Dr Greg Bahnsen - Mid-Level Apologetics: Application and Illustration Pt 1 (Part 15)

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.

Let's begin tonight's class with a word of prayer. We come to you, our heavenly Father, in humble submission to your word. We come to you acknowledging that we have failed you in so many ways. We have lived contrary to your character and yet you have been so gracious to us. We do find you ready to forgive and abundant in loving kindness. We thank you for your mercy and your grace to us. We thank you that you have called us to belong to you and that you by your own initiative and spirit did change our hearts and illuminate our minds and give us the gift of faith that we might know you, that we might be saved from our rebellion, from confusion and darkness and ignorance. We do pray that you would fill us with your spirit even this night, that as we study your word and consider how we might best witness for you, that you would enable us to be faithful to you, that we would seek your glory above all. That we might take that humility that you have given us because of your grace and communicate that to those with whom we defend the faith, that they might know that their confrontation is not with us or our personality or our intelligence, but their confrontation is ultimately. We do ask that you would bless us in our endeavors to defend the faith. We do not assume a self sufficiency there. We need you. We need you every moment. We do pray that you would grant us wisdom and insight to know how to answer every man for we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

In our session tonight, we come to the application and the illustration of the.

Presuppositional method that I've been trying to teach you over the last few months.

And I hope that you'll get some very practical guidance from what we're going.

To be doing tonight.

I can't be sure how far we're going to get, but my plan is to begin by looking at the debate that I had with this well known atheist proponent, Dr. Gordon Stein.

I ask you to listen to that for your homework and I'm going to.

Go over that for a little while and then I'd like to turn to a systematic presentation of the various worldview.

Options that are out there and just.

Talk about problems with them.

And since we'll just take an illustration of one of those worldviews and I'll.

Give you what would be a rundown.

A thumbnail sketch anyway, of my apologetical response to it, and the point here is that sometimes we learn not only philosophy and theology, but also debate best by watching those who are supposed to be a little bit further down the road from us. That doesn't make me an expert necessarily.

But if I could give you some ideas on how I would respond to.

Various things, then maybe that would help put things in place for you and illustrate what we've been talking about already.

So first thing on the agenda today.

Then, is the Bonsenstein debate, which was.

Pitched as the great debate at the.

University of California, Irvine, a few years ago. The debate club there sponsored it. Gordon Stein, you've heard the introduction, so.

You already know he's a man who.

Has a PhD in natural science, nevertheless has made it, I guess, his calling in life to and to write articles and put out newsletters and so forth, promoting atheism. I think he had some kind of general challenge out there for anybody to debate him, and the debate club there.

At UCI took him up on it.

And invited me to come and to be the proponent of the theistic point of view. Now, you've all listened to that tape.

And it might be best just to.

Start by asking you if you could see the presuppositional character of the argument.

That was set forth. And so what I'm going to do is, instead of asking that, first I'm going to talk about my opening statement and make some comments on my opening statement, and then I'm going to ask you to kind of dialogue with me tonight so I can draw out from you your understanding of the presuppositional nature of the argument that I offered him.

So first of all, the opening statement, I'm going to actually have the text.

Here that I was using that night, and I'm going to read it to you again and then stop.

And as often when we are arguing.

With someone, especially in the area of apologetics, religious matters, the way the argument goes is going to have a lot.

To do with how you set it up.

You take a lot of time.

Salesmen do this.

I'm not trying to give you sales technique as apologetics, but salesmen realize that.

Many times the success of their pitch may come down to setting everything up just right in maybe three or four sentences that were going to turn the.

Corner with the customer. But it all has to do with.

You know, lining things up and closing certain exits and then making the person.

Deal directly with, you know, what the issue is going to be.

And I hope to a certain extent that's what I was successful in doing.

In this debate with Gordon Stein.

I took a good portion of my.

Opening statement, as you will be aware.

Talking about background and issues and the nature of the dispute and what I'm not saying and what the real matter is.

And then when I got to the.

Argument, I think, in fact I had probably been notified that my time was about up. The gist of the argument in the last two or three minutes, the opening presentation.

So on the assumption that wasn't just.

Because I'm a poor public speaker and ran out of time, that there was a method to that madness, I'm going to go over the opening statement, try to show you what I was attempting to do.

I said at the outset that it was necessary to define our terms and said in particular, we should make clear here what is meant by the term God. We're debating whether God exists or God doesn't exist. Obviously we better agree on the definition.

Of what we're trying to prove, or.

Else we're just going to be like.

Ships passing in the dark.

Now, you might say, well, yeah, you've.

Got to do that in a formal.

Debate, university setting and all that. But that isn't the sort of thing that separates, you know, me when I talk to my neighbor or the guy I work with.

Yes, it is.

Please stop and think about that. Often enough, people have the wrong idea.

About God or the wrong idea of.

What Christians believe about God.

And so they'll argue, and it doesn't amount to arguing against the Christian God at all.

A good example is when people say, well, obviously your God doesn't exist because.

There'S war in this world. You say, well, but you see, in.

The Bible we read that God sends.

Warfare and evil and is in control of everything, even the sinful things of this world.

So the fact that there's war does.

Not in itself disprove the existence of the Christian God.

It may disprove the existence of the.

God of popular sentimentality, but it does not disprove the existence of Jehovah, of the Bible.

So don't take for granted that the.

Person you're talking to is dealing with.

The same concepts you are.

Sometimes you have to educate them as.

To what you actually believe.

And when you do that, often you'll.

Find people say, well, I wouldn't want.

To believe in a God like that.

Now there's your first apologetical challenge, because.

At that point you have to ask.

Them, well, do you think when it comes to believing things about God, that.

It'S relevant whether we like what God is?

Do you think that in some sense.

Our emotions or Feelings exercise a sovereignty.

Over God, that he or she or.

It cannot be something that we wouldn't want he, she, or it to be. So you've got to immediately throw that.

Back and say, now is that really.

Your presupposition that God must conform to your likes and dislikes, your preconceptions, your expectations? Now, what are you going to do.

If the person says, yeah, that's right.

God should be what I think God should be? Well, then one thing you can say.

Is, well, in a sense, then you.

Are greater than God.

And if you're greater than God, then.

You ought to be able to exercise the prerogatives of God.

But it doesn't appear to us that you can.

You could also point out, seems to.

Me that if that person was honest.

And consistent in maintaining such a position, he or she would have. There are many Gods because there are many expectations and desires with respect to God. Some people want a God that's more like this, some a God more like that. Then ultimately, I think an internal critique of that has to be done, saying, now wait a minute, do you really.

Think God could be God if it was?

I mean, Is this the Mr. Potato Head approach to theology?

You know, kind of like, oh, I.

Think I'll have an ear here and a nose here and so forth.

And I mean, it's just a ridiculous.

It's not even worth arguing about.

You have to say, if that's all.

God comes down to, it's just a projection of your wishes, and everybody's got.

These different wishes, then I mean, it's just a child's game and it's not worth arguing about.

So do not assume that the person.

You'Re talking to understands what you mean by God.

Make sure you explain the Christian concept of God. That is part of apologetics, getting the message clearly across. In the debate.

I went on to say, I want to specify that I am totally in.

Favor of Christian theism and arguing for.

It as a unit or system of.

Thought rather than anything like theism in general, and stop and reflect on this.

What I told you. See, in one sense, I think people.

Would say, Dr. Brunson, you made it.

Much harder on yourself.

You should have just said that you're.

Not going to try to prove everything about the Bible, but you just want.

To have this very vague general notion.

Of God kind of generic theism, you.

Know, and then leave it to another debate to decide whether within that generic.

Theism, the Christian concept of God is right or wrong.

But as you know, I've been trying to teach you that Christianity is defended as a worldview and therefore it hangs together. It may seem to you that we could prove that there is a God.

Then go on to prove that it's.

A personal God, then a sovereign God, triune and so forth.

But that isn't the case. Worldviews are defined by their fundamental assumptions. And our assumptions about God create a different worldview than those who have a.

Fundamental assumption about God, that he's some amorphous general power in the universe out there somewhere.

So I said in the debate that I was arguing for Christian theism and for it as a unit or as.

A system of thought.

And I offered these reasons during the debate.

A, the various conceptions of deity in.

The world religions are logically incompatible, leaving no unambiguous sense to general theism.

That is, I told Dr. Stein in.

The audience, I'm not defending general theism.

Because there ain't no such thing.

Anybody who thinks, well, what we're going.

To do is get the lowest common.

Denominator of all the world religions is.

Fooling himself because there isn't any lowest common denominator of all the world religions.

What are you going to put together.

From Buddhism and Hinduism when Hinduism, you.

Know, believes in a transcendent realm and Buddhism does not?

Just not going to work.

Secondly, I've not found the non Christian.

Religions to be philosophically defensible, each of them being internally incoherent or undermining human reason and experience.

Now, if you've listened to the debate a couple of times or more, you.

May realize that at that point I.

Was already telegraphing my conclusion.

This is not only the reason I.

Give up on these other world religions.

But this is what I'm going to argue against you Dr. Stein as well.

And I want to point this out because many times people who are fresh to presuppositional apologetics and believe that there's something to it will say something like, well, this looks like it'd be very strong, very good for atheists, but how could you use this with another, another religion?

I mean, now, you know, you're left with nothing.

But as a matter of fact, what I said, religions of the world, is.

The kernel of what I was going.

To say to Dr. Stein.

As an atheist.

I have not found the non Christian religions.

Read that.

I've not found the non Christian worldviews to be philosophically defensible, each of them being internally incoherent or undermining human reason and experience. And then thirdly, the reason why I was defending Christian theism as a unit.

And not theism in general.

I said, since I am, by the.

Grace of God, a Christian, I cannot.

From the heart adequately defend those religious.

Faiths with which I disagree.

My commitment is to the triune God.

And Christian worldview based on God's revelation in the Old and New Testaments.

Please don't be timid about putting that out there.

When you're reasoning with people, they may.

Want to talk about religion in general, God in general. I think you need to, you know, just give them personal testimony, say God.

I is grace saved me and I'm.

Committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and.

Therefore the triune view of God and all the rest.

I'm not interested in defending religion in general or religious approach to life or supernaturalism or something.

I am a Christian.

I'm following the Lord Jesus and I give him the credit for the change in my life.

I'd be nothing without Him. So I have no interest in defending the Buddha or Confucius or any of.

The other religious traditions you can talk about. So the first thing I did in.

The attempt to set it up so.

We could get to the real issue is to say we're not talking about theism in general, but Christianity in particular.

Secondly, I said we should indicate just what is and is not at issue.

In this debate and on what basis we hope you would consider it.

You're not going to say it in.

A formal, cold, logical way like that, but you need to say that to the people you know, you talk to when you take them to the coffee shop, you're witnessing to them and they have these comebacks.

You need to indicate what is really.

At issue in cases that issue should be considered.

I said it must be made clear.

That we are debating about philosophical systems.

Not the people who adhere to or profess them. It must be made clear that we.

Are debating about philosophical systems, not the.

People who adhere to or profess them. Our concern is with the objective merits.

Of the case, which can be made for atheism or Christian theism, not related subjective or personal matters. I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet you that in the cases where you have tried to do any kind of apologetics, whether you were a presuppositionalist or an evidentialist or just ignorant of those differences.

In those cases, when you tried to.

Present a defense of the faith, probably 90% of the case of those times.

The person you were talking to tried.

To personalize the issue, act this way. Or what about the Inquisition, or how about these wars or what's happening in Palestine or on and on and on.

Right.

I don't know.

I may write an article on this sometime.

I've struggled with it for a long time. It is philosophically mistaken to personalize the issue. They think it comes down to a matter of personalities.

And yet I have to admit to you that the toughest philosophical or apologetical.

Problem I face when I defend the faith is when people come back to that and they say, okay, I'm convinced. Rationally, you got to be right. The Bible is the word of God. But then why do people who call themselves Christians live like this? Why do churches do the things they do? And on and on and on. And that really stymies me. I mean, I don't want you to sit there thinking, boy, we thought, Dr. Bonson and done some reading. Well, you know what to tell them, Dr. Bonson, you know, to tell them that there's a difference between a system of thought and those who are trying the system of thought, that we don't live up to our ideals and so, you know, judge Christianity and not Christians. Yeah, I know how to say all those things, and I do. And I usually don't sit back and say, well, you probably have me there. Maybe it isn't true because none of us live very good lives, do we? No, I say those things. But honestly, and I think you, if you are honest, you have to admit that's a tough one. Why isn't there any more to show people in terms of the life of the church, that one worships God in.

A pure way, proclaims the whole counsel.

Of God, lives in a loving fashion with integrity? It's hard to find. What does that say about the power of the gospel? Well, ultimately, it doesn't say anything about the power of the gospel. It says something about us who are the ambassadors of the gospel and for the Lord Jesus Christ. I realize it. It's a tough issue. Maybe for that loan we should make clear to people we're not going to let that become the issue.

Ultimately, if Christians, professed Christians, don't live.

Up to their Christianity, then that just.

Calls for people who are willing to.

Do so or to make a better effort or a more consistent effort to do it. Because if Christianity is true, if that is the proper ideal, after which we.

Should all strive, then the falling short.

Of people does not remove the fact that it's our ideal. Anyway, I said it must be made clear.

We are debating about philosophical systems, not.

The people who adhere or profess them. And I gave three reasons for this.

One, the personalities of those individuals who adhere to different systems of thought are not relevant to the truth or falsity of the claims made by those systems.

Atheists and Christians can equally be emotional, unlearned, intolerant, rude.

Rude and obnoxious.

Yes, discourteous. That's right. You know, it's interesting, there's a parallel to this comment that has to be made within the circle of Christianity too. People who have become Calvinists realize that often those who are not Calvinists attack Calvinism, which is really just the reformed faith or the Gospel, I think. But they will attack those who hold to this system of thought because they've known a Calvinist or two that either didn't evangelize or was real hard nosed and not easy to get along with.

Now when people say that, I hope.

That you can graciously respond, well, you know, I know a few Arminians that aren't real easy to get along with too. So I mean, does that settle the issue here? I mean, do we really want it to be a matter of personalities? As a theonomist of course is on, But I think this illustration might touch some of you. I often have people refer to certain theonomists, maybe me, but others as well, who have these horrible personalities, you know, to which I usually say, well, you know, Dispensationalists through the 20th century have had a few grisly characters on their side too. And it isn't hard to give illustrations.

In the end, you'll find that Christians.

Are unhappy with other Christians who behave in a rude, discourteous, ignorant way.

And so if you're going to judge on the basis of personality, then you.

Ought to say, well then Christianity must be really good because there are Christians who tell other Christians they shouldn't do that sort of thing and they're uncomfortable.

With it and they try to change it. Now you can't settle this on the.

Basis of, you know, I like this guy's personality or don't like this guy's personality.

Secondly, subjective claims made about the experience of inner satisfaction or peace and promotional claims made about the superiority of Christianity or atheism are always subject to conflicting interpretations and explanations. When people talk about how satisfied they.

Are internally or how much peace it's given them to be an atheist. For instance, when Christians think they're defending the faith, when they give the personal testimony that I have peace in my.

Heart, when atheists promote the superiority of.

Atheism because of the independence that it gives people, you can be a Free thinker or when Christians promote Christianity because of the greater mental health of those who are Christians. That always hurts when people say that kind of thing. The greater mental health of Christians.

When these sorts of comments are made, you have to realize they're only autobiographical. They don't tell us anything about the.

Nature of the system or truth of the system, just tells us something about.

The individual, namely discomforted by the idea.

That this system is true.

Does that prove that the system is true?

How about this?

You know, I get a real feeling.

Of joy and comfort when I think about the idea that all the children in the world had a good dinner tonight. That really does make me happy to think about.

That they have anything to do with whether all the children in the world had dinner tonight?

Nothing at all.

But it does tell you something. It tells you something about me.

I'm the kind of person, you know.

What a wonderful, charitable guy. And I'm the kind of person who gets joy out of thinking that children.

Are not abandoned or not hungry or not destitute and so forth.

And so it may tell me something.

About you, Mr. Atheist, that you get.

A real sense of independence and responsibility.

In this world when you don't have to think about facing God. And it may tell the atheist something.

About the Christian, but it doesn't tell anything about the truth of their systems. And thirdly, it's not whether atheists or professing Christians have ever done anything undesirable or even morally unacceptable, but whether atheism or Christian theism as philosophical systems are objectively true. I mean, I can imagine that we.

Could spend two or three hours in.

A debate just exchanging embarrassing incidents from history. Oh, look what the Christians did over.

Here, the Spanish Inquisition, which I'd say.

Yeah, and look what the atheists did over here in the French Revolution.

It's not going to accomplish anything. It's not relevant to the truth of the system.

So one, we have to remember that we're dealing with Christian theism, not theism in general. Two, we're dealing with it as a system of thought, not dealing with the people who profess it. And now thirdly, I said my last introductory remark is simply to the effect that I concede to my opponent all issues.

The control of ovarian maturation in Japanese quail.

Okay, anybody who's had a course in.

Logic, what fallacy was I committing there? It was purposeful self consciousness. As a debater, I have the right to do that. What is that called? It's an ad hominem fallacy. I'M arguing against the man and in particular the specific form of ad hominem was poisoning the well. Okay, now I'm telling you, it's fallacious. I mean, it's listed in the books as a fallacy. So now why did I do it? Well, because I think that it's appropriate sometimes to remind people of what you're dealing with.

When a man shows up spouting his degrees.

His credentials, his organization and so forth, then I think you have a right to tell people this man may not really be proficient in the subject.

That he has a personal interest is.

Obvious, that he has any academic credibility in the field. You shouldn't take for granted that his name is Dr. Stein. As it turns out, the man hasn't done any work in philosophy, any work in theology apart from his own personal.

That doesn't make him right or wrong, mind you. But when you're dealing in a public setting it to say, now, okay, we're going to end up talking theology and philosophy, then he doesn't bring any special expertise.

The effect of this was, in a.

Way to say, any of you could.

Be up here doing this too, and that would be fine.

You have the right to.

And you don't have to have a PhD in Philosophy as I do in.

Order to be doing what I'm doing. But if you've come out tonight thinking.

Well, what you have here then are.

People who have proven themselves in the.

Field and now they're going at it.

Then that's just not correct. It also gave me an opportunity to.

Say something about the nature of this man's life and lifestyle. Now, I couldn't sit there and go on about his marriage or about his wife or personal things like that. I don't even know that much about those things.

But you might know some very personal.

Things about the person that you're defending faith to, to whom you're defending faith. And you could be easily dissuaded by the purists who teach logic text that it's never right to bring those sorts of things in. When you're just talking about the truth of the system, well, you're also talking.

About a person who might or might.

Not have an axe to grind.

And so when you're trying to look at the evidence and constantly the evidence is getting distorted, ignored, suppressed, at some point it's academically correct and appropriate to look for the reason for the distortion. And so in a very general and.

Not terribly hurtful, I tried at the beginning of the debate to say, this is a man. How did I put it, who for.

Some reason has left his field of.

Expertise and given his life to a campaign for atheism.

Is atheism the sort of thing that you expect people to get? Oh, boy, there's no God. I've got to go out and tell the world the good news of atheism. No, that's very strange in the nature of the case. Atheism is not the kind of thing that you promote with zeal and glee.

And so forth, and yet this is what this man is doing.

And I was trying to gently remind.

My audience of that.

You know, there may be a lot more going on here than just academic debate.

There may be something wrong with this man's heart. Again, I don't know if I communicated that deftly or not. You may not have picked up on it at all.

But even if I didn't, you should.

When you're talking to people, talk to them about lives and what they're living for and what's important to them and.

Whether they are angry, they have some.

Reason to want to avoid dealing with.

God, like guilt or fear, what have you. Okay, so now I've set this up.

In the general sense of talking about the nature of the debate.

I went on then in my opening statement to say that the case for the existence of God covers three areas of thought. Without looking, who can tell me what.

Those three areas of thought are? Because they're the ones you're going to want to deal with too.

No, no. Well, epistemology is going to be the.

Issue, but specifically within the general idea of the theory of knowledge, I said the debate is going to concern the nature of evidence.

Okay, the presuppositional conflict of worldviews. And then thirdly, the transcendental argument for.

The existence of God, which is what I want you to give me when I finally get to it. So step three is what you're going to tell me about tonight.

But now the first two things, we need to talk to people about the nature of evidence. And doesn't this make sense? Just like we have to explain what it is we're proving when we prove God's existence. What is God?

Who is God?

What's he like? So we have to understand what kind.

Of evidence is appropriate for the existence of God.

I said, how should the difference of opinion between the theist and the atheist be rationally resolved? Well, Dr. Stein has written indicates that he, like many atheists, has not reflected adequately on this question.

And then I quote him.

It's always nice to.

To debate somebody who's put something in print because then you can make him own up to it. This is not a class on debate technique, but let me just explain something about that.

You see, he's written things on how.

To argue with theist and when and other articles on the topic. He might have come in that night. Turns out he didn't. He did a very poor job of preparation. I think I could have argued his case, you know, as the devil's advocate better than he did that night.

But he could have come in that.

Night having devised a new approach to the subject, a new argument, new line of thought.

But even if he had done so because he had put something in print.

I had the right in my presentation.

To deal with what he had said.

And then he would have to go back and deal with that even if he wanted to move on to his new approach or his new argument. So just so you understand why I was doing that.

Wasn't it said now? It'll be interesting to see what Dr.

Stein comes up with tonight. Well, it will be interesting to see.

But whatever he comes up with, I already know enough of what he's put in print that I'm going to make.

Him answer for it. And so you put your opponent on the defensive immediately in doing that.

So what I said is he has written the question of the existence of God is a factual question and should be answered the same way as the other factual question. If you had run across that in an article or if you had heard somebody say that, would you have thought.

I'm not talking emotionally now about leaping on them, but would you have intellectually leaped on that said, boy, that's one of the real weaknesses I'm going to exploit.

He says the existence of God is.

Settled like any other factual question. So let me go on.

I said the assumption that all existence.

Claims or questions about matters of fact.

Are answered in the very same way.

Is not merely oversimplified and misleading, it is simply mistaken.

This man has built a ministry of.

Atheism on a platform which is when you stop and think about it, and.

This often happens philosophy, you do an analysis of a system and it comes.

Down to such a conspicuous error.

You say, how could somebody have done something that stupid?

I don't mean to be name calling.

But that dense intellectually. He should know that not all existence.

Claims are settled in way the existence.

Factuality or reality of different kinds of things is not established or disconfirmed in the same way in every case. Obviously the kinds of things that you believe to exist will determine the different kinds of evidence that you accept for.

Proving or disproving that something within a category exists. Now, why do you think he made this big mistake?

Why did he not protect himself from.

An easy philosophical refutation?

Because. What's that? Well, yeah, and I can understand why.

You might say that, because I have in a sense exploited that saying. You're not really an expert in the field.

But you see, you don't have to be a philosopher. Most of you are not trained philosophers. But I'll bet the minute I said.

This you said, well, yeah, it's obvious. Should have been obvious to him.

You know why it wasn't obvious to him? There's places where presuppositions aren't just technical.

Academic matters, but they, they color and infiltrate everything. His presupposition is that everything that exists is natural, everything's material.

And now if everything is in that category, if everything that exists to exist must be material or physical, then it would be very easy to think, well, then the existence of God has to.

Be settled like every other existence claim, because we know that all existence claims are settled in the same way.

And so that's why I want to.

Zero in on that and point out.

You don't really believe that, do you, Dr. Stein? You don't really believe that everything is.

Physical or material in this world. You're getting a telegraph of the argument I'm going to use later because I'm.

Going to argue about what? The laws of logic.

Do you remember at one point in.

The debate and cross examination.

He wants.

To find out from me, well, you know, what kind of being is God? And I see God's a spiritual or non physical being.

Can I give an example of anything else that's not physical? I said the laws of logic. You see, so he says all existence claims are settled in the same way. If you're a presuppositionalist, you say, well, that's a really unreliable presupposition. I'm going to exploit that. And I say, we might ask, is there a box of crackers in the pantry? And we know how we would go about answering that question. But that is a far, far cry from the way in which we would determine the reality of barometric pressure, quasars, gravitational attraction, elasticity, radioactivity, natural laws, names, grammar, numbers, the university, past events, categories, future contingencies, laws of thought, political obligations, individual identity, over time, causation, memories, dreams, love or beauty. And of course I could have gone.

On and on and on. Now, maybe it isn't as evident to you as I want it to be.

But did you see the method and the madness there?

What was I doing when I gave that long list?

I mean, I not only wanted to overwhelm him with. There's a whole lot of things that you argue for and against in different.

Ways, different kinds of things.

But I started with what physical types of things. And I moved through kind of mediating sorts of metaphysical components to finally, those.

Things like love and beauty, which no one believes are things you can touch or, you know, eat for dinner.

So I started with barometric pressure. Now he believes in barometric pressure. Is barometric pressure like a physical thing? No, it's in the physical world. But again, you can't go look in the cupboard for barometric pressure.

You have to make an instrument that.

What, indicates barometric pressure.

You can't see barometric pressure. Some people.

Well, you can't.

I think it'd be fair to say in ordinary language, you can't. Ferometric pressure. Now, I know what you might respond. But if you stop and think about it, you're not actually feeling in the sense that you read off of a barometer. Forgot what those things were called. Barometric pressure.

Right. Clothes are. They're out there in the physical world, but you don't talk about them the.

Same way you talk about gravitational attraction.

Elasticity starts now. Now we're getting into a difficult area.

Chris, if you know something about metaphysics, you're talking about potentiality and so forth.

Elasticity, radioactivity, natural laws. And then I moved into names and grammar. We all believe there are names. We all believe that you have to follow the rules of grammar to communicate numbers. What would a scientist do without numbers? Are numbers physical? Did I do the number game with you before?

I'll play the number game with you. This is always great, especially for high school students. College students, too, because olives aren't doing much.

So now, what have I put on the board here? I tell people, what, okay, is that the number two?

Then I did do this with you.

Because you know the punch line already. Okay, yeah, but you see, what happens is, people. I'll say, is that the number two.

People say, yes, the number two.

I say, wait a minute, is that the number two? Really? You know, look at it. And they go, well, yeah, it's not three. It's not four. Yeah, that's the number two.

And I said, okay, well, in that.

Case, there's no longer any number two in the universe because I just erased the number two.

And they say, oh, yeah?

Well, no, that's the symbol, or that's the numeral 2. I say, okay, fine, but, you know, once the person has said that, they just walk right into the parlor.

You know, Spider says to the fly.

Where is the number two then?

And if you believe there's nothing but physical objects that exist, or if everything.

That exists physical, then you think the number two. I mean, that physical thing was not.

The number two that squid you might chord.

But, you know, we could find the number two, this physical object, maybe we could burn it or nuke it or do something, and there would be no number two left. Right now, anybody who uses numbers and believes in the reality of math is committed to more than the physical universe.

And I'll go on to think past events, categories, future contingencies, then finally, love and beauty.

And then I said, in such cases, one does not do anything like walking to the pantry and looking inside for the crackers. There are thousands of existence or factual questions, and they are not at all.

Answered in the same way in each case.

Just think of the differences in argumentation.

And types of evidence used by biologists.

Grammarians, physicists, mathematicians, lawyers, logicians, mechanics, merchants, artists. It should be obvious the type of evidence which one looks for in existence or factual claims will be determined by the discussion and especially by the metaphysical nature of the entity mentioned in the claim under question. Dr. Stein's remark that the question of.

God's existence is answered in the same.

Way as any other factual question mistakenly reduces the theistic question to the same.

Level as a box of crackers in the pantry.

What we will hereafter call the crackers.

In the pantry fallacy. Okay, that was just a little flourish to make sure the audience would remember it. But when you're talking to an atheist.

Or even someone who has a worldview.

That'S not Christian, whether it's atheistic or.

Not, you have to put that on the table.

You have to say, what kind of evidence would it require to prove the existence of God?

What kind of evidence would it require to prove that he doesn't exist? Okay, so you got two things going here. Even though we haven't turned this into.

Just a university classroom lecture, in your.

Conversation, you are trying to make clear what or who is what we're trying.

To prove or disprove.

And then you put out there, what kind of evidence is appropriate here? The crackers and the fallacy. By the way, if you want a.

Good illustrator, the crackers in the pantry fallacy won't help if somebody hasn't read his piece of literature.

But I bet you many people you talk to remember the Russian cosmonaut that went up in space and came back.

And declared that there was no God because he went out in space and didn't see him. If you don't remember that and then don't use that.

But I mean, that's the kind of nerdish, ridiculous, absurd comment that you're getting when a person like Stein says all.

Factual questions are settled in the same way.

Kind of like, okay, I went to.

The pantry, I went out in space.

I opened the door and there were no crackers there. There was no God out there.

So now I know there's no God.

You have to ask the unbeliever, well, what kind of evidence would be appropriate to disproving Christianity? Or what kind of evidence would you.

Expect for proving Christianity?

Now, sometimes people will bite.

Just one second.

Just like earlier when I said, people.

Will sometimes say, yeah, I think God should be what I expect him to be. And then you have to go in and show why. Now you really don't want to believe that. That's absurd.

Also, people will say, yeah, I know what kind of evidence would be required if God appeared to me and did.

A miracle in my presence, then I would believe.

Have you ever had anybody say that to you?

I had them say it all the.

Time, and not sarcastically. They really believe that they would come to be theists.

Gordon Stein tried that right in the cross examination or question period toward the end of the debate as I recalled something about if the podium would rise up and stay there for a certain period of time, then he would believe there's a God. Now, how did I respond to that? Did I say, okay, all you Christians out there, let's all pray that God.

Will do this and prove to this man that you exist? You know?

No, I said, no, you wouldn't believe if that happened.

By the way, I would support him.

In not believing in that.

As a philosopher, I say, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. So an event has taken place. You have to interpret that event. You have to explain that event. And to suggest that the only explanation you would offer for the podium rising is that God exists is not being realistic. After all, this man has an axe to grind, right? He's evangelist for atheism. So I told him that he would immediately accuse me of rigging it or he'd believe that there's some natural explanation that they haven't discovered yet. People will not believe just because gurus.

Or God does this.

I mean, what would it mean for God to Appear.

Just stop and think about this.

That's right, exactly. If God appeared, how would you know that it's God rather than Satan, who the Bible says disguises himself as an angel of light? So, no, some supernatural appearance is not.

Going to do it, is it?

Either.

On miracles, you should know that as Christians, you ever read the book of Exodus?

I mean, there's quite a few miracles God performed in Egypt, right? And then, I mean, topping it off, how did you arrange for this? You know, in terms of the laws of physics or biology, they have only the firstborn in the family die. That's great. That's a social relationship. Firstborn. The firstborn all die. No one else in the family even gets sick. The firstborn all, but not the firstborn among God's people. And that is incredible to me every time I read that. I mean, I hope you don't lose the sense of awe and wonder when.

You read the Bible.

That's just remarkable. And then Israel finally is shoved out of Egypt and they go out of.

The land, you know, then Pharaoh changes his mind, right?

Now, if you had your back up against the Red Sea after you've gone through all of the miracles God did.

In Egypt, topping it off with the.

Death of the firstborn and the saving of those that the angel of death passed over, filled your backs against the Red Sea, you'd seen so many miracles.

You'D say, hey, no sweat.

God's got a way. We're just going to wait and see what he's going to do.

We're not worried.

No.

The Israelites immediately accused Moses of setting them up for the kill. You brought us out here to die, Moses.

Here comes Pharaoh. We have no place to run. We're going to die. And then God does what opens up the Red Sea? Well, then they go through on dry ground, wells of water on the side. I was thinking about what it would be like for the children walking through.

They're seeing fish, you know, but they're.

Walking through on dry ground. And of all things, what an accident, right? What timing. The water comes in again just as.

Pharaoh and his legion have come into the sea. And then God kills them.

Now, on the other side of the Red Sea, that settled it, God showed himself miraculously, over and over again. And now in this great miracle of the Red Sea, at that point, people believed in God. They had no doubt at all, right? Wrong.

Very next chapter, you have another problem. Then a chapter of that. Another problem, Another problem.

Miracles don't convince people. If you don't have a heart to Receive the message of the miracle, you don't have a heart to receive the miracle either. And so when people say, oh yeah, I believe if God, you know, did.

This kind of evidence, you have to.

Say, well, that isn't what the Bible says. And to be honest, that about you either. I think you would probably be a.

Little tougher than that as a debater.

I think if something happened, you'd stop.

And say, hey, is someone tricking me or is there some unnatural explanation?

You'd probably go to the scientists and the psychologist and all the rest to try to find out what you should believe about this. Force people to do an inventory of what they expect and what kind of evidence is appropriate. If that continues, by the way, you're eventually going to get to the place where you explain, you know, the only kind of evidence, the only kind of.

Evidence that's really appropriate has got to.

Be the sort that we've always talked about self attesting evidence such that if people deny it, they're not able to.

Understand anything or prove anything at all. Okay, so the crackers in the pantry fallacy, that was the first of the.

Three things that I wanted to get.

To after my introductory remarks. Okay, now your question.

Does this really prove his pre commitment to no evidences at all? In a sense that he used the unicorn illustration, that if all the world was searched all simultaneously, that still wouldn't prove that there aren't any unicorns. It's just that there weren't any found at that point in time. They could have been there before, they may appear after that kind of thing. So it's everything that he, that, that he's offered, there's always another category or another proof that that could be put forth. Now you, you might, regardless of what evidence is brought forward, there's always another opportunity.

No, actually I think you might have missed his point there because he was.

Saying that he cannot prove his position when he said that. Right.

See he was saying, and it's true, you cannot prove universal negative. If I say there are no unicorns, how could I possibly prove a universal.

Negative unless I had universal experience and knowledge? And since none of us have that.

He said if we could look over the entire world and no one was seeing a unicorn and we could see.

Every square inch, somehow there might be unicorn on the moon or somewhere else.

And so that the claim that nowhere, not at all, you know, categorically, universally, something does not exist or happens is.

Not a provable claim to a finite.

Mind or even to a set of.

Finite minds, because There might have been a unicorn in the past that never got recorded and so forth.

And so he was making the point.

About his own position that atheism cannot be proven. There might be a God hiding somewhere out there behind Venus, you know, no one discovered him.

You see what I'm getting at? Stein was making a point about the native position. What I'm talking about here is when you're dealing with the unbeliever, after you get across the kind of God or.

The very God that you're trying to.

Prove, you also want to talk about.

What evidence is appropriate for this kind of being.

What kind of evidence? Don't expect it to be the crackers in the pantry kind of evidence or even the evidence for barometric pressure.

I think what Alan's trying to say though is that what Dr. Stein was allowing as evidence basically put him in a position of saying, there's no way you're going to prove to me there is a God. In other words, I can't prove that there is no God. But if you are limited to what I accept as evidence, there's no way that you're going to prove to me.

Yeah, and you're both exactly right, that that is the perspective that he had.

He was approaching things from that angle.

But when he talked about the unicorns.

I don't think he was illustrating that.

But he, he did make very clear that the only kind of evidence would be scientific evidence. And I might tell you after the.

Debate, of course you couldn't hear or see this. We had almost a year's correspondence back and forth and he got very well, I would say, arrogant and pushy, but very emphatic that you cannot prove creation or have any evidence for creation, because.

In the nature of the case, supernatural.

Explanations lie outside of science.

You know, and of course the answer to that is as though the ordinary day to day work of science is the limit of what's acceptable.

And so you are right that he has that mentality. And it was evident in the debate. I just wanted to make clear that.

All he was saying is that a.

Universal negative cannot be proven.

Well, in a sense what he was saying is coming to debate saying I've already won because no matter what you come up with, I'm going to not accept it if it's outside this realm. And this realm can't, you can't win.

Yes, he came to the debate with such presuppositions that he could not lose.

But I don't think he realized he was doing that.

And most unbelievers don't they think they're just being reasonable people? I'll take any evidence, you know, at all, as long as it's evidence that fits my worldview. But see, what you understand is. But that's what's at stake is your worldview. And so they don't realize that they're begging the question continually. Larry, did you have a comment, too?

Well, I don't know if it's appropriate for you to comment on it right now or we'll do it later. But regarding the assertion that he made that atheism is not a denial of the existence of God, and that was where the whole unicorn thing came up. You called him on that and said that that is not their classical atheism. I haven't surveyed the abyss to glitch or not to know.

Yeah, well.

When he said that atheism is just that God has not been.

Proven, rather than the view that we have proven that there is no God.

I was trying to make the point.

Historically and linguistically, that that is not the way the term atheism is used and has been used, and it's just wrong to do that.

Now, why was he doing that? Yeah, because he was trying to make it a lot easier on himself, wasn't he? He was trying to mitigate the demand that was placed on him to prove his position.

I'm sorry, trying to throw you off, too.

That's right. That's right.

He's trying to say that I'm not rejecting your. Your positions, it's just that they don't meet my criteria for proof.

That's right.

It also makes him look extremely reasonable because he's open. He's not going to be documented.

Exactly, exactly.

I'm open.

You just haven't convinced me.

Well, by the way, it was set up in advance. He would have been wrong to do.

That even if we hadn't made this pretending as debaters.

But it was set up in advance that there would be no, as commonly accepted in debate technique position that bore the burden of proof. Both positions bore the burden of proof.

You know, when the debate club, you know, dealt with setting up the thing and they asked how should the question be put?

I made that very clear. I said, it's unfair to come in and say, okay, now you've got to prove this. I said, I'm going to be pushing him to prove what he believes. And he knew that in advance, and yet he still tried to play. I mean, he tried to set it up so that now all he has to do is sit There and, and everything I say, knock it down, knock it down, knock it down and say.

Okay, I win the debate.

It's like you do all the work and all I have to do is be the spoiler. Well, that's a formal debate observation. When you're in the coffee shop with.

The next door neighbor talking about these.

Things, he's not going to worry about.

The rules of debate, neither are you.

But when he says, well, I'm not saying that God doesn't, I'm just saying you haven't proven God's existence to me. You want to say, well, you see.

The interesting thing is in terms of our worldview, that amounts to saying God doesn't exist.

Point that out to him. Say, you could say that to other people maybe, but the Christian worldview says that God created you, made your mind so that you could understand his world, so that when you understand yourself, you know the God who made you, that when you look at the world, you're constantly confronted with indisputable evidence of Him. Now, maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong, but you have to understand that's what we're claiming. And so when you say, well, I.

Don'T know whether God exists or not.

That amounts to saying, then the Christian view is wrong because the Christian view.

Says everyone does know that God exists.

And can't avoid knowing that God exists. Okay, now the second issue, the presuppositional conflict of worldviews. What Dr. Stein has written about the nature of the theistic debate points to a second philosophical error of significant proportions. I said in passing we would note how unclear he is when speaking of the evidence which must be used, describing it variously as logic, facts or reason. Pick up on that. You're going to talk to people who do the same thing. You're going to say, well, if you're going to convince me, it's going to have to be by reason or by evidence, logic. Each of these terms is susceptible to a whole host of differing senses depending upon who is using the terms. If you want an example of that.

And you should do this, I think.

If you're going to get very serious about apology, you should have a dictionary.

Of philosophy in your library. Now, I think there are ones that are better than others.

But any dictionary philosophy, you pull it down off the shelf and just look up the word reason, okay? It's going to be one sentence. Everybody agrees on what reason is right, wrong.

You get a hold this or this.

Or this or this or this. So when you talk to people and they Say, well, we have to appeal to reason. Eventually you want to point out to them. But what you take to be reason or reasonable is determined by your worldview. So when you say we're going to appeal to reason, and then you define reason according to your worldview, what you're saying is you're going to have to prove your worldview by appealing to my worldview. And thus you have excluded me from ever being, you know, being successful in proving my point. The problem arises when Dr. Stein elsewhere insists that every claim which someone makes.

Must be treated as a hypothesis which.

Must be tested by such evidence before accepting it. There is to be nothing which smacks of begging the question or circular reasoning. He says, yeah, I know you all, you all laughed when you, when you heard that because you knew that I.

Was grinning inside from ear to ear, right?

No. Circular reasoning, huh? Okay, it's kind of like throwing burl.

Rabbit in the briar patch thing.

Oh, we're going to talk about circular reasoning? Well, we presuppositions. We like to talk about that. Let's talk about that. I said this is oversimplified thinking and again, misleading. What we might call the pretended neutrality fallacy. One can see this by considering the following quotation from Dr. Stein. The use of logical reason is the only valid way to examine the truth.

Or falsity of a statement which claims to be factual.

One must eventually ask Dr. Stein then how he proves this statement itself. Okay, let me put up on the.

Board what he has said.

The use of logic or reason is.

The only valid way. All this logic and reason don't mean the same thing always, but all this is reasonable, the use of reasonably valid.

Okay, so we have the claim that the use of reason is the only valid method for proving factual claims and the exclusion of all circular reasoning. Okay? So we have to remember that there.

Is to be no circular reasoning.

So now what do I do? What do you want to do? Because you're going to run into this over and over again. You're going to ask the person, well, then how do you prove this statement in quotations up here? That the use of reason is the only valid proving factual claims, that's pretty important. That's the operating assumption of your whole system. How did you prove that? Here are the options. We're going to call this T the test premise. T is going to be proven by reason or something other than reason.

You understand this notation? Write the bar over it. Anything outside of the set that you call reason.

Okay? Now if T is proven by something.

That is not reason.

What's the problem? That's the only valid method of proving.

Well, so it can't be this. You can't use something outside of this reason.

Well, then T must be proven by reason. But of course, we've already set down the rule that there's no circular reasoning. And so T can't be proven by reason because T is the assertion that reason is the only valid method. And since both of those, that covers the universe by the way, reason and everything outside of reason, and therefore T is unprovable, isn't it? It's unprovable. It's arbitrary.

And it's arbitrary.

Anybody has the right to accept it, reject it, or put something in its place. I worry sometimes if I go too.

Fast that you miss.

I mean, if you master this.

You'Re.

Going to be able to put just about anybody you talk to, and I, and I mean anybody, local university professor on the horns of the dilemma. When somebody says that it's, you know, reason's the only thing that can be used and I don't believe in circular reasoning. And take him through the step.

I think we probably have a fairly.

Common understanding what amounts to a contradiction.

And what we're going to want to.

Do is show that the unbeliever can't make sense of that understanding of contradiction or logic and so forth.

But you are right that ultimately if an unbeliever says the Bible contradicts itself and yet the Bible's the only foundation you have for logic, then you're going to have to let the Bible define what is reasonable and consistent, or assume that everything in the Bible is consistent and work from that premise, or else.

You have no basis for proving or disproving anything with respect to consistency and consistency.

So you are right. You have a kernel there that I think you want to hold on to. However, in the examples your roommate gave you, my recommendation to you as an apologist is you should deal with those two examples on their own footing. Like he says, there's a contradiction between.

The two and the seven.

Well, if we read the text closer.

You'Ll see that it's two of the unclean animals, seven of the clean animals. And so there is no contradiction. That's just the misreading of the text.

When he says there's a contradiction in the two creation accounts. Go and do the detailed work and show that there in fact is no contradiction or there is no necessary contradiction. You can read it as a contradiction.

But you don't need to. And everybody should be seen as Innocent until proven guilty.

So I think that's the easiest way to deal with that. But when a person gets to something like the Trinity and says, well, that's a contradiction, it's not just a matter of, you know, misreading the 2 and 7 and all that, sometimes we do have to get to the place of saying, your concept of consistency is determined by your worldview. And in our worldview, the doctrine of the Trinity is not inconsistent, though it is a great mystery, but it's not.

Something that's logically gobbledygook.

We don't say that God is one.

And three in the very same way.

Okay, yeah, I'm running a little behind here, so let me push ahead and then we'll take a break and I'll.

Put you on the spot to give the transcendental argument.

My point is not to fault Dr. Stein's commitment to logic or reason, but to observe that it actually has the nature of a pre. Commitment or presupposition.

It's very important.

I think it's very important that we keep telling the unbeliever we're not affirming what is illogical. We're not abandoning reason, we're not abandoning science. Don't want you to think because a lot that's their view of most religious systems, and Christians too, that when you present evidence and logic against them, Christians say, well, that may be true, but.

I know Jesus in my heart of hearts.

We are not saying that, though we do know Jesus in our heart of hearts, that's not our argument. My point is not to fault Dr. Stein's commitment to logic or reason, I said, but to observe that that commitment has the nature of a pre. Commitment, a presupposition. It is not something he has proven by empirical experience or logic. It is rather that by which he proceeds to prove everything else. He is not, then presuppositionless. Presuppositionally neutral. Is that an English word? Presuppositionlessly neutral? He's not in his approach to factual questions and disputes. He does not avoid begging crucial questions.

Rather than proving them in the ordinary way.

This tendency to beg crucial questions is openly exposed by Dr. Stein when the issue becomes the existence of God. He demands that the theist present him with evidence for the existence of God. And a theist like myself would gladly and readily do so. There is the evidence of the created order itself, testifying to the wisdom, power, plan and glory of God. One should not miss the testimony of the solar system, the persuasion of the sea, the amazing intricacies of the human body. There is the evidence of history, God's deliverance of his people, the miracles that pass overnight in the Red Sea, the visions of Isaiah, the Shekinah, glory in the temple, the virgin birth of Jesus, his mighty miracles, his resurrection from the dead. There's the evidence of special revelation, the wonder of the Bible as God's word unsurpassed in its coherence over time. Historical accuracy, life renewing power. In short, there is no shortage of evidence or indicators of God's existence, from the thousand stars of the heavens to the 500 witnesses to Christ's resurrection. But Dr. Stein precludes the very possibility of any of this empirical evidence counting as proof of God's existence. He writes, and I quote, supernatural explanations are not allowed in science. The theist is hard put to document his claims to the existence of the supernatural if he is in effect forbidden from invoking the supernatural as a part of his explanation. Of course, this is entirely fair. This is the atheist telling us what is entirely fair.

Isn't that great?

This is entirely fair as it would.

Be, begging the question, to use what.

Is to be proved as a part of the explanation. Do you believe the Bible when it says that unbelievers have blinded eyes? How can he say that and not look in the mirror and say, oh yeah, well, I'm doing the same thing? Dismisses in advance. Dr. Stein is committed to disallowing any theistic interpretation of the or experience. What he seems to overlook is that this is just as much begging the question on his own part as it is on the part of theists who appeal to such evidence. He has not at all proven by empirical observation and logic his pre commitment to naturalism. He has assumed it in advance, accepting and rejecting all further factual claims in terms of that controlling assumption. Now the move here, and this is one of the most important in the debate, and when you're debating with people informally, it's crucial that you point out to them you have your presuppositions and you are controlled by your presuppositions. Now, Dr. Van Til is unique among 20th century apologists who take the name presuppositionalism, because at this point others who are presuppositionalists would leave it at that and say, see, you got your controlling assumptions. That's why you won't let the evidence speak for itself. Evidentialist can say that Sproul says that kind of thing, Montgomery says that kind of thing. They're able to see that. What don't they see? They too have their controlling presuppositions. And that's what I go on to.

Say now, before the final proof.

I say the theist does the same thing. Of course, when certain empirical evidences are put forth as allegedly disproving the existence of God. Just as the naturalist would insist that Christ could not have risen from the dead, or that there is a natural explanation yet to be of how it happened, so the supernaturalist insist that the alleged discrepancies in the Bible have an explanation yet to be found, and the evil in the world has a sufficient reason behind it known to God, even if not known to us. So you see what I'm getting at. I. When you're at the coffee shop and you finally shown this guy that he's controlled by certain assumptions, he's not proven that he's brought to the debate, it may form a weakness to you, but it isn't. I think you need to say, and I have my assumptions too, and my presuppositions.

I am committed.

I'm sold out to Jesus. You present evidence, alleged evidence that he didn't rise from the dead.

I'm going to argue with that.

I am committed to there being no such evidence. Now it looks like we got a real problem. We're at a. I was on an airplane once with RC Sproul.

For a few hours we were talking.

About this, and then he likened the situation. Well, I guess then what you have is a Mexican standoff. Well, I appreciated that he understood the problem.

I'm not sure that after he got off the plane he went on with the understanding that I gave him.

But it looks like a Mexican standoff. You've got your presupposition that control your interpretation of evidence. I have my presuppositions to control my interpretation of the evidence. So what do we do? I said they both have their governing presuppositions, even as all philosophical systems or worldviews do. At the most fundamental level of everyone's thinking and beliefs, there are primary convictions about reality, man, knowledge, truth, behavior. Convictions by which all other experience is organized, interpreted and applied. Dr. Stein has such presuppositions, and so do I, and so do all of us. And it is these presuppositions which determine what we accept by ordinary reasoning and evidence. For they are assumed in all our reasoning, even about reasoning itself.

Boy, now we're in trouble.

Everyone's got their presuppositions. The presuppositions determine your approach to reason, your approach to evidence, how you interpret your own experience. Does it look like a Mexican standoff.

Well, let's take a break, and when we come back, you can explain to me how we get out of that conundrum.

This recording has been released into 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.