Always Ready: Chap 7 & 8: Arguments Against Presup & Humble Boldness

We're going to buzz through this here, just a little review. Apologetics, we know that simply the defense of the faith.

Presuppositional apologetics, defense of the faith with certain truths being presupposed, non -negotiable.

We're working our way through the book Always Ready by Greg Bonson. It's an explanation and application.

So, we're still laying the foundation so far, but we will get into how to apply this and how do you put presuppositional apologetics into practice.

And again, 1 Peter 3 .15 is one of the cardinal verses that we want to keep in mind to make a defense.

All right. Now, we've actually last, not last week, last week we had a special guest who

I enjoyed. How did you like Eli? He's quite a gifted speaker, isn't he?

Yeah. If I wore glasses, I'd try that trick that he did, but.

So, where are you going through? He was using the other Bonson book, you know, Against All Opposition.

We're going through Always Ready and the two obviously complement each other. All right.

We concluded the first section of the book, The Lordship of Christ in the Realm of Knowledge. That was the whole first section.

And these are the chapters that we, the robbery of neutrality, the immorality of neutrality, the nature of unbelieving thought, the mind of the new man rooted in Christ, and the revelation as the foundation of knowledge.

What we didn't do was chapter six, which is a summary, but I'm going to postpone that.

I'm going to do the summary at the end of section two of the book, which I think will make more sense for our purposes.

So, we're beginning section two of the book and this section is called The Conditions Necessary for the

Apologetic Task. And we're going to look at, hopefully we'll look at two chapters tonight.

Chapter seven, which Bonson has titled Three Arguments Against Presuppositionalism.

Okay. So, this is how Bonson opens the chapter.

God's word has been seen to be foundational to all knowledge. That's one of the things that we've seen in that whole first section.

It has absolute epistemic authority and it is the necessary presupposition for all knowledge which man possesses.

Okay. Notice, epistemic authority. All right. And we know what that means, right?

Well, and if you don't, we'll get to it. All our knowledge must be a receptive reconstruction of God's primary thoughts.

Notice what it says. Presupposition of all knowledge which man possesses.

All, that's a universal affirmative when you see that word all. All right.

All our knowledge must be receptive reconstruction of God's primary thoughts. The Lord is the originator of all truth.

God's word must then be taken as the final standard of truth for man. Again, notice we're still laying what our presuppositions are.

And then Bonson continues. He says, those who would feign intellectual self -sufficiency.

And I underline it because notice what he says, who would feign it because there really is no such thing as intellectual self -sufficiency.

And refrain from presupposing the word of Christ in scripture are led into foolish ignorance.

One must begin with Christ in the world of thought or else surrender any hope of attaining knowledge about himself, the world, or God.

Just pause for a minute and take in what that really means. All right.

Notice what he says. One must begin with Christ in the world of thought or surrender any hope of attaining knowledge about himself, the world, or God.

This has been a testimony of scripture as we've examined it in our previous studies. The fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom, is the beginning of knowledge, but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction,

Proverbs 1 .7. And in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

These are just underlying some of those thoughts. So we're in chapter three now, I'm sorry, chapter seven, looking at three arguments against presuppositionalism.

Now, here's an interesting thought, which Bonson pulls out, that John Calvin begins each of the books in his institutes in the

Christian religion with these thoughts. And notice how these thoughts are presuppositional in nature.

Oh, by the way, Calvin is going to be in green. Bonson's in orange.

Okay. Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

But while joined in many bonds, which one proceeds and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.

In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to contemplation of God in whom he lives and moves.

You hear what he's saying? If you want to start examining yourself, I mean, everybody who's alive, if you're fogging a mirror, you want to know certain things about yourself.

In fact, I always like the three basic questions, who am I, why am I here, and where am I going?

I mean, there can be many other questions, but it all boils down to those three. So, if you want to find out anything about yourself, you have to, you have to turn to the knowledge of God, who is

God, because otherwise you're starting on a shaky foundation. I think Eli called it on sand.

And this is still from that same quote. Again, it is certain that man can never, he never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.

Top, down. Remember Eli was talking about that a lot, the big difference between precept and whatnot is we start at the top, we start at God and we work our way down.

And that's in book one, chapter one, section one of Calvin's Institutes.

And then we move to his book two. With good reason, the ancient proverb strongly recommended knowledge of self to man, for it is considered disgraceful for us not to know all that pertains to the business of human life.

In other words, what is the study of humanity other than philosophy?

So, remember when we start talking about putting philosophies of men in opposition to presuppositional apologetics or theology, we're not saying that philosophy is bad.

It's only how you go about it. And this is what he's talking about here, you know, for us not to know all that pertains to the business of human life.

Why would you say that's true? Why would Calvin, that's a strong statement. Why would he say that?

I got time. I'm going to sip a tea. Because the world is a reflection of the attributes of God and God's creation, teaches us about God.

Yeah. Anybody else want to add?

Yeah. I think because he thought it was important to see that God is omnipresent, considering all aspects of life, that it impacts because God is omnipresent.

Yeah, yeah. What's the mandate? We've got to get out of here.

Take dominion. Yeah, be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth, take dominion over things.

How can you do that if you don't understand human life? So built into that mandate is the mandate to study this world, get to know it, and bring it under dominion of God.

So, of course, if that's our mandate, how can we start with anything other than God, since this is his creation?

And if we're going to defend that, how can you start any other place? That would be foolish. This we observe has happened for certain philosophers, who while urging man to know himself, proposed the goal of recognizing his own worth and excellence.

But knowledge of ourselves lies first in considering what we were given at creation and how generously

God continues his favor toward us. To bear in mind that there is nothing in us of our own, but that we hold on sufferance, whatever

God has bestowed upon us. Hence, we are ever dependent on him. And just finishing up that quotation, it behooves us to recognize that we have been endowed with reason and understanding, so that by leading a holy and upright life, we may press on to the appointed goal of blessed immortality.

Okay, so Calvin sums it up. And then, Bonson makes a comment on those two quotations.

He says, these are the opening words of Book 1, Book 2, and the Institutes. Calvin considered it necessary to presuppose

God's word in both. And notice in both, the knowledge of the

God, the Creator, as well as the knowledge of God, the Redeemer. Just that statement, what does that statement blow out of the water?

What philosophy of man does that blow out of the water? Deism, for sure, but in even more general terms.

I don't want to just limit it. You're absolutely right, it's Deism. But this idea that there's a sacred and sacred, secular and sacred split, you know, that you church people, you stay in your church, you can use the

Bible, it's good for religious purposes, you know, for salvation, even redemption.

But when it comes to the how we run the world, that's left up to us. And you can see that, you know,

Calvin, and then Bonson reiterates it, that's effort and futility, that is futile and foolish thinking.

So, Bonson continues to know anything pertaining to the business of human life, whether touching upon creation or salvation, one must reject the autonomy promoted by pagan philosophies and submit to the truth of God and admit utter reliance upon Him for the origin, direction, and enabling of our reason.

In short, Christ must have preeminence. You know, isn't it funny, if I were to just take that verse out of this slide presentation and just say, how many people in the church, and I'll make that church -wide, you know, not just our church, how many people believe that Christ must have the preeminence

Colossians 118? Every hand would go up. But now when you put it in here and you put it into the context, people say, oh, well, wait a minute, okay.

Notice, Christ must have the preeminence, even in the world of thought. With such a perspective,

Calvin activated the most significant and blessed reform of Western church and culture that modern history has witnessed.

Bonson's making some outrageous statements here, isn't he? I mean, he's not mincing words.

Although, Bonson was never known for mincing words, was he? Those thoughts lead to the first of the three arguments against presuppositionalism.

The way it's going to break down this evening, chapter 7, we're just going to introduce these three arguments against presuppositionalism, and then we'll, hopefully, in chapter 8, we'll explain what, and refute a little bit of the first of the three, and then next week we'll go into the others.

Those thoughts lead to the first three arguments against presuppositionalism.

First one is, it appears to be dogmatic and absolutistic. It appears that way because it is.

It is unapologetically so, pun intended. It challenges the status quo.

It demands a reinventing of our lives and thoughts, and threatens to turn the world upside down.

Just another thought here, if you would. It was said of the apostles that they, criticism of the apostles, was they turned the world upside down.

Why do you suppose that is? Was it because they were offering the pagans a new way of salvation?

Think of the situation with Paul. He can't run the city now, but he goes into the one city, and the people start converting, and then basically a big riot breaks out because the people were upset that they were going to start losing business, and the church, the temple, and everything, and basically like Paul was run out of the city because of it.

Situations like that. Remember Artemis, Artemis the Great, the goddess of silver.

The reason that they were so upset, if they were just offering a personal salvation, nobody would have cared.

But they're coming in, and they're saying your whole society needs to be restructured. It begins with salvation, but the whole of society needs to be restructured around the word of God, because that's the only true thought.

That meant that they were going to lose business. Their whole culture was changing, and that's the reason when we, if you're doing evangelism, if we're doing evangelism right, it should change the community in which we live.

For years, you may have heard me say this, if Hope Reformed Baptist Church were to disappear overnight, and no,

I'm not advocating the rapture, but if we were to disappear overnight, would anybody notice?

I think that's a legitimate question we have to ask ourselves. Now, I do believe that the answer would be yes, we would be missed, but would we be missed as much as we should?

Are we making the most of every opportunity? And then

Bonson continues by asserting this truth.

He says he ought to have a humble boldness to tell a lost world that the

Christian message is unconditionally true, and the necessary presupposition of all thought, there's the absolutistic.

There's no question what we're proposing, what Bonson is proposing, and what Van Til really brought to the forefront, is yes, we must be bold and be absolutistic.

We can't wave and say, this may or may not be true. If you read the Bible, it may or may not help you.

That's that uncertain trumpet. Who's going to follow that? Who's going to listen to that? If you ever see a commander, the leader of a platoon in the army, the trumpet blows, he says, follow me, men.

Where are you going? I don't know. That's not the way it goes.

He says, we're taking that hill. Follow me. We have to be the same way in our evangelism.

We have to know where we're going and be absolutistic. Then that Christ's gospel demands repentance, pushing the wrong button here, including a change of mind, and that God's word has definite doctrinal content, which is authoritatively revealed directly from above, there's the dogmatism.

So it is both absolutistic and dogmatic, and it's meant to be that.

It has to be that, but this must never be done in an arrogant or derisive manner, but with humility.

And Bonson puts that right in that first sentence. So that's the first criticism, is that it's absolutistic and dogmatic.

Second criticism, leveled at the position of biblical presupposition, that if knowledge can only be attained by first presupposing the authority of the word of God, then unbelievers are deprived of all knowledge.

They cannot be said to know anything, even about the most elementary facts of experience or truths of science.

That's a criticism that's leveled at us. Now, even on its face, that seems clearly absurd for some of the best scientists in the world have been unbelievers.

So the fact that they level that against us is certainly part of the straw man that they build.

And again, we're not going to try to refute this yet. That will come probably next week. A third argument advanced against presupp.

The presupp outlook is that it would prevent any meaningless discussion or argumentation with unbelievers.

There would be no common ground upon which argumentation could commence.

Being deprived of knowledge, the believer would have nothing to contribute to learn from a discussion with a

Christian. That's the criticism. That's the third one. Now, notice it says common ground.

Common ground is not the same thing as neutrality. We need to understand that. We do have common ground with the non -believer.

We just can never adopt a neutral stance. We have to presuppose, but we'll get into that probably next week as well when we examine that a little bit deeper.

So in the course of the subsequent studies, Bonson goes on in this series, we shall consider the three major criticisms of presupp from the perspective of scriptural teaching.

There's a big proviso. If we're going to examine presupp, it's not whether you like the style or you don't like the style.

Whether you feel comfortable doing it or you don't feel comfortable, what does the Bible say? If biblical presuppositionalism is what the

Bible teaches, then each of us is required, mandated to apologetically defend the scriptures in that way.

If it's not taught in the scriptures, then we should throw it out. It will become apparent that the biblical position in epistemology is not unfounded and arrogant, and it guarantees rather than deprives the unbeliever of knowledge of the truth.

Notice it even affects the non -believer in that way, and that is the only ground upon which argument with unbelievers can be carried on.

So again, notice this is one of those arguments again that we have.

If we're arguing that there's no neutrality, they basically come out and say, well, then you can have no discussion. That's a straw man.

It's not true. And then we're back to another quotation.

I believe this one is from Van Til. Believers themselves have not chosen the

Christian position because they are wiser than others. What they have, they have by grace alone.

This is so crucial. One of the tendencies of those who are pre -sub and especially those who are reformed and pre -sub is becoming somewhat arrogant.

I'm not saying everybody, but I mean if we're going to err, it's usually we, as those of us who are

Calvinistic, reformed, and pre -suppositional, we're very seldom accused of being too timid.

Why is everybody smiling? But the, which is fine, all right?

But we just can't become arrogant. There's a difference between being bold and being arrogant, okay?

But this does not mean that what they accept, that they accept the problematics of fallen man as right.

Fallen man does, in principle, seek to be a law unto himself, but he cannot carry out his own principle to its full degree.

He is restrained from doing so. In spite of what he does against God, he can and must work for God.

Thus, he's able to make a positive contribution to human culture. To the extent that fallen man follows the principles of Scripture, which many of them do without realizing it, and Paul talks about that those who have become, who obey the law, you know, without even knowing the law, without even having it, receive some sort of blessing.

That's from Cornelius Van Til's theory on epistemology. Questions?

That's the chapter seven. And again, we didn't try to expand anything. Chapter seven is just introducing those questions.

Okay, I think we can probably fit chapter eight in. This is that, all chapter eight does is goes through the first of those three oppositions, criticisms.

Humble boldness, not obscurantist arrogance. He says, it's a shame that Christian scholars, apologists, and philosophers have so often neglected a detailed study of the book of Proverbs.

And their attempts to exposit and work from a biblical epistemology, that's theory of knowledge, the book abounds in allusions and insights to wisdom, instruction, foolishness, understanding, et cetera.

Proverbs can certainly aid us in the development and elaboration of the precept approach to knowledge which has been discussed.

I'm going to call it precept from now, otherwise I'm going to be tripping over that all evening. Notice Proverbs can certainly aid us in our efforts in precept.

Now in the last chapter, Bonson introduced three criticisms. The first criticism is that it amounts to arrogance and intellectual pride.

So now the question is, how does one respond to such an argument? Here's what

Bonson says. Should he defend obscurantist arrogance, or should he confess that he had become dangerously close to the vertigo of self -aggrandizement?

Both approaches have been variously pursued in Christian circles in past years.

Both have done disservice to the Christian witness. One, falling to evidence requisite and appropriate spiritual fruit, failing to show

Christian fruit. The other is failing to set forth the full and appropriate rigor of scriptural thinking.

All right, we'll explain that a little bit more in detail. Bonson turns to the wisdom of Proverbs to guide us, and he picks out two verses in particular.

Now, if you've ever done a study in Proverbs, you know that it is loaded with information on wisdom, knowledge, how to apply knowledge, how to apply wisdom, etc.

So this is only two small verses out of it. Notice what it says. He that refuses correction despises his own soul, but he that hearkens to reproof gets understanding.

The fear of Jehovah is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor goes humility.

You can see where he's headed with that based upon what he said already. First, the

Christian must indeed be bold in his challenge to unbelieving and compromising epistemologies. He must be bold.

We have to. The Christian should consistently witness to such a thinker that understanding is indeed only possible when the reproof of the gospel challenge is heated.

This is very similar to, if you remember back when we did some teaching on euthetic biblical counseling, all right?

What's the very first step you get a non -believer comes into you for counseling, whether it's as a pastor, an elder, a church member, or just a coworker, and they come up to you and they say, you know, could you help me out?

Give them the gospel, because you can't offer anything sustaining and life -changing if they reject the gospel, all right?

And notice that's exactly what Bonson is saying here. Understanding is indeed only possible when the reproof of the gospel challenge is heated.

Somebody rejects the gospel out of hand, you're really, your hands are tied. There's not much you can do for that person.

The facts must be presented without wavering. There goes back to that uncertain trumpet, all right?

Reasoning which is not built upon the presupposed word of Christ is geared toward intellectual foolishness and spiritual death.

The Christian scholar, just as much as any believer in the redemptive work and lordship of Christ, must communicate to those whom he contacts that repentance and faith are commanded by God.

I remember the first time from the pulpit, I had finished my sermon, and I was giving the gospel challenge, and I said,

I urge everyone here who has not done so to repent. And then

I paused for a minute, I said, as an ordained minister of the authority granted to me by the scriptures,

I command you to repent. And a lot of people, but that's within the purview of what the scripture teaches.

The scripture teaches that everyone everywhere should repent. So you can tell somebody, you're commanded to repent.

Not just a good idea. That's why they call us arrogant, but you have to say it in the right tone.

The Christian scholar must be bold here, casting down reasonings and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God.

He must point out to those who do not presuppose the truth of God's word that their minds need to be renewed.

Remember, and well, he's going to talk a little bit more about it, so I'm going to pause here for a minute. Because they live in ignorance, such men must repent, must show a change of mind as the

Greek word for repent suggests and redirection. The Greek word for repent is metanoia, depending on the tense that you're using.

And what does that mean? It means to change mind, meta, change, nous, meaning mind. So literally, that's what it's meaning.

It's a change of mind, a change of heart. And if you're still focused on yourself and you're putting yourself first before Christ, that's why repentance is an absolute must for the person to start thinking godly thoughts.

Repentance is unto belief, Matthew 21, 32, and belief or faith precedes knowledge, 2

Peter 1, 5. The path from ignorance to knowledge is traversed by repentant faith.

Indeed, presupp should be boldly presented in the world of thought without apologies for the rigor of its demands.

But there's more to the scriptures cited in Proverbs 15. Let's look at those.

Not only must the presupp receive the correction and reproof of God's word, namely that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the

Lord, but the Christian scholar who presupposes the truth of scripture, and his intellectual endeavors must be fully aware that his wisdom is not inherently his own but rests completely upon the fear of the

Lord. That's the most important thing when we go out, and especially when we evangelize, is that our attitudes reflect that, that I'm no different than you.

The only thing is I've submitted to the Lordship of Christ, and my mind has been renewed.

Without that reverence, the Christian scholar would be as foolish as all other men.

If you go out and think for one minute that somehow you're smarter, you're more intelligent, or you just see it, you've got it.

No, what you have, you have by faith. We noted above that repentance and faith are requisite for knowledge.

The Christian who possesses the knowledge of the truth does so only because of the faith given to him, what, as a gift.

And repentance has been granted from the Lord, Acts 531, 11, 18. In other words, the

Christian is in a position of knowledge only because of the grace of God. And that's important.

You ever witness somebody say, why don't I just see it? Well, it's only, you only see it because God granted it to you.

And so there is no place for arrogance in our defense of the faith, and especially in our evangelism.

As Paul teaches, the Christian receives the things of the Spirit only by being transformed from natural hostility to glad submission.

And the believer now has the mind of Christ instead of the foolish mind of the natural man.

Therefore, humility is befitting the Christian scholar, Philippians 2, 5 to 11.

Everybody familiar with Philippians 2, 5 to 11? Therefore, have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

And it talks about his humiliation and then his exaltation. And the whole idea, notice that's put in there, we are developed that same humility that he has.

Therefore, presuppositional epistemology demands two attitudes. Both attitudes are inherent in the very position.

First, the presuppositionalist must be bold, for knowledge is impossible aside from presupposing

God's truth. And second, he must be humble, bold and humble, for the reason why he presupposes

God's truth. And the only way any man can come to such a presupposition resides in the grace of God alone.

And then he closes with this paragraph. The fear of the Lord is foundational to wisdom, and hence the wise must be humble.

The Christian scholar then must evidence a humble boldness in his confrontation with others in the world of thought.

Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, buying up the opportunity.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

No questions? Okay, let's pray.