Dr Greg Bahnsen - Loving God With All Your Mind: How to Discern and Disarm Worldviews, Pt 2 (Part 3)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Thirdly, I told you in my definition that a worldview is a network of presuppositions not verified by natural science, but in terms of which every aspect of experience is interpreted and interrelated. It's your fundamental convictions about reality, the nature of knowledge, and how we should live our lives. It enables you to put everything in its place and to evaluate its meaning and its use and its significance. The worldview will tell you what are the range of possible experiences and how you explain them. Let's go back to the coffee shop and the ghost explanation or the ghost discussion. When your friend says to you, I saw a ghost in my bedroom last night, and you say, no, you didn't. Again, you weren't there to have the experience, were you? But because of your worldview, you say, the range of possible experiences does not include ghost encounters. And so now you're going to interpret the experience of your friend in another way. You might say, well, now, Jim, have you been using drugs?

Again.

You say, well, yeah, I guess after dinner I did have a little bit. You say, well, my conviction is that it's more likely that the drugs gave you this terrible dream than that you actually had a ghost appear to you. Now, we don't want to get into what ghost experiences are like and all that. I use that as an illustration to show you that your worldview helps you to put the ghost experience in its proper place and interpret it. But your friend has a different worldview. He took it in a different way. It's the worldview that determines what you think are the range of possibilities and how you will explain and interpret the experiences people have. And thus, fourthly, the worldview gives your total picture on life. The worldview is, if you will, the grand picture on what it's all about. Alfie, where did we come from? What's the nature of human life? How should we live our lives? A man's worldview is a key to then his view of the meaning of life and how life should be lived. If you believe that money is evil, if you believe that everything material is, everything sensual is evil, that total view of reality is going to tell you something about the nature of human life and how it should be lived. You'll be something like a Buddhist who says you ought to avoid sensual pleasure and avoid pain and pleasure both, and get to a place where you don't have anything affect you. That conviction about this is the way we should live is based on a more broad perspective on what is real and how we know what we know. And finally, I want to point out that everyone's worldview is held religiously. Worldviews, as you can tell from our diagram, are at the firmest level of conviction. They are the ultimate commitments of a person's life. And because they are so foundational, worldview convictions have a systematic importance. They affect everything that we do. Now, you may believe that Notre Dame is going to win that football game this afternoon, but you would probably grant that that is going to affect only a certain range of other things in your life, if they do or they don't. But whether you believe that sensation is reliable, whether God exists or whatever, that's going to affect a large number of things. Worldview convictions have systematic import in our lives and our thinking. And therefore, everybody is a religious person. Not everybody is a liturgical person. Not everybody goes to a shrine or a temple or a church and engages in acts of corporate worship. But everybody holds to a view and holds it religiously as a matter of ultimate commitment, a view that is not negotiable without major disruption in that person's life. Now, people change their religions, they change their philosophies, they change their worldviews, but they do not change them without some kind of major disruption in their thinking and their way of living. This is what we mean by a worldview. If you'll turn to figure number two, I'd like to talk to you a bit about the collision of worldviews. You will notice in this particular diagram we are trying to get the idea across that when the believer and the unbeliever are arguing with one another, when they are having a conversation, there is always going to be something behind the details of their conversation. They may not be talking about the fundamental convictions they have about knowledge and reality, but. But when they differ about their various beliefs, they also have behind those differences an ultimate difference in worldview. Or the way I like to put it sometimes, is that people are walking worldviews. Those that you encounter, those people that you encounter in your life and have conversations with, they aren't just carrying around a loose set of marbles of beliefs. They are a. A system of beliefs. They are a worldview. And when you have a discussion with them, your worldview is colliding with their worldview. Now, from what I have taught you, you should draw the conclusion that in principle, therefore, the believer and the unbeliever can't agree on anything. In principle, if somebody were true to his convictions all the way down the line, we would never agree with anything an unbeliever says, and the unbeliever would never agree with anything that we have to say. Unbelievers, for instance, should not be counting on the uniformity of nature and using the scientific method. Unbelievers who say everything that is real is material should not be appealing to the laws of logic, which they say are immaterial. If the unbeliever were totally consistent, he or she could never agree with the believer on anything, and vice versa. That's why, when we have this apologetical encounter between the believer and the unbeliever, eventually we have to get to the level of talking about presuppositions. We have to talk about the underlying assumptions that the unbeliever has. And we need to realize that the unbeliever is at odds with the believer in terms of what he professes. That in principle, what the unbeliever professes is utterly antithetical, utterly hostile to everything the believer has to say. But then, as the little discussion on the page asks you, how then is it possible for them ever to have a discussion at all? Why do they ever agree on anything? Hopefully, if you reflect on that, it will force you to consider what the Bible tells us in Romans the first chapter about unbelievers. Let's turn to Romans chapter one and hear what the Apostle Paul tells us. In essence, the Apostle Paul is going to tell us that unbelievers are secret believers. I'll explain that in just a moment. Unbelievers are secret believers. Verse 18 of Romans 1. Paul says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known of God is manifest in them, for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, since the creation of the world are clearly seen being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse, because knowing God, they glorified him not as God neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. According to Paul, all men know God. All men know God, because He's made himself known to them through the created order and in their heart of hearts. And they cannot avoid that. And they know God so well that Paul says they are without excuse. The unbeliever cannot say, well, you know, there was a Little bit of evidence for God and there was a little bit of evidence against God. I just didn't know which way to go. Paul says, oh no, they are without excuse. No one can claim that the evidence is ambiguous. Now I know that may mystify you because you have unbelieving friends that have all these objections to Christianity. Let me take an example. People will say we can't be absolutely sure God exists because after all there are all these terrible things that happen in the world. There's evil in the world. But if God exists, as you Christians say, God should be able to prevent that evil. And if God is entirely good, as you Christians say, God would want to prevent that evil. So if the Christian God exists, he doesn't want this evil and he's able to prevent it. And so all the evidence of wars and children who die of cancer and leukemia and all the rest, all the horrible things that happen in this world are evidence that maybe there is no God there. I was once on a radio call in show that featured having a Jewish rabbi and a Roman Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. And people would call in with their questions. And I happened to have discussed that evening something about adoring God. And a caller called in was very irate with me. And this caller said, I don't see how you can adore this God of yours. And I said, why not? What is this evidence that leads you to think that you can't adore God? Caller said that he had, I think been on a jury or been involved in a court case that week that involved child molestation and they had these horrible pictures of this child that had been abused and so forth. And he said, I don't see when that kind of thing can happen how you can talk about adoring God. Now you've probably, whether it's been in that kind of a touchy situation or not, you've heard people say those sorts of things and say, well, I just don't know if I can believe, believe in God when bad things happen. And so unbelievers would say the evidence for God is not clear. There's a lot of evidence that might suggest there is no God. But when that person called in and put, put that to me that way, I said, does that make you really indignant? This child molestation, you believe that's really, really evil? He said, absolutely, that's why I'm so angry. And I said, good, because I am too. But I want to ask you a question. If you don't believe that there's a God, why do you think it was wrong for this person to molest that child? Silence. At the other end, you stop and think about that. Yes, child molestation is a wicked thing. And sometime I'll come back and talk to you about the problem of evil and what the Bible has to say about that. It's a difficult emotional problem for Christians too. But you see, philosophically, if you don't believe in God, nothing is evil. And so when people appeal to something as being evil, they are assuming the existence of God in order to turn around and then argue against the existence of God. So when I said if you don't believe there's a God, then you have to grant that it's different strokes for different folks. And if it's different strokes for different folks, the person who molested this child, that's just his way of getting happiness and pleasure. And who are you to judge another person's pleasures? Now, I'm a Christian, and I believe that there is a living and true God who is all holy and who will do much better than the civil courts in dealing with this child molester. I believe that there's a basis, therefore, for my indignation and my condemnation of child molestation. And so it turns out evil, which somebody would say looks like evidence against God, is turns out ironically, that evil is proof that there is a God. Because if there were no God, what you are calling evil couldn't be called evil. And so Paul tells us unbelievers have no excuse for their unbelief. God has made himself known and all men have received the message. God's put in the call and the call goes through. They've heard, in fact, Paul says, knowing God, they glorified him. Not as God, not just, well, being ambiguous about God. They wouldn't glorify him. They fully well knew their Maker. They knew his holy character. They knew what he required so that they should worship properly, not engage in homosexual relations, as Paul goes on to talk about and all the rest. They know God, but they won't admit that, as verse 18 says, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And so when you talk to an unbeliever, you must understand not only that the unbeliever has this structure of beliefs and an ultimate set of presuppositions, just like you do, so that worldviews are coming into conflict. But you've now got to understand that the unbeliever is more complicated than you thought, because the unbeliever has a certain view of reality, knowledge and ethics. But will not admit it. The unbeliever is working with two worldviews, if you will. The worldview that is unavoidable because God has made it known to them, but they will not admit. And then the worldview they profess with their mouth and try to follow out in their university classrooms and when they write their books and all the rest. The unbeliever is intellectually schizophrenic, is going two ways at once. Here you have an unbeliever who doesn't believe in God and yet is able to make scientific discoveries that bring worldwide fame and all kinds of prizes and so forth, and yet that person's fame will be used then to give lectures about evolution and about the material nature of reality and all the rest. You couldn't make scientific advance without believing in the uniformity of nature and a sovereign God. And yet the scientist professes with his mouth not to believe in God. You couldn't make any ethical judgments without believing in a personal, holy, unchanging God. And yet the person who makes these ethical judgments turns around and tries to find some secular account for why this, that, and the other is evil. Unbelievers are walking worldviews, but they're more than that. Unbelievers are secret believers. They know God, but suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And so whenever you talk to an unbeliever, I hope it's valuable for you to understand that you're talking to somebody who's in the process of developing a worldview in terms of which he or she can deny the worldview that he or she knows in his heart of hearts. The unbeliever is always trying to work out a philosophy of life so they won't have to admit the philosophy of life that has made them able to accomplish what they have and to know what they know in this world. Professing themselves to be wise, Paul says they therefore become fools. Let me show you how wise people become fools. Many unbelieving scholars today in the area of sociology or ethics, civil relations, sociology, whatever it may be, will tell you that it's wrong to hold to cross cultural absolutes. I tell you that it's wrong to believe in moral absolutes of that nature. I always like it when people tell me that it's wrong to believe in absolutes, because I usually say, is it absolutely wrong to believe it? Where are you going to go with that? If it's not absolutely wrong? Well, then there's some place for me to believe that. And thank you. I'll just Go ahead and believe it. But if it's absolutely wrong to believe it and you can't have any absolutes, then you can't be absolute, that you can't have any absolutes either. Now that's not just a little sophistic game that a public speaker might use. You need to realize that that very intelligent people who profess their wisdom are blithering fools when it comes to trying to put their worldview together. The unbelievers trying to develop a worldview will keep professing with his or her mouth all these philosophies of life, all these outlooks on ethics and epistemology and metaphysics, and yet all along in their heart of hearts know that it isn't true, couldn't be true. They don't live their lives in terms of what they say. So unbelievers have a combination of worldviews, what they profess and what they suppress. I want to put that into your notes. What they profess is what they say. What they suppress is what they know in their heart of hearts. So you know something of the nature of the conflict between the believer and the unbeliever. From what we've been saying in our lecture today, I hope the nature of that conflict is that in principle, what the unbeliever professes about his worldview could never in principle be harmonized with what the believer says about his worldview. In principle. At the level of profession, there could never be any agreement. Yet the fact of the matter is, there are some agreements that we have with unbelievers. Unbelievers say things that we believe are true. I thought unbelievers knew enough about heart surgery that I put myself in their care to take care of my heart. But that's because those unbelievers who profess one thing are able to come to elements of the truth on the basis of what they have suppressed about God. So their success, their rationality, the beautiful artistic works they create, all the good that they can do in this world is based upon a suppressed truth about God. And that has nothing to do with what they profess as they try to develop a worldview, to deny what they really know in their heart of hearts. In principle. Nevertheless, what the unbeliever says and what the believer says are always going to be antithetical, in conflict with each other. The difference between the Christian and the non Christian is not just an extra added feature. If I had a blackboard up here, imagine that I were to draw two faces and I put eyes on both of the faces and noses on both of the faces, and mouths on both of the faces and say, now these two faces are alike, right? And now tell me what the difference is when I go up and I put a mustache on one of the faces and the other face doesn't have it, you see? Oh, well, the difference there is that they have all these things in common, but this face has a mustache and the other face doesn't. Many people think that's what it is when a Christian and a non Christian are talking to each other, you know, they're face to face and they think, well, they say this and we agree with this. We say that they agree with that. We have all these things in common. We have eyes and noses and mouths. But we've got an extra feature. We believe in Jesus and the Bible. That is not the case. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever in principle, not the way it works its way out, because we already see in the schizophrenia. And the unbeliever in principle is that we've got faces and they don't have any. They don't have eyes, they don't have noses, they don't have mouths, ears or anything. In principle. The unbeliever could not make sense of the world at all, professing himself to be wise, blathering with all of this development of a non Christian worldview, the unbeliever has become a fool. The apostle Paul tells us in First Corinthians chapter 1, that the wisdom of God is deemed foolish by the world, and yet what the world calls wisdom has been made foolish by God. You see, there's an utter difference in perspective. It's a worldview difference. We see what they are saying as utter foolishness. They see what we're saying as utter foolishness. They think they are wise when in fact they are fools. We have the wisdom of God, which the world considers foolish. And you need to keep that in mind when you talk to an unbeliever. Don't be sucked into this idea that there's all this middle ground of agreement. They've got eyes, noses and ears, mouths and so forth. But we've got a mustache as well. We've got the added feature of Jesus. The Bible says if you don't think God's thoughts after him, you aren't able to come to the truth at all. In principle, you are a fool. And thus Paul says in First Corinthians 1, verse 20, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? I love that since I engage in debate, Paul's challenges bring on your opponents. Where is the debater of this age who will stand up and be able to make sense out of his non Christian worldview? Paul says, hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? In Romans 8, 7, Paul tells us that unbelievers who do not have the Holy Spirit guiding them and informing them are enemies in their minds against God. Is that the way you see unbelieving philosophies? Is that the way you see unbelieving newscasts? Is that the way you see unbelieving movie productions, unbelieving novels and everything else the unbelieving world creates? It is an enmity with God. At the end of my first lecture today, I suggested to you that one of the biggest obstacles to our loving God with all of our mind and is not realizing that we must resist worldly philosophy. And you don't resist and I don't resist worldly philosophy in the way that we should. When we have the idea that there's no worldview conflict going on. When we deal with the unbelieving world, we're sucked into thinking that because we go to unbelieving doctors like Dr. Bonson does, we buy groceries from unbelieving merchants and so forth, and we think, well, there's so much in life that's the same for believer and unbeliever. And it's just that we have the added attraction of believing in Jesus. No, the Bible tells you otherwise. I hope you will never think that way again. After what you've heard this morning, you must realize that unbelievers are successful in this world to the degree that they have any success at all, only because they know God in their heart of hearts. And then they suppress it and like fools turn around and try to develop another worldview by which they can deny this God. And in terms of that worldview, you need to be careful of the presuppositions that they bring in. Unbelievers are not going to talk to you and always wave a flag and say, by the way, I'm working under the assumption that everything is material in reality. I'm working under the assumption that we only know things by observation. I'm working under the assumption that what's wrong with right or wrong is ultimately a matter of pleasure. They don't come out and say that. And yet we get into debates with them, or we're influenced by their point of view, or we run with them, or we're with a crowd and we think like them and we don't realize we are imbibing the presuppositions of worldly thinking, and that is disloyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason I'm glad you've come to our conference today is because I want to call on you to greater fidelity and the use of your mind in loving God. And that fidelity requires that you think in terms of presuppositional analysis. What is it that people ultimately are committed to in their view of reality, in their view of how we should live our lives and how we know what we know? If you'll turn to page eight in your syllabus as we bring this lecture close to its end, you will notice we have a discussion of why it's necessary for Christians to study non Christian worldviews. Let me turn back. If you look at page 6, Worldview Analysis in Scripture before we look at the necessity of doing this, let me just illustrate from Scripture itself that what I'm trying to teach you in this hour is something that you would learn if you read the Bible. Time is short, so let me just Refer to the 26th chapter of Acts and have you read it on your own? In Acts 26, Paul appears before Agrippa and there he gives his testimony and argues for the faith. And Agrippa is shown to be a skeptic. He has questions about these things. And apparently Agrippa especially had some doubts about this claim that Jesus rose from the dead. And at one point, as Paul is dealing with Agrippa, you will find him say to Agrippa, why do you think it impossible that God should raise the dead? Now I realize when you read that you often just pass over and don't stop think about it. But if you would reflect on that, you notice that Paul is saying to Agrippa, if you have the right worldview, you would not begin with doubts about the possibility of a resurrection. For you see, if God created the heavens and the earth, if he made all things and he is sovereign over everything, that kind of God would have no trouble in raising the dead. But if you begin with a view.

Of God that says God is not.

Sovereign, God's not the Creator, God can't do all things, he's not omnipotent, then of course maybe you'd have some questions you might philosophically discount or even preclude that Jesus could rise from the dead. But why should you think it impossible if you know the living and true God, that Jesus should rise from the dead? The limits of reality, you see, were determined by Agrippa's View and Paul's view of who God is, or Acts, the 17th chapter, maybe even a better illustration, where Paul goes to Athens, the intellectual center of the ancient world, and there encounters the philosophers at Athens. And when the philosophers call on Paul to give an account of his teaching and to defend it, it's fascinating. You'll notice that Paul sets over against their viewpoint, his conflicting theological convictions. Paul doesn't go in there and say, oh no, we have everything in common here. It's just that I have Jesus and you don't. I let me appeal to everything, you know for sure. No, he talks about the nature of God, the creator God, the sovereign controller of all things, the God who's made himself so clear that even pagan philosophers can't miss it. The God who raised his Son from the dead. Notice Paul does not appeal to any historical evidence for that. He declares the resurrection and then the theological implication that if Jesus rose from the dead, he's been made the judge of all mankind over against the worldview of the philosophers. He says, only in terms of the doctrines of creation, God's revelation and the doctrine of history as under the control of God. Can you understand the Christian story in the New Testament. You see, you just don't find piecemeal evangelism in the New Testament. You never have the idea that Jesus is being added to your pagan worldview. Your life is okay as far as it goes. Now just add Jesus, you know, kind of like the extra added attraction that makes everything worthwhile in life. No, the New Testament calls people to repentance. You know what the Greek word repentance means? A change of mind, a turning around of the way you think and the way that you live. It's impossible to follow Jesus without conversion. And so you can't be running along the way as an unbeliever.

And then what you do is Paul says, take heed, lest there be anyone who robs you through his philosophy and vain deceit, which is after the tradition of men, after the rudiments. The word rudiments here means elementary principles of learning after the rudiments of the world, what we'll call the presuppositions of the world and not after Christ. There have been some fundamentalist brothers who have suggested that I was wrong to.

Take a PhD in philosophy because this verse prohibits that.

Let me ask you, does this verse prohibit the study of philosophy? Oh, just the opposite. I think this verse requires the study of philosophy.

I don't mean all of you have to become philosophy makers to get PhDs.

But means we need to learn something about worldly philosophy in the first place. Paul doesn't prohibit philosophy here. He cautions about it. He warns about it. There's a difference between a prohibition and a caution, am I right? When your son asks to borrow the.

Car to go out on a date.

And you caution him as he goes out the door, be careful, son. There's a difference between that and prohibiting him to go in the car, isn't there? Paul doesn't prohibit us to use philosophy. He warns us about the danger of philosophy. Moreover, he doesn't warn about all philosophy universally, but about a particular or specific kind of philosophy. He says, be careful of that philosophy, which is after the tradition of men, after the presuppositions of the world, the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. If somebody were to say to you, I'm interested in being a doctor that promotes health and strong bodies, and because I'm interested in health, I'm not going to study disease. I'm not going to know anything about broken bones and about colds and viruses and heart problems and all the rest because I'm interested in health, well, that's like the Christian who says, I'm interested in good philosophy, in pure faithful thinking, so I'm not going to study what the unbeliever has to say. The fact is, if you're going to be a good doctor, you must study disease to facilitate health and promote health. And likewise, it's necessary for Christians to study and to understand non Christian worldviews that they'll be able to facilitate faithfulness to Jesus Christ. If we're going to have presuppositions in a worldview that are according to Christ, we have to know what is diseased and wrong so that we avoid it and we can help other people to walk away from it. We're going to take a few moments here and take a break and let you pass in your questions and then I'll try to answer a few of.

Them before we go to lunch.

When we come back, we'll begin to study those non Christian worldviews and how we can disarm them.

First question is somewhat detailed, but it looks like a real good one. How do you reply to the one who self consciously regards the validity of empirical observation as a pre presupposition? He holds the claim all knowledge is empirically justified as a transcendental claim that is self verifying. He then argues for the uniformity of nature, reliability of central perceptions by the impossibility of the contrary, simply charging him with question begging, etc.

Won't move him.

What's an apologist to do?

Everybody's presuppositions in the end must be self honor authorizing. And by that I mean when you get down to the most fundamental level of a person's convictions and his philosophy of life, those convictions must be their own authority. Because if you appeal to something outside of them to authorize those convictions, then they aren't the most fundamental.

And therefore everybody's worldview in the end.

Gets to a place where, where there are assumptions about reality, knowledge and ethics which are supposed to be self vindicating. Self authorizing. Many people look at Christians and say.

Well, you're reasoning in a circle because.

You appeal to God as your ultimate authority. And then you verify what God says by what God says. And a lot of Christians are intimidated because they'll be told, well, that's circular reasoning. Hey, well I got news for you. Everybody must engage in that.

If you want to call that circular reasoning.

It's technically not the same. But everybody engages in that kind of circular reasoning at the most fundamental level of what they believe about reality, knowledge and ethics. And now the question comes, what if somebody says, well, my self authorizing assumption is the reliability of sense perception. My answer to that is that's not self authorizing. I realize that you must make the claim because there's nothing outside of sense experience that you will allow to dissuade you. But it turns out that the reliability of sense perception is not self verifying. I've said two things to you. The unbeliever must, like the believer, finally let his ultimate authority authorize itself. But that isn't to say that all claims to authority are legitimate claims. Not all circles of self verification are in fact self verifying. In fact, some circles are self refuting. And what I did in my lecture today is I tried to show that the person who says all knowledge is based on observation has not observed that, and consequently he doesn't know that to be true, given his philosophy of life. And so here's a person who must in the end have something that verifies itself and in fact it refutes itself. And so all unbelievers, I believe, if you able to finally talk them down to the presuppositional level, all unbelievers will be shown to have internally contradictory presuppositions, whereas only the Christian's presuppositions give a foundation for logic and for science and morality that do not contradict themselves.

Next question. Recognize the study of Philosophy is beneficial. What about the study of.

Well, similarly to last night, I'm in an awkward position. Someone asked me a blunt and very relevant question.

I don't want to run away from.

The question and I don't want to seem arrogant or hard to get along with. But I have to be very honest with you. I have real doubts about the value of psychology as it's taught in most secular universities. Well, actually, most Christian schools too, for that matter, because they're a failed reflection of what the secular schools do. Now, to some degree, you might consider this a matter of professional antagonism. There has been throughout the 20th century quite a conflict between schools of philosophy and schools of psychology. But you see, there's a reason for that. Let me tell you why. It's not just philosophers having professional pride. Our department is better than your department. But you see, many of us argue that psychology is not even a science. It's not a science because there is no basis for an objectivity or public nature of the things that are discovered. There is no objective way to resolve differences of opinion among schools of psychology. Not only is it the case that many psychological schools of thought are not based upon experimental observation or anything rational by way of. But there are so many conflicts among schools of psychology without there being any kind of understanding any publicly discernible common measure by which you could adjudicate the differences between them. It doesn't look very much like a scientific approach. Therefore. Moreover, when you look at the results of psychology, statistical analysis have demonstrated that people are roughly. Roughly. There's a few percentage point differences, but not enough within the margin of error to make any difference. People are just as likely to get better psychologically not going to a psychologist than they are having gone to a psychologist. And that's from statistics that the psychologists give us. And so, just from the standpoint of academic analysis, I didn't have a high regard for schools of psychology. I don't think it's impossible that people will stumble upon the truth every once in a while and something helpful. But then again, it's not impossible that you might stumble upon a good meal in the garbage dump too.

That doesn't mean that I go to.

The garbage dump at dinner time. I wouldn't encourage you to study in a school of psychology. I don't think it's a very reputable area of study. I don't think it's a very helpful area of study. But more importantly, as a Christian, I have real problems because psychology, in the nature of the case studies, the nature of man, who is man? What's he like? What's his purpose here? How should he live his life?

And as a pastor and a counselor.

Who has had to for years try to undo the effects of wicked psychological counseling, I can tell you the vast majority of what is taught in psychology in our day to day is not true the word of God. People are helped to rationalize their rebellion against God. They are taught not to think God's thoughts after him or to think of themselves as children of God and responsible for their behavior. So from a theological and ethical standpoint, I have a real problem with this. But now let me add a PS So that this doesn't sound like just an unmitigated slaughter of some psychology on my part. There is a very legitimate place, I think, for the empirical study of human behavior, and particularly the effects, let's say, of certain kinds of disease or drugs upon the mind or upon the brain.

To be more technically precise.

And if psychology were to narrow its dimensions and to pay attention to that so that we might learn how, what the effect organically is upon behavior of certain things that take place in the brain, then I think there's some good.

To be gained there.

But generally speaking, I have to be honest with you, I don't recommend that you study psychology. You're not going to learn a great deal that is true to the word of God or helpful to you as a Christian There.

We have time for one more question before our lunch break, and this will be a quick one. How do we deal with the question in the church without being in agreement with Satan, the accuser of the brethren, and the world system that is against the Church and other Christians?

I'm not understanding the question. How do I deal with what?

How do you deal with the question? I think it's apologetics, perhaps correction, trying to teach and rebuke correction, yet being at peace and holy, those sorts of things, without spot or blemish, without being in agreement with Satan, the accuser of the brethren?

Which question are we dealing with?

I don't know.

We need to submit this to the hermeneutics experts.

Now, how do we deal with the.

Question in the church?

Can someone help me?

Which question did you want dealt with.

In the church here?

Okay, okay. Well, the Bible presents two perspectives to us. Let me begin with us as individual Christians. On the one hand, the Bible tells us that in Christ we are holy, aren't we? And yet the Bible also addresses us as people who struggle with sin, who need to renew their commitment, examine their faith, be more faithful in following Jesus, not be carnal and so forth. And so now, as a Christian, an individual Christian, I might ask myself, well now, which is true of me? Am I wholly in Christ, or do I have these problems with sin that have to be dealt with? Well, of course the answer is both are true. I am in a position because of Christ's redemptive work of standing before God blameless. And yet I myself continue to do blameworthy things and must cast them off, be progressively sanctified, and look for that day when I will be totally glorified and purified and come into the presence of God. And the Church is in the same situation. The Church is holy and Jesus is interested in having a spotless bride without wrinkle. And yet the fact is, if you read the Book of Corinthians, the Church had all kinds of internal problems, immorality and dissension and theological error and all the rest. The same way the Church needs to be rebuked, the Church needs to be exhorted and called to greater fidelity to Christ, ironically, just because it has the position before Christ of being his bride. That is, we need to live up to what Jesus says about us as a church. And now, how does this tie into whether we end up following worldly ways.

Of thinking when we deal with the.

Errors in the Church? Obviously, we need to call the Church to be a light in the world. In this anti Christian culture, as you put it, the Church needs to become more purely committed to the word of God, more consistent with its own presuppositions, more holy and obedient in living those things out, so that we might present an alternative culture to the world. Augustine talked about. We have the city of God and then the city of this earth, the city of this world. And these two develop simultaneously throughout history and in the Church. We need to be developing that alternative city, that alternative culture, even in the midst of a dark world, so that the light might shine. Now, again, I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding where the question is going. But the thing that concerns me is that the Church can hardly do that in this age when the Church has been held captive to the thinking of the world. So much of what takes place in the Church is following the priorities and the commitments and the evaluations, the lifestyle of the world, and is afraid to challenge it, afraid to be perfectly consistent with the Christian worldview and to be.

True to the word of God.

We have a number of people who call themselves evangelicals in our day who have come to deny the doctrine of hell because it's such an unpopular doctrine and they don't feel they can defend it and so forth. I think that's appalling when you have men who are in the pulpit who compromise the word of God because they're following worldly thinking. So now, as long as that's allowed to take place, as long as we don't call for the reformation and purification of our churches, we never will overcome the world system. We won't be a light shining in a dark place. I'm not trying to commend or pump you up or myself by saying this, but I think we need conferences and studies and books and writings along the lines of what we're doing today if.

We'Re ever going to see the situation change.

Change. Well, if I can be more help to you later, I'll see you at the break and try to figure out.

More where you're going with that third session. We're beginning on page nine in the syllabus. And during this hour I'm going to try to help you by giving some tools to discern unbelieving thinking from believing thinking. Since you don't want to be made captive by worldly presuppositions and the worldviews of those who don't want to honor God, then I think it is valuable for us to study what the world has to say. And yet we can't take the time to cover every individual philosopher throughout history. We couldn't do that in one day, much less in one of these lecture sessions. Nevertheless, there are only so many kinds of outlooks, so many kinds of philosophical positions that people can take. So I am going to offer you during this lecture two tools that kind of summarize the options or the issues that are going to be involved when you do worldview analysis with people. To begin, however, let's look at our Bibles in 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, verses 4 and 5, 2nd Corinthians 10:4. There Paul says, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds. And then he explains this casting down of strongholds that we are able to do in a mighty fashion. He says, casting down reasonings. Some translations will have imaginations, ways of thinking, casting down reasonings in every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. One of the advantages to becoming self conscious in your own worldview as a Christian. One of the advantages to loving God with all of your mind and bringing every thought into captivity to Christ. Christ is that you will thereby be able to cast down every line of reasoning that is exalted against the knowledge of God. You understand what I just said?

That to the degree that you are.

Faithful in your thought life, God will give you the power. You don't need a sword here. You don't need the weapons of the flesh. God will give you the power and the ability to bring down all non Christian thinking, every line of reasoning that's exalted against the knowledge of God. Now, I face something of a tricky situation when I go out speaking just about anywhere I go. If I speak as a Christian philosopher or speak on Christian apologetics, what have you, I can either choose to make the presentation very simple so that everybody in the pew can understand it, in which case some people are going to say, oh, yeah, but then sophisticated philosophers, they're not going to be persuaded by that kind of thing. That's not going to do it. You're going to have to get beyond that. Or I can do what my professional training is and present a very technical lecture, like I might do at a university or in a philosophy department. And then somebody would say, oh, yeah, but how do you expect anybody in the pew to be able to follow that? Well, I have good news for you. I believe you can have it both ways. And the reason I believe that is that Paul here assures not just Christian philosophers, but he assures all believers that their fidelity in the way that they think will enable them to cast down everything that is raised up against the knowledge of God. And therefore my approach to apologetics, to whatever degree it is biblical, I hope that it is biblical, I try to make it faithful. The approach that God's Word would have us take to apologetics can be taught at any of those levels. The difference is not what you are doing, the style of the apologetic, but just the level of sophistication and vocabulary, to be honest with you. You can take somebody who delivers milk and somebody who has a PhD in philosophy, and you can teach the same principles of reasoning and thinking and just expect that one's going to do it at the level of talking to people that he delivers milk to, and another's going to do it at a university level. But what they are doing is in principle the same thing. And so this afternoon I'm going to do a little bit of both. I'm going to try to discuss for you some philosophical issues, which I realize at some point some of you may think, boy, he's galloping off so fast. I don't know what he's saying. I hope that won't be often. However, I want to assure you that if I presented to you the most technical philosophical discussion, the only difference between what you would get in that kind of lecture and what I'm going to give you today is the level of presentation. Because what Paul tells us about casting down every line of reasoning is. Is applicable to every Christian. You might think of it this way. There's the story about the king who had no clothes, who was convinced by his advisors and people that there was this invisible, you know, set of clothes that had been developed for him and that he was going to wear them in this parade and so forth. And he goes out and everybody, you know, all the PC people, the politically correct people, you know, taught others what to say. Oh, the King. Boy, doesn't he look sharp today? Wow. We, you know. But there was this one little kid, you know, I imagine him sitting on the curb, not really paying too much attention until the king starts coming down the street, and then he whips his head around, he goes, for crying out loud, the King's in his underwear. What's going on here? The king has no clothes. And of course, the child's hated for that and so forth. But the point is, a little child's honesty is able to get through all of the sophistication, all of the adult arguments and so forth, and go to the truth of the matter and embarrass the King. Likewise, God's children are able to do that. You know, there may be people that will talk with all their fancy jargon. The people who have gone to school, to college, especially these philosophers, what a breed of humanity they are, the sorts of things they'll throw at you. But the simplest child of God can sit on the curb and say, you know, I've been listening to you, and I realize you've got to define a lot of terms and I've got to go slow with you. But when you get done, it seems to me the king doesn't have any clothes on. The only difference is that sometimes unbelievers who are philosophically inclined or think that they're scholarly will say, well, of course, if you don't have a Ph.D. i don't have to worry about you. Is that a good argument? It's like you aren't as well trained as I am, so you must be wrong. Well, no. In fact, if this guy were any better trained, he should know that it's a fallacious line of reasoning. So I'm going to try to teach you, maybe closer to the curb level of what you can do rather than at the level of public debate. But I'm going to teach you how your faithfulness to Christ will enable you to cast down any line of reasoning that's raised against the knowledge of God. And the two tools that I'm going to be using this afternoon to try to teach this are first of all, what I call the square of opposition. And then secondly, I'd like to do a survey critique of the different worldview types that you're going to run into, because it's my conviction that there's nothing new under the sun. You get different variations and different sprinklings and toppings on them. But the worldview types throughout history which I have studied strike me as falling into only so many different classes or types. And if we look at each of those, I will have helped to prepare you to disarm unbelieving thinking wherever you may find it. And I want to should tell you all along here, I apologize for the state of my health today. The sinus infection that I'm struggling through, you get to struggle through with me. So forgive me for that. Okay, if you'll turn to page nine, then the first tool to help your discernment of worldviews and to take a stand against non Christian worldviews is the square of religious opposition. Actually, on page 10, you'll see a diagram that I'd like you to turn to, and I'm going to try to explain it for you here. What I want to get across by, by explaining things in terms of transcendence and eminence is simply that every school of thought, every outlook on life must incorporate certain kinds of considerations. Not every football team runs the same defense, but every defense in football has certain things in common with all the rest. There are certain things you've got to be able to do. For instance, you'd better be able to protect against the run and against passing, okay? Now, there are different ways of doing that, but the point is you haven't got a defense in football if you can't deal with the rush and with the pass, okay? Likewise in philosophy, it turns out that when people address issues about the nature of reality or how we know what we know, how we should live our lives, there are certain things that everybody's got to take into account. And you will find there are common elements and, and every worldview. In fact, and this is somewhat distressing to people, there are common elements between the Christian worldview and the non Christian worldview. Now, maybe that bothers you, because right before lunch what I taught you is that there's this principal antithesis between worldviews. Well, that's true, but the fact is the antithesis is between worldviews. They have that much in common. Unbelievers have got to deal with the nature of reality. They've got to deal with the nature of knowledge. They have to deal with deal with the nature of how we live our lives. So they've got ethical convictions. We've got ethical convictions. We have that much in common. But then, of course, what we say about ethics is going to be diametrically opposite of one another. Likewise, if we can push a little bit further, I would tell you that every position that is developed in terms of reality, knowledge and ethics is going to have elements of transcendence about it and elements of eminence. What do I mean by transcendence? There will be those elements that go beyond human experience, that transcend, that go across, that actually go further than human experience. There will be transcendent elements to that philosophy, and there will be eminent elements. The eminent aspect of philosophy is the here and now eminent means close at hand or part of our experience. And so there are going to be some things that go beyond our experience, some things that are taken from or applied to our experience. Every philosophy has those things. Just like every human being, every normal human being has a nose. Every philosophy has got a transcendent and an eminent element to it. Okay, let's talk more about what these two are. Transcendence. Those things that characterize what goes beyond human experience in a philosophy will be its absolutes or its understanding of authority, or its appeal to universal elements. Well, let's just think about those three characteristics. That which is absolute is not what's part of my changing temporal experience from moment to moment. Okay. We live in a world where everything changes. My opinions change, my feelings change. And so how can there be anything absolute? You have one opinion, I have an opinion. So there's change, there's difference and diversity between us. And yet every philosophy must have something that is absolute, that is not changing, that is not qualified. And since that's not part of our normal experience, that's why I'm putting it on the diagram in the transcendent area of that point of view. Likewise, authority. Authority is something that goes beyond myself or my thinking at the moment when I have to live according to some rational principle. That principle has authority. It's not like, well, whatever I happen to think has authority, but rather my thinking must conform to this outside standard of thinking. It may be logic, maybe sense, perception, whatever, but no one believes that every thought that crosses your mind is in and of itself ultimately authoritative. Whenever our thoughts must conform to some pattern or standard, that's an appeal to that which goes beyond our experience. And so every philosophy's got some kind of absolute, some kind of authority, or another way of putting it. Every philosophy appeals to universals, things which are always the case, or at least are the case for a particular class of things. No philosophy looks upon the world and looks upon human experience. There's just utter diversity, right? If I were to look upon this audience and say, there's nothing but diversity here, I wouldn't be able to speak to you, would I? Because in my speaking to you, I would assume, first of all that I could use a language, say English, which I'm trying to use today. But if I use English, I'm assuming that you do have this much in common. You all speak English, so you're not all utterly diverse. This audience is an audience of English speakers. That may seem like a trivial point to some of you, but as it turns out, whenever you do philosophy and you start dividing up reality, knowing how you're going to interact with it, you've got to decide, what are your universals? What is it that classifies things together? What can you say about the whole class of things? Can you say anything at all? Are there universals? If somebody says it's always wrong to murder, you say, well, how do you know that it's always wrong to murder? Where do you derive this universal? Well, you don't derive that from the imminent, here, you know, at hand experiences that you have, because some people engage in murder, and there may be some cases that it appears, if you just look at the way life goes, where there's an excuse for killing another person. And so can you say that there's any universal ethically? Or are there anything, is there anything universally true about human nature or about the world reality as a whole? Whenever a philosophy starts wandering into that kind of thinking, it's dealing with the transcendent elements of its thought. Okay, I hope I've given enough illustrations that you have some notion then, of the transcendent pole in philosophical thinking. It deals with that which goes beyond our here and now experience. It deals with absolutes, authority, universals. It deals with control. What are the control measures in your philosophy? What provides unity, continuity and order in your thinking? On the other hand, every philosophy has to deal with the near at hand, those things in our Experience which are imminent. Here's the aspect of a philosophy or a point of view that deals with relevant details of life and the particulars of our experience, and therefore deals with individuality, deals with change and diversity and freedom. Every philosophy's got to talk not just about classes of things, but also the particular members of the class. Every philosophy has to deal with authority and control measures, but then also about the freedom that individuals have to change and to make their own decisions or to be different from one another. Not everything is unified in this world. Not everything is same, and yet not.

Everything is ultimately different.

You're not accustomed to thinking this way, are you? Now, I know you've had lunch and this is the time to take a nap, the worst time to teach philosophy. But that's what in the providence of God we need to do. I'm going to tell you at the outset. I can't keep waking you up to remind you abstract thinking is not what you are accustomed to. And what I'm telling you now is very abstract. I'm asking you to go beyond the level of your armchair thinking and watching television and to start thinking about general principles, abstract ideas. Now, I think it'll be a great benefit to you to catch on to this, but at this point, if you have a temptation to kind of tune out, I'm just going to ask you, give me a few more minutes, we can start making this sound a little more relevant. But at this point, you have to at least get the tools of the trade. Every philosophy of life is going to trade in certain kinds of things. You know, it's like every face has eyes and noses and mouths and so forth. Every philosophy has elements of authority, absoluteness or universals, but on the other hand has elements of individuality, diversity, freedom and change. Okay, so you have some idea of these abstract ideas of transcendence and eminence. On the chart, the square of religious opposition, you will notice that we can diagram the Christian view of transcendence. That's number one in your booklet. And we can talk about the Christian view of eminence in broad terms. And then I'm going to talk about the non Christian position regarding transcendence. That's number three. And also the non Christian view of eminence. So at least you know what the diagram is about and which each one of these corners stands for. We have Christian views on the left hand side and non Christian views on the right hand side. The top line will represent views of transcendence. The bottom line, views of eminence. The reason I'M doing this is because I want you to understand the internal working or the lack of working, the dysfunctional aspect of non Christian philosophy. And I also want you to understand the antithesis between Christian thinking and non Christian thinking. This little chart, when you fill it in, will help or facilitate your doing that. So let's begin with the Christian position. What do we as Christian philosophers say about absolutes, authority, universal control, those sorts of things? To put it very simply, our view, our view of transcendence is that God is the sovereign creator. That's our philosophy of life. God is the sovereign creator. He not only is the origin of everything that exists, he sovereignly controls everything that takes place. God is the sovereign creator and therefore.

His Word.

Has ultimate authority and is absolute truth. As the sovereign creator, God knows everything. As sovereign, he controls everything. God is the sovereign creator who knows everything, controls everything. And His Word is our ultimate authority. His Word is our absolute truth. Okay, now this is transcendent, isn't it? Because God goes beyond human nature. God is the creator. He goes beyond that which has been created. He transcends human experience. Moreover, God is just not part of human experience. God controls all human experience. Everything that happens to us, everything that takes place in history is under his co command. And when God speaks, it's not just one opinion among many. You know, you might meet me at McDonald's at lunch and we might argue about who's going to win a football game. But you don't talk to God that way. If you understand the Christian position, when God speaks, that's beyond challenge. But God be true, though all men are liars, Paul says. And so the Christian position, we're not talking about, you know, whether people need to believe this right now. I just want you to know what the position is. And our philosophy of life begins with this transcendent understanding that God is the principle of order, unity, control, authority, universality and absoluteness. Because he is the sovereign Creator.

This recording has been released into the the public domain by the Bonson Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and Ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website bonseninstitute.com where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.