An Argument for Cumulative Apologetics

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00:02

Well, hi there Let me start my music for you You hear that?

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This is for your slow ride home while listening to apologetics live if you'll remember a couple months ago,

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I was hosting because Andrew wasn't here and We were having issues with the music.

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It just wasn't showing up. It just wasn't working, right?

00:36

This is another one of those night So welcome

00:44

Enjoy, I'm gonna be talking about a cumulative cumulative Apologetics, we hope that it blesses you

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But I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna bring in my co -host for this evening. Adam Parker Adam welcome the work if I took

01:03

It off of mute, but yeah, thank you very much glad to be on here Yeah, so I mean you've been on You were on the since they've been doing

01:14

Andrew's been doing kind of the series through apologetics. You have been

01:19

You were on the first one talking about classical apologetics. Were you on the precept one?

01:25

I was not I would have loved to have been on that one as well as the evidentialist case, but I You know,

01:35

I'm doing ministry also, so I have a I'm the youth pastor. So that kind of pulls away at some of my

01:41

Availability on Thursday nights here and there so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would I would have loved to have been on Definitely the evidentialist episode because I myself am a pre supper along with Andrew You know, of course the bit

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Take it right But You know, I always come up with these excuses as to why

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I can't right so the during the classical episode I was we were having a baby

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So we were in the hospital couldn't come and then I forgot the excuses I gave for the other two

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But we're here now and we're going to be talking about cumulative Apologetics now.

02:23

I've got to be really honest. Like I was I was talking to Andrew the other day when he called me and I said

02:31

Andrew I've got to confess like I've been studying apologetics for several years

02:38

I've never heard of the cumulative approach now if I had to guess

02:44

I would say it's probably a combination of all of the methods of Apologetics, but I've never heard of it.

02:53

Right? And so so it is my assessment. Correct? Like is it like this? Cumulative methodology approach to apologetics

03:02

Yes, so in dr. Williams who is going to be making the case for it is is gonna add more to this

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But the cumulative case for apologetics is essentially Why not have all?

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and so taking evidentialism classical apologetics and as well as pre sub and Combining it all into one and using whichever one seems the most beneficial depending on the conversation at hand.

03:34

So Okay. Yeah, that's essentially what? cumulative apologetics is

03:39

One of dr. Williams good Friends, I guess you could say Douglas grew Tice Seems to have been the one to really make this kind of a prominent thing

03:49

But he can fact -check me on that when he comes in but yeah, so I'm excited for this and You know,

03:56

I don't know if Andrew told you but one of the reasons why he's doing this is he was on my podcast and In about an hour and a half.

04:07

I tried to cram all of these conversations Into one, you know big caught the big podcast

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So we had you know All of these guys that he said except for whoever your pre supper was

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I had Andrew representing the presuppositional Approach for apologetics and so we all got on there together wanted to have a healthy

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Godly debate, you know, hey, which one is best and you know, let's have it just have a discussion about it and so we did that and then

04:38

Andrew wanted to continue the Conversation and so that's what he's been doing here.

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So yeah, I had them on the bold apology a podcast and that's what we did Okay. Yeah, I mean

04:50

Listening to that It sounds like you would need to kind of break it up because it seems like there's just so much information, right?

04:57

Especially like just speaking from the precept standpoint when you start getting into the methodology

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Well, you could take a whole one two, three four hours to explain that, you know

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Especially different situations you might find yourself in with different people. So imagine that along, you know

05:17

Classical apologetics evidential apologetics and then cumulative, right? That's that that's a lot of a lot of speaking.

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So yeah, it makes sense to split it up into different shows Well, you you know, you take priests up in classicalism

05:32

Just alone. There's years and years and years of thought behind these different approaches and they have their histories and it's good to be able to go a little bit deeper evidentialism is kind of a newer concept but Evidentialism is starting to get its own, you know kind of history behind it as well and so it's good to be able to dig a little deeper and the goal of the podcast

05:58

I did was essentially just to introduce and what I am

06:04

Happy to to really be involved in in this Podcast or what

06:10

Andrew and you guys are doing the re you know one of the reasons why I'm happy to be a part of that is essentially you guys are taking kind of What was laid out in that podcast and expanding it and getting the discussion going a little bit more.

06:23

So that's good. Yeah Yeah, that's uh, that is what we like to do here Especially anyone who knows

06:30

Andrew knows Andrew loves to talk So whenever we can, you know come up with a series or something where Andrew can expand and talk even more

06:38

Yeah, that's that's what we do here. Of course, you know But let's go ahead.

06:44

Let's bring in. Dr. Donald Williams to the show Dr. Williams, how you doing? I'm doing.

06:49

All right. How are y 'all good? Welcome to apologetics life Good to be here. Yeah, so we were

06:58

We were talking backstage and with it being Reformation Day You you mentioned a book and I want to throw it out there just because it is

07:08

Reformation Day. You wrote a book Tell us a little bit about that book It's called 95 theses for a new

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Reformation and the premise is what if Martin Luther were alive today and Instead of responding to the corruption of medieval

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Catholicism. He was responding to the corruption of Contemporary evangelicalism, what might the 95 theses be then and so that's that's how the basic thing is laid out

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I Deal with 19 areas in which

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I think the evangelical movement is just losing its grip on The the truth that it was bequeathed by the

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Reformation And it starts with the five Reformation solos, so I'm thinking if Luther is going to do 95 theses for us today a

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Lot of them are going to be the same. Yes, it's because I Keep running into people who say well solo scripture.

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This doesn't work and they don't even know what it is You know, these are people who are evangelicals and Sola gratia sola fide

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Solus Christus soli deo gloria You know the evangelical movement

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Used to stand for these things it was the form in which the theology of the

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Reformation came down to the present mediated through the Puritan fathers of the 17th century and the evangelists of the first Great Awakening and You know when

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I when I was Coming up in the faith That was a thing and and it to be an evangelical was to be committed to these things

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Now you can't figure out what in the world the movement stands for Interesting to dip into Christianity today, you know a decade at a time and And you'll discover that every time you do the boundaries have gotten wider until now they've disappeared.

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Yeah We're not willing to say anybody's not an evangelical anymore. Yeah, so It's it's 95 theses for a new

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Reformation not New as in different but new as in renewed Because of course one of the principles of the original

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Reformation was simple ray for Amanda. The church should be always reforming and So that this is my

09:50

Attempt to help that little process along. Yeah, it does sound interesting.

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Yeah A Chapter is 19 chapters each one of which has five theses.

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So you start out five theses on sola scriptura Where I break each one of these things down explain

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Historically where it came from why it's important Why it's biblical etc and why it's needed

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Desperately today and there's a chapter on apologetics That you know

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We have this commandment To be always ready to give an answer to any to give an apologia to anyone who asks a reason for the faith that is within us and somehow

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Vast swaths of the evangelical world think it's unspiritual to obey this biblical commandment

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So in order to reform the church and to bring it back Into a position of faithfulness

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Where it can preach the gospel with integrity again, one of the things that has to be reformed is we need to be obedient to that commandment and I'm glad that we have this podcast of people trying to do that.

11:14

Yeah Don't get nice. I don't know if he originated the cumulative case

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Approach, but I think he popularized it. There we go. Certainly. It's It the term is used in the first time.

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I encountered it was in his big tome on apologetics and The basic idea is you know, it kind of is using everything

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But but the basic idea behind it is the strongest argument we have for the truth of Christianity is that many different independent lines of reasoning

11:55

Converge on the same place and lead you to the same answer Okay, so So, yeah,

12:05

I I'm in the Unusual position tonight as a defender of the cumulative case approach of being agreeable I mean the

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Every one of the classic approaches Presuppositional is on practical evidential when they're making their positive case.

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I'm going, you know, yeah, you guys are right And they start making their case why they have the perfect right way to do it and nobody else does

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That's when they start losing me Longest case For that conclusion would be the presuppositional case

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Because you know, they're they're saying you don't argue to God you argue from God and there's and there's

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If you act like there's common ground between you and the non -christian, you're validating his rebellious autonomous reason, etc and and my response to that is

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You you don't have to do that in order to do it you can

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Put this person in a position where It you're just making it more difficult for him to maintain

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The the pose that the non -christian the atheist apologist wants to wants to take this pose that You know,

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I'm an atheist because I care about reason and evidence and you guys just believe in a bunch of myths

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So you really care about evidence? Do you let's look at the effects and see if you do and Why not give him an opportunity to realize that he's in conflict not just with Christians but with reality

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God you're in conflict with reality and So yeah,

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I Say why not have all the tools in your toolbox? and Be able to use them as needed

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So I very much value a presuppositional approach. I think it's the framework

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That makes evidence meaningful and it's the framework that makes the classical arguments meaningful

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And In that framework We we show that every line of evidence every line of reasoning that is valid and matches the world is

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Gonna take you to the same place. It's going to take you To God as the

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Creator and Christ as his son who was raised from the dead in history Yeah, yeah, you know

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I'm glad you mentioned the Framework, right the the presupp framework is

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What when you look at the evidence? Well, it was it's what gives that evidence foundation. And so what

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I think about when I think about the evidentialist position is I think about someone like a

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William Lane Craig who is Debating Lawrence Krauss and Lawrence Krauss asked him straight up Do you know for certain

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God exists and he says no. Well at that point he's given up Christianity, right, but he's gone through this whole debate in order to try to prove

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God well If that if your your starting point is that you don't know for certain

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You've already given it up, right? So so as a presupp I go Well, I start in the same place

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Greg Bonson did in his debate with Gordon Stein It's I start with the God of the Bible.

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This is who he says he is. The Bible is God's Word This is the God that I believe in therefore anything after this must conform to the

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God of the Bible, right? Any evidences must conform to the God of the Bible as its foundation. And so I taught a class on apologetics once and comparing kind of the two presupp evidentialists and I used a quote from William Lane Craig where he said the preponderance of the evidence leads to the greater probability of a

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God and So I go well, I don't serve a probable God I serve the

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God and that comes with my starting point, right? So his starting point would start with the evidence now.

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I'm not trying to lump all evidentialists in there with that but That's where he was starting from Whereas I would say we need to start from here the

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God of the Bible because if we don't start here Then where are we going? No, I Would I would say that you need to distinguish

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Between the existence of God which is not probable. It's just he exists and the strength of a given case for that existence which

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Might add to our confidence in the conclusion even though by itself

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You would say this makes God What this what I can conclude for this is that?

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The God hypothesis is a really good explanation of this set of material and the atheist

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Or skeptical or pantheistic or whatever other hypothesis doesn't explain it nearly as well

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That is consistent with the Existence of God, I wouldn't

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I wouldn't use the the probability language. I would simply say I Would simply say

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God isn't dependent on my ability to prove his existence

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But Here's here's a case. It's a good case. It's a strong case.

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And when you put all these cases together It's very strong and it justifies our believing with confidence that God Exists and that he is the

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God of the Bible So, yeah, you can you can frame the argument in a way that it it's almost and I think

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I Think Craig is trying to just be intellectually honest and not claim

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He can prove more than he actually can prove But I think it was probably unwise to bring

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Probability up You know you said because if you start with God and then you say, you know everything that we find is consistent with this

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You're open to the charge of circularity You Know and if I were not a believer if I were an atheist and I was arguing with the presupposition list

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I would say well Yeah you look at the world and Confirmation bias causes you to see stuff that is consistent with your assumption.

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That doesn't make it true Because there's tons of data in the world that's consistent with tons of stuff

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But that doesn't necessarily make it true and so You know, we have to we have to show

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Reason we have to show why This starting place works better than all the not just works better than the other ones

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But actually is the only one that doesn't lead you into a blatant contradiction either with yourself or with reality

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Yeah, you know there's a you know, Jason Lyle, I'm a huge fan of Jason Lyle Jason Lyle would be a presupposition list who?

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Studied under Greg Bonson, but at the same time he's a double PhD Astrophysicist and then a lot of his teachings in his lectures.

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He uses evidences from astronomy geology in order to Make his case so and in effect,

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I think effectively disprove, you know theories like evolution. I Think I think the issue with evidential ism

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In a very specific case is if you come at it from the perspective of I need to use evidence to prove

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That God exists as a whole like I think it is important to take the presuppositional approach to that I think

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There there are Christians or people who say they're Christians who come from the position, you know,

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I can prove God exists with evidence and I don't need presupp

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I don't need to use presuppositions at all And I think that would be the extreme side of evidential ism what

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I appreciate about Daniel McAdams as he acknowledges that there's there is

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Presuppositional apologetics mixed in with his evidentialist approach I think there are a lot of apologists who identify with all three of those camps

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William Lane Craig being one of them that are essentially cumulative case guys

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Do they just have an emphasis in that one one area because I think you know classical apologetics

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By itself Has a weakness that is it might suggest that the existence of a

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God of it might suggest that theism is a better answer to certain philosophical and scientific problems

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But We're not interested in just the ism we're interested in a very specific

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God evidentialism by itself Runs into a problem

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What in the world is an evidentialist do with a postmodernist? Who rejects?

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Logic and thinks all your evidence is just you know all perspectival

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Everything's relative. Yeah, he's got nothing. He can say to a person who doesn't care about evidence because from evidentialism

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Per se by itself alone He has no argument as to why we should care what the evidence is and the presuppositional approach

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I'm Tempted with some presupposition list to say well, that's a very interesting theory, but does it fit the facts and so, you know, you're going it seems to me like you're going to have to Borrow from all three approaches in order to argue with real in order to make a case with real people

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Yeah, and each one of them offers something. Okay, so if I Make this really really strong case for the historicity of the

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Resurrection It really the historical evidence really looks like the

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Resurrection happened. But if you think God is inconceivable It doesn't prove anything except that something really weird took place 2 ,000 years ago

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So I need the classical arguments to put me in a position where the idea of God makes sense

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You know, this is a world That is the kind of world we would have if God created it.

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It's not the kind of world we would have if he didn't and and the presuppositional is

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I think become more important with every passing day as The culture slips into post -modernism whatever is going to come after that You know post post -modernism

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Post post -modernism, you know, you really when you when you name your movement, you really should think about what you're you're doing.

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Yeah like New College Oxford, right? There's 39 different colleges that make up Oxford University and New College really sounded like a good name at the time.

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It was the new college It's the fourth oldest of the 39 and 600 years old.

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It's still called New College you know like Post -modernism, it's like you never conceived of the possibility that would there would be something coming after that You know in but anyway when talking about the point is that That presuppositionalism gives you resources for dealing with people with that set of issues

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But at some point you're gonna have to look at the evidence and At some point you're gonna have to look at the concept of what do we mean by God, you know?

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Just because Genesis says God created the earth that doesn't Prove that God exists unless I already believe the

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Bible in which case I probably Don't need you as an apologist because I already believe in God anyway So I think people will

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Emphasize one of the approaches based on their own gifts and their own inclinations and the ministry they have and the kind of people they deal with but it seems to me like in the at the end of the day, we actually need all three and that Yeah, the

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God that we need to have to explain the existence of the universe and its

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Intelligent design and the fact that it contains a moral law How do we know who he is well, we need the evidence that scripture is presenting him to us accurately we need

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We need all three approaches. It seems to me Adam is there anything you wanted to tack on to there?

27:09

Well, I think you know with all of this you kind of laid it out really well what what is it

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But here's a good question for you because you're in this conversation with a person

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What is your way of going through? Like what is the best? Let's say approach to take

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Depending on a specific person. What what do you go through? What evaluation do you use to determine which?

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Approach you're gonna use in your Apologetics, let's say you're having a conversation with an atheist or someone.

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What are you gonna do? Well, I listen Okay, I Listen and I try to find out where he's coming from and what his issues are and I use a lot of Socratic questions

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And and at first I'm just trying to figure out okay Hey, is this guy are really seeking truth or does he just want to argue?

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Hmm, you know, I think apologists waste an awful lot of time and in fact

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Build their apologetic to deal with people who just want to argue And I don't think that's

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Doing anything for the kingdom or for the cause of Christ And I think it makes apologetics

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Less useful. So would you say those type of people are typically the kind who in turn just want to argue themselves as well?

28:47

Well, yeah, that that's that's the problem. You know, if the guy just wants to argue then

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Unless There's somebody who's listening that might be influenced by him

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He's he's the swine before whom I don't need to be casting my pearls.

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It's just a waste of time Yeah, if there's any chance, he's actually open and wanting to know the truth and Because yeah, so many

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Conversations with skeptics only one person is listening in the conversation. It's not the skeptic, right?

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how many times have I been in a in a in a a debate

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Maybe online or something, you know, and and you you make this carefully worded statement and the guy comes back

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It's obviously hasn't even bothered to read it. He's His spiel, you know, yeah, it's a complete let's say this is a person though who is a genuine seeker like so Presuppositionalist they have their

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Where they approach things from right which would be that God has spoken then there's the evidentialist

30:03

They'll go and they'll try to pull in the evidence The classicalist will try to prove theism and then bring in some kind of evidence to back it up I guess my question for you or that question was more meant to be how does a cumulative case?

30:20

apologist Mm -hmm Approach these things It seems like it's it's a much more complex way of going about things because you have three different schools of thought

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That you've got to pull from well, I've got Three different schools of thought that offer me resources that I can use okay, and it's

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In a way, it's more complex. I would use the word flexible Okay, okay, so I don't have a set spiel right and I've got to take everybody through steps one through 17 in that order.

30:53

Well, I suppose that was a little bit more to my question, too because as a cumulative case person, it seems like you have

31:02

The option to take it in a more personalized approach like as as for you You can then it seems like you could take a more personalized approach whereas someone who's doing presep will often follow the mold of those guys who did it before a

31:18

Classicalist will follow the mold of the guys who did it before typically, you know if they're going hardline for that case.

31:25

So You said you have flexibility How would you go about it? I mean, yeah, every person is different But I'm assuming that you would use a mix of each school of thought

31:37

Regardless, so what does that look like for you? Well, I mean, I'm an atheist explain to me why God exists

31:46

Well, why do you exist? That's a good question.

31:52

Let's say I mean, let's say let's say How about this? Oh, so here we are. We both apparently exist.

31:59

I mean you might be a figment of my imagination I might be one of yours, but let's just Let's just for the sake of argument say that we are here and we exist

32:07

Well, just real quick you kind of threw me off there because I have to you said well, why do you exist? Oh, man, now

32:12

I have to think like an atheist. So I think like an atheist part of me what is like, how do I unscrew my head and take my brain out of my

32:24

Why does anything exist right, okay so There are two major answers to that question on the table

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For most of us Westerners Okay, now he may be

32:42

New Age and or or Eastern or whatever and that's a whole different conversation but You've either got

32:53

Naturalistic evolution Or you've got creation, okay so if Evolution is true.

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Then how do you explain? The fact that you have aspirations for things like Goodness truth and beauty

33:26

You know because because you know, the evolutionist keeps telling us that we're just Just another animal with an extra convolution in our brain and opposable thumbs, but we're like just one step down the road from where other intelligent animals have evolved to Have you noticed that?

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That you know, there are some monkeys who are pretty intelligent a bonobo will like break off a stick and use it as a tool to dig termites out of a mound or If he's in a room with a banana suspended from the ceiling that he can't reach

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He might arrange boxes into a pile and climb up there to get the banana. That's that's intelligent.

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That's problem -solving intelligence but what he will not do is Arrange the sticks or the boxes into a symmetrical pattern just to sit back and contemplate it

34:25

Without getting any termites or bananas out of it at all He's a 100 % pragmatist and you're not because you know you like to tell stories and and you like to play music and you like to do all this stuff is like How is explanation the

34:46

X the how is evolution the explanation for us? On the other hand if we were made by an intelligent personal

34:57

God Then you know things make a different kind of sense.

35:04

So Why should we even be open to this idea of God because the alternative doesn't have answers to the deep philosophical questions and If God's there

35:21

Those questions now are open and we have we ultimately have the option of believing that truth meaning goodness and beauty exist and have significance or They don't

35:39

Now if we're open to the idea that God might be there

35:45

Is there any way we can know If he is in fact, if you know, is this more than just a nice idea a nice theory and you know, then there are reasons for thinking that it is because You have the fact that he's revealed himself to us in nature and You know, by the way

36:12

I see all the arguments being used in Scripture The classical arguments are there

36:19

Psalm 19 1 the heavens declare the glory of God the firmament showeth his handiwork all the column

36:27

Argument does is take the testimony of nature and make it more explicit How does nature show the glory of God?

36:34

It does it by being intelligent. It doesn't by existing Even though it's contingent.

36:40

It does it by being intelligently designed etc, etc, etc Hmm, so there's lots of reasons for thinking that God is not

36:51

And the first there's there's a reason for us to be interested in him Because he gives us answers that make our humanity

37:01

Actually livable and Once we're open to that possibility

37:07

Then we can look at the evidence and see if in fact he has shown us that he's actually there so Are you saying that are you saying that your first approach in a can your cumulative case is to give reasons?

37:22

Why it's a good idea to Consider at least consider his existence. Is that what you're saying?

37:29

Doesn't think he needs to yeah, and so You know, can

37:36

I get you to at least have an open mind on the question and to see some reason why

37:44

Okay We might be interested in the answer instead of just assuming we've already got it

37:52

Now It's like it's kind of a presuppositional start there except it's not

37:59

It's not a pure Vantillian type of start because I'm not I'm not you know, it's like What I'm not telling him is

38:10

I've got an advantage because I've already read the answers in the back of the book But the first thing

38:20

I have to do is get you interested in them Give you a reason to care

38:25

Whether God's there or not, but and and to think you know, because because you're just assuming

38:32

Guys this nasty person who's going to boss me around and I don't want that so I don't want him to be there

38:43

Well, let's rethink that I mean is is is that the only way to look at it is that the best way to look at it and Are there problems with?

38:55

that approach You know, I have and this is I mean What I'm not what

39:01

I'm doing, I'm not what I'm not doing right now is laying out here's the way to do this This is a scenario

39:10

With an imaginary atheist who looks like Adam and Of course how he responds at each point

39:21

Will dictate where I go from there Well, I definitely had some responses to what you're saying there too because You you had mentioned, you know what you'd brought up, you know apes.

39:34

They they're very pragmatic whereas us, you know, we think about the deeper things we enjoy art we you know things like that and Can't help but look back to my my days in Sunday school growing up and the perfect answer was always hey

39:51

They'll ask you a Sunday school type question in if as long as I said Jesus the answer was right

39:58

And so but but for the atheists they have their own and that being oh, well

40:03

We're it's just because we evolved to be higher thinkers, you know That seems to be their

40:08

Jesus answer if they had their Sunday school as I will just evolution you evolve better you know and and you know, how would you approach a question like that as a cumulative case guy because It's pretty easy to veer off into left field if if there's not an

40:29

Intentioned goal in your your steps because the idea hopefully by the end of it is to have given them a case for for why?

40:37

God exists in Really getting to the gospel. So well what happens there?

40:43

is evolution a good explanation for human beings and And The answer is no, it's really not

40:53

Because we're not one step further down the same road. We're a right turn and a leap across a

41:00

Grand Canyon from the other animals Best resource I know of on this question would be

41:06

GK Chesterton's book the everlasting man In it but what

41:12

Chesterton does is he takes The Evolutionary premise as true for the sake of argument and pushes it until it falls apart

41:24

To show that You know It's really not capable of explaining us now there are technical ways of doing that for example, you could bring up Irreducible complexity or specified complexity and You know, all this stuff is potentially on the table

41:50

Depending on how the guy responds on what his objections are, etc but you know my initial thing is is

42:04

Can we Get the idea of God on the table as something that we can discuss

42:12

Because his default setting is no that's there's no evidence for it. It's already it nothing but a superstition in a myth

42:20

No reason why anybody should be interested in that. Oh really You know when

42:27

I think there's I think there are lots of reasons why we should be interested in it and Once we are

42:36

Then there are lots of reasons why we should think That God is not just a

42:44

Theoretical answer to why there is meaning and truth and stuff that evolution

42:51

Doesn't give you But he's reality because he's he's revealed himself to us

42:58

Okay, and then so so from there your your responses to him this fake or pretend atheists or whatever your responses to such a person would

43:09

Really depend on his answers to your questions

43:16

From my goal my goal is to get to the point where I'm having a real conversation with him, okay there's there's you know instead of What typically happens is you get two guys who are just giving each other their spiel and And and the first guy pauses and the other guy gives his and then the the first guy picks up his again

43:41

And they're not really Interacting they're not really communicating So, I think the first thing you want to do is get past that scenario because that's normally

43:54

That's normally where we find ourselves but what I mean, I think I think even for pre sub guys evidentialists and Classicalists they find themselves in that position to where they

44:07

They will need to get that at least get them going in the direction of that conversation

44:13

And so like they have a they have a way that they do that as well And it seems like it wouldn't be too different from what a cumulative case person would you know what you're doing?

44:22

I guess I don't have any original Ideas Everything I got

44:30

I stole from either the presupposition lists or the evidentialists or the classical guides, you know, it's right that it's just my perception is that your case is stronger if you have the resources that they all provide and I'm looking for a big picture in which they're all part of the case with a capital

44:53

C Right, and so I guess I guess where I was going with the question is I was hoping to get the point where you you would then explain how you go about inferring which school of thought to Utilize as I guess where I was going.

45:10

Well, if I can add on to that question To or expand it a little bit because when I'm listening

45:18

The how you would approach it how you you're talking to this You know this atheist and trying to get this conversation going

45:27

It seems like it Depending on the setting it might not work in certain settings

45:34

So this would be I can see this if we have time to sit down Coffee shop lunch something and we have time to have this long conversation

45:45

But that might not be the case for if I'm out street preaching and evangelizing and I've got

45:51

Seconds for the person that's passing by that makes the comment or something like that, right?

45:57

So in terms of are there certain settings where the cumulative approach is better and maybe not in other settings

46:04

I don't think there's a setting in which the cumulative approach is not better I think there are settings in which all you have the opportunity to do is put a pebble in the guy's shoe and That pebble is going to come from if it's one pebble.

46:24

It's going to come from one of the three You know, so I guess in that case If you take a snapshot of me if you take three different snapshots of me doing apologetics

46:36

You could probably use them to make three different cases that I'm yeah, he says he's cumulative case

46:42

But he's really a presuppositional is or he's real You know, you could easily do that So, yeah,

46:50

I guess the key I guess the cumulative case one idea

46:59

Then yeah, yeah, yeah, you pick one and you try to plan it In fact,

47:05

I think one of my most Effective apologetics encounters Was was basically that Was a lady who was in her late 70s

47:22

Okay so statistically Nobody converts, but if they've been something else that long their whole life

47:32

Hardly anybody converts at that point But she was the mother her daughter had

47:40

Accepted Christ was a member of the church. I was pastoring at the time and She wanted me to go talk to her.

47:46

She was a new ager. Okay, and She Believed in reincarnation she had this whole

47:57

Form of reincarnation that she'd made either made up or gotten from somebody It wasn't any of the standard

48:03

Hindu or Buddhist things, but like there are 12 virtues and She had been given a life

48:14

To work on each one of the 12 and when she had perfected all 12, then she would go to Nirvana She'd be released from reincarnation go to Nirvana except Nirvana wasn't really

48:25

Nirvana It was a lot more like heaven for people that were still persons It was a it was a totally confused mess that she believed in And and she would tell me these stories about what she did in one of her previous lives.

48:38

Oh, by the way She was on her 12th reincarnation she'd already attained perfection in 11 out of the 12 virtues and she was working on number 12 and As soon as she had perfection on that Then she would have reached the goal.

48:53

By the way virtue number 12 is humility She's already 11 12th perfect.

49:00

But as soon as she becomes humble about that Go on to Nirvana slash heaven slash whatever it was

49:10

So she would tell me stories about stuff that happened in one of her earlier lives That she had apparently convinced herself.

49:17

She actually remembered and were true and I would say I Would just say that's really interesting.

49:23

I didn't argue with her I'm sorry. No, you didn't have to do that. That didn't happen because because reincarnation is false.

49:29

I just said that's really interesting but the Bible says it's appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment and There would be this awkward pause and then she would tell me another story from another incarnation and I would say that's really interesting

49:46

Because the Bible says that it's appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment So this went on for about two hours and I thought

49:55

I had gotten nowhere but I had planted in her head the critical

50:04

Bible verse that addressed the heart of her error and She couldn't get it out and It bugged her and drove her crazy and over a period of about six months which involved you know much more philosophical and substantive discussions about the nature of reality and the soul and whether we reincarnated etc, but that was the key

50:37

I Planted that scripture in her head and she couldn't get it out and it drove her crazy and About six months later

50:47

She accepted Christ as her Savior and became the most effective evangelist we had in that church

50:59

So, yeah, even though it was a long conversation it was like two hours All I actually accomplished was the one thing that needed to be accomplished it turned out

51:12

And it wasn't because I was brilliant or anything. I thought I was a complete failure at the end of it But it turned out that was

51:19

Exactly what needed to happen, you know Plant the relevant scripture in their head and And the

51:29

Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit decides to use it where they can't get rid of it Let it work and then

51:37

As it's working you're there to deal with with a lot of apologetics,

51:45

I think is just Is just helping to create a channel

51:51

Down, which the person can move without getting distracted into rabbit holes as the

51:56

Holy Spirit leads them to Christ Yeah, and so you want to make sure that that that is the

52:02

Christ of Scripture and of history and not some imaginary thing that they actually find and that their faith is

52:14

Grounded in the word and in reality and You know the particular issues that people are dealing with it varies from from case to case

52:26

Yeah, it listen to that. I was

52:32

I was teaching on apologetics and I stole this from I Think I stole it from Doug Wilson of all people where he said he was talking about apologetics and he said, you know

52:42

Everything right, you know, but he was talking about the nonbeliever suppressing the truth and unrighteousness And he said, you know what?

52:49

That's like He said they're holding a beach ball underwater Right, and he said all the apologist job is to come do is to poke at the elbows of that Beach ball, you know until it gets that You know, there you go.

53:04

Well going back to your question drew just I was just thinking about this If you if if if dr.

53:12

Williams were on the Let's say, you know the street corner preaching the gospel And let's say let's say just for argument's sake the best way to go about apologetics on the street is

53:24

Presupp if if dr. Williams if you were to use Presupp on the side of the street street preaching as your apologetic method

53:35

You're actually not even going against cumulative because you're already agree with presupp is that is that the case or yeah,

53:44

I mean I I the whole point is that I use all three and I do it, you know with with benevolence or forethought and So Yeah at any given moment you could take a snapshot of me and it would look like a presuppositional is so I'm I'm I'm I don't mind calling myself a presuppositional is actually

54:13

I'm a shape fury and presuppositional. It's not a vantillion one You know

54:18

Vantill famously thought Schaefer was an inconsistent presuppositional is I think Schaefer was a realistic presuppositional is

54:25

You know who Wasn't focused on being doctrinaire and pure but on actually reaching people and So Yeah, flip side.

54:41

Are you would you okay? Just just to tag on to that. So are you are you?

54:49

Indicating that maybe Vantill was less interested in reaching people Uh Paper You know,

54:58

I wouldn't want to say that about Vantill. I've read him He strikes me as as a godly and sincere person

55:07

But I have a negative reaction not to Vantill himself, but to Vantillians Okay, you know,

55:14

I don't know how many times I've been to the Evangelical Theological Society and there's two Westminster grads arguing with each other

55:20

About which one is more Vantillian than thou, you know, it's like You're wasting time go to go talk to non -christians

55:32

Instead of arguing about the fine points of the purity of your methodology Yeah Schaefer and Vantill differed on the question of common ground

55:46

Vantill is big on You know, if you admit any common ground with you and the unbeliever, you've already

55:52

Abandoned the faith or or implicitly denied it and and Schaefer is like not necessarily you know

56:01

We have common ground in that we both live in the world that God made and we both are

56:08

Human, we both have the mannishness of man the remnants of the image destroyed by the fall and You know now we see those things differently

56:22

But they are things we can talk about and and things that you can point out

56:29

That that become part of the discussion

56:35

I Agree with you. I I've run into some

56:41

Vantillian types on the internet as well and they can be quite combative

56:47

Quite come back and and What I gather from from reading

56:53

Vantill and talking to people who knew him He wasn't that way at all.

56:58

No, but somehow Somehow there's there's something that's crept into the to his disciples that I think is not fully healthy

57:10

Okay Okay. Yeah, I drew Yeah to recap

57:17

When a presupposition lists a classic classicist or an evidentialist is giving their positive case

57:25

For why we should believe that the God of the Bible is real and Jesus is his son

57:33

I'm saying There's something here I can use this is good stuff When they start arguing with each other about why you shouldn't use the other two methods

57:45

That's where that's where I would disagree with them, right?

57:51

Okay. Yeah, so Listening, you know myself it could just be

58:01

I view myself more as a preacher than a or an expositor than An apologist first and foremost

58:10

But you know when I'm and I've always I always tell people whenever they ask me about apologetics.

58:16

I tell them Apologetics is a tool to get to the gospel. So if your goal is not to get to the gospel

58:24

Your focus in apologetics is wrong, right? It's not to win arguments. It's not to bash people over the head with your theological swords

58:34

But When I there is very important and very much needed in the apologetics industrial complex today

58:43

Right. And so when I hear you know a lot the evidentialists and using

58:49

Evidences and I would agree there are great evidences that God has given us for us to use and we use those in our discussions

58:57

I hear the classical which is you know The philosophical arguments that people use to first distinguish the existence of God But I Think about scripture and I think about where God says, you know the only thing that's going to change the heart of the person is the gospel and so I can give them as many evidences as I want and You know, just like the

59:24

Roman soldiers who saw the risen Christ. It didn't change them. I can give as many

59:30

Philosophical arguments as I want But the only thing that is going to pierce the heart that is going to change that heart of stone

59:37

Into a heart of flesh that will bring them into the kingdom bring them to repentance and faith is

59:43

The gospel and so, you know, I'm not disagreeing that These conversations can't be beneficial

59:53

But As for me and I know Dan is backstage and I'm gonna bring him on I know he would probably

01:00:00

Say the same thing is that? We absolutely need to make a focus in the conversation to get the person the gospel

01:00:12

So that the Holy Spirit can cut them to the heart Yeah, I was just gonna say you're absolutely right about the gospel and and there needs to be one more step and that is

01:00:23

To understand nobody puts their faith in Christ unless the

01:00:29

Holy Spirit is at work in their heart and What the apologist job is simply to give the

01:00:37

Holy Spirit material to work with okay, so the gospel the scriptures and then

01:00:47

The Holy Spirit works through means he works through our testimony. He works through the preaching of the gospel and He works through the case that he asked us through Peter to make and so you you put the evidence out there or you put the

01:01:15

Classical arguments out there or you put the the Transcendental argument out there praying the

01:01:23

Holy Spirit will use it and You know it we do that Not because the

01:01:31

Holy Spirit can't save people without it But because first Peter 315 tells us that it's one of the things he wants to use and And Because we want people

01:01:45

I Think especially in the American context. We want people to put their faith in Christ In such a way that it's the whole person including the mind

01:01:58

That is responding not just an emotional response Because I mean that the people

01:02:05

I was raised with They're all about All about the heart but a problem is they don't have a biblical definition of the heart

01:02:14

They think the heart is the center of the emotions, right? And and they don't realize that in biblical culture the center of the emotions wasn't the heart.

01:02:22

It was the bowels If a biblical writer wanted to use a body part to symbolize the emotions he wouldn't pick the heart he would pick the guts

01:02:33

Right King James actually translates it literally bowels of compassion, which means nothing to the modern people

01:02:42

But the heart see this is why I tell people read the dead guys, right? Yeah, the heart is that central core of your personality where intellect?

01:02:53

Emotion and will find their unity Okay, so we want

01:02:59

Pete we want the whole person including the mind to embrace Christ as the way the truth and the life and so apologetics

01:03:10

Is part of our presentation of the gospel for that reason? But if you ever forget that none of it's worth anything

01:03:20

Unless the Holy Spirit is at work in that person's life Then You quickly become one of those people that gives apologetics a bad name

01:03:30

Well, I think it's important to also bear in mind that you know with regard to apologetics the sole purpose of apologetics is not

01:03:39

Necessarily just evangelism it has in effect when it comes to evangelism

01:03:44

But you know when when scripture says to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you

01:03:50

That could be just as much dealing with a new believer who needs an answer to a question, you know

01:03:56

That could be just as much. Yeah Right, yeah, yeah,

01:04:02

I would when I say new believer I mean someone who's like just fresh off the press versus you know, well, let me go ahead and bring

01:04:10

Dan in He's been waiting patiently backstage. I know he might have some questions. We have the seven -foot apologists

01:04:16

Dan craft Good evening everybody. Sorry. I was late, but I had family engagements to take care of so that's okay

01:04:23

And you were coming not the least of those being dinner But welcome

01:04:32

You you were on the show for the precept position Which would be the position that I know

01:04:40

Andrew holds to I hold to So and I know that dr.

01:04:46

Don here he would he would absolutely agree with the presupposition as well Yeah, the one thing

01:04:54

I've been kind of listening I've listened for a little bit, you know while I was backstage and The one thing that I feel like is not being taken into consideration when you guys are quoting first Peter 315

01:05:06

I feel like it's being somewhat taken out of context, right? So This is this is kind of Yet the pardon me.

01:05:14

This is a pet peeve of mine of modern. I think I know where you're gonna go Yeah, and I I want to hold on because some

01:05:22

I think somebody beat you. I think Jesse beat you to it What did he say? Set Christ.

01:05:29

Yeah, so that that's that's part of it, right? Jesse got the nail on the head like the imperative in that verse is indeed to sanctify

01:05:37

Christ as Lord in your hearts Imperative is not to offer defense, of course, you know being a subordinate clause

01:05:42

It's it or whatever you call it Whatever the grammatical term is the whole you know Be be ready to give an answer is one of the things kind of how that looks like It's one of the things that Lordship of Christ in your heart produces and one of the things that looks like right

01:05:57

But what I'm what I'm speaking of is is the larger context. So right? The problem

01:06:02

I see with the way first Peter 315 is normally quoted as we just go Sometimes we skip over the sanctify

01:06:09

Christ as Lord and we just focus in like a laser beam on the whole On the whole, you know giving an answer and that leads one to believe that you have to have an answer for you know

01:06:20

For all these very questions, but when you I kind of went over this in my during my two hours, you know a couple weeks ago

01:06:27

But you know when you look at this verse in the context of the entire epistle that Peter wrote He's writing his epistle to a church that is being that is scattered abroad around Asia Minor that is scattered around the the

01:06:40

Middle East and They're they're undergoing persecution and the whole theme of the book is right living in the face of persecution and so As I demonstrated my and you know during my session.

01:06:53

I said, you know when you look at first Peter first Peter the entire epistle He's not talking about, you know going head -to -head with skeptics unbelievers

01:07:02

Even answering questions of new believers I mean what he's really talking about there is like look When you're being persecuted for your faith and Paul reminds us that all who desire to live godly will be persecuted

01:07:13

Like when you are persecuted You should be living your life in such a way the whole the world looks at you and goes.

01:07:21

What's your problem? And that is the question that we're always called to have an answer to it's not you know

01:07:27

How do you know that there's a God or any of this other stuff? It's you know, what what makes you so different? I noticed something different about your life

01:07:34

What is it about you that gives you such joy and peace in the midst of surf? Suffering and persecution and that that question is what we're always prepared

01:07:44

It's supposed to be prepared to have an answer to and that is I'm glad you asked

01:07:49

Let me tell you about the death burial resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's it's it's a straightforward Invitation to share your testimony and it's a demo.

01:07:56

It's a demonstration of what Christ has done in you right, so I The whole you know always be prepared to have an answer.

01:08:05

You know, this is this is like I said it's one of my pet peeves and you know what the more

01:08:10

I Studied the word and the more I read the more I've come to the conclusion that you like Apologetics is not really a thing

01:08:18

Biblically speaking Apologetics is something that we have constructed out of out of one verse of the

01:08:24

Bible largely taken out of context What it really is telling you to do is say hey, you know

01:08:29

You need to be prepared to share your testimony and tell people how how Christ saved you Well, I I think that the context is important because you know

01:08:42

We run into people Well, people don't walk up onto the street and ask you a reason for the hope that is within you because in fact the context is persecution and suffering and It's the fact that we don't return

01:09:04

Evil for we don't return evil for evil, but we return good for evil That's what is motivating them to ask the question

01:09:14

But apologetics isn't just made up out of that one verse because in the first place it contains the word apologia which is normally used in in corny

01:09:28

Greek as the The summation that a lawyer gives in a trial.

01:09:33

So it's it's more than just giving your testimony and then It's a really useful.

01:09:40

Just read through the book of Acts sometimes right and highlight every time you get words like persuaded or Argued or Evidence.

01:09:52

I mean they're on every page. And so you've got you've got the apostolic precept

01:10:02

Which is to be ready to give an apologia You've got the apostolic

01:10:09

Precedent Which is the practice of the Apostles who are constantly appealing to to evidence and testimony, etc

01:10:20

Rather than just giving their personal testimony of what Jesus means to them and then you've got the apostolic principle

01:10:28

Which is that the gospel is for the whole man, including the mind and so a healthy apologetics

01:10:33

I think is made out of all three of that those steps of the tripod I agree with you that We do ignore the two things you mentioned the the imperative verb is sanctify

01:10:50

Christ is Lord of your heart and the context of I think the context of suffering doesn't

01:10:58

Lessen the emphasis on a rational response. I think it simply Situates it locates it in Reality and and gives us a view of the kind of relationships we need to be building with people and the kind of life we need to be living so that The questions actually do get asked

01:11:21

I deal with this right, and I just want to jump in on I want to jump in on that too because I Get it.

01:11:28

I get what you're you're saying Dan that the context of you know That verse and what was it first Peter or something like that first Peter 315 yeah,

01:11:39

I Understand the context behind and I understand that that verse has been the catch -all for you know our base

01:11:47

You know the basis for the existence of apologetics in the mainstream of it all

01:11:52

But I definitely disagree that apologetics with the point that apologetics really isn't a thing

01:11:58

Jesus was constantly defending his authority in the New Testament. I'd say that's apologetics

01:12:04

Paul on Mars Hill I'd say he used apologetics there Peter sermon On Mars Hill use scripture, right?

01:12:12

Well, he was preaching directly. He was giving a defense He was giving in a he was he was giving them the answer for that unknown.

01:12:19

God Peter's sermon at Pentecost He was giving a defense Stephen's speech before the

01:12:25

Sanhedrin in Acts 7 Paul his defense before Agrippa Peters call for to preparedness

01:12:31

Which would be yes first Peter 315. We need to be prepared. We have

01:12:37

Jude's exhortation to contend for the faith Jesus's post -resurrection

01:12:43

Appearances being constantly mentioned throughout the New Testament. That's apologetics apologetics is absolutely a thing and it's been a thing for a very long time and I I don't think that it has to be built on 1st

01:12:56

Peter 315, although it does tend to be the catch -all for That's my primary gripe about it, right?

01:13:03

Yeah, everybody wants to hone in on 1st Peter 315 what really what they're doing is was it 2nd Corinthians 10 4 and 5 we

01:13:09

Destroy arguments and everything that raises itself up against the knowledge of God. That's really what we're doing Yeah the whole apologetics thing when you actually

01:13:17

Go through the book of Acts like I did, you know during my session if you haven't seen it I encourage you to go back and watch it

01:13:22

But I go through all those passages you meant that you mentioned I go through Acts chapter 7 I talked about Stephen stoning in it

01:13:29

And I talked about Paul's sermon on Mars Hill and I go through Acts 22 23 24 25 and I said, you know

01:13:35

Paul command Paul says follow me as I follow Christ. So what did his apologetic look like?

01:13:42

Invariably, I mean he would he would always include the resurrection. It was in there. The resurrection was in there

01:13:47

He didn't try to prove that the Bible was true He didn't try to prove that God exists He went straight for the jugular almost every single time and at least mentioned the resurrection

01:13:57

I think it's fair to bring up though that Paul was trying to answer different questions today today there's

01:14:03

Much we have different questions that we're trying to answer So to speak in different groups like atheists, you know

01:14:12

Around you know, I don't know probably a little bit after about Paul But they thought that Christians were the atheists because we didn't believe in as much gods as they did

01:14:21

And so I think I think apologetics as we see it today Is in some sense a product of the time that we live in But Paul was trying to answer different, you know, not different questions, but questions with a different focus

01:14:37

I think that's a fair point to bring up I mean in that historical context.

01:14:45

I think that's a very important thing to take note of Well, I mean the one of the things that just stuck out to me in the in this kind of back and forth was uh,

01:14:53

You know adam you mentioned, you know going through the book of acts, right? Well and dr Williams did but right here he came up with that.

01:15:00

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, he did say um But but and then to to dan's point, you know, just looking through all of those instances in acts

01:15:10

Right when we look at peter sermon at pentecost He's he's giving the gospel, but he's also relying he's he's given his defense based on Scripture, right?

01:15:21

He's pulling out joel. He's saying these men are not drunk as you suppose, but then he lists out joel and then he

01:15:27

Elaborates on that through the giving of but why did he use joel? Who who who was he used like what was his?

01:15:36

apologetic defense to Right, right. Yeah, it was it was to it was to jews who didn't believe the non -believers, right?

01:15:44

Yeah, but but but who believed in the scriptures Yeah, but when paul was on on mars hill

01:15:50

He was in the marketplace talking daily with him And the reason why people were scoffing at him is because he was preaching the resurrection and he was he had an audience that That would range from jews to proselytes to your garden variety pagans

01:16:03

Who just anybody who happened to be in the marketplace that day right and interestingly enough he quoted a pagan poem

01:16:08

Yeah, but interestingly enough. He also quotes about 14 passages of scripture. Absolutely It wasn't like he was trying to start where they were and work there and argue their way to god

01:16:21

He's saying remember paul was the same guy who wrote romans chapter one. It says everybody knows god exists and not just a god

01:16:28

The god right everybody knows that god exists because there is only one and so This guy sees this and he knows that Everybody knows that god exists and he looks out and he sees the altar to an unknown god and he says look

01:16:43

Isn't it interesting that you guys have all these these gods and you still recognize that you've got one missing?

01:16:50

Now what you worship in ignorance. I now proclaim to you Right, so he was using a touch point of what they had in their culture to make contact with him, right?

01:16:58

He wasn't arguing aware, but he wasn't arguing from their their their their false belief to the scriptures, right?

01:17:05

He just went ahead and quoted scripture So what I but what I see today Is too often we're too concerned with trying to prove to the atheist the irrational argumentation that uh that god exists and this is

01:17:16

My my estimation. It's utter foolishness and it's unbiblical because God, you know god himself says everybody knows that I exist i've written i've written them

01:17:25

My existence on your everybody we know about his divine attributes and etc from romans chapter one

01:17:31

And your conscience testifies against you that you have everybody has a basic sense of right and wrong given to them by god

01:17:36

But men suppress that truth and unrighteousness So that that's pretty much that's that's really what i'm recoiling against is when you know, we're taking scripture out of context where I think we've we've twisted apologetics into something that's

01:17:48

Leads up to evangelism But no and when I look at paul's apologias all throughout the letter the latter section of the book of acts

01:17:56

All I see is him presenting the gospel as his apologia, but I would say all truth is god's truth, so Uh, what do

01:18:05

I mean by that? So let's say the atheist is like I don't think god exists Okay. Well god hasn't got

01:18:12

I don't think god exists because of this this this and this let's say Um, well the big bang theory or whatever

01:18:20

The truth of the matter that they're bringing up Is absolutely god's truth and I don't think that that Is full it's not foolishness to examine that it's not foolishness to have that conversation

01:18:36

And I do think there's great hope To then be able to have sort of a gospel conversation.

01:18:43

I would say it's Utter foolishness as much as it could be more so argued that it is

01:18:52

Uh, man, it's taken the long way around I think that would be a better way of putting it.

01:18:58

I don't I don't think it's foolishness to Have an argument for god's existence. I I think uh, but but you know, like This thing apologetics.

01:19:06

I think it's so much more than than just trying to prove god's existence I mean, we're you know, you're dealing with muslims muslims already believe god exists.

01:19:15

They just believe in the quran So so what does an apologist do? Well, they point out the issues with the quran or or find ways to to refute

01:19:24

Muslims, but but even with the early church, what did apologetics look like then?

01:19:29

Well, it looked like defending the trinity against you know these these uh these heretics

01:19:36

You know and and pointing to the true jesus And I guess the point i'm trying to make is well,

01:19:43

I go back to what I said the way apologetics looks today is In many cases a product of its time

01:19:51

But what you do see continuously from paul's time to justin marter to even aquinas in now is

01:19:59

Is that you know, I I like the way daniel goes about it Daniel mcadams is that you do have some sense of presuppositionalism

01:20:07

Where god is Indeed. He's got to be the starting point for us to come in with some of these arguments that we're making and and so um

01:20:18

Anyway, I I guess I guess that's my point is that Apologetics doesn't look the same

01:20:24

Um exactly the same it has its pillars That's absolutely true

01:20:30

But it doesn't look the same through history or church history whatsoever Um because we're dealing with different groups paul paul didn't have an issue.

01:20:40

Um with uh, Proving the well, I mean I won't go too far with that.

01:20:46

He didn't have to deal with uh, Aryans You know, so to speak he didn't have to deal with that specific group of people um

01:20:54

And and I don't think he ran into too many agnostics or atheists in his time either

01:21:01

So maybe that's why we don't see So many so much uh, hey, this is why god exists in in scripture who knows but um, either way,

01:21:12

I mean it's happening and there are good there are good arguments that Can be very faith building specifically for christians

01:21:21

Um, well, that's that's a that's a different argument, right? So having an argument for a christian to to bolster those who are getting or weaken their faith.

01:21:28

That's one thing But when you're talking to a non -believer And you're inviting him to you know to the you know

01:21:34

I believe it was either bonson or van till You know said when you when you try to argue from the evidences

01:21:39

You basically put the non -believer you put god in the dock basically, right? And you tell the the non -believer to be the judge and you determine whether Whether god is god or whether he exists or not, right?

01:21:50

And that's that seems to be utterly backwards And well, that's the van tillian Uh spin

01:21:56

On the use of evidence, but you don't have to present it that way Uh, you know, it's it's um

01:22:06

It's true whether I believe it or not whether you believe it or not And uh, here's a case for why we should think it's true and uh

01:22:17

It the case doesn't depend on whether you agree with me. It doesn't depend on me

01:22:23

It doesn't depend on your agreement. It depends on what's true and it depends on these facts and I'm presenting them to you not so that you can judge their truth or falsehood

01:22:38

But so that you can be confronted with the fact that every

01:22:44

Fact in the universe is there because god put it there and it all testifies to him so, uh

01:22:54

Yeah, you you've suppressed I might not use this language, but essentially you've suppressed the truth and unrighteousness

01:23:03

And you've covered it over with this whole layer of of Rationalizations and um

01:23:12

It's just not going to be as easy as it used to be for you to keep doing that If you're willing to listen you know, it's uh

01:23:25

So the evidence, uh The evidence speaks And No evidence doesn't speak right people speak and evidence has to be interpreted and it's always interpreted in light of that Which we already know right?

01:23:38

So you're if you unless you unless you would Fit any old interpretation, i'm sorry,

01:23:46

I mean facts don't fit any interpretation equally the facts are the facts and uh

01:23:54

Yeah, you can you can rationalize them. You can twist them You can evade them and you can suppress them, but if you deal with them

01:24:04

They're going to point you to christ You see that's that's where I don't I don't I don't see that happening in in in in the real world even right?

01:24:12

It's because you can you can present you can present all the evidence you want But like you said earlier like unless the holy spirit is working on that person's heart

01:24:20

They're not going to believe nobody believes the bible because of a of a stack of evidences Weighed on them so heavily that they had to Because it's a spiritual battle and right.

01:24:30

It's not a purely intellectual thing. However uh, we do have intellects and the intellect is part of what has to respond and so We want to make sure it's responding to reality and not to something else

01:24:47

Right, and I think it's fair to bring up just this. It's just a simple fact that you know paul himself

01:24:53

Did refer to evidence? um, we see that in scripture we see that in um, first corinthians 15 3 through 8 acts 17 31 um

01:25:05

You know there there is there is evidence that's brought up. Um, specifically I would say whenever paul um

01:25:14

Is referring to the resurrection and hey, we've got 500 people that's eyewitnesses eyewitnesses

01:25:19

You know, that's a strong evidence that hey there that We have 500 people who say they saw

01:25:28

The resurrected christ that's some pretty good evidence that the resurrection did indeed happen.

01:25:34

Sure. Um done in a corner Yeah, uh, and most of those 500 people aren't part of script.

01:25:42

I mean uh The the new testament that was written at the time that statement was made uh

01:25:54

He's not saying Christ rose from the dead because the bible says he did

01:26:00

It's because we've got 500 witnesses most of whom are still alive Right, but who was paul speaking to in first corinthians 15, right?

01:26:08

Who was he speaking to? Believers believers.

01:26:16

Thank you right Yeah, paul wasn't trying to use evidences on non -believers

01:26:23

Couldn't quote the new testament about the resurrection when it wasn't written yet Well The eyewitnesses including himself right, you know as evidence and and and That is not yet scripture in the earliest

01:26:44

Period but dr. Williams specifically talking about first corinthians chapter 15 verse 1 now brothers

01:26:50

I want to remind you of the gospel. I preached to you He's preaching to those who already believe and in that situation,

01:26:56

I think it's biblically justifiably Use all the evidence you want because you're you're you're you're talking with people who have already been spirit, you know

01:27:04

I pre -supposition was start from scripture. So The gospel was being preached for 20 years before there was any new testament that you could appeal to All right.

01:27:18

So are you are you okay dan? Are you postulating here that um The the disciples would have never referred to any sort of evidence that the resurrection happened in their in their uh evangelism to These jews who didn't believe in jesus yet.

01:27:38

They would have never said hey, there's an empty tomb. Jesus isn't there They wouldn't have brought any of that up. They would have simply said jesus died for your sins.

01:27:46

Here's the gospel And just laid it out there in a perfect pre -suppositional way

01:27:52

No, of course not because that's not what paul did in acts 20 through 22 through the end of the book right every single time

01:27:58

He mentioned the resurrection. Okay, the resurrection was always front and center So that's that's that's not the issue, right?

01:28:05

He's preaching the gospel He's not he's not making an argument leading up to the gospel.

01:28:11

He's preaching the gospel every single time right Um, except that's a prescriptive

01:28:19

Passage it's not a prescriptive um Sir, it's not prescriptive whatsoever.

01:28:26

That's a that's a description of what he did Okay. So why do we have why do we have history books?

01:28:31

Why do we have history books in the in the bible? Nobody denies that people were preaching the gospel when they preached the gospel the question is uh in their preaching of the gospel

01:28:45

Uh, did they make a case? That the resurrection actually happened and that god actually did it or did they simply ask you to take their word for it?

01:28:57

And I don't think the second scenario, uh will be borne out. No, they didn't and that's not what i'm arguing

01:29:04

But you asked the question. Um Why are there history books in the bible? Why would you say there are history books?

01:29:09

No, no, I asked I asked the question. Why are they why are there history books in the bible? Uh, because they're the history books are helpful for many reasons one um

01:29:19

One being that it gives the context for which um the

01:29:25

The prophetic books were laid out. Um, there's truth in them. There's actually there's scriptural truth in them um related to uh, just different different doctrines, um, there's there's uh

01:29:39

The simple fact that the holy spirit saw fit that it'd be included. Um, yeah, there's there's a whole narrative um from genesis to revelation and those history books add

01:29:52

Important context and we can we can gain great insight from those history books.

01:29:58

Um, Anyway, there's okay now give me a biblical answer There are history books in the bible

01:30:03

Because christianity is the uniquely historical religion of all the religions on the earth uh, every other religion is about What you must do to reach god christianity is about what god did in history to come and get us and so there's no christianity if there's no history, that's why

01:30:27

Probably the biggest bulk of the bible is is history Well in the history books there they they show god's faithfulness you know in sovereignty over time and they

01:30:38

They reveal his redemptive plan. Um, so give me a biblical answer though Give me a biblical answer to the question.

01:30:47

Why are there history books in the bible? Well, what do you think is the biblical answer first corinthians chapter 10 starting in verse 11

01:30:56

Now these things happen to them as examples And were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come

01:31:04

So the one who thinks he is standing firm should be careful not to fall Um, so there there's another passage.

01:31:12

Let's see the I think i'm thinking about a different passage these things happened as examples to us And they were written down for our instruction

01:31:19

So they were given as examples for things that we should do and not do And they were also given as warnings and as examples for us to follow

01:31:28

Right, so that the that'd be the biblical definition the biblical reason why we have history books in the bible

01:31:34

The only history book we have in the book of in the new testament is the book of acts

01:31:39

So we go to that to say when paul says follow me as I follow christ We go to the book of acts and we say okay.

01:31:46

How did paul do this thing that we're calling apologetics today? And that's what i'm trying to do is get us to go back to the book of acts

01:31:53

Go back to acts 22 through the end of the book and say okay How did paul do it and is what we do match up with that and my argument would be that by a lot mostly

01:32:03

We do not match up with paul. Well, well if I could break in here for a second because um

01:32:10

What it seems like is dan you're putting out a specific way we should pursue this

01:32:17

Following paul's example in the book of acts uh, but then before that adam

01:32:23

It seemed like you were saying we should look at the book of acts to see how paul and peter used evidences and uh arguments in order

01:32:33

To justify our apologetic, right? So it seems like um We even though it's you're you're using it seems like you're using the same descriptive text to try to make your case

01:32:44

As a prescriptive text, um what you were trying to say towards dan And that's a fair point.

01:32:50

I I would just say say this um What's different?

01:32:55

on my end Is i'm not using it as a basis for rejecting other forms of of interacting with non -believers

01:33:07

But if it's not the form that we've been given Then why shouldn't we reject it? Okay, so shy away from it at the very least, right?

01:33:15

So presuppositional apologetics is not mentioned in scripture whatsoever. We see it used

01:33:21

Right. We see it used. Um, the classicalists would say that we see classicalism a basis for Classicalism from romans one just as well

01:33:31

The evidentialist would say that you can do the same thing with evidentialism from romans one

01:33:37

Just as well Um, i'm not the the difference between my approach dan and your approach

01:33:44

Is you're using the book of acts as a A d you know the the basis of that descriptive element in acts to prescript the idea or the the notion

01:33:58

That we shouldn't be doing these other forms of apologetics and that we're doing it wrong

01:34:03

Versus you know my side of it is is I can see how um Is I as i'm saying it's it's

01:34:11

It's an explanation of how it's okay to use all forms if that makes sense um, and so um,

01:34:20

I Basically, i'm not pigeon. I'm not basically i'm not. Um It's a good way i'm not building a doctrine off of it and I believe that dan is but when he says uh that And I correct me if i'm wrong.

01:34:36

The only way to do it is to do it your way I know it's not my way. I think the only way to do it is the way that we've been given

01:34:43

We've been given the example by the apostle paul Right, and and I think that the other forms of apologetics

01:34:50

Have a basis for why they use that form And they they find it in scripture as well

01:34:59

Yeah I I'm, I'm merely saying i'm not building a doctrine off of it

01:35:06

I'm, not building a doctrine off it. I'm not uh I'm saying you can't do it that way because it's not in the scriptures.

01:35:14

I'm saying okay. I see it in the scriptures and i'm not um

01:35:19

Barring you from doing so i'm not barring anybody from doing anything brother. Well when you When you say it, but when you say it's utter foolishness, that's pretty strong language

01:35:29

I think it is the bible has a lot to say When you try to argue for his existence when he says look everybody knows that I exist

01:35:36

So why are you trying to prove to them something that I that i've already said they already know But they suppress that truth and unrighteousness.

01:35:43

I get what you're saying. And I think that uh, you know, who was it greg kolkol? And I believe dr

01:35:49

Williams brought this up is sometimes these blind people need a Need a pebble in their shoe or the way

01:35:55

I like to put it is is they need to be coaxed out of their delusion and All truth is god's truth

01:36:04

Which therefore evidence and reason in logic

01:36:10

Can be applied In that way I don't see a problem with that I don't see a problem with that biblically should you start from a presuppositional

01:36:19

Standpoint. Yes. I'm not going to go to an atheist and say hey, um, let's

01:36:25

Take a solely evidential approach. I know christians who try to do that um and And honestly, they don't even sound like christians when they do that where they take try to take a sole

01:36:39

Evidentialist perspective I have an issue with that. I I would be on your side with that.

01:36:45

Uh dan but to say that you can't use evidence or you can't use

01:36:51

You know Well, I didn't yeah, I didn't say that this is this is a common refrain against against the presuppositional approaches the presupposition

01:36:58

Particularly the hardline vantillians, but but yeah, I don't mean to think the vantillians would say you can't use evidence

01:37:04

I've known some it depends They probably have not read Uh, I mean just because you call yourself, you know, uh, a cheeseburger doesn't mean you are one, right?

01:37:16

Uh, I could call myself a five foot two chinese woman doesn't make it so that wouldn't work at all because you're a seven

01:37:21

Foot white even though I live right next to seattle Right doesn't matter how close I get So The problem is not the use of evidences.

01:37:30

It's how we use them, right? It's do we are we trying to take evidences and use them to convince the non -believer that god exists that the bible is true

01:37:39

That I would argue is unbiblical Are we using it to bolster the faith of those who already believe are we using to tear down bad arguments?

01:37:46

so here's a here's my my my My the common example I use if you want to talk about the evidences thing

01:37:52

When somebody throws out the old the old uh, the old line, you know You can't possibly believe the bible because it's been translated and re -translated so many times that what we what was originally written can't possibly be

01:38:03

You know what we have today, right? and that's when you can I think it's perfectly acceptable to reach into your back pocket pull out your

01:38:08

Your textual evidence card and say well actually I think you're you're greatly mistaken about how we got the bible let me talk to you a little bit about the manuscript evidence that we have and that you know, the

01:38:17

The consistency over time and all that stuff that that's perfectly fine for knocking down arguments but what i'm not trying to do is prove the truth of the bible by the number counting the number of Manuscripts and fragments that we have right which i've which

01:38:30

I myself have done and i've seen it done by others so that's why I think i'm particularly sensitive to this right because I I used to I used to Participate in this and now

01:38:39

I look back on it and go. Oh my goodness. What was I doing? right So the use of evidence is not a problem

01:38:46

We have a we have a reality -based faith that is firmly based on on reality

01:38:51

And so therefore we should expect to see evidences But we don't use those those those little bits and pieces of physical evidence or rational

01:38:58

Argumentation to try to prove to the non -believer that god exists or the bible was true Okay, so I I think that This this notion of trying to prove the existence of god

01:39:13

Is a very new thing. It's it's pretty new Um, i'm not saying that there weren't people in paul's day that believed there were no gods whatsoever, um

01:39:23

But I think we'd be hard -pressed to find that they believed in all kinds of gods And the the existence of god has has been god or gods has been an accepted general fact for quite some time and so this this

01:39:41

Thing that we're dealing with with atheists Especially in the proportion particularly with the proportion with which we're dealing with it today

01:39:50

Is fairly new and um Would I agree with you that we should start from the notion that god exists?

01:40:01

Yes for myself. I have If I were to rank these forms of apologetics,

01:40:07

I would probably go precept classical Evidentialist i'm trying to start from a precept perspective

01:40:15

And I would start from a precept perspective. I would say hey, you know god exists. This is the gospel

01:40:21

But then um Open it up for questions and and answering and and uh

01:40:28

But when an atheist is out there saying god doesn't exist and here's why he doesn't exist and they're saying things that are just flatly false

01:40:36

I should be able to use evidence and Reasoned and sound philosophical arguments without the fear that i'm, you know going against scripture

01:40:48

And I and I don't think that that would be a problem as long as we're getting back to scripture

01:40:56

Scripture tells us in romans a couple of things that People have a natural knowledge of god that was implanted in them

01:41:07

Uh, and that they suppress it Um So do you think it is possible?

01:41:15

That people have suppressed it to the point where they're no longer aware of it, let's call it being reprobate and uh, and Uh, is it possible that that reasons

01:41:34

Could be uh tools that we use to pry it back up Where they have to deal with it again

01:41:45

Uh So like prying the fingers back of the hands that are holding the beach ball under the water to use bonson's analogy yeah, so, uh,

01:41:56

I mean The idea that all i'm gonna do is just preach the gospel with this guy and not deal with uh

01:42:05

The fallacies that are influencing his thinking and preventing him from Listening to it or taking it seriously just seems preposterous to me uh yeah, so so one of the things that I would say to that is

01:42:28

There There is no evidences, there's no arguments

01:42:34

I can make against an towards a non -believer That will save that non -believer

01:42:41

I can give all the the greatest evidences in the world I can give all the greatest philosophical Arguments in the world

01:42:47

None of them are good enough to save them Right. The holy spirit has to Actually, right.

01:42:54

No, nobody is claiming that you can Right, so the holy spirit could work through it though, couldn't it?

01:43:01

But so so my So I rely on what? Scripture tells me right

01:43:07

The gospel is the power of god unto salvation so And i'm not one i'm not smart enough for all the classical philosophical arguments

01:43:17

I'm, definitely not smart enough to remember all the evidences That are out there The only thing

01:43:23

I know that i'm smart enough to do that. God has equipped me to do Is to relay the gospel to a non -believer and I trust the holy spirit in that will be effective

01:43:34

And if not me then the next person that comes along, um who waters that seed that I planted, uh for that person

01:43:46

Yeah, I I I wholeheartedly agree with that that's um, The thing that I see happening all too often in various apologetics conversations and many of them that i've participated in myself personally

01:43:59

Is that we spend so much time? Um deal trying to deal with the snowball of arguments that the atheist brings against us that we never really get around to Talking about sin and judgment

01:44:12

That's a fair point the judgment to come and all that right. That's a fair and so what

01:44:17

I see i'm willing to entertain Some i'm i'm always willing to entertain honest questions, right?

01:44:23

But there's comes a point and i'm sure you've met you've met have seen this too Where you realize that you're just dealing with somebody who's just out for a sword fight

01:44:30

Yeah, and he just wants to argue and at that point that's when I just say, okay Look, it's it's clear to me that you are not interested

01:44:37

In actual, you know an actual dialogue. You're not interested in hearing what I what I truly what the bible actually teaches

01:44:43

So, you know, you need to know dr. Williams was mentioned in that earlier Those guys earlier.

01:44:50

Yeah So yeah, we're definitely on the same page there this like, you know I'm not interested.

01:44:55

I I don't want I don't want a you know, uh a conversation that god might use To put a stone in somebody's shoe when

01:45:03

I should be given when I you know When I could just be giving him the gospel because like I like what saitem bruggenkate says

01:45:08

Um, you know when when the atheist lays his head on the pillow at night I don't want him thinking about you know

01:45:14

The complexity of the eye or how beautiful butterfly wings are I want him to think about his position before a holy god and how?

01:45:20

He's destined for hell That's what I want him to think about and when the holy spirit does prick his conscience

01:45:25

Who's he going to go to is he going to go to the guy, right? You know say hey, you know you need you need to repent and believe the gospel

01:45:33

Or is he going to go back to the guy who says hey remember all those philosophical arguments you gave me for god

01:45:38

Yeah, let's talk about that again, right? I think he's going to go to the guy who gave him the gospel I think I think one of the issues that you that Then pop up is so let's take like a lee strobel, for example.

01:45:50

Um his journey to faith was Through searching, you know, he would say and like I searched the evidence and it was too compelling.

01:45:59

I had to believe so What would your response to something like that be? I mean, I I would still say it was the holy spirit

01:46:06

Who worked in his heart? but By all means, uh

01:46:13

His journey searching through that evidence was indeed a pebble in his shoe. It was coaxing him out of his delusion

01:46:25

Yeah, um I have somebody like uh Like oh, what's the guy's name frank morrison who wrote uh, who moved the stone?

01:46:35

atheist logger who decided he would uh refute the resurrection by cross -examining the uh, the four gospel witnesses

01:46:46

And discovered that if he actually applied the rules of evidence to their testimony

01:46:53

Fairly, uh, he should be required to accept it and he ended up becoming a christian

01:46:59

And and writing instead of the book refuting the historicity of the resurrection. He wrote the classical defense of it uh by Those canons of of evidence.

01:47:11

So what was he studying that convinced him that it was true? Was I don't see the point of your question.

01:47:23

What was what was that? What was the man studying the gospels, but he was studying the gospel He was you haven't given an answer

01:47:33

Asking he was uh dealing with them as historical evidence for the occurrence of this event and It was asking, uh based on the canons of historical evidence

01:47:50

Based on the canons of legal evidence that I have to use in courtroom when I examine these testimonies uh

01:47:59

Doggone it I have to accept them. So so listen, so listen

01:48:05

It was applying Canons of evidence to the gospels that uh

01:48:14

Caused him to have to change his thinking Yeah, so so listen to that and then adam your question about lee strobel um,

01:48:22

I don't know that I necessarily have an An answer to your question about lee strobel, but I have another question that just kind of pops into my mind about it is listening to These men who follow evidence, right?

01:48:35

They're set out to disprove something and they end up following evidence is my my initial question and i'm not

01:48:43

Questioning their salvation right now by any means but their initial

01:48:49

Coming to the lord is my question is is that merely just well,

01:48:54

I can't refute the evidence Therefore I acknowledge the existence Of this god, but it's not necessarily a heart change towards this god

01:49:05

You know what i'm saying, right? My heart hasn't necessarily been changed to where now

01:49:10

I submit to him as lord Even though I may acknowledge that he does exist. Yeah At the same time we can't we can't.

01:49:19

Um We can't say through hearing someone who's come to christ through a presuppositional approach

01:49:27

Um that they actually had a heart change. We got to look at their the fruit We have to look at their what they have.

01:49:34

Um What they profess did they profess that jesus christ is lord

01:49:40

Do they believe that he was born of a virgin rose from the dead he died for our sin?

01:49:45

Oh, you know go down the list what uh, whatever. Um, that's the best that we've got um

01:49:52

You know if I were to look at lee strobel's life and what he professes I Wouldn't be able to say myself that he's not a christian.

01:50:02

He definitely seems to be a brother um But that's that's the best we can do

01:50:07

But nobody is just his testimony is that he searched the evidence

01:50:13

And the evidence spoke loud and clear to him and uh And you know what?

01:50:18

I think it is also important to bear in mind this that in this process

01:50:25

I guarantee he ran into the gospel Well, that's what's going to be my next thing is I was going to say well and i've never what apologist strobel but has he

01:50:35

Uh at what point in his writings does he deal with the gospel itself? Like what was his first interaction with the gospel?

01:50:42

Did someone give it to him? Um, did was he discipled in these things? I I think the way he describes it in his book is that you know, he he took the gospels and then um he wanted to Put to bear put the gospels on trial or or whatever it was that he said

01:50:59

Um, and so I think that was in view the whole time and I would just I want to echo Dan what you've been saying?

01:51:06

Um, the the gospel is paramount if it um Here's the deal. This is an evangelism

01:51:13

Issue not necessarily an apologetics issue because apologetics as i've as i've said

01:51:19

It covers more than just evangelism Um, it it has a massive discipleship element

01:51:26

Where a lot of these questions about evidences and all of that they tend to come as a youth pastor

01:51:33

I get a lot of questions about the evidences for scripture The you know, how do I know the bible is reliable and I can go into that that sort of evidence and i'm sure that's

01:51:43

You know fair point bringing up, uh that paul was talking to believers in in first corinthians 15

01:51:49

That's a fair point. Maybe that's what paul was doing in that case. Who who knows? Um, but what we do know is that At least my perspective apologetics isn't solely an evangelistic tool um

01:52:05

How do I bring that back around to what I was saying initially? there are cases in which you need to use apologetics in evangelism and um, if and so um

01:52:21

If you're merely just going out to argue for the existence of god You're not doing evangelism.

01:52:29

That's not what it is Um, and you and you very well could be wasting your time um

01:52:36

All that said, um You know, why do people like a william lane craig go to You know colleges and debate certain field, you know philosophical issues well um

01:52:50

There's more than one reason to do that and uh, he's got a he's got to work that out with with the lord himself, but But if we're going to effectively use apologetics in an evangelistic way, whether you're evidentialist, whether you're presuppositional

01:53:05

Whether you're in the classical apologetics the gospel has to be there And at the end of the day, it's the gospel that does the work and it could very well be that the presuppositionalist conversation or the evidentialist conversation or even looking at the classical arguments

01:53:24

Those are vehicles through which we continue the discussion and keep them pondering the gospel Um all the while the holy spirit is doing his work in the mysterious way that he works nobody claims

01:53:37

That evidence by itself can change the heart It can't but change the mind it's hard to deny that It sometimes has been part of the process

01:53:51

That the holy spirit uses to bring people to that place It may be part of the process again

01:53:57

Argument is not that you can't use evidence. It's the matter. It's just a question of how do you use them, right?

01:54:04

Um, i'm, I love to go to you seem to object to anybody doing it

01:54:11

Uh until somebody is already a christian If you're trying to use evidences to argue for the the truth of scripture

01:54:20

To try to prove that the scriptures are true to try to prove that god exists then then yeah Um, I mean look at the disciples themselves the 11 who were chosen

01:54:28

Nobody saw more of what jesus said or did than the than the 12 disciples Right, but when you get to matthew 28 17

01:54:37

It says when they saw him jesus. They worshipped him, but some doubted So clearly, you know

01:54:44

If a lot of i've i've seen people are trying to argue in such a way that they say, you know The evidence is is you know, the silver bullet

01:54:51

And it's not right. It's it's not the way that scripture that scripture presents the case

01:54:57

The script the case is that the word of god is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword Not all these all the supporting evidences

01:55:04

So dan let's say cart before the horse. Well, let's say that that's a in Let's say an agnostic

01:55:13

Is coming to you saying hey I hear what you're saying about the gospels I just find

01:55:19

I just find that I just I can't believe what you're saying Because i've heard so much against scripture.

01:55:26

It just doesn't seem Believable that the bible is giving

01:55:32

You an accurate representation of what actually took place What are you gonna say are you gonna say well, you know god exists anyway and or or how would you respond to that?

01:55:43

This is a sincere question. Well, I would say I would say pick a specific thing. Let's let's pick a specific thing

01:55:48

Let's talk about it and let's see where it goes And and would you would you find out pretty quickly if it's an honest question or if it's a snowball job?

01:55:56

Well, no, we're saying this is an honest question. Okay, right? Would you go that that evidentialist route?

01:56:03

Would you give them the evidence for the validity of scripture and its accuracy and its manuscripts

01:56:09

Would you go through that? If there's if his question was how do we know that what was originally written is what we have today?

01:56:17

Then I think I can make a pretty good case for that Okay, but is that am I going to try to use that to say so therefore the bible is true

01:56:25

No, that's that's that's a that's a big leap And the evidence won't get you from accurate from accurate transmission or faithful transmission over time

01:56:34

To it being god's word right I think

01:56:39

I think I'm tracking with what you're saying. I think um, Yes scripture is true whether or not

01:56:48

These these people think that they have the plausible evidence for it but this goes back to what we've been saying here that um

01:56:58

The ultimate truth is that scripture is true. How do we coax them out of the delusion that they're in that it isn't

01:57:05

I think by and and and one of those ways is with uh with using

01:57:11

The evidence that god has supplied his church with um Hey, the the god has supplied whatever if it is true, it is god's truth

01:57:23

Regardless And so if I can take evidence and that evidence is legitimate evidence

01:57:31

And I were to make a compelling argument to it Like I said in this particular case a genuine

01:57:38

Person who's interested wants to know And is like hey, i'm just struggling with this

01:57:44

I can make a genuine truthful argument backed up with evidence um all that truth is god's truth and I think that You know, there's no problem with that And that is and in that way dan whether you like it or not you are meeting them where they're at Yeah, I guess in a sense you are but i'm not arguing from the evidence to scripture, right

01:58:08

I'm, i'm not gonna Again, i'm not gonna say here's all the evidence and this is why this is why I believe the bible is true

01:58:14

Because it's not it's not the reason why any of us believe you believe the bible's true because god said so Okay, well because god has given me eyes to see and ears to hear and he's replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh right

01:58:26

Absolutely. Yes, but god has spoken right? And and so in what did he speak through he spoke through his word and so um, so yeah,

01:58:37

I think it's still relevant to say yes, because I believe the bible's true because god said so um all that said

01:58:44

You are meeting them where where they're at. Okay I I already believe scripture because god laid it out there for me

01:58:53

God has spoken and he's spoken through his word But I see where you're at I'm going to present some evidences for you to consider

01:59:01

And may the holy spirit coax you out. Maybe may this be a pebble that you can't you can't uh, quite

01:59:09

Get out of your shoe or so to speak. I I like what I say better than the pebble argument.

01:59:15

I I think that evidence or Even sound philosophy can be used to coax someone out of the delusion that they're in I I prefer using it that way better But in that particular case, that's what that is what you're doing.

01:59:31

You're meeting where they're at Back in the 1970s when the hari krishnas were running around in their yellow sheet

01:59:37

I uh as a young man ran into one in the airport and uh We Met each one of us, uh bound and determined to evangelize the other

01:59:52

And uh I quoted scripture. He quoted the bhagavad -gita

01:59:58

I treated scripture as self -evidently true. He treated the bhagavad -gita as self -evidently true

02:00:04

I told him all the stories about wonderful things. Jesus had done in my life He told me

02:00:10

Equally wonderful stories about what krishna had done in his life And at a certain point it it hit me one of us

02:00:19

Is at least one of us is deluded and uh

02:00:29

I had at that point No way of Deciding or determining which it was

02:00:40

And If I preach the gospel the way you want me to Uh, i'm still stuck right at that place talking to this guy because he's

02:00:51

He's got equally subjective confidence That krishna has revealed to him the truth of his hindu scriptures.

02:01:00

You know, it's like it's Well, I think you gotta have dr. Williams you yourself said only the holy spirit can convict the person, right?

02:01:08

So, I mean it's not our job to convince convict or convert anybody It's right. I would say that when your conversation is evolved on some basis

02:01:17

Which one of us was totally deluded? Well, I mean the difference and my subjective confidence

02:01:25

That I claim was given to me by the holy spirit doesn't answer that question Yeah, but when if i'm talking to that guy

02:01:33

And he and he's matching me Um category for category, right the the thing about it is

02:01:41

I can tell him. Yeah, but krishna did not die for your sins uh and so At that point

02:01:48

I can go into giving him the gospel and then I can trust that the holy spirit will work in him

02:01:53

Because even though he's matching me. He's matching me experience experience Krishna came as an avatar of vishnu and he he

02:02:04

Sacrificially gave up his own place in nirvana in order to help his followers

02:02:12

Achieve enlightenment. So I mean he's got something roughly parallel and so Here's here's the difference

02:02:22

All the stuff he claims that krishna did Didn't happen in history There's no dates to it.

02:02:29

There's no when karenius was governor of syria There's no pontius pilate

02:02:36

Under pontius pilate. There's none of that and jesus died for my sins in history, but to to establish the difference

02:02:48

I've got to start i've got to start dealing with history and with evidence There's evidence for one.

02:02:54

There's no evidence for the other It's of the very nature. There can't be evidence for it Because nobody even knows when this avatar of vishnu walked on earth

02:03:05

Jesus is the as dorothy elsaire said jesus is the only guy with a date in history and so uh

02:03:12

Yeah, i've got to uh I've got to have something

02:03:19

Other than The subjective confidence that I claim god gave me in order to establish

02:03:27

Well, that's yeah The christianity's got a real good chance of being true. The other one doesn't yeah

02:03:34

I mean, I think the other difference is I don't have a subjective Confidence I have an an objective faith

02:03:41

That that god is true and that comes from his word. Um, But you're already assuming it's truth

02:03:48

Yeah, because because you haven't given me any reason to believe in it

02:03:54

Yeah, so so here's the thing is that no matter who you're talking to They have certain presuppositions that they already believe are true

02:04:03

So they already come to the discussion with a particular world view, right? And so uh,

02:04:09

I What i'm not going to do is i'm not going to assume their world view True in order to try to coax them out of it

02:04:17

I'm going to establish my world view as true my presuppositions and say This is the god of the universe.

02:04:24

This is whom has spoken and how do you know that he is? How do

02:04:30

I know that god is? You're not the one that's deluded Yeah because god's word

02:04:38

Right. No, I don't feel it. It's because he has spoken and he has said it right and it's and because he has given

02:04:47

We're trying to determine is whether or not he has whether or not he did Yeah So you're assuming the thing that we have to establish

02:04:59

Yeah, it's because my pre -belief my presupposition is what I believe before I believe anything else

02:05:06

So I can't believe anything else to be true unless I first believe

02:05:11

God of the universe has spoken and he has spoken through his word If I do not rely upon his word and what he has said it doesn't matter what

02:05:20

I say afterwards I have no basis to say anything else My what makes my evidences if I pull out evidence is what makes them evidences at all

02:05:29

Okay, true, but but you're the the issue that you guys are running into here is you use evidence regardless the the basis of your argument as presuppositional apologetics or as presuppositional apologists is that your goal is to convince the unbeliever that they

02:05:52

Borrow from a christian worldview using evidence that they borrow from a christian worldview.

02:05:57

That's what my goal Is not to convince anyone of anything my that's what you find yourself doing in those arguments

02:06:06

You're presenting evidence that they're borrowing from a christian worldview. No, so that's a convincing So one thing so I align with the presuppositional position, but one thing that i've already established about myself

02:06:19

Is i'm not smart enough for the classical arguments. I'm not smart enough to remember all the evidential arguments

02:06:26

Or all the evidences to use and so all I have to go on right i'm not trying to convince them of anything

02:06:33

It's not my job. It's the holy spirit's job But that's why I rely the presupper uses convincing tactics is what i'm trying to say

02:06:42

You were you were you were revealing to the the person across from you Uh that well, you're actually you're actually and i'm sorry, maybe maybe this is

02:06:53

If let's take uh Let's take james white When he's when he's debating an atheist he uses the presuppositional

02:07:03

Apologetic methodology when he debates those atheists. And so what does james white do?

02:07:10

he Try what he does is he he's like, hey, you're you're actually borrowing from a christian worldview um for the basis of some of The things that you even believe um, and and so he are yes the presupper argues from So basically from the foundation of scripture, that's true.

02:07:32

I will give that to them They're saying a truth when they say that but to say that they don't use evidence

02:07:38

That's not true because what they do in their debates James white jeff durbin, you name it is that they use evidence

02:07:49

Based on the testimony of the person that they're debating with That they are borrowing from a christian worldview

02:07:57

That's what presuppers do So regardless you are using

02:08:03

Evidence, it may not be The same kind of evidence that an evidentialist would use to try to convince um an atheist, uh physicist um that That the bible is true or whatever

02:08:17

But you are using evidence that is not escapable for the presupper for the cumulative case guy the classicalist or Obviously the evidence none of us can escape that evidence would be used.

02:08:30

So so let's say when James white jeff durbin they're in a debate uh, their opponent is making truth claims

02:08:39

And james white jeff durbin they say okay By what standard do you measure or say anything is true?

02:08:47

You're saying that's an evidential You're saying that's an evidential argument That's a question

02:08:55

Right That the purpose is to draw out what they're saying In order to reveal that their worldview is faulty right that they're actually borrowing from the christian worldview, right?

02:09:05

so but so so the so Uh what the presupper does is he uses

02:09:12

Their opponent's response as evidence against their position But that's to show the inconsistency of his worldview.

02:09:21

It's not the damn that's It's still evidence i'm not brother i'm not sure how many times

02:09:26

I could say it evidence is not the issue It's it's how you use the evidence Fair point that is a fair point, right?

02:09:33

But but but Earlier earlier we were saying that it's not our job to do any kind of convincing

02:09:40

And that's the basis of what i'm trying to say here is that we do convince and in fact paul

02:09:46

Constantly was convincing the jews that or or in Doing the work of convincing he would he would do that in the synagogues as was customary

02:09:57

Right. He was trying to persuade them but the ultimate conviction has to come from Well, and I I don't know an evidentialist classicalist or presupper you name it that Who is sincere?

02:10:11

That would say otherwise, of course, it's the holy spirit who does the final work does that finishing work does that effectual work?

02:10:20

But that doesn't change the fact that we do the work of convincing Otherwise paul is not doing things biblically, but yes, but again

02:10:29

What are the tools we use to are we using scripture to convince are we using man's philosophy to convince

02:10:37

Or are we using scripture to convince? I I would just I would I would say that you don't have to only use scripture

02:10:47

To convince you're just handcuffing yourself at that point. No, I would know I would know

02:10:54

Yes source that we have Hang on Impatiently waiting to say something.

02:10:59

It looks like he's getting ready to explode nobody just quotes scripture and throws it at the person like a set of bricks

02:11:10

You well, depending upon how much time I have I might just do that. You have to reason From the scripture you have to reason about the scripture to show that the interpretation

02:11:21

Is correct and not taken out of context you have to reason to show its relevance to the question

02:11:27

You don't just throw scripture at people. Why not? You have to uh

02:11:33

Well, you don't when you present the gospel. It's not a hundred percent Quotation from the king james bible.

02:11:40

No, because I don't use the king james you like I try to minimize my words and I try to maximize god's words

02:11:50

I try to use as few of my words as possible Because I I do believe what the bible says

02:11:56

The word of god is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword. My words are sporks

02:12:02

So I try to use as few of my words and as many of his as I possibly can And because and uh, how do we know that you're uh presenting them in context and interpreting them correctly?

02:12:15

Well, that would be a study for a bible study But when i'm having a discussion with a non -believer, we're not going to be discussing hermeneutics right

02:12:23

When i'm having a conversation with a non -believer, we're talking about sin and judgment If you're trying to convince me that salvation is by Grace alone through faith alone in christ alone uh and uh

02:12:41

I Got some roman catholicism in my background and I quote james and I think i've got uh

02:12:50

Good reasons why you're taking paul out of context And you're just going to just quote those verses at me and leave it there.

02:12:58

That's all you're going to do Okay, then we'll have then we'll have we'll have that discussion Right, okay lots of discussions,

02:13:05

I mean uh Then we'll have that discussion. I don't see any reason why we have to limit it

02:13:12

In the way that you're trying to do What i'm saying is the closer you stay to scripture I think the most the more effective you're going to be the more god honoring you're going to be it's when we get off Into the weeds and we want to discuss everything but the scriptures

02:13:24

That we get ourselves into trouble and we wind up wasting time with the non -believer instead of getting to the core issue

02:13:30

Which is what are you going to do with jesus? And what I what I keep what

02:13:35

I hear what I hear you say sir with with all due respect And what I hear you saying, you know earlier is that you know, we we have to we have to argue this way

02:13:43

We have to argue this way. Well, like wait, we don't have to argue. Anyway, that's that's the no The case we have to prove the case, you know, what about talking about the hari krishna, you know?

02:13:52

well, I mean Paul was was I needed all was in the business of convincing just as as I needed a reason as he was

02:14:01

I needed a reason to believe That I was not the one deluded other than my subjective confidence in the scripture being the word of god

02:14:14

Because this guy had subjective confidence in the bhagavad gita One of us at least one of us was deluded well, if If if that was if that was honestly your thought when you're talking with him

02:14:28

Then I would just say that that was just a sign of a wavering faith on your on your part

02:14:35

Right, and i've been there like i've i've seen I've listened to some arguments that made me go

02:14:41

Oh, man, what if everything that I believe about this is false, is that not a legitimate question?

02:14:48

Not if not if So I find it really interesting that we go to church on sunday We pray we preach about you know, or we sing about you know

02:14:55

How how god saves us and we have confidence that he saved us and that he's god that he loves us, etc, etc But when we get into a discussion with a non -believer suddenly everything, you know, it's on the table for discussion

02:15:04

We're willing to negotiate this Like we're willing to consider that god that god has not spoken and that his that is the bible is not his word i'm, really i'm, really getting overwhelmed by the number of False dilemmas that are floating around here.

02:15:20

It's like we either preach the gospel or we do apologetics and and um

02:15:30

You know, we either uh use the we either use evidence in a very very, uh limited way

02:15:38

Or we don't or or we're trusting the evidence to change people's hearts.

02:15:43

It's like uh I don't think these False dilemmas have anything to do with the real world or with the way apologetics should be done or really happen,

02:15:54

I mean To to if you use apologetics at all then you're

02:16:00

You're not trusting in the holy spirit uh, you and your and your

02:16:07

Putting the falsity of scripture on the table No, it's it's uh

02:16:14

It's not like that at all You know, it's it's uh, the presuppositionless propaganda

02:16:24

That that presents strong men of the other methods of apologists and makes them look hardly unspiritual when

02:16:35

The best ones in all of those other, uh Fields don't operate that way at all

02:16:42

And I would also just throw out there that um, I dan I would be honest. I think you're a brother

02:16:49

I agree Um with a lot of what you've got to say scripture is important. We want to get to the gospel but whenever you

02:16:57

Whenever you Paint it this way that that it's utter foolishness to entertain um

02:17:04

Some of these questions from an evidentialist perspective or a classical perspective Or using philosophy.

02:17:11

No, hang on. Hang on. You're painting with a broad brush I think when I said it's utter foolishness. I was speaking specifically about what paul addresses in romans chapter one, right?

02:17:19

Does god exist? I think it's foolishness to engage in that argument Does god exist because it's explicitly laid out that everybody knows that he exists, right?

02:17:28

With too broad Thank you, I appreciate that and I don't want to I don't want to do that to you either but to say that going into that discussion is foolishness,

02:17:38

I just I just I don't see that I think that um, you know when you give something the charge of foolishness, it's pretty serious because there's a whole book in scripture

02:17:49

Um that warns against foolishness. I think that foolishness is sin Um, and so here's the deal, uh, the argument does god exist is an incredible conversation starter evangelistically

02:18:05

Um and being able to entertain that argument um and and jump into that argument, uh is not sinful and whenever you say that uh

02:18:16

Jumping into that argument or in having that argument with the person um Is foolishness

02:18:23

I I think you're bordering on adding a doctrine to scripture that isn't even there And you're calling something sin.

02:18:30

That isn't that that is just let's just be honest isn't sin You know and so That's why it's important to to really um, think think through this.

02:18:42

Yeah, we want to have the most biblical position um, unfortunately Um when it comes to the person that you're arguing with they don't care

02:18:52

How biblical your position is or what you what you really, you know, like hey this now

02:18:57

I might care I I like well thought out biblically laid out arguments. I think they're great.

02:19:03

Um But when it what you're dealing with is you're dealing with people

02:19:09

This isn't input information and and get an output. You're you're dealing with people and Going back to the question.

02:19:17

I had asked before there are people with genuine questions. Um, you know, uh, okay

02:19:23

I'm struggling with the idea that god exists. Well, why is that? well because of all of the suffering

02:19:29

I went through and in according to You guys god loves everybody i'm struggling with that because of all of the suffering because I went through this abuse or that abuse um to be able to give

02:19:41

Not just a compassionate response, but also in Evidenced back response to that can be so effective

02:19:52

In not just with apologetics. Let's just put that to the side but evangelistically and to say and to to say that that sort of in I again,

02:20:01

I know i'm making it very particular because i'm throwing in other elements, but What i'm gathering is you would say that conversation is foolishness.

02:20:10

No Okay, then then then at what point then dan

02:20:15

Does the conversation of god exist god's existence not become foolishness because that is the overarching theme of such a conversation

02:20:24

Well, so let's go back to your to your scenario there when you have a scenario like that. I mean, they're they're

02:20:31

When you're dealing with the problem of evil obviously There are two different angles you come at this from the person who's talking to you could just be you know

02:20:37

Trying to you know again trying to foist a you know, philosophical conundrum on you uh in which case you handle it one way, but you know, we're going to take you

02:20:45

Your situation where you have somebody who's got you know, serious trauma in their life And you you you mourn with those who mourn you cry with those who cry and you you laugh with those who laugh, right?

02:20:54

You you empathize with them, you know, I understand that but let me let me show you from scripture why

02:21:01

Things are the way they are And see so the problem is not that you don't believe in god

02:21:06

It says you can't justify that you can't justify the existence of a god given all the pain that you're that you're experiencing or that You have experienced let me take you back to the beginning take you back to genesis show you how god

02:21:18

Laid it everything out. Perfect, but man's sin he fell the entire, you know, all of creation was corrupted

02:21:25

Because of adam's sin, etc, etc, then you can walk them through that I mean and then it becomes just a matter of biblical counseling

02:21:31

I think and laying out the gospel I said but you know You know ultimately, you know, you you do know that god exists you do and the the the truth of the matter is that you're going to have to stand before him one day and you're going to have to answer for It and you're not going to be able to stand in front of god and say well

02:21:49

I had no idea you existed because you do I think I I think I did you a great service in answering that question because um

02:21:57

Be be in asking the question in the way that I did because the the bible does offer um amazing answers to the problem of suffering um, and uh, perhaps the only and uh,

02:22:12

I don't even want to give credence to to the idea that an atheist could have a good argument Um, perhaps their strongest argument because of the emotional appeal is the problem of suffering, you know um, and and but the problem of suffering is is also a very philosophical one and in the bible uh offers

02:22:32

A very very good theological philosophical answer to that. Um, you know, um

02:22:39

But I think on the flip side also if it's a person who doesn't have a trauma and says man, there's this evolution stuff and you know, it's just I I think that Evolution is too convincing and and if the bible says it a certain way.

02:22:54

I just don't see how how uh one of they can both be true and I and if I were to To to choose one

02:23:02

I would choose evolution Um, you know, you can get into a conversation about that. How would you respond to a question?

02:23:11

Like I would say hey, tell me about your tell me about your reasons Tell me about your reasons for wanting to believe the by you know

02:23:17

For believing evolution is true. Why why do you why do you feel? Why do you feel like you cannot believe what the bible says?

02:23:24

Right, and you'll find out that they have you know, their god is too small You know that their conception of god is too small or any anyone have a number of things

02:23:31

I mean, it's kind of hard to talk in broad, you know, hypotheticals like that. But I mean, it's essentially it is hard It's you know, it's apologetics is is not so much about you know, giving speeches as it is about listening and asking good questions

02:23:43

That's a good point too, right? So Um, that's one thing that I i've had to learn. Uh the hard way.

02:23:49

Yeah Well, you'll find that so much of ministry is just listening and asking good questions.

02:23:55

Yeah. Well, I think that's true I think we have found a statement by dan that we can all agree with Got to be at least there's got to be one

02:24:06

There's several there are several but And uh, you know, uh, we're not going to solve all of these methodological issues tonight

02:24:18

Uh, because we've been working on that for at least the last 60 or 80 years And we keep coming around Uh, bottom line is only the holy spirit converts people

02:24:32

He uses the proclamation of the gospel. He uses prayer. He uses your personal testimony convincing and uh and When those conversations take place uh

02:24:49

I think he uses uh reasons and evidence certainly

02:24:55

Uh, there are people for whom it looks like it worked that way and uh the way we present the evidence,

02:25:04

I think indeed lots of people do it in such a way as if they

02:25:14

They they give the impression. They think if they make the perfect argument, they're going to convert the guy

02:25:20

And that's certainly false. Uh, that's certainly not going to happen. Yeah Uh, I I like to uh

02:25:29

I like I look at it this way. Maybe this is is a good way, uh to end the conversation

02:25:37

Uh when I was a little boy, I'm five or six years old my dad was a uh, actually an airplane mechanic

02:25:46

But he also did a lot of the work on our cars And so he would he would ask me to come out in the yard with him to help him fix the car and uh

02:25:55

So I would hand him the tools out of his toolbox And you know half the time

02:26:00

I'd get the wrong wrench or whatever three or four times before I finally got the right one My dad could have fixed that car way more efficiently without my help

02:26:12

But he asked me to come and he involved me in that job because he was my father and he loved me so the the most powerful preacher and the most

02:26:23

Brilliant apologist on the planet is a little boy helping his dad fix the car

02:26:30

And uh, that is the most we can claim but the fact that god lets us participate in his work

02:26:38

Is one of the most profound expressions of his grace that I think we'll ever experience and uh

02:26:46

So I I hope that that will be Our experience going forward and that the and that god will use us in spite of our foolishness and our sinfulness and our stupidity and our weaknesses

02:27:01

To accomplish his work like he did with the apostle paul who was the chief of sinners Amen Good word

02:27:10

I want to thank everyone for tuning in. I want to thank our guests.

02:27:15

Uh, dr. Donald williams for coming on Engaging in lively discussion, uh as well as dan kreft the seven foot apologist and uh adam parker for being my co -host this evening

02:27:28

So you really have seven feet? I mean most of us only have two. I mean Yeah, it's it's it's really hard to buy shoes

02:27:38

Because one's always got to be left off. Yeah Always that one left over Maybe you can get them, but we want to thank you for tuning into apologetics live uh

02:27:49

Be sure that you get logos bible software You get your my pillow and whenever you got to rise up early in the morning off of your my pillow

02:27:58

Go grab your cup of squirrelly joe's coffee. I think I covered all of the sponsors right there

02:28:04

So we will see you I think andrew has a show planned next week. I don't know

02:28:09

We'll find out when he gets back from the fight laugh feast conference. No Uh, well,

02:28:17

I don't know we'll find out There was There was one thursday this month where he wasn't here, but I think it was last thursday.

02:28:26

Yeah last thursday. That was last week. Yeah uh, he asked me if I wanted to do one and I was like But uh

02:28:35

Pay attention next week might be a show. I don't know You'll just have to tune in and find out till then we'll see you next time