Presup & the Christian Mind w/ Jeff Durbin

Revealed Apologetics

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala. And today

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I have a special guest who I now believe he has rightfully, at least in my eyes, he has rightfully earned the name

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Ninja. He is the Ninja pastor. And what I mean by that, if you know anything about ninjas, I grew up watching

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Kung Fu movies and martial arts movies and Ninja movies. They're very elusive. And this pastor

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Jeff has been very elusive because of his busy schedule. It was very difficult to schedule, but we were able to get a scheduled interview here.

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And so I'm very grateful for pastor Jeff of Apology at Church taking the time out of his busy schedule to be here and to talk with me about,

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I think, a really important topic. As you guys know, we place a great emphasis upon presuppositional apologetic methodology.

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But for those who are very familiar with the method and the foundation of the method, it's much more than an apologetic.

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It has application with respect to everything that we do. And so I'm very excited to have

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Jeff here and to share his thoughts on this specific topic. So before we do that, though,

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I'd like to quickly remind people, if you look at the screen there, the Epic Online Calvinism Conference, featuring myself,

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Dr. James White, Dr. Guillaume Bignon, Saiten Bruggenkade, and Scott Christensen. We're going to be speaking on various aspects of Calvinism.

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And it's not your generic tulip conference, although that's important, right? We're gonna be talking about some really interesting topics.

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Dr. White is gonna be covering some key texts in defense of Calvinism. Guillaume is going to be responding to popular uses of analogies with respect to how people attack

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Calvinism. He's gonna teach us the proper use of analogies and why anti -Christian analogies fall flat.

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Saiten Bruggenkade is going to be speaking about the street Calvinism. How do we engage in evangelism and people on the street while maintaining and defending kind of a

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Calvinistic theology in a down -to -earth and biblical way? And Scott Christensen is going to teach us how to defend a compatibilistic view of freedom.

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And myself, my topic is unknown. I'm still working through that. I might cover something relating to Calvinism and Molinism, but I'll keep you guys updated.

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So that is January 21st. It's going to be from 10 .30 in the morning to 4 .30

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in the evening. It's an all day thing. And you can sign up right now by going to revealedapologetics .com.

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You click on the Precept You drop -down menu, and you can RSVP your spot right there.

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You can do that right now if you'd like to. And that's a great way to support Revealed Apologetics as well. All right, well, without further ado,

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I'd like to introduce my special guest, Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apology at Church. How are you doing,

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Pastor Jeff? I'm doing wonderful, brother. Thank you for having me. It's an honor. Well, it is an honor as well. It was very difficult to get you, but I know that you're super busy, and I'm so grateful for you making the time.

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I did want to say that we do have something in common. I too am a black belt. Oh, really?

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A black belt in karate movies. And there's a very big difference. Yeah, there's a difference, yeah.

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That's right. I have an episode. It's a short video. It's called What I Learned About Apologetics from Bruce Lee, and I do my best

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Bruce Lee impression. You gotta check it out. Oh, I'm gonna see that. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Yeah. So what have you been up to?

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Why don't you share with folks what you've been up to, and then we'll jump right into our discussion. Yeah, so as we were talking before the show started today, my main responsibility regularly is shepherding and caring for Apologia Church.

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And so I serve alongside three of the greatest elders ever, Pastor Zach, Pastor Luke, and Pastor James White.

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And so we're regularly preaching, teaching, shepherding, doing discipleship.

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And so I was just telling you before the show started today, I've been talking since about noon today straight with the radio show and then counseling.

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And here we are. So if I start to get a little weird or say strange things, just pull me back. That's okay.

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I actually do have a black belt in talking. So if you go mute, I can talk a lot. So no worries.

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Go ahead, right on. So yeah, so it's shepherding, pastoring Apologia Church, Apologia Studios, all the ministry and the work that we have going on at Apologia Studios, whether it's teaching ministry, evangelism videos, we're doing a lot more stuff in 2023.

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We have a lot of things planned just for more engagement and bringing the gospel into conflict with different belief systems in the world.

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And so there's more coming with that. So we're in production and plans right now for just more content in that area.

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Cause that seems to be the thing that blesses the church the most is when we allow the church to see the

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Christian faith and the word of God come into collision with all these opposing systems.

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And that's what helps to raise up elders and to bless the church and get the church on the street.

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And end abortion now. This is one of the central ministries of Apologia Church. We have,

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I think about 900 local churches that have been raised up and trained to go to save lives at the abortion mill.

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And we have, of course, in the last couple of years been able to put a bunch of bills in for equal protection for all humans from conception.

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This last year, we had a historic moment in that we got a bill through the hearing in Louisiana and onto the floor, which raised no small stir.

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We had CNN talking about it and Rachel Maddow and the New York Times and people all across the country.

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And so we're getting closer and closer. Now that Roe versus Wade is no longer a factor we have to overcome. We have six,

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I believe it's six states next legislative session with bills of abolition going in. And one of the first ones is

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Georgia. And so we've got a team on the ground in Georgia. I've gone back and forth two or three times in the last couple of months to prep with our team of churches and organizations that are out there right now to help us once the bill goes in.

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And so, yeah, we've got a lot going on. A lot going on, a lot more work to do, but I have to be honest, it's pretty amazing.

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I used to teach history, I used to teach social studies and we would, of course, when we're preparing,

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I worked in a Christian school in the public schools as well on Long Island, New York. And when

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I teach social studies in history there's a whole section here where we teach the kids important court cases.

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And of course, Roe versus Wade is definitely part of it. It pops up on the regents exams and things like that. And to think that while we still have more work to do the fact that it's overturned and we can talk about that right now is pretty remarkable.

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It is, it is. And one of the challenging things is, and this goes to our discussion today in terms of the

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Christian mind and knowledge and those sorts of things. We've been fighting against the issue of abortion explicitly as Christians and standing on the word of God and making this about the gospel and pointing people to God's law word and not doing it compromise, not doing it with neutrality.

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And one of the things that we were saying is throughout this process in the last couple of years is as we've got bills in of equal protection, we were saying, you have to ignore

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Roe versus Wade, establish justice, honor God, do what's right for these preborn children.

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And at the same time, we recognize that the court has a duty before God because they have to obey

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Christ because Christ is the King, he has all authority. We were saying the court has to obey

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God and overturn what was an evil decision, an inconsistent position. And thankfully we were able actually in God's providence to have a constitutional attorney argue in the

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Dobbs case with an amicus brief. And our amicus brief, I just encourage everyone to get a chance to see it.

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I believe you can get it at Abolish Abortion Texas. It's Bradley Pierce. I think it's on their website. And it goes to what we're talking about today.

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Take a look at that amicus brief and the way that that is framed in comparison to how the pro -life establishment and even pro -life attorneys have fought in the past.

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This one starts off with its table of authorities. And the first table of authorities is the

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Holy Bible. And it points people to God's word. It points people to Christ as King.

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It argues that the court needs to repent of the sinful decision they made. And also of course argues on their own ground in terms of the law of the nation and how this was inconsistent.

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But thankfully that is out of the way. We argued that it needed to be out of the way, even though we were saying to legislators that you need to ignore

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Roe, just like the Dred Scott decision, the states ignored the

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Dred Scott decision that they should have ignored Roe versus Wade because it was never the law of the land.

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It was the court opinion. All that to say, we're thanking God that Roe versus Wade is out of the way because one of the obstacles we had was that as we were challenging legislators with God's word and with the gospel, one of the things they would come back to us with was, but Roe versus Wade is the law of the land.

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So we had to refute that and also just deal with ultimately what was cowardice on the part of legislators not being courageous enough to do the right thing before God.

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And so all that to say, we're grateful to God that it's out of the way. And so at least we don't have that excuse any longer.

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Awesome. Yeah, that's amazing. All right, well, let's jump into the main topic of our discussion tonight.

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And I wanna ask you about presuppositional apologetics. Of course, when people think presuppositional apologetics, you,

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Dr. White, Greg Bonson and others really are the first kinds of people that come to mind. What I found helpful about listening to your content is that you do a very good job simplifying things, not being simplistic about it, but simplifying it and putting it at a level where kind of the average person kind of relate.

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So I've asked a lot of guests this question. I'm gonna ask you in your own words, how would you define presuppositionalism and why do you hold to it?

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Well, that's an important way to frame that question because this is what's been interesting to me in terms of the discussion and the debates between classical apologetics or evidentialist apologetics versus presuppositionalism or covenant apologetics or revelational epistemology or whatever.

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For me, this conversation was a little easier to get in terms of once you see it, particularly as a

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Reformed person, you get it. That the issue that we typically defend and understand as Christians within the

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Christian community, say we're arguing with the cult, we're arguing with Mormonism or the Jehovah's Witnesses, or say we're in dispute with Roman Catholicism, we typically understand the centrality of God's revelation.

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Like we get it there. Like when I'm debating the Mormon and the Mormon is making claims about Joseph Smith's visions or Joseph Smith's revelation, what we typically say as Christians, it's instinctive, is well, the word of God says, the revelation of God says.

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And so Joseph is wrong and how do I know he's wrong? Because God has revealed himself and he's given his word and this is what

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God says. Or when we have the discussion with Rome, our Roman Catholic friends, what we typically understand is the centrality of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

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And that's that the scriptures alone are the sole infallible rule of faith for the church. And so we get it there, that when we're talking to the

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Roman Catholic, what we're trying to impress upon them is that God's revelation is the reference point.

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God spoke and that's what you test. And so if Jesus says, your word is truth, it's the plumb line, it's the standard by which you know something is right or not, that's the standard for the church.

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And so when we're talking to Rome, we emphasize Sola Scriptura because that's a necessity.

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We have to impress upon the Roman Catholic that their commitment to the

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Bible is the word of God and the church speaks authoritatively and tells you what the Bible says, that commitment essentially eats up the

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Bible. It makes the Bible go away. And what you're really saying in that case is that with Rome, the dispute is, they've got the revelation of God, but they've also got church tradition, the magisterium of the church.

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And so what they say is we have these two divine deposits, we have scripture and we have divine tradition or we essentially have the church.

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So the dispute with Rome, and we get this again instinctively as Christians when we're in these debates, is that we're saying

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Sola Scriptura, that the revelation of God is the reference point, all things must be tested by that.

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And that's not a theological novum in church history. You can see Augustine saying that, you can see

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Athanasius saying that, you can see it throughout church history. It wasn't new, but we're saying is, this is the revelation of God.

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So it's Sola Scriptura, that scripture is the reference point in terms of how do I know what's true? How do

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I have certainty? Or you have what Rome essentially believes and that's Sola Ecclesia, that it's the church that is ultimate because how do

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I know what the Bible says? Well, I can't just read it for myself and get the clarity of God's word. The church has to tell me authoritatively what

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I'm supposed to believe. So essentially it's Sola Ecclesia. Now, again, when we're in those disputes, we get it and Christians instinctively get it.

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No, it's the revelation of God that's supreme. And the issue of presuppositional apologetics,

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I've always said to simplify it is just, this is Sola Scriptura in philosophy.

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So the heart of Sola Scriptura is that the revelation of God is supreme.

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The heart of Sola Scriptura is a revelational epistemology. That's what

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Sola Scriptura is. It's that God has revealed himself. So how do I know what's true?

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I go to the revelation of God because God has spoken. So in the issue of apologetics, what we're essentially saying is that God has spoken.

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And so that's the reference point. This is the point where we have truth. This is how I can know.

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This is the standard. And so I think that presuppositional apologetics is just Sola Scriptura in the area of philosophy and worldview and apologetics.

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Yeah, I like how the first person I heard say this was Scott Oliphant. I don't know if it's original with him, but he said that apologetics, and of course for him, presuppositional apologetics is just Christian theology applied to the area of unbelief.

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And of course, theology that's derived from the soil of scripture and things like that. So excellent. So now we know what apologetics is.

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We know what presuppositional apologetics is. And when people think of your ministry, Jeff, and what your church is doing, it's closely associated with lots of evangelism.

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There are a lot of videos out there where you're talking to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and atheists. How has the presuppositional approach impacted the way that you evangelize?

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Was there a difference, but when you were evangelizing, not really concerned with a lot of these apologetic methodology questions, and then you became a presuppositionalist, how does it impact the way you engage people on the street?

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Dr. Bonson simply challenged me to think more like a

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Christian and more consistently like a Christian in every area of life. So when I first heard the gospel and came to faith in Christ, I was super passionate about apologetics.

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I mean, I've said this often, like when I was in Bible college, my two favorite courses that I did the best in were apologetics and eschatology.

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My two favorite areas and aced everything. And because I just consumed and consumed and consumed.

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And so with Christian apologetics, I would just devour everything I could in terms of the historicity of the

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Bible, evidences for the resurrection, biblical archeology. I just read so many books on cosmology and the evidences of design, whether it's cosmic ripples.

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And, you know, you can go down the line of all the different things that I just devoured and all the evidences of history of the

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Bible and the transmission of the text, which is all really, really wonderful stuff. But I wanted to be able to essentially gather everything

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I could in terms of evidence and just drop it on the unbeliever and say, see, there's just no way to avoid this.

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And when I started, of course, I got introduced to Dr. Bonson, like most people have through the Gordon Stein, Dr. Bonson debate.

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And I have often said, when I first heard that debate, that I was in awe because I thought

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I have never, I have never in my life seen a Christian so wonderfully defend the

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Christian worldview and annihilate unbelief as I just listened to there. And I don't really understand anything

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I just heard. So I had to listen to it like, you know, a hundred times.

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And every time to this day, every time I listened to it, I learned more and more and more. And so that was my introduction.

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I was like, wait, what is this? This, the thing I noticed first, and I think most people feel this way too, is that Dr.

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Bonson was arguing like a Christian the whole way through. And this was really a challenge to this man's sin and unbelief.

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And that was different than I was used to, accustomed to seeing. And so what

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I, what immediately was a correction for me is that I began to see that my evangelism was detached from my apologetics.

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That was the thing that I think hit me first was that I realized, I recognized, oh my goodness,

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I am walking into these encounters, say with the average atheist, I'm walking into it and I'm placating to them and I'm pretending neutrality.

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And that was very challenging to me. And yeah, I am divorcing my evangelistic effort here with this guy from my apologetics.

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And yeah, I'm almost in this moment, I'm acting like God's word is not authoritative.

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And I'm losing the ability to really challenge this man's unbelief and sin against God to come to Christ, which is the whole reason

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I'm talking to him is that I want him to know Jesus. And so what presuppositional apologetics brought together for me is that it challenged me on the neutrality.

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It challenged me on the inconsistency of my epistemology and how do I know anything at all? And it really healed.

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And I think that's a proper term for it. It healed the disconnect between my evangelism and my defense of the faith.

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I went listening to that. I mean, I've listened to that debate. You won't know that this is a big deal, but I've listened to that debate more times than I've watched

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Rocky IV. Now, if anyone knows me, I've watched Rocky IV more times than any movie I've ever watched.

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Yeah, and that's one of the best. It is absolutely one of the best. I always waffle between three or four, which one's better.

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I pretend like five didn't happen, but three or four, it's between those two.

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But I remember noticing that very thing that Bonson argued consistently as a

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Christian. I remember getting goosebumps when there was the cross -examination and Dr.

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Stein asked Dr. Bonson, mathematics, theistic? He goes, yes. And then he goes, Christian theistic.

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Christian theistic. He was specifically saying, I'm gonna go out on a limb and I'm just gonna go straight.

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Yes, you need the Christian God, not a generic deity. You need a Christian God to make sense out of mathematics. I just love the confidence that he put forth, which leads me to my next question.

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How does presuppositionalism as an apologetic methodology, as a methodology that is rooted in the authority of God's word, how does it help believers with their confidence in terms of really putting themselves out there and engaging unbelievers?

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Because when I think of presuppositional apologetics, I think of little David swinging the little stones, right?

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Where like these little people trying to go out into this big world and engage with people, but God has equipped us with these stones that if we trust in the

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Lord, they hit right where they're supposed to hit. How does presuppositional methodology help believers with the confidence that they're able to go out and engage the world?

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Well, this is important because scripture says that the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Scripture teaches that the fool says in his heart, there is no

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God. Scripture places the foolish hard -hearted rebellion of man in a position of folly.

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And what presuppositional apologetics does is it roots you in God's truth,

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God's wisdom, God's knowledge, God's understanding, so that you can see the world through the lens that God gave us.

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This is the way God says the world is. God is true. This is certain, that you can have full confidence in this revelation.

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And so I understand things about God and this world and the person in front of me that I have certainty about.

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And I also understand, and this is why presuppositional apologetics is a reformed epistemology come to life.

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I also understand that the unbeliever in front of me is not going to be swayed by my very fancy arguments or the just really great debating skills that I have.

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Ultimately, the moment that's occurring between us is about the glory of God and it's about the gospel itself.

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So my evangelism is wrapped up within my apologetic. And so I know that the only way this person's gonna see the truth and have their eyes open is through a sovereign work of the spirit of God.

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And so I recognize that I'm the means of that happening, but I also recognize that God only brings people to life through his truth and his message.

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It's not my fancy arguments and my amazing debate skills is that it's the gospel that's the power of God for salvation.

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So it changes everything. I mean, I don't know everything. There are guys that are way better at philosophy and apologetics than I am, much smarter than I am.

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But I know when I go out there to represent Christ that I'm a means of his grace in people's lives or a means of his justice and his condemnation.

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This is a prophetic ministry. So apologetics is a prophetic ministry.

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It's forth telling God's truth to the world. And I recognize that this is all in the hands of a sovereign

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God and God uses his word to transform and raise people to life. And so it gives me full confidence.

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And I think it's important bringing this back to scripture the way that Paul talks about the world and their wisdom and their understanding and their philosophies and their systems.

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He says in 1 Corinthians 1, 20 to 25, he says, where's the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?

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Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

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And so he continues on for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know

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God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach

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Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And I think one aspect of that we can highlight here in terms of when

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Christians succumb to the academy or to the world and sort of try to dumb down the

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Christian message or the confidence that we have in the revelation of God to say, well, okay,

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I'll adopt your principles and I'll abandon some of mine because I really want you to respect me.

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Or I want you to see what I'm saying as very erudite and sophisticated.

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And by the way, presuppositional apologetics is the, I'm sorry to say, I think it's the most deep and sophisticated

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I really do. It's devastating in that world. Well, Jeff, when you use the evidential approach, you're talking about like science and history.

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And when you're talking about presuppositionalism, like you get really deep into it, you're talking about the very fabric and nature of reality and knowledge itself.

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It's everything underneath it that makes everything else possible. And it's deep, deep, deep stuff. And that's one thing

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I love about presuppositional apologetics. And I love how Bonson used to say, it tells you how old he was and where this goes back to.

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He says that this can be done by Sophie the wash woman or the highest level.

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And I love that he calls her Sophie the wash woman. But it is intense.

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There are times where I'm reading stuff from like Frame or from Bonson or Van Til and I'm like,

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I don't have a clue. I gotta read this 50 times. I mean, it's that deep.

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But when we as Christians say, I need to succumb to like, oh,

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I want them to respect me and I want them to see me as sophisticated and wise. Paul says here, the

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Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the

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Gentiles. Like Paul didn't, he didn't suffer any delusions here. He's like, they think that we're stupid.

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They think we're unwise. He says, but to those who are called, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. But for the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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And he knew the story. Paul knew, Paul knew what was up. And for Paul, the issue was sinful rebellion of men and human folly and arrogance.

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And this message of the cross breaks through all of that, but it only does it through a sovereign God. And here's the thing, it happens to be the truth, whether you like it or not, but God uses the truth to bring people to life.

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And I think when you ask the question like, how does this affect your evangelism on the streets? Well, I don't do everything perfectly and I still myself have a lot to learn for sure.

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And I'm still growing, but I can tell you this, that I know that I'm in the hands of a sovereign God and he has a perfect plan.

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And I know that he uses his word to change the world and the gospel. He's not gonna do it through neutrality.

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He's not gonna do it through compromise. All of the history of the Bible, all the redemptive history, you see that when

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God changes his people or he changes the world, he does it through uncompromising truth.

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And that is a strength I think of presuppositional apologetics is just that point. Excellent, thank you so much for that.

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Folks, just to give you a heads up, I'm talking with Jeff Durbin. If you're just tuning in, I guess not the radio, but you're just listening in,

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I'm talking to Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church. If you have any questions, we will be taking some questions. I do wanna go easy on a doctor.

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Oh, you should, I almost called you Dr. Durbin. There we go, that's a double D there. Pastor Jeff.

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I'm only an MDiv. That's right, okay. I'm a lowly MDiv. That's right. You haven't gotten your black belt in theology.

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I have not. I have not. Okay, but we will be taking some questions, but I do wanna respect his time as he had a very busy schedule.

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But I just wanna throw that out there for folks. Now, you spoke about the certainty that we could have as a

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Christian. If you don't mind, I'd like to jump a little bit into philosophy. Not too much, because I don't wanna, you look like you've been through a lot today.

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So I don't wanna put you through anything. Is it showing on my face? Yeah, you're kind of just like, well, Eli, we need to be really excited about the kingdom.

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I'm like, you look tired, but it's okay. But when you speak of the certainty that we have as Christians and that there's a certainty of the truth of the

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Christian worldview, I think it's very important to make the philosophical distinction between what we would call psychological certainty and epistemic certainty.

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Can you tell us the difference between those kinds of certainty and how does a presuppositional argument get us beyond mere psychological certainty and gets us to what we call epistemic certainty?

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If you understand the question. Yeah, so the way that Bonson used to, I think I know what you're aiming at here. The way that Bonson used to frame this is that we're not, when we're engaging in presuppositional apologetics or talking about revelational epistemology, we're not talking about mere persuasion.

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Like, does this float your boat? Does this seem true to you? Does this give you, is this satisfying to you intellectually?

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We're not talking about mere persuasion. We're talking about the very grounding of knowledge at all.

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What we're saying here when we talk about epistemic certainty is we're talking about the very grounding, the very reference point for all knowledge claims at all.

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If you say you know something, how do you know it? How can you be certain about that thing?

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And at a certain point, you're gonna have to come back to an ultimate, because as it's often been said before, and I'm sure that your listeners are very aware of this, you can't go back and back and back and back and back and keep going to this infinite line of, well,

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I know this because this. I know that because of that. And I'm sure of that because of this thing. There has to be an ultimate.

29:40

Anything that argues beyond that ultimate is itself the ultimate. That's the very reason you're believing it.

29:47

So when we talk about epistemic certainty, when we talk about the word of God, look, this is just, you have to grant this.

29:53

You're gonna accept it. If this is new to you and you don't like it, you don't like it just being this simple, that's the way the

29:59

Bible gives it to us. When scripture gives us the word of God, the revelation of God, it doesn't make excuses for it.

30:05

It doesn't try to defend it. When God speaks, he speaks with authority because of the nature of who he is.

30:11

He has, what we've said before, is a self -attesting authority because of the nature of who he is.

30:18

And that's the nature of the claim. This is God breathed, it's revelation from God. So from the very beginning of God's revelation, you see at the very start of this revelation,

30:31

God exists above or outside of his own creation. There's a creator creation distinction from the beginning.

30:39

God creates from nothing. And when God creates, he is the eternal God. He's the all powerful

30:46

God. He's the God with authority. And when God creates, he creates everything and the creatures.

30:53

And he says, this is one of the most amazing, in terms of the question of epistemology, how do you know?

30:59

One of the most amazing and yet simple and beautiful points of contact is the

31:05

Bible starts with God's creation. He puts man and woman in the garden and he says this, but not that.

31:12

So it's simple. I mean, in terms of like, some of the stuff is like, that's so rudimentary and simple.

31:19

It's a tree. This, but not that. It's so basic. Like Bonson said before, it was totally arbitrary.

31:27

God could have said, don't walk that direction. Don't pick up that stone.

31:32

Like the point was, were they gonna have an obedient frame of mind where God as creator says, you can do this.

31:40

You can't do that. And God says, the day you do, you will surely die.

31:46

And of course you have another, this in the same moment, in terms of epistemology, how do you know?

31:52

Satan comes in and what's he do with his subtlety and his craftiness? He deceives

31:58

Eve and he says, hath God said? And he says, no, you won't die.

32:04

You'll be like God, knowing good and evil. And of course, I love the discussion on that in terms of it's not experientially knowing and experiencing good and evil.

32:14

It's that you will be the sovereign determiner for yourself of what's right and wrong. He told you what's right and wrong.

32:20

If you do it, you will be the determiner of what's right and wrong. So here you have God's voice, his revelation.

32:27

Now Satan is another voice that comes in and says, God says, don't eat. Satan says, eat.

32:34

And so now you have that. And so of course, Adam sins against God with the high hand and he does what

32:41

God said don't do. And what you have there in that moment is this really amazing point of contact in terms of epistemology.

32:49

And this was a part of the debate with Dr. Sproul and Dr. Bonson. It was,

32:55

I think, one of the best parts of the entire debate because it got to the main issue. On what basis, in terms of moral basis and intellectual basis, should they have obeyed that command?

33:09

Because, and again, if you haven't heard this discussion between Bonson and Sproul, you should hear this. I just listened to it yesterday.

33:16

Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with the show, The Wise Disciple. I've heard of that, yes. Yeah, he's doing a video there.

33:22

I'm coming on his show. We're gonna be talking about that debate. And I think it's an excellent one. If people haven't listened to it, I highly recommend it.

33:28

And so this is an important part in terms of, this is all epistemology. This is all epistemology in terms of this discussion.

33:34

Here's the deal. God simply said, this, but not that, and the day you do, you'll die.

33:40

That's it. He didn't say, because this thing over there, or because he just said, this is my word, this is what's gonna happen.

33:48

And so Satan comes in and he offers a different theory. He says, no, this is actually what's gonna take place.

33:55

And so now, the question has to be asked in terms of that moment of, how do you know?

34:01

And how should they have operated? Is that me? I think that's my, sorry.

34:08

For some reason, I think my, on the computer over there, my phone is up. Can you hang on one second? I'll make sure that kills.

34:15

I'll tell a Bible joke. No, I'm just kidding. Guys, I hope you're enjoying this conversation. If you have not already,

34:21

I would greatly appreciate it if you like and subscribe and share the video, share this interview, share other interviews.

34:28

That really helps. Just come from like a background perspective as someone who has a YouTube channel. It's very helpful if you guys show your support by thumbing up, thumbs up and things like that.

34:36

So I'd greatly appreciate if you guys do that, right? Hope you guys are enjoying this discussion. I have one more question for Jeff once he finishes up here with respect to presuppositional apologetic methodology.

34:47

Then we're gonna shift into talking about how this relates to the Christian mind. So I just wanna throw that out there.

34:53

Sorry about that. That's okay. I see some questions coming in. We'll get to those towards the back end of the episode. I see some really good ones there and we'll be sure to get to them.

35:01

So go ahead, Jeff. Yeah, so the question of the theory of knowledge, epistemology, it's all built into that first moment we have in the garden.

35:12

You have to ask the question, on what basis ought Eve and Adam to have moved forward in that encounter in terms of morally, intellectually.

35:25

And it's what's brought up in that debate is if Eve had said, no,

35:31

I'm not gonna eat that because I'll get fat or I'm not gonna eat it actually cause

35:36

I'm not very hungry right now. Like I don't wanna risk it. Now let's say that she had walked away.

35:42

They had walked away from that tree and they had refused to eat it on some other basis other than God's revealed command.

35:51

They would have been externally obedient to the law of God but they still would have actually sinned because they were not eating not on the basis of God's revelation but some other standard.

36:05

External obedience without inward heart obedience is not real obedience. And so this is a question of epistemology in terms of on what basis ought they to have moved forward in that.

36:16

And the answer is the revelation of God was given. That was a place of certain knowledge.

36:22

They had to obey because God spoke. And that thread of epistemology of knowledge runs from Genesis all the way to Revelation and it's uninterrupted.

36:33

This is what's really important in terms of this discussion goes into Sola Scriptura. This discussion goes into every area of life.

36:40

Genesis, God's revelation was a standard they should have obeyed because God said. You get to, when the law is given you get to like Deuteronomy 13 and God tells his people, even if somebody has signs and wonders but they lead you after a different God that's how you know they're a false prophet.

36:57

So it can look amazing. It could look legit but if they contradict God's previous revelation of himself

37:03

God's previous revelation is the standard. You reject that prophet no matter how legit it looks because God's revelation has already been given about himself.

37:11

And that's the standard by which you measure the prophet. Then you move into Isaiah 8 20 and you've got more testimony to the law and to the testimony.

37:20

If they do not speak according to this word it is because they have no light in them. And you can run that thread through.

37:26

And I guess we'll stop here on Jesus in Matthew 15 where God incarnate is walking among his people and they have what has been handed down to them.

37:37

They're claiming is divine tradition going all the way back to Moses. Now this wasn't in scripture but it was what they claimed was divine tradition carried by the

37:47

Jewish church all the way down to that day. And they're bringing this situation to Jesus the

37:53

Corban rule and Jesus confronts them. And how does he confront them? He confronts their alleged divine tradition with the revelation of God that they knew

38:04

Paul says they were entrusted with the oracles of God. They knew what their scriptures were. They were laid up in that second

38:10

Jewish temple. They knew what the Bible was. And Jesus says, you say with your divine tradition you say, but Moses says.

38:20

So he takes the revelation of God in history. He compares their alleged divine tradition.

38:26

And he says, thus you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition. So Jesus, I think teaches us there an important epistemological lesson.

38:35

And that is that if you want to know the answer to this conflict you must start with the revelation of God.

38:44

And you take the revelation of God as the standard and you compare it to this alleged divine tradition.

38:50

And if it contradicts the revelation of God you're invalidating the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

38:56

And so Jesus is teaching us there an important epistemological lesson. And that's that this is the grounding for all certainty.

39:02

And I liked that example with Eve. I think a lot of people, especially a lot of skeptics who criticize the

39:07

Bible they think the sin is something as silly as simply eating a fruit. When there's something much more profound in that simple act in that Eve is placing herself in the place of God.

39:17

Because as you said, God has a hypothesis as Dr. Bonson said, the serpent has a hypothesis. I will decide for myself.

39:24

And so this very act of autonomy can be reflected in the way that we reason too. When we refuse to rely on God for, you know the way that we think in our reasoning process.

39:35

I think again, we repeat the sin of Eve demonstrating that if we were there we would have messed up too.

39:41

Yeah. How often in our life is it just like that? And you brought up the title of the show today is the apologetics and the

39:49

Christian or presuppositionalism in the Christian mind. I think that this goes to the heart of even sanctification.

39:55

So like this standard, I think it's important that we don't think about presuppositional apologetics apart from like the same central theme operating in Sola Scriptura.

40:07

It's a central principle of this. God has spoken, you know, and you have certainty and you have knowledge because he's spoken.

40:18

That's how you know. And this goes into sanctification. When I'm as a pastor, as I was today, just before we got on,

40:26

I'm ministering to different people in my congregation face -to -face. I am ministering to them and I'm even challenging them when they're saying,

40:36

I'm grieving right now, I'm anxious, I'm fearful. I feel like God is far away from me.

40:41

I feel like he's distant. When they're saying that to me, what am I doing? Am I giving them a motivational speech?

40:48

You know, am I offering them like a prescription, like a pill, like maybe this will make you feel better? No, what

40:54

I'm saying is, okay, I listen and say, okay, let's go to the word. What you're saying about God isn't true.

41:02

This is what he says about himself. What you're saying about your own experience right now isn't true because these are the words of God.

41:11

And what you're saying about how you feel like God has abandoned you and he's far off and he's not listening to you and he doesn't care for you and he hasn't forgiven your sin, if you're trusting in Christ and you believe that he died and rose again, these are his promises.

41:27

So you're wrong. You need to be able to take your own inner monologue, your own voice, and you need to be able to put that voice down and say, no, the revelation of God says.

41:40

So that means, in terms of the principles at operation here, this Christian epistemology, this revelational epistemology is for sanctification, it's for the home, it's for the church, it's for the state, it's for art, it's for music because what we're saying is, no,

41:59

God said. And so no matter what I feel, no matter my circumstances, no matter my environment, no matter my own inner monologue, no matter his claims or her claims or their claims, this is the revelation of God.

42:14

God has spoken. Jess here is a frequent listener of the show. She says, feelings aren't authority.

42:21

And that's so true, right? If feelings were our authority, that'd be very scary since our feelings are in constant flux.

42:28

We need an authority that is immovable, that it is unshakable. And so I love that your advice there, kind of taking our inner narrative and comparing it to what

42:36

God has said, that is really presuppositional methodology applied to counseling, which brings me really to my next question is, how do we take this method that we come at it from apologetics?

42:50

Really, I've always thought of presuppositionalism not simply as an apologetic, but a way of thinking in general, it really encapsulates an entire world and life view.

42:59

How do we apply this principle of the authority of God into the many facets of our lives?

43:04

Maybe we can use the language, how can we parent presuppositionally? How can we engage with people we disagree with presuppositionally, resolving conflict?

43:16

How we intake entertainment? How do we approach those things like a good old, consistent presuppositionalist, which is just to say, recognizing the authority of God in all those areas?

43:27

What does that look like, Jeff? Well, I think it looks just like being a Christian consistently in every area of life.

43:36

So for example, one of the things that I often like to point to is William Lane Craig.

43:43

Not friendly to presuppositional apologetics and - Not friendly, he's a friendly guy. Yeah, he's a friendly guy, but not friendly in terms of philosophically friendly towards presuppositional apologetics.

43:55

There's a number of occasions you can demonstrate where he is operating in neutrality. He'll say things like,

44:01

I'm not arguing for the Christian God tonight. And he'll say even things sharply to Lawrence Krauss, like, are you certain

44:08

God exists? No. But when William Lane Craig, I'm assuming the best about the man.

44:16

When William Lane Craig is at church on Sunday, he's not acting like that. He's not acting like he's not certain.

44:23

When he's reading the message of Jesus or hearing the word of God, he's not acting like he's not certain. He's not acting with that kind of neutrality when he's within the walls of the church and to the hearing of the word and worshiping and praising

44:34

God. I imagine that he's not like that. The problem is, is that when he steps outside of those church walls and he's outside of that context, he now begins to operate in a way that is distinct from what is truly a

44:47

Christian mind. And so essentially presuppositional apologetics is just at the heart of it, it's this.

44:54

God said. Yeah. God has spoken. That's the heart. If you want to know what, dwiddle it all down.

44:59

You can get sophisticated into high levels of philosophical conversation and combat with this. But essentially, let's grant it.

45:08

Revelational epistemology, it's essentially God said. So we already as Christians live like this instinctively.

45:14

So for example, if I'm a father in a home and I've got my wife and my children, I'm already instinctively thinking presuppositionally in terms of the principle involved there is

45:22

God said. So when I talk to my kids and I say, well, we can't live like that because God says this, what am

45:29

I doing? I'm bringing a presuppositional apologist. I'm essentially saying the revelation of God says, and this is the truth.

45:38

And so that's what I'm impressing upon my family. And in terms of the church, whether if we have conflict within the church body, we're thinking presuppositionally.

45:45

When we're not thinking presuppositionally, that leads to church splits. And what I mean by that is that when we have conflict within the body, we're supposed to be saying, how do

45:54

I manage this? What does God's wisdom say? Oh, God's wisdom says one person's case sounds true till another one comes to examine them.

46:03

I need to hear both sides of this conflict here. God's word says for me not to meddle in another person's conflict.

46:09

It's like taking a dog, passing dog by the ears. Okay, so I'm gonna stay out of that one. God says,

46:14

I need to have two or three witnesses before I can bring an accusation. So when I'm within the context of the church or the family or whatever,

46:20

I'm standing on the word of God and saying, what does God's wisdom and his word say about how to manage this?

46:27

It also moves out, this is everywhere because it's God says.

46:32

So for example, when I got into the field of the hospital and being a chaplain at a hospital, when

46:39

I went into the hospital, they had a Christian program there. Now the hospital had been bought by a secular company.

46:47

So they were hanging on by a thread in terms of a Christian program, but they were making millions of dollars because Christian families who had

46:53

Christian loved ones who were addicted to drugs, they would Google Christian rehab hospital and they'd find this place.

47:00

And so they were making millions of dollars, but their Christian program was not Christian. When I came in, they said, we want you to take over the

47:06

Christian program. You be the chaplain. I think they were honestly desperate. They didn't even know who they were getting, to be honest.

47:12

They were like, oh, this guy can teach, so we'll take him. So they told me, they said, you develop the

47:17

Christian program. And so I come into this hospital, there's nursing staff and doctors and therapists and like a hundred something employees.

47:25

And I'm the head of the Christian program. So I'm like, okay, what have you guys been doing? And I got the 12 steps of AA, God of our own understanding.

47:35

And you've got all these things in there that are completely contradicting the gospel itself and the revelation of God.

47:42

And you've got all these different voices saying, well, do it like this and do it like that. What I did is simply say,

47:48

I have to develop a Christian discipleship program for these addicts. And I had to start it at the bottom.

47:54

This is an issue of sin. How do I know that? Because scripture says that it's an issue of idolatry. And how do they heal from this?

48:00

They need to get saved. They need to know Christ. And so they need the gospel. And then from there, they need to be able to heal in all these areas that drove them to use like anxiety, anger, shame and condemnation, whatever it was that drove them to the

48:15

God of their choice, heroin, ecstasy, marijuana, pills, benzodiazepines. I need to get them healed in that area by what

48:23

God says. So the area of addiction, thinking presuppositionally is God says.

48:28

So what's the problem? What's the problem of the human soul that's addicted? Well, I can go to Freud or I can go to this guy over there, or I can go to Dr.

48:36

Bob with AA, or I can go to Jesus. And I went with Jesus. And that's because I'm a presuppositional apologist.

48:44

And when it comes to the family, when it comes to the government issues of justice, I guess I can at least fill that out there.

48:51

When we as a church are fighting against the issue of abortion, if you watch, by the grace of God, a lot of the stuff we put on our channel, we're going to city councils or we're putting bills into legislatures.

49:04

You hear us calling them to repentance and faith in Christ. You hear us saying that there's gonna be a day of judgment where you're gonna have to answer for this.

49:15

You'll hear us saying God's word says. And so what's amazing about that, brother, is people have said for 50 years, all these compromised, neutral pro -life organizations divorced from the church, operating outside of the church, they've always said things like, well, that's not gonna work.

49:34

That's not gonna be effective. People aren't gonna listen. But if you just think about this, brother, just by the grace of God, with very little numbers in comparison to the pro -life organization and very little dollars in comparison, we've been able as churches, and it's not just end abortion now, but other

49:52

Christians as well, have been able to get bills into the legislature that demand abolition, equal protection and criminalization.

50:01

We've been able to get those bills across the country now and have more effectiveness than all of the 50 years of the pro -life establishment with their compromised bills of permission.

50:13

I mean, bills, brother, that literally say, you can kill these humans, but not these ones. Those are bills of permission.

50:21

And people have said, well, it's not pragmatic. It's not practical. It's not gonna work. People aren't gonna listen.

50:27

And I'd say just seven short years because of non -compromising, non -neutrality and gospel -saturated witness, we've been able,

50:38

God's blessed us to be able to get all these bills of abolition into these states. And like I said, more are coming and we're getting closer and closer to that day where Jesus puts us under his feet.

50:46

That's awesome. And I like how you just use the application of what your ministry is involved in with fighting abortion and these things.

50:54

All of presuppositionalism and the authority of scripture relates to all of those things. And so I really want people to see presuppositionalism as more than just an apologetic.

51:03

It really is a way of thinking. It is an application of the Lordship of Jesus Christ to every single area of our lives.

51:11

We can talk about preconditions of intelligibility. We can talk about psychological and epistemic certainty. We can talk about transcendental categories.

51:17

When you move all of those weeds out of the way, even a child can understand God said. I had a friend, it's a common friend with Dr.

51:25

White. He actually debated Dr. White a while back on topic of baptism. I was a good old Presbyterian OPC guy.

51:31

His name was a Pastor Bill Shishko, who by the way, did a good job against Dr. White. It was a good debate.

51:38

It was. But he knew Van Til personally. And I remember going out to lunch with him and I'm always curious about Van Til the man and Bonson the man behind the apologetics, what sort of people they were like.

51:49

And I asked him, what was Van Til like? And he's an older man. He kind of thinks and he goes, you know, to be perfectly honest, if I can describe

51:57

Van Til and it's relevant to what we were talking about, if I can describe Van Til very briefly, he was like a child living in God's world.

52:06

With all of the intellectual prowess that he had as a theologian and a philosopher, when you really kind of just got to the core of who he was, it was this idea of my father said, this is what

52:17

God has said. And so he really tried to live his life according to that principle. And that's really what encapsulates the presuppositional approach.

52:23

And I think you explained it very well. All right, well, let's go and move to some of the questions.

52:30

I usually wait on the top of the hour, but I wanna see if we can get to a bunch of them cause I know I don't wanna keep you too long.

52:36

Again, I very much appreciate the fact that you've come on here and you've given your time.

52:42

So let's go through some of these. I got a bunch of them and I also have some fun with them. Okay, let's see here.

52:50

We don't have to cover this in depth. You can cover them kind of broadly or as specifically as you'd like. And maybe I'll share a thought here and there, but Heart of the

52:56

Hour says, I would love to see both of these fantastic apologists cover in depth, which we won't cause it's too much of a big topic.

53:03

But talking about the fine tuning argument for the universe, it's extremely powerful as well.

53:08

So what I'm gonna do is take this comment and reformulate it into a question that I was gonna ask you anyway. And that is, how do we relate evidence like evidence of fine tuning to a presuppositional approach?

53:21

We have often this idea that if you're a presuppositionalist you can't use evidence. And if you're an evidentialist, then clearly we're not concerned with presuppositions.

53:29

How would you contextualize something like a fine tuning argument within a presuppositional context? So I think the, when someone asks you,

53:41

I know you've probably dealt with this a lot. When someone asks the question of, okay, so like it's presupp versus evidence.

53:46

So if I'm presupp, I won't use evidence as it shows that you don't really understand the issues.

53:52

Because presuppositionalism is essentially a concern with everything in total, with the foundation being there so everything can be held up.

54:04

Whereas evidentialism will typically be satisfied with essentially using the tools, like to try to get at truth, to do scientific inquiry and to do, to use reason.

54:19

They'll say they're fine with using the tools divorced from any justification for those tools in the first place.

54:26

In other words, when the presuppositionalist talks to the atheist, what we essentially say to the atheist is that you don't have a right to those tools.

54:34

You don't have a right to those arguments. Like you can't use emotional arguments on the audience by borrowing from my capital, from the

54:43

Christian worldview to pull on the heartstrings of the audience, right? Like when people talk about pain and suffering in the world and evil in the world, it's like, yeah, that hurts the

54:52

Christian heart because we have the Christian worldview and we know God and his character and we know really the dramatic effects of sin.

54:59

So when the atheist tries to use those tools like emotional arguments on the audience, what we're saying is you don't have a justification for those tools in the first place.

55:07

Those are my tools and you're stealing them. And what we say to the evidentialist when they try to divorce the knowledge of God and the

55:17

Christian worldview from those tools is we say to the evidentialist, you don't really have a right to use those tools either because you've got one foot in two different worlds.

55:28

One is a world of neutrality or unbelief and one in the Christian worldview because you need all these tools to reason and move in God's world.

55:36

So you actually don't have the right to use those tools either. Now, when it comes to evidences, the presuppositionalist should own those evidences.

55:44

We should be the ones who are most ready to use and appeal to those evidences, but not apart from a

55:50

Christian framework and not with neutrality. What we actually say is all these evidences are grand and glorious.

55:58

Take a look at it, it's overwhelming. And by the way, none of this will make any sense if you're not first starting with submission and all before God, because you don't get to look at these things with any meaning or justification at all without first starting with God's revelation.

56:14

You don't get science apart from the Christian worldview. You don't get reason, rationality, laws of logic apart from the

56:21

Christian worldview. And you don't get the moral demands that are necessary when wading through evidences without the

56:28

Christian worldview. That's actually a key issue I wanna just say quickly, we miss that a lot in terms of a discussion with the atheist.

56:36

The atheist, let's say for a moment, paint the picture for a second. You've got the atheist and the Christian on the stage in a moderated debate.

56:42

And they're arguing for the existence of God. Now they've come to present their evidences and their arguments.

56:48

Now, when the atheist arrives, he assumes as he's throwing out his evidences and all of his rationality and all the reasoning and logic, he assumes that his opponent, the

56:59

Christian is not going to lie or be abusive in the discussion, that they're going to tell the truth about the evidences, that they're not gonna create evidences out of whole cloth and just make them up.

57:13

The demand on the stage is that everybody is honest with their evidences.

57:20

So even in, this is key, even in the rational combat and debate of evidences is within it a demand, an ethical demand of integrity and honesty.

57:35

And here's the point. If you don't have God in his character and him as the reference point, there is no demand for honesty and integrity in a debate.

57:42

Where'd that ever come from? So evidences are part of only a

57:49

Christian framework. Yeah, that's very important. Bonson points out that every worldview is comprised of at least three pillars, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and you can't divorce them from one another.

58:00

Even the context in which we speak of evidence is going to presuppose metaphysical commitments, epistemological commitments, and of course, as you just mentioned, the ethical commitment to actually engage in discourse in a meaningful and honest way about those specific topics.

58:13

So I think that was beautifully stated. Now, speaking of science, there's a question from Shane Ingle. This is a question for Jeff, for you specifically, although depending on how you answer,

58:23

I may or may not chime in. It's a good question. Have you heard about Karl Popper's answer to the problem of induction?

58:28

He says, induction is a myth and science isn't based on induction, but rather falsification. Do you have any thoughts on that?

58:35

But you probably, you seem like you know more about that than me, and I've never heard of this person. Yeah, well, Karl Popper is a philosopher of science.

58:41

I don't know his view, but I do see a problem in the statement here. If he says induction is a myth, but rather it's based on falsification, of course, his understanding of falsification and his understanding of anything meaningful is gonna presuppose induction, right?

58:58

So - Well, I was gonna say exactly that, but I see a problem inherent, but I didn't know if there's specifics

59:03

I'm missing here. Yeah, no, I mean, you don't even need to know his view. If you just take this question here as it stands, the very attempt to open your mouth and communicate and think that people can listen to you and that the words that you think you're gonna say are the same words that you used.

59:20

Language, for example, presupposes induction. So to deny induction and call it a myth really is a self -refuting position,

59:27

I think. Yeah, it is completely self -refuting. And we're talking about order and you're talking about order in nature, order in thinking, law -like nature of everything around us, that everything operates in terms of being able to anticipate based upon past experience, that the future will be like the past and everything within even the challenge there assumes the uniformity in nature itself.

59:53

Like if you're gonna call something myth, not true, disorderly, you have to have order in order to do that.

01:00:03

And so I think it's inherently self -contradicting. Sure, yep, absolutely.

01:00:08

Jimmy Doyle's a good friend of mine. I'm happy you're watching, bro, appreciate it. He asked the question to both of us, can you recommend a few books that help support the

01:00:16

Bible historically? If you have any good books by some evidentialists, there's nothing wrong with that either.

01:00:23

So I have a couple of books that come to mind, but I don't know if you have a specific book. Oh, my library is full.

01:00:32

Just on evidences, I guess I'd say like which angle. Yeah. That's what I would say. Like you're talking about archeological evidences, those sorts of things.

01:00:41

I guess the historicity of the Bible. Historicity of the Bible. So let's see here.

01:00:50

What would be like a good one -stop shop? So you're like, well, I think it's extremely, one of my favorites is, you have to forgive me, this escaped me at the moment, is that the

01:01:04

New Testament itself. Oh, it's one of my very favorites, because it's awesome, but it's not fun reading.

01:01:11

It's just filled with just tons of evidences and information. What is that book? I can't think right now. It's the New Testament documents,

01:01:17

New Testament witness in documents. Oh boy, it's late. It's late.

01:01:24

You're getting old, man. I know, I know. It's one of my favorites.

01:01:35

Well, if you can't think of it, there are a couple of books by, I highly recommend Josh McDowell, not the specific methodology, but he's got some really good books that -

01:01:45

Evidence that Demands a Verdict. Evidence that Demands a Verdict. There's an updated version that interacts with some more modern kind of objections.

01:01:52

And I got this book here, Evidence for Christianity. It's a big, thick book. It's not meant to be read in chronological order.

01:01:57

It's just an outline of the historical data supporting various aspects of the New Testament and things like that.

01:02:04

So it's called Historical Evidence for the Christian Faith, Evidence for Christianity. So Josh McDowell is not a presuppositionalist, but he's got some really helpful information here if you're looking for some specific evidences and kind of the documentation that's required to show that the

01:02:19

Bible is historically reliable. I think this is a good kind of a quick reference that you should have in your library. But I'm sorry, you can't remember the other one.

01:02:27

Yeah, no, I'll have to send you my library from at home and all my favorites.

01:02:34

I mean, of course you've got F .F. Bruce's, the New Testament documents, so they're reliable. You've got, oh man, it's one of my very favorites and go -to and I can't even think of the name right now.

01:02:45

You're getting old, it's okay. You can say it on your next broadcast. I'll send it to you. Okay, sounds good, sounds good.

01:02:51

It's not a fun book to read, but it's just filled with some awesome stuff. If someone wants to know the historical evidence for the

01:02:59

Bible, you gotta be willing to put in the work. So even if it's a hard book, if you really wanna know the information, you're gonna have to maybe take a little time and work through that.

01:03:05

But this question is easy for you. Hopefully you'll have a quick answer for this one. Jesus and the

01:03:11

Eyewitnesses. Oh yeah, by Balcom, right? Is that Richard Balcom? Excellent.

01:03:17

Travis Lovato says, what are some of the more in -depth books on Vantillian apologetics for those looking to dive headfirst into understanding his precept views?

01:03:25

Thank you for your time. I'm gonna jump the gun and say this. See this here?

01:03:32

Okay, this is by Greg Bonson. This is my favorite Bonson book, Vantill's Apologetic Readings and Analysis.

01:03:39

And he basically categorizes all of the major themes of Vantill's writings, quotes him copiously, and then expands and explains.

01:03:46

It's got outlines on how the method works. In my opinion, I'm not sure what Jeff's view is here, but in my opinion, this is the go -to if you wanna dig in a little deeper.

01:03:56

Now that you got it, that's what I was gonna say. I think that I used to always recommend Always Ready at the start, which

01:04:04

I think is what everyone used to do is just always ready. You gotta start with that. It'll kick your teeth in. Very good.

01:04:10

I think you're gonna get stuff for low level, like entry level, like I don't get any of this.

01:04:15

Let me start at the beginning. And it gets into some more sophisticated stuff at the end. I apologize for that.

01:04:20

Sorry. You have me, I'm on a laptop right now instead of our system. So I don't know why that keeps coming up like that.

01:04:28

But now Presuppositional Apologetics by Bonson is I think my go -to now to hand out to people to say it's so great.

01:04:38

I just absolutely love that one. It is so filled with scripture. It's like, it's edifying and encouraging and it's just, it's devastating.

01:04:46

I love that one. But yeah, for the sort of like advanced reading, it's the go -to, it's

01:04:53

Van Til's Apologetic Methodology by Bonson. I would also highly recommend, and I'm sure, I was in the email chain when this was in development, but now it's out in the open here, the

01:05:02

Bonson Project. It's available on Apologia Studios website. And it's also available for free, all of his lectures on sermon audio.

01:05:11

And I have to tell people this, I've read Bonson, but most of what I've learned has actually been listening to his lectures.

01:05:18

I don't know if you've noticed this, Jeff, but when you read Bonson, you get a lot, but there's something about Bonson's personality, the way he teaches, that it really sticks more than when you're reading the books.

01:05:29

And so I would highly recommend people check out his lectures, which are all free and available. And that's the primary way that I learned.

01:05:36

Yeah, I know, I agree. I love reading Bonson, I love his books, but I have spent just countless, countless hours listening to Dr.

01:05:45

Bonson. And all of it is available at ApologiaStudios .com. It's free.

01:05:51

David Bonson is a friend of mine, and he gave that to us. And so we're still polishing up, mastering some of the other stuff, but it's all for free.

01:06:00

You can get Bonson's entire seminary education all for free at ApologiaStudios .com.

01:06:07

Hundreds and hundreds of lectures. There's a lot of stuff there. Melissa Scott has a really good question, I think a very important question.

01:06:13

And we can kind of get away from some of the technical terminology of apologetics and philosophy. She just asked the basic question, what are some good ways to just open conversations with friends or strangers?

01:06:23

How would you navigate that? That's something that I, even professional people like armchair apologists who read books and stuff, we can talk about this stuff for hours, but then a person comes in front of us and we're like,

01:06:33

I don't know what to say. How do I start this conversation? So what's your advice for someone who's asking something like this?

01:06:39

I guess it would depend on who was in front of me. So for example, if it's a cultist, like I'm so excited.

01:06:47

My daughter is so sweet. She bought me for Christmas, her and I, a trip to Graceland in Memphis.

01:06:53

We're big Elvis fans. And so we got to spend time at Sun Studio and then Graceland. But yesterday,

01:06:59

I got back last night. On the way back, I get off the plane and at the airport, while I'm going to baggage claim,

01:07:06

Jehovah's Witnesses are all set up. And so I'm so excited because now I know Jehovah's Witnesses are set up at the

01:07:12

Phoenix airport. So I know where to go find them now. And so we can do some evangelism. So if I know, okay,

01:07:18

I know this is a Jehovah's Witness. I know who I'm talking to. I'll think of some questions that relate specifically to their commitments and I'll just ask them.

01:07:26

I mean, they're out on their mission field. And so I can start that conversation very simply by walking up to say a

01:07:32

Mormon elder on his bike and say, do you believe you're gonna become a God one day? And that we're off to the races from there.

01:07:40

And then the whole conversation goes or to the Jehovah's Witness, I'll say, hey, what do you think about all the false prophecies of your organization over the last 100 years?

01:07:49

Did you know how many times your organization predicted the coming of Christ and failed? Do you know what the Bible says about that?

01:07:55

That if you have a single false prophecy, you're a false prophet and then we're off to the races. If it's -

01:08:00

You don't waste time, do you? Hi, my name is Jeff. No, I mean, cause they're out there on the mission field.

01:08:05

I mean, they're ready to put in work and so am I. So if I'm at the abortion mill, it's completely different.

01:08:12

I know that this woman is going in to kill her child. And so I know

01:08:17

I only have seconds to deal with this. And so I'll say something as quick as I can to try to impress the word of God upon her heart.

01:08:23

I say, please don't murder your child. There's forgiveness and peace in Christ. We're here to help you.

01:08:30

I just know the situation. If I'm at ASU and we're out doing evangelism at ASU, I can walk up to somebody and just ask maybe a question that might be in the atmosphere of that moment related to something happening in politics, something happening with like marriage, something happening, you know, what are you studying?

01:08:55

And you know, what do you believe about Jesus? You know, I think that's probably my go -to. If I don't know you and I'm just doing on the street evangelism,

01:09:02

I'll walk up to somebody and say, what do you think about Jesus? That's my go -to.

01:09:08

If I'm just doing blind evangelism on Mill Avenue downtown, tell me what you believe about Jesus.

01:09:13

And that'll get me right into just dealing with their worldview and finding out where they're at. Sure, excellent.

01:09:19

Taylor Fletcher asked the question, how do we come to know the canon of scripture presuppositionally? Before you answer that question,

01:09:27

I do wanna highly recommend the book, The Canon Revisited by Michael Kruger. He talks about the canon and he comes from a specifically presuppositional perspective, so if anyone's looking to go deeper, highly recommend that.

01:09:38

That is The Canon Revisited by Michael Kruger. But how would you quickly kind of summarize your thoughts there? Yeah, I strongly urge everybody who wants to get into this question of canon because it is very, very important, especially in our conversations with Eastern Orthodoxy and with Roman Catholicism.

01:09:53

It's very, very central. And so definitely recommend Michael Kruger. I think he's just done stellar work in this area.

01:10:01

Canon Revisited is a must get. Sell your shirt and shoes and buy that book.

01:10:07

I think it's really, really important. Dr. White also did a good discussion with Dr. Kruger that is available on YouTube for free.

01:10:14

Just look up Dr. Kruger, Michael Kruger and Dr. James White. They did a long discussion, I think at G3 or somewhere on this very question of canon and its origin, all that stuff.

01:10:24

So when you think about the issue of canon and we're thinking about this presuppositionally, what we're acknowledging at the outset is that canon essentially contains, and this is what everybody would agree with, whether you're

01:10:37

Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic or Protestant, canon contains the revelation of God in history that's been written down.

01:10:45

We all agree with that it's revelation from God. Now, Roman Catholicism will essentially argue in a way that's backwards that the church created the canon.

01:10:56

Like you have the canon because the church sort of authoritatively pulled rank and then gave the canon to you and told you these are the words of God.

01:11:04

But in terms of history, how God did it in the Old Testament and real history of how it actually came about in the

01:11:10

New Testament with this organic free transmission of the text, it was the revelation of God that is first.

01:11:19

God speaks. So that's important. It's God speaking with a self -attesting authority.

01:11:26

He speaks and that word creates the church. So it wasn't the church that created the word of God.

01:11:34

It was the word of God that created the church. In other words, Paul, an inspired apostle is giving revelation from God and he's delivering it to the church.

01:11:42

The church receives that word. They're changed by that word. They make copies of that word and they give it to the other churches, but it's the word that comes into the church.

01:11:51

It creates the church. It transforms the church. It sanctifies the church. And the church essentially is yielding to the authoritative word and their position, this is key.

01:12:04

This is something that Kruger points out. The church's position with the canon is receptive. Receptive.

01:12:11

Whereas what Rome will claim is that the church, they'll say things like, well, you only have the

01:12:17

Bible because we gave it to you. First of all, anybody who knows history knows that is just an insane thing. And then the Eastern Orthodox say the same thing.

01:12:23

No, we gave you the Bible. We gave it to you. No, anybody who knows history and how we got the Bible knows that is an insane claim to make.

01:12:29

And anybody making that claim just doesn't know how he got the Bible. But that's not how the word came in.

01:12:34

But the word created the church. The church did not create the word. That's arguing not only consistently and historically with what the evidence is, but it's also arguing presuppositionally that it's the revelation of God that creates.

01:12:47

It's the one that forms and creates the church. The church's role is receptive. They receive the word.

01:12:55

And early on, and you have to grant this as an historical fact, when the church is created, it's not created during a time where we have the age of the internet.

01:13:05

We can't even travel long distances without dying, getting sick, or getting hurt along the way.

01:13:11

And it's taking a very long time. And so the church is created and formed at a time where let's be honest, there were groups of Christians who received the word of God and maybe only received certain books of the

01:13:24

New Testament. And maybe even didn't even have access to a lot of the Old Testament revelation.

01:13:31

And so that's just where they were in time. And so you had parts of the empire where some Christians had received certain books and other

01:13:38

Christians had not received those yet. But as the church is growing and developing and now communicating, you start to see in history,

01:13:46

Christians are now able to get what maybe they didn't get from, oh, I didn't know Paul wrote that letter.

01:13:51

You have that letter from Paul? Oh, you have this from John? And so Christians are able to start sharing now in that community with this free transmission of the text, the text that they had received from an inspired apostle, but here's where the debates come in.

01:14:06

Imagine this, your Christian group and this part of the empire has not received these particular books, right?

01:14:14

You didn't even have knowledge that they existed. You have to, we have to grant that some

01:14:19

Christians are gonna be kind of leery going, how do I know that, how do

01:14:24

I know that that is a real letter from Paul or a real letter from John? It was appropriate for them to ask the question, but when they asked the question, those churches couldn't just pull rank and say, well, because we say so.

01:14:37

Like that doesn't work for the Christian mind, like because you say so. There's some Gnostic Gospels out there, guys, we gotta be worried about, how do we know for sure?

01:14:45

So one of the tests, the ways that you see Christians manage this issue was essentially presuppositionally, they wanted to make sure this was an authoritative word from God and that it was given to the church, the church received it and it was being passed along faithfully because it first came from an apostle, was received by the church, formed the church.

01:15:03

So they knew that the book had to come from a prophet of God. They knew it had to be received by the people of God.

01:15:11

And they knew that it had to have content that was consistent with all of God's other revelations.

01:15:17

So that's the standard you see them applying, prophet of God received by the people of God and its content, was it consistent?

01:15:24

And so that was essentially a presuppositional way at even approaching that issue of canon, but there was never, there's never a way of looking at this that's consistent with history where it's the church is saying authoritatively, because we say so.

01:15:40

They recognize that their position was passive, it was receptive, we receive this.

01:15:46

You do see Rome, however, many, many, many, many hundreds of years later, getting to a place where they actually do believe that they have the right to pull rank and declare authoritatively what is the word of God.

01:15:58

Ultimately in that way, I think expressing their epistemological ground is that they believe that they're an ultimate standard.

01:16:08

They have the ability to pull rank and say, because we say. Yeah, excellent. Now, this next question is a very profoundly important question and it kind of changes the mood of our discussion, but I think it's an important question to ask and I'm wondering about it.

01:16:21

I think I know what, I already think I know what this one is. Go ahead. Are you charismatic? Are you, you got the gift of, boom.

01:16:30

No, because I think, I think the guy asking it is literally sitting next to me over here.

01:16:36

He's, he's, he's, he's under our care. We're raising him up as an elder and. I am a huge Star Wars fan.

01:16:44

So I need to know. Me too, me too. Why do you hate Star Wars? And Mexican food? No, see, he is such a punk.

01:16:53

No, first of all, here's the deal. It's Daniel. And you've seen Daniel on our channel, like doing debates with some

01:16:59

Mormons. And he also did one recently on the perseverance of the saints. I love Daniel, man. He is a sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp man.

01:17:08

He loves the Lord. He is, I just, I'm so grateful to God for God giving him to us and for us to be able to care for him and raise him up.

01:17:15

But he really is a punk. And, and he, see, here's the deal. Like he loves, because he was raised around it in this nostalgic forum.

01:17:23

He loves like Star Wars episodes one, two, and three. Me too. He thinks

01:17:28

Hayden Christensen is the best actor in the history of actors. Okay, that's a little, that's a little itchy. Yeah, see, even you realize that that is an insane claim to make.

01:17:38

Oh, that is pretty insane. He has like the sharpest mind. If you put him in a debate, he is just, man, it's amazing actually.

01:17:46

But when it comes to like, like taste in food or movies, it's terrible.

01:17:52

Like I'm sad for him. And like everyone knows he's a Star Wars freak. And he knows he loves episodes one, two, and three but we all know that the real

01:17:59

Star Wars is episodes four, five, and six. Don't underestimate my power. Yeah, yeah. That's the worst deliverance line ever.

01:18:06

Yeah. Oh, I know. I know. I cringe. He's like, he wants me to come next

01:18:11

Tuesday. We have a church members meeting. He wants me to skip the members meeting to watch episode three with him.

01:18:19

And, and I told him, I said, I just can't endure Hayden Christensen for an hour of just the worst acting ever.

01:18:26

Oh, okay. Well, I'm sorry for asking that question. Oh, you don't be sorry. No. I had to get it in there. I'm glad that it got in because I want everyone to know about Daniel and yeah, be on the look.

01:18:36

Yeah. I wanna, I wanna recommend Daniel's debates. He has done an excellent job. He's had two debates.

01:18:42

One with Oscar Dunlap and another, he debated an individual on, I think it was eternal security.

01:18:49

And I think he's doing an excellent job. And so. Yeah, both, yeah, both Oscar and Daniel we're pouring into, we're raising them up and hopefully, hopefully one day elders, but that for us is a long process and a careful process.

01:19:03

Well, I wanna respect your time. It has been a long day for you, but I wanna send you off, okay, with my

01:19:11

Bruce Lee impression. I have to. Okay. I'll do it. Okay. I have to get myself in there.

01:19:16

People, I apologize. If you've seen the, I've done it a couple of times. I love Bruce Lee. I used to watch. All the documentaries and stuff.

01:19:24

So this is, this is a monologue from his interviews, the black and white interview where he's talking about his philosophy and he's talking about being like water.

01:19:32

Okay. You know this one? Oh, I know it. Yeah. He goes, he goes, empty your mind, be formless and shapeless like water you see.

01:19:42

You put water into the cup, it becomes the cup. You put into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

01:19:49

Now water can creep, flow or crash. Be water, my friend. Wow. That's actually really good.

01:19:57

Yeah. I know that one as well. Yes. Now I like to make some apologetic application because there's something to that flexibility and adaptability to engage in conversations.

01:20:08

So that's right. He was an unbeliever, but he, he had some common grace elements there. Some common grace for sure.

01:20:13

Yeah. My, my, my grandmaster was a grandmaster

01:20:20

June Rhee and he was training partners with Bruce Lee. And so they made a deal.

01:20:25

This is like back in the seventies. Bruce Lee was just, he honestly was amazing. And he's one of those people that's like, you know, in terms of somebody who was on the screen and a martial arts guy that was legit, like a real, like legit tactician.

01:20:41

He, he, he was just excellent. And he wanted to make sure, like he recognized what a lot of martial artists don't want to recognize is that every art has its, its, you know, effective tools that are just excellent.

01:20:55

And also has its deficiencies. Like if you don't recognize that you're arrogant and you're gonna, you're gonna fail somewhere.

01:21:01

Like every art has its great parts and it also has its, its deficiencies. So Bruce Lee recognized that.

01:21:07

And he, he always wanted to say like, what works best? What doesn't work? And so he saw from my grandmaster

01:21:15

June Rhee that the kicks that grandmaster June Rhee did from Chanda Kwan Taekwondo were the most scientifically accurate and efficient that kept you in line with your opponent and use the full hip the entire way.

01:21:26

So he made a deal with my instructor. He said, you teach me how to kick like that. And I'll teach you these punches.

01:21:32

And, and so I'm so, so, so sorry about that guys. It's so unprofessional on my part. I'm gonna talk to my tech team about that.

01:21:39

But so the kicks, the kicks that you see Bruce Lee doing like the famous kick and you'll know this, you better know this or you're not a fan.

01:21:48

So the kick where Bruce Lee is an end of the dragon and Bob Wall is standing there,

01:21:54

Bob Wall signed my world champion certificate, which was the biggest moment in my life to have the guy

01:22:00

I grew up watching getting kicked by Bruce Lee signed my, like. You're my favorite guy who got kicked by Bruce Lee.

01:22:05

I gotta tell you, like, there's not a lot of people that intimidate me in my life, but when I stood there with Bob Wall, it was like one of the most, cause

01:22:12

I grew up at like three, four years old watching Bob Wall get kicked by Bruce Lee. And now he's standing next to me.

01:22:17

I was like, I was like, I was shaking. So, okay. So the, the kick, the kick where Bruce Lee does the step behind sidekick, he kicks

01:22:24

Bob Wall, Bob Wall goes flying into the chair. Did you know that, that one of the stuntmen broke his arm, compound break?

01:22:33

Yeah, on that part there. But that kick is a Chundaquan Taekwondo sidekick. He learned that from my instructor.

01:22:39

Pretty cool. Yeah. My favorite thing, and we'll wrap it up here cause I can talk about Bruce Lee all the time.

01:22:44

My favorite little explanation that Bruce Lee gave is a difference between a karate punch and a gungfu punch.

01:22:49

He said, he said the difference between a karate punch and a gungfu punch is a karate punch is like an iron bar.

01:22:57

It go wang. He goes, but a gungfu punch is like an iron bar with a chain attached.

01:23:03

It go wang, but it hurt. Yeah. I know that exactly. I heard that exact thing. Yeah. One more, one more, one more thing.

01:23:09

This might excite you since you're a Bruce Lee fan. So I'm, I'm, I've in God's providence,

01:23:16

I'm friends with a bunch of active duty Navy SEALs because in God's providence, a bunch of them somehow got connected to me cause listening to the program and everything, a bunch of believers were, were resisting the jab.

01:23:29

And so they were going to get fired from the Navy SEALs. And so I met with them at like a secret location at Virginia beach to support them and help them.

01:23:38

And then they wanted me to come out and tell the media what they were going through and how they were about to get, you know, kicked off Navy SEALs for resisting the jab.

01:23:48

So active duty Navy SEALs. And I, I got to ask them this question when I was with them. I said, are you guys still doing this as your, for your hand -to -hand combat?

01:23:56

And I showed them the system and they said, yes, that's what we're still doing. And so this is really cool. Bruce Lee is in many ways responsible for the

01:24:06

Navy SEALs fighting system. Isn't it cool? And here's, here's how it works. So there's a man named

01:24:12

Frank Cucci, who's actually a professing believer. He was in SEAL team six. He was given the duty to create the hand -to -hand combat system for SEAL team six.

01:24:21

So when they didn't have anything officially, he was given the duty to, to create it. So he created it with the help of Paul Vunak and his system.

01:24:31

Paul Vunak was with Dan Inosanto and Dan Inosanto was the student and friend of Bruce Lee.

01:24:38

So the system that moved its way into the Navy SEALs fighting system is in many ways, the actual theory and techniques that Bruce Lee passed down through Dan Inosanto, Paul Vunak, it made its way into the

01:24:52

Navy SEALs. So I told the guys that I was like, you guys are actually doing like what Bruce Lee created and that's in your system.

01:25:00

So the Navy SEALs are using Bruce Lee's techniques. That's awesome. I love stuff like that. I can talk about that stuff forever, but listen,

01:25:08

I want to thank you so much. I know you said it's an honor to be on my show, but it is definitely an honor to finally get to meet you and talk with you and hear what you have to say on this topic.

01:25:17

And I just want, and I can say this with many people all over the world. We greatly appreciate the work that you guys are doing at Apologia Church, the evangelism, the counseling, just hearing about your pastoral experience and seeing what a wonderful example you are to so many people.

01:25:33

And so I'm sure it's not just me, but many are grateful for you and your ministry. And I just want to encourage you keep up the great work, even though it's difficult and sometimes very tiring, all to his glory.

01:25:45

Thank you so much for that blessing. Thank you guys. And one more reminder, folks, if you're looking to support

01:25:50

Revealed Apologetics, don't exhibit your total depravity by not liking. You need to like, you need to subscribe.

01:25:56

And on January 21st, the Epic Online Calvinism Conference will be held. It's an online conference through Zoom.

01:26:02

You get a private Zoom link and you'll be able to see all of these wonderful speakers, James White, Guillaume Bignon, Scott Christensen, and Saiten Bruggenkate.

01:26:09

You can sign up for that right now on revealedapologetics .com. Click on the pre -sub you dropdown menu and you could

01:26:16

RSVP right now. Great opportunity to learn and to support Revealed Apologetics if you've been blessed by the content that we've been putting out.

01:26:23

Well, with that said, we conclude this episode. Thanks again, Jeff, and thank you so much for everyone who has stuck with us this hour and a half.