Jeff & Sye | The Basis of Apologetics

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This is a blessing for everybody. Cy, we're talking a ton about apologetics. We're talking about a biblical apologetic.

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We're talking about like this approach of apologetics. But for a lot of people listening to this right now, a lot of believers, they might be thinking, like, what do you mean?

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I thought there's just Christian apologetics. I thought we just defend the faith. So what do you mean this approach and how come people are going, aha,

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I get it. Why? Because when you speak of apologetics this way, it's happened to me, people at conferences, there's tears in their eyes coming up to me.

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That's the God that I believe in. Because we're not apologizing for God anymore. We're talking about the

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God of the Bible. In the Bible, it says that everyone knows that God exists and it classifies those who reject his existence as fools.

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But the problem is, and as I say in the film as well, if somebody came up to you and says, I don't believe in words, we wouldn't pull out a dictionary and show them words.

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We wouldn't pull out one of those children's alphabets and try and form it and say, you really do believe in words. We'd think they were crazy.

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But who made words? God made words. And somebody says, I don't believe in God, and we treat them as though they didn't just say,

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I don't believe in words. And one of the analogies that I give, God in his words says everyone knows that he exists.

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Now let's say that you were talking to somebody about your wife and they said, I think your wife's a prostitute.

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You say, well, actually last night she was cooking dinner for me, so I don't think she was out in the street. And the night before that, she was at choir practice, so I don't think she was out in the street.

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And the night before that, she was at her parents' place. So I don't think you, would you say that? No. You'd say, pal, that's my wife you're talking about.

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You better be very careful with the next words out of your mouth. Somebody comes up to you and says, I don't believe in God, they just called

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God a liar. They just blaspheme God, and we treat them differently than we would treat our wife.

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We would uphold the dignity of our wives, but we don't do it for God. Cy, I think it'd be good for us to talk about this.

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There is so much connected to presuppositional apologetics that is, in reality, connected to a network of other presuppositions and assumptions, a network of them.

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For example, God's word is true. It's the standard, Sola Scriptura. It's the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.

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And so with Sola Scriptura, we get a particular view about mankind, their condition before God.

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The person who's standing in front of me is not spiritually sick. The Reformed view of, the

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Reformed anthropology view of mankind is that the person in front of me right now is spiritually dead in their sins and trespasses by nature, a child of wrath.

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They are hostile towards their creator. They're an enemy of God. They are fallen. They are a rebel. They are wicked.

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I'm quoting scripture, by the way, in case you're thinking I'm being abusive here. That's what the Bible says about our condition.

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So this translates in terms of the Reformed presuppositional apologist has

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God as the principium, as the center of it all, as the reference point. And so when I walk into the conversation with the unbeliever,

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I see this person through the lens that God tells me to see them through, a person who's lost, who is hostile, who is suppressing the truth about him.

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And therefore, I have my apologetic methodology working through that story.

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This person knows the God that I'm talking about is suppressing the truth. The problem isn't a lack of lighter evidence.

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It's their sin against God, right? Right, and the thing is, the more that you argue apologetically, you'll see the folly that people resort to in order to defend their worldview.

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I think specifically of my conversation with Paul Baird. And at one point I said to him, is it impossible for God to exist?

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And he says, no, that's not impossible. I said, is it impossible for the Bible to be what it claims to be? And he said, yes.

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I said, why? He said, there's so many competing books from different religions.

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We'd never know which is the right one. And I said, Paul, would it make sense to say that there is no real money because there's counterfeit money?

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And he goes, ooh, that's a very interesting question. I said, Paul, would it make sense to say that there's no real dollar bills because there's fake ones?

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And this went on for like a couple of minutes. And then finally he says, yes. And now people think that because we're doing a biblical apologetic, therefore they're gonna drop on their knees and follow us into church.

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No, but we're gonna expose their folly. Because people say, when will they understand this apologetic?

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They'll understand this apologetic when God saves them. Same with any apologetic, when God saves them.

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But now at least we're honoring him when we do it. Okay, now let's talk about that specifically in terms of, because this is probably what you and I are most passionate about.

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It's about honoring our Lord, honoring his word, honoring his truth. And so when we talk about this apologetic, we're talking about it in terms of honoring

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God, right? So when we talk about this apologetic that honors God, we're talking about it in terms of what

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God says about himself, his world, us, his word. And so like, for example, I have it pulled up right here,

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Colossians chapter two. It's one of our favorites. It talks about Jesus, and it says, and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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

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And then Paul goes on to say here, in the context of a lot of Greek philosophical debate that was happening, these people are not schlubs in the first century.

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They were doing this for a living. They were thinking and working through, you've got Socrates, Aristotle, you've got the

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Epicureans, all the people who were having their debates. They were working through some very high level, sophisticated worldview thinking.

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And Paul is saying this in the context of the same guy who was at the

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Areopagus, challenging the idols of the unbelievers and pointing out that they know the

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God that he's talking about. They even built a shrine to him. And so he says this, in whom are all hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. And then he goes on to say in verse six of chapter two of Colossians, therefore, as you receive

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Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him rooted and built up in him and establish in the faith, just as you were taught abounding and thanksgiving, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to the human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

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So there is a philosophy according to the inspired apostle that is not according to Christ. And the inverse is there is a philosophy that is according to Christ.

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So let's talk about that for a second and honoring Christ as Lord and him being the foundation of and fountain of knowledge and wisdom and truth and all those things.

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Like we wanna honor God. Right. So basically all these things belong to Jesus Christ. Okay. Knowledge, logic, morality, all these things belong to him.

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And what we do is we give them to the unbeliever in order to argue against Jesus Christ. And the analogy that I've come up with, it's like two countries that are gonna have a war, but you happen to have all of the ammunition.

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I say, when does that war start? That war starts when you give your opponents some ammunition. I love that analogy.

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And I refuse to do that because Jesus Christ is my Lord and he is the foundation of all that Romans 11 36, from him, through him and to him are all things.

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Jesus Christ owns logic. He owns science. He owns morality. I'm not gonna give that to the person

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I'm talking with in order to argue against God. Very good. So what we're telling other brothers and sisters in Christ and people who are thinking these deep philosophical thoughts is that knowledge has a foundation.

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Knowledge has a starting point. Knowledge has a place that you fix yourself. And if you don't fix yourself there, knowledge isn't actually possible.

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You can have what's so -called knowledge. You can have borrowed capital from the Christian worldview to make knowledge claims and use logic.

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But what we're saying is that the Bible, I mean, Cy already said it. He said, the Bible says those who reject God are fools.

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That's what the Bible says. And we treat the person who rejects God - But it's not an insult. No, no, it's a moral indictment.

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Right, it's not even their intellect. We engage people that are way smarter than us, but they're made to look like fools like that Paul Baird in that clip there.

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He's probably way smarter than I am. But when you reject God, your folly is exposed. Right, one thing

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I loved about the debate between Dr. R .C. Sproul and Dr. Bonson, it was a classical approach versus presuppositional, was when they talked about this part of the unbeliever being a fool,

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I like what Sproul said. He says, not merely an indictment upon someone's intellectual capabilities, it's a moral indictment upon that person.

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When we say that you're a fool for rejecting God, fool being set in the place of sin, it's hostile rebellion.

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You're a fool, it's a moral indictment. And so what we're saying is that when you don't start with the

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God of the Bible, when you don't start with him as the center point, as the reference for all questions, all knowledge, all claims to truth, then you're reduced to absurdity and foolishness.

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And you mentioned a couple of things, Cy, we do it often, you mentioned logic, you mentioned science. Morality. Morality, how though?

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Because there's a lot of people who are new to this whole thing, so how? Now, what you'll see is the longer that I do this, the less

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I get into the philosophy, because I don't want to be like the evidentialist who had to learn all these evidences. But in order to explain it, to see what we're talking about, let's take, for example, logic.

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You know, somebody says to me, I could never be a Christian, there's too many logical contradictions in the Bible. I say, you know, I don't believe there are any.

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There might be things that I have difficulty reconciling. That's what we do in Bible studies. But why do you have a problem with logical contradictions?

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First I say, well, bring one up, and if I don't know it, I'll try and tell you, I'll be gracious, how we reconcile that.

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But you have a problem with the logical contradictions, so do I. Logical contradictions are not allowed to a Christian because God says, do not lie.

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There you go. Your car cannot be both in the parking lot and not in the parking lot at the same time in the same way. God says, do not lie.

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Logical contradictions are lies, but why can't you have logical contradictions? And they say, well, logic contradictions violate the laws of logic.

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Great, you believe in logic. Logic is universal, it's not made of matter, it does not change. God is universal, he's not made of matter, he does not change.

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We don't say God is logic, but God is logical, and we have a worldview that makes sense of logic.

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But you want to use that from a materialistic point where things are constantly changing. You want to borrow logic from God to argue against God.

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Look, I'll tell you how we can reconcile it, but that's not going to satisfy you. Your problem is not intellectual, it's spiritual.

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That's right, that's right. Because - Sorry, I got an example we had recently.

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Hey, it's good seeing you guys, man. I miss you guys. I know, we miss you. That kind of ties in everything you're saying here and kind of maybe demonstrate the difference between, you know, we're talking about presuppositional, maybe evidential or classical apologetics.

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So we had somebody recently message us, and they literally start off the message by saying, my girlfriend bet me 100 bucks that Jeff can convince me to believe in God.

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I'll give you $1 ,000 if you convince me. And I just said, I can't convince you. So I'm not even going to try, but I'm going to show you the folly of your worldview.

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So I went on to then show him, every time he would make a logical claim or a morality claim, show him that he has no ground to stand on.

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And this is why I love presuppositional apologetics, because then at that point, it's immediately, you know

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God, you're suppressing that, repent, and I'm going to keep showing you how you know God. You know, but a classical or evidentialist might then go on to try to give examples.

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I might try to spend hours on end trying to convince them. It's like, no, you already know, you're just suppressing that.

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Here's the question. This is what I tell people. Let's say you are versed in these evidences and evidences are a gift from God, but we don't want to elevate the person's position of judge.

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But let's say you have a conversation with that person for six hours about the complexity of the eye, about rock layers, about paper fragments, and they have a tragedy in their life the next day, and they are of the elect and God's going to save them.

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Who are they coming to? Exactly. Are they coming to the person who talked with them about the complexity of the eye for six hours or the person says, you know that God exists.

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If you die tonight, you're going to die unrepentant without Jesus Christ. And I love you enough to tell you that. Who are they coming to?

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They're not coming to the person who knows all this philosophy. And if you have to argue that way, you have to be brilliant. But Jesus said,

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I will give you words and wisdom that your adversaries will not be able to resist or contradict. He didn't say Jeff would.

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Didn't say Luke would. He didn't say Si would. He said, I would. In John chapter 10, Jesus did not say, my sheep hear

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Si's really good argument. He said, my sheep hear my voice. And the problem is - It is really good, by the way.

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They watch a William Lane Craig debate, and he's reviewed a debate that I did, and Dr.

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White ended up reviewing that. But they watch one of the William Lane Craig debate, and they say, you know, I could never do that. That guy's brilliant.

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And that's what evidential apologetics does. I'm not saying they're doing it willingly, but it glorifies the apologist.

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They watch one of my debates, and they say, I could do that. That guy's an idiot. And sometimes they might say, he didn't come to debate.

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He just came to preach. And I say, amen. That's one of the best insult -plements, or -

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Insult -plements. Complisults. We'll call it a complisult. One of the best complisults I can get. That's awesome.

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I want people to hear us very clearly, because we are the body of Christ, and so this is an in -house discussion over methodology.

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Understand that if you hold to a more classical approach, or evidentialist approach, this is not a war we're breaking with you.

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It's a matter of, let's sharpen ourselves. Let's sharpen our positions. And let's get to the word of God and ask the question, what's the most consistent biblically and philosophically?

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And of course that stands on whether it's biblical. So that's the thing. So what we're saying is that it's a problem if we have an apologetic methodology that leads us to a general deity.

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And if you might challenge what I'm saying right now and say, Jeff, I reject that. I don't think any

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Christian apologist is leading you to a general deity. I would say that you need to spend some time listening to Dr.

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William Lane Craig. Well, Jeff, are you certain that God exists? Yes. No! Oh yeah, there you go.

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That's right. I should pull that clip up as, yeah. So, and that's, you know, we could probably get to that in a few minutes here, but yeah, you have plenty of examples of Christian apologists who want to sort of pretend neutrality for the moment of the debate.

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They don't do it in church. I don't believe the classical apologists are pretending neutrality when they're before the throne of God, but the people of God worshiping and singing to God.

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There, they're certain. There, they know the God that they're standing on. They know the God they're professing and they know the

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God that they're hanging on to. All of his promises. It's all absolutely true. You are mad to deny it.

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But when they get before the atheist, they go, oh, well, he denies God exists. Well, okay, let me pretend neutrality and let's see where this evidence takes us.

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And you get examples of even these methodologies working out to where they actually say in public debate,

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I'm not defending the God of the Bible right now. I'm just defending the same general form of deity we get with Judaism or Islam or Christianity.

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You should be happy. I'm not asking you to worship the God of the Bible or become a Christian. I'm just telling you that there's a general deity out there.

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Now, if you think that I'm telling tales out of the schoolyard, you just need to do some homework.

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And I mean that very, very humbly to you. It's a problem. And Si talked at the beginning and I talked at the beginning about this is about honoring

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God, honoring Christ as Lord. Because see, it comes down to this. Let me ask you this. Do you believe this?

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Do you believe this? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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Now, start thinking like a Christian now. That's the words of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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Do we believe it? And if you say, absolutely, it's God's word. Well, then fantastic.

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You've just granted the entire position of presuppositional apologetics that it is reverent submission in all fear before God.

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That is the beginning, the beginning of knowledge. That's where it starts. Now, of course you might say, well, that's just one verse,

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Jeff. We can go for days here about this, what the Bible says about God being the source. How about what we just read in Colossians chapter two?

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That in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You want wisdom?

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You want knowledge? It's all bundled up in Jesus. And so what we're saying is that we have to start our apologetic methodology standing on the revelation of God and working our way from there.

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And you know what the glorious thing that I think is so beautiful, Cy, about this? Is that when I start with the

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God of the Bible, when I presuppose his revelation, he's my reference point,

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I get logic. I get science in a coherent way. I get meaningful appeals to morality, ethical appeals.

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I get all of it. I look over at the atheist who says that his ancestors were, you know, fish.

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And he says he's in a, an indifferent cosmos just bobbing along the surface. He's just stardust.

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He's meaningless and difference and no good and no evil. I look at his position where he starts without God.

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And I say, I don't want to start there. I don't even want to pretend to start there. Unless of course