Revealed Apologetics & David Bahnsen: A Conversation

Presuppositional Apologetics and the Legacy of Greg Bahnsen

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today I have a very special guest with me. As you know, on this channel, we place a great emphasis upon presuppositional apologetics and reform theology and these sorts of things.

And many of my listeners know how heavily influenced I've been from the work of Dr. Greg Bonson. And it is a privilege to have his son, David Bonson, join me today in just a few moments. And so for folks who don't know who David Bonson is, I'm just going to kind of share some information about him and then we'll invite him on the screen and we'll begin our discussion.

So looking forward to it. And thank you so much beforehand for those who are listening in. David L. Bonson is the founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group, a national private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, New York City, Bend, Nashville, Minneapolis, managing over $4 billion in client assets.

Prior to launching the Bonson Group, he spent eight years as a managing director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a vice president at UBS. He is consistently named one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron's, Forbes and the Financial Times.

He's a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News and Fox Business and is a regular contributor to National Review. He hosts the popular weekly podcast, Capital Record, dedicated to a defense of free enterprise and capital markets.

He's a regular lecturer for the Action Institute and the Center for Cultural Leadership and writes daily investment commentary at www .thedctoday .com and weekly macro commentary at www .dividendcafe .com.

David is a founding trustee for Pacifica Christian High School of Orange County and serves on the board of directors for the National Review Institute in New York City. He's the author of several bestselling books including Crisis of Responsibility, Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It and The Case for Dividend Growth, Investing in a Post-Crisis World and his newest book, There's No Free Lunch.

I'm not sure if this is updated, he can correct me but There's No Free Lunch, 250 Economic Truths which was released in 2021. David's true passions are anything relating to USC football, the financial markets, politics and Chinese food.

I think we're kindred spirits there. I love Chinese food. His ultimate passions are his wife of 20 plus years, Jolene, their children, Mitchell, Sadie and Graham and the life they've created together on both coasts.

And so that is kind of the introductory information on David. He can let me know if I left anything out but without further ado, I'd like to welcome David Bonson. How are you doing brother? You are actually on mute and no worries, that happens all the time.

There you go. Thanks so much for the warm introduction. Great to be with you. Well, it's a pleasure to have you. Now, unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about economics and things like that. So there's no cool savvy question to give the impression that I'm overly familiar with what you do in terms of the financial and economic sector.

But is there anything going on that we should know about before we jump into our topic? Is American economics in trouble?

What's going on? Well, the American economy has been in a lot of trouble for some time in the sense of it's underperforming its own capacity. We have a robust capacity for economic growth in America. We, our very DNA is rooted in the idea of prosperity, productivity and growth.

And for about 15 years since the financial crisis, we've been living well below that productive capability and that's very disappointing. I think it's a by-product of us having to account for excessive size of government, excessive government indebtedness that represents resources that have to be allocated to things other than the productive, prosperous parts of the economy.

So that's not going to get better overnight, but that's probably the thing I spend most of my time thinking about. But certainly whether you're talking about the political economy or a theological case for economic growth, these are the things I do day in and day out that represent my professional passions.

Sure, well, that's super interesting. Actually, I'm looking forward to kind of getting into how you navigate that from a Christian worldview perspective. And I think that'd be very useful for people to hear.

But of course, folks who are familiar with my channel are obviously going to recognize your name. You're David Bonson, the son of the late Greg Bonson, who is a Christian philosopher and theologian and apologist.

And so I want to talk a little bit about the legacy of your father. Now I would imagine the questions that I'm going to kind of walk through and maybe some of the live audience might chime in a little bit.

I'm sure you've heard a bunch of times. I know that you are fully aware of the impact that your father has had. But I do think it's important to remember those things and to reflect upon some of the great contributions that your dad has made to theology and apologetics.

Because one of the goals of this channel, David, is to promote reform theology, a presuppositional approach, and make our small contribution to helping it continue on in at least the online world. So very much interested in hearing what you have to say with respect to your father.

The Apologetic Legacy of Greg Bahnsen

Now, my first question for you, David, is kind of a broad question. In your view and your understanding, based upon your knowledge of your father as your father and his work as a theologian and apologist, what do you think is his greatest legacy that he's left the church?

Well, I do think the greatest legacy is apologetical. I think that in terms of his work intellectually in philosophy and a distinctly Christian view of epistemology, that there is a legacy that will last for a long, long time.

And I think it has both a practical evangelistic benefit, and I think it has an intellectual legacy that will be tremendous. So we've already seen that to some degree in a limited amount of time, a few decades since he's been gone.

I think that there has been a resurgence of interest in Christian apologetics. And I think that the Vantillian and the, as you call it, the presuppositional approach has gained a much broader audience as a result of his work that has seen a real leveraged increase in following since his passing.

Sure. Now, how would you gauge the popularity of the presuppositional approach? Would you say that at the kind of the high point of your dad's apologetic career, was it a widely known and was there a wide interest in it in a way that's much larger today?

Or do you think this resurgent here in kind of our modern context is even larger than when your dad was alive?

Definitely the latter. It's much larger today than when he was alive. I think a lot of that has to do, this is sort of my conjecture that popular atheism as a mainstream pop culture reality really didn't exist in the 1970s and 80s.

And even in the first half of the 90s, my dad passed away at the end of 1995. The idea of guys like Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins and Sam Harris writing books that would sell over a million copies that were really meant to mock God.

Look, atheism and some cousin of atheism rooted in secular humanism were very, very common before dad died. And I think some of the sort of postmodern developments that were taking place philosophically in our country and culturally in our country were well underway.

But I'm referring to the specific marriage of these things to an active, almost evangelistic crusade of atheism. And I think that as we went through that, I'm probably talking my own book a little bit here, meaning talking my dad's legacy and my affections for him and his work.

It didn't seem to me like we had the A-team available to correspond with, to kind of pick up the mantle, to carry the sword as we were dealing with this. And these were becoming like kind of household names, bestseller names, getting on all the talk show type names.

Some guys filled in capably, but I do think there was a sense in which there are certain apologetical holes that exist in evidentialism and some of the classical models. And I think that they were found a little bit lacking.

And I don't think that that same concern exists in the presuppositional approach to apologetics. But then also beyond that, there is obviously a big resurgence in some of the various elements of reformational theology, which I think presuppositional apologetics is deeply wed to.

It is an attempt to apply some of the tenets of the sovereignty of God and the authority of scripture to the apologetical realm. And as there has been a bit of a healthy growth in interest in thoughtful Christianity and particularly to Kuyperianism, the very specific Dutch theologian and thinker and intellect who was Abraham Kuyper and who was one of my dad's favorite influences in his view of sphere sovereignty and culture.

I think that right now is very rare that you engage with Christians who are advocating for some form of retreatism. And so as there is an increased popularity in cultural apologetics, it carries with it a burden for a better understanding of philosophical apologetics.

And that has led to a greater interest in the work of people like my late father.

Kuyper, Calvin, and Van Til on Worldview

Now, was your father's interest in Abraham Kuyper, was it for broad theological reasons or was it because of his emphasis on worldview, which I would imagine would resonate very much with your father and his connection with Cornelius Van Til?

Yeah, I don't see a way to separate those two things. I don't believe that they are distinct. I think that Kuyper was most certainly a Calvinist in a lot of ways. And so as a reformational theologian as my dad was, both his obsessive interest in the work of the Geneva scholar, John Calvin, but really in the 19th century manifestation of Calvinist thought brought to worldview matters.

Kuyper, I think is one of the great heirs of Calvin and certainly that would have carried over into my dad's interest. And so, yes, it's worldview mindedness, which is obviously very connected to Vantillianism.

And ultimately if one holds to the views of antithesis that Van Til and Bonson did, even apart from apologetical methodology, which wasn't Kuyper's forte, but they are certainly very likely to be wed to a view of worldview that Kuyper, Calvin, Van Til and Bonson would all share.

Yeah, interesting.

So now in your opinion, what do you think the apologetic landscape would look like had your father continued on into the realm of say, new atheism? I mean, I know, I remember watching or rather listening to a debate between Dan Barker and Doug Wilson, who your dad was previously scheduled to debate.

And I remember the moderator speaking about how Dr. Bonson passed away just the year previously. What do you think the landscape of apologetics would look like? Do you think that presuppositionalism would have taken a much stronger hold than it does now?

Or would it have experienced kind of the dying down that it did and then this resurgent that comes later? What are your thoughts on that?

I don't know. I have a better feel for what I think would happen with new atheism than what I think would happen within people's different appetite for presuppositionalism. I haven't seen in within the reform world, a lot of up and down movement and presuppositionalism that was related to the merits of the case.

It generally tends to be quite personal. And I think that within the broader realm of philosophical discourse, there's no question. You've already teed me up as Greg Bonson's son. I'm not capable of separating my own biases from the subject, which by the way, is a bit of irony to the very subject that we're discussing.

But I don't think that the new atheist would have liked Greg Bonson still being alive.

I don't think so either, but he's definitely missed. I mean, I've listened to his debates. I mean, I think my, I mean, I could joke around and say that Dr. Bonson lives in my car. Once I go on a road trip, it's just a Bonson seminary situation for the whole way.

So he's influenced me so much and just his rhetoric, his argument, his persuasiveness. I think he was genuinely gifted in that area. Now you did make mention of, if I heard you correctly, his obsession with Calvin, Calvinism.

Why don't you unpack that for us? I get this question all the time. Presuppositional methodology and reform theology are necessarily and intricately linked. Do you see, based on your understanding, a necessary connection?

Because, and I ask this question because I'm not sure how familiar you are with the apologetic scene online. There have been Roman Catholics, there have been Eastern Orthodox individuals claiming to be presuppositional.

And so you kind of see this odd mixture of these other traditions with presuppositionalism. What is the nature of the connection, as you understand it, between presuppositional methodology and reform theology?

Well, first, let me say that when you say you're not sure how familiar I am with apologetics online, the answer is not at all.

And so the various I want it to be gentle, because I know you have other things that you deal with, so I want to

Yeah, the various, you know, I spent five minutes on a reform blog 20 years ago, and those are not five minutes that I'm ever going to get back, but no, the most online debates and fights and things are not necessarily, I think, the greatest forum for discussion.

And I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that happens. I do know the sociology of what you're describing very well. I've grown up in this world, and it's not something I'm unfamiliar with as to how a lot of this stuff plays out.

I have very strong opinions as to what I think about it. But as far as the substance of the case, which is a great question, I would think that there's a sort of best ball here. And what I mean by that is, no, I do not believe that only those who hold to Calvinist eteriology can be presuppositional in their apologetical method.

I would be quite excited for the notion of a Catholic or Orthodox or even non-Calvinist evangelical to embrace a presuppositional approach. And that in a certain theory of knowledge and in a certain framework of ideas that I do think constitute worldview commitments and an understanding for preconditions of intelligibility, I don't think it requires a Calvinist eteriology.

However, I do think a Calvinist eteriology requires a presuppositional approach to apologetics. Okay, all right. And so in all cases, Van Til wins. Okay, very good.

Now, the interesting thing, and people who are interested in this, they can check out some of my other videos where we do talk about presuppositionalism and Eastern Orthodoxy and issues like that. There's definitely a difference in epistemology that needs to be taken into consideration.

We need to push for a worldview consistency and how that applies to our apologetic, but definitely a topic in and of itself that's worthy of an entirely different live stream. But all right, so your dad is thoroughly reformed in his outlook and he's known for his debating and his teachings.

What was your connection with the Bonson Project? I don't know if you recognize my name prior to connecting with me today, but we were somewhat linked together in an email chain where folks were talking about releasing the audio of your dad's lectures.

And what was your involvement in terms of getting his lectures out in kind of the public square without any cost? At least for people who want to listen to those, I'm sure it costs somebody something.

The Bonson Project and the Public Release of His Lectures

Yeah, I'll just say that I finance making that possible. I'll leave it there. Yeah, well, thank you.

I've listened to almost everything that your dad recorded and I've listened to that on Sermon Audio if folks don't know. So they're all available on Sermon Audio and the Apologia Studios website. So folks definitely want to check it out.

Sermon Audio and Apologia have been the two platforms that have the best platform to run with it since they've been put into the open domain. Others are free too as well. Covenant Media continues to make the material available.

The fine work that my dear friend Randy Booth did for many years there with Covenant Media. He and his wife, Marinel, are single handedly responsible for so much of the platform growth of the legacy of Greg Bonson.

But I believe that it was time to make it available at no cost to a broader audience for kingdom expansion and kingdom purposes. And it was something that was near and dear to my heart and I'm really quite excited.

But there will be other platforms that will take it on in the future as well. That's the beauty of open source and the technology, the leverage you get through technological capacity now that there's no stopping anybody.

That's right. From making this stuff available to the world and Apologia and Sermon Audio both have done a great job in the aftermath of this and I'm very pleased to see all that.

Well, I mean, I lost count the testimonies of people who've benefited greatly from being pointed in that direction of those audio lectures. I tell people all the time, when I share, when I teach on presuppositional apologetics, people are like, hey, what are some good books to start with?

And of course, we suggest your dad's books, Always Ready, Presuppositional Apologetics, stated and defended. But I'm like, you know what? In my opinion, I think better than his books are his lectures because when he teaches, his personality comes across, the way he kind of turns a phrase.

It's just, it connects very well if you're willing to kind of sit through and listen to his many lectures. So I'm very, very happy and excited that those lectures were made available. All right, well, let's kind of shift gears now.

What interests me personally, and when I'm studying someone in church history or someone in recent history, a Christian thinker, studying the theology and apologetics and the philosophy are super fascinating, but I'm really weirdly interested in like a person when they're not doing those things, kind of the regular man, right?

When I think of Greg Bonson, I think of a professor, I think of debater, I think of theologian, I think of apologist, but that's not all, that's not the culmination of who he was. If I were just to be so blunt, can you share some personal aspects of what your dad was like in the everyday?

What kind of person was he outside of the academic sphere?

Greg Bahnsen as a Father, Music Lover, and Pastor

Yeah, I mean, I've shared quite a bit about this. You know, my dad was a very fun person. Most of the things I share, various people who only know him in the construct of his professorial or even pastoral context are a little surprised.

He was a absolute walking encyclopedia of rock and roll. No bigger fan of the Beatles could have ever walked the face of the earth than my dad. And even other rock music from the 60s, which of course is the decade in which he sort of grew up as a high schooler and then as a college student.

And so that bridge from youth to adulthood for him came with it, a certain musical era. And he used to refer to it. I think the first person I ever used the expression, music has a rite of passage was my dad.

And I think a lot of people identify a certain musical era with their own high school years. And it ends up having a kind of, you know, familiar and nostalgic benefit in their life. And my dad was no exception.

He absolutely loved Saturday Night Live. He really enjoyed good humor in some of the characters. Sure. Comedians from his golden era, Saturday Night Live, in that kind of 1970s era was Steve Martin and Chevy Chase and these guys, Dan Aykroyd, you know, he loved them.

And then the movies they put out later. So he had a great sense of humor. He loved music. He loved food. Like me, he loved Chinese food. So he was a very warm and caring guy. But the thing on a more serious note, what I would say pastorally is that he was something that I don't see very often today, which I think some pastors seem to be very proud of being a really good shepherd and not necessarily a real intellect and others that are really pursuing to be a true intellect and student of the word, but not necessarily a real shepherd, real pastoral sensibility.

And I think that my dad's pastoral work was an incredible synthesis of the two. And so he was involved in a lot of pastoral counseling, a lot of real, you know, bottom up matters in people's own lives.

And he viewed that as inerrant to being a pastor. It was an intrinsic part of the job description. And I don't know where the, you know, he was only 47 when he died. I was only 21. I don't know if the movement towards presenting pastors as some sort of nebulous vision caster, devoid of depth or theology or skill or work ethic or pastoral shepherding.

I don't know if that movement was underway or not then, but I know it has accelerated since then. And it was not a movement that my dad would have jumped on with. He believed pastors should be both earnest students of the word and know their flock.

And I don't meet many pastors today that seem to believe that.

Sure, sure. Now, I was gonna ask a not so serious question, but then you got into that serious vein.

So you go to the not serious, it's fine. I wanna ask one question though, and then I wanna kind of piggyback.

On this whole pastoral issue. What was your dad's favorite movie?

Well, I'm sure it would have been, you know, he loved James Bond movies. Really? And Goldfinger was his favorite James Bond movie. But then as a, he loved comedy so much. I'm sure it would have been a Steve Martin movie.

He loved The Jerk by Steve Martin. He loved Caddyshack with Bill Murray. Oh my goodness, Dad. So, you know, something, if you're talking about something more serious, that Shadowlands that Anthony Hopkins played C .S. Lewis, he loved that movie.

And then on the comedy side, The Jerk or Caddyshack, you know, there were a few, but he really did love movies. And he loved going to movies by himself too. So a lot of people don't like doing, but he was a pretty contemplative guy.

And he was totally comfortable just going to theater by himself, watching a movie.

He enjoyed that. Yeah, I think I've seen a couple of movies by myself. I don't mind doing that. Now, my more serious question. So you were talking about your dad as a pastor. Now, as a debater, as a philosopher, people who are engaged in those kinds of disciplines can tend to be very intimidating.

How does that stereotype of the intimidating debater and philosopher, how does that match up with the actual situation where he would meet with people? And I really like how you kind of mentioned, he kind of met people from the ground up, really worked.

Did the work of ministry or the work of a pastor. Was that ever an issue of this issue of intimidation because of what your dad did? Did he ever come across that way when he was counseling others, if you even know?

Oh, I don't know if he came off that way in counseling others or not. I would be surprised if he did, but I think he had a real interesting dual threat as a debater is he was very winsome. I think he was very charitable and yet he was vigorous.

And that's where the frustrations with like Gordon Stein when dad debated him were not about dad's temperament. He wasn't uncharitable, he wasn't frustrated, there wasn't acrimony, but he was very diligent and that could be upsetting.

He also was quick, he was quick-witted and that's really what kind of usually wins a debate rhetorically is being quick on your feet. And my dad was, he wasn't fun to debate with, but that wasn't, I didn't enjoy debating with him, but that wasn't because he was rude or mean or anything like that, it was because he was right.

Or if he wasn't right, because there were a couple of things he wasn't right about that I used to debate him on, but he was hard to beat in a debate because he was very thorough and passionate, he did his homework.

And so, I see all those as positives, but I can certainly understand why others wouldn't have liked it. So that would be my take on the debate style and skill and how it would carry over into other aspects.

Me having a discussion with him at the dinner table about a theological issue or a political issue or something, that's where his debate ability should be coming out. I have no problem with that. But in terms of in a marital counseling situation, do I think he brought acrimonious debate to that?

I don't, no, I never heard anything like that, no. Okay.

Confidence in Scripture and the Christian Life

Now, in terms of debate, I remember listening to a lecture your dad gave, and he said, to be perfectly honest, I'm not afraid of any opponent I might come up against. And it's not because I'm super smart, but because I know the end of the book, right?

He kind of placed his trust in what scripture had to say. Scripture gives us kind of the cheat sheet on the unbeliever, so to speak. And the scriptures speak of unbelief as foolishness. Why don't you kind of unpack, and I'm not sure how old you were when he debated Gordon Stein.

How old were you there?

I was 11. I was about to turn 11. That was in February, 1985. And I was born in May of 1974, but I was at the debate. All right.

And so I want to kind of talk a little bit about your dad's confidence. What did that look like? Because it can be very intimidating when he speaks of the confidence that believers should have when engaging unbelief, because we know the back of the book.

But then you begin to wonder, well, I understand what you're saying, but I mean, the unbeliever's really smart. How do we navigate, from your dad's perspective, the sort of confidence we should have? I mean, people might point to your dad and be like, well, it's easy for him to say he's got a PhD in philosophy and he's really good at rhetoric and argumentation.

How did your dad see how that confidence should transfer over to the average believer, if my question makes sense there?

Yeah. Look, I think that for all people in other domains, outside of theology, philosophy, pastoral ministry, there is a gray area, a fine line, in which one person's self-assurance or self-confidence can be problematic for others.

I do believe that my dad had a very high degree of self-assurance and self-confidence when it came to things that he knew a lot about. And as you stated, that apparently you're repeating stuff, he stated his self-confidence in matters of apologetics or defending biblical truth and biblical fidelity.

I have no doubt it stemmed from his Christian testimony, his confidence in the truth claims of scripture. But there are a lot of people that fervently believe in the truth claims of scripture that don't carry the same self-assurance.

Yes. There's personality differences, there's wiring. There can be a certain timidity around these things. I don't think that's a good thing, but I'm just saying there's different rhetorical giftedness and so forth that's gonna carry over into this.

And I wouldn't say that one person with rhetorical insecurity has less confidence in the faith than someone with Greg Bonson's self-assurance. They both have a high degree of confidence in the faith and truth claims of scripture, and yet there are gonna be different manifestations of it.

And my dad just was blessed to really have, I think quite a complete package around that, a very high degree of self-assurance, a real rhetorical giftedness. And he was a very articulate guy, both in the written word and the spoken word.

And then being quick on your feet, that's not normal. He had a rare talent in that. And you put all that on top of a foundation of real fervent love of what the truth claims of scripture are, and a real familiarity with scripture.

The guy knew the Bible. I mean, I think that's a huge deal. There's a lot of people can believe the Bible but not know the Bible. And my dad really knew the Bible.

So that kind of makes me wanna transition into another area that I think folks will find interesting. And I know you've discussed it in the past, and I know people who have listened to your, I know they have these Bonson conference lectures and you gave one on your dad, which was excellent.

And I think you contributed to the Festrif, I think the Standard Bearer a while back where you kind of unpack basically what you laid out in your lecture about your dad. But without rehearsing the idea that your dad got up earlier than you, although I always get a kick out of that story, but what was his study habits like in the times that you can see him study?

Although, I mean, if he got up earlier than you, there's a lot you don't see, but in terms of the kind of studious person that he was, what did that look like from your perspective growing up around that?

Yeah, I think that whether it was in the Festrif, which was a biography chapter I wrote only a couple of years after he died, that's a long time ago. And then I did give a speech at the first Bonson Conference, I think six years ago, maybe seven years ago, where I did a little longer biography and so forth and legacy talk.

And then the most recent Bonson Conference, I got to speak about Greg Bonson and economics, which was a lot of fun for me. But it is true that I tell the story, which was a very true story about me being very young.

And no matter how early I got up, I kept getting up and he kept being already up. And he had me beat then. And he did then pass away shortly thereafter. And I can only tell you now, he wouldn't have me beat.

I would have him beat now.

So Wait a minute, what time do you wake up?

I'm pretty good about being up by 3 .30, 3 .40 each morning. And I don't, I suppose there were days he may have been up that early, but when we were doing our 5 .30, then 5, then 4 .30 thing, you know, I don't think it was in the middle of the night.

But either way, he was a morning guy. Like I, I'm a morning guy. Okay. What time do you go to sleep? Oh, I try to be asleep by 10 most nights or at least in bed reading. Okay. You know, I think my dad had a similar philosophy.

There's a lot he wanted to do in life. And he found a lot of it hard to do when he was laying down with his eyes closed. And I feel the same. But my dad also, even apart from his early morning habits and his, you know, when he slept and didn't sleep and that kind of stuff, he was a very organized worker.

He was, he had very rigorous self-discipline and was a real task oriented guy. And, you know, before there were Franklin planners, let alone, remember, this is the thing, people that now have become fans of my dad over the last 20 years, can't necessarily comprehend that he never had the internet.

Right. He never had email, let alone social media, let alone Microsoft Outlook and a lot of the electronic amenities of the day that are really quite useful tools in our own daily productivity. Sure. And, and so his version of those things was pretty impressive, but he was a real list like handwritten list kind of guy.

And then he crossed out and go to the next thing and he had short and mid and long-term type tasks and objectives. And so, yeah, there was a lot of self-discipline in Greg Bonson that people, people could learn from.

My wife would definitely read. I didn't just learn from it, I was obsessed with it. I mirrored all of my discipline habits I got from him, all of them.

Yeah. Well, my wife is list oriented. So good thing she wasn't here when you said that. You see, Dr. Bonson is a list. And she, she talks about how gratifying it is to just, you just cross it off moving along.

So that's right. All right, well, very, very interesting there. Okay. So what about his personal devotions? I know you've spoken about this. Maybe you could speak to this again. There, there is a great difficulty in having a busy academic schedule.

I mean, he's raising, he's raising you and the family and he is also a scholar, he's studying, he's busy, he's speaking. How, how did he navigate the balance between all of that hard work and discipline and structure and his personal devotions?

Yeah, if you can share that with us.

Yeah, he was an early morning devotions guy. It was pretty, pretty daily. And he, I got his library when he passed away and would go through some of these different devotional books and was always pretty struck by how many notes in the margins and underlining and whatnot.

So my impression, I mean, I know he absolutely loved the book of Psalms. He was quite a Bible reader, but then in terms of other non-Bible devotional books, he had a lot of old Puritan writers that he seemed to be quite fond of.

And he also had a lot of C .S. Lewis. He loved A .W. Tozer, a lot of Tozer's stuff that seemed to be more devotional early morning reading. So it was a mix of different writings and then of course, scriptural reflections.

And a lot of those scriptural reflections, especially in the last six years of his life were heavily rooted in the book of Psalms.

Teaching Apologetics at Home and the Lordship of Christ

Yeah, interesting. Now, if we can kind of transition back to his apologetics, I do understand that he believed in teaching apologetics within the household. What did that look like for you? How did he teach you how to think apologetically at a very young age?

Because apologetic can be very intellectually heavy and really be intimidating for the adult. How did your dad navigate that in terms of raising you as a young boy into your teen years? I mean, did he talk about apologetics as often as he spoke about it outside the house?

What did that look like?

Yeah, he talked about it quite a bit. He taught apologetics at the Christian high school that we went to, to juniors. He taught one semester in theology and one semester in apologetics. And that syllabus that he used for high school juniors was the same syllabus he had used when he taught apologetics at RTS at Reformed Theological Seminary, which was grad students.

But even well before we were in high school, I had been discussing Van Til with him since I couldn't even tell you the age. I was a very, very young boy. And so we were truly brought up in it in every sense of the word.

Sure.