Dr Greg Bahnsen - Peter's Apologetic: The Intellectual Challenge of the Gospel (Part 3)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. I'll begin our reading at the eighth verse of chapter three. And we'll read through verse 17. Hear now God's word. Finally, be ye all like minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humble minded, not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but contrawise, blessing for hereunto were ye called that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile, and let him turn away from evil and do good, let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ear is unto their supplication, but the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you? If ye be zealous of that which is good, but even if ye should suffer for righteousness sake, blessed are ye and fear not their fear. Neither be ye troubled, but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord, being ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you. Yet with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that wherein ye are spoken against, ye may put to shame those who revile your good manner of life in Christ. For it is better if the will of God should so will that ye suffer for well doing than for evil doing. And thus far, the reading of God's word. This morning we're taking up the subject of the intellectual challenge of the Gospel. And immediately I have to defend the title of the sermon because it would appear to many people this is already a contradiction in terms. The intellectual challenge of the Gospel. You might have spoken of the emotional challenge of the gospel or the personal challenge of the gospel. Maybe, if you wanted a fancy word, the eschatological challenge of the gospel. But no one would expect you to defend the intellectual challenge of the gospel. I mean, many in the world today take it for granted that the Christian church has nothing to set before the world that has any intellectual credibility. I mean, isn't faith simply sacrificing your intellect? Isn't faith a matter of going contrary to good reason? People don't have reasons for being Christians. They're just causes for becoming Christians. That is to say, there may be something in your home background. Let's say you've had an inadequate fox father in some way, and so you're looking for something to Take the place of that inadequate Father and you find it in the Christian gospel that speaks of a heavenly Father who is adequate for all things. And so what you have here is not a reason to be a Christian, but there's a cause. There's some psychological reason why you become a Christian. There are people who go through terrible times of turmoil and trouble, and we can't deny that many times, I think statistically it's very high, the number of times that that's when people will stop and be humbled to listen to the Gospel. It's when they realize their own inadequacy, they realize their own weakness, that they begin to hear the call of the Gospel and the offers of God. But you see, the world looks at that and the world says there's no intellectual challenge to that. There's just an emotional need that's being met. There may be people who are manic depressants and the Gospel is good for them too. But again, the intellectual challenge of the Gospel, of course not. And you know that that's the attitude of the world. What do you see on TV today? Now, I don't mean what do you see on TV that's religious programming that may give the world an excuse for saying this? I mean, what do you see on TV as the way the world portrays the Christian church? How does the Christian church come off in primetime TV programming not looking very good. I mean, no one respects the preacher. Well, if they do, they respect him because he's a compassionate and tender hearted person. If he's that, he's usually some lecherous person who is bilking the church of its funds and somebody who is nothing more than a hypocrite. I mean, that's the way the world looks upon preachers. But there was a day, it was many years ago, I'm sorry to say, but there was a day when preachers were considered the most educated, the most intelligent in the community, perhaps up there with the doctor in the town or something. But the preacher is the one who went to school, who had book learning. He was the person you could go to and talk about problems. Often that's why ministers were the teachers in society, because they were the educated people. But that was many, many years ago. Now, if there's any education that's associated with preachers or with the Christian church, it's education which is substandard to education which is despised and education which is not looked up to in any sense at all. And yet I want to tell you that for all of that prejudice of the world. There is an intellectual challenge of the gospel which is going to shock you when we get to the bottom line of our exhortation this morning. The intellectual challenge of the gospel, very simply, is this. Where is the wise? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Though the world and its alleged wisdom may look upon the preaching of the cross as foolish, the fact of the matter is God takes the weak and beggarly items of this world and uses them to put stumbling blocks in front of, indeed, to tie a knot to those who are supposed to be the intellectuals, those who are the powerful, those who are the leaders of this world system. The fact of the matter is there is an intellectual challenge of the gospel. Not only do I have to defend that, however over against many in the world who would say the church isn't anything intellectual to offer, but I have to defend that over against many Christians who would give that impression, too many in the Christian church who would say that. We don't engage in argumentation. We don't worry about book learning. We're not concerned about matters of truth. We're really concerned with what touches the heart. But as I told you last week in that particular presentation about how to defend the Christian faith, nothing, nothing can calm and soothe the heart unless it is first believed to be true. And consequently, if I tell you that you have a heavenly Father who has loved you from all eternity and has provided his own son as a way of atonement and escape from sin, who wishes to make you part of his family for all eternity, that won't comfort you if I add as a last line, and by the way, that's not really true, but it's a nice way to look at things, isn't it? You see, the heart cannot take comfort from what the mind rejects as false. So there is an intellectual challenge to the gospel, and it's that to which we turn this morning. Let me review just for a few minutes what we have said thus far about how to defend the Christian faith. We're taking as our text the charter verse of Christian apologetics. First Peter 3, 15. For Peter says, sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord, being ready always to give an answer to every man who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you. Yet with meekness and fear. Peter is in the midst of talking about persecution and how we're going to suffer for righteousness sake if we're God's people and we will suffer for righteousness sake, you shouldn't assume that everything's going to go well. God doesn't have any such song as I promise you a rose garden. He doesn't promise a rose garden, he promises a cross. It says, if you want to be my disciple, take up your cross and daily follow me. Be willing to be crucified on a daily basis for my sake. Peter is in the midst of talking about that kind of persecution and how we should consider ourselves happy. We are blessed if we do this. But he says, don't fear the terror of the world. He says, don't tremble before the opposition that faces you. Do not be perturbed by the kinds of challenges you'll come up against. And Peter says there's two ways in which you'll be able to avoid that. First, he says, have a clear conscience. Make sure that when they persecute you, they must persecute you for righteousness sake. He says, because it's better if you suffer to suffer for well doing than for evil doing. If you're suffering for evil doing, we don't have much of a defense, do we? So make sure your conduct is good and your conscience is clear. And secondly, Peter says, make sure you have an answer, an intellectual answer to challenges to the Christian faith. Instead of being troubled with fear, he says, have a Christian mind. That's my way of paraphrasing Peter's words. To sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. He means to set Christ apart as master over all of your thinking. For out of the heart are the issues of life. And if Christ is Lord in my heart, that means all of my life, including my thinking, my reasoning, all of my intellect is controlled by him. We must develop the habit of thinking Christianly, I said, and shun the idea of neutrality, that we can be uncommitted about matters pertaining to Jesus Christ. We must shun the idea of autonomy, that we can be self sufficient or a standard for ourselves and thinking. And we must shun any idea of a divided field of knowledge so that in some areas Christ is Lord, but in other areas reason or science or history or my own mind or feelings are going to be the authority. There is no sacred secular distinction for the Christian. For all of life is sacred. There's not one thumb's breath in all of creation that doesn't belong to my Savior Jesus Christ. Consequently, we don't divide the field of knowledge. Furthermore, Peter tells us that the answer that we're supposed to present to those who criticize the Christian faith must be a reasoned defense. That is, one must be prepared he says in advance to offer a word or an account or a reckoning of the hope which is in us. And that word that he uses for word I.e. logos in the Greek, suggests a reasoned account, a logical presentation. And so Christians need to be educated people. That doesn't mean they have to go to institutions of learning, but they need to be people who are educated, who are thinking through important issues, who are well read. They must be people who understand philosophical issues. They may not major in philosophy, that's fine. But they must understand the issues that philosophers are concerned with. They must be concerned to be logical in their thinking. Nothing is gained for the Christian church and the honor of our Savior if we're sloppy and illogical in the way we present ourselves. And we must learn to defend the faith, not just experimentally or emotionally or with the obscuritist attitude that says we don't have to worry about book learning. We must be prepared to defend the faith intellectually. Now, that's where we left off last week, and we pick up this morning. And I want to look at two more words in this verse that are very important. The first is the word hope, and the other is the word everyman. First of all, the word hope. We must be prepared to defend the hope which is in us. We must utilize a Christian mind and have a reasoned defense prepared for anyone who asks it of us. A defense of what, though? What are we supposed to defend? Ourselves? We're supposed to defend our own integrity? We're supposed to come off being able to protect our own pride? Is that what we're defending? No, we defend hope. Peter speaks of a reason for the hope which is in you. And immediately we have to correct something which in the English language, I think will mislead you. And that's the idea that the word hope means wistful longing, something like a subjective dream or a desire. Young people have those kind of hopes quite often, don't they? You think of the teenage girl who sits at home just pining away for somebody, just hoping somebody will call her for a date for the party on Friday night. See, as Peter's saying, that's what we defend. We defend just this longing, this hope that there is a heavenly father who has sent his son to die for our sins. And this hope that we will belong to him for all eternity. Is that what he means? A reasoned defense of the hope that is in you? No, he doesn't use the word hope in that way at all. In fact, in the Greek, especially in the New Testament, the word hope means A confident expectation. It means a solid anchor. A solid expectation, assurance, something that you know will take place. In Romans 15:13, Paul says that we as believers abound in hope. What does Hebrews 11:1 say about faith? Can we all recite the definition of Faith from Hebrews 11:1? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. You see, it's not some kind of oh, I just hope, I hope, I hope it's so. It's rather the confidence, the assurance we have. A good example of this is Romans 4:18, where Paul uses Abraham as the example or the model for all the faithful. Abraham is the father of the faithful. And this is how Abraham is described. Who in hope believed against hope, who in utter confidence believed contrary to what the world would give him as a basis for expectation in hope. He believed against hope that he would even in old age become the father of a multitude. And then Paul continues looking unto the promise of God. He wavered not through unbelief, being fully assured that what he had promised he was able also to perform. Being fully assured he didn't waver in unbelief, in hope, he trusted the promises of God. That's the kind of hope we're defending. Or Hebrews 3:6 says this of us, that we are Christ's house if we hold fast our boldness and the pride in our hope firm unto the end. I really like that expression, the pride. Actually, the Greek word means boasting. It's the common word for boasting. If we hold firm to the boasting in our hope, that is to say, there's no doubt about this. It's not a matter of lacking certainty. There's a great assurance in the Christian hope, and it's this which Peter calls us to defend, the confident expectation of what God says is true. And who is it we're supposed to defend this hope before? To whom do we offer this reasoned defense? Christians are supposed to have an assured confidence about their beliefs, about their outlook, one for which they're prepared in advance to offer a reasoned defense. But the toughest part of this, the toughest part of this call to defend the faith is often overlooked, and I think overlooked conveniently by many believers. You see, many of us, most of us, I'm sure, feel that we can hold our own if we have to defend our Christian beliefs to children, or if we are called upon to explain our Christian convictions to our working class neighbors who probably never read anything besides the paper, if they read that we feel like we're all right Even if we have to defend the faith to our peers who share our interest and our values and our lifestyle, we may feel comfortable there. But, you know, most of us get a very nervous stomach, don't we, at the prospect of answering for the Christian faith to a well educated doctor or a scientist or a lawyer or perhaps the local philosophy professor. Well spoken, clear thinking and institutionally honored individuals tend to intimidate us. We tend to think, well, if I have to talk to this person who teaches at a secular school and he's got a PhD even, or an MD or he's a lawyer or something like that, I can't hold my own in a conversation or an argument with him. And so if we knew we were going to have to do that, or if he was going to be asking us questions about our Christian faith, we get knots in our stomach. But what does Peter say? Peter says we must be prepared for these people. He says, be prepared for every man who asks you. You have to kind of scratch your head and say, no, wait a minute, Peter, get realistic. Not all of us can talk to just everybody. Peter says you have to and you have to be prepared to do it. You need to prepare to talk to John Hospers, you see, head of the philosophy department at sc. He comes and he's going to talk to you tomorrow. You need to be able to give him an answer. He's going to ask some tough questions. I've read his books. I know he's got some tough questions. Are you prepared to answer him? If you aren't prepared to answer him, you're not obeying the Bible because the Bible says, be prepared to answer anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. This reason defense is for anyone who asks. And so our apologetic must be as adequate for the professor as it is for a plumber. And by the way, I could push it the other way too. Those of you who feel like because of your training you can talk to professors and to educated people, but you wouldn't have any idea what to say to a child or a plumber or somebody who doesn't care about all the fancy lingo and vocabulary of the university need to be prepared to answer these people too. You need to remember something. Remember something about the person who wrote these words. It was Peter. And what was Peter? He was a fisherman, an unschooled fisherman. In fact, he was so unschooled and was so evident by his manner that he was unschooled that when Peter appeared before the Sanhedrin and gave his very bold defense of the Christian gospel. The book of Acts tells us they all kind of looked at each other in wonder and amazement. They said, these are uneducated men. How can they be speaking like this? Peter, the uneducated fisherman, the unschooled fisherman is the same person who stood up against the institutionally certified doctors of the Sanhedrin, the same man who answered for his faith in the capital city of the Roman Empire, the same man who wrote two books of holy Scripture. Being an unschooled fisherman didn't keep Peter from engaging in the defense of the Christian faith. It's Peter who tells us, you be ready for anyone who wants to know why you're a Christian. And I'm going to, before I make the application of the point here and get on to explaining to you how you might be able to do this, I think it's just good to take a minute off the main subject here and say a word, maybe a special word here, about being nervous around intellectual type people. We all are, aren't we? We're nervous when we get around people who we think know more than us. And we're all the more nervous when we say it's eternal matters that we're defending here. And I feel so inadequate for this. Well, I'm going to tell you four things. There's probably four more or 40 more that could be said, but four things that come to my mind that you need to keep in mind. And I'm going to fly through these things. It'll be easy to forget. I don't want you to forget it, though. So let me make sure I have your attention here. When you're talking to intellectual type people, would you remember first of all that they're people with problems, Problems just like you have being trained in a school of learning, having a lot of degrees or social standing because you're what, a lawyer or a professor or what have you doesn't take away your personal problems. In fact, these people tend to have those problems all the more. And they're even more frustrated than you because they expect of themselves, even as you wrongly expect that being intellectual types, they have answers. Well, they don't. And that's why there's very high suicide rate among psychologists and doctors. People you wouldn't expect this of Intellectual people are people. They aren't in a different ballpark. They're in the same ballpark with you. Secondly, I want you to remember that you don't need to be bullied by vocabulary. You need to learn very soon the ability to say, I didn't understand what you meant by that word. Don't let somebody just use the vocabulary and then lose the argument, as it were. By default, no one needs to be bullied by vocabulary. You're going to find often if somebody's trying to bully you by vocabulary, he probably can't explain it himself anyway, that's why he's using the vocabulary. And so you need to learn to say, I think I can answer that, but put it in other words for me. Okay, I grant you I'd have to go to the dictionary to find out what that sentence meant. So you tell me right now and save me some time. Don't be afraid to say that. In fact, you'll find that most people who truly are educated will respect that. Instead of you pretending, well, I'm supposed to know what this means, and so I'll just go on as though I did. Don't be bullied by vocabulary. Thirdly, winning the argument, by which I mean dominating your opponent or engaging in intellectual arm wrestling, winning the argument is not the goal of the Christian in the first place. Most of us are afraid to engage in this because we're afraid we won't win the argument. That is to say, we won't be able to get the guy down in some kind of intellectual headlock and make him scream uncle. No, you probably won't. But you see, I don't think Jesus wants you to treat people that way anyhow. And so that's not the issue here, not winning the argument. And the fourth thing you should remember is that a thoughtful and a substantiated attempt to give an answer is always much more respected than sloppy or excuse ridden or no attempt to reply at all. I know people, I've been in graduate schools. I know what these intellectuals are like. I run with that crowd from time to time. And I can assure you, even when they aren't Christians, they have a healthy respect for those Christians who make an effort to be honest, well thought and clear and to offer substantiation for what they believe. It may not persuade the person, but he still respects the effort. You know what they don't respect though, and which I don't respect and I don't think you should respect. They don't respect people who make excuses and say, oh well, because you have this learning, you wouldn't believe it even if I told you that doesn't win anybody. Believe me, it doesn't win anybody. And it doesn't help when we offer sloppy reasons, doesn't help when we're just full of excuses. Or when we say, well, no, I can't give an answer. We must make the effort. I think if I can use an analogy here, it may be a weak one. Often enough people may think in this congregation, well, I can't go to the sesh, talk about things because, well, those guys, they're supposed to know the Bible and they're highly trained, they're good at arguing and debating. I'll never win an argument with those guys. But as a matter of fact, if you know your elders in this church, even if you're not persuasive, the elders always respect somebody who honors the authority of God's word and goes to the scripture, says, well, it seems to me this is what it's saying. They honor that far more than somebody who stands back and says, well, I don't have to ever talk about it. I'll never tell anybody why, but this is what I believe. And I think you're wrong. You see, if within the Christian church we can respect differences of opinion when there are differences that show integrity, the attempt to be true to God's word, I think you should expect that even those outside the world are going to respect that too. They may not accept the word of God as we do, they may not accept the Bible as the word of God as we do. But you see, once we say that we do and we try to be consistent with it, they can respect that. So just remember these things. Intellectuals are people. They have problems just like yours. And you don't have to be bullied by their vocabulary. You don't have to worry about winning the argument, twisting their arm. And finally, a thoughtful and substantiated attempt is always much more respected than no attempt at all or a sloppy one. Well, let's get back to our subject. Peter says, put Christ aside as Lord in your heart. Make sure that he masters your intellectual property processes that he is governing your thoughts. And be prepared, think it out, be prepared to have a reason defense. And this morning we see it's a reason defense of a confident assurance of the truth of our faith. And that confidence should be able to be defended before anyone who asks us a reason for the hope that is in us. And so, in short, we're required by Peter here to have a fully confident, well reasoned defense of our faith. Faith for just anyone who might challenge us. We've got to be ready to set forth the intellectual challenge of the gospel. Now, let me tell you some things which are not intellectual challenges at all. And then I'll offer you Something that you can get onto and begin to read more about and develop as a true intellectual challenge for the gospel. These are not intellectual challenges. I'm going to give you four of them this morning. One, if we say to people, well, it must be true because it's given me such a peace and joy. I mean, the gospel must be true because it makes me happy, it comforts me. But you see, that's not a defense of the Christian faith. That's an autobiographical remark. It's a remark that may go into your biography. That's fine. My point is it's an interesting truth, maybe an important truth in other settings, but it's a truth about you and not at all necessarily a truth about what you believe. For, you see, if we accept that as a defense of the Christian faith, we're going to have to accept the fact that behavior and Hindus and Muslims find great peace and joy in their faith too. Finding peace and joy is something having to do with me. It doesn't say anything about the virtue or lack of virtue of that which I'm believing. Here's the second thing, which is not really the intellectual challenge of the gospel. I've heard this many times from Christians. Well, you'll never know it's truth until you try it. You'll never know it's truth until you try it. So in other words, I'm not going to defend the intellectual virtues of the Christian faith because you'll never accept it, you'll never know it until you actually become a Christian. So you got to try it. You'll like it sort of mentality here. But unfortunately, that is the stock and trade approach of things which are intellectually suspect and personally damaging. And how often do we have people who are on drugs say that, try it. You know, you won't know how true it is or how wonderful it is or how beautiful it is until you try it. What if you had somebody come along who said, you know, the greatest thing in life, it gives you such a rush when you can put your head in a cement mixer. You say, well, that doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. Well, you'll never know until you try it, though. You see, that just that doesn't carry any weight, and it shouldn't carry any weight. Now I'm embarrassed on Christian's trial to make that carry weight. It doesn't do any good to ask people to make a mindless commitment to Jesus Christ. He wants you to come in, not just emotionally making a leap, but intellectually heart, soul and body. The whole of me given over to him. So you can't sacrifice your intellect in order to become a Christian. Try it. You'll like it. That's not the defense of the faith. Thirdly, it won't help to say, just look at the large number of people who have been, or our day and age. I hear this, too. Look at the large number of people who are becoming Christians. All of Western culture. Look at all the people who have been Christians. But you see, truth is not established by a nose count, friends. And if it were, then at the inception of the Christian church, and maybe in our own culture, Christianity wouldn't be true, would it? Its competitors would be true in the days when There were only 11 who were following Jesus. And then on the day of Pentecost, 3,000 more. Yes, it began to grow fast, but you can be very assured there were 30,000 more who followed the mystery cults of the ancient world. Does that mean Christianity was not true? It really is kind of silly for a Christian to make majority rule or the idea of a nose count, the test of what is true, because Christians are often the minority. And that doesn't mean we're wrong. It just means we haven't done our homework and we. We haven't gotten enough other people convinced of the truth of what we have. Well, another approach that sounds much more intellectual to people would be something like this. Well, you know, there are some things in the Bible which, if you read Reader's Digest or more scholarly works of publication, some things in the Bible have been confirmed by secular history and secular science. So the reasoning goes like this. If some of the things in the Bible proved to be true, then very likely all of them will prove to be true. I hope that makes you kind of cringe. You know, you say, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. If some are true, then all are true. That's like saying Winston Churchill wrote the Gathering storm and probably 98% of what he claimed in that book is true. And therefore it's an infallible book. I mean, just because some things are true in a book doesn't make all things true in the book. And so then what you get is a variation of this approach and Christian apologetics that says, no, wait a minute, I'm not just saying some things, mundane things like matters of geography or natural history or what have you, but rather certain miraculous things are true. And of course, the greatest of all miracles, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the stock and trade of evangelical apologetics in our day. We have a good argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The argument goes like this. We can prove that Jesus rose from the dead. If he rose from the dead, he must be God. And if he's God, everything he says must be true. And since he confirmed the Old Testament and everything that was coming in the new, then we know everything in the Bible is true. I did that in less than a minute, I think. Isn't that great defense of the whole Christian faith in less than a minute, beginning with the resurrection? Well, there's all sorts of problems with this though, and I don't think you should find it surprising. I don't find it surprising. I can give you some of the statistics and some stories about this. People who study for their PhD in history and philosophy, they are not converted by that kind of thinking. They aren't. There are people, this physics professor at UCLA who said, I believe Jesus rose from the dead and one day we'll be able to account for it. You see, you take a naturalist and tell him that a body came back to life and he says there must be some natural principle by which that happened. You got to make a naturalist into a supernaturalist before the resurrection has any significance for him. Well, you see, in the first place, those who think they can prove Jesus rose from the dead, prove it from what the evidence given us where in the Bible. And so what they're saying is if we can trust what the Bible tells us about certain historical matters, we can trust what it says about the miracles too, to see if you're going to trust the Bible from the outset, which I think you should. But if they're going to do that, they shouldn't pretend that they're kind of going to the Bible, then leaving the Bible and coming back to the Bible in this resurrection argument. And if Jesus rose from the dead proves that he's God, then what about Lazarus? Lazarus rose from the dead too. Does that mean he's God? Why should we think that? If Jesus is God or Lazarus is God or whatever you're thinking, why should we think the gods always tell the truth? The Greek gods didn't always tell the truth. You see, this is presupposing the Christian concept of God and we can go on and on. That is not the intellectual challenge of the gospel. And it is easily undercut by those who are interested in finding an intellectual escape. I say, well, what's left? You won't let us appeal to my personal experience or to a majority vote, or even to certain miraculous things. Well, I'll tell you what's left. First, Corinthians 1:20 is a good place to start your study of apologetics. You know that I'm not going to be able to give you a course in apologetics in the remaining moments of this morning's sermon, but I think I can give you the seed thoughts that if you'll do some of your own work, to be able to grow into a very effective defense of the faith for anyone who asks you for a reasoned defense of the hope that is in you. In First Corinthians 1:20, notice what Paul's approach was. By the way, Paul went to Corinth right after his missionary endeavors in Athens, the intellectual center of the ancient world. And here's Paul speaking. He says, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? And where is the disputer of this age? Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Paul didn't bother to take the world on kind of a half and half basis, saying, well, you got it half right. Let me supply some of the other truths here. He says, no, the thinking of the world is foolish, and God makes it foolish. The rhetorical question has this effect. There is no one who can debate the outlook of this world. I say, boy, I don't know. I can't even defend the resurrection. And you cut that argument down. What am I going to do? Well, let me explain to you. The Bible says that unbelievers suppress the obvious truth about God. And because men are suppressing the truth about God, they become fools in their reasoning. We see that in Romans 1, verses 18 to 22. Romans 1, verses 18 to 22 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who do what, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known of God is manifest in them, for God manifested it to them for the invisible things of him. Since the creation of the world are clearly seen being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, so that they are without excuse. Interestingly, the Greek behind that means without an apologetic. They have no defense for their position, because knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. That's where Christian apologetics begins. It begins by saying, the obvious truth of God is being suppressed by this person and his reasonings, being made foolish for that very reason. Jesus said that the foolish man builds his house upon the sand rather than upon the rock word that he himself is speaking. In psalms we read, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. Proverbs 1:7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. So where do you begin? Yeah, I'm not saying you go out and just start calling people fools. Now that's not the point. The point here is you need to be convinced in your own heart. These people are fighting against the very obvious truth. And their reasoning is made foolish for that reason. Because they're fighting against God. Because they're suppressing what they know so very well, they're becoming fools. You need to know that. And then how do you deal with a fool? Now I know there may be some smart alec answers out there how you deal with fools. But the Proverbs is where you go to learn how to deal with a fool. And very quickly this morning I'll show you how you can defend your Christian faith when you're dealing with a fool. And that is to say, the unbeliever who will not accept the word of God. In Proverbs 26, Solomon says, Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him. First thing you better remember is you can't answer a fool according to his philosophy. Because you see, you answer a fool by his philosophy, you're just as foolish as he is. Answer not a fool according to his folly. Don't use his assumptions, don't use his presuppositions, don't use his manner of reasoning, don't use his values. Don't answer the fool according to his folly, lest you be like unto him. If I try to prove the resurrection to a man who is a naturalist, who believes in no supernatural forces, believes in no God, and I accept all, all of his principles of reasoning and academic study, I'm going to end up like a naturalist too. The Bible says, don't answer the fool by his principles. And then the Bible says something that sounds just the opposite. It says, answer a fool according to his folly. Don't answer the fool according to his folly. The next verse says, answer the fool according to his folly, but notice the reason why. Answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit. Now what you do is you say to the fool, you don't call him a fool perhaps, but you say to the unbeliever, well, let's assume for argument's sake what you've said about the world. Show him the folly of his foolish presuppositions. Lest he be wise in his own conceits. Proverbs is a very down to earth and graphic way of putting it Here, let me translate just a minute into the 20th century. What it says here is don't answer by the fool's presuppositions because if you do, you're going to fall into the same trap with him. But on the other hand, do put yourself on his position and do an internal critique of what he believes. Show him where his presuppositions lead. What you want to point out and I'm going to give you just a few things, a few handles on Christian apologetics here. You want to point out if Christianity isn't true. If Christianity isn't true, can we trust the results of our brain process? Now remember, we can't use a Christian worldview here to answer. And if you don't have a Christian worldview, you don't have a sovereign triune creator who made all things and governs every event of history is in providential control of all of nature and whatever happens to us. Okay? Now put that aside. Can't ever appeal to that. Now Mr. Unbeliever, why do you trust the results of what your brain comes to? Because remember, there's no mind involved here. What would mind be in a godless universe? All you have is gray matter. Now I don't think you would really have that either, but let's not push too hard just yet. Let's say we do have a body. A body which has a brain in it. But what's it operate according to? It operates according to, well, electrical, chemical processes, physical laws. Like weeds. Weeds do the same thing. There are certain chemical and physical forces that make weeds what they are and roses what they are. You know, some people's minds come to this conclusion. Some people's minds come to those. Some people's minds are like weeds. Some people's minds are like roses. Why should I trust the results of my brain process if this is a godless universe? I'm nothing but electrochemical ball of energy, right? And what my brain says doesn't have any assurance of truth to it. It's just I couldn't help it. The weeds can't help being what they are. And my mind can't help coming to the conclusions it does. You see, if you're not a Christian in a sense, argument becomes useless because you can't help but believe what you do. And if I'm talking to somebody who holds that view, that's really foolish for me to try to convince you then. And it's foolish for you to think that what you believe is true because there's no truth of matter, just your brain full of you to say those things. Let me take another approach. If you don't have a Christian worldview, on what basis are there moral absolutes? On what basis are there moral absolutes? There's really two prongs to this attack. One is everyone needs moral absolutes to live, and you believe in and you live according to moral absolutes. So now how do you justify that? That's one way to approach it, but I'm going to take a much more narrow approach in the realm of scholarship. You know, moral absolutes are absolutely required. What happens in the scientific world, I mean, scientific world of evolutionists and atheists and secularists and naturalists and all this sort of thing, what happens in the scientific world when it's found that some guy who's been doing research projects at major university has been lying about the results of his research? You know, it's the funniest thing in the world. I mean, it's tragically funny, but it's really funny to see people who don't believe in a God, who don't believe in any kind of principle beyond the material world, get upset with their colleagues for lying. Why should they be upset with their colleagues for lying? There aren't any principles of truth by which they have to live, so they lie. I mean, everybody's got to make a living. They made their living by lying, and these guys made their living by trying to find the truth. What difference does it make? We're all just a bunch of animals that evolved from the slime anyway. It's so pretentious of these people to get indignant about matters of that. If you're not a Christian, then there are no moral absolutes. Thirdly, if you're not a Christian, are there principles of logic? Has anybody ever stubbed their toe on a principle of logic? Anybody ever seen a principle of logic? Ever tasted it? I swallowed a principle of logic once. It didn't taste very good. No. Your five senses will never come up against principle of logic. Principle of logic is a mental category. It's a law. It's something which we're all supposed to observe in reasoning, but we don't see it in the material world. Now, if you're not a Christian, why should you have any principles of logic then? And if you're not a Christian, why should you observe principles of logic? Well, forgetting that if you're not a Christian and you believe there are principles of logic. How can you be sure they're universal? How can you be sure they're necessary? Does everybody have to follow these principles of logic? Why does everybody follow? Are you sure Everybody? And you? Anybody researched every culture that's ever lived in history that's presently living. Does everybody follow the principles of logic? Must they, in order to live to find truth? It's an absolute prejudice on the part of the philosophers that those principles of logic apply everywhere for everybody. By the way, I believe that with all my heart, but I've got a reason to believe it. I believe in a God who made all men and a God whose mind governs everything that pertains to truth. And so, yeah, the principles of logic are universal. But. But I don't see how the unbeliever can justify that. How can the unbeliever justify the idea that his categories and principles of mental reasoning apply to a changing material universe? Very simply, why should my mind have any hookup with the world? You ever notice the way the mind thinks is not by making replicas of what's in the world? That's kind of a very primitive idea that the brain works. When it looks at a horse, there's a little horse mat. Nobody believes that anymore. Somehow the brain translates what it sees about the horse and what it believes about the horse into electrical chemical stimuli which are then retranslated so that the tongue can say horse. That's amazing. I want to know on evolutionary principles how that happened. I'd like to know on behavioristic principles how on earth that happened. How this blob of gray matter somehow got the ability to do something which even computers can't do in our day and age. I'm saying if you're not a Christian, you can't account for how the mind hooks up with the world. Such an elementary matter as that. If you're not a Christian, you can't explain how nature is uniform so that what scientists have learned last Tuesday is going to be true next Thursday. You know, if the world is nothing but sound and fury, as Shakespeare put it, signifying nothing, it's. If it's nothing but chaos, if it's nothing but random chance that governs what happens, then there's no basis for science whatsoever in this world. And one more and if the Christian outlook isn't true, then why should we consider man unique as having a dignity that is above the animals? You know, there are people who go off to the university to teach their evolutionary science classes who do something very strange. They Kiss their wife goodbye. Strange. In a material evolutionary universe, why should there be anything like love? And why should we protect human dignity? Why should killing another man be worthy of punishment when killing an animal isn't? You see, the unbelieving world cannot account for the most basic things in our thinking and our living. If Christianity is not true, we can't trust the results of our brain process. We can't have moral absolutes. We don't believe there are principles of logic which are necessary and universal. There aren't unchanging mental principles we can apply to a changing material universe. Nature is not uniform as a basis for science, and man doesn't have a dignity or uniqueness that affords him special privileges. We could go on and on. I told you, I can't give you a whole course in Christian apologetics. But you see, what I'm saying is, where's the debater of this age? Where is the existentialist philosopher? Where's the behaviorist scientist? Where are the people who are defending secularism in our day who can answer these questions now? You don't have to go to school to master this. You can talk to your milkman and you can talk to the postman and you can talk to the professor at the university and ask them, why do you expect the sun to come up tomorrow when you're living like the sun's going to come up tomorrow? You're living like the car that you're driving today is going to drive on the same principles tomorrow. Why? I thought, this is a chance universe. I mean, anybody can master these questions and talk to people. In short, the bottom line, the intellectual challenge of the gospel is this. The proof of the Christian outlook is that without it you can't prove anything. The proof of the Christian outlook is that without it you can't prove anything. We're not talking about appeals to emotion now. We're not talking about appeals to majority vote. We're not talking about appeals to some things in the Bible or certain miraculous things in the Bible being true. We're saying, take the whole Christian world and life view and what's the alternative? Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of this age? Where is the person with a worldview that hasn't been made foolish by the wisdom of God? Let's pray. Father, we do thank you that you have loved us and given us a revelation of yourself, and that we can have utter confidence that the hope that we have in our hearts is true and that we aren't just chasing dreams, that we aren't just making this up. Lord, we thank you that you are the truth and that you give us a faith worthy of defense. We do pray that you would make us more diligent in preparing and reading and meditating on these matters so that no matter who may ask us, we are able to give an answer for the hope that is in us. An answer that challenges the vaunted wisdom of this world and shows it to be in fact foolishness that shows the vanity of mind of those who reject the truth suppress the truth about God in order to follow their own thinking. And Lord, we want to also thank you that you have changed us and by your grace have taken away our rebellious hearts so that we'd stop thinking our thoughts and would learn now to think your thoughts after you. We know this isn't because we're smarter than others. It isn't because we're better than others. It's only because you've been good and your grace has subdued our hearts. And for that grace we give you grateful thanks. In Jesus name, Amen. 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 bonsoninstitute.com where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.