Dr Greg Bahnsen - Mid-Level Apologetics: Antithesis at Mars Hill Pt 1 (Part 5)

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.

How should we defend the faith? What we have been doing up to this point is laying a foundation or giving a background for this most crucial of questions, the question of methodology by way of review. Let's remember that in the history of Christian apologetics, we have seen two basic approaches to defending the faith. Although there is a real multitude of questions that have been addressed and need to be addressed, everything boils down to the issue of whether faith is developed and placed upon the foundation of reason, or whether reason itself requires the foundation of faith. Now, those who say we laid the foundation for faith with the use of man's natural and neutral reasoning ability are following what great Christian thinker, Aquinas. Okay. And then those who maintain that faith is necessary for understanding or for the proper use of reason are following what greater Christian thinker. Ah, Paul. I appreciate that answer, but I'm looking for somebody after the apostolic generation. That's right. Augustine or Augustine. Very good. So we've boiled it down to two very simple diagrams. Obviously, there's much more to it than that, but in the history of Christian thought, everything seems to come down to this. Do you approach the unbeliever and assume that you have a common foundation in reason and then try to put faith on that foundation or build it from that point? Or do you approach the unbeliever and say, if you would do any reasoning at all, you will need the Christian faith that I am proclaiming in order to make sense what you're doing. In the history of apologetics in our day, these two approaches come down to what's called presuppositionalism and evidentialism. Now, what's wrong with those titles? Very quickly, what's wrong with calling evidentialism evidentialism? Anyone? That's right. That assumes that you don't need presuppositions. You just approach everybody in a neutral fashion and. And then we see who has the best evidence, who can kind of load up their side of the argument with positive points and so forth, and that way you win the debate. What's wrong with calling presuppositionalism presuppositionalism over against evidentialism?

Sounds like you don't use reason and that your arguments are circular.

That's right. Well, it makes it sound like all you're doing is presupposing things and you don't care about reasoning and about evidence and so forth. Very good. In our last lesson, we talked about the question of neutrality. In what way does the Bible tell us, or how would you prove from the Bible that we are not to be neutral in our approach to apologetics?

Well, Jesus says that you, if you're.

Not with him, you're again, he who is not with me is against me. Right. Is neutrality possible, then? No, it's not possible. So when people think they're being neutral, that's the most dangerous thing of all. You see, it'd be much better to have an unbeliever come right out and say, I know that I'm begging the question and that I'm biased and I have an ax to grind, because at least we know what the nature of the conflict is. But when you approach a believer and encourage him to think, or if you allow him to think, that he really has an open mind, all he wants is the evidence. And it's really God's fault he doesn't believe in God because God hasn't given enough evidence. So certainly I have an open mind. I'm not prejudiced, not me. When we allow that sort of thing, we are really undermining our ability to do effective apologetics because we are granting from the outside, from the outset, pardon me, the legitimacy of the unbeliever's conception of himself. You know, he really wants to put God in the dock. You know what the dock is in English jurisprudence? The dock is where the accused stands, the judge is at the bench, the accused is in the dock, and the unbeliever wants to put God in the dock. As C.S. lewis once put it very nicely, he wants God to be on trial. And if God can vindicate himself to the unbeliever's mind, then that's great. But of course, as long as the unbeliever is not going to admit his own sin and rebellion and guilt before God, God's always going to come out wanting in the evidence. We mustn't grant that God is in the dock. And that's what we do when we approach the unbeliever with the idea of neutrality, that we all have open minds, we don't have presuppositions. None of us are really begging the question here. We're just going to see where the evidence leads us. I would like to talk a bit about antithesis tonight. And to do that, let's turn in our Bibles to Acts, the 17th chapter. And having refreshed our memories with the two basic approaches to defending the Christian faith, let's see how Paul did it. I'm of that school of theology that says if it was good enough for Paul, it's good enough for me. I think what we see in the example of Paul here is normative for us. Now, since you've done the reading for tonight, you know, there's a portion of the article you read on Acts 17 where, you know, there are some people who don't see Paul's example here as being exemplary. That is, what Paul did in Athens, some people would say, is later repudiated by Paul. And where would they get that idea? I think it's a mistaken idea. But where we get this, Mike, I.

Think it's in Corinthians where he's talking.

About the wisdom, right, Christ crucified. I've determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified, for I did not preach to you with the wisdom of words, Paul says. And so some people have thought since he went to Corinth after he was in Athens that what he was reminding the Corinthians of is that he had repudiated his philosophical approach, his intellectual approach to defending the faith. He saw what a really bad outcome was brought about in Athens through his defending the faith in the way he did, that he turned away from it altogether. And how did I refute that claim?

Excellent, though the last verse in the passage where some of them did believe in, even the ones even well known enough to be mentioned by name.

That's right. So Paul didn't think of his approach as totally without fruit or successful. What else?

Well, if you look carefully at that account, it parallels exactly what he says in Romans and elsewhere about.

And in First Corinthians too. Because what Paul does in First Corinthians is he challenges the world. He goes, where's your debater? Where's the one that you can send out that God hasn't made foolish? And that approach, suggesting that unbelieving philosophy is reduced to foolishness is what we find in Acts 17 as well. And then, as Larry's indicated elsewhere in Paul's later Epistle to the Romans, we see the same general approach demands unbelief, his suppression of the truth and unrighteousness, so forth and so on. So there really isn't good biblical evidence to support the idea that Paul repudiated what he did at Athens. And so tonight we're going to look at Acts 17, and I'm going to take it for granted that what Paul did there should be something of a guide and example to us. In verse 16 of that chapter, we read now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols. Let me stop and make some annotations as we go. You notice that when Paul entered into apologetical debate, he did it with a righteous indignation. What provoked Paul to argument with the men in Athens was not that they insulted his intelligence. Why am I bringing this up? I see some of you are smiling. As you know very well from our own experience, often what draws us out is that we think people are making fun of us as Christians or putting down and so forth. And it's kind of like, well, we'll show you. That isn't what made Paul enter into apologetical debate. You understand that what prompted his defense and his proclamation of the Gospel was the honor of God. If it were just a matter of what someone thinks of me, I should be able to walk away from that. What do I care? He thinks of me, but what he thinks of God is the consuming interest and zeal of my life. Paul was provoked because of the idolatry of Athens. And so he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with them that met him. Another annotation. Do you notice that Luke summarizes Paul's activity for us as doing the very same thing with the Jews that he did with the non Jews that he met on the street or in the marketplace. What's important about that observation?

Same method works in both.

That's right, one method. Some people have said, well, when you're talking to Jews who are committed to biblical authority, then of course you can presuppose the Bible. But when you're talking to people who aren't Jews, you can't presuppose the Bible. You have to have a different approach. This verse tells us Paul reasoned. The same verb is used. He reasoned with the Jews and with those that he found in the marketplace every day. So Paul had the same method with all kinds of men. Now, verse 18 sets up the situation. Now the intellectuals enter the picture. Certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. There were four major schools, actually six schools of philosophy in Athens in this day that we should be aware of. The Epicureans and the Stoics were the most popular in Paul's day. But we would have to include the Platonists, those of the academy school known as the Academy of Plato, and then the Aristotelians of the Lyceum of Aristotle. And so we have followers of Plato, followers of Aristotle and Then Luke tells us, because these are the leading men in that day, followers of Epicurus. Can anyone summarize for me? Epicureanism Extra credit tonight? All right.

Personal pleasure is the bottom line.

That's true. Personal pleasure is. But what else do we want to add so we understand Epicurus?

I was going to say, eat, drink.

For tomorrow we die. There's nothing to fear. And death. No, the Eclectics are another school. We'll come to that in a second. What did Epicurus think about the nature of reality? What is reality all about? What's it made up? What's it like? Anyone remember? Well, he is a materialist. Particularly, he is an atomist. He believes that all of reality reduces to indivisible units of matter falling through space and falling in such a way that what happens in the world is determined by the laws of motion. Now, the reason I want to stop and belabor this a minute. Well, you tell me. Why should Epicurus be of interest to us in the late 20th century if he believes that the world is made up of atoms that are determined by the laws of motion and that the way you live your life is for personal pleasure? Because that's the prevailing spirit of our age, too. We have the scientific worldview, you know that you have the material realm out there that finally breaks down into these smaller particles of matter. A deterministic world, and yet one in which we live for ourselves and our own pleasure. Now, I'm going to skip ahead just because this is fun talking about for a minute here. If Epicurus were in the room tonight, even if you didn't have a degree in philosophy, what might you be inclined? Just on, you know, you're on a bus with Epicurus, forget being in the room. You're just talking to him on the way home from work. Okay, you say, eppie, I don't understand this. You know, you're going to take the Columbo approach. Just one question about this, and it still doesn't fit here. You say that I'm nothing more than a bundle of particles of matter falling through space, and yet I should live for pleasure. I should make choices based on what will give me the greatest happiness or comfort, so forth. Now, what bothers you about that? Does anything sound like it doesn't comport here?

It might bring you the most pleasure, might bring someone else the greatest pain.

Well, okay, so, I mean, that's a problem, to be sure. But let's say Epicurus says, yeah, that's right, sometimes you got to hurt people for you to be happy.

Pleasure is out of the realm of atomistic approach to things. I mean, they appeal to our mind.

Yeah. If Epicurus tells me that I'm supposed to think things through and make a decision, what has become of the idea that I'm nothing more than matter and motion? If. What's that?

He's contradicting himself.

That's right. What you want to point out is, Epicurus, you're trying to bring two things together in your philosophy here. And I don't see how you can do that. It's not just that it's unfair. You could bring that up, you know, that your pleasure might hurt somebody else. But I don't see how you can choose anything, how there's any free will at all, given your view of the universe. Okay, if everything in this world is nothing more but matter and motion, how do we know that everything in this world is nothing but matter and motion? Because my brain is what? Matter in motion. And what my brain does, the product of my brain is determined by the laws of motion. Today we might say electrochemical interactions and so forth. We might have a more sophisticated way of putting it, but the point is, it's the laws of motion, the laws of physics and so forth. Now if that's the case, then what I think, I can't help but think, right. And so when I say that this world is matter in motion, I'm just saying what matter in motion forces me to say, in which case there's really no dignity or truthfulness or value to what I'm saying. I'm just saying what a Chatty Cathy doll has to say, and no explanation.

For what causes pleasure.

Yeah, we don't know why it causes pleasure, and we don't know that what causes pleasure day is going to cause it tomorrow and so forth. So what I'm saying is, if you're on the bus on the way home with Epicurus, you're going to start hitting him with internal contradictions in his system. You don't want to come on and say, well, you say this, but I've got another authority. The Bible says that. Well, it is true. You could tell him, the Bible says this, you say that, but in the end he's going to say, well, you know, in this world, everybody can choose what he wants as his authority. I choose me, you choose the Bible. And so it'd be much more profitable for you to point out that he's got real problems with his own authority. Well, Paul ran into some of these Epicurean philosophers, also Stoic philosophers. Now Stoic Philosophers were somewhat different than the epicureans. The Epicureans said you live for pleasure. By the way, to be honest, the Epicureans live for pleasure, not in the kind of party animal fashion that we think of today. Sometimes we'll see things like in movies or on the tv, portrayed as overindulgence in eating or sex or whatever it may be, and people will say, what an epicurean this guy is, or something. Whenever I'm sitting there, I like to say, no, you've got that wrong. That's really Aristippus who said, you should live that way. Epicurus said you should live for pleasure, but he said intelligent pleasure. Because you know what happens if you become a party animal? You get hungover and you get social diseases and so forth. And so Epicurus actually promoted the idea of moderate pleasure. A little bit of cheese, a little wine and conversation with your friends, he said, was the high point of life. Because that's the kind of pleasure which, if you do it in moderation, then you don't have the consequences of pain that comes later. What's that? That's right. Exactly right. That's safe pleasure. Now, the Stoics didn't live for pleasure, they lived for duty. Stoics believed that there was a kind of law of the universe, a logos, as they said, that flows through all things, controls all things. And if you're living a life that's unhappy, the best thing for you to do is to get in the flow of things, to attune your attitude to the universal reason that controls everything. And so stoic. To have a stoic attitude means to have a stiff upper lip, to grin and bear it, to accept the way things are. So you're going home after work and you're out on the freeway, and you have to get home by a certain time because you want to see your favorite TV show, your wife is cooking your favorite meal and so forth. It's going to be cold, but there's a traffic jam, so now you're frustrated, you know, and try to go into this lane, into this lane, you know, and you're honking your horn, you're mad about people cutting you off and so forth. The stoic would come along and say, hey, guy, chill out. You're not going to be able to fight it. This is the way the universe is. And so if you want to have peace of mind, adjust your inner attitude to fit into the external situation. What you want to say is, I can't control the world, but I can control my feelings. And so If I control my feelings and say, hey, it's okay, nothing I can do about it, I'll be a stoic about it. Then you get peace of mind by fitting into the way things are, okay? So instead of living for pleasure, you aim to fit in with the reason of things or the flow of things and to get peace of mind in that way. Now, what the Epicureans and the Stoics had in common then is their view that the world kind of. It's in a mechanical, deterministic way. For the Epicureans, the world is bits of matter falling through space according to the laws of motion. For the Stoics, the world is controlled by kind of a logos, a reason that flows through all things and determines the way things are. And you should adjust your attitude to that. Now, if you have these philosophies that say the world is deterministic, then obviously they aren't going to have any room for miracles, are they? They aren't going to have any room for the intervention of God and for the word of God. And so the Stoics and the Epicureans were the perfect opponents for Paul, the Christian apologist. Now, I said there were actually six schools of philosophy in Athens in that day. And just to round out our survey, let me mention the others. We have the Platonists of the Academy, the Aristotelians of the Lyceum. We have the Stoics. Thoa means porch, because they met in the area of the king's porch there in Athens. And the Epicureans, named after Epicurus, they met in the gardens. Their school is called the Gardens. So you have the Academy, the Lyceum, the Porch, the garden. Then there are two other schools of thought, the skeptics, who looked at the other four schools and heard them arguing, and they said, who can know? You know, like nobody knows for sure. There seems to be good arguments for everything. And so nobody can know. They're skeptical. And then there were the eclectics, who took what I call the fruit salad approach to philosophy. They looked at these four schools of thought, and they took a little bit from this and a little bit from that and put it all together and mixed it up, and then they served that as their philosophy. Perhaps the best known eclectic would be the Roman writer Cicero, who picked up little bits and pieces from a lot of different philosophies. Now, it's interesting to me, and with this we'll move back to the text, but it's interesting to me that the six main attitudes that you see in Athens and Paul's day are pretty much a good summary of what we see in our day. We have people who are empirical in their approach, like Aristotle. They're only particulars that exist. And what you know, you know through your experience, your observation. We have the idealists in our day, although they're not real popular, we still have those people who say that there are, you know, these ideals. Christmas season is a good time to see the idealism in many people who will tell you, you know, yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus. And by that what we mean is that there is this desire to be generous and good and peaceful and that goes, you know, far. It's above and beyond what you see in the natural world. It's something that we all strive for. And Christmas is a reminder of our striving for that better world and so forth. That would be very much like Plato in many ways, that there is a world beyond this world, but it's not particularly theological or supernatural. It's just a world of ideals and perfection that we strive after. We have those who live for pleasure, the Epicureans. We have those who say, you need to, you know, get into the flow of things. We have the Stoics. We have those who say, I'm tired of hearing everyone argue. No one can know anything for sure. We have our skeptics and we have people who say, well, I take a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We have our eclectics. How did Paul deal with the philosophers of his day? First of all, notice what their attitude was to him. Verse 18. And some said, what would this babbler say? Others, he seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. This babbler. Can anyone remember from the reading what the Greek term babbler actually is? Seed picker. Exactly. What was the seed picker A reference to?

Halfbreak philosopher that just kind of went around and picked up the crumbs and.

Yeah, that's the application. What literally was a seed picker? It was a kind of bird called a gutter sparrow. Not a very pleasant image. Okay, this is the bird that picks out of human dung a little bit to eat. That's what they called Paul. This seed picker, this gutter sparrow. That's applied to somebody who is. Now, Larry, you were saying half rate philosopher. Yeah, a half rate philosopher just goes around, he doesn't really know what he's talking about and so forth. In other words, they said to Paul, just like, I'll bet unbelievers say about you and me. You guys don't know what you're talking about. Your amateurs, so forth. And they also thought.

Yes, Were they calling him best to be distinguished though from the Eclectics?

Oh, yes, yeah, The Eclectics, you see, are putting together at least a good meal. Paul here is just picking seed out of dung. No, this was not a term in any sense of commendation. It was a very nasty put down. And some thought that he was setting forth strange gods because he preached Jesus in the Resurrection. If you don't read the Greek in a sense, you don't pick up some of the humor of this. Jesus is a male term or noun name. Resurrection is female. And so apparently some of these Greeks confused what Paul was saying. He was talking about two deities, one called Jesus, one called Resurrection. So they really are not catching on very well at all. And they didn't like what he was saying. They took hold of him and brought him unto the Areopagus. The Areopagus took its name from the hill where this council originally met. Areopagus means Mars hill. Ares Mars. However, in Paul's day, the council that met originally on the hill probably did not meet on Mars hill, but they still had that name attached to them. Later we read that Paul went out from the midst of the Areopagus, which wouldn't make sense from going out from the midst of a hill. So the council itself meets. And the charge to the Council of Areopagus in ancient Athens was to examine teachers to make sure they weren't going to corrupt the youth of Athens. Sound familiar? Paul was going through, in a sense, what Socrates went through. Areopagus wants to know from Paul, may we know what this new teaching is which is spoken of by you, for you bring certain strange things to our ears. We would know, therefore, what these things mean. And Paul, excuse me, Luke comments very appropriately. Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or hear some new thing. That too sounds like our culture. You know, we. It's amazing. You can take news programs and turn them into entertainment in our culture because people just want to see something new. It's amazing. Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and he said, now here comes the defense. I want to tell you one more thing about the Areopagus, though. At the founding of the court of Areopagus, it was declared there is no resurrection. Isn't that interesting? It's one of the things declared in the ancient world. At the time the Areopagus came into Existence is that there is no resurrection. When earth drinks up man's blood, there is no resurrection. And now Paul's there at the Areopagus defending what the resurrection. Does this look like Paul making common cause with these people? It's a head on collision, philosophically, nothing less than that. You men of Athens, in all things, I perceive that you are very superstitious. It's hard to find an English word that captures the sense here. Superstition is probably a little too strong of negative connotation. To say you are too religious or you are very religious would be too positive. It's somewhere between being excessively religious and excessively superstitious. Paul was saying to them it's almost like a two edged sword that he gives them. In one sense, I see you're really interested in supernatural things, but you don't know what you're talking about. I see that you're very superstitious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. In the superstitious attempt to cover all their bases about a realm that they knew nothing of, the supernatural, the Athenians at one point, in trying to purge themselves of a plague that had come upon the city, decided that they would offer sacrifices to all the gods they knew. And then where they let sheep out on the Areopagus and where certain black sheep settled, then they had an altar to unknown gods. I don't know how, if gods are unknown, I don't know how they figured out they were supposed to go with the black sheep rather than the white and all this sort of thing. But they had some idea of what they were doing, even though they said we don't know what we're doing, you know, there's this internal contradiction. And Paul says, I see you have an altar to an unknown God. And then Paul does something rather offensive. He says, what? You worship in ignorance? I set forth to you. And the word for set forth has the sense of I authoritatively declare what you don't know anything about. Let me authoritatively inform you of. And so Paul sets out a Christian worldview over against the internal contradictions and in a sense the almost frivolous, superstitious nature of the worldview that he's dealing with. So he tells us about the Christian God, the God that made the world and all things therein. He being Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands. He declares God, the Creator declares that God is the sovereign governor of all things. He's the Lord of heaven and earth. He declares that God is not served by Men, verse 25. Neither is he served by men's hands. As though he needs anything. God is self sufficient. God is independent. God needs nothing. Creator, sovereign, self sufficient. Paul also says he dwells not in temples made with hands. Now this is interesting because if he's in the Agora of Athens facing the Council, you know what the Council sees as the backdrop for Paul up top of the hill, the Parthenon, where the Greeks thought all their gods lived. And so here's Paul declaring. Does it look like he's making common cause with the philosophers? No, I mean he's declaring antithetically. He's saying, you say, but God says. You say, but God says, you've got this temple for your Gods. God doesn't dwell in temples. He doesn't need anything. It's He Himself who gives to everything, life and breath and all things he made of one. Every nation of men that dwell on the face of the earth. This was an insult to the Athenians. God's the one who determines their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation. And because God is sovereign, self sufficient and the Creator, then God has put it within men to seek Him. Notice, having declared this about God, the nature of God, verse 27 says, so that they should seek God. God has made you so that you would seek Him. God has made you to know him. Is Paul proving any of these things right now? Is he stopping at every premise and saying, now here's the proof for this premise. Here's the proof for this premise. He's not, he's saying, listen, I want to tell you a story. Not make believe story, but I want to tell you a way of looking at things. Just hear my way of looking at things. Now what's the value in Christians telling the Christian story to unbelievers? Well, since we know in their heart of hearts that they know this God, you see, even when they don't sit there nodding their heads saying, yeah, I know that, yeah, I know that. Inside a bell is ringing when you tell them the truth. Can you imagine, here are these men sitting there to judge Paul and what he's saying is, God made you to seek him. This is the God I'm declaring inside. Whether they admit it or not, this is receiving the probable kind of guilty response, but nevertheless a response. They know this to be true anyway. He tells them that God made them to seek him, if aptly they might feel after him and find him. The verb for feel after means to grope as in darkness. I gave you an example from the.

Three giants that shared an eyeball.

That's right, Cyclops. It's the same verb that's used. The cyclops gropes after his eye is put out. Paul uses this verb. I don't mean that he's referring to the story of the cyclops, but I mean that's what the verb means, to grope in darkness. Now, God made you to seek after him. If, aptly, you might seek after him in this way, that is, groping in your own darkness, you might feel after him and find him. And then here's the indictment, though he's not far from each one of us. Isn't it a shame that you're groping in darkness? Paul says God's not far from any of you. He's made himself clearly known. This is what we want to let the unbeliever know. We want to say God has given all sorts of evidence for himself. And yet you're groping in darkness. You're really missing the point. You don't see what this world is all about. You don't understand your own nature. You have no excuse, though, because God's not far from any of us. And now Paul proves that God is not far from any of us. In him we live and move and have our being. Nothing in this world would be possible or even make sense if it were not for God. Everything we do is in the environment of God, the Creator and controller of all things. Now, we're going to stop for a minute here and look at the next expression, because it gives rise to two different approaches to this text. Paul says, for in him we live and move and have our being, as certain even of your own poets have said. And then Paul quotes again from one of the Greek poets, for we are also his own offspring. Actually, you have here two quotes, either an allusion and a quote or two quotations from Greek philosophers, Greek poets. What is the thrust of Paul saying, as certain even of your own poets have said? Now let me tell you the two ideas. One approach. The evidentialist who likes to say reason is the foundation for faith. There's Paul. He's appealing to reason. He's saying, even you know, what we do is we have this common platform. Your poets have said this, I say this. So we're going to start with what we agree on and then see if we can work to agreement in our conclusions as well. That is, Paul here is complementing Greek philosophy and saying, I'm going to accept what your Greek philosophers have said when it's true. And then we'll begin from that point to develop our our religious outlook. Now, before I tell you the other approach immediately you should know there is something wrong with that because the two poets that Paul quotes were pantheists. If we are to believe that Paul was taking the premises of pantheistic philosophers and saying, I agree with this. Now from this common starting point, let's work out our philosophy. Would Paul not have become guilty of one of the most notorious fallacies in debate and reasoning equivocation? He would have accepted pantheistic premises to prove what a non pantheistic conclusion. Because obviously he doesn't believe in pantheism, that God is everything and flows through everything. Paul does not agree with the Greek philosophers. Why then does he quote them? Well, let me give you the other approach, which I think only stands to reason. Paul has just said, God's not far from any of you. You don't have any excuse for missing the point. You're groping in darkness. But as Paul says, God is not far from any of you. And then he says, because even your own poets have said things which in a form are true, the point here is not. Well, you guys have a good start over here. Paul is saying rather, even your ignorant pagan poets can't miss God. That's how close he is. It makes all the difference in the world. Then how you read this reference to the poets. Let's read it in context again and you make up your own mind. Verse 26. And God made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek God, if aptly they might feel or grope after him, and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being as certain even of Yotsev said, for we are also his offspring, being then the offspring of God. Paul says we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver, or stone graven by art and device of man. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked, but now he commands men that they should all everywhere repent. You have been living in ignorance. God is calling on you now to repent. The word repent here metanaeo mean mind. Turn around. You should have a change of mind, a different outlook, a different attitude. You should repent turning from your ignorance. That doesn't sound like making common cause with them, saying, you know you are ignorant men. Turn from your ignorance. Repent and know this God. And how is it that God is calling everywhere for men to repent inasmuch as he's appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness? Paul says a day of judgment is coming. Of course, that would be impossible in Stoic and Epicurean philosophy for there to be a day of judgment any more than it would be possible for there to be a day of creation. Paul has declared the creation. He is declaring now the consummation. He has a completely different approach to the world and to history than his hearers. He declares that they should repent because God has appointed a day of judgment. And he says God will judge us in that day by the man that Paul has been speaking of Jesus. And then he says God has given assurance unto all men that Jesus will be the judge. And what is that assurance? What is the evidence that Jesus will be the judge of all mankind?

Resurrection.

That's right. That God raised him from the dead. Now, I've read more than I like to admit, evangelicals dealing with this passage who come to this verse and say, see, now Paul enters into the argument for the resurrection of Jesus. Do you see an argument for the resurrection of Jesus here? He doesn't argue for the resurrection of Jesus in the way that, you know, like the swoon theory won't work because this, that, and the other. And, and we know the apostles were not lying because they became martyrs. And all the things that we know in the historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus, none of that is here. In fact, he doesn't take the resurrection as a conclusion to be proven. He uses the resurrection as a premise to prove something else, namely that Jesus will be the judge of all mankind. So those who try to find the historical argument for the resurrection have actually turned the text completely around. They make the premise, the conclusion, okay, the outcome of this. And then I'd like to summarize what Paul did now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead. What did I tell you? Areopagus is all about there being no resurrection. Stoic and Epicurean philosophers know there can't be a resurrection. So when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked and others said, we'll hear the concerning this yet again. You know, that approach that says, I haven't got an answer, so let's talk about this later. The eschatological cop out. It's kind of like, give us time in the future, we'll be able to answer this. Maybe we're working on this. We're going back to the lab. Some mocked, others said, give us more time. And Paul went out from among them. But certain men claim unto him and believed among whom, as has been already noted, are apparently people well enough known that could be named Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Amorous and others with them as well. And so Paul sees mixed results. Now, some people would say, if you see mixed results, you better wonder about your method. You know, maybe your method needs to be changed here, Paul, you should have done better. The church growth movement would say, if you take a look at how you're doing things, you can see you're offending people, Paul, and your church is not going to grow by doing this. I don't think Paul changed his methods, though. I think Paul was faithful to the message that he had to proclaim, and his method of defending the faith was geared to that message. And he expected therefore, that the Gospel would be a savor of life unto life and death unto death. Okay, what did Paul do? Essentially, Paul said, you're living in an unreasonable way. You're superstitious. It's really silly. You think you know something about God and yet you declare you don't know anything about this God. Now, I don't want to go over this too quickly because that is honestly going to be at the heart of what you have to do as an apologist. You may not use those words, but when you are talking to people and defending the faith, you want to point out to them you need to know things. And yet on your approach, you can't know things. You think you know things about God and about the nature of the world, but on your approach to life, know anything. So you've got this strange combination. You are superstitious, you are unreasonable. And then Paul sets out a different worldview, one that makes sense. He does not at first say, I'm going to prove every one of these steps along the way, so you have to be with me. Okay, you agree with this. And now, having set that building block in there, do you agree with this? Here's another building block. And do you agree with this? No. Paul paints the total picture. He puts the panorama out. There he goes, let me give you a different approach to life. And so for argument's sake, listen to me and try to think it through this way. Imagine there's a God who is sovereign, who is personal, who is self sufficient, who created all things and makes himself clearly known. He's not far from any one of us and is going to judge us in the final day. Now what would such a God demand? He would demand that you wouldn't worship him according to your own imagination. That you would submit to him, that you would repent, confess your sins. And I have good news for you. This God has provided his own son. And if you do not come under the protection of this son, you will be judged by that same man. You remember that the Romans killed this man, yet death couldn't hold him. He was raised from the dead and he will judge everyone. It's time for you to turn now. Again, you're not asking that in a step by step by step way did the unbeliever accept what you're saying? You're saying, I just want you to hear my story about the world. My story about how we know what we know, my story about how we should live our lives, my story about our relationship to God. And so you got a choice. You have an unreasonable, internally self contradictory worldview that leaves you guilty and without any ability to know anything. Or you can submit to the truth of what the Bible says and you can make sense out of human reason and our desire to have moral absolutes and make sense out of science and the world and so forth. That is we can save reason as well as our souls by accepting on faith the teaching of God's word or we can destroy everything. I think what I'm talking about here is much closer to what Paul did here then Paul's trying to say now you know there's a God because every effect has a cause and therefore there must be a first cause. Well this must be a personal cause of the world because there's order out there and order needs an orderer. And, and, and, and all the evidences that modern evangelical apologetics relies on, we don't see Paul doing or using at all. In the article on antithesis that I had you read, I point out that in the New Testament the Bible clearly sets forth an antithesis between the believer and the unbeliever. Now I'm skipping for the sake of time all the Old Testament indications of that antithesis. But one should be clearly in your mind as we look at the New Testament alone tonight. And that is at the time of the Fall, God said that he himself would establish that he would set enmity between the people of God. Actually the seed of the woman who is Christ and therefore all who are in him or with him, and the seed of the serpent, those who are unbelievers, those who are in rebellion against God. Just the Satan is that enmity will never ever go away. Even the grandness of the work of redemption will not erase that enmity for all eternity. And we see the confirmation, the eternal establishment of that enmity in the final day when God separates the wheat from the tares and the sheep from the goats. The eternality of heaven and hell is itself a testimony to the fact that there's an enmity between believers and unbelievers that cannot be eradicated. But let's just look at the New Testament here for the sake of time. In the article I say, Jesus emphasized and called for a clear observation of that antithesis when he proclaimed, he who is not with me is against me. Matthew 12:30, he said in Matthew 6:24, no man can serve two masters. And Jesus identified the enemy, the enemy of the kingdom in Matthew 13:39, as Satan. Peter calls him in 1st Peter 5, the believer's adversary. There is obviously an enmity there. Now, why do I want to emphasize this? Because when we talk with unbelievers, we want to be cordial, we want to be kind. Dr. Van Till said, buy the next cup of coffee. You know, you want to be polite to the unbeliever. You don't want to raise your voice. You don't want it to get into a shouting match or hurling insults at one another. But the fact that the conversation is polite and cordial does not mean that we should look upon the unbeliever as somehow an innocent in the woods, as it were. You know, we're kind of this poor, ignorant person. All he needs is information to understand that there is an enmity, a hostility present in the unbeliever. Until the unbeliever affirms the Lord Jesus Christ as his or her Savior, they're under the power of Satan. And Satan hates God, and he hates the truth that you're presenting. It's good to remember that, because I see so many young apologists get discouraged very easily. You know, they'll make a very good witness. I've sometimes overheard them, you know, I've listened to the conversation. And then they'll see the person leave and say, well, this is not for me or something. They'll say, what did I do wrong? And they'll say, nothing. As far as I can see, you were polite, you were firm, you were bold, you were clear, you were consistent. The guy was, you know, listening. He was polite and so forth. Why? Because in his heart of hearts, he is hostile against God. So that enmity has got to be taken account of. Paul utilized military imagery to rouse us to withstand the principalities and powers and spiritual hosts of wickedness. There is, according to the New Testament outlook, clearly a hostile encounter taking place in the world. Paul likens it to a military encounter. A graphic illustration of the antithesis or enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed which belongs to God is found in the account of Elymas the sorcerer, whom Paul denounced as a son of the devil because he opposed the apostles by trying to turn aside Sergius Paulus from the faith and by always perverting the right ways of the Lord. Jesus called those who oppose the kingdom of God sons of the evil one. Remember the seed of the serpent. Paul calls them enemies of Christ's cross who mind earthly things in contrast to the Christian's heavenly citizenship. In Philippians 3 and in 1 John 2:15, the apostle John says, love not the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. James drives home the antithesis pungently by declaring, whoever would be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4. Now, what importance does this have for apologetics? You tell me. You've done the reading. Let's talk about this. If unbelievers are enemies, if they are hostile toward God, then what does this mean in terms of your approach to defending the faith? I don't care if you look at what's in front of you. If you've read it, though, someone kick.

Off our have anything in common with your enemy?

That's right, you don't have anything in common with them. Well, you do have something in common. You see, this is part of the confusion that has reigned for 40 or 50 years in Christian apologetics. Do we have anything in common? The answer is no. The answer is yes. How can that be? Well, we have to distinguish what do we objectively have in common and what do we subjectively have in common? Now, by objectively, what is there? Totally apart from how people think about it, what is it that we have in common with the unbeliever? Exactly. Okay, now the unbeliever doesn't think that, but it's objectively true. So we do have something in common there, and we have something to appeal to. So even when the unbeliever is going, no, no, no, no, no, you understand that inside it's ringing that bell, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Every time he says no, it's just another, you know, indication that he doesn't like what you're hearing. He's trying to fight against that because it does get through to him. He is made in the image of God. So there is objective common ground. God's world, we're made in God's image, but now we don't have anything in common. As Vic was saying. In terms of the antithesis, when we think of how the unbeliever will profess to see the world, that is what he says about life, what he says about the world. If he were true to his profession and if we were totally consistent with ours, we wouldn't have anything in common. There would be a total antithesis. Now, when we go to talk to the unbeliever, we're going to be talking to him in terms of how he professes to see the world, right? We're not going to be talking to him just about how things really are. If we could take that for granted, there wouldn't be any argument because the way things really are is there's really a God that he will answer to. Okay, so this is a very violent class here. The unbeliever. So I'm holding this here. That's right. We're going to dismantle everything so we understand how to do apologetics. By the unbeliever's perspective, I mean the way he sees the world, what he says the world is all about. You know, the unbeliever's perspective is in principle, totally, totally against the believer's perspective. Let's just take some real quick examples. According to the unbeliever, what is the nature of reality out there? Is there a personal God that controls everything by his own holy and wise will? No, what happens in the world happens randomly. Right. But on the other hand, the unbeliever also thinks that what happens in this world happens according to a certain cause, effect, mechanism that makes everything predictable. According to the believer, what happens in the world is controlled by a personal, sovereign creator. What's the unbeliever's outlook on how we know what we know? We know things. What, by observation, by experience? Okay, I'll just say observation. And we also have got to make all of our observations rational. We have to make everything consistent so we know things in terms of our use of logic, our universal principles. According to the believer, we know things by thinking God's thoughts after him, or if you will, we know things on revelation. We really are tearing up everything today. Now, when I say based on revelation, that doesn't mean everything we know is found in the Bible. The Bible tells us about God and so forth, but in so doing, it lays a foundation for us to use our minds and to look at the world and to think rationally as God is rational and consistent, so we have a basis for knowing that ultimately goes back to God making himself known to us in Scripture and of course, and in the natural world as well. And then from the unbelievers perspective, how should we live our lives? Every man's law unto himself, right? That's what we call autonomy in Greek, being a law to yourself. But the unbeliever wants everyone to be fair and to live according to rules too, so as to be governed by some conception of decency or integrity. And for Christians, we believe that we should live based on what God himself teaches us in his own law, according to his own character. So we're guided by God's holiness, if you will, or the revelation of his character in Scripture. Before we take a brief break, what I'm going to try to get you to do, you can think about this for a few minutes, is to draw out the unbeliever so that he will become more, or she will become more conscious of what their philosophy of life really is. See, part of the problem when we deal with unbelievers is we take them, you know, where they are and they think they haven't got any problems. You know, there are certain things they don't know and they're not sure of. But you know, they've worked out a few things and you need to draw out to the surface you see what they really are saying about the world, just so they can see it better. Because what do you see up here on the board? Once you just get the unbeliever to talk, what's the unbeliever doing? He's hanging himself. You don't have to go and say, look, here's the noose, it's called the Bible. Put your neck in this thing and see if we can hang you. Just keep talking. He'll put the noose around his own neck. If you learn to be a good communicator, good questioner, good at dialogue, what you want to do is get the unbeliever more what Dr. Vanteau called epistemologically self conscious, to become more aware of what his own outlook really is. And you don't have to use the fancy language. I've been trying to avoid some of that tonight. All of these things here, you understand, without taking a philosophy class, the unbeliever on the one hand says everything happens randomly, on the other hand everything happens predictably. Unbeliever can't get away with that. The unbeliever has got to do something with that conflict. Now, why is the unbeliever tempted to say everything's random, everything's predictable? Because there's things that we don't know in this world, things you can't expect. It's not just that miracles take place, although that is something to take into account. It's that we aren't able to control all the factors and know all the factors, so it does seem random. And on the other hand, there's so much of this world that is predictable. Now, the interesting thing is the Christian knows why there is that sense of randomness and the predictability of it's because God personally controls everything. And because God controls everything, we can count on him to keep the external universe functioning in a regular fashion, if you will, except when he intervenes in miracles. And because he alone knows everything, he alone is God. There's a sense in which much of our life, we don't know what the outcome's going to be. There is a randomness, and it comes from God intervening miracles. It comes from the fact that we don't know everything and can't know everything and therefore make it predictable. And it comes also because much of what happens to us is based upon the choices of human beings which are free, governed by God. That's a great mystery, how God is sovereign and human beings make free decisions. But that gives the sense of randomness and predictability the unbelievers taught. Though, you see, he can't make sense out of the universe. We can. The unbeliever says he knows everything on the basis of observation. You know particular things. But you see, logic is universal, not particular. Logic deals with forms, if you will. It deals with principles that have nothing to do with particularity. And so how does the unbeliever bring his observational epistemology into fruitful contact with his logical epistemology? He can't. Every time he says, well, you have to be logical, you say, you don't have to be logical, you just have to be true to the particulars. The particulars are not logical. You don't have to be true to logic, you have to be true to the particulars. Now, you will not think to ask those questions because the unbeliever doesn't think there's any problem with his epistemology. But I know better. That's why I'm teaching this class. Trust me. When the unbeliever says, you got to be logical, say, wait a minute, all I have to do is be true to the particulars. If somebody has an experience of something that's not logical, I've got to be true to that experience. Oh, there can't be experiences that aren't logical. There. That fatal word can't. Where do you have the right to say what can and cannot be? If you have an observational epistemology, you just got to wait and see how things happen. And so if you're going to start not predicting, but prescribing what can and cannot be known based on logic, then you're no longer observational. So which commitment are you going to keep?

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