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Open Q&A on Presup!
All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I am Eli Ayala, your host. I feel like I'm doing like a radio show. I think in terms of radio, I've never done radio, but I think in terms of radio, just because I'm in front of a mic and stuff like that.
So I apologize if I sound a little radio-ish, but I guess it's just, I don't know. Anyway, well, I am happy to... Ooh, let me fix that. Let me see if I can fix this. Yeah, I have the old tag there. This is not a promo video, but it's all good.
Yeah, so I am happy to be on tonight. I was super tired and was totally doubting whether I was going to do a live stream today, but I figured, you know, you know, why not? Didn't have a specific topic in mind, but I figured if folks were interested in asking any questions about presuppositional apologetics or anything, I know it says ask anything about presupp, but if you have any questions about theology, philosophy, apologetic methodology, or just general apologetic questions, I would like to encourage folks to send your questions in the chat.
Now, if people are just watching and they are not sending questions in the chat, then I'll just blab, but it's much more interesting when folks have questions and we can kind of talk a little bit about those things.
So I am very, very happy, by the way, with a lot of the questions I have been receiving just through personal email. I've been very encouraged to hear folks.
Let me just get something here real quick.
I'm being, I feel very encouraged of hearing folks who have come to adopt the presuppositional method after having watched, you know, and listened to the podcast and things like that. So I'm very excited that Revealed Apologetics is really accomplishing one of its goals.
Of course, the main goal is to glorify God, right? In everything that we do, which of course the emphasis here is apologetics. But one of the reasons why I'm doing this, apart from that main central feature of honoring God in the area of apologetics, is that as a presuppositional apologist, who believes that the methodology is scriptural and is the apologetic method that people should use.
If you're a Christian, you believe the Bible to be the word of God. We hold it as our ultimate authority. I wanted to promote this kind of apologetic methodology and to the best of my ability, explain it in a way that is clear, practical, intellectually powerful, and hopefully I'm able to do that.
I mean, I'm also learning as well. So, you know, it's a difficult task, but at the same time, I'm very happy with a lot of the fruit that's come about. I've had some interesting personal interactions with folks who have been enjoying just listening to the content and hopefully being able to unpack some of these popular misunderstandings.
Okay, there's... When I flip through Facebook and I read what people have to say about presuppositionalism, you know, when someone says presuppositionalists say A, B, and C, and I'm reading, I'm like, no, what?
It's totally not what we say. So there's a lot of confusion. So one of my goals is to help clarify and in the process, I'm learning. What I appreciate about the listeners is that many of the questions that they ask, I look forward to reading questions that I really haven't thought about before because this is also a learning process for myself.
I mean, I've studied the methodology for quite some time, but I mean, there are aspects of it that I need to flesh out in my own mind so that I could explain it better and defend it better and things like that.
So I very much appreciate the questions. Okay, now I do see some questions coming in. That's wonderful. We'll wait just a few more moments before I take some of them. I don't want... If I happen to go through the questions so quickly, I don't want it to steal the thunder and then we're kind of done.
So I do want to give a shout out, okay? For those of you guys who have... For those of you guys who have been following kind of the Revealed Apologetics website and the PresupU, Presup University, the online class that I'll be teaching and I've been offering, I have been super excited with the response.
We already have signups for PresupU. We have a couple of folks signing up for the basic and a bunch of people signing up for the premium. So I'm looking forward to having a decent size class. There's still slots available.
So if you guys want to sign up and take an online course with me, I'll be your instructor and we'll get into some of the deeper issues of Presup methodology. You can do that by visiting revealedapologetics .com right now and sign up right there on the website.
So you can do that if that's something that you are interested in. Now, what I do want to really say is thank you. There are a lot of people who have been supporting the ministry who have been signing up as I said and are just really excited about what's going on with the Revealed Apologetics.
It's a big deal. I've never had a website before. So we're just super happy that the website is up. And so I just want to give a shout out and say thank you for those who have supported even just behind the scenes helping out with the website and things like that.
So I'm greatly, greatly appreciative and very, very humbled by just the generosity of some people. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, this particular episode is entitled ask me anything.
So literally this is an opportunity for you to literally ask me anything. Now, step number one of apologetics. You want to be a good apologist, right? There's something you need to learn to do, right?
This is a secret that only those who have gone through seminary and survived at the end of the day, right? Is that you need to be able to learn how to say, I don't know when someone asks a question, okay?
When we do apologetics, there tends to be in a weird kind of way, a kind of intellectual pride that can accompany that. And so we try to answer all questions, even though sometimes we might not know the answer.
We kind of just spit out answers because we don't want to look like we're, you know, a deer in headlights. So I'll let you know right now, I'll be the first to admit when I don't know the answer to a question.
And I'm actually hoping that someone asks a question tonight that I don't know because that gives me something to study. Okay, so hopefully I won't get stumped today and look like an idiot, but anything could happen.
It's 2021, right? So, all right. So let's take a look at some of these questions here. Well, we'll go through some of the comments too. Some people saying some nice things here. Okay, here we have, we have a question by Wes Phillips.
He asks, if we can't reason people to God because of the noetic effects of sin, isn't tag also an attempt to reason people to God? Okay. Now, the noetic effects of sin pertains to the effects of sin upon the mind of man.
So when we argue presuppositionally and we argue utilizing a transcendental argument, you'll often hear the phrase that, you know, if God did not exist, knowledge would be impossible, right? If Christianity wasn't true, you wouldn't know anything.
And so if that's true, then why are we arguing with the unbeliever? Well, if he can't know anything, then what's the point of giving him arguments? Well, the point is that because the Bible's true, from the presuppositionalist worldview perspective, even though it's true that his mind is affected by sin, he still has a knowledge of God that he is suppressing and between the believer and unbeliever, that there is the point of contact.
I am appealing to the image of the knowledge of God in that man. And how is this expressed? Okay, when the unbeliever rejects the Christian worldview, he rejects the only worldview context in which intelligibility and knowledge is possible.
However, he does have knowledge. He does have intelligibility. Why? Not because his worldview is true, but because the Christian worldview is true and he's borrowing from principles that only make sense within the Christian perspective.
And so even in that suppression, I can speak to him in a sense that he can understand because he is made in the image of God and he has a knowledge of God that allows him to make sense out of the things he's using to actually argue against God.
Okay, so we're not saying as presuppositionalist that because the unbeliever rejects the Christian worldview that he doesn't know anything. We believe he knows something, but he doesn't know them because his worldview context is true.
If his worldview were true, he wouldn't actually know the things that he knows. But because his worldview is not true and the Christian worldview is true, the things that he does know, he's actually borrowing from the Christian worldview perspective.
Okay, so we can speak to the unbeliever and have confidence that he is able to understand what we're saying. Also, we are not reasoning people to God. This is very key. Okay, the question here is if we can't reason people to God because of the noetic effects of sin, isn't tag also an attempt to reason people to God?
No, that's a false assumption in the question. Okay, remember what is the important item of the Christian worldview? That all men already have a knowledge of God. Okay, so we're not reasoning people to God.
We are exposing the fact that they actually know God. Okay, and they are suppressing that knowledge and we demonstrate that by showing that in their rejection, they're actually assuming things that only make sense if God exists, if the Christian worldview perspective is true.
Remember from a presuppositional perspective, because we believe that God is the ultimate foundation for reasoning, the ultimate foundation for knowledge, right? That God's revelation provides for us this context for a coherent worldview that can have the grounds for logic, for knowledge, for intelligible experience.
And because he's our highest authority, Hebrews 6, 13, even God when he promises to Abraham, he swears by himself because there's no one else higher than he is to swear by, right? Because he is the metaphysical ultimate, okay?
We do not reason people to a God that they don't know. He is our foundation. We take God's revelation into consideration when engaging the unbeliever and on God's authority, God has told us the nature of the unbeliever.
And so we engage the unbeliever in a way that assumes what God has told us about him. And what does the word of God tell us about the unbeliever? Well, he has a knowledge of God. He's suppressing that.
Okay, of course, the unbeliever is going to deny that and in the context, I don't necessarily say this to the unbeliever like, you really know God? You know, it's an assumption that I have because of the divine authority of the Bible.
That's what it teaches. And then my job as the apologist is to expose that he actually has a knowledge of God. So for us, because God is metaphysical ultimate, God is not so much a conclusion to an argument, but rather he is the metaphysical starting point upon which if he is rejected, you couldn't reason at all, you see?
So God is not the end of the argument. God is the beginning of the argument and we're saying reject it and you've lost knowledge. You've lost intelligible experience, things like that. Okay, so I hope that answers the question and it's a good question.
Good question.
All right.
And by the way, if I answer a question you think it's insufficient, it's not like people are breaking down the doors to ask questions. There's just a couple of questions here. Feel free to follow up and ask another question.
Maybe I can clarify. Okay, look at this. You see, I'm so tired. I tried to drink my coffee and the hole is on the other side. There we go. That's awkward.
Hmm.
All right, so let's remove that bad boy.
Okay.
Thank you. There's a good, not a question, but good day. Good day to you. It is actually, what time is it here? It's actually 9 12, 9 12 in the night over here. So actually good night to me. So, all right.
Michael Hobbes asks, why not Lutheran? So maybe he's asked me why I'm not a Lutheran. Well, quite simply, I'm not a Lutheran because I'm convinced that Calvinism is true. Okay, so I'm a Calvinist and I hold to the Reformed tradition with a more Baptistic leaning.
So I do not hold to an infant Baptist infant baptism perspective. So I differ from the Presbyterians and the Lutherans in that regard. So again, my theology tends to be more Reformed along Calvinistic lines.
And as a subcategory of that, I'm also Baptistic in my in my orientation. So that's to say I hold to believers baptism, not infant.
Baptism.
So are there other aspects there too, but without getting into the whole history of the differences between Calvinism, Reformed Baptist, Calvin, you know, Calvinistic Baptist and all the different variations there.
So, so yeah.
Slam RN says, I'll enjoy listening in.
Good.
Well, I hope you are enjoying it. Okay, Christopher says, hello. Nice to meet you. I saw your interview with James White the other day. I am now officially a fan of yours. Well, thank you so much, Christopher.
That's really encouraging. If you're talking about the episode, I had Dr. White on to talk about Molinism. I very much enjoyed that episode as well. I've actually, I've actually bumped into Dr. White multiple times.
I'm here in New York.
Dr.
White is in Arizona, but he actually is connected to some churches here in Long Island, and he's come to Long Island multiple times, and I remember listening to, for the first time in person, listening to him do a talk on church history, and it was pretty embarrassing.
I was sitting in the front. I had a bunch of, you know, Dr. White's books, you know, when you meet somebody like, maybe they'll sign my books, you know, and as he's going through his talk, I accidentally dropped all of the books and it made a large sound and he looks down and he says, you know, took a really long time for me to write those, you know, he kind of called it, called me out in the middle of the talk and I kind of felt a little embarrassed at the time, but that was the first time I've ever met Dr. White, and then I bumped into him at a pizzeria when he was on, in Long Island.
He probably won't remember if he ever watches this, but that was, that was interesting.
Let's see. Here we have, let's see.
So, Jay Wise asks a good question. How much do you need to know about other religions to be able to use the presupp approach on said religions?
Well, there's not a specific like percentage, right? Like in order to use presuppositional methodology against a Muslim, you need to know at least 10 of what Islam teaches. That's not the case. Here's the deal.
You're going to want to know something about a religion. I think the beauty of presuppositional methodology is that while it's wise for you to learn about what the other religious perspective believes, using a presupp methodology doesn't require you to know everything about what they believe.
You're, the presuppositional line of argumentation and questioning really strikes at the foundation of a worldview. So when I do apologetics with someone, there are three things I keep in mind, just three, okay?
And I want to know what this worldview perspective believes about these three. And it's not a trick. It's not like I'm looking for these three things so that I could, you know, trick the person that I'm debating.
A lot of people think presupp methodology is kind of like, you know, like used car salesman, right? We're quick and we talk and we try to ask these. We're very deceptive. That's not what we're trying to do.
You know, the line of questioning that the presupp wants to ask are the kinds of questions that get to the very foundation of a person's worldview. And so there are three things that I keep in mind, okay?
And they're the three foundations of every worldview, whether it's a Christian worldview, some variation of an atheistic worldview or Muslim worldview, whatever. And those three things are metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, big old fancy words.
But in my mind, I think of those things. So metaphysics is a big old fancy word which deals with one's theory of reality. What does this person believe about the nature of the world?
Is this person a materialist? Is this person a Mormon? You know, they're polytheistic. Is this person, you know, a Hindu? What do they believe about the nature of reality? Now epistemology, which is another pillar of every worldview, it deals with one's theory of knowledge.
What is their theory about how one knows what they know? Okay, and notice that metaphysics, one's view of reality, and epistemology, one's view of knowledge, is intricately connected. So what you believe about how we know actually assumes that the nature of reality is a certain way.
And then of course you have ethics. How should one live their lives?
And so I look at these three components of a worldview and I ask questions so as to learn what their metaphysic is, what their epistemology is. Now, that doesn't require me to master Islam. That doesn't require me to master some variation of atheism.
Okay, and again, it's not a secret. Like, I'll ask the person, like, what do you believe about the nature of reality? How you know what you know? How you should live your lives? These are foundational questions.
And once a person shares that, what you want to do from a presuppositional perspective is engage in an internal critique. Can I identify something about what they believe about the nature of reality? And can I identify what they believe about how one knows what they know and see if they conflict with each other?
Because remember, a metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics are foundational. So if a person's metaphysic, their theory of reality, does not comport with their epistemology, their theory of how one knows what they know, then the world you can't be true because it's contradictory at its core, at its foundational.
Level. Okay?
And so when you're speaking with a Muslim, you don't have to master Islam. Just ask questions, honestly, openly ask questions so that you can learn more or less what they believe about these foundational issues and try and show the conflict between.
Them.
Okay, so you don't need to master a lot of these perspectives, but you do want to ask questions. All right, and these questions are not questions being asked for the sake of asking questions, right? We're not just saying, well, how do you know?
Well, how do you know? Well, how do you know? Well, how do you know? Well, how do you know? And then the person's like, I hate talking to you, you know, by the way, how do you know question is a perfectly fine question to ask.
I totally disagree with people who say, oh, here we go again with the how do you not know? How do you know that that's a perfectly valid question? If people don't like that, then, you know, then don't don't debate.
Don't argue. How do you know is really that epistemological question? And of course Christian should welcome that question as well. So just as I'm looking for these three worldview cores in a person's perspective, I want to welcome the unbeliever to ask those things of my position as well.
Again, we're not hiding anything presuppositional apologetics is a worldview apologetics. And so I want to lay out my system. I want to lay out my perspective. I want the unbeliever to lay out his perspective so that we can have clear lines of communication.
We know that we're operating under two systems and that we can clearly engage in worldview combat, if you will. And that's not a secret, you know, nefarious strategy that would know that's literally what we want to do because that helps clarify the the conversation and allows us to show the strength of the Christian worldview.
So I hope that makes sense. And if it doesn't, I'm sorry.
I scrolled too quickly. So there we go.
So, so everyone we have a noob. We have a newbie. All right, Vern.
Hello Vern.
How's it going? He's probably just stumbling in. He says, what's presupp? He's probably literally just listening because he has no idea what presupp is and he's like, I don't even know what this is about.
Presupp is short for presuppositional apologetics. Presuppositional apologetics. And it is an apologetic methodology. Now, if you know what apologetics is, it deals with the defense of the Christian faith.
So Christian apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith. Presuppositional apologetics is a specific kind of method of defending the Christian faith. And as you would imagine, it is an apologetic methodology that focuses on presuppositions, people's underlying assumptions, the worldview assumptions that they bring to the debate, to the argument when you have believer and unbeliever.
Okay, and we try to show that the unbelievers presuppositions do not provide the necessary foundations for things like knowledge, science, history, or whatever, and we try to show that the Christian worldview does.
Okay, and as a worldview apologetic, we also highlight the fact that there is no neutrality between the believer and unbeliever. So every fact that a person holds to, right, is understood within a worldview context.
I'm a Christian, so I see facts in relation to the Christian worldview. The non-Christian is a non-Christian, and so they see the facts in relation to the non-Christian worldview. Which worldview actually could make intelligible the very concept of fact, right?
And we explore those foundational questions. So presuppositional apologetics is something along those lines. Of course, there are different ways to hash it out. Of course, I would be very mistaken to not also include that a presuppositional methodology is also, in a more specific sense, it is an apologetic methodology that I think takes the superiority and the ultimacy of God and his revelation very seriously.
And so when we argue about the Bible, we do not cast the Bible aside or cast, you know, God and the Triune God as he revealed himself in Scripture. You don't cast that aside to talk about these kind of abstract notions and pretend that we can talk about facts that is independent of our worldview commitments, our commitments to Christ.
We argue the Christian worldview as a system, and we try to do so in a way that honors the authority and the lordship of Jesus Christ over our thinking, okay? So that's a very important aspect of the precept method as.
Well.
Okay?
Let's see here. Okay, that's a repeated question. Let's see here. That's all right. And by the way, if you have a question that's not specifically pertaining to presuppositional apologetics, that's completely fine.
It's not that serious, right? How dare you ask a different question, a question of a theologic. Someone asked a question about why I wasn't a Lutheran. That's not a big deal. If I could answer it, I'll try my best to answer it.
Let's see here.
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Okay.
Alyssa Scott asks the question, if precept apologetics is worldview analysis, what's the difference between that and.
J.
Warner Wallace's inside the room, outside the room technique in God's crime scene?
God's crime scene is a book written by J. Warner Wallace, a very good Christian apologist who does not engage in apologetics with the same methodology that I.
Do.
If I remember correctly, I believe he is an evidentialist. Now, he might be a classicalist. I think he's an evidentialist, so I apologize if I've gotten that wrong, but I'm not familiar with the inside, outside room technique, but I can tell you that J. Warner Wallace does present evidences in such a way that it is possible for people to simply follow the evidence where it leads, and I do have a problem with that in that it almost assumes that the evidence that we're discussing can be understood in a neutral fashion.
If you just lay aside your bias as best as you can, surely you'll be led to the, for me, I think that's kind of wrongheaded, although it can be effective in some context. I do think it's wrongheaded because it does slip in that notion of the possibility of neutrality, right?
That there are facts that we can just objectively look at and like a detective, just follow the evidence where it.
Leads.
I don't think that that is quite as simple as it sounds because people have different worldview perspectives, people are going to interpret the evidence differently, right? And I don't want to grant the fact that the unbeliever can make intelligible the notion of evidence independent of Christian assumptions, because my argument is that his entire framework is wrongheaded, and that's why he will never see facts for what they are, given his unbelieving assumptions, okay?
So I would say that there's a difference there. Now, would Jay Warner Wallace admit, yeah, you know, we got to be neutral, probably not, but what I have a problem with, with a lot of these evidential kinds of techniques, is that whether it's purposeful or not, the concept of neutrality and autonomy, two very important concepts when we're talking about presuppositional methodology, neutrality and autonomy slip in, right?
They slip in. We begin to talk as though one could be neutral with respect to the evidence. So we just follow the evidence. I remember watching a debate, I think it was William Lane Craig, he says, you know, I think it was a debate with Christopher Hitchens, which by the way, Dr. Craig gave Christopher Hitchens a proper beatdown, and I can say that as a presuppositionalist, and Dr. Craig is a classical apologist.
I thought, apart from our methodological differences, I thought Dr. Craig did excellent, especially grilling Christopher Hitchens in the cross examination. But be that as it may, Dr. Craig said something at the beginning of his opening statement, if I remember correctly, he says that if I know Biola students that they have done their best to check their bias at the door, you know, this assumption that you can leave your biases outside and sit down and watch this debate in this objective, you know, neutral fashion.
And I think that that's problematic. It's impossible. I mean, to be neutral is a myth. I mean, this is, I think that this is something that is not only an unbiblical way of seeing how the differences between the unbeliever and believer are hashed out.
I think it's actually impossible. No one, no one is neutral. No one could leave their bias outside. I mean, the very fact that we are worldview bound, we're going to have biases by necessity. You can't escape that.
And so no one is really neutral. So any methodology that seems to cater to a neutral mindset with regards to the interpretation of facts and evidence and things like that, as a presuppositionalist, I would take issue with.
Now, that being said, J. Warner Wallace, in my opinion, is an excellent apologist and he, and I do agree with the evidence. I mean, the evidences that he uses are good. They're good. I would use many of his evidences, right?
As a presuppositionalist, I believe everything is evidence for God. Okay, because God provides that necessary context to make something like evidence even make sense to begin with. But be that as it may, pertaining to the specific evidences that support the historicity of the Bible, the accuracy of the New Testament, the evidence for the resurrection, all of those things are valuable pieces of information that can be used as part of the case for Christianity.
So there's a sense in which I would encourage people to avail themselves of, you know, the work of J. Warner Wallace and people like William Lane Craig, while at the same time being cognizant of the fact that we need to be careful that when we are engaging an apologetic defense and engaging the unbeliever, we don't do so in a way that allows these concepts of neutrality and autonomy to seep in.
Okay, so we want to keep that in mind. It's with a balance. Okay, I can endorse certain aspects of an apologetic work, even though we don't follow the exact same method because there is some crossover, there's some usefulness with regards to what these different methodologies have to offer one another.
Yeah, heck, I had Dr. Gary Habermas on for an excellent episode and we talked about how a presuppositionalist could use some of the evidential arguments if it's placed within a consistent presuppositional framework.
Now, Dr. Gary Habermas is not a presuppositionalist, but he saw the value in what presuppositionalists bring to the table and he also expressed what he wished presuppositionalists.
Did a little more.
And I agree with him, is deal with some of the specific evidences and historical cases and things like that. I think a presuppositionalist can learn from the other methodologies, even though we think they're wrong.
All right, let's see here. All right, we have a question from Jeff. Jeff asks, please flesh out more on the circularity of precept methodology.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, this is a common issue that comes up. If I were to say that Christianity is true by the impossibility of the contrary, assume the opposite, then you couldn't.
Make sense out of anything.
The people say, well, wait a second, you're assuming Christianity is true in order to argue for the truth of Christianity. Yes, that's right. And in normal cases, that would be fallacious. But when you are dealing with ultimate authorities, then by necessity, circularity must be the case.
If I'm arguing that the Christian worldview is the necessary preconditions for intelligible experience, how could I prove that to you while not presupposing the truth of that statement?
Right?
If God is in fact the metaphysical ultimate and he is the necessary prerequisite for even knowledge, how can I argue in a way that doesn't assume that reality? To argue in a way that doesn't assume that reality is to already falsify the nature of my claim.
So when we're dealing with ultimates, you have circularity by necessity, and that's not always a bad thing when you're.
Dealing with ultimates.
This is something that's necessary. Okay, and I think it's problematic if you do not hold to a foundation of which, you know, nothing greater is beyond that, then how do you even argue? If you don't have a foundation, how do you argue?
When you make any statements, there's no ultimate foundation or context out of which something, you know, that's holding up, you know, what you're saying, what you're arguing for. So when we're dealing with, you know, foundations, they're that, they're foundational, right?
And so there's nothing more ultimate than those things. So from our perspective, we take God at his own word, as his own authority. I do not validate the authority of God by appealing to something more authoritative than him to validate his authority.
You see how that works? So if I were to validate the authority of God by appealing to some other authority, then God is not the ultimate authority. This other thing by which I judge the authority of God would be authoritative, you see?
So when you get to that foundational level, circularity is really unavoidable. And as Christians, I have no problem with that. God is my authority. He is the context, the foundation that gives meaning to everything that I do, right?
Not just apologetics, but just life in general, right? And so I embrace the word of God because it is the word of.
God, right?
I take God at his word. When he says something, I believe it. If someone says, well, I don't believe it and you shouldn't just take it. Well, listen, if God is God, how else would I validate his word?
Right? God doesn't appeal to anything more foundational than some external standards. Say, well, my word is authoritative because.
Look, look at this.
Oh, they don't many gizmo.
No, God has because of who he is. He has the authority to speak in a self-attesting fashion.
And so my commitment to Christ requires me to take God at his word. And when I engage with unbelievers, I don't sacrifice that. I don't set that aside. I engage, planting my feet on the self-attesting word of.
And that's why when we speak of say, for example, presuppositional apologetic epistemology, our theory of knowledge, I would say that our theory of knowledge is revelational. Okay, that we start with the authority of God and we argue that if you reject that authority, you reject the worldview that that is given to us by God's revelation.
Then you lack the proper context to make sense out of anything. Now again, that's the claim that has to be fleshed out. Of course, within the context of interaction between the believer and the unbeliever.
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.
Okay, Christopher asked the question. Anyway, a question that anyways, right? That's the way the question of you guys. Anyway, you could, could you explain or he says you could explain the difference between classical apologetics and evidential apologetics.
Is that a question? Anyway, you could, anyway, you could explain. Okay, I guess I think I know what he's saying. So explain the difference between classical apologetics and evidential apologetics. Yep, classical apologetics is called classical apologetics because it has been the classical way that apologetics has been done.
Surprise, surprise, right? And the classical apologetic methodology is a two-step apologetic approach. Okay, and the two-step approach takes this form. The first step is to establish the existence of a theistic God and this is typically done through the utilization of what we call the traditional proofs.
So a classical apologist would use things like the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument, things like that. And once the existence of, you know, the theistic God is established through these arguments, then they focus in a little more on the specificity of this God, often appealing to things like the historical evidence for the resurrection.
Okay, and so you have this kind of one, two, you know, one punch, two punch approach, theistic God exists, the theistic God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, right? It's like God exists, Jesus, God rose, Jesus from the dead.
So that's the one, two punch of classical apologetics. Okay, evidential apologetics tends to focus on, you know, the resurrection as well and miracles and things like that. It's a more empirically based apologetic approach and the classical method is very similar to the evidential method, but it's more rationalistic in that it uses more, sometimes more abstract argumentation, you see.
So part of the traditional arguments also includes arguments like the ontological argument, things like that. So, yeah, so they're those key differences there, but they're similar in some regard. And then, of course, the presupp is like the red-headed stepchild, right?
It's completely different than a lot of the other methods. But again, there's some crossover, right? The presuppositionalist can appeal to evidence. As a presuppositionalist myself, I have nothing wrong.
I have no problem, rather, in using the cosmological argument or anything like that.
So, okay, hope that makes sense.
All right, Nick says, in a brief conversation with an unbeliever, what is the best way to present why we presuppose the Bible to be the Word of God? Yeah, that's a good question. And I like how you phrased the question, in a brief conversation.
And again, when you take a look, for example, at someone like myself or, you know, you go over to some other Christian, you YouTube channel, and you watch a debate on YouTube, they tend to be very technical.
They tend to be very philosophical. And sometimes they're helpful.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, I've learned a lot from listening to debates, but sometimes we need to remember that these highfalutin debates that take place on YouTube and the Internet is not what most believers are going to deal with when they're sharing their faith with, say, a family member or someone in school or something.
Like that.
And so what I like about Nick's kind of framing of his question, is he says in brief conversation, what does this look like in the context of a conversation with someone? And really, I think at this point, when we speak of, let me ask, so what is the best way to present why we presuppose the Bible to be the Word of God?
Yeah, I think briefly and concisely explaining the nature of the authority of God in the context of our relationship with.
Him.
I mean, God is God. There's no one greater than God. What else would I appeal to, to validate God? God has revealed himself to me. I know that God exists. I'm in relationship with God. You see, there's that existential aspect.
This is why it's important to keep these two things distinct, is that there is a difference between how we know God exists and how we show that God exists, right? I know God exists because the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.
You've heard this. Other apologists have said this. I agree with this. Okay, and we have a relationship with God, but in light of my relationship with God and understanding who God is, I believe him when he speaks to me in his word, right?
I take him at his word and I express to the person, okay, that because God is God and because I'm in relationship with God, I trust him, right? There's nothing wrong with appealing to your living, real relationship with God and what role of the authority of the Bible plays in that, right?
And so we presuppose God because I believe God when he tells me that the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. I believe God when he tells me that all wisdom and knowledge is hidden in Christ.
I believe God when it says, has not God made foolish the wisdom.
Of the Lord?
I believe him. I take him at his word and I stand on that. To not stand on that would be foolish, right? And I would say that in the context of a conversation. And you again, the conversation can go anywhere at that point.
It depends how the person is going to respond.
Okay, that only took a girl.
It took like a minute, right?
Why do you presuppose the God of the Bible? Well, because I take God at his word. I have a relationship with him. I trust him and I find that when I don't stand on God's word, there are certain things that happen as a result, you know, for example, when I don't stand on God's word, I begin to lose a proper context to even understand.
I don't even understand what it means to have meaningful knowledge, to have meaningful coherency in my life without God's word. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to live without God's word and without God in my life.
You see, there's that evangelistic flair to it. And this is important because when you're doing apologetics, you cannot separate apologetics from evangelism, especially when you're doing the kind of the brief conversation thing.
You need to bring these things together. There's nothing wrong with sharing your testimony and the reality of your relationship with God. But at the same time, that's not all we've got. The person says, yeah, but how do we know how you presuppose the Bible?
How do you know your presupposition is correct? And we can kind of walk through with that person. Well, let's talk about what happens when we don't presuppose God's word. You know, you don't presuppose God's word, right?
So tell me, how do you get knowledge? Where do you make sense? How do you make sense out of science? You know, you ask him these questions and then he now has to account for the things that he thinks you don't need God for.
And then there you're off. You're off running in the conversation. Okay, but again, it can take different turns at that point.
Let's see here. Thank you. Whoever gave a super chat. I think someone gave a super chat. I'm sorry if I lost it. There we go. Roger Vincent gave a super chat. Thank you so much, Roger. That was very, very thoughtful of you.
Thank you so much. I appreciate that very much. All right, let me see. I don't want to skip any questions here.
Just wait.
More questions came in. Let's see. Okay, I do apologize. I use StreamYard, which I really love this format, but it requires me to scroll through the comments a little by little. So let me do this here.
Okay, Jeff asks the question. I heard about Gordon Clark being the other presuppositionalist. What are your thoughts about him and what makes him different from Van Till?
First, I highly recommend Gordon Clark. I'm going to, if you give me a second, okay, wait right there.
All right. Okay.
I highly respect Gordon Clark. Gordon Clark was a Calvinistic philosopher and yes, he is often called the other presuppositionalist and he wrote this.
Beast.
Okay, and this is a history of philosophy textbook entitled Thales to Dewey in which he surveys the history of philosophy and really gives us a good overview of the weaknesses of the various philosophical systems.
He was a very sharp, logically rigorous philosopher and he was understood to be a kind of presuppositional philosopher apologist. So I highly recommend his works. Don't agree with him ultimately, but that again, that doesn't mean I can't learn from the guy.
I've learned a lot from Gordon Clark and to be perfectly honest, if I can give kind of a superficial difference between Gordon Clark and Vantill is that Gordon Clark is much more fun to read than Vantill.
I love Vantill, but his writing was really challenging. When you read Vantill, it's kind of like, wait, what is he.
Saying?
And you kind of really have to read it again. It's just because English wasn't his primary language and he kind of writes in a very clunky way. Gordon Clark, when I read Gordon Clark, it is so clear. He's so logical and rational that just in terms of reading experience, he's just an enjoyable read and he's got a lot of good things to say.
So that's kind of a surface level. But what's the difference between Gordon Clark and Vantill with regards to their apologetics? And I would imagine that's probably what you're asking. Gordon Clark had no problem identifying himself as a fideist and as a Christian rationalist.
And what that means is that he believed that to build a worldview, you had to start with certain axioms, which were these foundational presuppositions upon which you build the rest of your worldview. And so anyone could pick any axiom.
And so you pick an axiom and you build a worldview from there. Now, he believed the Christian worldview was the most coherent.
Worldview.
And so he started with the axiom, the Bible is the word of God. And he said that from that axiom, he can build a coherent worldview system.
Now, what's the difference between that and say someone like Vantill? Well, as a fideist and as a philosopher who held to kind of this idea of axioms, Gordon Clark understood axioms as a foundation that could not be proven.
You can't prove an axiom, right? Because to prove a foundational principle, you'd have to appeal to something else to validate that principle. But you can't do that because the very moment you appeal to something other than your axiom to demonstrate your axiom, your axiom is no longer your axiom.
The thing that you are appealing to validate the axiom is your axiom. And that's wrongheaded. That doesn't make sense. So he believed that you choose an axiom and the axiom is kind of like a dogmatic axiom that you either take that as a given and from there you build a coherent worldview.
And Gordon Clark believed that the Christian axiom, the Bible is the word of God, was the best axiom because not only could you build a coherent worldview, but it also answered all of the problems of philosophy better than any other competing perspective.
And in that sense, he was very rigorous in critiquing other perspectives and their inability to answer the difficult questions of philosophy, to have coherency and things like that. And in that regard, Gordon Clark is very helpful when with dealing with the internal critique of other worldview perspectives.
In that regard, I would highly encourage people to read Dr. Clark there. Now, the difference between Van Til and Clark is that unlike Clark, who believed you cannot demonstrate the truth of your axiom, Van Til believed you could.
And he wouldn't call it an axiom. He called it a presupposition. And what he meant by that was kind of your ultimate starting point. And he believed you could demonstrate the truth of your starting point.
Whereas Gordon Clark believed you couldn't, okay? And the way in which you validate your starting point is not by appealing to something external to your starting point and your ultimate foundation to validate that foundation.
He believed that you can demonstrate the objective truth of your ultimate presupposition, your foundation, by appealing to its transcendental necessity. Okay, so you would say you can prove it in this sense, deny it and you have to presuppose that that foundation while you're denying it.
Okay, and that's called a transcendental proof. A transcendental proof seeks to ask the question, what are the necessary preconditions? What must be the case in order for something like knowledge to be possible, intelligibility to be possible?
What must be the case for something like science to be workable, right? It asks those fundamental questions and Van Til believed that the Christian worldview was demonstrated to be true, that in its denial, you had to presuppose it even to deny it, okay?
And of course that needs to be worked out more within the discussion. Dr. Greg Bonson clarified some points there and you have people continuing to kind of draw that out in different ways, but that's the key difference between their apologetics.
Van Til believed Christianity was objectively provable. You can prove your foundation. Whereas Gordon Clark said you dogmatically take your axiom, you build a worldview and Christianity's axiom is better and more consistent than all the other competitors out there.
So there's a difference there, right? So I hope that makes sense.
Okay, let's see here.
Yes.
What a great question. So Jess asked, can you explain presuppositionalism in simple terms? Okay.
Okay, by the way, I could explain it biblically in simple terms and when I mean by simple terms of people who don't hold to presuppositional apologetics will be like, yeah, but what about what I'm not talking about that?
I'm saying in terms of just understanding. What is the gist of the presuppositional method?
First, I'm going to give you how Van Til simply summarize his.
Methodology.
And then I'm just going to give you kind of a scriptural principle that I think captures what presuppositionalism is really trying to get at.
All right, Van Til. Bonson said this in a lecture. He says if someone asked you in the middle of the night and they called you up on the phone and they said what is the meaning of Van Til give it to me in one small nugget right now so that I can understand it.
He said that you can summarize the entirety of Van Til's method in this one phrase anti-theism presupposes theism anti-theism presupposes theism. Basically, even in trying to reject theism, you have to presuppose theism because in your rejection you have to utilize things that only make sense if Christian theism is the case.
Okay, and he would try to demonstrate that through logic and history and philosophy things like that. So you can kind of flesh that out. But in summary anti-theism presupposes theism. Now biblically speaking for me when someone says what's presuppositional apologetics all about the one passage of scripture that comes to mind is that passage in Psalms where David says in his light.
We see light. Just think about that in his light. We see light. It is only in the light of God's revelation. Can I see and understand anything at all? That's basically the principle, right? I trust God.
I trust him. I know God. I have a relationship with God and in light of who he is in light of how he's revealed things. I have me I can see things and understand things. So in a very elementary way in his light, we see light and I do not pretend that we can see without the light of God.
So when I engage in apologetics with people I do it in a way assuming that only in the light of God. Can we see anything else? That's very very simple.
Now.
I have a friend who knew Dr. Vantill and we went out to lunch. This was a couple years ago and I asked him I was like, you know, tell me what Vantill was about, you know, if you can describe Vantill and what kind of person what was he like and and this friend of mine, he's an older pastor and he smiles takes a drink of his water and he says, you know, when I think of Vantill, I think of Vantill described himself as a child in his father's house, a child in his father's house.
In other words, Vantill as an intellectual giant that he was when it really boiled down to you get past all the philosophical terminology and all these debates. He really just trusted God and that trust seeped in to his apologetics, right?
I trust God when I when I argue for the truth of Christianity, I stand on God's word. I trust him, right? We take God at his word. He says that Vantill it was like a child living in God's world in his father's world and even with you know, his learning and all the sophistication that he had when it really boiled down to it, he just he just saw God as his father and just trusted him when God says, listen, the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord.
He believed it, right?
These principles are then employed in different ways. Sometimes more in a more sophisticated fashion and sometimes in a more simplistic fashion, right in his light. We see light. I can't possibly understand anything in the world without God and depending on your context, we flesh that out with people,.
So that's how I would I would define presuppositional apologetics in simple terms. All right, hope that makes sense. All right, I'm going to take one more sip of my coffee and and let people know if you're just coming on the revealed apologetics website is up and the first blog article is up to I wrote an article called toilet apologetics.
Okay, it's I mean toilet theology. Sorry, and you could read it for yourself. But basically it's just kind of my little word of advice for people who try to study theology and apologetics and don't have a lot of time.
So I hope you guys check that out at revealed apologetics .com. Also, if anyone's interested in learning and going a little deeper in the presuppositional methodology, you guys can visit the website revealed apologetics .com and sign up on presupp you to take online course where I'll be your instructor and we'll unpack a lot of these things and you'll have opportunity weekly to really engage the lectures that I'll be sending out and to discuss with other students and we can brainstorm role play do all sorts of things you guys can sign up for that.
If you're interested that's available right now as we speak. So let me take one more sip.
There we go.
I'm a teacher. So when I teach in the middle of the day, I'm talking all day and then when I do YouTube, I'm talking all night. So my voice is like so I do apologize if I sound a little raspy. Okay, let's see here.
Yeah, I like this.
So Jeff says we know God exists because he's made us to know himself his creation and ourselves. That's right. That's right. That's right. Along with what John Calvin was getting at when he says that knowledge of self in is simultaneous with knowledge of God, right to know oneself is to know God in the sense that it is only in light of God that it is even possible to know ourselves, right?
Our very consciousness is itself revelatory of the one in whose image we were created. So great point there Jeff.
Thank you.
Jay is asking what book is that behind you that you have multiple copies of? Oh Jay, you're just like me when I'm when I'm watching a YouTube channel and I see someone sitting, you know in front of books and like what kind of books is in their library?
I'm not sure which book you're is it. Is it this one?
Let me see.
That one.
I think it's that if you're if you're talking about this, this is Redemption Redeemed and it's a Puritan defense of unlimited Atonement. Okay, and someone who is a friend of my brother was part of the the Society of Arminian philosophers and he gave me a copy and he also sent me a copy.
So I have two copies now, as I said, I have two copies. I am a Calvinist and I do not hold to unlimited Atonement. I do hold to limited Atonement and so but just because I have the books doesn't mean I agree with everything that's behind me, right?
I have a book there on Provenient Grace and other things, you know, I found myself though studying more on I know this is blasphemous for someone who has all these books. I find myself studying mostly on my phone just reading but I just don't have time to sit in and open a book.
So a lot of these books I have studied in the past but I find myself just whipping out the Kindle on my phone taking notes on my phone and it's all organized there. So maybe one day one day I'll go completely phone and do something with these books.
Not all of them though. I really highly recommend this one. This one's my favorite apologetics book believe it or not. It's kind of hard to get I hear this is Van Til's apologetic readings and analysis and this is a kind of Greg Bonson's main, you know book is this thick one where he really unpacks Van Til's apologetic methodology and gives commentary things like that.
So highly recommend it if you can find it. Okay, so we'll put that over there.
Let's see here. Thank you for that question. That's not a question. That's a comment.
So FTB maybe that stands for something. I have no idea but he says Jay Dyer and Eastern Orthodox is using a precept argument without having a reformed theology. Would you encourage him or would you say only the reformed version is valid?
Well, I am not Eastern Orthodox to my understanding Orthodoxy denies what I would what I would understand as essential tenets of the Christian faith, which is one of which is justification by faith alone.
So I would have issues theologically there with Eastern Orthodoxy. If people are interested, I did interview Hank Hanegraaff in an early episode. So I had Hank Hanegraaff come on the Bible Answer Man and then I had Dr. Tony Costa come on to do a two-part critique of that discussion.
So we do talk a little bit about Eastern Orthodoxy there, but yeah, so when Van Til was really working on the presuppositional method, he really desired to develop an apologetic method that was not only grounded in scripture, but also flowed out of a consistently reformed theology.
Now, of course, Van Til believed reformed theology was biblical,.
So to develop an apologetic that flows out of reformed theology would in essence for Van Til be an apologetic that flows out.
Of scripture, right?
So that was kind of the project that was on the mind of Van Til and so I would agree with Van Til that presuppositionalism is a methodology that is consistent with reformed theology,.
And so I think that there would be, I think Eastern Orthodoxy would be an inappropriate theological context to use a presuppositional approach along Van Tilian lines. Now, I have listened to a little bit of the stuff that Jay Dyer has put out and I actually like the way he uses tag.
I think his debate with Matt Dillahunty was great. I think he did an excellent job. But, of course, we would have those different theological differences which may affect how we understand the consistent application of a presuppositional method.
So I would, I mean, I would encourage Jay to be reformed and then use the methodology more consistently, but Jay is a smart guy and he has expressed in previous episodes on his show that he doesn't think that presuppositional apologetics requires a reformed framework and that will just be kind of a respectful disagreement at that point, which, of course, we would agree on multiple things.
But yeah, but the things that I have watched of Jay, I do think that he uses the transcendental argument just as an argument within the context of the debating kind of thing. I think he does an excellent job.
So I've actually learned from some of the ways he's used it, even though I disagree with some of those other areas.
So, all right.
WFA, what state are you in? Oh, okay. Trying to get my location, bro. I'm trying to remain anonymous, man. I'm just kidding. I'm in New York. I'm in New York. I live on Long Island and Long Island is that little fish looking, that little fish looking island right off the coast of the East Coast of New York.
So I'm on Long Island, New York, so East Coast and I will be moving. So that won't be, we won't be here for too long, but that's where I am now. I grew up here and yeah, so Long Island, New York. Hope that satisfies your, you know, I don't know, I don't want people to know where I am, right?
I'm just kidding. All right, let's see here.
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
So Jessica asks a question. Also, what is your favorite systematic theology to read?
Now there is a difference between what my favorite systematic theology to read and like what systematic theology is like the best, right? Because there are certain books that I like to read because of the way they're written and for various purposes.
I'm a teacher.
So when I teach, I like to read things that are not as.
Scholarly.
I like when words can be, when these theological concepts can be explained plainly so that I can convey that information to an audience that it's appropriate for, okay? Not that I have anything against scholarly systematic theologies, but that's why I am a big fan of Wayne Grudem because of the way that it's written.
And so when I'm teaching young people, I like to use Grudem systematic theology. Now, what is the deficiency of using Grudem systematic theology? And there are deficiencies. And I, by the way, I love Dr. Grudem, don't agree in every area, but I've actually interviewed.
Grudem some years back. It's not on the YouTube channel, but I believe it might be on the podcast if you look in the earlier episodes. But a deficiency of using something like a systematic theology by Wayne Grudem is that it doesn't give a lot of time to going through all of the other various understandings of different theological issues.
It comes from an unashamedly reformed perspective. So in that case, in that instance, I appreciate what he.
Has to say.
And I agree with a lot of what he has to say. But if you're looking for a systematic theology that kind of gives a broad overview of the different theological understandings with regards to some theological topic, then you probably want to look at a different systematic theology.
So it really depends. You know, people say, what's the best Bible translation.
To use?
Well, it depends what you're looking for. If you're looking for devotional reading, you know, you might find one translation to be more beneficial than say like the NASB or something like that. If you're looking for more in-depth study, maybe a more literal translation might be better.
So it really depends. Same thing with a systematic theology. Okay, hope that makes sense.
So Nick asks, how about that Joel Sedeck case? You watch his debates, his debate? Yes, I did watch his debate or listen to it rather. And to be perfectly honest, I thought he did an excellent.
Job.
I thought I thought he hit it out of the park. He made his points clear and there wasn't too much I disagreed.
With.
I'm trying to think there might have been something that I was like, maybe I would have said something different, but I think it was something minor. So overall, I thought he did an excellent job. So folks should check that out.
Yeah, Joel Sedeck case is a great guy and definitely very humble guy. I've spoken with him on the phone. We even spoke a little bit as he was prepping for that debate. Just a humble guy, very smart guy and really loves the Lord.
So I'm very happy. He did a great job. Folks should check out that debate. Maybe someone could put the debate in the link in the comments. Someone could check that out. That'd be great. All right, definitely use the precept method in an effective way, I thought.
So Dennis McCullen, McCullen, that sounds so Scottish. Dennis McCullen. Let me stop. I have to stop with the accents that I get carried away. So let me stop. Yeah, my book is coming along slowly but surely, but I have been writing here and there and working on that every time, every free moment that I get, which is not a lot.
So I hope that folks are patient with me because I am very, very busy. So I will be teaching these online courses. So I actually have to record the lectures. I have to write the notes and things like that.
I'm also a full-time teacher and I do youth ministry. So it has been really, really difficult. And so I'm trying my best, but it is coming along. So thank you for remembering and thank you for asking.
So, all right. What is this here? Melissa says, I'm so inspired by how you have followed. Ah, I'm not sure what that means, but thank you. Sorry.
Okay, so Brian asks, with new classes coming up, are you able to re-watch them any time? Well, if you sign up for PreceptU, you will get the link to the isolated YouTube section where you can watch the videos that are not accessible to share or to give to other people because you're paying for them, right?
But once you pay for them, you could always have access to that link and you can watch them as often as you'd like. You know, say you've purchased the course and you're you know, you go through the course and then like three years later, you want to go back and get a refresher.
You can have access to those links and re-watch them.
So, yeah.
So definitely, it's not just a one-shot deal. Remember, just real quick, if people sign up for the basic course, I send out the lectures and you can work through it your own pace and have access to it anytime.
Okay, so, you know, that's not an issue. So definitely, you'll be able to re-watch them anytime. Okay, let's see here. Do-do-do-do-do.
Okay, that was a good question.
Okay, Vern asks, how is denominationalism different from 1 Corinthians 112? Some of you are saying I'm a follower of Paul. Others are saying I follow Apollos or I follow Peter. I follow only Christ. Yeah, denominations are not necessarily because like, oh, I want to follow this person or I want to follow that person.
There are all sorts of reasons why denominations arise. Some of them don't even have anything to do with, say, following a particular person. Some of them are cultural reasons or geographic reasons or, you know, cultural reasons why certain denominations develop and things like that.
And some of the theological differences of the areas of non-essentials, you know, I don't hold to infant baptism. I'm not claiming to I hold to this person or that person. It's just that that's a non-essential theological topic that I don't agree with my fellow Presbyterians.
Okay, so I'm, I am a Baptist in that regard, but it's not because I want to follow, you know, this person or that person. It's just that on those non-essential issues, I have a little disagreement there and that's okay.
And we can still have unity. So don't think of denominationalism as necessarily a disunity and a chaos like some people like to make. It's not necessarily the case because there is a unification and the unification of all true believers is affirming the essentials of the faith.
Now, if you're going to ask the question, well, how do you know what's an essential? Yeah, that's another topic and there's ways to discern what the essentials are, but that will take us far off course, but I hope that makes sense.
Denominationalism is not the same as that particular. There's a different context in first Corinthians 112 that I don't think necessarily applies to the existence of different denominations.
Let's see here. Melissa says, I think you writing this book is making you a better communicator. Well, thank you.
I also talk a lot, so I might just be a good communicator because I can't shut up. All right, that is possible. Okay, let's see here.
That's a good question.
So WFA says help me to understand how because God we can know.
Things.
Well put it this way. If I think I know something, but I could be wrong about it. Do I really know it? This is important. It's often been some presupposition that pointed out and I agree with this that if omniscience exists somewhere then knowledge certain knowledge is possible.
Okay, but if omniscience doesn't exist at all, anything we think we know could be falsified by some future fact when it presents itself, you see. So the belief in an all-knowing God who is not just all-knowing but he's revelatory.
He reveals he is all-knowing and reveals the nature of reality to us such that we could know it. It makes sense then within the Christian framework that we could know things. Okay, that's actually part of an argument that you could make you can make a deductive argument flushing that point out.
For example, you know, if knowledge is possible then then God exists knowledge is possible. Therefore God exists. You can flesh that out and talk about omniscience and Revelation and worldview analysis there.
I think they are very much connected. So if there's an all-knowing God who knows all things and he's communicated to us then knowledge is not only possible. It makes sense within that sort of framework.
But let's say you don't believe that framework deny it. So then how do you ground knowledge? There's no omniscience in a God-denying worldview and you are stuck within yourself unable to get outside your senses.
You get all you get into all sorts of trouble with various forms of skepticism and things like that. So it is definitely an important point that the existence of the all-knowing God of Scripture is very much connected to the epistemological assertion that we can know things that are objectively true about the nature of reality.
Do-do-do-do-do-do go through some Congress.
I'm going to take a couple more questions and then I need to sign off and I it's a shame because now a lot of people sending a bunch of stuff and I don't want to lose my voice.
So let me take one more question. No, I just answered a question from that person. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Let me see here. Okay, does faith come by here?
Okay, we'll take this one here. So Wes asks the question. This might actually be my last question. I do apologize. Let's see here.
How many are there?
Maybe I can go through a couple more.
Let me see. My voice is killing me.
I am losing my voice. So I think I'm going to take one more. I do apologize. Of course. I'm an apologist. I have to apologize, right? Let's see here. I know corny dad joke. I apologize.
Guys.
So does faith comes by hearing the word of God mean God changes people exclusively through the word. And do you consider tag to be the word or human argument deduced from the word? That's a great question.
I thought about that.
Let me see. Does faith come by hearing the word of God mean God changes people exclusively through the word? I think that when God changes someone it necessarily includes the word, but that doesn't mean that things apart from the word can't be used as part of the means that God draws someone to himself.
So for example, you know, you obviously can't be saved without hearing the gospel, but you know, God can use arguments extra biblical arguments along with his word working together to to, you know, change the heart of the man, right?
So so I would say that the word is necessarily included in the salvific process, but that doesn't mean that nothing else can be used. You see what I'm saying? So when we talk about tag, I would say tag is tag is in a logical form of argumentation that is drawn from principles of scripture.
So again, you have to be very careful because the word transcendental is not found in the Bible, right? But the principles of the argument are namely that we take the authority of God that we we say that any other foundation other than God is foolishness, right?
So the principles are there, although the language of transcendental is really the effect of someone like a Christian philosopher interacting with other philosophical schools. And so we adopt the language of philosophy to talk about these biblical principles and then we kind of apply biblical principles to argumentation and contextualize it to the people we're speaking to, right?
So a tag argument may sound a little different, although it's basically it might sound a little different if I'm talking to an idealistic philosopher as opposed to whether I'm talking to a Jehovah's Witness some of the arguments the same but I might cater the language to speak the language of the people I'm speaking with.
Okay, so I hope that that's a good question. I'll think I'll think a little more about that. But at any rate, all right. Well, we are up to an hour and 11 minutes. I feel like I'm losing my voice and I so apologize because I do see there's a whole bunch of other questions.
I'm so sorry, but I do appreciate you guys coming in and giving giving this a listen and supporting the ministry.
Roger.
Thank you for that $5 super chat. I greatly appreciate it. I see Pine Creek is in there.
How's it going?
Hope everything is well and so sorry. There's so many other questions, but I'm losing my voice. So please have mercy on me.
Did you hear that? That was a real crack. It was really really not good.
So at any rate, once again, just to throw out a reminder if anyone's interested in signing up for precept you you can do that right now. People are already signing up. Just visit revealed apologetics .com and you can check out the precept you the sign up pages right there on the above column.
Oh my goodness.
I think I'm done. So I hope this was beneficial and useful to some people. I know I talk fast sometimes so I do apologize if I became clumsy over my words, but try my best. So that's all for today guys.
Take care and God bless.
Bye.