Highlights from Apologetics to the Glory of God
By John Frame. Jay Wegter – “Highlights” Editor
P. 2 – The three aspects of apologetics: 1. APOL. AS PROOF (Jn 20:24-31);
- APOL. AS DEFENSE (Phil 1:7, 16); 3. APOL. AS OFFENSE (attacking foolishness – 1 Cor 1:18-2:16; Ps 14:1).
P. 3, 6 – Presuppositionalism is a commitment to the lordship of Christ. Our ultimate presupposition is “How can we call Him Lord and not do what He says?” (Luke 6:46).
P. 7 – People cannot see the Kingdom of God unless they are brought to the fear of God by the new birth (Prov 1:7; Ps 111:10; Prov 9:10; Jn 3:3).
P. 8 – God’s nature must govern our apologetic approach – it is the believer, “the non-deceived person,” contacting the “deceived.” It is sin to not accept God’s authority. Therefore to try to reason with a non-believer neutrally is a lie. There is an absolute dichotomy between God’s wisdom and the world’s wisdom – and nothing in between.
P. 10 – The Christian presupposes a Christian epistemology – a view of knowledge, testimony, witness, appearance, and fact that is subject to Scripture. He uses Scriptural standards to prove scriptural conclusions. By contrast, rationalists must presuppose the authority of reason. Regarding circularity, when one is arguing for ultimate criterion, whether Scripture, the Koran, human reason, or sensation, one must use criteria compatible with that conclusion (if that’s circularity, everyone’s guilty of it).
This doesn’t eliminate fruitful discourse with the unbeliever. The unsaved man may reply to our defense of the resurrection saying that he cannot accept our argument that is based on biblical criteria – he might say we have to prove the resurrection by (let’s say) the standards of Hume’s empiricism.
P. 11 – We cannot accept Hume’s presuppositions. But that does not end the discourse with the unbeliever – we can tell him that he has a memory of sins for which he is responsible, and he has a consciousness of God’s revelation. He knows empiricism is wrong (empiricism, an epistemological theory that experience is only source of knowledge) , and he has memory that God’s revelation is true, and he knows that the epistemology implicit in divine revelation is true. At this point in the conversation, we keep emphasizing our respective presuppositions. (The Holy Spirit is attending our conversation.) METHODOLOGY
PP. 12-13 – If he objects to our use of circularity, we can switch our strategy to apologetic offense. We use our apologetic against the gross inconsistencies of his foolish world view. “How do you account for the universality of logical laws? How do you arrive at the judgment that human life is worth living?” Or we could tell him a parable – such as the one about the rich fool (Luke 12:6-21). Don’t underestimate God’s power to reach the unbeliever’s heart. METHODOLOGY
P. 15 – God’s sovereignty engages human responsibility – it gives freedom and significance to human choices and actions.
PP. 16-17 – Apologetics is rational persuasion – in apologetics we seek to combat the unbeliever’s false impressions and present him the world as it really is. METHODOLOGY
P. 20 – It is not my concept of design by which I judge the Bible, the Bible tells me what must be true if design is to exist. Design is unintelligible apart from the biblical God.
P. 22 – Adam accepted God’s interpretation of the world until he made the tragic mistake of accepting Satan’s interpretation of the world instead.
P. 23 – We are to interpret the world thru the spectacles of Scripture (Calvin). Natural revelation is every bit the word of God and absolutely authoritative. We do not make Scripture more authoritative than natural revelation, we correct our interpretations of natural revelation by Scripture. We allow Scripture to do its corrective work.
P. 24 – The theistic evolutionist tends to see natural and special revelation as two books side by side, carrying equal weight in every respect (this has allowed for an uncritical Christian acceptance of evolution and psychology). We must allow Scripture to do its corrective work – to protect God’s people from the wisdom of the world (1 Cor 2:6-16) Sola Scriptura.
Natural revelation through the eyes of Scripture declares the glory of God (Ps 19:1). God has furnished the rational structure of the world and of the human mind so that the two structures are adapted to one another. Through science we see the astounding wisdom of God’s plan (Ps 104). We see through history and the arts what horrific evils result when people abandon God.
P. 25 – When we show natural revelation to an unbeliever it is never an invitation to reason neutrally, THUS, natural revelation and special revelation must never be separated in an apologetic encounter. We show the unbeliever the various ways that nature reveals God. METHODOLOGY
P. 26 – Apologetics is not the foundation and basis of faith; apologetics DISPLAYS that
foundation presented in Scripture.
P. 28 – So many heresies are traceable to attempts to present Christianity more persuasively (or palatable), so that it will be seen as compatible with the intellectual movements of the time (note current slide away from the inerrancy of Scripture and away from the literal-ness of Genesis 1-11).
P. 30 – The bottom line is that we should relate the apologetics encounter to God and His purposes rather than our own emotional evaluation of the unbeliever.
P. 32 – Christ’s authority is comprehensive (1 Cor 10:31). Thus there are distinctive Christian views on history, science, psychology, business, economics, labor, sociology, education, the arts, the problems of philosophy.
P. 33 – Conventional “wisdom” has caused exploding rates of divorce, abortion, gang violence, crime, AIDS, homelessness, government deficits, taxation, political corruption, degeneracy in the arts, dumbing-down of education, non-competitiveness in industry, special interest groups demanding all sorts of “rights,” sexual politics, pollution. Conventional “wisdom” has given us the messianic state which claims authority and seeks to solve all problems (“secular salvation”). The world’s wisdom has birthed political correctness which stifles and punishes intellectual freedom. (We now have a society of blasphemy and mutual contempt.)
P. 34 – Today people are ignorant of the basic Christian worldview. It would be helpful if they understood that so the Gospel would make sense to them. Frame presents Christianity first as a philosophy, then as the Gospel.
The four most important things to remember about the Christian worldview: 1.) The absolute personality of God. 2.) The distinction between Creator and creature.
- The sovereignty of God (it is extremely important to our world view that God directs all things). 4.) The trinity. METHODOLOGY
God as Creator and absolute personality is the ground of all other reality. He has no need of any other being – He is self-sufficient, self-existent (Acts 17:25).
P. 35 – The great question confronting modern humanity is: Since the universe contains both personal and impersonal structures (matter, motion, physical laws) – which is fundamental? Is the impersonal grounded in the personal? Or is the personal grounded in the impersonal? Secular thought generally assumes the latter. Naturalism says we are the product of matter, motion, chance, etc. Naturalism regards the explanation of our existence NOT to rest on the personal, but the impersonal – naturalism affirms the ultimacy of the impersonal.
Each of these answers (ultimacy of the impersonal or ultimacy of the personal) has CONSEQUENCES. If the impersonal is primary, then there is no consciousness, no wisdom, and no will in the ultimate origin of things, and no accounting for design. What we call reason and value are unintended, accidental consequences of chance events. Moral virtue in the end will be unrewarded.
P. 36 – Bertrand Russell was the consummate spokesman for the impersonal as the ground of existence (see his quote this pg.). By contrast, the Word of God proclaims that the personal is primary – the world was made by a rational plan which can be understood by rational minds. Friendship and love are both profound AND fundamental ingredients of our world BECAUSE God wants them in our experience. God cares about, and approves and disapproves of our conduct.
P. 37 – The impersonal is a gray world of matter, motion, and chance – anything can happen, but nothing of human interest ever does. The apologist performs a service not only when he argues for the truth, but also when he portrays the beauty and the dark tones of the truth (it’s absurd to attribute dazzling beauty and fascinating logic to chaos). METHODOLOGY
PP. 38-39 – Personality and absoluteness are elements that are separated in most religions, thus they compromise rather than reinforce one another – only the biblical religion requires us to worship a personal absolute. The Christian worldview is unique to the biblical religion. God is personal absolute AND transcendent. When modern scientists seek the causes of all things, they almost always assume that the personal elements in the universe can be explained by the impersonal (matter, laws, and motion) rather than the other way around. Without absolute personality, we are left with chance or “fate” being absolute. Does matter invent man who then invents God?
PP. 40-41 – As evidence of his suppression of the truth, the unbeliever has an irrational preference for impersonalism over personalism. We must not allow the unbeliever to suppose the impersonal is more ultimate. We challenge him to consider the alternative. Ask him to give a proof for his view – the kind of proof he requires of us. Show him his impersonalism is the product of irrational faith. METHODOLOGY
God is both transcendent (wholly personal, yet separate from creation), and immanent (involved in all areas of creation). Note Creator-creature distinction on these pages. God is absolute – He controls all things; His personality motivates His immanence.
PP. 42-43 – Non-Christians of all persuasions deny the biblical Creator-creature distinction. It is denied by Kantian philosophy in which the mind is author of the forms of experience. It is denied by existentialism where man creates his own meaning. It is denied by naturalistic science which claims the universe is its own creator. Liberal theologians, who refuse to be subject to the Bible, regularly deny the distinction.
Van Til said Christian worldview involves a “two-level” concept of reality
. (He drew two circles, a large one above the other, connected by a vertical line. The large circle represents God; the smaller, lower circle, creation. All non-Christian thought is “one circle” thought. It either raises man to God’s level, or lowers God to man’s. If it regards God, it either sees Him as man’s equal, or makes Him part of the creation.
P. 44 – God’s absolute personality is something beautiful. No longer do we have the intolerable burden of playing God – of trying to be ourselves the ultimate standard of truth and right (with all the attending anxieties). Rest in the bosom of the Creator; learn the wondrous things of how the world was made and His purposes for us. His truth “integrates” our small, brief experiences – we apply His revelation to ourselves.
It is important to Christian worldview that God directs all things (Eph 1:11).
P. 46 – God’s plan is the source of the events of nature and history, and His plan never fails. Therefore His plan determines what things are, what is true and false, and what is right and wrong. For us to make judgments in these areas, we must consult His
revelation (in nature and Scripture), seeking humbly to think His thoughts after Him (this is to be our “posture” as creatures).
PP. 47-49 – The importance of the Trinity to apologetics: Anti-Trinitarianism always leads to a “wholly other” God, rather than a God who is transcendent in the biblical sense. Paradoxically, it also leads to a God who is relative to the world rather than sovereign Lord of Scripture (a “blank” God without absolute personality). It makes Creator-creature distinction a matter of degree, rather than difference in being.
Because of the Trinity (both three and one), God can be described in personalistic terms without being made relative to the world. The Trinity answers philosophy’s religious quest, namely, “Why is there is no absolute unity (devoid of plurality), nor absolute plurality (devoid of unity)?”
PP. 50-51 – The Unitarian god is unknowable (blank oneness or utter uniqueness). The God of Scripture is the only absolute, and that absolute is the one and the many. The Trinity has implications for epistemology. God the Lord interprets everything definitively – so when we want to know something, we must think His thoughts after Him. God is the author/origin of truth, the supreme authority for knowledge. Authority of part of His lordship – He has the right to tell us what to believe. When sinners try to gain knowledge without fear of the Lord, that knowledge is distorted. The sinner may express many facts accurately in a context smaller than worldview. But his worldview is twisted and unreliable. His most serious epistemological mistake is to assert his own autonomous reason (that is self) as the final standard of truth and right. METHODOLOGY
P. 52 – The apologist must refuse to compromise with the distorted epistemology of the unbeliever. The apologist summons the unbeliever to abandon his epistemology which is part of the unbeliever’s suppression of the truth. METHODOLOGY
The history of philosophy illustrates how human thinkers seek to avoid responsibility to God by claiming autonomy. They do not want to obey God’s laws, so they set themselves up as ultimate judges of what is right. Christianity flies right in the face of human claims to autonomy – only Christianity has the answer to lawlessness.
P. 54 – The Gospel is about God’s mercy through Christ as a free gift (He was raised for our justification – Rom 3:20-8:11). No philosophy, no liberal theology, not even any Christian heresy offers any solution to human sin.
PP. 58-59 – Romans 4:20-21 describes Abraham’s faith as a model of Christian faith. “. . . He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.” Despite the Scriptures’ mention of eye witnesses to the power of God in the resurrection of Christ, the ultimate proof, the ultimate evidence is the Word of God. We have an obligation, not only to believe Scriptural truth, but also to believe it for Scriptural reasons. Showing biblical reasons for biblical truth is a very important part of apologetics (Frame cites the example of the reason why Jesus cursed the fig tree; Jesus’ act was a symbol of approaching judgment Mt 21:19ff.) METHODOLOGY
PP. 62-63 – “Intelligent” unbelievers deny the proofs of Scripture we supply them because they deny the biblical authority upon which the proofs are based. The problem is not with the proof, but with the unbeliever – he ought to accept biblical authority. We ought to employ a “godly pragmatism” (at this point) in our argumentation about the overall teaching of Scripture. Broader arguments seem to work best. Many unbelievers demand that we consider facts from their experience which seem to refute Christianity. Since God is revealed in all creation, even those facts which unbelievers use to oppose Christianity can be seen to have God’s mark on them. (Note how evil is unexplainable apart from a Christian theistic worldview.) METHODOLOGY
P. 67 – Any fact may become the focal point of apologetics, BECAUSE that fact derives its intelligibility from God. How do people come to Christ? When Christians were asked to list the factors that led them to trust in Christ, few of them listed any proof or argument. For most, the issue is not intellectual – the issue was rather that the person was not motivated enough to repent of sin, seek forgiveness, and obey Christian revelation. METHODOLOGY
P. 68 – A somewhat narrow, but persuasive argument to many – representing the thought
process that brings many to faith in God:
Premise 1: If Jesus is Lord and Savior, then He is reliable.
Premise 2: If He is reliable, then God exists.
Premise 3: He is Lord and Savior.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
The Spirit works in a variety of ways; He is not restricted to the limited strategies described in apologetics books. Apologetics proofs are “person variable” – different people respond to different approaches. For some inquirers, it seems necessary to discuss the existence of God before we discuss Jesus. METHODOLOGY
P. 69 – As we select the appropriate strategy, we want to find an approach that: 1.) will be intellectually understandable, 2.) will arouse and maintain their interest, 3.) will interact with some area in which they admit weakness or uncertainty (pressing it harder), 4.) will contain elements of surprise, so that their prepared response will be nullified and they’ll be forced to think, 5.) will set forth the truth without compromise, and, 6.) will by its manner communicate the love of Christ. METHODOLOGY
PP. 70-71 – Kant presupposed that human knowledge was possible. He rejected Hume’s pure empiricism. The transcendental method asks what must the world, the mind, and human thought be like if this presupposition is true (the presup. that human knowledge is possible) – what are the necessary conditions of human knowledge? Van Til noted that in Scripture, God is the source of all rationality, all meaning, all knowledge, all truth, all actuality, and all possibility. If one asks with Kant, what conditions make knowledge possible? The answer first and foremost is the existence of God. (Here Frame
challenges Van Til’s pure transcendental form of argumentation suggesting that we would do well to add to it traditional proofs of God.) METHODOLOGY
P. 73 – No single argument will prove the entire biblical doctrine of God. Certainly the overall goal of apologetics is transcendental – the God we seek to prove is indeed the source of all meaning, the source of possibility, of actuality, and of predication.
P. 75 – Van Til stressed that in order for arguments to be genuinely presuppositional, they must be “negative” – that is, an indirect proof that reduces the unbeliever’s argument (presuppositions) to absurdity (reduction ad absurdum).
P. 78 – Regenerate knowledge of God is a knowledge that presupposes God’s Word. A presupposition (by definition) is held with certainty, since it is the very criterion of certainty. Besides this logical fact, the believer is assured by the supernatural factor of God’s Spirit concerning both the truth of the Gospel (1 Cor 2:4-5; 12-13; 1 Thess 1:5), and his own relationship to Christ (Rom 8:16).
PP. 80-81 – The circularity of presuppositional apologetics is not what is normally referred to as circularity in logic textbooks. Here Frame explains that Van Til taught his students to steer clear of anything that smacks of probability. (Assuming a biblical epistemology leaves no room for probability.)
PP. 84-85 – Regarding point of contact – A truth, any truth, will introduce awkwardness, if not contradiction, into an unbelieving system. That will happen no matter what the apologist’s views and intentions concerning the point of contact may be. The question is (as to point of contact) are we addressing the unbeliever’s distorted worldview, or, are we accepting and addressing the undistorted revelation which he holds within himself, despite his distorted worldview? (The caution here is to avoid being impressed with unbelieving “wisdom.”) METHODOLOGY
PP. 90-91 – Frame’s Moral Argument: moral values cannot be literally seen, but must be acknowledged if we are to make rational judgments. Moral values then are pervasive. They enter all our reasoning and decisions. They are inescapable and unavoidable. They point to God.
PP. 92-93 – Agnosticism, “atheism lite?” – there is no halfway house between being God’s friend and God’s enemy (Josh 24:15; Matt 6:24; 12:30).
PP. 100-101 – A past without God would be chaos, from which order could never emerge; the same would be true for a future without God. God is self-sufficient and self-existent. No circumstances are conceivable without Him, so it is impossible for Him not to exist. Objective moral standards are only possible if God exists.
PP. 102-103 – The choice: either accept the God of the Bible, or deny objective morality, objective truth, the rationality of man, and the rational knowability of the universe. Some would say that they can go on happily living without a rational basis for thinking and acting – but don’t let it go unchallenged if they say Christianity has no rational basis, or if they say that the “conventional wisdom” is more rational than God’s wisdom.
Epistemological arguments start with the phenomenon of human rationality. How is it that the human mind correlates so well with the structure of the world so that people can make sense of the world? There must be a rational structure in the world that mirrors the rational structure of the human mind. If the world is a product of pure chance, it would be extremely unlikely that human experience would mirror the reality of the world in the way we assume it usually does. The absolute personality of God is able to make man in His image and to equip him to understand the universe as much as he needs to. The issue is adequate cause. (Note that man is an analog of God and is a steward of creation.) METHODOLOGY
P. 104 – The power of logic is normative and ethical – it tells us what we ought to confess as a conclusion, granting our confession of premises (falsehood, lies, deception is tantamount to departure from logic). If ethical, it is convenantal; like moral values, it rests on the dependable Word of a trustworthy Person, the Lord, our absolute divine personality. (Thus when an unbeliever uses logic to raise objections against Christianity, he is using something which points in the opposite direction.)
PP. 109, 113-114 – Only one Being can be the ultimate warrant for moral and epistemological values. The world is not self-existent and self-explanatory – it is not causeless; it is not an ultimate reason. (We know this by the reasoning of our moral and epistemological arguments.) The ultimate source of moral norms, of the norms of thought and logic, is personal, not impersonal.
If God is the source of these norms, then He is the ultimate source of the world. The material world is not something separate from the rational and moral order.
That order is the order of the material world. The ultimate source of rationality is the ultimate source of everything. (We saw in the epistemological argument that reason is covenantal. The search for causes and reasons will be self-defeating unless it is willing to rest ultimately in God.) METHODOLOGY
P. 120-121 – Our start point in apologetics is the Christian worldview itself. So that inquirers see that the real issue is between biblical, religion and the wisdom of the world (the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of the world --1Cor 1:8-2:16). Thus our theistic argument has already settled the truth of the Gospel. METHODOLOGY
P. 122 – God intends to rule the Church through a book (the Bible); anything less is man usurping. In all our apologetic encounters there is the necessity of presupposing the reliability and authority of Scripture.
PP. 130-131 – Intellectual autonomy always works to erode the inerrant authority of Scripture (the assumptions of liberalism dominate the theological world -- note anti-supernaturalism as a product of intellectual autonomy).
PP. 135-136, 139 – On conventional wisdom, the biblical doctrine of Scripture is implausible. But if you presuppose a Christian worldview, no other doctrine of revelation is conceivable. The credibility of the doctrine of Scripture is a function of the Holy Spirit opening the mind – faith in an absolute Personality is a supernatural gift. Above all, this doctrine was taught by Jesus, the Apostles, and the Prophets. Scripture is the necessary element in the drama of redemption. The credibility of redemption validates the Scriptures and vice versa. Christ’s work is presented in a complex historical drama. All the pieces of the unfolding drama didn’t fit together in the minds of the disciples until Emmaus.
P. 140 – Arguments for the truth of the Bible from prophecy is an argument from the whole O.T. – and is an appeal for the rational structure of Scripture itself. It is a powerful testament to God’s sovereignty over history (and for the formation of the Word of God).
The basis for knowing with certainty is submission to the epistemic Lordship of Christ – those who would claim the promise of John 7:17 must obey the responsibility associated with it (a willingness to do God’s will).
P. 144 – David Hume said that one could never accept testimony concerning a miracle; it would always be outweighed by the “evidence” that everything behaves naturally and regularly. But is there really such evidence?
PP. 145-146 – The resurrection is central to Christian apologetics. The women discovering the empty tomb is strong evidence that no one invented the account. No one inventing the story would have placed women in this role because they were not accepted as witnesses in Jewish courts of law.
P. 153 – Rather than avoiding the problem of evil, the Bible is preoccupied with it. Thus it is a misnomer to suggest that modern unbelief is due to mankind’s sudden realization that there is too much evil in the world to justify old-fashioned theism. (The real problem is that people don’t believe that the Scriptures is the very Word of God.)
P. 156 – The great advantage of Scriptures’ viewpoint -- it doesn’t play games with suffering people – in Scripture, evil is treated quite simply as something we must deal with (see pp. 161-162, 173-175 on the problem of evil – Job the complainer demands a satisfying intellectual answer, but is convicted of his sin when God speaks; God turning the tables is a regular Bible theme).
P. 178 – A summary of the issue of evil – we have no right to complain against God. When we do, we expose ourselves as disobedient. God’s sovereignty is not to be questioned in connection with the problem of evil – rather His sovereignty is to be underscored. God is the standard of His own actions, He is not subject to human
judgment. Our judgment is subject to His Word.
P. 180 – The universe exists for God’s glory. A great part of the problem of suffering is that it is drawn out in time. We cry out, God seems to delay and make us wait. The Bible says much about this waiting process. It shows how God’s people were tested by waiting over and over again. God ultimately brings the waiting period to an end and vindicates Himself and His people.
PP. 181-182 – The long wait of the O.T. period accentuates the problem of suffering. God seems to want to build the tension. How can His goodness and justice be reconciled? The wait is over when Jesus comes – for God judges sin (justice) and redeems (goodness and mercy).
P. 183-184 – Those of the O.T. period were wearied by suffering (a frequent refrain of theirs, “how can this be reconciled with God’s attributes?” Note Asaph’s Psalms, and the book of Habakkuk. There was definitely more mystery before the incarnation, but believers trusted the promise of God.
P. 185 – God deals with the problem of evil in a theocentric way, not an anthropocentric way. Suffering is for a while, glory is forever.
P. 186-187 – When God seeks a greater good for Himself He also does for creation (Rev 21-22). God is not under obligation to give us reasons for what He does, yet in Scripture, God uses evil for good over and over again.
P. 188-189 – God promises His people that they will be totally vindicated and delivered from evil. The consummation of history will somehow reveal God’s goodness so adequately that all remaining doubts will be taken away. We must believe, trust, and obey now, despite all the wickedness in the world.
P. 190 – God forgives evil in our hearts for the sake of Christ – we can never look at evil with the same passion as an unbeliever – by God’s grace He has given us different values and transferred us from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.
P. 191 – The conventional wisdom, with its impersonalism, cannot do justice to moral values. The world’s wisdom cannot account for the trustworthiness of reason. This inability corrupts impersonalist ideas in every field of human thought: science, philosophy, psychology, sociology, the arts, economics, business, government (DARKNESS TOWER). It corrupts practical living – after all, in a chance universe why choose (often sacrificially) moral right instead of self? Impersonalist philosophy cannot distinguish good and evil sufficiently to even raise questions and problems of evil against Christianity.
PP. 192-193 – Scripture goes on the attack against doubt and unbelief. If we are to go on the offensive against unbelief, we must know more about it (unbelief) from a Biblical viewpoint. The supposed wisdom of the unbeliever has a dominant presupposition of unbelief – he is trying his best to think and live as if the absolute personal God of Scripture does not exist. METHODOLOGY
PP. 196-197 – Why is there such amazing certainty about the theory of evolution? Why are folks so determined to keep discussions of the alternative out of public schools?
Answer: Evolution has become for many a religious presupposition, an ideal (to jeopardize it would be to lose their fundamental worldview, the whole framework upon which they rely for order and rationality). EVOLUTION predates Darwin; it has been characteristic of every non-Christian philosophy of science since Thales in the 6ᵗʰ Century. Only Christianity teaches supernatural origins.
PP. 200-201 -- The epistemological barriers between the scientist and the real world are enormous. Scientific theories tend to take on a presuppositional status. Once the theory becomes a paradigm or presupposition, it comes to govern all future research. It then becomes next to impossible to challenge the theory through scientific method. The paradigm tends to be held with tenacity like a religious dogma.
When the Christian apologist encounters the atheist side of unbelief, ask the following:
- How can you be sure or certain relativism is right when it itself rules out assurance? 2.) How can you live as a relativist? (Consider the strain rationally, emotionally, volitionally). 3.) What is the basis for your decisions? How do you evaluate your own behavior (what is fair, just, right, wrong). 4.) What is your basis for trusting logic? (your own mind). METHODOLOGY
P. 202 – Idolatrous rationalism stresses the powers of the autonomous mind rather than the limits of the mind. The unbeliever, in order to hold rigidly to his foolish worldview, will slide back and forth from rationalism to irrationalism.
PP. 205 – When challenging an agnostic (a respectable atheist) ask him why he shouldn’t “hedge his bets.” After all if he is still open to the possibility that the God of the Bible is who He says He is, then should the agnostic at least spend some portion of his time reading the Bible, praying, attending church, and evaluating his behavior by Scripture? METHODOLOGY
PP. 207-209 – “Can you prove your atheist, or agnostic presupposition to me?” “Does your conscience create right and wrong?” (No more than a policeman creates moral obligation and the laws that he enforces – neither do we in this moral universe!) No, your conscience correlates to an external standard. Reasoning itself presupposes an objective moral standard of truth. AND, an external moral standard presupposes loyalty to an absolute Person.
P. 223, 227-228 – Van Til – Humans are obligated to presuppose God in all their thinking, but according to Romans 1, humans resist this obligation in every aspect of thought and life. What criteria of truth ought our reason to acknowledge? Reason must always choose its standards, and that choice is fundamentally a religious one. By whose scales will you weigh truth? Will your criteria of truth be the world’s wisdom or God’s wisdom? METHODOLOGY
p. 229 -- One cannot argue for Christianity or anything else without making a presuppositional choice. One cannot reason without a criterion (ultimately a religious commitment). The criteria will either be Christian or non-Christian. If non-Christian, it will be self-defeating. (Van Til irritates many by saying, “One cannot prove God without presupposing Him.)
P. 230 – Romans 1 says that there is no one without God’ criterion for truth. Those who press for neutrality (or for non-Christian standards of truth) are disobedient to the revelation they have received. There are no neutral standards for truth! Reasoning on Christian criterion is persuasive because it is God’s approved way to reason. It leads to true conclusions. Romans 1 indicates that everyone is at the same level already; every man knows that such reasoning leads to truth.
P. 232 – The pagan’s problem is not that he does not know who God is; his problem is that he does not like the God who is (Rom 1). Why do people need complex arguments? Answer: They repress the truth revealed in creation – the intellectual problem is produced by the moral problem.
P. 235 – Van Til assumes that if a person begins to examine the universe without presupposing the existence of a divine lawgiver, he necessarily presupposes his own status as lawgiver. (Either God or man is autonomous.)
P. 238 – What are the assumptions necessary for life and knowledge to be possible? Van Til asks the same and answers, “The whole content of God’s revelation is such a necessary assumption.”
P. 242 – Ligonier (due to its semi-rational approach to Christian apologetics) can only prove a high degree of probability (such a high view of reason works against the truth of total depravity).