagree with the form of argumentation. There's obviously that as well, but I think a lot of what hurts presuppositionalism is the personalities of the people who use it.

Okay. They can be very cocky. They can be very prideful. They can be very arrogant and you just become a person that really no one wants to talk to. Um, and so again, there, there is a time and a place to be forward and strong.

Uh, but again, we need to be very careful with this issue of arrogance and over confidence. Okay. I think that's very, very important. And again, one's ability to successfully, to successfully engage unbelief from a presuppositional perspective, the ability to do that, um, is, is granted by God, right?

It is God who in his word in Luke chapter 21, verse 15, it says, I will give you words and wisdom that your adversaries will not be able to resist or contradict. Notice it says, I will give you the words and wisdom, the words that we speak and the wisdom that we have.

And we apply to the apologetic context is not something that is it from in and of ourselves. Okay. We are saved by grace through faith alone, but we are granted wisdom and knowledge and the ability to communicate and all these other things.

Those two are gifts from God. Okay. So I think it's very important that we avoid the specter of pride and arrogance by remembering why it's even possible for us to do what we do and hopefully do it successfully.

It is all to the praise of his glorious grace in gifting us the ability and the resources, right? Uh, to defend the faith in the way that we do. All right. Super, super important. Now, uh, what is the place of scripture?

Scripture as the Foundation for Apologetics

Now the place of scripture in presuppositional apologetics is that it is, it, the scriptures holds a central place in the apologetic. Okay. A lot of people will say something along the lines of, well, you can't use the Bible to prove the Bible.

And so let's put the Bible over here to the side and let's talk about these other issues. And then eventually we'll get to the Bible, right? Um, that is not how the presupposition list, um, argues. It doesn't, it's not how he engages in the apologetic.

The place of scripture is going to be vitally important because that is the foundation upon which the Christian, especially the presupposition list must stand. All right. Your worldview is grounded in a biblical categories.

And so we must never move away from that foundation, regardless of what the unbeliever demands of us throughout the context of the discussion or debate the argument or whatever. Okay. So if you can answer objections using scripture, do it.

Okay. For example, um, it is true that the Bible is not a philosophy textbook, but it definitely provides sufficient ingredients to respond to just about anything. Okay. So a good way to prepare to do this is anticipate, collect, write down, get a journal or something.

Okay. Write down popular objections to the Christian faith and see if you could find scripture that can be applied to responding to those, those questions and those objections and put that in your back pocket, right?

Quote the scriptures because this word of God never comes back void. We want to quote the scriptures just because the unbeliever doesn't accept the scriptures doesn't mean we shouldn't quote the scriptures as our answers and responses back to the unbeliever is going to be coming from a foundation of scripture.

And so that's very, very important. So scripture plays a central role, not just in the apologetic and how it looks in the engagement itself, but also in, in the fact that the scripture frames our worldview.

And so if we're defending the Christian worldview, then we need to be very familiar with the Christian worldview as presented in the Bible. Okay. All right. So what are we doing when we do all of this stuff?

When we're talking with our friends, when we're engaging in debate and these sorts of things put simply, okay. For the beginner, if you are again you are seasoned in this realm, obviously this is going to be, you know, an obvious point for you, but for those who are saying, yeah, well, what is this?

What are we doing here? Okay. Basically we are doing what is called apologetics. Okay. Apologetics is simply the defense of the faith. Okay. And so what we're doing in apologetics is we are presenting our worldview as truth, and we give a reason defense of what we believe to be true.

That's basically what we're doing. And notice what it says there. It says in apologetics, we present our worldview as possibly true, most likely true to a high probability true. No, we present the fully orbed truth and certainty of the Christian worldview.

And we do not simply assert it's true. We give a reasoned defense of that truth. And that's basically what we're doing in apologetics. Okay. Now what is presuppositional apologetics? Now say that five times fast, and it will sound like you're, if you're a Presbyterian and you say presuppositional apologetics five times fast, people might mistake you for a Pentecostal.

You sounds like you're speaking in tongues, right? What is presuppositional apologetics here? This might be controversial for some folks, but here we go. Here's what I, what I have in my slide here. And I think this is important.

Presuppositional Apologetics: God Exists and His Word Is True

Okay. Big words that scare people away. All right. When you say, well, I'm doing presuppositional apologetics, right? Those are big words in YouTube, on YouTube, when we're talking to other people and on Facebook, yeah, they're people that they speak the language.

They know what you mean if they're familiar, but the average person on the street, you want to be very careful with using words like presuppositional or transcendental or preconditions of intelligible experience or intelligibility.

It's perfectly fine to know what those words mean, but I think very important aspect of doing apologetics and communicating with people is being able to contextualize those difficult concepts to the specific context that you find yourself in, right?

If I walk around using big fancy words, it can come across in a negative way. It can be seen as you showing off and then you close off lines of communication. It can be seen as you're kind of grandstanding.

Like you're just trying to, you know, flex your, the fact that you're intelligent. Okay. And again, in some contexts, it's completely appropriate to use the terminology, but in the average situation in the street, that's probably not the best time to use some of the technical terms that you've learned when reading, you know, a Greg Bonson book or a Dan Till book or watch a video, you know, that I put out.

I've done more technical stuff and, you know, but then there's the more simple stuff, right? You might be tempted to use that language, but you really need to learn and master the art of context. Okay.

If I'm in a particular context, how do I communicate this truth that God is the ultimate foundation for everything, right? In order for anything to be meaningful and make sense, we must be standing on the foundation of God.

How do I say that in a way that doesn't sound too convoluted and, well, you know, using fancy terminology and things like that. I think that's a really important, important skill to master. And it's, it's not easy.

It definitely is not easy. Because when you read apologetic literature, you kind of adopt the language of what you're reading. And then when we talk about with others, we use the language and the other person is, is not privy to what you're saying.

Transcendental what, you know, so we want to be very careful. All right. Be careful of big, scary words. Okay. In essence, presuppositional apologetics is saying this, ready? God exists. His word is true.

And we argue from that position, not to that position. I'm going to say that slowly again. Okay. Remember this is precept for dummies. We got to go really slow. Okay. For people who don't get it. I'm so sorry.

Okay. Ready? What is presuppositional apologetics? Basically, here's what we're saying as presuppositionalists. God exists. His word is true. And we argue from that position, not to that position. Okay.

Now, if you've watched my more technical videos, where I talk about worldviews, and the fact that every worldview is composed of at least three foundations, and I've thrown fancy terms like metaphysics, one's theory of reality, epistemology, one's theory of how we know what we know and ethics, you know, one's theory of how we should live our lives.

That's all baked into this very simple summary. God exists. That's the metaphysics. His word is true. That's the epistemology, right? God has revealed himself. And we argue from that position. We argue from the authority of God and his word, not to the existence of God and the authority of his word.

Okay. And so we are presuppositionalists because we presuppose God and his revelation. And we argue that that presupposition is the necessary presupposition for anything else to make sense. It provides the context for everything else that we believe.

Okay. So that's basically what we mean or what we're arguing for. All right. All right. I hope this is simple enough. And give me a thumbs up or some indication that you're following along and it's making sense.

All right. So that would be very helpful to me because sometimes I have my things up on the screen here and I have no idea how you are receiving this. Hopefully it's making sense. All right. Let's continue on here.

Now, this is the key point here. So I'm going to take that away and put it back up again. Look at that. Ready? There you go. It's going back up again. There we go. This is so important, guys. God exists.

His word is true. And we argue from that position, not to that position. And here is the key thing. You do not, under any circumstance, give up that presupposition. I will repeat. You do not, under any circumstance, give up that presupposition.

To give up the presupposition that God exists, His word is true, and we argue from that position and not to that position, is to stumble into the realm of neutrality. Okay? And that is what we want to avoid.

Okay? We want to avoid neutrality because it is not what the Christian should be doing, arguing in a neutral fashion. And it is impossible to argue from a neutral fashion. So you shouldn't try to. And even if you try to, you can't do so in any consistent way.

Okay? So we're going to hold true to that ultimate presupposition. God exists. His word is true. And we argue from that position, not to that position. And that is to say, you might have heard me say this in another video, that when I compare, for example, the presuppositional apologetic method to like evidential apologetics or classical apologetics, I will often say that the traditional methodologies of apologetics, like classical and evidential, they are a bottom-up approach.

They work their way up to the conclusion, God exists. Presuppositionalist does not work its way up. It works its way down from the position that God exists and argues indirectly. We argue presuppositionally that if you don't start with this presupposition, you lose the foundation to prove anything at all.

Okay? So that's basically what we're saying. And you do not give up that presupposition because that presupposition is wrapped up in everything, our trust in God. If we really believe that God is our authority, how can we give up, you know, the assumption of his existence and the surety and clarity of his word, right?

And the necessity of his word. How can we do that consistently? We can't. Okay? So, okay. Very, very important. Don't give up that presupposition. We want to be consistent. All right. Now, we've heard this a billion times, right?

Evidence, Neutrality, and the Burden of Proof

And this is all on the Facebook threads and you see this face-to-face interaction, debates. Just give me evidence, bro. That's all I need. Just give me one, one piece of evidence. I bet you anything that when I'm done with this video, someone is going to post in the comments, great little talk Eli, but it's interesting to observe that you did not give one shred of evidence for your sky daddy.

I know I get comments like that. I don't read the comments that much, but, but I always get a, you know, a, a comment like that. Okay. So give me the evidence. We hear this all the time. Okay. And this is, again, I want to, I want to emphasize, I think great point that Saiten Brugenknecht has often made in the past, in his past videos and debates, evidence is provided before a judge and a jury that that's correct.

I think the courtroom analogy is, is apropos. It's appropriate to, to, to make that analogy. Okay. And remember from the presuppositions perspective, God exists. There's the metaphysics. His word is true.

Okay. And God, of course, the Christian world is true. God is not being judged man is. And so when the unbeliever demands evidence, we do not give it to him in the context. Okay. I'm going to clarify this.

We do not give evidence to the unbeliever in the context of him being judged over God. Now, notice what I said. We don't give the evidence in that context. That does not mean we don't give the evidence.

Okay. We just don't give it to him in the way that he demands it. All right. So as to be judged over God. All right. Evidence is not from a presuppositional perspective. Evidence is not to give information to another wise, innocent and ignorant person.

When we do give evidence, evidence is presented to expose suppression. Okay. This is very, very important. Okay. Evidence is presented to expose suppression. Now I see a question popping up in the comments, and I did say at the beginning of this video, I will take questions, but I'm going to remind folks that if you ask a question, please, so it makes it easier for me that you put the word question before your question.

And that will help me differentiate your question from the comments. So please, please, please do that when you ask a question so that I can find it. And I don't want to miss your question. I want to try my best to get to questions that people might have.

Okay. All right. So evidence is presented to suppress, to expose the suppression notice that inherent within that is Romans chapter one, right? Okay. Because we believe that the Bible presupposition was believed that the Bible teaches that in a very profound sense, all men know that God exists.

And so the issue for the unbeliever is not an issue of evidence. It is an issue of the suppression of the knowledge of God in unrighteousness. Okay. And that's what the Bible teaches. And hence, that's part of our presupposition, right?

Because God exists is what is true. Right. So it always goes back to, to that. All right. Okay. I think about evidence here. Okay. This is important, especially from a presuppositional perspective. Obviously, you don't have to be a presuppositionalist to acknowledge this, but I mean, more specifically presuppositionalist should be more sensitive to this fact is that we will always interpret evidence according to what we believe, according to our foundational beliefs, according to our presuppositions.

Okay. In essence, one of the most effective debate tactics to take a question that I see in the comments that I have found is to demonstrate that the unbeliever is just as much a presuppositionalist as I am.

Right. So we use that term and we assume that we know what it means presuppositional apologetics, I'm a presuppositionalist, and I presuppose my ultimate authority and these sorts of things. I want, I want, okay, to expose the fact that the unbeliever has his Bible too.

He has his ultimate authority. And so we want to get his ultimate authority out on the table, just as we've expressed our ultimate authority and have placed it on the table and engage in a worldview interaction.

That's what I really want to do. But when we throw out evidence and data, you know, you might be debating evolution or Bible contradictions or whatever the case may be. You need to always remind yourself, evidence will always be interpreted according to a person's beliefs, according to their foundational beliefs, according to their presuppositions.

Okay. All right. I'm going to take a quick break and take some questions from the chat. So I'm going to scroll through some of these, take a few, and then we'll jump right back in. And so I want to thank you guys for listening in so far, and I hope that you're finding this useful.