Dr Greg Bahnsen - A Short Synopsis of Van Til: Theistic Proof (Part 4)

All right.

As we continue our lectures in this series, we come to Roman numeral 5, Van Till and theistic proof and then following that, Roman numeral 6, Van Till and the use of evidences. I want to begin by observing that Van Till's criticism of the theistic proofs has always and only been directed against the proofs as they were traditionally formulated, as they were traditionally understood and applied. And the reason why he opposed the traditional formulation of the theistic proofs is that they erroneously suggest five things. One, that the evidence for God's existence is ambiguous, so that there's some excuse for denying it or holding that it's only probably true. Two, erroneously assume that there are matters which are epistemically more certain than God, from which one then moves on to prove with less certainty the existence of God. Three, the traditional proofs assume that the unbelievers espouse presuppositions about reality and knowledge are sufficient in themselves to account for the intelligibility of his experience in his reasoning, in which case he has every philosophical right to question God's existence on his own terms. Four, they assume that the unregenerate man can be intellectually neutral and open minded, can be fair about this subject rather than unrighteously and self deceptively supposed suppressing the truth about God.

And five, the traditional proofs have assumed.

That the God which is rationally proven may or may not be the God of the Christian scriptures.

Because when we prove the existence of.

God, we're only dealing with isolated truth claims one by one, not an all embracing worldview. Now the fact of the matter is there are internal or philosophical flaws with the traditional formulations of a theistic proof. There are philosophical problems with all of the traditional proofs. In passing I'll illustrate that the cosmological argument in every version that you'll find fallaciously moves from the premise each event has a cause to the conclusion all events have a cause. That is, each event has a cause is used to prove that all events taken as a whole have a single cause. But of course that's logically fallacious. If you have any background in logic, you know that there's, there's a quantification error there. You're moving from each to all and those are different matters. If the cosmological proof proves anything, it proves that there are many Gods. You know, for every line of causation going back, you might have an ultimate God for that line of causation. You have no right logically to put all of this together. As though there's one cause for the universe.

A second philosophical problem, and this is.

One that Kant noted.

Is that it's.

Unwarranted to move from a premise that pertains to natural events and natural relations. If the premise of your argument every event has a cause is interpreted and proven from experience, it's fallacious to move to a conclusion which, unlike the premise, pertains to a non natural event or relation or object, that which is beyond experience. Your premises talk about experience. Your conclusion can't talk about that which goes beyond experience. And so every cosmological argument has logical fallacies built into it. Now that's true. But Van Til van Till found the traditional theistic truths erroneous for more than just those simple logical reasons. He thought that the five things that I just pointed out for you were theologically and philosophically unacceptable. Let's consider Romans chapter 1, 1822. According to Paul, in Romans 1, the very living and true God and all of his eternal, eternal power and divine character is known by all men. And so, contrary to assumption 5 in the list I gave you, it's God in all of his glory that is known by the unbeliever, not a God that might or might not be the Christian version. Secondly, this God is clearly and inescapably revealed in man's experience, contrary to premise two or Assumption two, that there's something more epistemically certain than God. Paul tells us that God is inescapably revealed in every man's experience, in which case all men know God and there's absolutely no excuse for denying it, contrary to the assumption that the evidence for God's existence is somehow ambiguous. Nevertheless, Paul tells us all men strive to submit, suppress the truth in unrighteousness, which is contrary to Assumption four, that unregenerate men can be neutral and open minded. And According to Romans 1, unbelievers end up becoming vain and foolish in their reasoning. Contrary to Assumption three. That says the unbelievers espouse presuppositions are sufficient to account for the intelligibility of the sin experience. So Dan tells us, if you read Romans 1, the five major planks upon which the traditional proofs are founded are all taken away theologically. Exegetically. I cannot follow the traditional method of proving God's existence. Unbelievers, According to Romans 1, become vain and foolish in their reasoning. Let me give you an example. They presuppose that all events are random, that they're chance, a matter of freedom, if you will. Then they'll turn around and insist on rigid explanation by means of scientific laws. Where the world is seen as orderly and a matter of necessity. Unbelievers will presuppose there's nothing here but matter in motion. They'll be materialist, but then they'll turn right around and call for adherence to the non materialistic laws of logic. So, as Paul says, they become vain in their reasoning. So Van Till realizes that there really is no natural theology. If we mean that, According to Romans 1, the created realm simply provides uninterpreted raw data, data which merely makes possible, provided men rationally reflect upon it correctly, a natural knowledge of God as the eventual conclusion of their reasoning. Natural theology says you have raw data from experience. If you rationally reflect on it as a conclusion, you'll come to the existence of God.

From the epistemological side of things, there.

Is no uninterrupted interpreted sense data. There are no brute facts. From the metaphysical side of things, there is no logic that is free from some commitment to a view of reality. There is no neutrality theologically. Men do not naturally interpret their experience of nature in such a way as to reach and affirm correct conclusions about God. What does the Bible teach us about the natural man who cannot know the things of God's spirit? According to First Corinthians 2:14, Paul said, There is none who seeks after God. Romans 3:11. If no one seeks after God, how can we hope for a natural theology? Then the natural man is not going to develop theology. He doesn't seek Theos, he doesn't seek God. In that case, we really shouldn't speak of natural theology. We should rather speak of natural atheology. What is natural is for men to draw atheistic conclusions. Until men are driven to abandon their intellectual autonomy and to think in terms of the truth of God as the point of reference, they will never read the evidence properly for God's existence. But Van Til adds to this. Neither will they be able to make sense of any area of their experience. That's the kicker. That's the important point. Dantill says. Look, the way unbelievers are reasoning, they'll never come to the conclusion that the Christian God exists. But as long as they reason that way, they'll never be able to know anything at all.

All either.

The theistic proof should not therefore cater to man's pretended autonomy. It's important to stress, and I quote Van Til here, the basic difference between a theistic proof that presupposes God and one that presupposes man as Ultimate. But Vantil rejects natural theology. He rejects the theistic proofs as traditionally formulated. However, Vantil's apologetic is based solidly upon confidence in natural revelation. Not natural theology, but natural revelation. For Romans one teaches that the created order is a conduit of constant, inescapable pre interpreted information about God so that all men already possess an actual knowledge of him at the very outset of their reasoning about anything whatsoever. And it's this knowledge and only this knowledge which makes possible their use of evidence and their use of reason. Van Til asserts that and I quote, the revelation of God to man is so clear that it has absolute compelling force objectively. That's amazing given the preconception that many people have of. Let me read it again. The revelation of God to man is so clear that it is absolute, unqualified, compelling force objectively, not just subjectively. Objectively. And from that standpoint. Let me quote him again. Vantil wrote, I do not reject the theistic proofs but merely insist insist on formulating them in such a way as not to compromise the doctrines of Scripture. Natural revelation is crucial to the formulation of proof for God's existence. Let me quote him again. God's revelation is everywhere and everywhere perspicuous. Hence the theistic proofs are absolutely valid. They are but the restate statement of the revelation of God. The theistic proofs are absolutely valid. Maybe I'm overdoing this. I don't know if you're as shocked as I am because I've read what people have said about Van Till and they'll tell you Van Til throws out theistic proof. There can't be a proof of God's existence, much less an absolute, objective, completely valid one. And yet I can quote Van Till that he said that. Now what is this? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Or is it that Dan Till, his opponents haven't bothered to read the good doctrine and understand him properly. Far from rejecting theistic proof, Van Till insists upon theistic proof. In fact, insists upon a very strong version thereof. And I'm going to quote him. The argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christianity is objectively valid. We should not tone down the validity of this argument to the probability level. Christianity is the only reasonable position to hold. Boy, my blood just stirs when I hear that kind of thing. Because what I'm telling the unbeliever is not that. Well, you've got a little bit of evidence and I've got a little bit of evidence. Evidence. And I hope that you'll see I have a little bit bigger pile of evidence than you do. Or that there's some reason to believe in God, but some reason not to believe in God. No. Van Till says I can go to the unbeliever and I can tell him that Christianity is the only reasonable position to hold. And I'm not talking about probability here, the only reasonable position to hold. If men will not intellectually acknowledge that they know and they must presuppose God, their attempts to reason and to interpret experience on some other espoused presuppositions cannot be made intelligible. And thus Van Til states his proof quite concisely, quite forcefully, when he says, and I'm quoting him, the only proof of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed that you there is no possibility of proving anything at all. So what am I going to tell the unbeliever? Maybe not word for word this quote, but what I want to communicate to the unbeliever is the reason why you must be a Christian intellectually is that you couldn't know or prove anything apart from our worldview. Somebody says, prove your worldview. I'll say, I'll give you the strongest proof possible. Without it, you couldn't prove anything. In short, Vantil's approach is to challenge unbelievers. In the words of the Apostle Paul, where's the wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

If the debate with unbelievers comes down.

In principle to a conflict over ultimate presuppositions which control all other reasoning and interpretation, does not that make all rational argumentation cease? Dan Till said, not at all. In fact, if you look at chapter 14 in a survey of Christian Epistemology, you'll see that was the whole point of the chapter. The chapter opens by saying, the question that comes up at once is whether it is then of any use to argue about the Christian theistic position at all with those who are contrary convictions. And then Van Til forcefully refutes the notion that it's useless for the regenerate to reason with the unregenerate, insisting that we must I quote him. It is exactly because of our deep conviction that God is one and truth is therefore one, that we hold that there is only one type of argument for all men. End of quote. We must not abandon rational debate with the unbeliever. And I quote him again, we cannot.

Choose epistemologies as we choose Hats as.

If the whole thing is but a matter of taste. And yet the opponents of Antille have said in print many times over. That's what he really comes down to. You have your ultimate presupposition. I have my ultimate presupposition. Everybody makes. Nanchell says, you can't choose epistemologies like you choose hats. So it's just a matter of taste. Rather, those who hold antithetical presuppositions, he said, ought to be refuted by reasoned argument rather than by ridicule and assumption. We don't argue by assumption, we don't argue by ridicule. We use reasoned argument to refute our opponent's position. Christian commitment is not intellectually ungrounded. And so I quote Van Till again, faith is not blind faith. Christianity can be shown to be not just as good as or even better than the non Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human existence, experience. End of quote. So Van Till does not permit the argument for the truth of Christianity to.

Be washed out by subjectivism.

I quote him again. There is objective evidence in abundance and it is sufficiently clear. Men ought, if only they reasoned rightly, to come to the conclusion that God exists. That is to say, if the theistic proof is constructed as it ought to, to be constructed, it is objectively valid, whatever the attitude of those to whom it comes may be.

Elsewhere in his.

Writings, Vantil is decidedly critical of the.

Fetishic attitude, I'm quoting him, the fiddistic.

Attitude which comes to expression frequently in the statement of the experiential. Pardon me, the experiential proof of the truth in Christianity. People will say that they know that they are saved and that Christianity is true, no matter what the philosophical or scientific evidence for or against it may be. But in thus seeking to withdraw from all intellectual argument, such fetus have virtually admitted the validity of the argument. They are virtually allowed to be intellectually indefensible. Mantilla's argument against the very position that many people have foisted upon him.

Vantil's commitment to a reasoned, apologetic rather.

Than blind authority was manifest. I quote, it might seem that there can be no argument between them. It might seem that the orthodox view of authority is to be spread only by testimony and by prayer, not by argument.

But this would militate directly against the.

Very foundation of all Christian revelation. End of quote. And I think that this discussion, brief though it may be this evening, demonstrates how terribly misinformed John Warwick Montgomery's criticism of Van Til's apologetic is when John Warwick Montgomery says that it gives the unbeliever the impression that our gospel as a prioristically speedistically irrational as the presuppositional claims of its competitors. He says this, believe it or not, in Dantil's Festschrift in an article entitled Once upon an a Priori. You might compare here Clark Pinnock's charge that Dan Till is guilty of quote, irrational feedism, which holds that truth in religion is ultimately based on faith rather than on reasoning or evidence. I think both Montgomery and Pinnock distorted Van Till's view as though it were Barth's error that belief cannot argue with unbelief a voluntaristic position that demands the non Christian make a total ungrounded commitment. It's with bewildering inaccuracy that Pinnock summarized Mantill's approach as being a feedistic combination of a bare authority claim and a bare religious experience claim. I think it should embarrass the advocates of the use of inductive evidence that in their characterizations of Van Til they choose to portray him according to their false a priori conception rather than by looking at the abundant empirical evidence in his writings which could be inductibly ascertained. Just compare what I've just quoted from Montgomery and Pennock to what I've been quoting from Van Til. I'm really not trying to be mean to, but if I made this big a mistake in quoting Plato when I was in graduate school, I never would have been granted a degree. Why then do Christian scholars get away with making this big a mistake in their writings? It's one thing to disagree. It's one thing to make mistakes in your reasoning. But when you portray your opponent exactly the opposite of what he says in print, there's something seriously wrong. Since the argument with the unbeliever is finally over those presuppositions which control all other reasoning and interpretation, what kind of argument can be rationally employed? As you know from my lectures already, it will be an argument regarding the preconditions of all intelligible experience, logic, science.

Ethics, or what have you.

There will be an argument from the impossibility of the contrary. For this one must use an indirect method of argument. I quote Dante. The method of reasoning by presupposition may be said to be indirect rather than direct. The issue between believers and non believers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to facts or laws whose nature and significance significance is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate. The Question is rather as to what is the final reference point required to make the facts and laws intelligible, End of quote. To settle that question, Dantil continues, the believer and the unbeliever must, for argument's sake, place themselves on each other's position to see what their respective outworkings are regarding the intelligibility of facts and laws. And so in his very first syllabus, Van Til put it in this way, and I quote him. The Reformed method of argument is first constructive. It presents the biblical view positively by showing that all factual and logical discussions by men take place by virtue of the world's being what God in Christ says it's. It then proceeds negatively to show that unless all facts and all logical relations be seen in the light of the Christian framework, all human interpretation fails instantly. It fails instantly in principle, in disclosure. So Van Till and theistic proof, the traditional formulations are wrong. They have five crucial theological errors. They are philosophically flawed. They are exegetically in trouble. In terms of, say, the reading of Romans chapter one, however, there is an absolutely valid, objective, compelling proof of God's existence. And it's a transcendental proof. It's an argument in terms of the worldview of the unbeliever and the believer. We show that all facts, all laws, all reasoning makes sense in terms of the Christian worldview. But they fail in principle, fail instantly within the non Christian worldview, so that the proof of God's existence. We'll get this all down right. Memorize this. So when you wake up tomorrow morning, first thing on your mind, the proof of God's existence is that without him you can't prove anything at all. Let's hurry on to our last subject in this lecture series, Van Til and evidences.

Now.

Once again, as we turn to.

The issue of scientific and historical evidences.

For the Christian faith, we see how far off the mark Van Till's critics have been. Again, John Warwick Montgomery misrepresents Van Til as presenting the unbeliever quote with an a priori dogmatic intelligence instead of the factually compelling evidence for the Christian truth claim. And Clark Pinnock alleges that Van Til refuses to have anything to do with rational arguments and empirical demonstrations. Refuses to have anything to do with him. You write that kind of error in my classroom and you fail. You may portray your opponent and disagree with him, that's one thing, but when you misrepresent your opponent and you can't even get it right, it's not even worth considering. You see, to hear Montgomery and Pennock and Sproul and others. To hear them, one would be led to believe Van Till would recoil from presenting verifying evidence for the faith and dismiss the unbelievers questions without even a hearing. The actual TR truth is that Van Till did not in the slightest reject the proper use of inductive reasoning or empirical evidences in apologetics. Listen to Van Til again as he speaks about the phenomena of Scripture. A fairly long quote, I'll tell you when I'm done quoting. The point is, we are told that an infallible Bible that in an infallible Bible there should not be any divine discrepancy.

There should be no statement of historical.

Fact in Scripture that is contradictory to.

A statement of historical fact given elsewhere.

Yet higher criticism has in modern times found what it thinks are facts that cannot possibly be harmonized with the idea of an infallible Bible. What shall be the attitude of the orthodox believer with respect to this? Shall he be an obscurantist and hold to the doctrine of the authority of Scripture, though he knows that it can be empirically shown to be contrary to the facts of Scripture themselves? It goes without saying that such should not be his attitude. The presuppositionalist is not allergic to employing empirical inductive study according to the scientific method. Just the opposite. Let me quote Van Till again.

It is quite common, commonly held, that.

We cannot accept anything that is not the result of a sound scientific methodology. With this we can, as Christians, heartily agree. The Christian position is certainly not opposed to experimentation and observation. Or I'll quote him again. Depreciation of the sense world inevitably leads to a depreciation of many of the important facts of historic Christianity which took place in the sense world. The Bible does not rule out every form of empiricism any more than it rules out every form of a priori reasoning. Then one more the greater amount of detailed study, and the more carefully such study is undertaken, the more truly Christian will the method be. It is important to bring up this point in order to help remove the common misunderstanding. The Christianity as opposed to factual investigation. The difference between the prevalent method of science and the method of Christianity is not that the former is interested in finding the facts and is ready to follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Such affirmations by Van Til fully comport with presuppositional thinking and method.

They're not out of character.

They're not inconsistent with the system as a whole. Evidentialist critics might jump back with a challenge. Why then does Van Till rule out the historical argument for the resurrection. But that question would display the blinding effect of preconceptions. Again, for just listen to Van Til's own words.

I'm quoting him.

Historical apologetics is absolutely necessary and indispensable to point out that Christ rose from the grave. Indispensable. Not just useful, not just a supplement, not just icing on the cake. Indispensable. Not only is it indispensable in general, Van Till says of himself in particular, hear this. I would therefore engage in historical apologetics. Plain, simple fact is that from the very start Van Til's presuppositionalism has not been antagonistic to or meant as a substitute for evidences and empirical reasoning in support of the historic Christian faith. He has always had tremendous confidence in.

Them and I'm going to quote him.

Every bit of historical investigation, whether it.

Be in the directly biblical field, archaeology.

Or or in general history, is bound.

To confirm the truth of the claims.

Of the Christian position. A really fruitful historical apologetic argues that every fact is and must be such as proves the truth of the Christian theistic position. You see, Van Til laid strong emphasis upon natural revelation in his apologetic, since he takes natural revelation to be a clear communication from God through the facts of nature and history, one which leaves men guilty for rebelling against God. It was altogether consistent that Vantil endorsed the work of scientists and historians in.

Offering verification for the claims of the Christian faith.

It is of particular value in first, strengthening the confidence of believers and second, embarrassing unbelievers in their criticism against the Bible's scientific and historical claims. Evidences offer God's children the answers that they need so as not to be intellectually troubled. When hearing the learned objections of non Christian scholars. Evidences can also silence the futile empirical objections of unbelievers to the claims of Christianity, if not also clearing away the mental debris of intellectual prejudice against the faith. As indispensable and as valuable as they are, though, it would be a misleading conception to think that evidences can stand.

On their own in Christian apologetics.

Now this should be obvious enough from what God's Word teaches us. First of all, what people will think about the observed evidence is affected by their non observational beliefs. What people think of the evidence is affected by their philosophical presuppositions. Moreover, in dealing with with the claims of Christ, nobody is truly detached and.

Uncommitted one way or another.

As Jesus said, he who is not with me is against me. One presupposition will see as foolish, the other presupposition sees as wisdom. Thirdly, the non observational commitments of the unbeliever are objectively foolish and lead to.

The destruction destruction of knowledge.

The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So when the unbeliever starts with assumptions contrary to the existence of God, he's going to be led to the destruction of knowledge. Fourth, all men inescapably have an inner knowledge of God. The Bible says the one whose sovereign power and plan uphold the universe with regularity, working all things after the counsel of his own will. And yet five Unbelievers are deeply hostile to this knowledge. They suppress it in unrighteousness, preferring to walk in the vanity of their minds and darkened understanding. 6 that explains why it is that regarding such empirical evidence as the resurrection, and I'm quoting Luke 16:31 that explains why regarding the empirical evidence regardless the resurrection, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead. 7 Nevertheless, the objective revelation provided by God in the evidence of history and Scripture is such that we can through.

The resurrection know for certain that God.

Has made this Jesus whom you crucified.

Both Lord and Christ.

Acts 2:36 to Van Till's epistemological credit, he recognized throughout his scholarly career that there were many detailed errors in the outworking of the non presuppositional or traditional arguments from inductive evidence, say for the resurrection. Let me give you some quick illustrations of these internal problems in the evangelical.

Evidential apologetic.

Why should the unbeliever accept the basic reliability of the extant New Testament documents simply due to their usually overstated early date? It's amazing to me the way people say, see how early these documents are? So they're basically reliable. That's a huge logical leap if a document is full of what is taken as the most obvious absurdities and superstitions. Look at the large number of purported.

Miracles in the Bible.

Even if we possess the autographical copy of it, the naturalistic unbeliever will not grant its basic reliability.

I mean, how do you feel when.

You'Re at the checkout line at the supermarket and you see these tabloids, you know, these amazing claims, Girl gives birth to her own father. Whoa. Well, it must be true. Here's early attestation of it, right the point. It's just not good enough for evangelicals to say, see how early these claims are. The unbeliever is going to say, yeah, but they're preposterous claims about miracles and things like that. Secondly, how can the naturalistic unbeliever be expected to treat these documents simply as reliable reports of what Jesus said about himself? Such reports would have us believe that a mere man, according to the naturalistic.

Skeptic, a mere man, claimed an incredible.

Divine character and prerogative, as well as predicting his own resurrection. It will certainly seem more probable to the consistent use of common sense that the apostles misconstrued what their teacher was trying to say. That is a tendency in students. After all, anybody who's been a teacher can verify. Students tend to misconstrue their teachers. Isn't it much more likely the apostles just blew it? They misconstrued what Jesus was saying or later exaggerated what he said in veneration.

For him, or didn't recall it accurately?

Now what do evangelical evidentialists say in response to that common sense approach to the New Testament? The defense made by virtually every non presuppositional evidentialist is that Christ promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to his followers to enable them to remember and.

Interpret correctly what he taught.

A defense which blatantly begs the question at hand, since it assumes the very deity of Jesus which the argument was supposed to prove. Van Till realized that that the gaffes in the traditional evidential argument are just embarrassing from a scholarly standpoint. But more fundamentally, Van Till felt that evidential apologetics was guilty of philosophical and theological blunders. We need to realize, first of all, that all empirical observation is inescapably theory laden. There are no uninterpreted brute facts. Secondly, the acceptance and interpretation of what one takes as factual is not going to be determined by sense perception alone, but always in interaction with one's fundamental philosophical convictions. That is to say, there's no presuppositionless neutrality. Thirdly, empirical inductive study in itself has certain preconditions which can be intelligibly accounted for only on the presupposition of Christianity, so that scientific and historical study wittingly or unwittingly assumes what believers are defending. Fourth, what is assumed by the consistently non Christian understanding of empiricism and induction contradicts biblical teaching as well as rendering empirical inductive reasoning impossible in philosophical principle. A quick illustration. Empiricists traditionally have argued that minds man is a tabula rasa, a blank tablet which in a completely contingent universe is impinged upon by the particulars of sensation. Of course, if that's true, there could.

Be no logical or natural law.

There could be no generalizations and thus no intelligible appeal to causality. That's what David Hume finally recognized. Okay, if it's a blank mind in a contingent universe impinged upon by particular sensations, then we have no basis for causal analysis. Language could not be learned on that basis. The egocentric predicament cannot be over looked.

Could not be avoided, and there could.

Be no justification for holding to the reliability of memory or sense perception itself. So you see, naive empiricism destroys naive empiricism. Vantil says, why would I go running to the empiricist for help then? Fifthly, unbelievers like believers are not at all unbiased, impartial, without motives and goals. They're not open minded, purely disinterested in where they will be led by their.

Handling of the empirical evidence.

Sixth, if the unbeliever's espoused presuppositions are not challenged, and if he holds tenaciously and consistently to them, he can for very good reason refuse to be driven from his position by a consideration of empirical evidences alone. Why is that? Because if he holds on to his naturalistic presuppositions, if you show him that Jesus rose from the dead, he can.

Say, I grant that that doesn't prove anything. Why not?

Well, that just shows that there's a.

Natural explanation for a very strange event.

But we haven't found the explanation yet. Now we would like to say to the person, oh no, wait a minute, you're cheating. If you don't have an explanation, you.

Have to grant that it's a miracle.

He's going to say, wait a minute, nobody operates that way. We don't have an explanation of AIDS right now. Does everybody think, okay, that proves it's a miracle? Of course not. Just means we don't know everything about.

The working of the natural world.

Somehow sometimes cadavers resuscitate and one day we'll understand that. So if you don't challenge the presuppositions of the unbeliever, he can use his presuppositions to deal with all of your evidence and wash it away. Seventh, because the believer's intellectual basis for certainty about the claims of the Christian faith is broader than his limited and fallible reflections upon the incomplete pool of.

Available empirical indicators alone.

Those claims, even about history and nature, should not merely be considered or presented as pro probably true. You see, if Christianity is probably true because probably Jesus rose from the dead and probably God exists, then apologists like Montgomery, Pinnock or Sproul will eventually resort to subjective matters like the experiential proof, or the practical certainty which compels us to take action despite risk, or the inward convicting witness of the Spirit in order to enable them to take the.

Leap of faith up from the level.

Of what is intellectual, up from the level where intellectual proof honestly warrants no.

More than probability, to the higher level.

Of full belief in personal confidence and commitment.

If you have any doubt about that.

Read these three men, and others as well.

At one point or another, all of.

Them finally rest their apologetic on the appeal to experience. They make great boast of being oh, we're not presuppositionalists. We get solid evidence, we argue rationally for God's existence. But since they think that shows only probably God exists, the way they get from probability to full commitment is by what taste Jesus and say that he's good? Believe me, even Montgomery, you'll find him.

Saying that kind of thing.

These men press the fallacies of overstatement and hasty generalization into service so as to maintain a public stance of being committed to full biblical inerrancy exclusively on the platform of evidentialism or natural theology, even though none of these men have examined every claim of the Bible and.

Proven it and verified it empirically. I have an article that appeared a.

Number of years ago, I think 1977 or 76, in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in which I point out that anyone who defends the inerrancy of Scripture must be a presuppositionalist, not an inductivist, because nobody has inductively proven the whole Bible. And so, getting back to Van Til, he'll state, quote, for any fact to be a fact at all, it must.

Be a revelational fact.

By thus repudiating the idea of brute factuality, Van Till precluded an essential element of the traditional non presuppositional approach to evidentialist apologetics, one which holds that the objects of perception carry no inherent meaning.

Or interpretation and can be approached in.

A neutral fashion without man's mind assuming any meaning or interpretation. In that case, the facts could disclose nothing whatsoever. There would be nothing within the facts or within the mind of the investigator to determine objectively in order to relationships, specific quality or modality for these random sensations. If facts signify nothing in themselves, they, whatever they amounts to, cannot be used to test worldviews because they would be compatible with any number of conflicting systems.

Of meaning and interpretation.

Van Till's denial of brute facts, his denial of pure observational knowledge, is in line with reason. Recent philosophical criticism of the epistemological theory of empiricism as traditionally understood. What complicates the apologetical situation, though, is that the non Christian tries unsuccessfully to suppress completely the evidential force of the facts by choosing and thoroughly applying presuppositions which run counter to what these facts indicate. Apologetics is thus far required to argue in such a way as to strip away the autonomous and rebellious glasses through which unbelievers look at the revelational facts. According to Van Till's defense of the faith, we must argue that every fact must be such as proves the truth of the Christian theistic position. The evidences which are innumerable must be presented in a manner which compels a return to their true nature as confirmatory of Christianity. How is that to be done? Bantil says it is indispensable to present empirical evidences to unbelievers.

But he adds immediately, I quote, I.

Would not talk endlessly about facts and more facts without ever challenging the non believer's philosophy of fact.

End of quote.

Philosophical apologetics forms the context within which the use of evidences is intelligible and forceful. Without recognizing his biblical presuppositions and their epistemological necessity, the Christian cannot make sense out of his own apologetical argumentation with unbelievers based upon empirical evidence. For instance, if he agrees to base his reason reasoning upon the assumption of complete contingency in history, then he cannot justify inductive empirical thinking any more than his opponent can. Moreover, his appeal to miracles is unintelligible since there is no objective background of uniformity in terms of which an event is miraculous. Furthermore, if the apologist does not challenge the unbelievers underlying philosophy, the appeal to empirical evidences need not lead to anything like Christian conclusions. For instance, if you empirically argue with the naturalist and convince him that the body of Jesus came back to life, he should, if he's philosophically consistent, conclude that there are as yet unknown natural factors which can biologically cause and rationally account for the resurrection of the dead. You may remember this cute quote from Van Till. One point. He says, the unbeliever is catching all these facts that you're pitching at him. He says that the Christian throws fact.

After fact after fact at the unbeliever.

The unbeliever catches that fact, but he throws it into this bottomless pit of pure contingency behind him. As long as his philosophy of the universe is one of randomness, he can say, well, yeah, anything could happen in this chance world. Yeah, Jesus rose from the dead, send it to Ripley's Believe it or Not, Strange things happen. That's all you got to do with the resurrection if you don't challenge the unbelievers philosophy of fact. The unbeliever, with his presuppositions need not at all infer that a miracle has occurred if Jesus was raised from the dead, or that he must then be the divine Son of God, or much less that he was resurrected for our justification and as a sign that he will judge the world. See, none of those inferences are purely empirical in nature. None of them follows logically from the.

Empirical item that a dead body came back to life.

Lazarus came back to life, ergo Lazarus is God.

Christians don't follow that.

And yet I see evidentialists say Jesus came back to life, ergo Jesus was God. Oh, but Lazarus never predicted his resurrection. The unbeliever says either did Jesus. Well sure he did. Oh no, his followers exaggerated that and.

Wrote it after the fact.

No they didn't, because Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit so they'd have total recall. In other words, if you assume the deity of Jesus, then the resurrection of Jesus confirms his deity. But if you don't assume the deity of Jesus, you're not going to believe that he could give the Holy Spirit to his followers. So they have total recall so that you could say that he predicted his resurrection so that if he rose from the dead, therefore he's God. All of this is really muddled and.

Yet maybe many of you know this already.

It really sells like hotcakes out there in the heartland. You know, churches have people come and give apologetical conferences. They hear this sort of thing and.

They eat it up.

I love this sort of thing. Boy, this is strong stuff.

I'm telling you, if you've ever done.

Graduate work in a secular school, this is not strong stuff at all. It's just like that. It's gone, just withered. Why then do Christians get impressed with it? Well, a word of personal testimony. There was a day when Dr. Bonson was really impressed with those arguments, by the way. I still am.

You know why?

Because I received all these lines of reasoning in light of my own presuppositional commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that light it is true that the resurrection gives real strong evidence for the faith. In that light, all this evidence confirms my faith and so forth. But in apologetics you can't assume that that's the light in terms of which people are going to hear you with his presuppositions. The unbeliever doesn't have to infer that a miracle occurred, that he's the divine Son of God, that he was raised for our justification or anything like it. None of those conclusions are purely empirical. And so Van Tilt has taught. I quote it is impossible and useless to seek to defend Christianity as a historical religion by a discussion of facts only if we would really defend Christianity as a historical religion we must at the same time defend the theism upon which Christianity is based. And this involves us in philosophical discussion. That is to say, when we argue the evidences, we must put them in the context of of the Christian worldview and eventually argue our worldview versus the unbelievers worldview. Because unbelievers self deceptively espouse presuppositions contrary to those of the Christian while nevertheless in actuality knowing God and inconsistently living in terms of that suppressed truth, truth which constitutes the Christian's acknowledged presuppositions, they can understand the evidences as presented by the believer. And if the Holy Spirit graciously removes their resistance to the truth in some cases on that basis alone they can draw the correct conclusion from the evidences. Mantill says we should present the message and evidence for the Christian position as clearly as possible, knowing that because man is what the Christian says he is.

The non Christian will be able to.

Understand in an intellectual sense the issues involved. In so doing we shall to a large extent be telling him what he already knows but seeks to suppress. This reminding process proves a fertile ground for the Holy Spirit who in sovereign grace may grant the non Christian repentance so that he may know him who is life eternal. Let me conclude this series of lectures on Van Til by trying to distill.

Everything down to one nugget here for you.

Van Till says, I quote what we will have to do then is to try to reduce our opponent's position to absurdity. Nothing less will do. At the heart of it all, Van Till said one last quote. The point is that the facts of experience must actually be interpreted in terms of Scripture if they are to be intelligible at all.

So I hope in light of what.

I've been saying to you these last two evenings, you have a better handle now on what the transcendental method reasoning is. Whether we talk about proving God's existence.

Or proving the truth of the Christian.

View of history, the resurrection and so forth, it always comes down to putting everything in the context of the Christian's worldview or putting things in the context.

Of the non Christian's worldview.

And demonstrating that if you do the latter, everything's reduced to absurdity.

The only way to prove anything, the.

Only way to have any intelligible interpretation of experience, the only way to know, use logic, use science, have moral absolutes, is to affirm the Christian worldview.

If you do not begin with the.

Christian worldview, this is our claim as apologists, as presuppositionalists.

If you don't begin with the Christian.

Worldview, then you're not able to know anything at all.

And if you can't know anything at all, you're in no position to be.

Challenging the truth, truth of God's word. I appreciate very much your attentiveness. I know I've had to read rather.

Quickly tonight to get through the material.