Is Presup Connected to Postmodernism? Nope! #presup #apologetics #postmodernism

Critiquing the Claim That Presuppositionalism Is Postmodern

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today we're going to be taking a look at the Convincing Proof podcast, more specifically episode 19 of the Convincing Proof podcast.

What is there? Yeah, so Convincing Proof, providing reasons and evidence to trust in Christ. That's the, I suppose, the whole title of the podcast. And so the title of this specific episode is Similarities Between Postmodernism and Presuppositional Apologetics.

Similarities Between Postmodernism and Presuppositional Apologetics. And so I want to take a look at this video and really use this as an opportunity for some clarification, some correction, because obviously I don't agree that there are similarities between postmodernism and presuppositional apologetics in the way that the host of this show suggests.

As a matter of fact, anyone who is familiar with the literature of Dr. Cornelius Mantill, Greg Bonson, Frame, people like that, will know that, of course, the similarities that are going to be drawn, as you will see, is completely inaccurate.

If I was not a presuppositionalist, and I was, say, a classical apologist or an evidential apologist, I would still criticize the content of this video because it is completely wrong-headed, okay? And so I want to interact with this, of course, respectfully.

I have no idea who this gentleman is. I apologize if he's someone I should know. You guys gotta see things from my perspective. I do this channel when I have the time. So I'm a full-time teacher. I'm on spring break now, thankfully.

I'm a full-time teacher. I'm not up on all of the things going on in the apologetics world as much as I would like, and so I don't know who this gentleman is. He seems like a really nice guy. I would imagine that I would probably enjoy having a cup of coffee with him and all that, right?

But the content of his video here, or audio, rather, is something that I think needs to be addressed for the purposes of clarity. So there you go. So I'm not going to waste any time because this will probably be longer than usual, maybe.

We'll see. And I'm going to be playing this bad boy from the beginning. I may jump around. We'll see. I'm just going to play the thing, and then I'm going to put it on pause, and I'm going to offer my thoughts and response.

And so hopefully this is useful for folks, and educational, hopefully. Okay? All right. Well, let's jump right in. Let's.

Take a look here.

Worldview Language, Postmodern Connotations, and Objective Truth

Thanks for listening to the Convincing Proof podcast. In this podcast, I want to talk, continue the conversation from last time about the term, a Christian worldview. If you didn't listen to that one, I would encourage you to go back and do so.

I had a long conversation about this term, a Christian worldview, and I was encouraging folks to not use that term anymore because of all of the postmodern connotations that that word communicates. Now, a lot of times Christians, Christian apologists, when they use that term, they're not meaning the postmodern connotations that often go along with that term.

They're not using it in that sense. However, the problem is that's how they're interpreted by the culture often. So our culture has been heavily influenced by postmodernism, and they think in terms, more in terms of relative truth, and you have your view, I have my view, you have your truth, I have my truth.

And so when we as Christians use that term, worldview or Christian worldview, a lot of times how non-Christians interpret what we're saying is that we're just talking about our opinion. We're just talking.

Yeah, so a couple of things right off the bat here. So I agree, the language of worldview does have connection with postmodern philosophy. I think the more accurate terminology would be metanarratives.

Postmodernist terminology deals with metanarratives, and there is a skepticism with respect to metanarratives, which basically refers to like a worldview perspective. So you definitely want to be careful with how your words are being received.

Okay. Now I have no problem talking about using the term worldview, as long as you clarify what you mean by that. If someone takes the use of the term worldview as meaning it's just your opinion, then I would clarify that.

For example, if I were to say, I think that the Christian worldview is objectively true and not simply based on opinion, then of course the person can't receive your use of the term worldview as simply your opinion.

They might think you're wrong, but at least they can know with clarification what you mean when you say, you know, for example, the Christian worldview is objectively true.

Talking about our view, our religious views, and we're not making objective truth claims. We're just talking about our views of things and we all have different views, i .e. relative truth, born out of postmodernism.

And so I would encourage folks to not use that term because it's just poor communication. It comes across and it confuses the people that we're trying to reach for Christ. Because when we are making claims about Christianity, we are making objective truth claims.

In other words, we're talking about things that can be objectively true or false. Kind of like I use the example of saying that the earth is the third planet from the sun in our solar system. That's an objective truth claim.

All right. Yeah. So, so real quick, I just want to bring this point out. I think using the language of worldview is not in and of itself poor communication, right? Of course, we want to understand that words have meaning in context, right?

So I think it's entirely appropriate to bring out the language of worldview and simply just explain what you mean when you use the term, right? So for instance, when I use certain words, you know, I find helpful with following it up with a brief explanation of what I mean and what I don't mean when I use certain terms.

So I don't think that there is the use of the term worldview is necessarily poor communication. I think with any good communication, it's, it's just important to explain, briefly explain the context in which you're using a term that can be misunderstood.

So if I know the term worldview is typically misunderstood, I will make sure to define what I mean when I use the term and what I don't mean sometimes, depending on the nature of the discussion, if I have time to explain that.

So I don't think it's necessarily poor communication simply for using a word that could be misunderstood.

Could be true. That could be false. I think it's true, right? I believe it's true, but maybe there's another planet that we're not aware of yet between us and the sun. So maybe we're actually the fourth planet.

So my point is that when we're making claims about Christianity, we're doing the same thing. We're making claims about objective reality that can be either true or false. And we want to make sure we're communicating that when we make our case for Christianity.

Now, of course, I think Christianity is true, but as I've explained, I often say, after I say, I believe Christianity is true, I often say that I could be wrong, not.

Because.

Presuppositionalism, Neutrality, and the Transcendental Argument

Right. So I could be wrong. And I think here is what he says here. I could be wrong. I think here we'll want to be careful, right? I think a person who says that they could be wrong. Doesn't think, nor could they argue that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for intelligibility in that phrase.

Hopefully people will understand what I mean by that if you're familiar with apologetic discourse, especially with respect to presuppositionalism and these sorts of things. A person who says that they could be wrong, couldn't argue that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for intelligibility.

Right. And an I could be wrong approach allows for categories of neutrality to come in, which I think is problematic as well. Right. It is it is to hold something, for example, more authoritative, more sure than the triune God in his revelation.

And it's here where once theological and philosophical convictions are going to come out. Right. For the presuppositionalist who holds God as the metaphysical ultimate and his revelation is epistemically ultimate.

Right. We're not going to place some sort of contingency or possibility above the certainty and assuredness that the triune of the triune God and his revelation. OK, so, again, your antennas should go up.

OK, I'm not saying I'm not offering too much of a detailed criticism at this point, but just to point out that to say this is it is sneaking in categories of neutrality and autonomy. I want you to pay attention to that.

And this is not something that I'm saying is done on purpose. Sometimes people like, well, I don't I don't believe we're neutral. I don't believe that autonomous reasoning is is sufficient and so on and so forth.

But what you see when people make statements like this is that whether they acknowledge it or not, those categories do sneak in. OK, so I want you to pay attention to that. OK. All right. Let's continue on.

As I have doubts.

About Christianity, but I say that because I want people to understand we're making objective truth claims. We're not just talking about our personal views or opinions. So instead, I encourage people, instead of talking about their Christian worldview, just to talk about their Christian beliefs.

Or they could say I have a system of beliefs or a set of beliefs about reality. OK. Yeah, I think.

Speaking about Christian worldview as a set of beliefs or a system of beliefs is perfectly fine as long as we don't succumb to a piecemeal approach. And how do we how we defend our set of beliefs? We'll always want to remember that our beliefs are part of the broader system, which is just a worldview.

Right. So if you want to talk about set of beliefs, someone could still misunderstand that as you just putting forth your opinion. So I don't I don't see necessarily the problem with using worldview because you're good when you speak of set of beliefs.

That's what you mean. Your worldview and both could be misunderstood. Now, if you use set of beliefs or systems of belief and you qualify it, then, yeah, that's perfectly fine. But then again, you could do that with using the term.

Worldview and just clarify what you mean by that. So I even don't recommend using the term religious beliefs, because, again, it just has connotations of relativism. In our culture, religious beliefs are just seen as these opinions.

They're just, well, if Buddhism helps you in your life and it works good for you, gives you purpose and direction in life, then it's true for you. And if Christianity is good for you, helps you get through life, difficult times, gives you purpose, direction in life, then it's true for you.

And we don't want to say that. We don't want to come across that way. We want to make it clear that no, when we talk about our beliefs, we're talking about beliefs concerning.

Reality. Now in this, I'm going to hop ahead there. Yep. So I agree. You do want to provide the context that when we're talking about the Christian worldview, we're not talking about mere opinion and even just mere authority claims.

OK, we're not simply making authority claims. We are making authority claims, to be sure, but it's not simply an expression of our opinion and that's it. We're talking about what we believe to be objectively true.

So I agree with the spirit of what he's saying there. Let's continue on. A podcast that was all just.

Review. In this podcast, I want to talk specifically about a group of Christians who have been influenced by postmodern ideas. And in fact, some of them even embrace it. And so I want to draw your attention to this, this group of Christians.

And one of the reasons that I do this, I have a burden to do this, study philosophy, talk about more of these philosophical issues is because I have a shepherd's heart for the church, for Christians. You know, as a pastor, I want to be a shepherd and protect people from wrong thinking.

And I think there is just so much wrong thinking in postmodernism. And oftentimes it's insidious in the sense that Christians get influenced to think in postmodern ways and they don't even realize it.

So part of the purpose of me studying, getting a PhD in philosophy, among other reasons, is so that I can understand the bad philosophy that's out there and how it's infiltrated the church and warn people about it and not to be corrupted in their thinking by a bad postmodern.

So the group of Christians that I want to talk about that have been influenced by postmodern philosophy is presuppositional apologists. You might be familiar with that term presuppositionalism or presuppositional apologetics.

I'll try to give you a brief explanation, a brief summary of that position, presuppositionalism. It's a movement within apologetics, so to speak. That's why it's called presuppositional apologetics or just presuppositional apologetics.

Well, real quick. So before he gets into the presupp stuff, I want to agree with this gentleman here that there is so much wrong in postmodernism, right? Again, postmodernism is a philosophical position that is skeptical towards meta-narratives or objectivity with respect to truth, okay?

But I think that, in my estimation, the non-presuppositional viewpoints are closer to postmodernism than presuppositionalism. We'll talk a little bit about that in just a moment. But again, this is not only is the connection he's going to draw incorrect, it is vastly incorrect, and it is probably something that can be more in line with non-presuppositional views, as we'll see momentarily.

Positionalism. It's a big, long, fancy word. I'll explain the ideas here in just a minute. And what I want to try to do in this podcast, though, is point out how similar and connected these two movements are.

The two movements I'm talking about are postmodernism and presuppositionalism. That might surprise you, and it surprises a lot of presuppositionalists that I talk to.

Well, yeah, it would definitely surprise Pantale and Bonson, right? So he's going to want to point out how closely connected presuppositional apologetics and postmodernism are. But I think Van Til and Bonson and others would be very surprised to see this connection in terms of what he is trying to suggest here.

When this issue came up in the debate slash discussion between R .C. Sproul and Greg Bonson, Bonson was quick to point out when this connection was brought up, the presupp and postmodernism, those sorts of things.

In the debate between Bonson and Sproul, Dr. Bonson was quick to point out, and I think he's correct and not just correct, generally speaking, he's very correct and obviously correct for anyone who knows the issues, that the term presuppositionalism, and he says this, Dr. Bonson says this, shouldn't even be mentioned in the same room with presuppositionalism, right?

There is no relation, no influence in the way that's going to be suggested here. As a matter of fact, presuppositionalism, I want you to get this, okay? This is so important. Presuppositionalism is literally the extreme opposite of postmodernism.

I'm going to say that again. Presuppositionalism is literally the extreme opposite of postmodernism. Postmodernism is relativistic. It's skeptical of metanarratives, while presuppositional apologetics seeks to demonstrate the objective truth of the Christian system, okay?

It seeks, to use Dr. Van Til's own word, it seeks the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life over against the non-Christian philosophy of life. To quote him directly there, that's Van Til in his book Christian Apologetics, the first page, okay?

It is the vindication, okay? So in that definition of apologetics, for example, that Van Til gives, notice what is entailed in the definition that Van Til gives. Apologetics is not simply a defense. It is a vindication.

We seek to vindicate the Christian philosophy of life, that phrase refers to a worldview, over against the non-Christian philosophy of life. And there's, again, the non-Christian worldview. And so within that definition, we have the idea of vindicating, not simply asserting or engaging and only responding to objections, all right?

We have the vindication of the Christian worldview, we have the issue of worldview there, over against, then you have the antithesis between the Christian philosophy of life and the non-Christian philosophy of life, okay?

Presuppositionalists like Greg Bonson and others have explicitly stated the Christian worldview, catch this, this is true whether you are a presuppositionalist or not, okay? You can disagree with presuppositionalism, you can disagree with the transcendental argument, but at least understand the claim.

Presuppositional apologetics, okay, tries to defend the Christian worldview and believes that the Christian worldview is, and Dr. Bonson has used this even in his debates, he believes the Christian worldview is objectively provable with epistemic certainty, such that it cannot fail to be true.

And I want you to ask yourself a question, does that sound anything like postmodernism? Well, of course not, right? This claim is even stronger than any claim put forth by those within the evidential and classical school of apologetic thought, right?

Again, you don't have to agree with it, but to compare it with postmodernism is, I mean, so wrong-headed, it's like literally not even close, you know? And again, if I was not a presuppositionalist, I would point this out, it's just flat-out false.

When I bring this topic up, the connections and the similarities between these two movements, one of my goals in this podcast is to point out how closely connected these two movements actually are. I should say though, maybe as a caveat, that not all presuppositionalists can be put in this camp of being influenced by postmodernism.

I think overall, the movement itself, the presuppositional movement has been influenced by postmodernism and shares a lot of similarities with it, but there are, and this is always the case, you don't wanna talk in too broad of generalities, and so I want to identify that there are different types of presuppositionalists.

There are philosophical presuppositionalists. Usually they are going to be followers of Cornelius Van Til in some way, shape, or form. There are theological presuppositionalists. In this sense, I'm thinking of maybe more of a John MacArthur, that type of a stripe in their thinking.

And also there's, I would describe as more spiritual presuppositionalists and hold to presuppositionalism for more spiritual reasons.

Now, so he makes a distinction between philosophical presuppositionalists and theological presuppositionalists, but of course this distinction is not one that presuppositionalists make, at least not to my knowledge.

I mean, one of the main thrusts of the presuppositional approach is that the method itself flows out of a biblical, a biblically grounded theology. It's grounded in biblical principles found in scripture.

So yeah, anyone who is a consistent presuppositionalist will understand that they're apologetic, is theological in nature, and it's philosophical in nature, right? So it's an interesting distinction there.

Now, there are people who focus and have more emphasis upon these different categories, but I don't think that there is a clear distinction between them. I think they're connected. Christian theology and philosophy are linked together in a very inextricable way for the presuppositionalist.

Okay, so what is presuppositionalism? Well, what all presuppositionalists have in common is that when they go about making a case for Christianity, they believe that they should start, and all Christians should start this way, that you should start in making your case for Christianity, you should start by presupposing that God exists and that the Bible is from God.

Hence the term presuppositional, presuppositional apologetics, presuppositionalism. So they think you should

That is correct. We presuppose the existence of the triune God and his revelation. That's correct.

Good, presuppose those things. You don't argue for those things. You don't start out by getting evidence for those things.

Did you hear it? Did you catch it? Did you catch it? Okay, so when he's giving his definition, he says that we believe as presuppositionalists, we shouldn't argue for it. We simply presuppose the existence.

Let's play that part again. Let me see if I could,.

Let me see if I could play that a little bit back. I don't want to go too back.

I'm so sorry.

As to why they think you should presuppose those things are true, and that's what would place them in different camps of presuppositionalism. So for example, the folks that I described as philosophical presuppositionalists, followers of Cornelius Van Til, they would say, look, you have to presuppose.

All right, I'm going to go back a little bit.

And there's different motivations as to why they think you should presuppose. In making your case for Christianity, you should start by presupposing that God exists and that the Bible is from God. Hence the term presuppositional, presuppositional apologetics, presuppositionalism.

So they think you should presuppose those things. You don't argue for those things.

You don't.

Okay.

Do you hear what he said? We don't argue for those things.

Okay.

Now, what is the central argument that presuppositionalists use? Right. It's the transcendental argument.

Okay.

There is no consistent presuppositionalist that says we shouldn't argue for the truth of the Christian faith. Of course we argue for the truth of the Christian faith.

Okay.

If we didn't argue, we're just presupposing it. And that's it. But of course we presuppose it and we argue for it.

Okay.

And typically it's a utilization of a transcendental argument of sorts. But it is to be sure an attempt at vindicating the Christian philosophy of life over against the non-Christian philosophy of life, which is exactly the definition that I gave, that Van Til gave in his book, Christian Apologetics.

Literally the first page, first page.

I'll start out by giving evidence for those things. You presuppose them.

And we don't start off giving evidence. There is nothing inherent and essential to the presuppositional method that says that we cannot begin our discussion with unbelievers by giving evidence. There's nothing.

If someone were to ask me as a presuppositionalist, and more specifically as a Van Tilian presuppositionalist, what is the evidence for the resurrection?

Okay.

Nothing about the presuppositional method will require me then to go into the history of epistemology and how we know what we know. I don't have to start with those sorts of discussions. I'm able to give the evidence.

Okay.

And this is, again, a popular misunderstanding.

Okay.

Is that presuppositionalists are not against giving evidence. We're not against even beginning with evidence. What we're against is giving the sort of evidence that caters to categories of neutrality and autonomy because to cater to those categories is to start our apologetic in an unbiblical fashion and in a philosophically vacuous context.

It doesn't work.

Okay.

So again, we need to understand that presuppositionalists believe in arguing and presuppositionalists believe in giving evidence. So he's completely wrong headed here, but let's continue on.

And there's different motivations as to why they think you should presuppose those things are true. And that's what would place them in different camps of presuppositionalism. So for example, the folks that I described as philosophical presuppositionalists, followers of Cornelius Van Til, they would say, look, you have to presuppose that Christianity is true, that God exists.

The Bible is from God. You have to presuppose that first in the order of thinking or in the order of presenting a case for Christianity. Because if you don't presuppose those things, then there's no reason to, there's no good reason to trust your own cognitive faculties, to trust that your own rational thinking works correctly.

That's why I described it as a little bit philosophical.

Okay, so he's wrong here. So Van Til does not say that we must presuppose God because if we don't, there's no reason to trust our reasoning faculties or something along those lines, whatever he said. Van Til's reasons are because to presuppose God in his word is to be faithful to Christ and give the proper place of authority to Christ in our thinking.

Now, does he believe that if you don't presuppose God in his word, you lose intelligibility and so forth? Well, sure, but that's not the primary reason for presupposing God in the Bible. The primary reason is a commitment to scripture.

Okay, so there you go. Okay, he says that we, well, let's continue on here. And I know he's gonna say a couple of other things that I wanna speak to here,.

And we'll talk more about them. But other types of presuppositionalists, for example, John MacArthur type folks are more theological presuppositionalists. And they're gonna make the case, for example, that look, when we just follow the Bible, when we look at scripture, scripture begins, Genesis 1 .1, in the beginning, God.

And so when you see scripture, scripture doesn't start out with reasons and evidence to believe that there's a God or reasons and evidence to believe the Bible's from God. It just starts out with presupposing that there is a God.

And so that's how we should start out because we wanna follow the Bible. That sounds very spiritual, right? It sounds very theological. And I'll talk later about the problems that I see with that way of thinking.

But again, they might have different motivations for why they do so, but they share with philosophical presuppositionalists this idea that you should start presupposing those things. You shouldn't start out with reason and evidence.

Now, the best

So we shouldn't start out with reason. So I'm gonna presuppose, and I'm not gonna use my reason. I'm just gonna, I mean, how do you start a discussion without using your reason? Yeah, this is, again, no presuppositionalist believes that you don't start with reason.

It all depends on what you mean by to start with, right? Again, Van Til and Ponson speak about this in their books multiple times. And in multiple places. But there are different notions of what it means to start with something, right?

You can start with something chronologically. You can start with something logically speaking. So you have what we call proximate starting points and ultimate starting points. And, you know, starting with something in principle versus starting with something in practice.

Okay, all things, all of the distinctions of which presuppositionalists are fully aware of. So again, someone were to say, okay, Mr. Presuppositionalist, do you start with God or do you start with your reason?

Okay, well, I mean, I teach logic and it's very easy to point out that that is to commit the fallacy of a false dichotomy. Okay, it is not you either start with God or you start with your reason. There is the other option that we start with both simultaneously understanding the proper relationship of our reason as a proximate starting point, which Bonson says explicitly in his writings.

And we also start simultaneously with the logically prior ultimate metaphysical context that makes the utilization of my proximate starting point meaningful. Okay, so that's why we have a worldview and we believe things in bundles.

My belief about reason is couched within my broader metaphysical presupposition of the triune God who has created and given meaning to the utilization of my reason, okay? So I would not say as a presuppositionalist, we don't start out with reason.

I would say we start proximately speaking with reason, but that proximate starting point simultaneously exists within the broader metaphysical starting point of the triune God who gives meaningfulness to our reasoning, okay?

This is not to confuse our epistemology with our ontology, okay? It's just to understand that our epistemology exists within an ontological framework. And so they are constantly in touch with one another.

There is no confusion here. They are in touch with one another. So again, I think he's mixed up here, okay?

The vast majority of time, when you find somebody who's a presuppositionalist, it's almost 99 guaranteed that they're going to be a Calvinist. So a lot of Calvinists are presuppositionalists. Not all Calvinists are though, that's the difference.

So we can say it forwards and backwards. So you can say it this way, pretty much all presuppositionalists are Calvinists, okay? But not all Calvinists are presuppositionalists. I'll give you a point in fact, R .C. Sproul.

You're probably familiar with R .C. Sproul, very well-known reformed Calvinist thinker. I was a professor, wrote a lot of theological books. I have a lot of respect for him. I own a lot of his works.

And he was not a presuppositionalist. In fact, he wrote a book with some others against presuppositionalism as a reformed Calvinist thinker. His book is called Classical Apologetics, a Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apology.

And I love R .C. Sproul. As a matter of fact, I have that book somewhere.

Here we go. Let's see here.

There we go. Classical Apologetics, a Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics. And well, R .C. is not the topic of this video, but his criticisms of presuppositionalism, and I say this with all due respect, because I love R .C. Sproul.

They're not just off a little, they're off a lot. Again, if I wasn't, and I keep having to say this, if I was not a presuppositionalist, but I understood where presuppositionalists were coming from, I would not think R .C. Sproul's critiques of presuppositionalism were good.

If I was a classical apologist, I wouldn't think that his critiques of presuppositionalism is good. So yeah, he does have this book. Presuppositionalists have responded to it ad nauseum. Dr. Bonson responded to it and showed clearly the misrepresentations of the presuppositional approach.

Now, I know we get this a lot. It's like, well, if you critique a view, what does the other side typically say? Well, you just don't understand the view. It's like, well, of course they would say that, right?

But, and you're right, there are people who can say that. There are people who can say that, and it's not true. You could understand a view rightfully and disagree with the view. But it's interesting to me that in many of the critiques of presuppositionalism, people don't understand it.

So for example, I'll tell someone that there is no presuppositional argument in which the premise of the argument, if you present a transcendental argument, for example, in like a deductive form, you can do that.

There's nothing in the argument, in the premise rather, that's also stated in the conclusion. And so it's not circular in the way that many people suggest it is. There is an element of circularity to it, but not in that fallacious sense.

And so, and then after saying that, people will say, my mic turned off. One second here. Let me make sure I have my mic on, the right mic.

There we go. We're good.

Okay.

People will say, we'll tell them our argument, no presuppositionalist argues this way, that the Bible is true, therefore the Bible's true. And then after saying that, I'll read in the comments and they'll say, well, presuppose boils down to the idea that because the Bible's true, it's true.

Even after you just finished saying that that's not what we're saying.

Okay.

So yes, many misunderstandings, many criticisms come from a place of misunderstanding. All right. So I don't want to make the mistake that because I disagree with him, that all that he's, no, trust me.

He's not understanding presuppositionalism correctly.

Okay.

All right. Let's continue on here because I can technically rant on this point. But nevertheless, R .C. Sproul, we're aware of these and highly recommend folks look into critiques of the arguments here.

Okay. Maybe I'll do a video on that in the future.

Classical Apologetics, Presuppositionalism, and James K. A. Smith

Apologetics. So he would debate his fellow Calvinists over this issue. He believed that it was appropriate to begin with reasons and evidence in making a case for Christianity. And that's my approach as well.

More of a classical or sometimes what's called traditional apologetics. So R .C. Sproul and I would be on the same page when it comes to our apologetic approach. And traditionally, the classical apologist will begin in making an overall case for Christianity.

He'll begin by making a case for the existence of God. And then the second step would be to provide historical evidence for Jesus's resurrection and miracles. Whereas the evidentialist, they might actually just begin straight with the historical evidences.

So that's going to be a slight difference between an evidentialist and a classical.

But they could be wrong, right? So the arguments are giving the high probability, right? So their views seem to suggest that there are things more certain than God himself. And that, again, we would say is problematic for reasons that obviously I'm not going to get into here, but I've addressed them in other videos.

But let's continue.

R .C. Sproul and I would both consider ourselves classical apologists. OK, well, the main purpose of this podcast, as I said before, is to point out all the connections and similarities between presuppositionalism and postmodernism.

But you don't have to take my word for it. There is a book out there that goes into this in much more detail. It's a book by author James K .A. Smith. And the title of the book is Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?

Now, what's interesting about this book is that he is a presuppositionalist.

All right, I have no idea who this author is. So I have not read this book that he's referencing. But if that presuppositionalist tries to draw the connections that's being suggested in this video with postmodernism and presupp, then I then I would suggest that that presuppositionalist does not understand presuppositionalism.

OK, the historical influences on presuppositionalism is not postmodernism. It's very much related to Van Til's. The influences that really can be connected to Van Til are a number of people, for example, Benjamin Warfield, Abraham Kuyper, especially Abraham Kuyper's view of worldview and antithesis.

OK, and so you do have a heavy influence of Kuyper on Van Til. Of course, Van Til comes out disagreeing with Kuyper because Kuyper suggests that because everyone has worldviews and because everyone has presuppositions and that there's an antithesis between believer and unbeliever, that therefore there's no way to reach the unbeliever because apologetics at this point is useless because there's no way to transcend, right?

There's such a great antithesis that there's no way to transcend the two positions. That's more in line with a postmodern perspective, but that's not the aspect that influenced Van Til. But influenced Van Til was the lordship of Christ over every detail of our worldview, the issue of worldview itself.

You also have influence from Gerhardus Voss, Burkoff, let me see here, a lot of reformed thinkers, of course, idealism. I don't think that Van Til was influenced by idealism in the sense that he's just borrowing from idealism.

I don't think, I think he's saying something very different than the idealist, but those are the views that he's interacting with. So he does use the language of idealism, but he is not an idealist in that sense at all.