The Relevance of Presuppositions

Presuppositional considerations are relevant epistemologically. That we know anything begs the question of how we know it. So if we start there, it is empirically that we discover presuppositional options. We therefore weigh these options and from them use the one that best fits our desires - our visceral presuppositions. If we desire something to be true, we go with whatever presupposition results in that conclusion. The only exception is if our primary desire is to honestly know the Truth. This desire is given only by God and always results in the conclusion that God as revealed in Christian scriptures is the only true God.

HT: Triablogue

The Relationship Between Science and Christianity

From an ongoing discussion on the Pyromaniacs blog noting Biologos' disregard for the authority of scripture, Blogger 'one busy mom' posted a comment outlining an apt metaphor for the difference between science and the revelation of God through scripture. I have also included my first comment.

Blogger one busy mom said...

Phil: excellent post!

Jordan:
You seem to be having trouble reconciling science and faith, and although I'm the theological lightwieght here, I'm going to dive in with some suggestions. I too love science. I grew up with science. My late father was a very highly esteemed scientist in his field both in the US and abroad.

Here are some tidbits I've gleened:

We only know a small percentage of the facts that can be known & some of what we think we know we've actually misinterpretted.

Let's compare this to a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. We'll generously say we know 10% of all that can be known - so we randomly pull out 100 pieces from the box. Now, since some of what we think we know is not correctly interpretted - take 15 of those 100 pieces and replace them with random pieces from other puzzles.

Now, do your best to arrange those pieces without ever looking at the picture on the puzzle box. Then extrapolate and try to recreate the original picture. Chances are the results will be interesting, well thought out, and appear correct...but chances are even better that it won't look much like the actual picture.

As Christians, we have a huge advantage - we have the box with the picture on it: the Bible. So we can look at the current arrangement of puzzle pieces and say "nah - this part here or that over there just doesn't work".

We shouldn't get upset or defensive just because the pieces don't match the picture. Seriously, without the picture what would the odds be of it ever matching? Nor should we be so foolish as to throw out the picture cuz it didn't match the current arrangement of the pieces! (As BioLogos appears to be willing to do) Instead, we should get really excited when the pieces and the picture differ- that's where discoveries are waiting to be made!

Once, when looking over some of my dad's many patents, I asked him how he knew where to look to make new discoveries. He said that was really "the million dollar question" for any scientist, but the best place to start was where there were discrepancies - where things didn't add up.

God says to prove Him, and see if He's true. He will never be found to be a liar. As believers, we need to trust that He meant what He said, take His Word literally, and have the courage to rearrange the puzzle pieces to fit the picture - not vice versa. Because of the nature of some of the areas of discrepency, I'm firmly convinced some of the most dramatic discoveries have yet to be made: but they won't be made by those who already believe they have the answers.

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Blogger Jim Pemberton said...

one busy mom: very cogent metaphor, apt and true.

And I agree with with the following comments explaining the foundational nature of Biblical truth. It's what is often misunderstood, overlooked, or intentionally skewed in these discussions.

Mike correctly pointed to the definition of science as being rather vague and oft unaddressed for clarity. To be sure, inasmuch as we think about who God is we may be generally classified as theologians. Likewise, inasmuch as we observe the observable world around us and make predictable assumptions based on the consistent properties that we see we can all be generally classified as scientists.

However, there is are classifications of theologians and ministers who are defined as those who are particularly studied and interact with communities of other such theologians and ministers. Likewise, there are classifications of scientists and engineers who are particularly studied and interact with communities of other scientists and engineers.

It's the distinctions between schools of presuppositional thought that are often at the heart of disagreement or even discredit between communities of scientists. So if we talk about what science is "valid" we get a different answer based on what community we use as our basis for scientific thinking. As it is, the naturalists happen to have the upper hand in popularity by virtue of their proliferation on the staffs of many schools and universities. So non-naturalistic science tends to be dismissed by most scientists as invalid, not because it's not science, but because it's not naturalistic.

BioLogos seems to have bought the naturalistic party line and are using it's presuppositions for defining what science is "valid". But orthodox Christian presuppositions are decidedly not naturalistic. Therefore science that uses the same presuppositions as orthodox Christianity looks different than naturalistic science. Naturalistic science cannot be reconciled with Christian orthodoxy. But there is a science that is integral to Christian orthodoxy.

Christian Apologetics – The Necessity of Christ

Why was Christ necessary? The question might seem simple enough. Most Protestants might answer that we couldn’t save ourselves from our sins so he had to come to save us. The Romanist view differs in that Christ had to come to pay part and we had to pay part. Less-thoughtful Protestants and Catholics don’t have a clue why he was necessary. Really, it's the truth. Thoughtful Protestants might give a more refined view along the lines of Systematic Theology and penal substitution.

Van Til’s section on Christology starting on page 46 would seem to place him squarely in the Systematic Theology camp. This isn’t bad. He even integrates it with theological anthropology seamlessly within the context of presuppositional apologetics. That is to say that he points to Christ as Prophet, Priest and King where willful man assumes the role of prophet, priest and king for himself.

But one wonders presuppositionally whether the necessity of Christ is primarily due to man’s sin. In other words, was Van Til an infralapsarian? For the supralapsarian, God’s elect was part of the design of his creation. The infralapsarian holds that God’s election was made after the fall and therefore was not part of the original design of history.

So then if God’s election was infralapsarian, then Christ was necessary primarily for salvation. If God’s election was supralapsarian, then Christ’s work of salvation for the elect is necessary primarily as a revelation of God. That’s not to say that it wasn’t important for the salvation of the elect, for the necessity of Christ as a full revelation of the Father must entail the central point of his visible work – and indeed be the central revelation. Christ came to save the elect by design of all creation as the pinnacle of the revelation of the Creator.

For the record, I’m supralapsarian. Perhaps I’ll get into what the gospel of Christ reveals to us about God in some later article. The fact that Van Til doesn’t go into this here doesn’t really say anything about his -lapsarian views, but this is all about what I get out of reading Van Til rather than being a full exposé of what Van Til wrote here.

Christian Apologetics – Sin and Free Will

Van Til uses a term here that is explicitly descriptive rather than using the more nebulous term “free will”. He uses it in the section The Fall of Man on page 42. In this section, he investigates the substance of the fall. In other words, he addresses the question: in what manner was man disobedient to God at the moment of the fall? His answer:

“Man made for himself a false idea of knowledge, the ideal of absolute inderivative comprehension. This he could never have done if he had continued to recognize that he was a creature. It is totally inconsistent with the idea of creatureliness that man should strive for comprehensive knowledge; if it could be attained, it would wipe God out of existence; man would then be God. And, as we shall see later, because man sought this unattainable ideal, he brought upon himself no end of woe.”

The term I mentioned above as found in this quote is “absolute inderivative comprehension.” For will is founded on knowledge. Will is only free where knowledge is complete. The footnotes provided by editor William Edgar on this term reads thus:

“In Van Til’s terminology, ‘comprehensive knowledge’ means exhaustive knowledge. ‘Absolute’ and ‘inderivative’ mean autonomous, without recognition of creaturely dependence upon the Creator”

The way that I have quickly described it in debating Reformed theology is that there is nothing we know outside of God’s created order. God, being the Creator, has knowledge outside his created order. The word “inderivative” here means that knowledge that is outside of the created order. This is knowledge that is required for us to make decisions autonomously. As it is, even the knowledge we have is not exhaustive of everything IN the created order. While we can claim to make somewhat informed decisions, we cannot claim fully informed decisions.

Talk like this could lead to a huge debate where those Christian brothers and sisters who hold to a non-reformed theology would think that I’m questioning their salvation for believing that they have free will over God’s sovereignty. I assure you that’s not the case. There is a difference between the academic proposition of libertarian free will and the functional rebellion of exerting what doesn’t exist. In other words, many who believe that they can make decisions using knowledge God didn’t give them aren’t necessarily practicing it to their spiritual death by doing so. Rather, the unconscious illusion of libertarian free will results in the sin of conscious desires that counter God’s clear commands. This in turn results in behavioral disobedience. But one can easily consciously hold the illusion of libertarian free will to be true and yet be submissive to God in intentional practice.

So then, the sin of the fall being the illusion of libertarian free will, or “absolute inderivative comprehension”, foremost establishes presuppositional error. This is why Presuppositional Apologetics is historically aligned with Reformed Theology.

Christian Apologetics - The Presuppositional Nature of Evangelism

In my understanding of presuppositional apologetics so far, one of the lynchpin tactics is to challenge the presuppositions of the non-Christian and demonstrate first that they are borrowed from Christian presuppositions and second that without Christian presuppositions their conclusions cannot stand.

This applies particularly well to morality and Van Til discusses it briefly in the section on ethics. From page 37:

“There is no alternative to the Christian view of the will of God as ultimate but the idea of man’s moral consciousness itself as being ultimate… It is therefore the business of Christian apologetics to challenge the non-Christian view of morality and to show that unless the will of God be taken as ultimate, there is no meaning to moral distinctions.”

On a fundamental level, this is what happens in true evangelism. The non-Christian will always detect that he is internally conflicted with regard to his own state of morality. There will be some agreement that some “natural law” exists from which to derive moral judgments. However, it is a matter of submitting to the truth that any morality so held as true has been transgressed by the one holding it true. The conflict comes from self-justification for such transgressions. Why self-justify if man is his own moral arbiter?

So the evangelist presents the gospel as our need for salvation in the justification of Christ on the cross. Only the gospel of grace so places morality ultimately on the nature of God’s will. True submission to this truth and trust in God’s grace requires the recognition of God as the natural creator and arbiter of morality.

Therefore, evangelism is the highest practice of presuppositional apologetics and such draws its strength directly from the gospel of grace.

And I bet you thought that all this Christian philosophy and apologetical musing was merely academic.

Christian Apologetics - Logic of God

I was glad to read this from Van Til (page 33):

“Romanism assumes that God and man stand in exactly the same sort of relation to the law of contradiction. To think and know truly, it is assumed, both must think in accordance with that law as an abstract from the nature of either. …Hence man’s dealings in the realm of truth are not ultimately with God but with an abstraction that stands above God, with Truth as such.”

He goes into detail with regards to the implications of this for various theological, apologetical and philosophical thinking. I’ve written about this before.

In short, God’s logic is not altogether other than our own capacity for reason. However, his logic is transcendently foundational to our capacity to reason. To sum up what I’ve written, we temporal creatures require the law of contradiction (aka bivalent logic) to reason. That is, we need conceptual contrast to perceive, apprehend and cognitively process an idea. God, however, being eternal, has the law of identity as central to his nature. That means that there can be nothing eternal against which to compare God.

This is why existentialism and its philosophical kin are not viable philosophical systems and why we must move from the error of projecting bivalent logic onto our understanding of God’s knowledge. We must approach an understanding of God’s nature using bivalent logic because that’s the tool that God gave us to use, but God himself is beyond that logic in his sovereign thinking. And as simple as this truth seems, it appears that most people miss it altogether. It’s nice to see that Van Til recognizes it and handles it appropriately.

Christian Apologetics - Revelation in the Trinity

In the first chapter of Christian Apologetics, Van Til outlines the basics of Christian theological studies from a Reformed perspective. Being Reformed soteriologically, I agree with him. As such I agree with his orthodox understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. The only reason I mention this is to discuss an item or two that Van Til doesn’t discuss.

One item is a hermeneutical issue. I wrote an article on this recently where I pointed out the flaw in a principle of hermeneutics used by many preachers. That is that the more something is mentioned, the more important it is. Well, since the doctrine of the Trinity is never explicitly mentioned, then by this principle we must conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity must not be very important. Either that or the hermeneutic principle is flawed.

The fact that the doctrine is integral to the nature of God and foundational in the biblical authors’ thinking, albeit not explicitly handled as a whole, indicates that this is a substantial doctrine, with regard to the revelation of God in particular. That is to say that a fundamental aspect of the deity of Christ is the visible representation of God. The primary work of the Holy Spirit is the life-giving revelation of Truth.

In this, the doctrine of the Trinity is important to apologetical thinking. No matter what method we use or purpose we have for the defense of our faith, we must consider the person of Christ and his work among us as the centermost evidence and the Holy Spirit and his work in us as the centermost presupposition, both bearing the vision of the Father and the fulfillment of his will.

Oh that I could leave off right there with that jewel of an observation. However, I have one more:

The thing that bothers me most about the doctrine of the Trinity, which isn’t that big of a deal, is the lack of analogy in the created world. Every aspect of creation bears some analogy to the nature of God in one way or another. This is the only part of God’s nature that apparently lacks a true analogy in what we know of the universe. The closest one I can think of is in quantum mechanics where extreme temporal displacement gives emitted subatomic entities both the nature of a particle as well as the nature of a wave. Both natures contain the same substance and are manifest in a single temporal frame of reference either nature at any given moment. Well, there are only two natures here that I know of.

Yet this isn’t a perfect analogy as such. So there goes my theory that every aspect of God is represented analogously in creation. How much more of God is there that we know nothing of? I can’t wait to find out!

But inasmuch as the analogies of God as evidence of his hand are infused in every aspect of creation, so we are given a wealth of evidence to present alongside any otherwise good presuppositional line of argumentation.

Christian Apologetics – The Existence of God

I discussed briefly in my first article the existence of God. Van Til put forth in his discussion of Systematic Theology that Theology seeks to answer two fundamental questions. First, does God exist? And second, what sort of God is he?

Now it would seem that Van Til is following the existentialist trap here. However he goes on to state that we must first know what sort of God he is before we can meaningfully discuss whether he exists or not. This is a great statement and is an indication to the purposeful approach Van Til presents here.

There is further evidence that he has considered the difference between the logical presuppositions and the epistemological or pedagogical presuppositions. In his discussion of the knowledge of God on page 26 he observes the historic debate between Lutherans and Calvinists whether "one should reason" from experience of God back to the nature of God or start with the nature of God and derive the Christian experience.

Regardless, God is eternal and we are temporal. I've written about this before. The essence of God goes far beyond merely a description of what kind of God he is. It's certainly true that we cannot discuss the existence of God without agreeing on the nature of God. However, an understanding of the nature of God can only be discussed among us in temporal terms.

In this vein, Van Til discusses whether God’s knowledge is analytical or synthetical. (These are two categories from Bloom’s Taxonomy. To analyze is to take a unified concept and break it apart into sub-categorical observations. To synthesize is to take observations as premises and conclude a unified concept.) Largely, the use of either word is merely semantic because the meaning is a matter of perspective. God is absolute and our understanding of him is not. God’s essence is absolute and absolutely unified. To understand him temporally, we must analyze God. To approach an eternal understanding of him, we must take what we know observationally and synthesize an understanding of his unified character.

Parenthetically, by the use of the term "unified concept" I don't mean to imply that God is in some way impersonal. Rather, I mean that God's eternal essence does not subsist as a multiplex of distinct items of knowledge but as a single concept that consists of the unification of all the qualities we can attribute to God. So I also use the phrase "unified character." Van Til uses the expression "a single internal act of intuition" on page 27 to indicate the same thing and spends much of his discourse on theology up to this point expounding on this. I would say that while he uses different words to say it, Van Til is explicit enough about this and we agree in general.

The philosophical lie that has permeated the thinking of fallen creation is that existence is preeminent. That is to say that the manifest analysis of God is preeminent and the synthesis of a unified understanding is subjective. To be sure, we fall short of a true understanding because our synthesis will be flawed until such a time as our knowledge is made whole. But to presuppose that the unified concept of God is not preeminent because our synthesis to know him is flawed is fallacious.

Rather, the unified concept of God is preeminent to his existence and our attempt to understand him is merely tertiary. The subsequent charge that it’s circular reasoning is therefore flawed. The primary human knowledge of God is organic in such a way as a baby knows its mother. Only as we mature do we learn more of God as the child learns more of his mother as he grows up. There may be more on this later, but I'll stop there because the text doesn't warrant a discussion of it yet.

Christian Apologetics – Van Til’s Categorization

Intelligence is the capacity to understand and evaluate categories of information and recategorize it meaningfully. That’s my definition and I suggest it’s a more helpful definition than the one in the dictionary for thinking epistemologically. That is, we categorize information because we have a general level of intelligence as human beings.

Take M and M’s for example. You can categorize them in two groups: Plain or With Nuts. Now that might be helpful with regard to a taste preference, but perhaps you find it more helpful to categorize them by color. You can have perhaps yellow, blue, green, orange, brown and red. Well, if you need both sets of categorizations you can sort them two-dimensionally where each color would also have a Plain or With Nuts subcategory. But the Mars company has a need to create an ongoing category list that we are unfamiliar with. They categorize by lot number. This is practical from a manufacturing standpoint but most of us never think of that categorization.

I gave a system of categorization of theological thought in my first article in this series. The system of categorization I typically employ helps establish relationships of logical dependency between categories. This is useful for presuppositional thinking.

Van Til, in the first chapter under the heading “Theological Encyclopedia”, gives a different system for the categorization of theological thought. His system seems to be based on the departments in a seminary and are subsequently more pedagogical in the relationships between them. His army analogy is helpful for understanding how these different categories work together. His system may be more practical than mine for actually formulating a debate tactic and the purposes he gives seem to be limited to this area of practicality. I wonder how he will use his system in a discourse of presuppositional apologetics.

As it is, his system uses the following categories:

1. Biblical department: Old Testament
2. Biblical department: New Testament

Both of these, he observes gives “a defense as well as a positive statement of the truth.”

3. The Apologetic deparment

Here he observes that apologetics cannot be left solely to the Apologetic department, but the Biblical departments must also give their defense because “the specific truths of Christianity must be defended once they are stated.”

4. Systematic Theology (he stops using the word “department” here for some reason)

This categorizes the rest of the departments into an “organic whole”

5. Church History

This gives us insight into how the “preaching of the Word has fared throughout the centuries.” I observe that this is one area that’s not explicitly covered in my categorization scheme. This is precisely because I hold church history pretty low in my estimation of Christian theology. It’s helpful for hermeneutical consideration as well as for understanding some arguments of challengers to the faith, but too many have gotten too much too wrong too often in the history of the Church. Well, that’s helpful for determining what not to do, but too often the temptation is to overreact into similar error. For example, overreaction to the effects of hierarchical apostasy often generates small-group legalism or unbalanced teaching like snake-handling or utter separatism, such as unchecked by ecclesiological accountability.

Do any of you have a system of categorization of theological thought?

Christian Apologetics - The Purpose Informs the Method

I’m reading Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til Edited by William Edgar, the Second Edition.

I hadn’t planned on commenting on the introduction by William Edgar, but I suppose I will. This paragraph from pages 4 and 5 caught my attention. Referring to Van Til Edgar writes:

“What he did not hold is that apologetic arguments in themselves could drive someone from skepticism to faith. Not only is our reasoning often faulty, because it is self-interested and sinful (the “noetic effects” of sin), but if God is transcendent, no argument could hope to substantiate him that does not include his authority and compelling power to begin with... For Van Til… there could never be isolated self-evident arguments or brute facts, because everything comes in a framework. That is why he calls his approach the “indirect method.” One cannot go directly to the facts, as thought they were self-evident. First one must recognize the foundation and go on from there.”

In this statement, there seems to be some indication that Van Til understood that formulating a method of apologetic argumentation required an understanding of purpose. There is a point at which human psychology must be taken into consideration when thinking epistemologically toward communicating understanding. That is to say that the absorption of information requires ideal psychological conditions, both internally and externally. The one communicating has some control over the external environment and means of communication.

There are internal factors that simply cannot be persuaded. What’s missing in this quote is mention of the fact that the Holy Spirit is the key to Christian enlightenment. No communicator of the gospel, or its defense, can control the spiritual state of a person. On some fundamental level the facts can be presented, arguments made, but it is a person’s desire for truth above self-justification that will make the message palatable, and this desire can only be given by God.

Edgar mentions “facts” here. Van Til it seems has a very specific definition of “facts” he uses. I may get into this more in the first chapter, but he essentially links “facts” with empirical discovery. I draw a bone of contention here in that people often start young in the faith as mere experientialists in that they experience God personally as well as through the normalization of fellowship with other Christians. Their faith is bolstered by teaching them the foundational things and giving them greater support for the certainty of the gospel to sustain them during times of experiential drought. This is what I observe, but this isn’t what Edgar seems to be saying Van Til holds. So I’ll be looking for what Van Til says about this in the main part of the book.

Christian Apologetics

Apologetics is the intellectual activity of giving a defense of one's faith. Peter writes that we should be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you“. I've written before on the role of apologetics as logically foundational to understanding and applying the Bible.

Apologetics is logically foundational to the principles of hermeneutics by which we can glean truth from the scriptures and apply the Bible. So the role of apologetics is intrinsically presuppositional. But on what level?

I've also written that we do not come to faith because we first understand apologetics, but rather that God gives us spiritual life by which we see the truth experientially and come to faith. Only afterward do we delve into the true rationality of scripture.

So apologetics is presuppositional rationally. With regard to faith, I agree with Christ when he told Nicodemus that we speak what we know. I married my wife not knowing the whole apologetic of her life. I could say that I knew her and had an intimate relationship with her. However, I didn't know everything, did I? I've learned much more about what makes her tick since we've been married. I could give an account of my love for her in the early days, but it is nothing compared to the account of love that I could give for her now. Our identities are intertwined and learning more about her formative influences only establishes our relationship more firmly.

Is the account of love that I could give for my wife in the early days any less of an apologetic than the account I can give now? Hardly, for I would have no apologetic now were it not for the early days and there would be no early days were it not for that first apologetic.

Likewise with God.

I read scholars who discuss apologetics, but fail to evaluate an apologetic with regard to its formative purposes or usefulness. Therefore, I must conclude that true apologetics can't happen in an intellectual vacuum. Once they are sealed against any personal context, they cease to be apologetical.

So, I come up with a remedial understanding of apologetics which involve the Types or Methods of Apologetics and the Purposes for Apologetics, to whit:

Types or Methods of Apologetics

Types or Methods of Apologetics refer to the logical approach to doing apologetics, whether for developing a system of preliminary thought or developing a dialectical interchange for whatever purpose. These types include Classical Apologetics, Evidential Apologetics, Presuppositional Apologetics, Theological apologetics and Spiritual Apologetics.

Classical Apologetics – This involves considerations regarding the “proofs for the existence of God” that have been around now for centuries. It includes such as the cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments. This type of apologetics is very philosophical. Typically no wise debater building a case for God builds his line of argumentation solely on the basis of classical apologetics. For Christians, we must also demonstrate the veracity of Christian theology. God appealed to what we would today consider classical apologetics when he told Moses to tell the people, “I AM that I AM. Tell the people I AM sent you.”

Evidential Apologetics – Based on the classical teleological argument for God (argument from design), this takes empirical observations about the world around us and uses them logically to evaluate theological statements. This is most often used to test the veracity of the Bible and the hermeneutical principles used to understand the bible as well as to demonstrate the usefulness of theistic presuppositions in scientific analysis over and against those of naturalism. God used evidential apologetics throughout the Bible where he lists the things he's done in order to encourage people to faith.

Presuppositional Apologetics – It's invaluable to understand that the other two types of apologetics are irrelevant without holding Christian presuppositions true. In fact, no other set of philosophical presuppositions are intrinsically coherent for no other reason than they aren't true. Only the truth is ultimately coherent. Therefore, the method of presuppositional apologetics often involves demonstrating the incoherence of false presuppositions. The method of presuppositional apologetics differs in the Biblical accounts. The typical presuppositional method in the Bible is to use elements of the presupposition of the intended audience that are true to build other true presuppositions on rather than to immediately tear down their false presuppositions. John does this in the first chapter of his gospel when he appeals to the philosophical debate of his day regarding the nature of the logos of God. Paul does this when he goes to Athens in his sermon on Mars Hill. Additionally, Paul uses the same methodology when he writes to churches understanding that people in the process of sanctification do not have fully formed sets of Christian presuppositions.

Theological Apologetics – I've included the category of Theological Apologetics where people of different religions or even different schools of thought within a religion debate particular points of theology without particular mention of regard to any other type or method of apologetics. This can cause problems where debaters miss the meaning of their opponents' discourses when they fail to realize different presuppositional positions. It often produces debate that is haphazard and unfulfilling. In this case, any good fruit that is borne is done so due to the grace of God and of no particular merit to the debaters. However, there is enough fruitful debate and as such God must be glorified that he continues to work in his people to build them and to edify them despite our silly squabblings. Paul and other NT writers often engage in theological discourse, following Christ's example, where they make good reference to the Old Testament writings. There is the common presupposition that they are true.

Spiritual Apologetics – Christ often used an uncanny wisdom to address spiritual shortcomings in the people who came to him with questions. His typical discourse makes appeals to truths that we know by spiritual revelation outside of observational evidences or intellectual presuppositions. The one intended to receive wisdom may or may not be the one he addressed, but it seems he always intended to impact the observing audience. The result is to force a decision based on a known truth exposed as having been suppressed in the presuppositional complex of the individual listener.

Purposes of Apologetics

So we can begin to see that there are different purposes for apologetics. Some of the purposes of apologetics are Academic, Evangelistic and Sanctifying. I could add a fourth category called “Theological”, but Theological Apologetics tends to have multiple purposes and some methodologies and typological characteristics that are unique from other types and methods, so the category properly belongs in the Types or Methods section.

Academic Purpose – The comment I often hear regarding the deeper things of scripture is, “Of what spiritual good is it really?” On the surface, the argument is pragmatic. For a God who is extravagant in his creative prowess and provision, how can we boil necessary truth down to only that which is immediately useful? It's a silly argument. The challenge is made by opponents to Christianity that Christianity rationally breaks down at a certain point. Academic apologetics is necessary to demonstrate that Christianity is indeed rational. In fact, nothing is rational outside of the Creator of reason and any reason used to dispute Christianity is using reason borrowed from the Creator himself. It is a matter of desiring God enough to want to know more about him that Christians pursue apologetics for no other reason.

Evangelistic Purpose – The fulfillment of the Great Commission consists of more than simply speaking the gospel. Christ admonishes us to make disciples. The evangelistic process starts before conversion where information regarding the gospel message is offered and some apologetic method is used. Where the one being evangelized is made alive by the Holy Spirit the truth is made certain to them and they realize their salvation in Christ. This is the role of apologetics in evangelism.

Sanctifying Purpose – Believers are often challenged with feelings of doubt. Knowing intellectually that our God is true sustains us in the times where we are challenged. God allows these times for the reason of building us up in his strength. Also, if we were to know everything about God and about our depravity, we would be undone and the message of grace would be thwarted. So as our sins are mortified our knowledge and understanding of God is increased. Each drives the other and works together to make us more holy like sinking cold air and rising hot air drive each other to generate a twister.

There are a couple of other areas I'd like to comment on briefly: The Nature of Truth and the Existence of God.

Nature of Truth

Facts are true, but facts themselves do not comprise Truth itself. Truth is absolute because God is absolute and Truth is the nature of God. Truth is the foundation for facts. While we handle facts with such as logic or reason, Truth is essentially the will of God. Therefore, for us there is no Truth without submission to God's will.

Existence of God

I've been listening to a debate from 1985 between Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen and Dr. Gordon S. Stein about the existence of God. The biggest issue I have with such a debate is that it presupposes that the existence of God is foundational to God. Remember the philosophy of existentialism, that existence precedes essence or substance? It's at least erroneous if not entirely backwards. I challenge that essence or substance precedes existence. The debate I've heard so far has been fairly well waged, but the premise of the debate falls on the same bad ground that grows such philosophical weeds as naturalism and postmodernism.

Studying Cornelius Van Til's Apologetics

I heard about this larger debate between scholars of Reformed Presuppositional Apologetics as to whether God is comprehensible to us or not. The players are Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark – and their students apparently. I was initially interested in this because of an old debate I had with a guy who insisted that the Christian faith is blind. The fact that he was a fellow church member alarmed me and I insisted that although the scripture said we walk by faith and not by sight, our faith was a matter of spiritual sight and we don't truly follow God without his revelation to us. I learned that there was more to this debate than that and have endeavored to dig deeper. So, I have a few books and this debate to listen to.

I had thought to post a summary after having read these books and perhaps a few others. However, having read the first chapter, I see much to comment on as I go along. So, perhaps this will be the start of a series. Given my track record with series, I can't promise I'll finish. But I don't have a whole lot going on right now, so it seems like a worthy endeavor.

Thus, I have produced this post summarizing my thinking on Apologetics. I have written this exclusively from my own thinking without reference to any other source (except the scripture quote) so you can see what is in my mind to begin with. This is the presuppositional ground that I start with as I read. I may change my mind on what I have written, but if you have a desire to follow this journey with me, then hang on for as long as I post about this and we'll see where this leads.

Of Rocks and Grass - The Hitchens/Craig Debate

There was a recent debate between atheist apologist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist William Lane Craig. There are so many bits being spilled in the blogosphere on this debate that I'm not going to bother trying to link to any of them. Try searching this, this and this for starters. I only want to focus on one point. Namely, that Hitchens admitted that his contention against the existence of God is that if there were a God we wouldn't be free.

He then attempted to approach Craig on logical terms, but was barely able to mount answers to the excellent cosmological foundation Craig laid from the beginning for framing the debate.

But I consider it hopefully honest of Hitchens to admit such a illogical primary reason for denying the existence of God. to whit:

Regarding freedom, what comes to mind is the belly of a slave ship where a slave in shackles might deny the existence of the slave trader because that would mean that he were a slave. I'm sure I could point to a half-dozen fallacies that could sum up this rationale:

"I want to be morally free. Therefore, there is no superior entity that can hold me to any moral obligation."

It's a ridiculous argument, but I would guess that it is true of most who deny God. Interestingly, what is also true is that most of the same people who hold this as true would argue for some morality not based on God. They want their own moral rules to hold sway over the world. Hitchens astonishingly did just this in the debate arguing that atheists were more moral than theists.

Hitchens also said that if theism were true, he'd be depressed. So he should thank God for keeping him ignorant of the truth so his short life in this world is happier? I would rather know the hard truth than live in blissful ignorance.

Craig's side of the debate was won in the opening comments. It seemed that he spent the rest of the debate sweeping off the verbal grass Hitchens kept throwing at his rock solid position.

Random Thoughts

I’ve been slammed with projects lately and haven’t had time to post much. I’ll give you a run down of some of my latest disjointed thoughts and musings.

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It occurred to me that materialism is necessarily deterministic. Then, I realized that unless God is not the creator of all things or He is not omniscient or He is not omnipotent, then all things are ultimately determined by Him. However, materialistic determinism is physical and existential. Therefore, unless God created a physical universe where the laws of physics are always constant, then metaphysical principles, which precede and define the physical, at least occasionally override physical laws thus making materialistic determinism an impossible proposition.

In this same vein, if the human will is limited to mere neurological activity then our minds are products of materialistic determinism. It is true that nothing informs our decisions that are outside of God’s created order. But this created order includes that which is spiritual. Inasmuch as the spiritual is metaphysical, then we are agents of metaphysical manipulation of physical existence. That doesn’t mean that we can go about breaking the laws of physics on our own, but rather that the animation of our bodies is a product of something greater than the mere chemical and electric impulses found in our nervous system.

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I’ve come to realize that DNA is arranged to store and convey information, much like a language. The two differ in one astonishing regard. Language requires an external common frame of reference for the purpose of communication. If I write using the Phoenician alphabet with the understanding that most people in this world don’t know Phoenician, then I can expect that most people will not be able to understand what I’ve written. However, if I write in English, there are dictionaries all over the place to fix the common frame of reference. If you don’t understand a word, then you can look it up. If you understand the word order and usage of at least most of the words, then you can understand my intended meaning. If I write the word “branch”, you have the experiences of trees, streams of water or genealogical lines associated with that word.

The language of DNA is different because it does not exist for the purpose of communication. It exists for the purpose of defining and building biological morphologies. The astonishing thing is that you can define a biological morphology in any language you want. You can invent your own language for the express purpose of defining all the morphological possibilities of an organism or its genetic family. It’s useless unless you have a frame of reference with which to translate the definition from the language into an actual functioning morphology. The astonishing part is that the language of DNA is self-referencing. Within the language and definition is the information required to perform the translation. The breadth of this capacity exceeds that of, say, the Rosetta Stone by several orders of magnitude.

DNA is more than mere information. Necessary for its function is an understanding of quantum and macroscopic physics since the DNA itself functions on the quantum level and defines organisms that function macroscopically.

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I’ve often contemplated the benefits and drawbacks of evidential and presuppositional apologetics. Although presuppositional apologetics is compelling if you understand it, evidential apologetics is better understood by the average person. There is yet a third way, and I haven’t named it yet. Its intent is evangelism where the truth is espoused. Either the Holy Spirit quickens people to understand or He doesn’t. In those who He quickens the truth will resonate.

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Perhaps when I get through some of these projects, I’ll be able to finish a thought. Until then, you’ll probably see more of these partial thoughts here. Keep my church in your prayers. Missions have been sporadic throughout this year with teams having been to China, Costa Rica and the near East recently. We have people and teams preparing for China, Nepal, London, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Four Corners, etc. We are excited about what God is doing, but it is a lot of work and requires much prayer…

So pray!

The Importnce of Apologetics to Evangelism

So, in other obscure articles, I find two interesting articles about how Muslims should "evangelize" Jews and Christians and how Christians should evangelize Muslims. The first is from Ibnabeeomar at muslimmatters.org. For those tempted to paint all Muslims with a broad brush, there are different sects and approaches to Islam among Muslims, just like there are among Christians and Jews. This is the advice from one Muslim on how to share the message of Islam. Follow the link to read the whole article. Here are a few key quotes from the article:

"Before initiating a dialogue with the People of the Book, Muslims must first familiarize themselves with who they are, and their history."

"Muslims must learn the message that was given to the People of Scripture and how they responded to it. This is essential to understanding why we need to have dialogue with them in the first place. "

"The People of the Book are the Jews and Christians entrusted with the previous revelation,"

"The covenant Allah took from them is the same as the message of Islam"

"Instead of holding steadfast to this covenant though, the People of the Book broke it and committed crimes against what Allah entrusted them with."

"Their greatest transgression committed by The People of the Book was the crime of shirk. They claimed that Allah was a part of a Trinity and that He had taken a son, thus disbelieving in the message sent to them."

"The sincerity held by the pious amongst them must be recognized. These qualities are mentioned to show their nearness to the message that Muslims must invite them to. By reminding them of their positive qualities, it eases taking the next step into accepting the message."

"The People of the Book work to mislead and deceive the believers. They do this because they will not be pleased until everyone else follows their way of life,"

"The Muslims though, view the People of the Book with balance and respect... Allah Subhaanahu Wa Ta’aala commands the believers to have good manners with them and to call them with the best of argument and dialogue."

"Dialogue starts by asking them to come to a statement that should be an issue of commonality between both parties, worshipping Allah alone without any partner. This is also a commandment given in the Bible."

"As the believers start this dialogue, it is expected for the People of the Book to respond as well. Allah Subhaanahu Wa Ta’aala has given instruction on how to respond to their assertions. The believers are not only given the responses, but also commanded to stop after conveying the message."

"They will find ways to criticize the believers for following the Message sent to them."

"As with any debate and discussion, Muslims are commanded not only to defend themselves against accusations, but to be on the offensive in their dialogue as well."

"Once the dialogue is finished, a conclusion must be reached. For the believers, it requires understanding the responses of the People of the Book in light of their past history... They differ despite the clear evidences conveyed to them... This behavior is not new, but is something that has been manifest numerous times. The primary example of this is their rejecting and covering up the prophecies of the Prophet [Jesus] Sal Allahu ‘alayhi was-Sallam in their own Scripture... Unfortunately, not all immediately recognize the truth, and someone engaged in dialogue with them must always be prepared for this... It is up to them to choose the path of success."

The second article is from John Piper at Desiring God.

There are as many answers to this question as there are ways to do good and not wrong. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10). “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Here are some things that, it seems to me, need to be emphasized in our day.

1. Pray the fullest blessing of Christ on them whether they love you or not.
2. Do good to them in practical ways that meet physical needs.
3. Do not retaliate when personally wronged.
4. Live peaceably with them as much as it depends on you.
5. Pursue their joyful freedom from sin and from condemnation by telling them the truth of Christ.
6. Earnestly desire that they join you in heaven with the Father by showing them the way, Jesus Christ.
7. Seek to comprehend the meaning of what they say, so that your affirmations or criticisms are based on true understanding, not distortion or caricature.
8. Warn them with tears that those who do not receive Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Savior who takes away the sins of the world will perish under the wrath of God.
9. Don’t mislead them or give them false hope by saying, “Muslims worship the true God.”

Don't let the similarities lead you to commit the logical fallacy that would make you believe that we're all just alike. There are similarities, but it is important to be able to understand what is true and what is not. This is why sound apologetics like we hear from Voddie Baucham in my last post are so important. It's not that we look for whatever visceral reason we can or that we are merely trying to justify belief in a "magic man" as I've seen so many atheists say, but that many have come who earnestly desire to know what is true. In the discovery of truth, one apologetic stands out among all others as being marked by our Creator as His Truth. Go back and listen to Dr. Baucham and get a primer on the certainty of our faith.

Voddie Baucham on the Veracity of the Bible

Voddie Baucham is well known for his Christian messages building up families. This video is from the 2005 SBC Pastor's conference in Nashville, TN. This is a talk he gave where he preached from I Peter and gave an interesting and understandable apologetic for the Bible.

Apologetics - Gospel Authorship

Despite the textual critics, there's plenty of well-known evidence for the authorship of the gospels. Here is some lesser-known evidence for the authorship of the gospels I found on Triablogue offered by Jason Engwer:

Some Lesser Known Evidence Relevant To Gospel Authorship (Part 1)
Some Lesser Known Evidence Relevant To Gospel Authorship (Part 2)
Some Lesser Known Evidence Relevant To Gospel Authorship (Part 3)
Some Lesser Known Evidence Relevant To Gospel Authorship (Part 4)

A Good Philosophy for Christian Apologetical Debate

A Good Philosophy for Christian Apologetical Debate

Apologetics is not for the faint-hearted, the weak-minded or the thin-skinned. Perhaps this is why so few choose to engage in apologetical debate. When one forms a worldview and displays it openly on the block for all to see, one can expect it to be challenged with the coldness of exceptional erudition. Occasionally, those who stop to observe the debate may wring tender hands and beg the mental carnage to stop. Steve Hays answered one such yesterday at Triablogue and finished by expounding on a good well-balanced philosophy for engaging in the academic art of apologetical debate.

You can read his post here:

Hecklers for humanism

It's in the Code

I've been coding some new tools for work so my mind is filled with an unspeakable language. Don't believe me? Despite the apparent words, you can't verbalize the punctuated syntax. Try reading this aloud:

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim currentField As String
Dim currentRow As String()
File1Index = 0
OpenFileDialog1.ShowDialog()
PathFile1 = OpenFileDialog1.FileName
Using MyReader As New Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.TextFieldParser(PathFile1)
MyReader.TextFieldType = FileIO.FieldType.Delimited
MyReader.SetDelimiters(",")
While Not MyReader.EndOfData
Try
currentRow = MyReader.ReadFields()
File1Index = File1Index + 1
LineIndex = 0
For Each currentField In currentRow
LineIndex = LineIndex + 1
If File1Index = 1 Then
Select Case currentField
Case Is = "PartQty"
PQIndex = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartMat"
PMIndex = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartRemark"
PRemIndex = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartRemark2"
PRem2Index = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartRemark3"
PRem3Index = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartRef"
PRefIndex = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartL"
PLIndex = LineIndex
Case Is = "PartW"
PWIndex = LineIndex
End Select
Else
Select Case LineIndex
Case Is = PQIndex
PartQty(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PMIndex
PartMat(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PRemIndex
PartRemark(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PRem2Index
PartRemark2(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PRem3Index
PartRemark3(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PRefIndex
PartRef(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PLIndex
PartL(File1Index) = currentField
Case Is = PWIndex
PartW(File1Index) = currentField
End Select
End If
Label1.Text = currentField
Next
Catch ex As Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.MalformedLineException
MsgBox("Line " & ex.Message & "is not valid and will be skipped.")
End Try
End While
End Using
End Sub

Ok. It's not supposed to wrap, but you get the idea. And this is Visual Basic, so it's easier to read. It makes the tower of Babel seem like it must have been a cake walk.

This is rather simple code. More complex programming can have millions of lines of code. And we have yet to create a program as complex as the simplest self-reproducible genetic code with all of the code for the molecular machinery required for self-reproduction that would have had to be in place in order for the first molecular machinery to be made. (Oops! That's kinda circular, isn't it?) And to think, it all happened by accident. (Mff. Let me get my tongue out of my cheek.)

You know, I'm still debugging my simple program. I wonder how the first genetic code that happened on "accident" was able to debug itself...

The use of Occam's Razor to Support Naturalism

I recently read comments by a naturalist who used Occam's Razor to support the basic naturalistic assumption. This assumption is that the natural world is all that can be detected scientifically; therefore scientific explanations for effectual observations cannot contain references to supernatural causes. for those who don't know, Occam's Razor (aka the "law of succinctness") is a philosophical principle relevant to logical evaluation and application that states that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Today's usage can be restated as "the simplest explanation is more likely to be true." With this usage, the principle certainly seems to support the naturalistic assumption.

Originally, Occam's razor applied to the minimalization of assumptions. The understanding is that assumptions, or presuppositions, are necessary in deriving any conclusion. For example, I conclude that in order to walk out of my office, I must walk around my desk and go through the door. I have made the observation that walking through my desk and through the wall simply doesn't work to accomplish the task of leaving my office. These are solid. I am solid. I have concluded that solids do not pass through solids without causing damage to one or both of the solids. I have observed certain continuity to this observation. Therefore, I assume the continuity of my observation. However, it is merely an assumption based on what is most likely.

To demonstrate that this is merely an assumption, consider the act of driving recklessly. On the interstate one can observe many people driving recklessly. Once tried, there is a certain level of recklessness I can drive also without experiencing an automobile accident. I see that a few drivers have accidents. Is this due to reckless driving? Unless I observe it directly, I don't know. It seems likely, so I can assume, that accidents are caused by reckless driving. However, the vast majority of incidences of reckless driving do not result in an accident. Therefore, I can drive recklessly under the assumption that an accident is yet not likely. Yet accidents happen. Therefore, the assumption is not true or false as much as it is a factor of likelihood.

Understanding this, today's usage of Occam's Razor is a different matter. If Occam's Razor were applied to scientific theories under original usage, then the assumption that "supernatural" causes were to be a priori disavowed would be recognized itself as a superfluous assumption. In other words, there is no reason not to consider explanations that do not fit within our current understanding of what is "natural". After all, who is to say where the line is to be drawn between "natural" and "supernatural"? To be sure, the use of radios would surely have been considered "supernatural" to ancient people. The advent of the automobile was certainly looked upon with other-than-natural disdain by many at the time. Until Einstein formulated his theories of relativity, Newtonian physics worked just fine. To be sure, time dilation is yet viewed by many as something beyond the natural pale.

Therefore, if scientific discovery continues to redefine "natural", then how can naturalism omit "supernatural" explanations by assumption without fixed definitions of what is natural and what is supernatural? Indeed, if "natural" is merely according to what we currently understand as "natural" then the flat-earthers may have a point. An orb-shaped earth was once viewed as an other-than-natural explanation. Indeed, it was simpler then to conceive of the world as flat. If science is to progress, it must have access to possible explanations that do not seem "natural".

I was going to go into an analysis of the difference between the original usage of Occam's Razor and the current usage. However, it would contain dry logical technical verbiage inaccessible to most. The previous paragraph nicely makes my point, I think. As a Christian, I certainly believe that there are both physical and metaphysical (spiritual) realms. Since there is a relationship between the two where the metaphysical affects the physical, then I believe the metaphysical to be detectable to a degree. While we cannot see the wind, we can see the leaves move. Therefore, the wind is detectable. The metaphysical is likewise detectable. With regard to what is to be considered "natural" and "supernatural", I believe the ability to detect one over the other to be a false distinction. Both the physical and the metaphysical are natural.

God Himself has a nature. The nature of God is the stuff of theology. Theology for the Christian evidential apologist is no less scientific than any other scientific discipline that evaluates empirical data against theoretical criteria. It is perhaps more rigorous because of the exceptional philosophical challenges and the demand for public debate, both of which require in-depth study and disclosure of presuppositional dispositions. The fact is that God is reasonable. While we cannot understand Him fully, he has given us minds and enough information to know Him better than we do. And our savior, Jesus Christ, is the "Word" (gr: logos, the "logic") of God.

The Narrative Context of Paul's Teaching to the Hebrews

One comment that has always plagued me on composition papers is my utter lack of examples. Perhaps ther reason is that too many examples in other people's writing bore me. Too many nonfiction books written these days for the general reading audience can be condensed into a few paragraphs. That's all I need. Instead, what I find are books of seemingly endless anecdotes as though such accounts constitute proof that the conclusions are true. Certainly, the use of storytelling can be persuasive. However, it lends itself to the current state of anti-intellectualism in which our ideas are propogated.

That said, there is a place for narratives.

Textual critics of the Bible have as their purpose the undermining of the foundation of orthodox Christian doctrine. However, nearly all such theology is derived from the historical narrative of the Bible. Often the Pauline theological applications, gospel accounts, pre-Mosaic narratives and a key prophet or two is generally held under the highest scrutiny. The part of the Bible most left unadulterated by the foolish speculations of the textual critics are the bulk of the narrative.

Hebrews, like many other Pauline texts, contains extensive references to the Hebrew scriptures. The quotes here are usually from the prophets, but the prophets and their prophesies are found in the historical narrative which lend itself hansomely to appropriate context. The Jews to whom Paul wrote would have understood this.

God, however, doesn't offer anecdotal evidence as proof of the the claims made through Paul's teaching. Instead, the history provides incontrovertible substance within which the narrative of God's redemption of His creation through Christ plays out. Therefore, history is not a mere example, it itself constitutes the revelation of Christ. In turn, God's prophets within the historical context spell out the revelation for us.