(Part 2) Bahnsen vs Sproul: Deep Dive Debate Review

Revealed Apologetics

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You saw part one, and we delved into the discussion between Greg Bonson and R .C.

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Sproul. You think you have a grasp on who has the upper hand in this discussion? But wait, there's more.

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In this video, my friend Eli Ayala and I go even deeper as we get into the kind of knowledge the

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Bible says unbelievers have. We talk about whether or not evidentialist arguments are even out of bounds for a presuppositionalist.

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Do I become a presuppositionalist by the end of this discussion? Find out in part two happening right now.

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Let's let's get a little bit deeper into this discussion. Sproul is answering a question here.

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What I meant by that is apologetics in the classical sense of an ad hominem response to where the world is coming from, where we come off the reservation.

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And we duel with them in their own backyard. I think what

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I meant by that, Josiah, I don't want to put words in Greg's mouth, but I would assume that that is not a point of controversy between us.

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I hope not. I hope it's just we're always looking for more agreement to disagree. I hope we're not going to uncover more disagreement.

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What I mean by that, you see, the concern at this point is to show we both agree that the whole life and worldview of the pagans is built on a lie.

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God reveals himself clearly to all men, men have that knowledge, they exchange the truth of the lie, therefore their thoughts become futile.

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We see brilliant men in the world. We see sarts, the sarts and the humes of this world that are formidable minds, intellect, and they construct fantastically complex and intricate philosophical systems that are very intimidating sometimes to us, very, very clever.

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But we know that in the final analysis, their whole systems are so much exercises in futility.

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And wouldn't that be the case? If their starting point is a rejection of God's revelation, if they refuse to acknowledge what they know to be true at the beginning of their thinking, you know,

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Greg and I both agree that there's an objective general revelation. We both agree that there is an objective natural theology.

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So, um, sounds like Monson, you know? Well, if you listen on,

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Monson's going to be like, well, everything I just heard the last five minutes sounds like pure presuppositionalism and the audience will laugh because he's saying things.

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I mean, this, this is, this is his Calvinism coming through. This is the point where Monson and Sproul agree.

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The disagreement is, well, what flows from that? Which apologetic method flows more consistently from those assumptions about man, the effects of sin, you know, the revelation of God, whether it gets through these sorts of things.

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Right. The question is though, this issue of, of natural theology, what do we mean by natural theology?

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Monson says later in the discussion, this is a quote here. He says, um, he says, that's the problem I have with natural theology because it says on autonomous grounds with no prior commitment, we can take some facts about the universe.

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And from that reason to there being a God, it's, it's, it's the idea of neutrality and autonomy that is being snuck in and not on purpose.

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I mean, Sproul's not going to say we have to be autonomous or that we have to be neutral. But as Van, if you read

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Van Till, Van Till will say, listen, a skunk has snuck into your house. It's not as though the reform, the reformed theologians want to be neutral and autonomous, but this neutrality and autonomy, like a skunk has snuck into your house and it's stinking up everything else that you're doing so well.

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And so it's really a pointing out an inconsistency. Yes, yes. Right. So, um, yeah, those are right.

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Well, and even when I, you know, Sproul talking here, I hear a little bit of, um,

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Warfield. Uh, you know, there's some Gerstner in there. It's coming, it's just coming out in his comments.

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I think the issue that Bonson has, and I, and I think you would agree with this is when

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Sproul says, God reveals himself clearly to all men. I think the question is,

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I think Bonson would ask, or maybe he will, is what does that mean? Like, how exactly does

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God do that? Because I think that's where they would probably answer this question a bit differently.

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What do you think? Uh, I, I don't, I'm not sure exactly how

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I'd interact with that, but there, there is a difference. They are, they are talking past each other because some of the things that they say are, that are very similar.

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They don't mean the same thing. Right, right. Depending, you know, Sproul would say all men know

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God. Uh, but do they know him immediately or do they know him immediately? That, that's it, right?

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Is it through direct awareness? Um, or is it through something else? Or, or, or it's both.

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I would say that knowledge of God is mediated through nature and creation, and we are part of the creation.

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So the very, the very, the very intellectual process where we're thinking and reasoning is itself evidence of our maker.

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That's why we exist as human beings within the very context of revelation. So that's interesting.

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You said it's both. So it's both immediate and immediate. I would say that we have a knowledge of God in light of the fact that we are made in his image.

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That's the innate. And that knowledge of God is further made manifest when we look around us.

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But without the immediate, there would be no immediate. Uh, exactly. Because it's the, it's the immediate.

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It's through the immediate knowledge through those eyes that we look at and give meaning to everything we see around us.

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Right. That's why if you pluck out my eyes, I'm still without excuse. Right. It's not reliant simply on what

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I'm seeing. I am revelation itself to properly understand myself. I need to have a knowledge of God.

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Now the difficulty here is, well, wait a minute, Eli or Bonson or whoever. Well, what does the unbeliever know innately?

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Give me some tangibles. What is the specific? And that I think is a very difficult question to answer.

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The Bible gives us a little bit of that, um, bits and pieces. But what I like to say, because I don't really know how to answer that question.

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What I can answer is that the Bible does give us sufficient information that in some way, in some profound way, the unbeliever has a knowledge of his maker that leaves him without excuse.

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What is the specificity of that? I don't know. I mean, suppose people can debate over the details of that, but regardless of what the details are, he does have a knowledge that leaves him without excuse.

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So again, trying to get back into, uh, Sproul's head, um, by the way, stop talking about poking your eyes out.

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Um, uh, he, he would say that, um, there could, there could be more work done through the immediate, uh, style of knowledge.

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You could, uh, do a bit more work. And, and, and I mean through apologetics, uh, through the immediate with the, you know, sort of classical arguments than Bonson would allow for.

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Is that, is that right? That's correct. But we'd have to make a distinction between Bonson's issues with the traditional arguments and where those traditional arguments stand within the broader spectrum of presuppositional, uh, ism.

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So for example, Bonson rejected the, um, rejected the cosmological argument, but Bonson's rejection of the cosmological argument, at least as how it's been traditionally formulated is not an essential feature of presuppositionalism.

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It was just as Bonson as a philosopher, he didn't think the arguments were good. Some of them were good. So I, there are presuppositionalists who say, well, wait a minute, that is a good argument.

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And I think we should expand on that, uh, doing it within the realm of a consistently presuppositional framework.

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And so, um, so yeah, I, I think, I think, uh, Christians would do well.

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Presuppositionalists would do well getting some of the details and some of those evidences and some of those arguments and fleshing them out more.

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I think the problem that I see with presuppositionalists, and I'm gonna make a distinction between presuppositionalists and presuppositionalism, is that presuppositionalists tend to be very, very good on the big picture worldview.

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You need the worldview, right? You need the interpretive grid. And then when you're called on the carpet to explain the specifics, then it's like, wow,

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I mean, Christianity is needed to make sense of it, but we can't even go into the details because we're so big picture that we don't actually look at this, the details, like the scientific evidence and the design and all these sorts of things.

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You know, if I were to say one area that I'm weak in is, is, um, is history. I know history. I've taught history.

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But, um, if so, if I were to say the Christian worldview is necessary to make sense out of history, um,

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I know what I mean by that, but that's an area that I haven't paid too much attention to so that I have to, I'd have to work to flesh that out.

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It's like, what do you mean by history makes sense? Like, what are you talking about? So there are areas that I can, I can work and focus on and not just always talk big picture.

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How can we seek to be consistent with our worldview? How can we fine tune, so to speak, the details of the sorts of things we can talk about?

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You know, I, I go to a museum with a friend and my atheist friend says, Hey man, that painting is beautiful.

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Well, let's talk about beauty because it's about worldview, bro.

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No, I need to learn to interact with that idea and show how the Christian worldview makes that shine all the more and give it meaning.

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And I need to navigate the big picture along with that small data point that, um, depending on who you're talking to, you might be required to go into great depth.

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Right. That's good. That's good. Let's get back into it. Objective general revelation, but natural theology is taking knowledge about nature, which does not itself have anything to do with the presuppositions of God and all the rest and moving from them independently and autonomously to another conclusion, namely that there is a

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God. We do believe that there is an objective argument for God's existence, but I don't have to think it is natural theology.

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I think it's a transcendental argument. What I mean about natural theology is, what I mean by theology is the knowledge of God.

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What I mean by a natural theology is a knowledge of God that comes through nature.

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You don't buy that. Oh, I'm willing to buy it, but there's a distinction within what you're calling the knowledge of God, whether it's immediate or immediate, and there's also a distinction between types of arguments.

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Okay. So, well, I mean, we forget that. I just thought that we had a point of agreement there, which obviously we don't.

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So, I mean, again, right? Highfalutin terms, bad audio, immediate, immediate knowledge.

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Immediate knowledge is knowledge by direct awareness, right? There is no need for an argument for knowledge by direct awareness.

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It's the kind of knowledge that we know through direct awareness. Like the fact that my thoughts are my own thoughts and not your thoughts.

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The fact that I exist, right? But immediate knowledge then is—so help me here,

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Eli—it's propositional knowledge that's more inferential? Is that the distinction? Yeah, yeah.

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Now, I'm not an analytic philosopher where they would be more precise with the terminology and the issues involved. But yeah, immediate knowledge, if I were to give a scripture that kind of equates to that sort of knowledge that we get immediately, the heavens declare the glory of God.

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I mean, you want to know if God exists? Look out your window, right? There is a knowledge of God that we can get by looking out the window.

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I think that's a perfectly valid thing to say to someone. But that's how

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I would understand immediate. Immediate is kind of a look and see sort of deal, and immediate's kind of like you know it.

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Right. All right, let's get back into it. No, I'm rejecting the nature of argument that the old

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Princeton school used to substantiate that knowledge of God. Okay, but we're not into that right now at this point, right?

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We're talking just simply about whether or not we agreed that there was a natural knowledge of God that all men have.

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Yeah, and I would say that is immediate. Okay, totally immediate. No, I'd also say that the apologist can give an immediate, transcendental, and objectively valid proof for God's existence.

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Okay. But that's not what Aquinas was doing. All right, Aquinas was going for immediate. Immediate, not immediate.

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He wanted to prove immediate. That's what I'm trying to do. That's what Calvin believed in. I got those quotes here if you want me to document that.

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I'm not just saying that. Calvin uses those very terms. Immediate. When he speaks of Romans 118,

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Romans 121 following. Check it, look it up. But yeah. I don't know about this,

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Eli. So Calvin said that knowledge of God in Romans 118 to 20 is immediate knowledge?

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I don't know. I haven't read Calvin on that. But as a presuppositionalist, it would be irrelevant to me.

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I think innate knowledge of God can be inferred by the fact that we are image bearers.

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So I would take people to Genesis 126 and talk about what it means to be an image bearer of God, to be a creation of God, what it means to have a knowledge of God, those sorts of things.

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But Romans 1 is useful, but I don't think it's the only place that we can go necessarily. I'm not sure what

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Calvin said there. Yeah. All right. Let's keep going here. Another point I want to get across here is that what we're both trying to do is show that those pagan systems which proceed from a rejection of general revelation, be it immediate or immediate, skip that for a minute.

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They still know there's God. And they refuse to acknowledge

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God as God. Grant that. Okay. They all know that there's a God. Sartre knows very well that there's a

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God. Hume knew that there was a God. Now, their starting point then for the construction of their philosophy is based upon a refusal to acknowledge what they know to be true.

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Paul called that foolishness. If you're careful exegetes, you realize that the word fool in the

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New Testament is not merely a judgment of one's intellectual capacity. It's a moral judgment.

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Foolishness is a sin from a New Testament perspective. So we have a moral problem of man now in this repression or suppression, stifling, holding down, whatever you want to call it, of this general revelation.

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So one of the tasks of the apologist is to expose the lie and the bankruptcy of this system that is built upon an initial refusal to acknowledge what a man believes to be true.

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His starting point is a lie. Now, on the basis of that lie, he can build very sophisticated, clever worldview.

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Okay, so Sproul is heavily relying on what

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I'm hearing him say as Romans 1 to flesh out his view of mankind's epistemology and how it works, because if it works the way that Sproul says, then classical apologetics is totally appropriate.

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There's nothing wrong with appealing to general revelation and arguing for God's existence along those lines. But he's not…

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What is he missing? Well, I mean, the interesting point is that he's acknowledging with Bonson that all men have a knowledge of God.

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He said that. And that the starting point of the unbeliever is a rejection of the knowledge of God that they have.

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He said that. And so how do we demonstrate that they have a knowledge of God that they are denying?

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Through probabilistic arguments? That's how we show it. To show that they have a knowledge of God that they are suppressing, we demonstrate that through probabilistic argumentation.

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I mean, this was the quote that I read where it says that and that clear revelation in conjunction with the testimony of the

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Holy Spirit gives us an infallible assurance of our faith. But I do not believe, Bonson says, that the Holy Spirit takes probable evidence, that's the natural theological evidence, or uncertain evidence and turns it into certain evidence or certainty.

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I think he takes certain evidence and with his infallible moral persuasion, turns it into infallible faith in our hearts.

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So that if all men have a knowledge of God, like Sproul says, and it's undeniable, how do we demonstrate that?

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How do we engage in apologetics? By giving them probabilistic arguments? How does that work?

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You most likely are suppressing the truth because of this probabilistic argument

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I'm giving you over here. Bonson's saying, no, there's an argument that gives us more certainty and does not leave the unbeliever with any excuse whatsoever.

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But Bonson would not be opposed. Would he be opposed completely to utilizing, say, an argument for the existence of God the way that Sproul would?

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Not necessarily. We'd have to give a specific example because, as I said before, Bonson rejected certain arguments, but his rejection of those arguments is not essential to presuppositionalism.

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But I could, as a presuppositionalist, I can give, to illustrate a point, I can give a probabilistic argument.

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In other words, an argument will be evidence for my broader position. But as Jason Lyle says in his book,

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The Ultimate Proof for Creation, he makes a distinction between evidence for your position and an ultimate proof for your position.

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I can show through scientific fact and elements of design, they are evidence for my broader commitment to the ultimacy of God, but they're not ultimate in and of themselves.

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That's where the transcendental argument kind of does a little more than simply stating some of the evidences that I could illustrate to show my point.

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Well, so then are we really—so I'm trying to find where the clash is. Are we really just then arguing over order?

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Our conversation should begin with some kind of chronology. Is that what we're—so, you know, because if we can use what an evidentialist would use in terms of argumentation, maybe not all of it, but some of it, then at least we're—like, let's not lead off with that.

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Let's begin with maybe tag or something else, and then we can use—

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Not necessarily. Okay, so there's a show that Bruce Lee did, it was called Longstreet, and he was training this guy how to fight, he was being bullied, and he gets the guy in a headlock, and he's like, he's like, what are you going to do, right?

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And he's like, I don't know, I can't move, I can't do anything. And then he—Bruce Lee tells him, he goes, bite me.

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He's like, what? Bite me. Because by biting me, I'm going to let go. He says, you can bite, but don't make it a plan to bite that is a good way to lose your teeth.

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Okay, so we're using tools, but we don't have it all figured out, like, when

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I'm in a fight, I have to do it this way. As a presuppositionalist, I wouldn't say you have to start with tag.

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Scott Oliphant, I had Dr. Scott Oliphant on my show, and he even spoke about this, that you don't have to start every interaction with a transcendental argument.

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We can start anywhere. I can talk about facts, I can give an argument, it's just that while you're doing that, you have playing in the background of your mind the music of the

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Christian worldview and your commitments, and you're not going into neutral and autonomous categories.

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Sometimes I won't ever have to use a transcendental argument. If someone says, is the Bible historically reliable, that's my struggle, and I give them evidence for the historical reliability of the

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Bible, and the person says, wow, I never thought about that. I think I'm going to consider this Christianity thing, let's meet again.

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I'm not going to be like, wait, no, you didn't hear the transcendental argument. That's not required of a presuppositionalist.

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Presuppositionalist is not required to lead with a transcendental argument all the time. It's just that when we lead with facts and evidence, we try to do it as Christians, not assuming that there is something that lords over God's facts.

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I mean, I get the disagreement when it comes to, boy, who would be a better example?

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It's just that we're not talking about Bonson versus somebody else, we're talking about Bonson versus Sproul, and so I guess that's where I'm trying to needle in on where this clash really lies.

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It's not Bonson versus Geisler or Craig. It's Calvinist versus Calvinist, so take a look for natural theology.

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Let's make a distinction real quick between natural theology, which is what R .C. is talking about, and natural revelation.

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For your audience, it's very easy. Natural revelation is top -down. God reveals himself.

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He shows himself through creation. Through creation, that's right. That's top -down.

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Natural revelation is top -down. Natural theology is bottom -up. We are taking the data of creation and working our way up to there is a

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God. You follow that so far? Yeah. Okay, so now as a Calvinist, if you believe in total depravity and the noetic effects of sin upon the mind of the man, what will the natural man do with natural theology?

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Bonson says in a different context, if anything, we should be talking about natural atheology, because what he's going to do is he's going to interpret the data of creation in a twisted and distorted way.

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So we can't speak of natural theology as though the man tainted with total depravity and the noetic effects of sin upon his mind as though he can deal in a fair way with the facts that God has given him.

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So that's where you get into the question of, is R .C. being a consistent Calvinist at this point when he suggests natural theology is the way to go?

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So I don't know if – I don't know, because I haven't heard it yet, but I don't know what

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Sproul would say. But Warfield would say that, yes,

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I am being a consistent Calvinist because what I'm relying on is the work of the

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Spirit. And this gets back to, I think, something we talked about four hours ago, because this video started four hours ago.

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But like, we were talking about – I'm having fun, by the way. Oh, this is great, man. I love this. I'm really enjoying this conversation.

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But Romans 1, right, and we sort of read that super quick, but the active agent who is revealing there is not the one – is not the human who looks at creation and works his way up inferentially to God.

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It's God who reveals himself from top down. And so Sproul would say that natural theology is the result of natural revelation.

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But it's only the result of that because of the active work of God doing it. And so both –

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I think Sproul – although I haven't heard this, so you can correct me – but Warfield would say that really what we're doing is we're speaking to the natural man, and we're trusting that the

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Holy Spirit is working on the natural man because the Holy Spirit is the one who does the lion's share of the work anyway in regeneration. And he's – and the

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Holy Spirit is using means, including apologetics conversations, in order to do that work.

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Not that he needs it, but that he's just – that's what he does. Yeah, yes. But doesn't that make him – doesn't that make them both a consistent

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Calvinist? Not necessarily. I mean, the reality is that when we give arguments that open up categories of neutrality and autonomy, okay, that is going – that's going to be against scriptural principles from a

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Calvinist perspective. I mean, Calvin would not assert autonomy or neutrality with respect to facts and things like that.

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So if you're going to assume those categories, there's going to be an inconsistency there. Of course, when we appeal to – this is the reason why

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Bonson – I'm going to get the quote here – where he talked about the problem with natural theology is that it assumes that we can say on autonomous grounds that we can take some facts about the universe and from that reason to there being a

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God. I mean, is that what Sproul is saying? If Sproul is not saying that, and he's saying no, it's not on autonomous grounds upon which he bases a natural theology, then at that point, he's being a presuppositionalist while using evidences, which is exactly what a presuppositionalist would want you to do, which is fine.

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That's okay. You can use arguments as long as you're not neutral and autonomous in doing it, because as Christians, we shouldn't do that, and philosophically, it's impossible to do it consistently.

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Fascinating discussion, man. Let's keep going as far as we can go here. Both of us are trying to show the foolishness of it and expose the foolishness of it.

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Let me say this about the presuppositionalist school, and particularly Westminster Seminary. I don't think there's been any school in the history of the

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Christian Church that has produced a more devastating, scintillating, and effective critique of alternate world views to Christianity than the advocates of the presuppositionalist school in general and Westminster Seminary in particular.

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Whoa. Let me say it again. I don't think there ever has been in the history of the Church, a single school, or I mean an institution, or a school of thought, the disciples of Dr.

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Van Till and company of the presuppositionalist school have been more effective in exposing the weaknesses and the fallacies in terms of comprehensive critique of all alternate systems.

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I just wanted you to stop it in a place where he was complimenting presuppositionalists. No, I'm just kidding. Now I very much appreciate that, but now here's where he's going to get into, and I've listened to this thing so many times.

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I've only listened to it once before coming here, but I've listened to it over the years so many times, I already know where he's going, is that he's now giving a compliment to the presuppositionalist, right?

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In terms of critiquing, a negative critique, the presuppositional school of thought and the students of Cornelius Van Till have no equal in the history of the

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Church. They've just done an excellent job critiquing the non -Christian worldview, and what

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Sproul is now going to do is he's going, and I'm going to be prophetic here, I haven't listened to it in a while, but he's probably going to go here.

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What he's now going to do is, what do we do to replace the destruction of the unbelieving worldview?

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And he's going to say, this is where you need the positive arguments, and then he's going to place emphasis on the natural theological arguments that are to be used to replace the destruction of the unbelieving perspective.

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So what he gives with one hand, you guys have been doing great, the problem is you're focusing on the negative aspect, destruction of worldviews, but you're not giving anything and replacing it to show that the

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Christian worldview is in fact true, because he would be correct if he were to make this assertion. Disproving, I'm going to say this, if other people who criticize presuppositional apologetics, they often think this, and I've heard it a lot, and I agree, refuting an unbeliever's worldview does not prove the truth of the

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Christian worldview. A lot of people think presuppositional is, well, you think you've refuted the atheist, but that doesn't mean your position's correct.

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What's your argument? And I think that's correct. But where Bonson's going to disagree is, yeah, there is something that we're going to replace that destruction with, but the thing that we're going to replace that destruction of the unbelieving worldview with is not natural theological arguments.

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It's a transcendental argument that leaves the unbeliever without excuse. I think that's where it's going to go, if I remember correctly.

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But go ahead. But well, let's see what happens. To Christianity. I have no dispute there.

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When it talks about challenging the grounds upon which these other life and worldviews are established, there we're very, very close,

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I think. Where our disagreement is on how we then replace what we've demolished with a positive presentation of the truthfulness of the

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Christian faith. Now, getting back to the question about what I— Yeah, so you precept guys are not interested in building up a person's knowledge of the

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Christian faith with a strong offensive -style apologetic. It just comes back to, you know, presupposing

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God. You know, it's interesting. I was talking to William Lane Craig years ago, and we were just talking about the 60s and how he was coming up and stuff, and then

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I talked about Francis Schaeffer, and he said—that was kind of his critique of Schaeffer. He said Schaeffer was really great in what he called negative apologetics, but even back then there was no offensive apologetics or positive argumentation.

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And so, same critique. Yes. But Schaeffer's a little different than Van Til in some key points, but that's another.

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If you're interested in what Bonson thought about Schaeffer, in the back of his book, it's one of the appendices in Presuppositional Apologetics Stated and Defended, he actually critiques versions of presuppositionalism that allow or allow elements of autonomy and neutrality to sneak in, and Schaeffer is there.

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And he critiques him very in detail. He critiques Schaeffer. He critiques Clark, Carnell, and some other

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Reform thinkers. But that's another interesting topic in and of itself. But let me read something to you, because I have a transcript of this debate in this book,

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The Portrait of a Presuppositionalist. This is this issue, what do we replace? What do we replace the destruction of the unbeliever's worldview with?

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So, Bonson says, can I show you my version of that? I mean, we're getting somewhere. Boy, and Bonson says, boy, the last few minutes of what

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R .C. has been saying sounds like presuppositionalism, and it's been grand. And that's right.

30:01

Nothing that we just heard R .C. say, Bonson would disagree with. The question is, after you've done the internal critique, how do you then go about showing that it's not a shot in the dark?

30:12

What is the nature of a positive argument for Christianity? What is the type of argument that is morally required, right?

30:19

No neutrality. The Christian shouldn't engage in neutrality, shouldn't engage in autonomous reasoning.

30:24

What's morally required, that's what the Christian should be avoiding, and epistemologically sound in dealing with a positive presentation of the gospel.

30:33

So he's saying, what must the Christian, how must a Christian argue if he's going to give this positive case? He has a moral obligation to not engage in elements of neutrality and autonomy.

30:45

But then epistemologically and philosophically, he needs to avoid those things because they're problematic also, right?

30:52

So what is the nature of that positive case? He says, that's a problem I have with natural theology, because it says on autonomous grounds, we can take some fact about the universe, and from that reason to there being a

31:01

God. And then he goes on to talk about the nature of how we build up what we've destroyed is through a transcendental argument, not a natural theological argument that assumes those neutral and autonomous categories.

31:16

What would be the harm in—so let's say the atheist's worldview is demolished, or whatever the word was that Sproul said.

31:26

Now there's rubble. There's nothing there, which I take it is in commensurate with 2 Corinthians 10 .5, right?

31:32

So we're striking down arguments and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and then we're taking captives for Christ, right?

31:38

So what is the problem then, if there is rubble, to provide some of the evidentialist arguments?

31:47

Well, again, we've got to be careful. There's a difference between evidentialism and evidences. Evidentialism as a methodology, which can presuppose categories of autonomy and neutrality, would be inappropriate for the

32:00

Christian if he's to remain faithful to his ultimate authority, and it'd be philosophically vacuous, because philosophically, he can't be neutral.

32:08

He can't be autonomous. Those are inappropriate for the Christian to engage in, and rationally, they're incoherent.

32:15

I mean, a good philosopher can critique those sorts of things. I mean, I had a debate with an atheist, Tom Jump, who basically is an atheist presuppositionalist, and he questions everything.

32:25

Everything that you think, oh, you know, look at the evidence for the resurrection. Bonson brings out that if you were to give an argument for the resurrection of Jesus, that as a historical event, a man rose from the dead, contrary to Frank Turek, contrary to many of the classicalist and evidentialist, that wouldn't prove

32:42

Christianity. If anything, proving that a man was raised from the dead proves just that, that a man was raised from the dead.

32:50

That doesn't tell us anything about what that means, why it's important, right? You need to bring revelation into that for the interpretation of that.

32:59

So that's a critique that Bonson gives with defending Christianity in a piecemeal fashion.

33:05

We should argue for the resurrection, but it's in a context of a broader worldview that's grounded in revelation and non -neutrality with respect to how we investigate history and all those sorts of things.

33:17

But what's the problem if we were to give some of those evidential arguments? There is no problem as long as you avoid those pitfalls of neutrality and autonomy.

33:28

I would use those arguments. Van Til even said that in some contexts, he finds historical apologetics necessary.

33:37

He says it's necessary. He's like, at that point, historical apologetics becomes absolutely necessary.

33:43

And his critics would say, then why don't you use those arguments? And he says, well, that's the area of the history department of the seminary.

33:50

That's never been my strong point. But he's not against it. And so, yeah, if I throw down your rubble and someone's like, well, how do

33:55

I make sense of everything? Now you've destroyed my worldview. I can give specific evidences, but evidences is different than evidentialism as a methodology.

34:05

And that's an important thing to keep in mind. But on boots on the ground practical application, there really wouldn't be a difference, right?

34:14

Well, I mean, someone said, well, what's the difference between arguing neutrally and arguing without neutrality?

34:19

Well, on the surface, it might not look different. But in terms of our commitment, when I give evidence, for example, like historical evidence,

34:27

I'm not pretending that the historical data is neutral. Now, I don't have to mention that. Maybe the person takes what

34:33

I'm saying and is like, he understands like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. My work is done. On that level, you might walk into the room and you might think you're hearing

34:40

Lee Strobel. Like I'm giving data and evidence. That's not contrary to presuppositionalism.

34:45

But if you dig below the surface and the person gives some pushback and you notice that I'm assuming that this stuff could be understood without presupposition of God, then that's something that's going to be inappropriate for the

34:57

Christian with respect to his commitments. And it's weak. Once someone is, as Van Til says, once the unbeliever becomes epistemologically self -conscious, he's aware of the role of our presupposition, then he can challenge.

35:11

Well, I don't agree with your assumption there, bro. What's more likely, Mr. Christian, that a man should rise from the dead or that someone should tell a lie?

35:20

Even if you give me this great evidence from history, it's still highly improbable that the miracle thing is the best explanation.

35:28

And this is not just all made up. You can quote 5 ,000 copies here and there.

35:34

He's still correct on the probability that it's more likely someone's lying about this and that we can't figure it out than someone actually being raised from the dead, unless you attack the presuppositions behind that.

35:45

Right. What are you going to do? Except just give him more data. And this is where Bonson, his original comment in his opening statement or whatever that was, when he says, we are evidentialists, but our evidences have to fit inside the presuppositional framework in order to make sense.

36:00

That's what he was talking about. That's right. And Van Til will say this. I don't know if it's in the Defense of the Faith or in the Christian Apologetics, a small little book.

36:07

He says, I would engage in discussion of the evidence, but I wouldn't argue endlessly about the facts.

36:16

In other words, let's talk about the facts. Like, yeah, okay, history, look at the manuscript evidence for the New Testament and all these sorts.

36:23

Let's talk about the facts, but let's not talk endlessly about them. Because if we talk endlessly about the facts without ever getting to the philosophy of fact, then we're really not going to accomplish anything with the unbeliever that is epistemologically self -conscious.

36:39

He knows there's assumptions there, and he's going to attack those assumptions. So on the surface, if the unbeliever doesn't do that, yep, you're going to see me defend the faith.

36:46

It's going to look just like I'm reading Lee Strobel's book and listing the evidence that demands a verdict.

36:53

I use all those resources. I've done the Kalam cosmological argument on a napkin to an unbeliever in a living room

36:59

All the women were talking in the kitchen, and me and this other dude had the task of watching all the kids, and we had a conversation, and I wrote out the

37:08

Kalam cosmological argument on a napkin. I didn't think I was being inconsistent through suppositionalism at that point. Okay, let's wrap up here.

37:16

We have a couple more clips. But there is where we are in total agreement. And when he talks about a transcendental argument in Kahnian terms about what is necessary for any of these things to make sense or be meaningful, ultimately, in Kahnian categories, transcendental doesn't mean transcendent in the normal way we use it.

37:41

But he's just asking the question, what are the preconditions of knowledge? In that sense,

37:47

Dr. Van Keel himself makes a distinction between ultimate and proximate presuppositions.

37:53

Unless there's a God, transcendental perception ends in the kind of skepticism

38:00

Dr. Clark talks about. We know that. We grant that. We're not dummies. We understand that rationality, for it to have any meaning, has to be based ultimately on God.

38:11

We believe that, and we know that. The dispute takes place in how we proceed to argue the word.

38:19

We want to move simply from epistemology to ontology. We must maybe misunderstand the presupposition.

38:29

Yeah. And it's precisely there that I would argue he cannot do. You cannot move from epistemology to ontology, because epistemology presupposes already ontological commitments right there.

38:44

It's baked into the very nature of a theory of knowledge. That's what I said at the beginning, that it's a false dichotomy to say you either start with an ontology or an epistemology.

38:55

No, they're taken together simultaneously. Otherwise, they're not meaningful. I think I know why you say that, but just maybe say a little bit more about why you can't do that.

39:05

So my theory of knowledge presupposes my theory of reality.

39:11

I presuppose that reality ontology is such that my epistemological theory is such.

39:19

They are intricately connected. What I believe about knowledge assumes something about the nature of reality ontology.

39:27

You can't have epistemology independent of an assumption of that the world is a certain way.

39:33

They're just linked together. You can't separate them at all. What is an epistemology independent of a view of reality?

39:41

It's part of it. They're constantly in touch with one another. We can't ask the question of how do we know without knowing the nature of the things we're trying to know.

39:53

Knowledge presupposes ontological categories by necessity. So what I thought you were going to say was we can't know anything unless there is a

40:02

God that is the ground of knowing. I thought that's where you were going to go. I would say that as well.

40:09

I would say that as well because he's not only ontologically the ground of knowing. He's also epistemologically the ground of knowing.

40:17

So the ontological God that grounds everything is also the God who reveals. This is why

40:22

Van Til often would draw two circles in his classroom. Every class he would start by drawing these two circles, one big circle representing

40:30

God and a small circle representing man. He would show you that if without the big circle and the lines connecting them, there's your subjectivism.

40:38

There's no way to get outside yourself. There's no objective picture of reality. So you need the God circle, that's the ontology, and the lines connecting them, which is the revelation.

40:51

It is unless the ontological God reveals, then we can't have meaning at all.

40:58

My ultimate starting point as a presuppositionalism is ontological and epistemological simultaneously.

41:04

It is the ontological God who reveals that is the necessary precondition for intelligible experience.

41:11

So in order to say, as Spruill, because this is Spruill talking, in order to say what Spruill is saying, you have to bifurcate something that you can't bifurcate.

41:21

So you have to say that it's either epistemology or it's ontology, when in actuality for a presuppositionalist, it's both.

41:28

**Michael Stelzner:] That's right. And they think the classicalist thinks we're confusing ontology with epistemology. We're not.

41:33

When people say, you guys are mixing these categories as though presuppositionalists have never thought about this before.

41:39

I mean, Bonson addresses specifically this very issue in his writings and explains it. We're not confusing them.

41:45

We just see that they're always in touch with one another. This is a worldview. We don't pick apart these little items.

41:52

They are interconnected. And even ethics, if you take the three foundations of every worldview, metaphysics, ontology, right, a theory of reality, epistemology, a theory of knowledge, and ethics, you know, how should we live our lives?

42:05

Even that's intricately connected. If reality is a certain way and knowledge is a certain way, then we're morally obligated to function in ways that are consistent with the state of affairs and the manner in which we know.

42:17

So even our acquisition of knowledge is moral as creatures of God, right? **Matt

42:22

Stauffer:] Right. **Michael Stelzner:] We should give thanks to God for that very process and the very things that we can know, the object of our knowledge. **Matt

42:27

Stauffer:] I love this because what originally started out as this was going to some kind of a

42:33

Debate Teacher Reacts, you know, kind of a thing has actually turned into a class on presuppositionalism.

42:39

And so this has been really great. **Michael Stelzner:] Well, I hope that's okay. **Matt Stauffer:] No, no, no. **Michael

42:44

Stelzner:] It's more of a discussion, yeah. **Matt Stauffer:] No, I love it. This has been really great. I got, I think, two more clips.

42:50

Let me just play this real quick. **Dr. Van Till:] That's why we like to get together and try to get this because I only know Dr. Van Till from reading his books.

42:55

I've met him, talked to him, had conversations. But I haven't sat in his class and asked him a thousand questions like Greg has and others. That's why

43:01

I like to talk with advocates of presuppositionalism at school as much as we possibly can to clarify these differences, if they are.

43:08

And maybe they're just a tempest in a teapot. I don't know. But the point we're trying to get at is we want to start with epistemology and move to ontology.

43:19

They want to start with ontology and then show that all epistemology is based upon that.

43:31

Can I get my version of that? I mean, we're getting somewhere when we talk about what we have in common, what we don't.

43:37

And boy, the last few minutes of what R .C.'s saying just sounds like pure presuppositionalism and it's just grand.

43:45

And he's right. The question is, after you've done the internal critique and you've shown the foolishness of unbelief and you've driven the man to the skepticism and the nihilism and all the rest, how do you then go about showing that it's not simply a shot in the dark?

44:04

You just say, well, I want to be a Christian because it's pretty uncomfortable being a nihilist and all the rest. That is, what is the nature of a positive argument for Christianity?

44:12

By the way, that's the sort of thing that really encouraged me when R .C. and I had this plane trip and we were kind of going back and forth because it's quite evident that he and I want to both do that, destroy the unbeliever system and leave him nothing to stand on.

44:24

But now the question is, what is the type of argumentation that is first morally required and epistemologically sound in dealing with a positive presentation of the

44:32

Gospel? And I would say that the reason I have this problem with accepting the term natural theology is that natural theology says that on autonomous grounds, that is, without any commitment to there being a

44:44

God or not, taking a neutral perspective, we can take some fact about the universe, for instance, that every event has a cause.

44:52

And from that, we can reason to there being a God. Paul So this is where I just,

45:01

I wish this was a bit more formal. I wish that there was a bit more cross -examination going on because I know that that's not

45:08

Sproul's view. I know that what they're doing is they're being very kind to each other and they're letting each other talk, and Sproul has not been characterizing

45:15

Bonson correctly, but Bonson's not getting Sproul right either here. And so it's,

45:21

I just wish they would have interrupted each other. Jeff Yeah, it's, I think the criticism would be that while Sproul is not going to assert that we take facts autonomously,

45:36

Bonson would probably say, yeah, you might not assert that, but your method seems to entail it, and here's why.

45:43

Now, they're not communicating that very well, and that's just the nature of these sorts of discussions.

45:48

I wish it was a little bit more formal, but I mean, that's what we got, man. Paul Well, and I said this in some video because it's all a blur now, these videos.

45:57

How many videos? Anyway, that's another video. But I said this recently, but you don't know what's going to happen when you get on that stage, you know?

46:05

Paul And the only thing that you can do to mitigate that uncertainty, it's like your Bruce Lee story.

46:11

The only way you can do to, or the thing that you can do to mitigate that is just to prepare as much as possible and role -play and role -play and just, you know, because, yeah, when you get out there, man, and the butterflies are happening and, you know,

46:25

I mean, sometimes it's a spiritual experience. You'll say something and you're like, I'm not even in my body right now. So that's where clarity articulation goes out the window, but they're doing a really great job.

46:35

Jeff I just want to encourage people, too, and I know a lot of people can get kind of like, man, this is all the stuff about methodology.

46:41

It's really confusing. Like, listen, ultimately, we need to be able to trust and go.

46:48

I'm not going to always be thinking, okay, I'm a presuppositionalist. I have to say this and do this and do this.

46:55

Just talk with people, engage people in conversation, hear them out, and you'll get a feel the more you do it as to the direction and emphasis of where you need to go and what you need to focus on.

47:07

The reality is, you know, sorry, diehard presuppositionalist. Sometimes it's not appropriate to talk about presuppositions given the nature of the discussion you're having.

47:18

You may not. It may never come to that, and it may, depending on you. Doug Wilson helped me out a lot with this one.

47:24

I had Doug Wilson on the show a while back, and he said that he said when atheists are behaving,

47:31

I am an evidentialist. You know, evidence for the

47:37

Bible. Yeah, we got the manuscript, we got early attestation, these sorts of things. But when the atheist is misbehaving, then that's where I go presuppositional.

47:44

How do you make sense out of anything at all? You know, and I think there's wisdom to that. I think there's wisdom to the idea that, like, yeah, someone has questions about how do you know

47:53

Jesus existed? Well, you know, here's some historical evidence. Here's some standards that we follow and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that answers the question, and the person's satisfied.

48:02

Well, what happens when they're not satisfied? Well, then presuppositions might become relevant there to the discussion, and you're able to navigate that because you are epistemologically self -conscious.

48:12

You are aware of the broader worldview issues, sometimes of which you won't have to get into.

48:18

Other times, you will, right? So it's not, yeah, go ahead. And evidentialists and this critique against evidentialists and others, they for some reason just will not go there.

48:29

They will not bring up the transcendental argument. They will not dig down deep and get down to the roots of an atheist's presuppositions.

48:40

Well, it depends who you're speaking with, and I do think evidentialists and classicalists have no problem identifying faulty presuppositions.

48:50

In another, Bonson said in a lecture, he says the problem with people who are on both sides of this issue, they'll say, you know, they'll act as though presuppositionalists don't use evidence and evidentialists don't have presuppositions.

49:02

No, an evidentialist can highlight the presuppositions. The question is, are those presuppositions biblical?

49:08

Are they based upon commitments grounded in revelation? Or are they based upon commitments that are autonomously and neutrally held and understood?

49:16

And that's where you're going to have the difference. Like, yeah, evidentialists will say, hey, that's a faulty presupposition. But there's a difference.

49:22

Remember what I said, Nate, and I'll stop here. Just as there's a difference between evidences and evidentialism, there is also a difference between presuppositionalism and the use of presuppositions.

49:37

Everyone could appeal to presuppositions. Appealing to presuppositions doesn't make you a presuppositionalist, okay, because presuppositionalism is a method.

49:46

Presuppositions are just assumptions. What are the nature of those assumptions? Well, that's going to be based upon your starting points and your other commitments.

49:53

So they're not necessarily the same thing. So a lot of what

49:58

I would say and an evidentialist would say would be very similar. But if you were to squeeze the sponge, our presupposition, we might have different ways of hashing that out.

50:05

And the presuppositionalist might point out, well, wait a minute. The way you said that over there, I'm not sure if that's consistent with how we should be engaging this neutrality and autonomy and these sorts of things.

50:15

And I have a friend who, he's an Arminian. He believes that we, he argued that we are autonomous.

50:21

And he's a Christian. And of course, he comes from a more rationalistic bent. And he's, I won't go into detail, but it's very interesting to hear his philosophy of evidences.

50:30

And it doesn't sound, I mean, to me, I mean, I'm not going to mention his name, but it doesn't sound to me at all that he's functioning under biblical categories.

50:37

It's very philosophical, very abstract, where I think that we need to be grounded in scripture a little more.

50:44

That's just my opinion. You can name him, call him out in brotherly love. I'm just kidding. I've got,

50:50

I've got time for one last clip. It's a little longish. And then I just want you to respond to it.

50:55

Thank you so much for taking this time with me, though. This went longer than I thought, but it's been really great. Let me play it.

51:01

All right. Can I finish this? This is from the, and then you can respond. Of course, as soon as we get into questions of history, as I was saying today, you get more and more and more and more and more into induction.

51:17

And that's what everybody seems to be all tight about. Because induction involves the problematics of sense perception and this whole thing that Dr.

51:26

Robinson has been stressing. And that's the question of assurance and certainty. I'd like to take three minutes in connection with the answer to your question.

51:36

But at the same time, be responding to some of the things that Greg has pointed out, because this whole question of certainty is one that I keep getting all the time.

51:45

And one of the chief criticisms we get is that all we leave people with are probabilities. Or that the presuppositionist approach leaves us with certainty.

51:55

And I certainly am the first one prepared to say that I can get very muddleheaded at times and miss things that I shouldn't miss.

52:05

But I still have not been able to see how a higher degree of certainty comes through presuppositionalism than through our system, because it looks to me like we get lack certainty.

52:16

And let me explain why I'm getting into this and why we get into it. So Sproul is saying, this audio is really bad.

52:22

Sproul is saying that it seems like with presuppositionalism, which is ironic because we talk about certainty with presuppositionalism, that presuppositionalism actually leads to less certainty.

52:33

Let me let me let him finish his thought. History and Lessing's Ditch and the whole thing. Let me use the standard syllogism as an example of the basic problem of object, subject, epistemology, and ontology.

52:50

Let's take the old one. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man.

53:01

Socrates is a meme. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

53:13

Now, I say, let's play the conclusion. Socrates is mortal.

53:21

Have I proven that Socrates is mortal in this syllogism? If your premises are true, yes.

53:32

If my premises are true, then I have given you demonstrative, compelling argumentation for the truth of the conclusion.

53:41

Socrates is mortal. That I call philosophical certainty.

53:48

It's compelling, rationally compelling. You want to stop there real quick?

53:53

Yeah. I know they're going a little slow. So the point here is they're talking about induction.

53:59

Okay, induction or inductive inference. What we do is we take regularities and patterns of our past experience and we project them into the future, the future instances.

54:08

And this is the whole thing that science is based upon. So he gives a syllogism that shows the problem of induction.

54:14

Okay, so all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. The premises are true.

54:20

Then the conclusion follows logically and necessarily. But what's the problem? How do we know the premises are true?

54:27

How do I know that all men are mortal? I would have, the only way I could know that is through an inductive process based on my observations, but I haven't observed every person who's ever lived and ever is currently living and everyone who will live in the future.

54:42

And so my certainty of that premise is going to be probable. And if my premises are probable, is my conclusion certain?

54:53

So he's giving you the problem of induction. He says, but still that gives us a kind of certainty. If the premises are true, it's kind of persuasive.

55:01

I don't think so at all. If someone wants to bite the bullet and says, no, you still don't know that. You know, your structure is fine.

55:07

The argument is formally valid, right? That's the structure. But it doesn't mean that the conclusion is true or most likely true.

55:18

I mean, you haven't observed all men. So how do you defend one of the premises without leaving a huge gap in your argument?

55:25

And so that's the problem of induction. It doesn't lead you to certain conclusions. Right. Um, so, but I think what he's going to try to do is shift it over to, uh, the presuppositional side.

55:39

So, because what I think what he wants to say, just so we set the table for this before we get back to the bad audio, is that Sproul is going to suggest that we can't get out of induction, even when we talk about God.

55:52

So let's, let's just let him finish. But what's the problem with it? The truth of the conclusion depends upon the truth of the premise.

56:02

How do we know that all men are mortal? Can we ever know with certainty that all men are mortal?

56:09

I'm talking about philosophical certainty. What would it take for us to know that all men are mortal?

56:18

All men would have to die. And for me to know that all men are mortal, the only way

56:24

I can know it is posthumously. Right? I can look at 10 zillion examples of mortality, but, and from an empirical perspective, an inductive perspective,

56:39

I'll never be able to know that. This side of the grave. Unless God told you before. Unless God told me.

56:45

Okay? But then I have to face the question, how do I know that the voice

56:52

I heard in my ear was the voice of God? Because I'm still dependent upon my sense perception and induction at that point of distinguishing that voice from the voice of the devil.

57:05

So anyway, in terms of my syllogism here, my primary premise is dependent to some degree on induction, which throws me into a level of uncertainty.

57:15

How do I know Socrates is, even if I do know that all men are mortal, how do I know that this particular fella,

57:21

Socrates, is a man? Maybe he's a clone. Maybe he's a by, you know, a first century or fourth century

57:33

BC bionic reconstruction. You know, a lot of good sleight of hand magicians in those days.

57:41

Do I know for sure that he's a man? Almost done. Perhaps with uncertainty. Now, the evidence is pretty strong, very clear that he is, but I don't know that for certainty.

57:55

I don't know all there is to know about that individual. All I can say is that if all men are mortal, if Socrates is a man, then certainly he's mortal.

58:05

I'll tell you that much. Okay? That's why I'm trying to get you out to the day. If something exists now,

58:11

I'll tell you this much, something has always existed because something can't come from nothing. That I'm certain about.

58:19

Okay? Now. And how is he certain of that?

58:26

Right. I mean, it's intuitive. I mean, I think most people would agree something can't come from nothing. But why?

58:31

What if the nature of reality is that it's just weird? Things just pop into existence. You're not going to get away with the

58:37

William Lane Craig response. Well, then why doesn't anything and everything pop into existence? Beats me, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

58:43

You see the problem? Well, so I thought this was a different clip.

58:49

So I apologize for that. And maybe what I can do, because I really wanted you to say something about the last thing, the last challenge that appears to have been left unanswered, that Sproul gave to Bonson about buckets.

59:02

But it just seems like, just on this last clip here, that Sproul wants to say that you can't escape probabilities in the real world.

59:12

And so whatever we do—so he is biting the bullet. He says, whatever we do, it is about probabilities anyway, so what's the problem?

59:19

Right, so now notice what he sounds like now. He went from all the certainty and that the unbeliever knows, now he's a skeptic.

59:29

Well, maybe it's not God's voice. You see now how inconsistent he is? He spoke earlier in the discussion that the unbeliever knows

59:36

God but suppresses the truth, and it's clear, and the revelation gets through. Probably. Really, if you think about it, everything he just said right there, he's granting, he could be wrong about all of those things.

59:47

So now he spoke in one context of the certainty that we have, because he knows what the Bible teaches. But then now he's saying, well, how do

59:53

I know it's the Word of God? How do I know it's not the voice of the devil? That's what happens when you start with the self, instead of starting with the self simultaneously with the ontological

01:00:06

God who reveals. Because when you start with yourself philosophically, you end with yourself.

01:00:12

There's no way to get outside yourself, and that's why you have the problem of induction. That's why you have the problem of there's no way to transcend my horizon.

01:00:21

I can't get a God's eye perspective on reality, unless you start with one who does have a God's eye perspective as a presupposition and as a necessary precondition for intelligible experience.

01:00:33

That's why we start with ourselves and God who's revealed, instead of just starting with ourselves and then moving from epistemology, how do

01:00:41

I know, to an ontological conclusion that may or may not be true. I'm chewing on that, because I know what

01:00:49

Sproul was attempting to do, but I am tracking your response, and it makes sense to me.

01:00:56

So I think the last—so let's just do this, because we're really long here. Let's close with this.

01:01:03

There was a moment where—you have the transcript, maybe you can, I don't know, read it—but there was a moment where Sproul basically decided to challenge

01:01:11

Bonson, because Bonson was talking about the impossibility of the contrary.

01:01:17

And this struck me as being probably one of the most important points of the discussion of the whole evening.

01:01:26

And it was this. He's saying, well, what do you mean by the impossibility of the contrary? And then

01:01:31

Bonson basically runs down the list of competing worldviews, and Sproul basically says, well, but that's not the impossibility of the contrary.

01:01:43

You haven't proven the impossibility of the contrary. And what I understood this to mean was, you haven't really exhausted all of the contrary.

01:01:52

We don't know, with exhaustive knowledge, what is contrary, so perhaps you've left out something and then jumped over to your worldview.

01:02:03

And so, I guess, it's something in there about leaky buckets. I'll let you take it from here, but I thought that was tremendously interesting.

01:02:11

Well, real quick, a quick word about exhausting the options. They didn't have time for this, but a transcendental argument—in order for the transcendental argument to go through and to argue that the

01:02:21

Christian worldview is the only worldview that provides a transcendental foundation for intelligible experience, you don't—this is the beauty of the argument—you don't have to inductively disprove all the competitors.

01:02:32

Because when you're talking about absolute transcendental foundations, the very nature of transcendentals, you could only have one.

01:02:39

And if Christianity is one, then it follows it's the only one because you can't have two ultimates. There's some logical issues there that kind of flow from that, but we can't get to that.

01:02:49

But just to kind of answer that real quick. Um, now the leaky buckets thing is where does certainty come from?

01:02:56

And Bonson says certainty comes from God and his revelation. And R .C. Sproul talked about the insufficiency of induction, but we're all stuck in the problem.

01:03:07

And so he says, Bonson says, we could have certainty because of—and then he goes into Sola Scriptura and the authority of God and all that kind of stuff.

01:03:15

And R .C. says, well, wait a minute. How do you know we're not all in one big leaky bucket?

01:03:23

Bonson's arguing the bucket that Christian offers is not a leaky bucket. It answers those questions. It provides necessary preconditions.

01:03:30

Sproul is saying, well, these unbelieving perspectives are leaky buckets. It answers some things, but it's leaking.

01:03:35

I mean, there's some vital holes in the unbelieving perspective. How do we know everyone's not just in a big old leaky bucket so that we can't know for sure which worldview is true?

01:03:45

Now, the problem with that is, is that when you ask the question, how do you know we're not all in just this big bucket of skepticism?

01:03:57

My question for Dr. Sproul is, what are you standing on when you assert that?

01:04:04

Because a meaningful worldview is required to even make sense out of the argument you're making.

01:04:12

You cannot get to say, well, maybe it's just skepticism all the way around as though that statement is a neutral statement that we can just take for granted.

01:04:23

It's not. On my worldview, in the worldview where God exists, he's revealed himself.

01:04:29

All men have knowledge and they're without excuse. That's not a reality. That's not a presupposition I accept. And so I just don't start there.

01:04:37

Well, how do you know we're not all? That's your worldview. When you start there, yes, you're stuck. From our worldview, we start on the self -attesting word of God.

01:04:45

How do you know? Because when you reject it, you're reduced to absurdity. When you reject it, you're reduced to skepticism, which is your position, right?

01:04:55

The position that, well, we could be wrong, right? So again, that was the whole context of the leaky bucket. Bonson didn't get to respond to that and the conversation kind of changes direction there.

01:05:07

That's a thumbnail sketch. I mean, all of this is just a thumbnail. There's so much more that stands behind all of these subtopics.

01:05:15

Man, I thought this was a great discussion between Bonson and Sproul. I've never heard it before, so thank you for just joining me and letting me go through this.

01:05:26

I think Sproul, I think acknowledging the talking past each other,

01:05:32

I think Sproul gave Bonson more substantive challenges than Gordon Stein did.

01:05:42

But overall, I think that was my issue was both

01:05:47

Bonson and Sproul were talking past each other, particularly with the whole ontology versus epistemology, the talking point there, the probability versus certainty.

01:05:54

I just wish that they were able to clarify each other so that they could actually get to where the clash really lies.

01:06:00

But I mean, we have what we have, and it was a very illuminating discussion.

01:06:07

So I want to plug you, Eli. So Eli, you're over at Revealed Apologetics, and you talk about this all the time.

01:06:14

You have on people like James White, Jeff Durbin you just had on. So that's a really great discussion there.

01:06:21

You're doing some great work over there. I strongly encourage everybody watching to go check out Eli if you don't already know.

01:06:26

Eli, here's another question I had. What should, let's say somebody watches this. Now they're interested.

01:06:32

What should they read? So you held up a book, you know, like what are some suggestions that you think people should go through?

01:06:40

You mean to learn presuppositional apologetics or to talk or to kind of engage in these differences and stuff like that?

01:06:46

All of the above. Okay. Well, if you want a good overall view of the different methods,

01:06:51

I would suggest the five views on apologetics by the, I think it's Zondervan, the counterpoint series.

01:06:57

Now, John Frame is the representative of the presuppositional approach. There's some differences there between Bonson and Frame, but it's good enough to kind of get generally, like what are the key differences?

01:07:08

So if you want to learn the different methods, just all laid out and people interacting with each other's position, that's a great place to start.

01:07:15

If you want to actually learn like presuppositional apologetics, there's,

01:07:22

I mean, let's see here. I'm reading right now, The Defense of the

01:07:28

Faith by Van Till. Is that a good one? Yeah. Don't start there. When someone says, someone says,

01:07:36

Eli, where do I start to read on presuppositionalism? I say, here's where you don't start.

01:07:42

Don't start with that. Yeah. Listen, Van Till, to start with Van Till, it presupposes, no pun intended.

01:07:54

Here we go. A vast knowledge of philosophical categories that's just not going to be useful for the average person.

01:08:01

So if you want to start, this is a good book just to kind of get a gist.

01:08:06

This is by Jason Lyle, Ultimate Proof of Creation. He comes at it from a certain perspective with like young earth creationism and things like that.

01:08:13

But just at the basics, he does go into the method in general, the role of evidence and how that plays into the whole issue.

01:08:23

And so he kind of, this is a nice introductory level. Anybody can pick this up and be like, wow, that's really helpful.

01:08:28

And he uses really kind of real world situations and applications for the method. So I highly recommend this by Jason Lyle.

01:08:35

That's a good place to start. Always Ready by Greg Bonson. I don't want to spend too much time picking things from my bookshelf, but Always Ready.

01:08:42

Um, if you want to go super duper beginners, like, man, I have no back, no background in philosophy or whatever.

01:08:49

Every Believer Confident. It's a tiny little book, and it literally is the most introductory, useful, practical examples of like how to use a presuppositional approach.

01:09:01

I don't remember the author's name. I do apologize, but I did have him on my show. It's called Every Believer Confident, and it's an excellent resource to start.

01:09:09

And there's a lot more, but that's just a few. If somebody was interested in Sproul, uh, what would you suggest?

01:09:16

I mean, like defending your faith or, um, what do you think? Um, R .C.

01:09:22

Sproul wrote a book called Classical Apologetics, and there's an entire section of his criticism on, uh, of, um, presuppositionalism.

01:09:32

Now, of course, in my humble opinion, Bonson tears that book apart with respect to the critiques.

01:09:40

Um, but generally speaking, it's a good place to see like where Dr. Sproul is coming from, uh, some of it, you know, the framework with which he's operating.

01:09:48

So Classical Apologetics, um, I think one's called Defending the Faith as well. I think I've got an audio book or something like that.

01:09:55

Um, and the Ligonier app. I mean, all of his talks there and apologetic lectures can be found in the

01:10:01

Ligonier and the Ligonier app. So, um, so yeah, yeah. And, um, I highly recommend

01:10:07

Sproul as a theologian and I highly recommend Bonson as a philosopher and apologist. I think both, we can learn a lot from both of them.

01:10:15

Well, Eli, I learned a lot tonight. And so, you know, just sitting down with you, uh, sort of trying to hash out the differences, understand, you know, as we reiterated what was said, what was being said tonight really helped me.

01:10:26

I hope it really helped a lot of people watching. And so I just really thank you, sir, for, uh, for joining me.

01:10:31

It was a, it was a blast. Well, it is an honor and a pleasure. And I just want to share this, this one thing. Cause I know a lot of the stuff that we talked about was like, could be over many people's heads.

01:10:41

And they kind of like, this is just too difficult. I like how people do apologetics better than the people who don't do apologetics, right?

01:10:50

It's better to do apologetics, classical, evidential than to be so caught up in the method that you don't ever do anything.

01:11:01

So I do encourage people like get all this technical language out of the way, read your

01:11:06

Bible, know what you believe, trust and go. That's it. A lot of this language, like the theory of apologetics is not going to be the things that you're going to be encountering when you're talking to someone on the street, which one more resource, look up Jeff Durbin evangelism.

01:11:24

He's like talking to Mormons and atheists on the street. He's a presuppositionalist. You'll see the method played out as to what it looks like when you're talking on the street, but in the final analysis, trust and go read your

01:11:34

Bible and then go and trust God for the results. And then I'll close with this. Bonson said that our job as apologists is not to convince the unbeliever, but it's to shut his mouth.

01:11:45

And what he meant by that is that we give such an answer that there's nothing they can say and whether they are convinced and persuaded, that's where we leave room for the work of the

01:11:53

Holy Spirit. I think all of us can agree that it's really the spirit who does the ultimate job of producing regeneration and causing someone to be born, born again.

01:12:02

And of course, it's saved. So I just want to leave folks with that. Amen. I agree with that.

01:12:08

Well, Eli, thank you so much. And again, if you are not subscribed, if you're not watching Eli's channel, how dare you go there and subscribe and watch?

01:12:16

All of the privacy is true. We are going to take a break and return soon with more videos, but in the meantime,